Wonderful world of Allee Willis now in fun pop-up book
One of Hollywood’s most legendary homes—where every room bursts with color, music, and an eye-popping collection of American kitsch —is that of the Grammy, Tony, and Emmy-winning Hall of Fame songwriter, the late Allee Willis. The hit songwriter co-wrote Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September“ and “Boogie Wonderland,” as well as, among many many other songs, the theme ...
Clothes make the man, in ‘Monte Cristo’ & ‘West Side Story’
If clothes make the man in real life, then it’s only more so in the movies. That’s when an audience is maximally focused and alert, and processing quick information about characters. I found myself repeatedly distracted, in an awesome way, by the stunning men’s wear in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (2024), which I recently ...
Box of sixty bon-bons: The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) starts Oct 29
In the run-up to The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) at the end of October, we picked through a box of “chocolat” to select a few of the yummier-looking titles of the sixty films that will be on offer at the Director’s Guild of America, October 29 thru November 3, 2024. This Festival is among ...
Let’s roll with new book, ‘Bowlarama’!
Aug
26
2024
Did your mother belong to a bowling league? Mine did, in suburban Pittsburgh where I grew up. The co-authors of Bowlarama: The Architecture of Mid-Century Bowling—Chris Nichols of Los Angeles Magazine and founder of the Los Angeles Conservancy’s Modern Committee, with Adriene Biondo, a preservationist/activist, author of five books, and the reason Johnie’s Broiler still ...
Strangers-on-a-Tram meet at Montpellier’s Hotel ‘Richer de Belleval’
You’ve heard of the Hitchcock thriller, Strangers on a Train (1951), in French, L’Inconnu du Nord-Express, starring Robert Walker and Farley Granger, based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith. But have you heard of “Strangers on a Tram”? I hadn’t either, not until my visit to the beautiful, historic and aesthetic city of Montpellier in ...
Fantastic: new generation discovers Jack Cole, launches ‘homage’ nightclub act in his name 2
I could not be more delighted. In my upcoming biography of the dancer/choreographer Jack Cole, which is completed but awaits publication, I have written extensively about the three outlets in which Cole choreographed and performed: on the Broadway stage, on screens of Hollywood, and in nightclub stage shows. All three bear witness to his dance ...
Swirling in motion & color with Blue13 Dance Company
Over an unsually chilly weekend in Los Angeles, a large posse of creatives — Blue13 Dance Company — lived up to its colorful name, staging a site-specific work masterminded by choreographer Achinta McDaniel, a large snippet of which we enjoyed in dress rehearsal. In a small city comprised of eight Victorian homes of Heritage Square ...
Neutra’s quiet revolution in residential design: Silverlake’s Ohara House (1959)
Apr
25
2024
Los Angeles is a living museum of mid-Century modern architectural design, those notably pared- down geometrically driven homes that interact copacetically in nature. So the house on view here is one of many. But it’s special. It’s historic. It’s one of the nine homes built on the edge of Silver Lake as a “Neutra Colony,” ...
Radical reading room: Shepard Fairey at Glendale Central Library
Well we love libraries. And don’t you sense they are coming back? It was wonderful, the other night, to see scores of people milling about, chatting, in the grand-scaled lobby of Glendale Central Library … a safe public space. The reason for their visit was “Peace is Radical“, a solo exhibition by renowned street artist ...
REVIEW: A well-heeded call for community: DIAVOLO’s ‘Existencia’
We all knew why we were there. We were there to remember and commemorate — most of us having lived through it. We were there to ruminate, and then, to thank our lucky stars. For, in the ashes of the January 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake, a 6.7-magnitude tumbler that overturned the campus of Cal State ...