Shelley Duvall, in her special dance as Olive Oyl, recalled by Sharon Kinney, her choreographer 4
Seen above, a personal photo published with permission. It is a beatific pose by the recently deceased actress Shelley Duvall dancing as Olive Oyl in director Robert Altman’s “Popeye” (1980). Duvall (1949-2024), who recently passed away, led a long and memorable career primarily as a character actress, but in this case she played a full ...
REVIEW: Easily distracted? Hopelessly romantic? Try ‘Touch.’
Egill Ólafsson stars as Kristofer in director Baltasar Kormákur’s TOUCH credit: Baltasar Breki Samper What? You’ve not heard of Touch? You’re not sure it’s a movie for you? Here are ten reasons to enjoy the new Icelandic film about an elderly widower journeying to find his first love before it’s too late. The movie opens ...
USC librarian Ned Comstock, beloved by film scholars, is no more 1
Jun
20
2024
photo credit marilee bradford The material would arrive unannounced—by email attachment. Lengthy, well-organized PDF documents of pages scanned from books, bundled, as complete packages with title pages, footnotes and relevant index pages. They were every researcher’s dream. They were culled from the depths of USC Cinematic Arts Library by a knowledgeable, passionate, and brilliant, really, ...
It’s been ‘a hard day’s night’ — for sixty years!
working like a dog: paul, john, george & ringo What’s amusing about that funny-yet-familiar song title, “A Hard Day’s Night,” is its disingenuity. When the song hit Planet Earth with a sonic boom, the four moptop Beatles, John, Paul, George, and Ringo, delivered their “woooo”s as though they’ve never had a hard day’s anything in ...
The indomitable ‘Thelma’ rolls into your local theater
Jun
3
2024
She’s a little old lady not from Pasadena, but rather Encino, or thereabouts. June Squibb plays the title role not as a doddering oldster, but a defiantly independent one even as the vagaries of cellphones, Facebook, and online-banking seem to be colluding against her.Yes, THELMA (2024), out at month’s end from Magnolia Pictures, is a ...
Film review: In bracing black/white, photography by George Platt Lynes 1
George Platt Lynes working in his studio. The life of the singular, visionary photographer George Platt Lynes (1907-55) was a brief, intense, whirlwind. Lynes packed a lot into his 47 years—working, partying, boldly living an openly gay life, creating a remarkable archive of work—and then apparently destroying portions of it. He interacted with a fascinating ...
Dear Academy Museum, please stop trying to divide us
doesn’t get better: cab, fayard, harold Dear Academy Museum, The Nicholas Brothers were great dancers not ‘Black’ dancers For an institution tripping over itself in an effort to evince sensitivity toward every sector, segment, and demographic that ever walked Planet Earth for the past 3,000 years — a real mission impossible, guys — you keep ...
Real, fake, honest, or corrupt? UCLA Film & Television Archive’s clever ‘Quiz Show’ program
An exceptional double bill this Saturday night, June 1, at UCLA Film & Television Archive, where film programs are screened at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum. This one bears particular tongue in cheek, as part of the Archive’s “Small Screen/Big Screen” series. It’s a clever pairing of a feature film, QUIZ SHOW ...
arts•meme glimpses Francis Ford Coppola’s soon-coming ‘Megalopolis’
Apr
30
2024
Our first glimpse, in single photo, above, of Megalopolis, a Roman Epic fable set in an imagined modern America, a soon-coming motion picture directed, written, produced by Francis Ford Coppola. It goes like this, or so it is said to: The City of New Rome must change, causing conflict between Cesar Catilina, a genius artist ...
Melvin Kaminsky lives. [slideshow]
Apr
29
2024
Melvin Kaminsky (born June 28, 1926) aka Mel Brooks was in fine fettle interviewed at age 97 by Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz during the 2024 TCM Classic Film Festival in its 15th annual staging in Hollywood, California. He explained to an audience gathered at TCL Chinese Theatre for a screening of “Spaceballs” (1987) ...