COL·COA tickets still available this weekend, says Francois Truffart

Film
Midstream through COL·COA [City of Lights · City of Angeles], the inimitable week-long film festival showcasing the best of new French cinema in Los Angeles premieres, we chatted with Francois Truffart earlier this afternoon. And the Festival director wants to spread the word. “We still have tickets,” said Truffart, speaking during the annual COL·COA luncheon ...

Historic Raleigh Studios to host “Photo Independent”

Architecture & Design · Film · Visual arts
Photo Independent, the artist-only fair for photographic artists, collectors and art professionals, rolls out this weekend at an unusual venue: Hollywood’s Raleigh Studios. An amazing and charming movie complex that dates to the ‘teens and comprises fourteen sound stages, Raleigh occupies a distinct niche of Hollywood dream-factory history. Paired with Paramount Studios, which sits to ...

Hallyday, in Hollywood not on holiday but at COL·COA

Film · Music
French rock star Johnny Hallyday, who resides in Los Angeles, manly, subtle and sensitive in director Claude LeLouch‘s latest, “Salaud, On t’Aime” (“We Love You, You Bastard” its less charming English title) seen last night, with Lelouch and Hallyday in the house, at opening night of the 18th annual COL*COA, French film festival. In the ...

The art of going to the movies, courtesy of Laemmle Theatres

Film · Visual arts
The community-minded, venerable Los Angeles art-house theater chain, Laemmle Theatres, invites us to join them this Thursday, April 24, for the opening of an art exhibit by painter Taylor Negron. The evening will include a  presentation about the artist as well as wine and cheese. Pop into a movie afterward and it sounds like a ...

TCM Fest: The rise and rise of digital restoration 1

Film
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Last weekend’s unveiling of seven digital restorations (five of them world premieres) at the fifth annual TCM Classic Film Festival came at an interesting moment. I saw four of them, and had previously seen a fifth, Hitchcock’s half-silent/half-sound 1929 “The Lodger,” at LACMA’s “Hitchcock 9” program. It was impossible to see all of them due ...

Oh, COL•COA!

Film
The wonderful French film festival in Los Angeles turns 18 this year. A big draw amongst the 41 feature films on view in the festival: Roman Polanski‘s riveting direction of “Venus in Fur” with a killer courageous performance by Emmanuelle Seigner. A little disappointing that it’s not a truly auteur film; instead, it’s based on ...

Four actors and “The Heiress”

Film
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Because so much of the programming for TCM Classic Film Festival 2014 focuses on Classical Hollywood, any given day of viewing during the four-day event (suitably enough, located on Hollywood Blvd., with the Chinese Theatre complex as epicenter) is an immersion in acting. Champions of auteurism argue that the story of Hollywood studio movies from ...

A keeper: Quincy Jones photo-portrait for TCM Fest

Film · Music · Visual arts
At arts·meme, we like it when art begets art. That’s why we respond so positively to photographer Stefanie Keenan’s outstanding photo-portrait of an artist — Quincy Jones — that came across the transom from Turner Classic Movies this morning. The prodigious Jones gave a fascinating, free-wheeling interview to movie (and jazz) maven Leonard Maltin at ...

Author Scott Eyman to discuss “John Wayne – The Life and Legend” Apr 14

Film · Ideas & Opinion
Just because TCM Classic Film Festival will be ramping down on Hollywood Boulevard next Monday does not mean that fantastic film events will disappear! Indeed, April 14 offers a stellar and intimate conversation with one of the nation’s leading scholars and writers of Hollywood history, discussing his latest oeuvre, his biography of John Wayne. That ...

Our critic’s game plan for TCM Fest 2014

Film
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Ramping up for the opening night of TCM Fest, we heard from our intrepid film critic Robert Koehler, who plans his festival as follows: I’m putting an emphasis on the world premiere restorations.The festival happens to slotting a few of these directly opposite each other on Saturday, when the vast majority of them are screening. ...