Koehler on Cinema: Clips
UCLA Film Archive’s edition of the traveling retrospective of Pier Paolo Pasolini (minus my favorite Pasolini, his oh-so-naughty n’ nasty “Teorema”) is rounding the corner and heading for home. If you haven’t caught up with the late 20th century’s most ribald filmmaker-poet recently, there are these three wildly divergent works to explore: From the final ...
Koehler on Cinema: Wong Kar-Wai’s “The Grandmaster” 3.0
For the second time in a few weeks, a film with more than one director-approved cut is being released. Stranger things have happened, but right now, I can’t think of one. Similarities: In both cases, the version with the shortest run time is the one making it to theaters; the filmmakers’ various editions are artistically ...
Koehler on Cinema: Elmore Leonard’s True West
The sad news of Elmore “Dutch” Leonard’s death this morning has prompted too many news headlines linking him almost equally with his novels and the movies adapted from them—despite the fact that he openly, caustically and hilarious demoted most of the adaptations. Leonard happens to have had several of his books translated to the big ...
Koehler on Cinema: Love in Texas, Wandering in Vienna
Los Angeles—like all American cities—tends to get so few of the exceptional films from the international festival circuit that when two arrive in the same week, it’s worth paying attention. The fact that most moviegoers aren’t aware of the tiny slivers they’re getting from the huge festival pie is an issue by itself, another story ...
Catskills University, educating Jewish comics 2
Oh pure pleasure to watch these guys — and a few very brave women, Totie Fields and Joan Rivers — spiel, kvetch and kill in WHEN COMEDY WENT TO SCHOOL. A wonderful new documentary opening Friday at Laemmle theaters spools a nostalgic tour of a sweaty swathe of summertime civilization — the erstwhile Borsht Belt, a ...
Koehler on Cinema: The Act of Killing Original Movies 2
It’s a familar Los Angeles dilemma. Great movie opens in ultra-limited release to rave reviews. It runs a week (at best, two), then dies. If it hasn’t happened a dozen times, it’s happened a hundred, maybe a thousand. Major, groundbreaking work by our finest living filmmakers, from Apichatpong Weerasethakul to Lisandro Alonso to Kelly Reichardt ...
Oscar was a dancer 2
This amusing photo of Oscar-winning dancer George Chakiris (Best Actor in a Supporting Role, “West Side Story,” 1962) and dance critic Debra Levine taken by Dana Ross last Saturday night at “Oscars Outdoors” sparked an email from Hollywood dance expert Larry Billman. Writes Larry, “The “original Oscar” was a dancer named Emilio Ferandez who modeled ...
At “Oscars Outdoors,” gentlemen still prefer blondes 1
It was a super-special 60th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” summer series, of 20th Century-Fox’s comic classic from 1953, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” the movie that blasted off the career of Marilyn Monroe. And the flick’s funnier than ever. Lead actresses Monroe and Jane Russell zing out hilarious ...
George Chakiris to introduce GENTLEMEN at Academy; Debra Levine to discuss Jack Cole
Sixty years after appearing as a chorus dancer behind Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” George Chakiris will host the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” screening of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES Saturday night, August 3, 2013. In the photo at right we see George, a young man with fake grey highlights spraypainted in his hair. ...
That pink dress! Costuming Marilyn Monroe for “Diamonds”
At right, Travilla‘s design for Marilyn’s iconic pink dress in “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) whose 60th anniversary we are honoring with a screening at the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” series Saturday August 3. The classy pink dress, lined with felt, was a replacement design for an original, much less ...