Cinecon 58: Stars of yore to twinkle once more Labor Day weekend
Aug
26
2022
I’m in New York having a ball — except for the sob sessions that I won’t be in Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend when the annual Cinecon Classic Film Festival blasts off Thursday September 1. Gracing the Fest in its celebratory 58th year (a return to ‘in person’ with masks encouraged) will be the ...
artsmeme newsletter will see you in september!
brigitte bardot, 19, hits the beach at cannes artsmeme newsletter will see you in September! As we approach out 15th anniversary (that’s next May 2023) we’re saving all our energy to report on the coolest and funnest arts happenings when the season opens — in September. Just like our pal Mlle Bardot, above, we do ...
Movie mini-review, with a ‘Vengeance’
Ashton Kutcher, B.J. Novak in VENGEANCE photo: Patti Perret / Focus Features Brooklyn wokel meets Texas yokel in VENGEANCE, a cultural bake-off that hinges on the narrow premise of a savvy New Yorker getting pulled into the mysterious postmortem of Abilene Shaw (Lio Tipton), a young lady he claims he barely knew. (He only ‘serial-dated’ ...
Michael Musto: musings on ‘Elvis’
ed. note: artsmeme is pleased to publish the pithy thoughts of journalist Michael Musto on Baz Luhrmann’s runaway hit movie, Elvis, now on screens nationwide. Musto’s long presence in cultural reporting beyond qualify him for his musings about The King. His longtime column in The Village Voice, La Dolce Musto, a compendium of gossip, nightlife, ...
REVIEW: ‘La Binoche’ swaps partners, melts down, in ‘Both Sides of the Blade’
Why does a movie stick in your head and haunt you for days after viewing? That was my experience with director Claire Denis’ latest, BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (2022), opening in theaters July 8 and streaming July 23. It surely has to do with the shattering intimacy of Juliette Binoche‘s beautifully modulated performance as ...
‘Apples’: clever Greek film probes universal pandemic experience
Who among us has not suffered mal-effects of isolation and removal from normal public existence in the aftermath of a two-year pandemic shutdown? Episodes of confusion, mixing the days of the week, forgetting appointments, losing and misplacing objects. These obfuscations are happening way too often as we reconstitute our lives prior to COVID-19. The profundity ...
Love as a one-way street at the Panorama
Jun
6
2022
She won’t stop writing to me — e-mails, letters, texts, cards — but it’s not merely because I hardly know her that I no longer reply. It is the increasingly demanding tone, and the fact that a romance is gaining momentum without my needing to be involved.-Unrequited Love, by Gregory Dart You’ve heard of a ...
‘Pride month’ salutes film producer Harriet Parsons at UCLA Film Archive
Jun
3
2022
louella, harriet parsons, 1959 Along with Virginia Van Upp at Columbia Pictures and Joan Harrison at Universal, Harriet Parsons (1906-1983) was one of the very few women to make her mark in the industry as a feature film producer in the 1940s. Parsons got her start at Columbia creating myriad uncredited newsreel-like “documentary” shorts in ...
So good! Classic cartoons on Hollywood Legion Theater big screen
Jun
1
2022
WE’RE ON OUR WAY TO RIO (1945, J. Tyler/I. Sparber)Popeye and Bluto, on shore leave, visit Rio and fall in love with a bewitching Samba dancer, in this beautifully produced musical cartoon. Her name? Olive Oyl. So good! The 10th edition of the Alex Film Society’s The Greatest Cartoons Ever! to spool at the most ...
Rita Hayworth’s stardom on staircases
May
25
2022
ed. note: Do you know what "press books" were in the movie industry of high Hollywood? We didn't either, until a nice librarian at USC named Ned Comstock introduced the press book from the 1946 film noir, Gilda. Columbia Pictures, where the movie originated, employed public relations people to create little compendia of story ideas ...