Happy birthday, Egyptian Theatre!
Oct
18
2011
Okay, doll, you’re 89 years old, but in this town that’s a drop in the bucket! In L.A., we like our ladies well preserved — jowls, cheekbones, and posteriors properly nipped and tucked. So hang on, Egyptian Theatre, you’re a great survivor. And a genuine happy birthday, as well, to the 30-year old American Cinematheque, ...
The latest from Leo the Lion
Oct
17
2011
I very much enjoyed seeing Jack Goldstein’s art film, “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” (1975) screened by LA Filmforum as part of “Industry Town: The Avant-Garde and Hollywood,” one of Pacific Standard Time’s offerings around L.A. This journey through eight short experimental films amply showed the shadow side of filmmaking in Los Angeles. Directors as disparate as Kenneth Anger, ...
The divine meets the dogged: Tippi Hedren & Edith Head reunite
High Hollywood gets a sparkling rejuvenation when the divine Tippi Hedren will meet the determined Edith Head at a theater opening on October 28. It’s the restaging at the Odyssey Theater in West Los Angeles of the one-woman show, “A Conversation with Edith Head.” Ms. Head, who was petite, loomed large as a cinema costumer. ...
LA Filmforum contributes “Alternative Projections” to Pacific Standard Time
Los Angeles Filmforum screens a wonderful line-up of short experimental films under the rubric of Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles, 1945-1980. The next chapter of the multipart series happens on October 16 with “Industry Town: The Avant-Garde and Hollywood.” Alternative Projections is part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945 – 1980, ...
From the people who killed LACMA’s classic film program: a film museum 1
Oct
4
2011
It’s really difficult living in this city if you have a memory that operates longer than two weeks. It can drive you insane. Having wiped the slate clean by annihilating the perfectly superb classic film program at the County Museum, and installing in its stead an incoherent line-up of movie gobbledy-gook, along comes LACMA Trustee ...
Cirque du Soleil’s swell Hollywood opening night party
artsmeme’s debra levine & hollywood dance historian larry billman Fun photos of the super party the Cirques threw in Los Angeles last night posted below. The mighty Montreal’eans upped and closed, from car traffic, a humongous stretch of Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Kodak Theater. There, under a tent, to thumping, hypnotic music, attendees ...
Tutu Taylor
It was a hell of a week for ballet. Our most brilliant male ballet dancer, a true wunderkind, a homegrown wonder, David Hallberg, got a job offer from the Bolshoi Ballet, better, obviously, than his current gig with American Ballet Theatre. So off he goes. Hallberg’s young, 29, he doesn’t speak the language, and Russia ...
Backward-leaning Bolsheviks, er…Bolshoi men
The hiring of David Hallberg by the Bolshoi Ballet, founded in the late 18th century, is being trumpeted as a sign of Russian openness and progress. But an arts·meme investigation indicates that rather than Hallberg moving the stodgy Russians forward, they are already pulling him back. Please refer to the image at left in which ...
Emilio Doorgasingh, actor, “terrorist” & funny Indian
You meet a great mix of people in L.A. Dare I say, ‘fruits and nuts’? It’s all the more fun when the chatter happens at a garden party like the one Bill Stern convened in the soft air ricocheting ’round Malibu’s Carbon Canyon Sunday afternoon. Stern’s annual fundraiser for the Museum of California Design is ...
Malcolm McDowell memories: Lindsay Anderson & Stanley Kubrick 3
Sep
17
2011
On Lindsay Anderson, with whom he worked on “If” & “O Lucky Man” He was a great man. He was a genius. And I say that even though today you’re a genius if you can do a crossword puzzle. He was a real curmudgeon; for a young actor, to put in so much time, he ...