Jonathan Baker’s lively Oscars viewing party 2023 honors Paul Sorvino

Film
Gotham Chandna, Jonathan Baker, Nicole Muj Consul General of Croatia in Los Angeles Renee Pea Sweet Magnolia’s Anneliese Judge & Caroline Lagerfelt Jonathan Baker’s Annual Oscar Viewing Party, presented in collaboration with French Riviera Film Festival and Indie Entertainment Media was held on the eve of March 12 at Baker Manor in Beverly Hills — ...

REVIEW: ‘Champions’ wins at ‘all the feels’ 

Film · Reviews
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As a feel-good movie, Champions, the winsome new basketball comedy directed by Bobby Farrelly and starring Woody Harrelson, does its job; it consistently dispenses good feelings. Presented by Focus Features with a screenplay by Mark Rizzo, it’s a remake of the celebrated 2018 Spanish film Campeones by Javier Fesser. This American version (I have yet ...

Fabulous. Bruce Lee appreciation, via UCLA Film & Television Archive

Film
Admired for his incomparable martial arts skills, Bruce Lee’s philosophies of self-actualization equally inspire his fans worldwide. A special screening at UCLA Film Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater celebrates Lee as a thinker and instructor: ABC TV’s Longstreet: “The Way of the Intercepting Fist” (1972) co-stars Lee as a martial artist and life coach ...

Blacklisted! America’s dalliance in pernicious censorship

Film · Ideas & Opinion
In anticipation of the major show, Blacklist: The Hollywood Red Scare which opens May 4 at The Skirball Cultural Center for the summer, comes a screening event, with guests, at the Hollywood Heritage Barn on Highland Avenue. It’s an “Afternoon at the Barn” screening of a one-hour-long film, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, directed by ...

REVIEW: Brandon Cronenberg’s ‘Infinity Pool’ … with a limit

Film · Reviews
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Film directors for screens large and small are taking delight in skewering the 1% for everything they’ve bestowed on the rest of us during our dark and mostly unfunny times. Infinity Pool, written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor, Antiviral), follows this trend — set by hugely successful comedy-dramas like those by Mark Mylod (The ...

Academy Film Museum ‘Regeneration Summit’ to include music & dance

Dance · Film · Music
Hooray! It’s a regeneration summit! Not really sure what that is, but we’ll all find out soon enough February 3-5, at the onset of Black History Month, when The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’s Regeneration Summit: A Celebration of Black Cinema, kicks off a three-day event with the grand mission of exploring the history of ...

Lewitzky doc to open Dance Camera West at Barnsdall Art Park

Dance · Film
I was delighted to learn that the annual DANCE CAMERA WEST festival will take place this year, the weekend of January 19, in the cozy underground theater of Barnsdall Art Park, one of the truly happy places of our fair city. The urban-rustic setting fits well with the California theme of the Festival’s opening film, ...

Just say yes! to ‘Dr. No’

Film
The film opened in London in October 1962 and launched the most successful franchise in motion picture history, still going strong today. The following spring, 1963, American audiences first enjoyed one of the most memorable introductory lines in movie history: “Bond. James Bond.” This adaptation of one of the spy novels penned by former British intelligence officer ...

Julianne Moore, actress of our times, in ‘When You Stop Saving the World’

Film
eisenberg, moore, courtesy variety studio at cannes Some guys have all the luck. Take Jesse Eisenberg, for example. As an actor he has inherited the mantle of stammering Jewish neurotic as a surrogate for Woody Allen, who is now in retreat. In his feature-film directorial debut, “When You Stop Saving the World,” he has a ...

A continuum of life, literature & film: ‘Living’ reviewed 1

Film · Reviews
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photo: jamie d. ramsay What do you get when you combine British reserve and Japanese restraint with a dash of Russian pathos? A film experience that melds with our collective need for year-end contemplation, the exquisitely directed, acted, and written Living. The movie from Sony Pictures Classics opens in New York and Los Angeles on ...