Waaaah Ricky, our movie’s terrible! 1
Mar
4
2022
Lucille Ball, held hostage in Aaron Sorkin’s brain in ‘Being The Ricardos’ (2021) So, count them, there are two movies now available, and curiously, both are streaming on Prime video. The first to be released was the biopic written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Being The Ricardos. My notes written shortly after viewing here: Well, ...
George Chakiris: Riff before Bernardo
George Chakiris as Riff in West Side Story, in 1959 It’s one of those fascinating show-biz factoids. For fourteen months, circa 1959, George Chakiris, a good friend of artsmeme, performed in the London company of West Side Story, at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End theater district. What is little known is that the ...
Swept away by ‘Mimi’ 50 years later: Laemmle Anniversary Classics salutes Lina Wertmuller
Ed. note: We celebrate woman artists on artsmeme, and that’s why Italian director Lina Wertmüller’s sexy, impish, outrageous, passionate ouevre of movies mixing sex, love and politics belongs on the blog. Our guest contributor is the host of Laemmle Theatre’s “Anniversary Screenings” series, Stephen Farber. To launch its Anniversary Classics series in 2022, and during ...
To San Francisco for ‘Mrs. Robinson’ the ballet, and more
Coo coo ca choo, Mrs. Robinson! So go the whimsical lyrics of the buoyant-yet-melancholic Simon & Garfunkel song that burbles behind The Graduate, the seminal film 1967 film directed by Mike Nichols that introduced Dustin Hoffman to the world. Playing the 21-year-old recent college graduate, Benjamin Braddock, Hoffman can’t exactly decide his next step. That ...
Where the Bronx meets Orange County: Chazz Palminteri’s one-man show
In 1988, before it became a hit Broadway musical or a feature film co-starring Robert DeNiro, Chazz Palminteri wrote and performed in A Bronx Tale— bringing 18 characters to vivid life in a gripping tale of his rough childhood on the Bronx streets. The powerful play depicts his bruising youthful experiences in great detail — ...
Staying safe at the movies with Chris Nichols, in 2021
Jan
15
2022
you have my avid attention — for an entire year! Some people spent 2021 doom-scrolling on their phones. Others, like my friend Chris, spent it watching movies. When Chris idly let drop that he saw 86 movies last year, I had to ask for the basis of that claim. Said Chris (he is also known ...
Review: ‘Ailey,’ the choreographer, the man, the figurehead, in PBS American Masters doc
The opening moments of Ailey—Jamila Wignot’s deeply rewarding documentary about Alvin Ailey’s life, work and company—show the choreographer receiving a huge ovation as a Kennedy Center Honoree. Cicely Tyson speaks movingly about the depth of his achievements; his company performs a fervent finale from Revelations as he takes evident pride in watching them. Ailey, 57, ...
Beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stays safe on stage & screen
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, 2021 Opening Night Gala. Photo: Christopher Duggan On December 1, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returned triumphantly to New York City Center – its home base in the city for 50 years – having foregone its 2020 season (and a great deal of touring) during ...
‘I can’t dance,’ signals Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in ‘Being The Ricardos’ 2
It’s no spoiler to share that in one scene of BEING THE RICARDOS, a cultural cataclysm heading our way December 10 in theatres and on Amazon PRIME, Nicole Kidman, as Lucille Ball, lets drop that her sexy boyfriend Desi Arnaz (Javiar Bardem) is going to teach her how to rumba. The embarrassing display that follows ...
Von Sternberg silent movie, a trove of great early-cinema collaborators, @UCLA Film Archive 1
Dec
9
2021
A double bill of early movies directed by Josef Von Sternburg is set to spool for an in-person audience in January, and it looks particularly luscious. One picture is the director’s final extant silent movie; the second, his first using sound. Set almost entirely in a seedy portside tavern where the doomed and desperate carouse, ...