Writhing & wriggling Gwen Verdon elicits yawns in “David and Bathsheba”
In this wonderful clip from DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951), the great Gwen Verdon fails to arouse the attention of a couple of onlookers, despite choreographer Jack Cole throwing every slinky trick in the book at them. Watching Gorgeous Gwen, you’d think they’d at least sit up in their chairs! The 20th Century-Fox Biblical epic, directed ...
Thom Andersen, thinking with images
Feb
16
2015
A foremost practitioner of the essay film returns with a new work inspired by the writings
of Gilles Deleuze on cinema. Thom Andersen’s The Thoughts That Once We Had (2014, 108 min.) is a richly layered journey through cinematic history, masterfully edited as it playfully moves across decades and genres, and suffused at every turn ...
Wim Wenders brings PINA to Aero Theatre Mon Feb 16
Fresh from the Berlinale festival conferring its Honorary Golden Bear on the 69-year-old filmmaker for lifetime achievement, Wim Wenders, the son of Düsseldorf beloved by the dance world, as well, for his magisterial filming of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal in PINA, the American Cinematheque has nailed the hot-hot-hotter Wenders (on March 2, the Museum of ...
How did ‘Cuddles’ do it? Revealed at Skirball Center’s “Light and Noir”
Feb
6
2015
As this TCM tribute sets forth, the Budapest-born, jowly S.Z. ‘Cuddles’ Sakall was adorable, hilarious and popular on the set. But did those qualities alone get the character actor prominent play in 46 Hollywood movies? One of many film people to flee Nazi-dominated Europe, arrive on American shores, and wend their way to southern California, ...
Four walls hold haunting memories in “An Apartment in Berlin”
“An Apartment in Berlin” feels like just the right movie to see after our Sunday visit to the Skirball Center’s Light and Noir, a highly affecting exhibit which through multimedia recounts the lives of emigres and exiles who fled European anti-Semitism and wended their way to Los Angeles to contribute brilliantly in the film industry. ...
Jail bait from Hollywood choreographer Alex Romero
A new book “The Man Who Made the Jailhouse Rock: Alex Romero, Hollywood Choreographer,” author, Mark Knowles, briefly reviewed: Alex Romero was one of the last of the Hollywood Studio staff choreographers who never received the attention or success he deserved. As if his life story is not remarkable enough, his talents were well known ...
Pass half your life with Richard Linklater @ the Aero Theatre!
Jan
30
2015
Bring your blankie and your bottle of scotch to the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica Friday February 6 for a nearly five-hour movie marathon as the American Cinematheque spools two of director Richard Linklater’s insightful cinematic sagas of the American male. First up, the “aging in real time” BOYHOOD, a mere 165 minutes. Then follows ...
Dance DNA: The Nicholas Brothers honored at the Alex 1
What caused these two dancers, each bringing his own qualities and characteristics, to meld and synergize into a ballistic dance unit known as The Nicholas Brothers? Sly Stone said it best: “It’s a family affair.” This was the implicit message delivered across an incredibly fun Sunday evening spent with the two handsome and talented gentlemen ...
The gorgeous sound of Godard’s ‘Goodbye to Language’ 1
The handwritten scrawl below comes from the pen of cinéaste-provocateur Jean-Luc Godard. The influential director, still working in his eighties, shares the scenario for his startling new film, “Goodbye to Language” (“Adieu au langage”), now in an exclusive run at the American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre through much of next week. Godard’s 43rd film, a ravishing ...
REVIEW: Daddy Dearest: Chris Lemmon’s touching tribute to Jack
A charming and winsome theatrical evening with a couple of talented Hollywood men … In “Jack Lemmon Returns,” now on through month’s end at the Broad Stage’s intimate “Edye” theater, Chris Lemmon shares his family photo album sprung to life. It’s the actor/musician’s one-man show of memories and anecdotes about his father, the hugely accomplished ...