Hello Harlow! 2
Jan
2
2013
In a nice movie-starrish start to the new year, we’re attending the opening of an exhibition dedicated to actress Loretta Young at the Hollywood Museum on Highland Avenue on January 8. Then the next night, we’re looking forward to attending a super fun “Evening at the Barn” presentation by the Hollywood Heritage group — a ...
Happy New Year 2013 from arts·meme! 1
[click directly on photos for detail] Incandescent dance photography from a Hollywood film. Why are we not surprised that Jack Cole stands behind it? The Harlequinade costumes are a dead giveaway; one of the enduring interests of this choreographer (he died in 1974 in Los Angeles) was commedia dell’arte. High-voltage performance (Gower Champion laudable in ...
Jack Cole rehearses Marc Platt, Rita Hayworth in “Down to Earth”
Jack Cole (seated, pointing) rehearses Marc Platt & Rita Hayworth for “Down to Earth” (Columbia, 1947) in the photo at left. Platt executes the move in costume and a (bad) wig, at right. Cole was very big on gladiators; judging by the look on Platt’s face, the dancer was perhaps less so. [click on ...
Jack Cole, Hollywood director 4
On the camera crane works Jack Cole (in white sweater, click photo for detail), directing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” exactly as he did for all four GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) dance numbers (Two Little Girls From Little Rock, Ain’t There Anyone Here for Love, When Love Goes Wrong, Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best ...
This week in Havana: Gary Lucas accompanies Antonioni films
If you are down Havana way this weekend, be sure to drop in on the Gaia Arts Center in Old Havana. There, the infinitely gifted guitarist Gary Lucas will provide live accompaniment to screenings of director Michelangelo Antonioni‘s “Red Desert” and “Zabriskie Point.” The rooftop events, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, are part of a ...
“Hold Back the Dawn,” part of Mitchell Leisen retrospective @ UCLA Film & Television Archive
Nov
29
2012
“Hold Back the Dawn” (1941) looks so good on the UCLA Film & Television Archive’s Mitchell Leisen retrospective roster. It opens a double-bill at the Billy Wilder Theater this Friday night. Charles Boyer plays a Hungarian hoofer stranded in Mexico who dupes an innocent schoolmarm (Olivia de Havilland in an Oscar-nominated performance) into an arranged ...
“Hollywood Unknowns” stories revealed @ Larry Edmunds
We received this nice note from our good friends at Larry Edmunds Bookshop: Author Anthony Slide is no stranger to the Larry Edmunds Bookshop. His association goes back much farther than my 22 years, and the number of books this resident film historian for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has written is ...
“Loves of a Blonde,” Milos Forman’s low-key masterpiece,@ UCLA Film & Television Archive
Nov
26
2012
About a month ago, perusing the library’s dvd offerings, I plucked from the shelf Loves of a Blonde (1965), director Milos Foreman‘s precocious 1967 Academy Award-winning film. A small romantic comedy, shot in black and white and only 90-minutes long, the film patiently unspools its minimalist plot, a droll dissection of life in a Czech ...
Thanksgiving with MJ
By any stretch of a writer’s imagination, a good day this Thanksgiving Day. My advance piece about Trey McIntyre Project got front-page Calendar section placement in the L.A Times. But sharing the page with my writing, an even more exciting dance story (sorry, Trey!). It concerns tonight’s ABC-television broadcast of Spike Lee’s documentary “Michael Jackson: ...
Filmmaker John Smith recovers “Lost Sound” @ L.A. Filmforum
Nov
19
2012
Lost Sound, a short film made between 1998-2001 by John Smith and Graeme Miller — two British artists, respectively film maker and composer — was a highlight of a Smith retrospective by Los Angeles Filmforum this weekend. The wonderful 28-minute gem spooled in the cool screening room of the Echo Park Film Center. The filmmaker, ...