Out came the stars @ TCM Fest 2015
Mar
29
2015
The stars are only part of the allure of Turner Classic Movies classic film festival. The Festival also features the artisans and craftspeople of classic Hollywood. Capturing it all is a roster of top event photographers. Photo credit: Edward M. Pio Roda, Adam Rose, Tyler Golden for TCM
Lizabeth Scott a ‘Tigresse’ to die for
A take-no-prisoners film noir, “Too Late for Tears” is saddled with a title that has all the clout of an unused tissue. Its alternate title, “Killer Bait,” is marginally less flimsy. But it was under the far more fitting French handle, “La Tigresse,” that a duplicate negative of the 1949 low-budget picture, which had badly ...
TCM & Starline partner for movie lover’s ramble through Los Angeles
There are two in every crowd, and they usually end up sitting near me: the people who keep talking throughout the movie — or, in this case, the Movie Locations Tour. But on a bright spring morning, when I had the rare chance to play tourist in the city where I live, the gabfest behind ...
Oh yeah! Bobby Banas rocks “The Nitty Gritty” 13
Mar
25
2015
The great, great stage and screen dancer Bobby Banas swings, very hard and very well, in “The Nitty Gritty” — this television clip from The Judy Garland Show in 1964. Banas choreographed the number on the spur of the moment. “I choreographed the “Nitty Gritty,” he shared in an email, explaining that choreographer Peter Gennaro’s ...
Dance critic’s TCM Fest 2015
On the cusp of the sixth annual TCM Classic Film Festival set to open Thursday night in Hollywood, our dance-critic’s eye is finding at least two strong movie musical entries — with great cinematic dance. 42ND STREET (1933), Saturday March 28, 11:30 am “Naughty, gaudy, bawdy, sporty” 42ND STREET gets a facelift with the world premiere ...
Tap across 42nd Street with “Gotta Dance!” book & movie posters
Above: Belgian poster for 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, USA, 1933). Artist unknown. “The sharp, spunky granddaddy of all backstage musicals… [Busby Berkeley’s] choreography takes center stage in this stunning Belgian poster, showcasing his dancers atop and within the three-dimensional title treatment… the actors took second place to Busby Berkeley’s dazzling, kaleidoscopic production numbers, with their ...
Let ’em dance: Bobby Fuller Four recalled
The Hollywood Renaissance of the 1960s didn’t need the Bobby Fuller Four. That unique conflagration of bands, managers, impresarios, producers, studios, engineers, session players, record labels and executives, radio stations, deejays, and TV shows incubated the Byrds, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas and Papas, Love, the Mothers of Invention, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the ...
USC’s Ruth Weisberg honored with esteemed printmaking award
Mar
20
2015
Very pleased to share news that Ruth Weisberg, who is professor of Fine Arts and former Dean at the University of Southern California Roski School, and currently the Director of the USC Initiative for Israeli Arts and Humanities, is 2015 recipient of the SGC International Printmaker Emeritus Award. The SGC International is the largest print ...
To Bozeman, with Bernardo
It’s Bernardo, Anita, Riff, Tony and Maria gone waaay west. Looking forward to sharing the ultimate of urban movie-musicals, “West Side Story,” in an unusual location — on America’s real West side, Bozeman, Montana. The Academy Award-winning musical will screen at the historic Ellen Theatre, a vintage vaudeville house dating to 1919. The restored theater ...
Gone fishing
Mar
18
2015
A lot of chatter, lately, amongst dance geeks on Facebook about the great classical ballet pose the “fishdive” which, according to pundits was not part of the original Petipa choreography (way too athletic and upside down for that era) but seems to have been introduced in the 1946 version of “The Sleeping Beauty.” This notwithstanding, ...