Fitz featured in “Gatz”
Here stands the great American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in what strikes me as his penultimate Los Angeles portrait. Bleary-eyed but putting a good face on things — what we do so well in L.A. Noshing one night at Greenblatt’s Deli on Sunset Boulevard, I chatted with proprietor, the son of the original owner. He ...
“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 ...
His Royal Greatness. Michael Jackson in “Another Part of Me,” Wembley Stadium, July 1988 1
Like this? Read more: MJ dances — a dance critic’s manifesto to Michael Jackson
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: ...
Trey McIntyre, the pride of Boise and beyond
Nov
22
2012
Trey McIntyre seems to have it all going for him. He’s talented, a gentleman, personable, accessible, friendly to all, hugely handsome and hey, he’s tall. Six foot six to be exact. Interviewing the Boise-based choreographer for a piece in the Los Angeles Times we conferred with a friend of arts·meme, Nancy Wozny, a long time ...
Judy Morr’s Thanksgiving weekend weight-loss program
Nov
20
2012
In as fine a pairing as Pinot Noir with turkey, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts executive vice president (and its dance doyenne for the past 26 years) Judy Morr has booked the all-American dance tribe, Trey McIntyre Project, for performances on Thanksgiving weekend. The TMP shows not only offer an alternative to football and ...
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, ...
Words matter …
… at “Letters from Los Angeles,” a new show opening at Jack Rutberg Fine Arts this weekend. Rutberg’s showcase LaBrea Avenue gallery will offer the exhibit, co-curated by Aldis Browne, which features more than 30 contemporary L.A.-based artists who incorporate elements of words and letters in their work. The artist roster includes: Lita Albuquerque, John ...
Jack Cole’s mid-century-modern dance design 1
A lost Jack Cole dance sequence from DOWN TO EARTH (Columbia, 1947). [click on the photo for detail.] Called the “New York number,” it used to be part of the larger “People Have More Fun Than Anyone,” number before it was cut from the film. It was absolutely common in Cole’s Hollywood career that his ...