WeeGee shoots “Newark with palm trees” — Los Angeles

Visual arts
arts·meme visual arts correspondent, Liz Goldner, contributes this review.  “Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art (part of the Pacific Standard Time initiative), brings out of near oblivion 200 photographic artworks and a few films, from the late 1940s through the 60s, by and of tabloid photographer, “Weegee” (real name, ...

Go south, PST people — to Long Beach and Orange County

Music · Visual arts
Pacific Standard Time got you overwhelmed? Me too, guys! But here’s a way to break it up, geographically speaking. The weekend of 3-4 December you can lose the L.A.-centricity and check out what’s going on Down Under, you know … Behind the Orange Curtain, er… I mean, you can visit our dear neighbors to the ...

The Greatest at his best, courtesy of photographer Michael Brennan

Visual arts
We enjoyed seeing art photos of the sweaty Muhammad Ali muss up the otherwise pristine Design Within Reach’s furniture-exhibition halls. The sports-and-boxing theme was an odd fit for the tony Beverly Boulevard retailer, but a good crowd milling ’round the rooms made it all work. Even a glimpse of Ali gives everyone a little more ...

‘Tecnologia Filosofica,’ Italian contemp dancers at Theatre Raymond Kabbaz

Dance
I’ll be bobbing around the Caribbean, on TCM Classic Cruise, watching great movies with TCM’s Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz.  But you may want to attend a cool dance performance in Los Angeles while I’m gone. It’s the U.S. premiere performance of one of Italy’s leading contemporary dance troupes, Tecnologia Filosofica. Described as an entertaining and ...

Pierre Étaix’s “Heureux Anniversaire” (1962) screened @ the Academy 1

Film
An exquisite evening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on Wednesday night, when two beautifully refurbished films by the comic French filmmaker, Pierre Étaix, 82, got rare American screenings. Étaix, who started as young man in circus and remained faithful to clowns, casting them in cameo roles in his films, was present ...

Michael Jackson visited Martha Graham studio 2

Dance · Music
“And then he’d have to go back to whatever he’d go back to. And it just went wrong. Who knows what happened?” Michael Jackson lived the life he lived. He navigated a tangle of destiny and choice, as do we all. Jackson was born into a certain family, a certain fate, and he was a ...

“LA Rebellion” filmmakers featured at UCLA Film & Television Archive series

Film
They came from Watts. They came from New York City. They came from throughout America or crossed an ocean from Africa. At a unique time and place in American history, a critical mass of filmmakers of African descent came to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television to make movies and produced a rich, ...

Chakiris, Tamblyn, Moreno cement their memories @ Grauman’s 1

Dance · Film · Theater
A touching trio of memories left behind at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on November 15, 2011, as three “West Side Story”‘ stars join the Hollywood ritual and deposit paws and hooves in cement. Long live the dancers! Like this? Read more: Enjoy arts·meme‘s “West Side Story” thread

Saul Bass lives

Film · Visual arts
The Title Design of Saul Bass from Ian Albinson.

Joseph Horowitz’s spoken-word exploration of Mahler marriage to precede Pacific Symphony’s Mahler Ninth symphony

Music · Theater
Our trek southward along the mighty 405 freeway this Thursday evening will be a journey in search of musical profundity. And like a good DVD, it comes with bonus material. We’re attending the Pacific Symphony performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, considered one of his greatest works, a sweeping musical exposition of the composer’s innermost ...