TCM Fest: Angela Lansbury brings wit, hauteur, menace to ‘The Manchurian Candidate’

Film
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In 1961 Angela Lansbury was playing the mother of rising star Warren Beatty in All Fall Down, an intense family drama adapted by playwright William Inge from the novel by James Leo Herlihy. In that film she seemed thoroughly convincing as the overbearing mother to Beatty, even though she was only 11 years older than ...

Gina! The great Lollobrigida appears @ TCM Fest 2

Film
So much fun, at Friday’s TCM Fest 2016, to view director Carol Reed’s marvelous Cinemascope circus movie, “Trapeze,” a color-drenched treatment of a world gone-by; the setting, a circus smack in the middle of Paris. Cast as a foxy and ambitious she-acrobat, Gina Lollobrigida brings her earthy presence to the film, as she jockeys her ...

A visit with Anna Karina @ TCM Fest 2016

Film
Looking forward to hearing French New Wave film goddess, Anna Karina, introduce Jean-Luc Godard’s Band of Outsiders at TCM Fest 2016 this weekend. Karina, a Danish-French actress, director and writer is known for roles in influential French New Wave films, including A Woman is a Woman (1961), Band of Outsiders (1964), Alphaville (1965) and Pierrot ...

Fonda & Friend feted by Pasadena Playhouse

Theater
The inestimable Jane Fonda, two times an Oscar winner and an inspirational figure to many women, together with her significant other, record producer Richard Perry, will be honored at an annual fundraiser at the historic Pasadena Playhouse. Billed as “the best party in Pasadena,” this happy occasion merits a wish, You go girl! And you ...

Peggy’s place

Film · Visual arts
Art of This Century, view of the Abstract Gallery, New York, ca. 1943. Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Left to right (paintings): Vasily Kandinsky, Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, 1913; Kazimir Malevich, Untitled, ca. 1916; Francis Picabia, Very Rare Picture on Earth, 1915; Albert Gleizes, Woman with Animals (Madame Raymond Duchamp-Villon), 1914 (partially visible ...

Julie Christie, in message, remembers Omar Sharif, David Lean

Film
A highlight of Wednesday night’s wonderful Laemmle Theatres “Anniversary Classics” series screening of DR. ZHIVAGO (1964) had host Stephen Farber delivering a personal message from actress Julie Christie sent especially for the occasion. The note concerned her dashing leading man, Omar Sharif, whose death on July 10, 2015 the screening was dedicated to memorializing. Sharif ...

Meet Marilyn Meme•roe

Dance · Film · Ideas & Opinion
From Wikipedia: Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from the popularization of Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. The choreographer Jack Cole, a creative genius, had the ability to perpetuate the meme ...

Miss Ruth strikes a Denishawn pose in “The Peacock” (1914)

Dance · Visual arts
A photographer’s dream model, the exotic Ruth St. Denis habitually struck a dramatic pose for the camera. Fifty years later, in the San Fernando Valley, she was doing the same thing. Ruth St. Denis, “The Peacock” 1914, photo by J.D. Toloff, Evanston, IL

Clarion voice of songbird Judy Collins fills L.A. night sky 8

Music · Reviews
Yes, a songbird, thrush, warbler, coloratura, balladeer … she self-describes as a ‘troubadour.’ But who knew that folk-rock legend Judy Collins is also supremely entertaining, a raconteur spieling salty, even ribald stories all while innocently strumming her guitar? Tonight in a delicious free concert at Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles, Collins lulled her audience like a ...

Being Judy Collins ~ at Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles

Music
Elizabeth Levitt Hirsch and her amazing team at Levitt Pavilions have outdone themselves. We so look forward to the free concert by folk-rock warbler Judy Collins in the shadow of the Los Angeles skyline. Bringing high-quality, family-friendly musical fare to our city park – Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles. Judy Collins | Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles ...