Up on the roof: summer movies at The Montalbán
Apr
10
2023
It’s a fun and cool thing to do. It’s Rooftop Movies at The Montalbán where a summer screening series kicked off the other night with The Greatest Showman, the Hugh Jackman/Michelle Williams movie-musical we had never seen. We had a ball. You can have one too. It goes like this. Find your way to the vaunted ...
Fabulous. Bruce Lee appreciation, via UCLA Film & Television Archive
Feb
22
2023
Admired for his incomparable martial arts skills, Bruce Lee’s philosophies of self-actualization equally inspire his fans worldwide. A special screening at UCLA Film Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater celebrates Lee as a thinker and instructor: ABC TV’s Longstreet: “The Way of the Intercepting Fist” (1972) co-stars Lee as a martial artist and life coach ...
Academy Film Museum ‘Regeneration Summit’ to include music & dance
Hooray! It’s a regeneration summit! Not really sure what that is, but we’ll all find out soon enough February 3-5, at the onset of Black History Month, when The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’s Regeneration Summit: A Celebration of Black Cinema, kicks off a three-day event with the grand mission of exploring the history of ...
Jeff Beck: Death of a great guitarist. Maiming of his marquee by Orpheum Theatre
nov 6 2022 marquee photo courtesy jeff mantor ed. note: The heartbreaking and unwelcome news of the death of legendary rock guitarist, Jeff Beck, sent us careening to an earlier time and place. But for a theater full of his Los Angeles fans, that time and place was the Orpheum Theatre just two months ago, ...
Tyrone Power, still vital in his movies
Nov
10
2022
Hey, he was Ty Power. The dashing, dark-eyed actor, who descended from a long line of them, and whose name, in 1939, nearly topped the list of Twentieth Century-Fox’s biggest box-office earners, starred in dozens of movies, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known titles include The Mark of Zorro, Marie Antoinette, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan, Prince of ...
Connie Corleone to tell-all at ‘The Godfather’ 50th-anniv screening
Sep
12
2022
The Godfather: Part II (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo. Talia Shire as Connie Corleone. Paramount Pictures. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) She was a member of la famiglia. So hewing to the family code, she was tight-lipped. Like Michael. (And unlike the blowhard, Sonny). ...
Cinecon 58: Stars of yore to twinkle once more Labor Day weekend
Aug
26
2022
I’m in New York having a ball — except for the sob sessions that I won’t be in Los Angeles over Labor Day weekend when the annual Cinecon Classic Film Festival blasts off Thursday September 1. Gracing the Fest in its celebratory 58th year (a return to ‘in person’ with masks encouraged) will be the ...
‘Pride month’ salutes film producer Harriet Parsons at UCLA Film Archive
Jun
3
2022
louella, harriet parsons, 1959 Along with Virginia Van Upp at Columbia Pictures and Joan Harrison at Universal, Harriet Parsons (1906-1983) was one of the very few women to make her mark in the industry as a feature film producer in the 1940s. Parsons got her start at Columbia creating myriad uncredited newsreel-like “documentary” shorts in ...
So good! Classic cartoons on Hollywood Legion Theater big screen
Jun
1
2022
WE’RE ON OUR WAY TO RIO (1945, J. Tyler/I. Sparber)Popeye and Bluto, on shore leave, visit Rio and fall in love with a bewitching Samba dancer, in this beautifully produced musical cartoon. Her name? Olive Oyl. So good! The 10th edition of the Alex Film Society’s The Greatest Cartoons Ever! to spool at the most ...
Rita Hayworth’s stardom on staircases
May
25
2022
ed. note: Do you know what "press books" were in the movie industry of high Hollywood? We didn't either, until a nice librarian at USC named Ned Comstock introduced the press book from the 1946 film noir, Gilda. Columbia Pictures, where the movie originated, employed public relations people to create little compendia of story ideas ...