From the people who killed LACMA’s classic film program: a film museum 1
Oct
4
2011
It’s really difficult living in this city if you have a memory that operates longer than two weeks. It can drive you insane. Having wiped the slate clean by annihilating the perfectly superb classic film program at the County Museum, and installing in its stead an incoherent line-up of movie gobbledy-gook, along comes LACMA Trustee ...
LACMA’s last picture show: Ozu’s “Late Autumn” on July 30 2
Jul
21
2011
There are still several wonderful films between now and then, but for your calendar’s purposes, one date stands out. The final screening of LACMA’s weekend classic film program, begun 41 years ago and overseen by Ian Birnie for the last 15, features Yasujiro Ozu’s “Late Autumn” (1962). That’s on Saturday, July 30, 2011. In his ...
Wicked comedy by Lubitsch at LACMA 1
Jul
16
2011
It was pure pleasure, in the waning days of the LACMA weekend classic film series, as curator Ian Birnie trotted out yet another sublime film pairing, this time a comedy duo: the first film, Preston Sturges’ social commentary/classic, “Sullivan’s Travels,” topped by Ernst Lubitsch’s insane, zany, perfectly scripted, outrageous and brilliant “To Be or Not ...
Celebrating classic film at LACMA 1
Jul
10
2011
We spun in classic film heaven at LACMA this weekend. The first installment of curator Ian Birnie’s final series — his last picture show — which is devoted to “audience favorites,” offered four stellar international films — one, each, by directors from Germany (Murnau), the U.K. (Powell/Pressburger), again Germany via France (Ophuls) and Italy (Antonioni). ...
Ah, Ian. Ian Birnie’s swan song @ LACMA this month 1
Jul
1
2011
It’s a sad and bittersweet moment. We’re down to the last weekend film series curated by LACMA’s great film department head, Ian Birnie. The 41-year old program, a landmark of high cinephilic culture, is giving way to a new structure, delivered in tandem with Film Independent and headed by the film critic Elvis Mitchell. There ...
Michael Govan comments on LACMA’s new film program 1
Apr
6
2011
In a brief message sent to arts·meme at the end of his day in London, LACMA Director Michael Govan writes, “I think we have a real foundation for continued and sustainable growth of the program now.” The just-announced new film program notably lacks the kind of stable financial underpinning that an endowment provides, nor there ...
BREAKING NEWS: LACMA announces new film program
This just in from the museum: “Los Angeles (April 6, 2011)—The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced today that it has entered into a partnership with Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival. LACMA and Film Independent will inaugurate the new weekly Film ...
L.A.’s artistic and cultural heritage vs. a rock 2
Los Angeles, megalopolis, hosts a cool, vibrant and progressive art scene, an expression of its unique history and inimitable cultural mix. Many Angelenos will derive pleasure and meaning from Michael Heizer‘s Levitated/Slot Mass, a pyramidal granite boulder suspended on concrete rails above a pit carved into the northwest corner of the L.A. County Museum of ...
Melody Kanschat retires. Film lives at LACMA.
Jan
20
2011
The woman who advised LACMA CEO Michael Govan when he was relatively new to Los Angeles that classic film had no role at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will leave her post, according to an oddly placed announcement in the Los Angeles Business Journal. From the Los Angeles Business Journal County Museum COO to ...
Go ahead, Clint, make our day
May
11
2010
The subject is the long-term funding of LACMA’s film program, which is still not secured. In a February 17 curtain talk with Richard Schickel held in tandem with the museum’s respectful retrospective of his oeuvre, Clint Eastwood said: “I want to thank everyone for coming out here and supporting LACMA. I must confess I wasn’t as familiar ...