Please indulge this reviewer as I write about Ennio Marchetto’s remarkable modern Quick Change show “The Living Paper Cartoon” which is delighting audiences for a mere seven performances at Pasadena’s jewel like “Pasadena Playhouse.” There are four remaining performances of this extremely goofy cabaret act. I urge you to see this.It’s a show driven by a series of pre-industrial stage tricks that puts Hollywood’s current crop of CG driven Special Effects to shame, reminding them and us what an inventive use of simple effects can do to tell a story.The rubber-bodied, giddily clownish 51-year-old Ennio parodies a cavalcade of pop…
Browsing: Other Arts
Eagerly awaiting the fifth season of AMC TV’s hit series, Mad Men? While show creator Matthew Weiner, the cable channel AMC, and the producing studio Lionsgate seem to be stuck in negotiations, loyal fans continue to wonder what the fifth season will bring. What will happen to Don Draper and his new love interest? What about the agency and Draper’s relationship with copy writer Peggy Olsen? What about her dealings with partner and account executive Pete Campbell? Or what about partner Roger Sterling and his relationship with office manager Joan Holloway Harris? Well, wait no longer—there is something to bridge…
Since 2005, Magnolia Pictures and Shorts International have teamed up to tour the Oscar nominated short films (Live Action, Documentary and Animation) to over 150 theaters across the U.S. and Canada, allowing audiences to see the nominated films before the Oscar Awards are announced. This year they also offered the films for purchase on ITunes, where, for $1.99 per short, you can purchase this year’s crop of shorts as well as prior years’ nominees and winners. The release will also be available via cable’s Movies On Demand (MOD), distributed by leading MOD distributor, IN DEMAND L.L.C.Typically, and this year is…
Here are some highlights of FilmForum’s recent six-part series “Radical Light” a companion piece, celebrating the newly published “Radical Light: Alternative Film And Video In The San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000.” The landmark mixed media book edited by Steve Anker, Co-Curator of Film at REDCAT, and Pacific Film Archive curators Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid, is the first publication of Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive. Bay Area film enthusiasts have had the pleasure of 30 screenings (ongoing) and a national tour has been announced.Highlights of “Landscape As Expression: UCLA Film and Television Archives”:”A Trip Down Market Street Before the Fire”-Archivist Rick…
“A Room And A Half” was on my list of Best Film of 2009. As it has never been released in the US, It’s back on my list. It is available on a Yumi DVD in the UK.”A Room And A Half” In Andrey Khrzhanovskiy’s blissfully inventive pseudo-bio, the visionary 70 year old animator blends animation and live action to illustrate exiled Jewish poet Brodsky’s dreams of returning to Russia to visit his beloved parents. Each flashback of Brodsky’s remembered life is shot in a different period genre, each more wonderful than the next. A mix of animated graphics and…
In 2000, philanthropist-turned-filmmaker Anne Bass traveled to Cambodia to on humanitarian voyage. During that trip, she attended a traditional Khmer dance performance in Angkor Wat, where she noticed one of the dancers, Sokvandara-Sy-Sar. Thoroughly impressed by his stage presence and performance, she contacted him after her return to the US and offered him what would be considered a dancer’s dream: the opportunity to travel to the US and audition for New York City’s School of American Ballet, one of the most prestigious dance academies in the world, which is intimately linked to New York City Ballet, the world-famous dance company.…
“Cinema Without Borders is establishing an Open Page for Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof as an on-going, action-oriented commentary about the jailing of the filmmakers in Iran. The Page will remain open until Mr. Panahi and Rasoulof are freed, and free to make movies of their choice. Film critic Vera Mijojlic is our first contributor. Cinema Without Borders invites readers, filmmakers, critics, supporters, and friends of international cinema to submit their comments and keep this Page active until Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof are freed” First the physical jail for the body, then post-incarceration ban on the mind, heart…
The Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), with Pacific Design Center, and Charles S. Cohen presented Counter Culture, Counter Cinema: An Avant-Garde Film Festival, a three-day celebration of films focusing on the long-term alliance between experimental cinema and counter-culture activity. The SilverScreen Theater at the Pacific Design Center at 8687 Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood. October 14-16, 2010,Co-curated by David E. James and MM Serra, the festival presented films selected from the collection of the New American Cinema Group/New York’s Filmmakers’ Cooperative. A half-century of films and videos from the early 1960s to the present explored sexuality, politics, communal…
Muslims in our society was a prominent theme at this year’s Berlinale. Two films portrayed Muslims in today’s Berlin, each in its own yet very much related way, one fictitious, one real. Berinale competition entry FAITH (SHAHADA, 2010) by Afghan-German filmmaker Burhan Qurbani elegantly weaves together the stories of three young Muslims living in Berlin – all at a crossroads of their lives and forced to make grave decisions about their future. Maryram (Maryam Zaree) is a young Turkish women raised in Germany who struggles to come to terms with her recent abortion; Turkish police officer Ismael (Carlo Ljubek), is…
Last summer was a sad one for the dance world. The sudden and unexpected passing of world-known German choreographer Pina Bausch in June was shortly followed by the death of veteran US choreographer Merce Cunningham—both were icons of modern dance that will be missed. During the 60th Berlinale, Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann presented their latest documentary DANCE DREAMS (TANZTRAEUME, 2009); a moving and most fitting memorial piece for Pina Bausch. Introducing the premiere screening, Berlinale program manager Thomas Hailer announced that everyone at the Berlinale was still devastated about the sad news of Bausch’s unexpected passing last summer, but…