Join LACMA for another 24-hour screening of artist Christian Marclay'sThe Clock,Thursday July 28th at 5 pm through Friday July 29th at 5 pm.
Recently awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at this year's Venice Biennale, The Clock is a 24-hour single-channel montage constructed from thousands of moments of cinema and television history depicting the passage of time. Marclay has excerpted each of these moments from their original contexts and edited them together to create a functioning timepiece synchronized to local time wherever it is viewed - marking the exact time in real time for the viewer for 24 consecutive hours. The sampled clips come from films of all genres, time periods, and cultures, some lasting only seconds, others minutes, and have been culled from hundreds of films, famous and obscure, into a seamless whole. The result, a melding of video and reality, unfolds with a seemingly endless cast of cameos. This free screening will allow The Clock to be seen in the way Marclay intended, by making it available in its entirety.
Don’t Knock The Rock celebrates the 20th anniversary of this classic indie rock document! In August of ‘91, Sonic Youth invited Los Angeles filmmaker Dave Markey along on a two week summer festival tour of Europe. The band was excited about their opening act: a little known band from the Pacific Northwest called Nirvana. Along the way they would cross paths with Dinosaur Jr., Babes In Toyland, Gumball, and The Ramones. Thurston Moore was the MC. Dave Grohl was the new drummer. Kim Gordon kept up on the gossip. Kurt Cobain played Kevin Costner.J. Mascis wondered about the possibility of having a Japanese love child. Courtney Love crashed a backstage interview. Lee Ranaldo snapped photographs. Krist Novoselic was really tall. Steve Shelley was in the pocket. Mudhoney was hanging out backstage. Bob Mould too — and Joey Ramone.Motley Crue covered “Anarchy In The UK” (but not in this movie), thus the title was born, tongue-in-cheek — and a feature documentary emerged that will rock you to the ground!
Director Dave Markey will be @ The Cinefamily for a Q&A after the film — and after the break, stick around for (This Is Known As) The Blues Scale, the 40-minute The Year Punk Broke postscript featuring previously unseen mind-blowing Sonic Youth & Nirvana performances, plus Dave’s 1988 Redd Kross film Macaroni And Me! As well, DJ Howie Pyro will be here to spin tunes throughout the show!
Dir. Dave Markey, 1992, digital presentation, 99 min
ELEVEN HEAVY THINGS JULY 23–OCTOBER 23, 2011 MOCA - PACIFIC DESIGN CENTER RECEPTION FOR THE ARTIST SATURDAY JULY 23 6–8p
In conjunction with her new feature length film THE FUTURE , polymath, artist, filmmaker, and writer MIRANDA JULY brings ELEVEN HEAVY THINGS, a series of interactive sculptures, to the PACIFIC DESIGN CENTER lawn. The pieces invite to mount inscribed pedestals, stand beneath elaborate headdresses, and insert their limbs into holes. A work that begins as sculpture metamorphoses into countless performances, only complete when participants photograph their interactions and share them. Through collaborative and dissemination, the audience shifts and the viewer becomes the subject of the work.
Also... Miranda July will be @ CINEFAMILY on 7.26. @ 8p -
For their very first Show & Tell, CINEFAMILY has chosen filmmaker/author/performance artist/all-around fascinating figure Miranda July — someone whose creativity, mystery and unique mind is present in all facets of her art. Miranda’s sense of humor and her singular way of looking at the world makes her just the kind of person Cinefamily chose to rummage through the closets of, in order to dig up her curios, memories and influences. Instead of going to her living room, Cinefamily is inviting her to theirs , so that she can cozy up and tell them what her past few summer vacations were like…and maybe the other seasons as well.
Hailed as one of the foremost stand-ups of his generation, comic genius Eddie Izzard will bring his deliriously, dizzyingly, exhaustively, catch-your-breath funny show to the Bowl!
Already one of the most acclaimed comics of his generation, Eddie Izzard is developing an equally stellar reputation as a film, television, and stage actor.
Currently, Izzard can be seen in the third season of United States of Tara on Showtime, and he stars in Disney’s animated feature Cars 2 opposite Owen Wilson. He just completed shooting the buccaneer classic Treasure Island, starring as Long John Silver opposite Elijah Wood as Ben Gunn for the Syfy Channel.
Last year, Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story received an Emmy nomination. The original documentary, culled from thousands of hours of footage, documents his rise to fame from his early influences to now. Last year, Izzard was seen on Broadway in David Mamet’s Race and in the independent film Every Day opposite Liev Schreiber, Helen Hunt, and Carla Gugino.
Other recent film roles include Valkyrie,opposite Tom Cruise, MGM’s animated film Igor, Steven Soderbergh’s capers Ocean’s Thirteen and Ocean’s Twelve opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt, and Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, as well as lending his voice to Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie.
In April 2008, he embarked on the largest comedy tour of his career, his show titled Stripped. In five months, he performed in 34 cities across the United States, including three nights at New York’s legendary Radio City Music Hall. Upon his return to the U.K., he broke box-office records by selling out a five-week tour in London’s West End in fewer than 48 hours. Stripped indisputably became the hottest selling comedy ticket of 2008 on both sides of the Atlantic.
In 2005, Izzard demonstrated his musical flair in Romance and Cigarettes, a Coen Brothers production directed by John Turturro, starring Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet. In 2004 he was seen in the mystical western Blueberry, alongside Kenneth Branagh and Zoe Wannamaker; he delighted children and adults alike as the voice of the Sand Fairy in Disney’s Five Children and It; and in 2001, Izzard enjoyed great success in the U.S. and U.K. for his portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Cat’s Meow.
His big-screen debut was alongside Bob Hoskins and Robin Williams in the 1996 movie, Secret Agent. Other highlights in his feature film career include appearing in The Avengers with Sean Connery and Velvet Goldmine with Ewan McGregor. Izzard’s credits also include All the Queen’s Men, TheRevenger’s Tragedy, and the voice of Nigel in the animated Disney movie, The Wild.
On television, Izzard last starred in the critically acclaimed FX Networks show The Riches, opposite Minnie Driver. Izzard also served as a producer.
Izzard has been hailed as one of the foremost stand-ups of his generation. His bizarre, tangential, absurd, and surreal comic narratives are lauded for their creativity and wit.
Izzard’s comedic musings have earned him top awards from Time Out and the Perrier Panel. Live at the Ambassadors received an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement. He won the British Comedy Award for Top Stand-Up Comedian in 1993 and 1996, and Dress to Kill earned him a New York Drama Desk Award and two Emmys.
Izzard’s stage appearances include David Mamet’s The Cryptogram, the title role in Marlowe’s Edward II, 900 Oneonta, and A Day in the Death of Joe Egg in London and on Broadway, which won him a handful of awards, including a Tony nomination for Best Actor.
Since his first stage appearance on London’s West End in 1993 in the one-man show Live at the Ambassadors, Izzard has inhabited a unique world of his own “carefully crafted rubbish.” Live at the Ambassadors was followed by a succession of critically acclaimed shows, including Unrepeatable in 1994, 1996’s Definite Article, Glorious in 1997, Dress to Kill in 1998, and the 2000 production Circle.
Izzard recently ran 1,100 miles through England, Wales, North Ireland, and Scotland for charity. He raised $250,000 for Sports Relief, which helps the less fortunate in Britain and poor countries worldwide.
Izzard's style is heavily influenced by Monty Python, especially in his use of a stream-of-consciousness delivery that jumps between topics as he free associates on stage. He does not generally work from a script, owing to his dyslexia. Instead, he interrupts himself with new joke ideas, the characters he portrays turn into other characters, and he nonchalantly leaps from topic to topic. This often results in brief pauses in the routine which he fills with 'so, yeah', and other verbal tics that have become his trademarks.
Thinking aloud is also part of Izzard's ongoing attempt to make the process of writing the show itself part of the humour. As he put it in a 2004 interview with The Guardian, "It's the oral tradition. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years".[20] He frequently notes the reaction to a joke midstream by pretending to write on his hand ("Should be funnier"; "Lost them there"; "They didn't believe me"; "They didn't follow, never do that again", "never link those two[references] together ever again."), asks the audience questions, and verbally engages with hecklers.
Among Izzard's comic talents are mimicry and mime. He portrays God as an authority figure using the voice of James Mason and casts Sean Connery as Noah; these impersonations appear in many of his performances.
Izzard also imitates activities such as sawing wood, vacuum cleaning, and mowing the lawn, anthropomorphising the machines with accents and personalities. Successful impressions, such as his Scottish clarinet teacher, Mrs. Badcrumble, become running gags which recur in different shows.
He tackles topics both contemporary and historic, including frequent re-imaginings of historical events which result in scenes like 'Cake or Death: Church of England runs the Inquisition', or 'Jesus Ministers to the Dinosaurs'.
The John Lautner Foundation is pleased to present the John Lautner Turns 100 series this July 16-November 13, 2011. In celebration of what would have been John Lautner’s 100th birthday on July 16, 2011, the series will showcase Lautner’s extraordinary body of work while informing and inspiring the public about the importance of preserving it. Taking place in Los Angeles, California and Marquette, Michigan, programming includes exhibitions, film screenings, home tours, symposia, receptions, and more.
When he arrived in Los Angeles, the architect John Lautner said that he was so shocked that he was physically ill for a year. “It was so ugly,” he said of the city where, for the next 50 years or so, he nonetheless built some of the most celebrated buildings of the 20th century. The John Lautner house in Los Angeles known as the Chemosphere, which appeared in Brian De Palma's “Body Double.”I didn’t throw up when I moved to Los Angeles, though it did initially bring to mind Nathanael West’s dyspeptic take on the city in “The Day of the Locust,” with its “Mexican ranch houses, Samoan huts, Mediterranean villas, Egyptian and Japanese temples, Swiss chalets, Tudor cottages and every possible combination of these styles.” Since then, though, I’ve grown to love the city’s funky pastiches and I’ve also discovered its modern masterworks, including those by Lautner; his teacher, Frank Lloyd Wright; and that Lautner fan Frank Gehry.
Lautner, who died in 1994, could rail bitterly about the jerry-built quality of the buildings in Los Angeles, pinning some of their shoddiness on the movies, likening them to sets. Yet the city and its environs proved a great stage where he could put his ideas into sensuous form, as you can see in the residences that, in turn, became film locations. These include the 1949 redwood-and-glass Schaffer house (it’s where Colin Firth’s character lives in “A Single Man”) and the 1960 space age pad called the Chemosphere, an elevated wonderment that looks as if it were built for the Jetsons and pops up in Brian De Palma’s “Body Double.”
“Houses,” Lautner said, “are built for the people who live in them” (and those of us who can only peek at them from the outside). His work and that ethos are at the center of “John Lautner Turns 100,” a celebration that begins on what would have been his centenary, this Saturday, and includes exhibitions, talks, a symposium, tours and documentaries. Some of these events will take place in Marquette, Mich., where he was born, but most are happening in ugly, beautiful Los Angeles. We’ll see you there. - NYT
The Museum of Contemporary Art announces today that British artist Banksy will sponsor free admission at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA every Monday for the duration of Art in the Streets.
“I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it,” said Banksy. “MOCA is very grateful to Banksy for his unprecedented gesture,” said MOCA Director and exhibition co-curator Jeffrey Deitch. “Art in the Streets is drawing record attendance, and opening it up to everyone will have a lasting impact on communities in Los Angeles, many of whom have not been to the museum before.”
The gift will help engage the exhibition’s diverse audiences and make it universally accessible—an important trait of graffiti and street art, which the exhibition illuminates. Free Mondays at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA will be every Monday, from 11am to 5pm, June 13 through August 8, 2011.
