12.05.2012

HAMMER LECTURES - GEOFF MCFETRIDGE THURSDAY DEC 06, @ 7:30P


Geoff McFetridge is an L.A.-based graphic designer and visual artist. As the founder of Champion Graphics, he has created designs for advertising, magazines, posters, T-shirts, textiles, motion graphics, and film production. Notable clients include Nike, Patagonia, Gap red, Vans, and Hewlett-Packard, and he recently created the titles for the film Where the Wild Things Are. His work has been exhibited widely, including in recent group shows at MOCA, Los Angeles; Triennale Design Museum of Milan, Italy; and Pasadena Museum of California Art.

Learn More Here...

11.26.2012

Elevator Repair Service's "GATZ" Opens Wednesday, November 28, @ REDCAT.

 
 
Los Angeles Premiere!
 
Hailed by critics around the world as a major theatrical event of historic proportions, Gatz is a bravura feat celebrated for its singular and dazzling literary alchemy. Gatz is not a retelling of the The Great Gatsby, but a revelatory, seven-hour enactment of experiencing the novel, as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece is delivered word for word, brought to life with absolutely startling dramatic effect by a cast of 13. The audacious New York theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service opens the drama in the shabby offices of a mysterious small business—where an employee finds a copy of the book on his cluttered desk and, for reasons unknown, begins reading the novel out loud. His coworkers hardly react at first, but, after a series of strange coincidences, they appear to take on the roles of The Great Gatsby’s characters. Is the reader, “Nick”—played by The Wooster Group’s Scott Shepherd, in a superhuman turn—merely reading the novel, or he is being personally transformed by it?

11.14.2012

John C. Reilly & Friends + RT n' The 44s are playing the 27th Annual ELVES' FAIRE


Parents of students at Pasadena Waldorf School (PWS) have been meeting in workshops to create craft objects for the 27th annual Elves’ Faire. Sponsored by the school every November on the last Saturday before Thanksgiving, the Elves’ Faire is open to the public and offers entertainment, food, games and unique holiday shopping for families to enjoy.
All the crafts sold at the Elves’ Faire are handmade, including the famous “Waldorf Dolls” crafted by parents for the Doll Room. Made from wool, cotton, and other natural materials each doll is hand-stitched with care and imbued with a unique personality. They range in size from tiny lavender-scented gnomes up to large-scale dolls of 16”-18” and are perfect gifts for children young and old. Other stand-out attractions include King Arthur’s Market, where hand painted wooden swords and shields dominate the realm. The Angel Room offers a special place for the youngest shoppers to pick out items for family and friends, assisted by student “angel” helpers.
This year offers the addition of a “Holiday Boutique” Silent Auction, where the public can come to bid on unique and wonderful holiday gifts. The fantastic, one-of-a-kind holiday shopping experience extends from the Doll Room and Silent Auction to the school’s signature store, The Wishing Well, which will also be open with specials and expanded inventory ranging from books and toys to crafting supplies and more.
With attendance expected to exceed 4,000 visitors, the Elves’ Faire is a destination to remember. Come to play, where children can joust, climb and wind through mazes or sit and watch puppet shows and roaming knights in armor. Come to feast while enjoying live music. Please support our zero-waste mission and bring your own beverage cup! Water is available free throughout the event; there are also many areas to refresh, including the children’s Tea Garden and the Jack Frost Bake Shoppe. Admission is always free and the Faire will run from 10am to 4pm on November 17, 2012.
 Pasadena Waldorf School, founded in 1979, is one of over 1,000 Waldorf schools worldwide with over 90 years of experience offering inspired education. Pasadena Waldorf High School, which opened this year, joins 40 other Waldorf high schools now operating in North America. Waldorf education is the fastest growing independent school movement in the world.

11.02.2012

@ LACMA - STANLEY KUBRICK Exhibition 11.1.12–6.30.13




Stanley Kubrick was known for exerting complete artistic control over his projects; in doing so, he reconceived the genres in which he worked. The exhibition covers the breadth of Kubrick’s practice, beginning with his early photographs for Look magazine, taken in the 1940s, and continuing with his groundbreaking directorial achievements of the 1950s through the 1990s. His films are represented through a selection of annotated scripts, production photography, lenses and cameras, set models, costumes, and props. In addition, the exhibition explores Napoleon and The Aryan Papers, two projects that Kubrick never completed, as well as the technological advances developed and utilized by Kubrick and his team. By featuring this legendary film auteur and his oeuvre as the focus of his first retrospective in the context of an art museum, the exhibition reevaluates how we define the artist in the 21st century, and simultaneously expands upon LACMA’s commitment to exploring the intersection of art and film.

Learn More Here...

The Shining - Zooms from Ian Kammer on Vimeo.


11.01.2012

EDDIE IZZARD Is Performing At The Trepany House 11.1.& 11.2.


Trepany House is proud to announce that Internationally renowned comedian and legend EDDIE IZZARD will be performing at Trepany House Tonight November 1st, and November 2nd, ONLY! The show is a work-in-progress in anticipation for his upcoming, international tour: Force Majeure.

Buy Tickets Here...


Eddie Izzard - Lazy Bastards from evilrazer on Vimeo.

10.31.2012

Halloween Night! CINEFAMILY's Most Outrageous Kills w/ 'It Came From The Vaults' Classic Horror Trailers.




From the golden age of goremastery to the innovative new technologies of modern effects wizards, cinema is littered with the bodies of the awesomely dispatched — and cold-blooded murder, in the hands of innovative filmmakers who present it in ways we’ve never seen before, can be a heavenly fine art. Tonight, in a show originated at Austin, Texas’s Alamo Drafthouse, we’ll be celebrating the absolute finest in on-screen annihilation with a non-stop nightmare of intestine-ripping, head-bursting, unrepentant baby-eating and other crimson-soaked savagery! This night is intended for the most severe and iron-stomached bloodhounds around, and we accept absolutely no responsibility for lost lunches. Wimps and weekend horrormeisters, leave the hall; if you can’t stand the meat, stay out of the kitchen. See all you deathbeasts in the murderpit!

Also, Screening at 7:30p - "It Came From The Vaults" Classic Horror Trailers From The Academy Film Archive - Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences -
The best movie trailers have always been wonderful, inspiring self-contained works in their own right, with a legacy extending far beyond their original sell-by dates. Tonight’s show — the start of a new biannual program co-presented by the Academy Film Archive, home of the largest 35mm trailer collection in the world — features a snappy selection of the wildest and most artful horror movie pre-show entertainment from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. As tension builds and shadows wind, the larger-than-life monsters, undulating titles, and shocking cuts found within these classic trailers add up to an equal amount of camp thrills and genuine weirdness — and we couldn’t be more excited. Show curated entirely from the Packard Humanities Institute Collection at the Academy Film Archive.  

More Here...


Cinefamily's Most Outrageous Kills 2012 

"It Came From The Vaults" Classic Horror Trailers From The Academy Film Archive
It Came From The Vaults: Classic Horror Trailers From The Academy Archive (trailer) from Cinefamily on Vimeo.

10.26.2012

LAURIE ANDERSON returns to Royce Hall Tonight!

 
 
One of the most singularly captivating and iconic artists in contemporary performance, Laurie Anderson returns to Royce Hall tonight with Dirtday! In this all-new work, Anderson examines politics, theories of evolution, families, history, dreams and animals in a soulful collection of songs and stories, as told by Laurie and her alter ego, Fenway Bergamot.

Set against a detailed and lush sonic landscape, the stories and music create a unique hallucinatory world of dreams and reality.

The third and final element of Anderson’s triptych of solo story works—including Happiness and The End of the MoonDirtday! is the provocative culmination of Anderson’s groundbreaking work in this genre.

An interdisciplinary icon and electrifying performer, Laurie Anderson is synonymous with modern performance art. Her experimental creative approach extends to her career as a recording artist, visual artist and the creator of large-scale theatrical productions that combine music, multimedia, projected imagery and spoken word. She has entertained and influenced audiences and artists around the globe and is lauded for her unique and impeccable performance style, depth of context and commitment to exploratory work.



10.19.2012

Groundbreaking Kraut- Rock group FAUST arrives at REDCAT Tonight!




Original Faust band-members Zappi Diermaier and Jean-Hervé Péron are joined by Geraldine Swayne and longtime collaborator Amaury Cambuzat of Ulan Bator for an evening of essential krautrock. Echt pioneers alongside Can and Kraftwerk, Faust created music in the ’70s that sounds like it was made yesterday. They improvised with industrial noise, generated bizarre hypnotic grooves, indulged in shockingly willful collages, dabbled in every conceivable musical genre, and found time for bursts of satirical pop and waves of delicate ambience. Enthusiastically embraced by a host of music notables—including Brian Eno, Joy Division, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine and Julian Cope—Faust turned on a host of industrial and techno bands, and revolutionized studio music production along the way.

“There is no group more mythical than Faust.” —Julian Cope

“A radical mix of musique concrète, Stockhausen, the Velvet Underground, and moments of almost pastoral beauty.” —NME (New Musical Express)




10.16.2012

At The Bootleg Tonight! My Heart Is An Idiot: FOUND Magazine’s 10th Anniversary Tour!



Tonight, at the BOOTLEG THEATER road warriors Davy and Peter Rothbart are hurtling their way over on FOUND Magazine’s 10th Anniversary Tour, which celebrates the release of Davy’s book of personal essays, My Heart is an Idiot, Peter’s new album, and a brand-new issue of FOUND. The Rothbart Brothers are hopping back in the tour van, FOUND treasures in tow, and continuing their epic cross-country romp, that when it's all said and done , will total 37 states and 75 cities!

At each exhilarating show, Davy (FOUND’s plucky point guard) will share the latest magnificent and mesmerizing finds that’ve landed in the mailbox here at FOUND HQ, plus outrageous tales from his new book, while Peter (FOUND’s international heartthrob) will dazzle with beautiful, haunting, and hilarious songs based on FOUND notes. Come on out and join them for these parties! Please bring your finds to share, and please let your friends in other cities know that we’re headed their way!

The tour schedule is still being finalized, so dates may shift from those listed below; check their site HERE for frequent updates. And feel free to email them at info@foundmagazine.com with venue suggestions, invitations to your town or school or college, media requests, local partnerships, or any other thoughts or ideas about their upcoming tour.

Holla@chaBoyz! 

Buy Tickets Here...

10.12.2012

Tonight @ Walt Disney Concert Hall - Dudamel Conducts Where the Wild Things Are





The late Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book comes to life in Oliver Knussen’s charming one-act opera. This new production by UK director Netia Jones turns the well-loved book into a magical multimedia event by using innovative technologies that combine live performers with Sendak’s incomparable artwork. Sharing the bill is Ravel’s beloved Mother Goose, presented with equally imaginative video imagery.

Come for: The interaction of live performer images with Sendak’s unmatched artwork.

 

Learn More Here...


9.28.2012

WILCO...Music For White People, Eating White Bread at The White House...Sunday at The Hollywood Bowl.




The LA Phil's summer season at the Hollywood Bowl closes this Sunday! Don’t miss the final show of the 2012 season when WILCO makes its long-awaited debut as a Hollywood Bowl headliner with its unpredictable, bittersweet sounds. Singer/songwriter and gifted harpist Joanna Newsom opens the show.
More Here.

9.24.2012

Book Soup presents Dave Navarro in conversation with Damien Echols, author of "Life After Death".



Book Soup presents Dave Navarro in conversation with Damien Echols, author of Life After Death - Wednesday September 26, 2012 - 7pm @ UCLA's Freud Playhouse.
In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.--who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three--were arrested for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas. The ensuing trial was marked by tampered evidence, false testimony, and public hysteria. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison; while eighteen-year-old Echols, deemed the "ringleader," was sentenced to death. Over the next two decades, the WM3 became known worldwide as a symbol of wrongful conviction and imprisonment, with thousands of supporters and many notable celebrities who called for a new trial. In a shocking turn of events, all three men were released in August 2011. Now Echols shares his story in full--from abuse by prison guards and wardens, to portraits of fellow inmates and deplorable living conditions, to the incredible reserves of patience, spirituality, and perseverance that kept him alive and sane while incarcerated for nearly two decades. In these pages, Echols reveals himself a brilliant writer, infusing his narrative with tragedy and irony in equal measure: he describes the terrors he experienced every day and his outrage toward the American justice system, and offers a firsthand account of living on Death Row in heartbreaking, agonizing detail. Life After Death is destined to be a riveting, explosive classic of prison literature. (Blue Rider Press) -

Learn More Here

9.22.2012

GO SEE - Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good) Now @ REDCAT


Los Angeles premiere!

DEVISED AND PERFORMED BY GOB SQUAD
The acclaimed multimedia collective of ingenious artists from the U.K. and Germany playfully deploys an inventive arsenal of live video and performance techniques to celebrate the culture-bending heyday of Andy Warhol’s Factory. Live recreations of scenes from the 1965 Edie Sedgwick vehicle Kitchen—acted out on bare-bones sets and viewed as black-and-white projections—are spliced with other Warhol celluloid adventures to evoke an elusive, mythic time and place—its hedonistic experimentalism, its wave of social change. Shrewdly crafted and frequently hilarious, Gob Squad’s live versions of the films collide with the immediate here-and-now to surprising effect, transporting the audience to an explosively creative era and unearthing the depths beneath the shiny surface of modern life.

- Read Charles McNulty's review HERE...

9.07.2012

Lance Bangs Weekend @ CINEFAMILY September 7 & 8


For the past two decades and change, CINEFAMILY friend Lance Bangs has been ceaselessly killin’ it in the realm of music videos, concert films and documentary — and it’s about time you stand up and give him an armload of hurrahs. This man has worked with and filmed pretty much every single every major cool band you’ve ever listened to, and tonight, Lance will be at CINEFAMILY to take a guided tour through his career. You’ll see short films, music videos, concert footage, tour projections and collaborations featuring Arcade Fire, Archers of Loaf, Belle & Sebastian, Guided By Voices, Jay Reatard, LCD Soundsystem, Menomena, Neutral Milk Hotel, No Age/Black Flag, Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Pavement, R.E.M., The Shins, Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, Sonic Youth, Syd Tha Kid, the White Stripes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and others. The evening’s show will also include an excerpt from Lance’s forthcoming feature-length doc about legendary Louisville, KY band Slint, as well as moments from the unreleased feature length concert film Arthurfest plus a live music performance by Bradford Cox (Atlas Sound, Deerhunter), Randy Randall & Dean Spunt (No Age), and Mike Watt (Minutemen, Stooges)!

Learn More Here...

THE BLACK KEYS - STRANGE TIMES from Lance Bangs on Vimeo.

8.14.2012

Go See - Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko in RED, now @ The Mark Taper Forum through September 9, 2012


What happens when the artist/rebel who has spent his life assailing the spiritual emptiness of the establishment suddenly finds himself employed by the very people he despises, his paintings fetching top dollar, even judged “a good investment” by no less a capitalist forum than Fortune Magazine?
That is the crisis of conscience that faced the great Russian-American painter Mark Rothko in 1958 when he accepted a commission to create a series of mural-size paintings in his signature “multiform” style (large canvases accentuated by blurred blocks of contrasting colors) as decoration for the new Seagram Building’s luxury restaurant, The Four Seasons.
The creation of the Seagram Murals ignited an emotional firestorm in Rothko, since it put all his anti-establishment beliefs on the line. it also provides the emotional flash point for John Logan’s dramatic portrait of Rothko, Red, which after opening in London in 2009, then Broadway in 2010, garnered the Tony award for Best Play on Broadway.
How had Rothko, who was born Marcus Yakovlevich Rotkovitch, September 25, 1903, in the small Russian community of Dvinsk, Latvia, come to this emotional Rubicon in his career? how had the artist, who began his life as a young Talmudic scholar in Russia, worked as a go-fer in new York’s garment district, and emerged as an intellectual lion of the artistic avant-garde, found himself “working for the Man?” Or was he?
reportedly while cruising back from Europe aboard the SS independence, Rothko confided to John Fischer (publisher of Harper’s) that his real plan was to create a series of paintings, as he explained it, “that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room. if the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won’t,” he told Fischer. “People can stand anything these days.”
Marcus Rotkovitch (the artist didn’t change his name to Mark Rothko until 1940) was part of an artistic generation born out of German expressionism, dadaism, cubism, surrealism and the modernist movement. They lived through the giddy high of the roaring 20s, suffered over the social despair of the Great depression, and rejoiced in the promise of Roosevelt’s new deal. They worked for the WPa and fervently believed that art could change the world and bring about a new level of social awareness and spiritual consciousness. 
Their aspirations were so high. Which is why, in the case of Mark Rothko, the fall, when it came, was so low. on February 25, 1970, in a state of deep depression and poor health resulting from excessive drinking and smoking, along with the emotional carnage of three failed marriages, the artist slashed his arms with a razor and bled to death on the floor of his studio. he was 66. 

Mark Rothko’s artistic career began almost by chance in 1923. he was working in new York city’s garment district when he went to visit a friend who was studying at the art Students League. The League was a Mecca for artistic expression and heated debate and Rothko found the heady world of art and artists intoxicating. he later said that was the moment he decided to become an artist.
already a budding intellectual (who spoke Russian, Hebrew, Yiddish and English) Rothko began taking classes at the art Students League and also enrolled at the Grand central School of art. and it was at this point that Rothko met the first two teachers that would exert a powerful influence over his work: arshile Gorky and the still life painter Max Weber, who like Rothko was a Russian-Born Jew. at the same time Rothko spent hours exploring new York’s museums and galleries, absorbing everything he saw, from Caravaggio to Paul Klee. 

His earliest paintings tended toward dark, moody interiors and social landscapes that reflected his taste for expressionism. he became part of a circle of artists that included Milton Avery, Barnett Newman, Louis Schanker and Adolph Gottlieb. after days in the studio they would spend hours debating art, philosophy and politics over rounds of drinks and packs of cigarettes. it was during one of the group’s summer retreats to Lake George (in 1932) that Rothko met a young jewelry designer named Edith Sachar. They were married on November 12. Two more marriages would follow.Like the early impressionists of Paris, Rothko and his avant-garde new York colleagues found themselves on the outs with the major exhibitors of modern art, most notably the Whitney. In response they formed a group of “Whitney dissenters,” known as The 10. 

And just as the impressionists had in 1938, they organized their own alternative exhibition as an act of protest.Rothko’s early phase of development was heavily influenced by the stylization of African art and the naïve paintings of children. But it was Carl Jung’s theories of a collective consciousness and the power of mythic archetypes that provided Rothko with new fertile ground for his paintings. it was also at this time that he encountered the writing of Friedrich Nietzsche, most notably his essay, The Birth of Tragedy. Rothko had found a new vocabulary for his paintings, surreal in nature with their roots embedded in ancient mythology. This fascination with myths would continue to permeate Rothko’s work even as his paintings became more and more abstract.  

Today when people think of Mark Rothko’s work they inevitably equate the artist with his “multiforms”— those bold, confrontational canvases with their radiantly glowing blocks on fields of color. But it is important to understand that these signature paintings were part of a long process of change as rothko moved from the dream states of surrealism toward abstraction. What is often misunderstood is that while Rothko’s paintings gradually became devoid of subject — no figures, no landscapes — he saw them as an ultimate distillation of the same themes he had been struggling to express for years.in the “multiforms” Rothko perfected a complex technique
of applying a thin layer of binder mixed with pigment (sometimes employing raw egg) directly onto an uncoated and untreated canvas. Then using quick, rapid brush strokes and significantly thinned oils he would create a dense mixture of subtly overlapping color fields and contrasting shapes. The size of the canvases, up to 11 feet in height, was meant to be overwhelming. he even urged viewers to stand as close as 18 inches from the canvas in order to be totally enveloped. 



The “surfaces,” he wrote, “are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles you can find everything i want to say.” 

His titles became equally abstract: “Magenta, Black, Green on orange” (1949), “rust and Blue” (1953), “Four darks in red” (1958) or simply “untitled.” The success that came with the “multiforms” proved a mixed blessing for Rothko. he enjoyed the monetary benefits, but felt the real message
and power of the paintings was misunderstood. Then came the Seagram commission, which as the play explores, shook Rothko’s world to its core.


After that the colors in the paintings began to transition from the realm of vibrant reds and oranges to more somber hues of blue, purple and eventually to shades of gray and black.

The artist’s final, and greatest project was the Rothko Chapel, which was commissioned in 1964 by the Houston philanthropists, John and Dominique De Menil. The octagonal chapel’s white walls are hung with large vertical format paintings consisting of three triptychs and five panels in dark, somber tones. The effect surrounds the viewer with massive, imposing visions of darkness. 

Each viewer that visits the Rothko chapel perceives its meaning in a personal way. For me the paintings represent a deeply profound study of the veil between death and the world that may exist beyond. Mark Rothko did not live to see the chapel dedicated in 1971. He had already stepped through the veil of darkness that he had so eloquently portrayed. - Jim Farber 


Learn More Here 

Listen to the Alfred Molina Podcast interview  HERE...

7.27.2012

Go See - 'Searching for Sugarman' Now Playing @ The Landmark Theater.


In 1968, two producers went to a downtown Detroit bar to see an unknown recording artist – a charismatic Mexican-American singer/songwriter named Rodriguez who had attracted a local following with his mysterious presence, soulful melodies and prophetic lyrics.

They were immediately bewitched by the singer, and thought they had found a musical folk hero in the purest sense – an artist who reminded them of a Chicano Bob Dylan, perhaps even greater. They had worked with the likes of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, but they believed the album they subsequently produced with Rodriguez – Cold Fact – was the masterpiece of their producing careers.

Despite good reviews, Cold Fact was a commercial disaster and marked the end of Rodriguez’s recording career before it had even started. Rodriguez sank back into obscurity. All that trailed him were stories of his escalating depression, and eventually he fell so far off the music industry’s radar that when it was rumored he had committed suicide, there was no conclusive report of exactly how and why. Of all the stories that circulated about his death, the most sensational – and the most widely accepted – was that Rodriguez had set himself ablaze on stage having delivered these final lyrics: “But thanks for your time, then you can thank me for mine and after that’s said, forget it.” The album’s sales never revived, the label folded and Rodriguez’s music seemed destined for oblivion. 

This was not the end of Rodriguez’s story.

A bootleg recording of Cold Fact somehow found its way to South Africa in the early ‘70s, a time when South Africa was becoming increasingly isolated as the Apartheid regime tightened its grip. Rodriguez’s anti-establishment lyrics and observations as an outsider in urban America felt particularly resonant for a whole generation of disaffected Afrikaners. The album quickly developed an avid following through word-of-mouth among the white liberal youth, with local pressings made. In typical response, the reactionary government banned the record, ensuring no radio play, which only served to further fuel its cult status. The mystery surrounding the artist’s death helped secure Rodriguez’s place in rock legend and Cold Fact quickly became the anthem of the white resistance in Apartheid-era South Africa. Over the next two decades Rodriguez became a household name in the country and Cold Fact went platinum.

Despite his enormous popularity, Rodriguez’s personal life remained a mystery to almost all of his listeners. Various South African journalists and fans tried to uncover the truth about his life, and yet almost nothing was discovered – even about his legendary demise.

When his second album was finally released on CD in South Africa in the mid ‘90s, two white South African fans – “musicologist detective” Craig Bartholemew and record shop owner Stephen “Sugar” Segerman – decided to join forces in an attempt to get to the bottom of the enduring mystery of who Rodriguez was, and how he died. The investigation they embarked on was daunting; they initially found only inconsistencies and dead ends. Taking their cue from Watergate, they finally came up with a strategy to “follow the money,” figuring that if they could trace Cold Fact’s royalties, they might have a chance of uncovering the truth. They looked for clues in the only place available – Rodriguez’s lyrics. A mention of a suburb in Detroit finally led them to track down one of the original producers of Cold Fact, Mike Theodore. This contact uncovered a shocking revelation that in turn set off a wild chain of events that was stranger – and more exhilarating – than they could ever have expected.


Learn More Here...




7.23.2012

At REDCAT - New Original Works Festival July 26, through August 11, 2012.



On July 26, 2012 REDCAT launches its ninth annual New Original Works Festival, a three-week celebration of Los Angeles' vibrant community of artists making work for the stage. Featuring nine new original works and works-in-progress by local dance, theater, music and multimedia artists, this year's festival will be held July 26, 2012 through August 11, 2012 with three distinct programs over three consecutive weekends.

"In the spirit of CalArts, REDCAT's parent institution, They transform their theater each summer into an artist-driven creative laboratory," remarks REDCAT Associate Director George Lugg, who oversees the festival. "Disciplines are challenged and blurred, traditions are re-imagined, and hybrid visions take hold. REDCAT's New Original Works Festival invites artists to take the next step in their artistic exploration and serves as a catalyst for new ideas—while offering audiences an inspiring view of a generation of artists among us."

Since REDCAT's inception, the festival has served as an integral part of REDCAT's mission to support the creation of new performance work by Los Angeles-based artists. Over its eight year history, the program boasts an impressive roster of alumni—including Lars Jan's Early Morning Opera, Kristina Wong, Sheetal Ghandi, Anne LeBaron, Wu Tsang, Michel
Kouakou, Christine Marie & Ensemble, Cloud Eye Control, and Meg Wolfe
—which have gone on to receive national and international presentations and recognition.

This year's lineup promises to be bold with an Obie-Award winner, a recent music school graduate, a raucous theater ensemble, and a TED Fellow among the artists selected. Ranging from puppetry to opera, Khmer dance to pulsating digital music and imagery, the assortment of innovative multidisciplinary work being offered will reward adventurous audiences with three daring and distinctive programs over the three consecutive weeks.


WEEK 1  July 26, 27 & 28
POOR DOG GROUP: THE MURDER BALLAD
OPERA POVERA: TO VALERIE SOLANAS AND MARILYN MONROE IN RECOGNITION OF THEIR DESPERATION
SUSAN SIMPSON: EXHIBIT A


WEEK 2
 August 2, 3 & 4
NICK+JAMES: LAKE
JINKU KIM: UNTITLED
PRUMSODUN OK: OF LAND AND SKY


WEEK 3
  August 9, 10 & 11
EMILY MAST: B!RDBRA!N
MELANIE RIOS: LA TRIBU
HEATHER WOODBURY: AS THE GLOBE WARMS

More info on here...

Note: All three works presented each night.

7.17.2012

at CINEFAMILY - One Night Only! LCD Soundsystem's "Shut Up And Play The Hits" concert film.


When LCD Soundsystem announced they were “… retiring from the game. Gettin’ out. Movin’ on” online last year following one last show at Madison Square Gardens, fans clamored for tickets to their coveted farewell. Shut Up and Play The Hits follows LCD frontman James Murphy through this journey of letting go, and serves as a memoir of a particular moment in the band’s lifespan, a reflection on the end.

Directors Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern’s experience in creating music documentaries and videos was evident in the vibrant cinematography in the scenes of the live show. The birds eye camera which shot fans scuffling around in the standing space directly in front of the stage, and the other cinematographers, including Spike Lee, placed at natural points on stage and in the crowd, gave the illusion of being at the show. The pulsing keyboard chorus of “Dance Yrself Clean” caused impromptu seat dancing across the theatre and these few but powerful snippets of the live show, created an emotional tone throughout film.

The live clips are interspersed with a narration interview with American writer and essayist Chuck Klosterman, shot at New York hot spot The Spotted Pig, the week leading up to the big show. The interview deconstructs the idea of Murphy as the “rock star”, exploring the bands high and low lights, discussing his roots as a musician, and the bands journey to fame. “I was 38 and I decided to make a record; I blinked and I was 41.”

Moments of identification with emotional crowd members, often crying, motion toward what any LCD fan felt when they announced the band would be no more. Murphy is shown dragging himself around his apartment the morning after the show, staring at his bulldog and generally seeming to scream “now what?” between scenes of normalcy making coffee and trimming his patchy greyish beard.

The strongest parts of the film, in true documentary form, are quite unexpected. Perhaps the most candid of all comes when Murphy bursts into tears with his back turned to the camera amongst the band’s equipment in a storage space the day after the show. Another moment captured a final dinner the day after the show at Williamsburg hot spot Marlow & Sons with the exhausted but happy band celebrating the last ten years shared together. Candid moments during the live show were marked by a particularly red-faced sobbing fan, Panda suited devotees clutching their hearts long after the lights had gone up at MSG, and Arcade Fire joining LCD onstage for “North American Scum.”

Shut Up and Play the Hits is a heartfelt love letter to LCD Soundsystem fans as well as an interesting character study of the genius that is James Murphy, who also produced and did all the sound mixing for the film. Though it might have been nice to have a surface dive into the other band members’ perspectives during this milestone in their band history, the directors explained in a live Q&A following one of the screenings, that their aim was not to make a film about the bands history, choosing to capture what Murphy suggested was a naturally poignant moment for the band.

Dirs. Dylan Southern & Will Lovelace, 2011, HD presentation, 105 min.


7.10.2012

Venice Beach Biennial 11AM - SUNSET Jul 13, 2012 @ Venice Beach














Friday, July 13, 11am-Sunset
Saturday, July 14, 11am-Sunset
Sunday, July 15, 11am-6pm


The Venice Beach Biennial (VBB), a weekend event that makes tongue-in-cheek reference to the “real” Venice Biennale in Italy, will treat the famed Venice Beach boardwalk, Ocean Front Walk, as an outdoor exhibition venue. Over the course of the weekend over 50 fine artists will set up vending stands alongside veteran boardwalk artists, exhibiting new bodies of work, collaborating with the veterans on new projects, displaying site-specific sculptures or installations, and presenting live performances. Directed by Hammer curator Ali Subotnick.

The famed Ocean Front Walk is a promenade along Venice Beach with a rich history and undeniably funky atmosphere—and it’s also an ideal, if unconventional, location for a large-scale interdisciplinary outdoor exhibition. The boardwalk is officially recognized as a “Free Speech and Expression Zone” and there is a regulated system, which aims to allow performers, entertainers, and free expressionists to exhibit and sell their own original and constitutionally protected merchandise, in over 200 spaces marked along the beach side of the boardwalk. A recent city ordinance has fine-tuned the definition of “art” and nominal works that are permitted in the vending spaces, which has brought back many artists that had previously been driven out by commercial vendors.

VBB takes artists accustomed to showing in galleries and museums out of their comfort zone, and encourages them to consider their work in a new context. The veteran boardwalk artists will play an active role in this weekend event, and all artists will be working under the same conditions and regulations. Artists may also collaborate with shop owners and restaurateurs to present site-specific projects, interventions, murals, and wall projects.

This exhibition will instigate new connections and dialogue between disparate artistic communities and audiences that could potentially sustain itself and deepen over time. Projects will be presented on the boardwalk proper as well as in the Recreation and Parks area near Windward Plaza (adjacent to Muscle Beach and the Graffiti Wall).
Projects in formation include:

• Ceramicist Matthias Merkel Hess will show handmade ceramic versions of items often sold on the boardwalk and everyday objects, such as sunglasses, towels and six-pack rings.
Evan Holloway with Julian Valdivieso will present a performance collaboration with the bodybuilders at famed Muscle Beach.
Barbara Kruger poses existential questions in the form of stickers adhered to the ground.
Cara Earl will sell miniature sculptures inspired by popular Mexican saint figurines, which she has created in the guise of the world’s most wanted terrorists.
Nick Herman turns to the tradition of scouring the sand with metal detectors and plans to display his treasures in a vending space.
Jason Meadows is constructing a two-headed bicycle, a bit like a push-me pull-you, two bikes sharing one front wheel.
Carter Mull will set up a photo booth on the boardwalk in which visitors may have their photo taken in the manner of obituary photographs.
Drew Heitzler and Sam Sharit will debut a new video animation in an Ocean Front Walk tattoo parlor.
Jennifer Rochlin will present ceramic tiles inserted into recesses on the facade of the public restrooms.
Veteran boardwalk artists include:
Arthure Moore’s best-selling painting, Funky Pussy, features a cat giving “the finger,” and is the main identity for VBB. Moore also makes “funky” paintings of iconic figures such as the Mona Lisa and Muhhamed.
Albert Culbertson and Indira Burgos make paintings and boxes with imagery burned into wood using a magnifying glass and sunlight.
RA Superstar shows vibrant paintings mixing abstract expressionism and Pop Art.
Giles Williams creates inventive sculptures using palm fronds.
Flewnt makes mixed media assemblages using found metal, wood and other everyday material.
Vlada Stanisavlevic a.k.a. Danny Z produces lifelike portraits in airbrush as well as surreal landscapes populated by imaginary creatures.
Mr. TV presents a vaudevillian, satirical performance viewed through an open-air TV set.
Winston the Portraitist draws exquisite charcoal portraits in under ten minutes.
* = Boardwalk artists
**= Artists that are also in Made in L.A. 2012
Lisa Anne Auerbach
& Robby Herbst
Loretta Ayeroff
Alex Becerra
Chelsea Beck
& Kurt Mueller
Ben Brunnemer
with José Claustro*
Edgar Bryan
Jedediah Caesar
Timothy Caldwell*
Matt Chambers
Claude Collins-Stracensky
Liz Craft
Rip Cronk*
Albert Culbertson
& Indira Burgos*
Nathan Danilowicz
Dave Deany
Doh*
Cara Faye Earl
Ernesto*
Mark X Farina
Marc Fichou
Finishing School
with Devon Tsuno
Flewnt*
Eve Fowler
Abel Galindo*
John Geary
Scott Grieger
Katie Grinnan
Mark Grotjahn
Mark Hagen**
& Scott Benzel**
Heartbeat of Venice feat.
the Venice Beach Drum Orchestra*
Drew Heitzler & Sam Sharit
Nick Herman
Roger Herman
Matthias Merkel Hess
Kenyatta A. C. Hinkle**
Evan Holloway with
Julian Valdivieso

ADMISSION
Free

LOCATION
Ocean Front Walk
The Venice Beach Biennial is made possible by the Teiger Foundation.

Learn More Here...


Ikoh*
Charles Irvin
Alex Israel
Adam Janes
Louis Jean-Paul*
Barbara Kruger
Joel Kyack
& Michael Decker
La.Marche*
Nery Gabriel Lemus**
Chris Lipomi
Burton Machen
Lauren Marsolier
Anna Mayer
Jason Meadows
Brenda Michele*
Jean Joseph Monfort*
Pentti Monkkonen
Arthure Moore*
Mr. TV*
Carter Mull
Derek Mulliner*
Brian Mylius
Artist Niciforos*
Renée Petropoulos
RA Superstar*
Sheila Richburg*
Jennifer Rochlin
Ry Rocklen**
Salty Shakespeare
Mark Self*
Alexis Smith
Gary Soszynski*
SKY (Stacey Kai Young)*
Vlada Stanisavlevic
a.k.a. Danny Z*
James Scotty Todd*
Monique Van Genderen & Kate Brown
Venice Beach Pothead*
Erika Vogt**
Giles Williams*
Winston the Portraitist*
Brenna Youngblood**
& Eamon Ore-Giron

6.24.2012

Tonight at The HOLLYWOOD BOWL - Glen Campbell's FINAL LA Show.

Why You Must See Glen Campbell’s Final LA Show TONIGHT.

Sunday night marks Glen Campbell’s final performance in Los Angeles.  

It will be at the Hollywood Bowl as part of KCRW’s World Festival and I’m excited and proud that we’re a part of this historic night.

About a year ago, Glen Campbell was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.  Since then he has remained on tour – a tour he calls “The Goodbye Tour”.  He has said that continuing to perform in front of audiences keeps him happy (and could even be delaying the severity of the onset of the disease). His voice and guitar playing are still remarkable.

This show looms large for me, not just because I grew up watching the Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, but also because his contributions to songwriting and guitar playing have been undeniable.

Glen was part of the quintessential Southern California elite session players, called The Wrecking Crew.  These are the guys that played on just about every important record and album that came out of Southern California for close to four decades – “Pet Sounds”, “California Dreaming,” “These Boots Are Made For Walking”…  Nat King Cole, The Monkees, Simon and Garfunkel, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound (these guys, Glen Campbell included, WERE the fucking Wall of Sound!) There is an incredible documentary about the Wrecking Crew that to this day hasn’t had a commercial release.  You can see the trailer for it here.

Lots of friends are showing up for this special evening.

During the first half Dawes will perform and serve as the house band with all of the special guests. Jackson Browne, Kris Kristofferson, Lucinda Williams, Jenny Lewis, Courtney Taylor-Taylor (from Dandy Warhols). Everyone has been at the Bowl this week getting ready for Sunday night!

All the songs by the special guests were either songs that Glen recorded and released under his own name, or they are songs that Glen recorded as part of The Wrecking Crew and are largely uncredited.

Many people don’t know that Glen was the guitarist on the recorded versions of “Viva Las Vegas”, “Daydream Believer”, “Last Train to Clarksville”, and “I Get Around” – all of which will be performed in the first half by the special guests.

The second half of the show will be Glen performing with his band in his final Los Angeles appearance.

Do yourself a favor and watch this now. There won’t be a dry eye in the house when he plays 'Wichita Lineman" - Anne Litt

More Here...


 

6.19.2012

CINEFAMILY Presents... 'BASS on FILM' - Two Nights of Film, Commercials, Titles, Shorts and Rarities of SAUL BASS. 6.23 & 6.24.






 

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been touched by and have admired designer/filmmaker Saul Bass — his striking work is ubiquitous to the modern eye, and his name has become synonymous with graphic design. You’ve frequently taken in his elegant, striking logos, from the AT&T “death star” to the silhouetted Girl Scout cookie sisters. He single-handedly reinvented the movie title sequence (Vertigo, West Side Story, Exodus and Goodfellas? All Bass creations), illustrated the most stylistically influential movie posters, and probably created the best film sequence Hitchcock ever directed — yes, the shower scene from Psycho. Yet an equally brilliant area of his work remains vastly under seen: commercials, whimsical educational and industrial films, a fantastical Ray Bradbury adaptation, and Phase IV, one of the most visually striking sci-fi features from the genre’s Seventies golden age. With precise efficiency, Bass (with his wife/collaborator Elaine) communicated enormous feeling and information into the smallest of spaces, making him not only of our greatest designers or filmmakers — but one of the great eyes of the 20th century. With a big thank you to the Academy Film Archive and Jennifer Bass, June 23rd's program includes the lecture documentary Bass on Titles, a selection of Bass’ rare commercials, excerpts from his industrial films, The Searching Eye (created for the 1964 World’s Fair), his beloved pull-out-all-stops Why Man Creates, and more! Plus, legendary title designer/Saul Bass contemporary Pablo Ferro will be at the Cinefamily in person to speak on the subject of Bass’s cultural influence!

June 24th -

Seekers of celestial psych cinema need no longer cue up 2001’s “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” to unlock their third eye: enter the optically luscious, organically abstract and singular universe of one of the 20th century’s greatest artists. Saul Bass once said “design is thinking made visual” and, throughout his career, always thought two steps ahead of the collective consciousness, birthing images both instantly timeless and boldly progressive. It’s a testament to Bass’s unique eye that his 1980 educational short The Solar Film (exploring how we can harness the sun’s power) manages to make our own Spaceship Earth feel alien and fantastic — and that his jaw-dropping, crystalline 1983 sci-fi short Quest (adapting a story by the late Ray Bradbury) achieves effects of such scope and quality on such limited means that George Lucas made his staff at ILM study it. As amazing as these shorts are, they are the worker ants to the queen ant that is his monumental achievement Phase IV, a triumph of visual storytelling that communicates impending sentient insect peril through unparalleled microphotography, sound & art design, abstract architecture and subtle gestures. As if taking Stanley Kubrick’s monolithic freakout as a cinematic challenge, Bass takes up the mantle of smart and strange sci-fi in what is rightly 2001’s legitimate progeny. Widely under appreciated and guaranteed to be the most stunning theatrical experience you’ll have this year, Bass’ sole feature is a trip you don’t want to miss.

Phase IV- Dir. Saul Bass, 1974, 35mm, 91 min.
Select archival material courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

 

 “Saul Bass wasn’t just an artist who contributed to the first several minutes of some of the greatest movies in history — in my opinion his body of work qualifies him as one of the best filmmakers of one of this, or any other time.“Steven Spielberg


Learn More Here... 
And Here...

 

6.08.2012

GO SEE - BARRY McGEE @ Prism - On View Now through June 30, 2012.



PRISM is pleased to announce an exhibition of new work by Barry McGee. In his second exhibition at the gallery, McGee integrates his visual language, with its striking geometric compositions, color fields and recurring characters into a site-responsive installation that converts the gallery into a dynamic and vibrant space. Viewers are immersed in purposeful chaos reflected in McGee’s drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures and photographs.

McGee has always been compelled towards mark-making; imprinting his sensibility on available surfaces from thin sheets of luan to the urban architecture that surrounds him. His practice has developed to invite these influences into the sphere of exhibition making and for the last two decades McGee has held an indelible place in contemporary art. He works on a prodigious scale and his work points to the perpetually renewed and decaying landscape of art, advertising and the highly graphic.

Barry McGee was born in San Francisco in 1966. He studied painting and printmaking and graduated with a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991. The Berkeley Art Museum will present a comprehensive retrospective of McGee's work in August of 2012. This retrospective follows solo exhibitions with BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2008); Redcat, Los Angeles, USA (2007); The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan (2007); John Kaldor Art Projects, Australia (2004); Prada Foundation, Milan, Italy (2002): UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USE (2000); and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA (1998). He has participated in major exhibitions, including the Lyon Biennale, France (2009); Life on Mars, the 55th Carnegies International, Pittsburgh, USA (2006); Mediations In An Emergency, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Michigan, USA (2006); The Liverpool Biennale, Liverpool (2002); Drawing Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA (2002), and the 49th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2001).

More Here... 



6.06.2012

Ray Bradbury, Master of Science Fiction, Dies at 91.


 
Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Southern California. He was 91.

By many estimations Mr. Bradbury was the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream. His name would appear near the top of any list of major science-fiction writers of the 20th century, beside those of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein and the Polish author Stanislaw Lem.
In Mr. Bradbury’s lifetime more than eight million copies of his books were sold in 36 languages. They included the short-story collections “The Martian Chronicles,” “The Illustrated Man” and “The Golden Apples of the Sun,” and the novels “Fahrenheit 451” and “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”

Though none won a Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Bradbury received a special Pulitzer citation in 2007 “for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy.” 

Mr. Bradbury sold his first story to a magazine called Super Science Stories before his 21st birthday, and by the time he was 30 he had made his reputation with “The Martian Chronicles,” a collection of thematically linked stories published in 1950.


The book celebrated the romance of space travel while condemning the social abuses that modern technology had made possible, and its impact was immediate and lasting. Critics who had dismissed science fiction as adolescent prattle praised “Chronicles” as stylishly written morality tales set in a future that seemed just around the corner.


Mr. Bradbury was hardly the first writer to represent science and technology as a mixed bag of blessings and abominations. The advent of the atomic bomb in 1945 left many Americans deeply ambivalent toward science. The same “super science” that had ended World War II now appeared to threaten the very existence of civilization. Science-fiction writers, who were accustomed to thinking about the role of science in society, had trenchant things to say about this threat.


But the audience for science fiction, published mostly in pulp magazines, was small and insignificant. Mr. Bradbury looked to a larger audience: the readers of mass-circulation magazines like Mademoiselle and The Saturday Evening Post. These readers had no patience for the technical jargon of the science-fiction pulps. So he eliminated the jargon; he packaged his troubling speculations about the future in an appealing blend of cozy colloquialisms and poetic metaphors.

“The Martian Chronicles” remains perhaps Mr. Bradbury’s best-known work. It became a staple of high school and college English courses, an achievement not without irony; Mr. Bradbury disdained formal education. He went so far as to attribute his success as a writer to his never having gone to college.

Instead he read everything he could get his hands on, by authors including Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Thomas Wolfe and Ernest Hemingway. He paid homage to them in 1971 in the autobiographical essay “How Instead of Being Educated in College, I Was Graduated From Libraries.” (Late in life he took an active role in fund-raising efforts for public libraries in Southern California.)

Mr. Bradbury referred to himself as an “idea writer,” by which he meant something quite different from erudite or scholarly. “I have fun with ideas; I play with them,” he said. “ I’m not a serious person, and I don’t like serious people. I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.” He added, “My goal is to entertain myself and others.”
He described his method of composition as “word association,” often triggered by a favorite line of poetry.

Mr. Bradbury’s passion for books found expression in his dystopian novel “Fahrenheit 451,” published in 1953. But he drew his primary inspiration from his childhood in Illinois. He boasted that he had total recall of his earliest years, including the moment of his birth. Readers had no reason to doubt him. In his best stories and in his autobiographical novel, “Dandelion Wine” (1957), he gave voice to both the joys and fears of childhood.
As for the protagonists of his stories, no matter how far they journeyed from home, they learned that they could never escape the past.


An unathletic child who suffered from bad dreams, he relished the tales of the Brothers Grimm and the Oz stories of L. Frank Baum, which his mother read to him. An aunt, Neva Bradbury, took him to his first stage plays, dressed him in monster costumes for Halloween and introduced him to Poe’s stories. He discovered the science-fiction pulps and began collecting the comic-strip adventures of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. A conversation with a carnival magician named Mr. Electrico that touched on immortality gave the 12-year-old Bradbury the impetus to become a writer.

In 1934 the family moved to Los Angeles, where Mr. Bradbury became a movie buff, sneaking into theaters as often as nine times a week. Encouraged by a high school English teacher and the professional writers he met at the Los Angeles chapter of the Science Fiction League, he began a lifelong routine of turning out at least a thousand words a day on his typewriter.

His first big success came in 1947 with the short story “Homecoming,” narrated by a boy who feels like an outsider at a family reunion of witches, vampires and werewolves because he lacks supernatural powers. The story, plucked from the pile of unsolicited manuscripts at Mademoiselle by a young editor named Truman Capote, earned the 27-year-old Mr. Bradbury an O. Henry Award in 1947 as one of the best American short stories of the year.

With 26 other stories in a similar vein, “Homecoming” appeared in Mr. Bradbury’s first book, “Dark Carnival,” published by a small specialty press in 1947. That same year he married Marguerite Susan McClure, whom he had met in a Los Angeles bookstore.

Having written himself “down out of the attic,” as he later put it, Mr. Bradbury focused on science fiction. In a burst of creativity between 1946 and 1950, he produced most of the stories later collected in “The Martian Chronicles” and “The Illustrated Man” and the novella that formed the basis of “Fahrenheit 451.”

While science-fiction purists complained about Mr. Bradbury’s cavalier attitude toward scientific facts — he gave his fictional Mars an impossibly breathable atmosphere — the literary establishment waxed enthusiastic. The novelist Christopher Isherwood greeted Mr. Bradbury as “a very great and unusual talent,” and one of Mr. Bradbury’s personal heroes, Aldous Huxley, hailed him as a poet. In 1954 the National Institute of Arts and Letters honored Mr. Bradbury for “his contributions to American literature,” in particular the novel “Fahrenheit 451.”

“The Martian Chronicles” was pieced together from 26 stories, only a few of which were written with the book in mind. The patchwork narrative spans the years 1999 to 2026, depicting a series of expeditions to Mars and their aftermath. The native Martians, who can read minds, resist the early arrivals from Earth, but are finally no match for them and their advanced technology as the humans proceed to destroy the remains of an ancient civilization.

Parallels to the fate of American Indian cultures are pushed to the point of parody; the Martians are finally wiped out by an epidemic of chicken pox. When nuclear war destroys Earth, the descendants of the human colonists realize that they have become the Martians, with a second chance to create a just society.

“Fahrenheit 451,” Mr. Bradbury’s indictment of book-burning in a near-future America (the title refers to the temperature at which paper ignites), is perhaps his most successful book-length narrative. It was made into a well-received movie by François Truffaut in 1966. The cautionary tale of a so-called fireman, whose job is to start fires, “Fahrenheit 451” has been favorably compared to George Orwell’s “1984.”

As Mr. Bradbury’s reputation grew, he found new outlets for his talents. He wrote the screenplay for John Huston’s 1956 film version of “Moby-Dick,” scripts for the television series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and collections of poetry and plays.

In 2004 President and Mrs. George W. Bush presented him with the National Medal of Arts.

While Mr. Bradbury championed the space program as an adventure that humanity dared not shirk, he was content to restrict his own adventures to the realm of imagination. He lived in the same house in Los Angeles for more than 5o years, rearing four daughters with his wife, Marguerite, who died in 2003. For many years he refused to travel by plane, preferring trains, and he never learned to drive.

Though the sedentary writing life appealed to him most, he was not reclusive. He developed a flair for public speaking, which made him a sought-after figure on the national lecture circuit. There he talked about his struggle to reconcile his mixed feelings about modern life, a theme that animated much of the fiction that won him such a large and sympathetic audience.

And he talked about the future, perhaps his favorite subject, describing how it both attracted and repelled him, leaving him with apprehension and hope. - NYT

5.31.2012

American Cinematheque Presents: CRUELLY, MADLY, DEEPLY: The Films of RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER.

Between 1969 and his death at age 37 in 1982, brilliant enfant terrible German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made 30 films and numerous television productions, including the 15-hour miniseries BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. Even as he averaged two to three films per year, his work maintained a meticulous, rigorous style, marked by stunning shot composition, laser-precision blocking and deep characterization ranging from bitterly crystal clear to hypnotically allusive. Fassbinder returned to the same themes and fixations again and again: money, sex, pride and cruelty. Postwar Germany is often his cinematic landscape - the place of drained, falsified dreams where his characters make the most of things and act with their own best interests in mind. 

Fassbinder himself was plain, drug-addicted and gay; he had much in common with the outsiders he created. He was notorious for the same cruel nature seen in his films and behaved heartlessly toward those who loved and surrounded him. Still, over the course of his short, astonishing career, he collected a team of dazzling recurring players, including cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and actresses Hanna Schygulla, Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira and Irm Hermann. Whether the strain of working with the director was worth the staggering output is hard to say - Ballhaus “burned out” after THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN and went to work with Martin Scorsese. But, as film critic and ardent fan Roger Ebert wrote, “Fassbinder was a genius. That much everyone admitted.”

On the 30th anniversary of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s death, the American Cinematheque unveils a 16-film retrospective of his work, including ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL, THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, LOLA, VERONIKA VOSS, FOX AND HIS FRIENDS, THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS, MOTHER KUSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN, THE AMERICAN SOLDIER, FEAR OF FEAR, SATAN'S BREW, CHINESE ROULETTE, EFFI BRIEST, BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE, GODS OF THE PLAGUE and LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH. Many of these films are not available in home viewing formats in the U.S., so don't miss your chance to see them on the Big Screen!
The series schedule is listed below in chronological order. Please be sure to note whether films play at the Aero Theatre or the Egyptian Theatre.

All films are in German with English subtitles and will screen in 35mm prints.

BIO HERE

Tickets HERE

5.30.2012

At REDCAT - SANDRA BERNHARD: Sandrology 5.30. thru Sunday, 6.10., 2012


  Los Angeles premiere!

The revered and irreverent Sandra Bernhard appears at REDCAT for a special, intimate engagement of her latest show, I Love Being Me, Don't You? Backed by a smokin' rock band, Bernhard draws on her acclaimed new comedy recording of the same name to deliver her unforgettable blend of outrageous humor, cutting satire and fiercely energetic live performance. Since she first stepped on stage at the Comedy Store in the ‘70s, Sandra Bernhard has been challenging fans and critics with unforgettable stage shows, including Without You I’m Nothingreleased as a feature film, Excuses for Bad Behavior, Giving ‘Til It Hurts, Hero Worship, the Love Machine and Everything Bad and Beautiful. Described by WCBS as "Funny but foxy, super smart and slightly mad," Bernhard has delivered her edgy and incisive work in extended runs off-Broadway, as well as numerous tours throughout the U.S. and Europe.

More Here...