Arts & Culture

I stare blankly at the news. Little men with guns once again stir the country – the world – into a state of shock and grief and chaos. Attention: Every last one of us is vulnerable to being eliminated . . . randomly,

On Saturday, Dec. 13, there’s a classroom shooting at Brown University, in Providence. R.I. Two students are killed, nine others wounded. A day later, in Sydney, Australia – in the midst of a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach – two gunmen fire into the crowd of celebrants. Fifteen people are killed. The shock is global. The grief and anger flow like blood.

So do the questions: Why? How can we stop this? How can we guarantee that life is safe?

Usually, the calls for change after mass shootings focus on political action: specifically, more serious gun control. Ironically, Australia does have serious gun control. And, unlike the U.S., mass shootings there are extremely rare, but they still happen, which indicates that legal efforts can play a significant, but not total, role in reducing violence.

Last night on Saturday Night Live, there was that rare moment when a performer chose to give voice to the 200 million or so of us Americans who, for over two years, have been in a rage that the Supreme Leader in America (aka, the “Supreme Court,” that group of 5 or 6 religious right-wing nutters who rule over what women can and cannot do with their bodies in this country), overturned Roe v. Wade. 

The great Stevie Nicks, in her own rage over this injustice, sang for the first time live on national television her new song about those who have committed this atrocity against women. It’s called “The Lighthouse” — and my jaw dropped as she belted out one fiercely brutal lyric after another aimed squarely at the Court, at Trump, at MAGA Nation — and imploring all women to take a stand, to fight back now, it’s not too late. 

Children of artists who created blacklisted,
pro-union movie reunite for event
 

Our new film Vigilantes Inc.: America's Vote Suppression Hitmen will have its launch opening one-week-run in Hollywood September 6 -12 and a special one night opener in Oakland at the Grand Lake Theater on September 25.
 

Friends,

If you are in need of a good laugh and a reminder that there is someone on Comedy Central once a week (usually Monday night at 11pmET) who feels our pain and has been a force for good for nearly 30 years — I hope you’ve been watching the return of Jon Stewart to The Daily Show since February. He is pulling no punches. He is saying what many are afraid to say, and his cast and writers are on fire, just when we need them the most.

What I admire greatly is that he has been almost a lone voice on television in standing up, fearlessly, with his brutal humor and satire, and placing himself squarely on the side of the tens of thousands of civilians who have been slaughtered in Gaza — and the hundreds of thousands more who are facing imminent death by being purposely denied food, water, shelter, and medical care.

I slept barely three hours last night so I worked, took a vigorous walk,
and contemplated life. I force myself to watch the horrors of the genocide
and destruction around us...my nightmares seem small compared to reality. I
touch base with friends in the Gaza strip where they are herded like cattle
from one place to another to be bombed to reduce their population and
finish off the Palestinian question, a final solution to make the land
devoid of its indigenous people. All with support of western governments
under the boot of Zionism. In my walk I also reflected on how difficult it
is to build our oasis of hope (see palestinenature.org) in the middle of
this mayhem and stressed for resources (funding and people). I also
reflected on people (those active, those colluding, those humane....). I
also worked on my latest book of reflections on activism and decided to

Much more than a mere handsome action hero, Viggo Mortensen, star of The Lord of the Rings movies, is spreading his creative wings again by getting behind the camera for the second time. In addition to playing the male leader, Mortensen has directed, written, produced and composed music for The Dead Don’t Hurt. The politically aware artist (see: https://progressive.org/magazine/viggo-mortensen-do-something-get-kitchen./) has also done something interesting with the tried-and-true Western genre – putting progressive politics about women, slavery, immigrants, middle-aged romance, parenting, etc., into this Civil War-era horse opera set in Nevada around the time the territory became a state. 

The subject matter of Boni B. Alvarez’s Mix-Mix, The Filipino Adventures of a German Jewish Boy is intriguing: How many people know that while the USA turned away boatloads of Jews fleeing the Nazis, the Philippines was one of the few places on Earth to welcome those seeking to escape persecution – and eventually eradication? This lost chapter of history is especially interesting to me because my own extended blended family includes both Jews (albeit of Ukrainian, not German ancestry) and Filipinos. So, I went to see Mix-Mix with high hopes, but alas, I have to give this two-act drama staged in the cavernous subterranean depths of Downtown’s Los Angeles Theatre Center a mixed review.

In an informal conversation following Topsy Turvy’s premiere during the reception in the backyard of The Actors’ Gang’s Culver City citadel of stage, Artistic Director Tim Robbins flashed that still boyish grin of his and confessed Dionysus was his favorite deity. “That’s my god!” the Oscar winner gushed. Dionysus, of course, is (among other things) the Greek god of theater, and one of Athens’ amphitheaters (near the Acropolis), as well as a 5th century B.C. theatrical Festival, were named after this artsy son of Zeus and a female mortal. 

Dionysus (portrayed by Gang veteran Scott Harris in a snazzy suit) makes a special guest appearance in Topsy Turvy, a one-act, 105-ish-minute-long play performed without intermission, written and directed by Robbins. It is among the first fictional stage or screen productions to dare to dramatize one of the thorniest phenomena of our times: The Covid-19 pandemic, which is here simply referred to as “the plague.” (In 2021, playwright Willard Manus adapted Daniel Defoe’s 1722 nonfiction account A Journal of the Plague Year at the Brickhouse Theatre in North Hollywood.)

Shorts, documentaries, animation and features by and about the Pacific Islands’ Indigenous peoples are being highlighted from May 1-10 at various L.A. venues and via an online platform during the 40th annual VC Film Fest (formerly the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival). Since 1983 Visual Communications, a nonprofit organization, has presented this festival, dedicated to its mission “to develop and support the voices of Asian American and Pacific Islander filmmakers and media artists who empower communities and challenge perspectives.” Although the majority of the productions screened are by Asian and Asian-American filmmakers, VCFF is arguably America’s top portal for films of Oceania, as L.A. is cinema’s global capital.