Arts & Culture

Attorney George Conway considers the Donald to be “unwell,” a “narcissistic sociopath,”
and George should know – his wife, Kellyanne Conway, campaigned for, then worked
for Trump in the White House. On April 30, George said on MSNBC’s Deadline White
House that a way to influence non-fanatical voters to not cast their ballots for the ex-prez
is by “making fun of him.”
Sarcasm has often been used to cut strong men down to size; laughter lessens one’s fear
of the powerful. Adolph Hitler is a favorite tyrannical target and figure of ridicule to poke

The 19th annual South East European Film Festival, which deals with socialism more than any other major filmfest in Los Angeles and possibly America, opens May 1 – the international holiday of the working class, which was widely observed in Eastern Europe – and is screening productions at L.A. venues through May 8. Founded by Sarajevo-born Vera Mijojlić, SEEFest includes many productions about socialism – albeit from critical viewpoints – as well as nonpolitical pictures. The eclectic Festival is the main U.S. portal for documentaries, features, shorts, animation, etc., from mostly former “Iron Curtain” nations.

We live in contentious, troubled times when Americans are increasingly divided along political, ethnic, sexual lines – consider the fact that a recent box office hit is a movie about a near-future embattled USA entitled, literally, Civil War. Now along comes playwright Christian St. Croix’s Monsters of the American Cinema, which instead poses in stark contrast the unity of two polar opposites. Remy (portrayed by Kevin Daniels, an actor so large that he played Magic Johnson in the 2012 Broadway production of Magic/ Bird) is a Black gay man, who operates a drive-in movie theater at Santee, San Diego County. As Remy’s former husband has died, he has stepped up to the plate to raise his late partner’s son, Pup (Logan Leonardo Arditty), a white straight teenager of average height.

The TCM Classic Film Festival, which turned 15 this year, annually presents primo pictures from yesteryear along with panels and talents linked to those movies at venues in Hollywood. TCM’s 2024 film fete included personal appearances by John Travolta, Steven Spielberg, Mel Brooks, Tim Robbins and even highlighted Jodie Foster “cementing” her place in Tinseltown history with a hand and footprint ceremony in the hallowed courtyard of what previously was Grauman’s Chinese Theater (now TCL Chinese Theatre Max, where Silence of the Lambs, Pulp Fiction, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Shawshank Redemption and Hitchcock’s North By Northwest were screened during the Festival). Enhancing the Festival’s heady ambiance is the great motion picture bonhomie among the film fans attending this movie-palooza, which also includes parties in Club TCM at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. 

The day before she turned 75, the Great White Way’s songstress supreme gave Angelenos a bravura birthday present on April 21, as Patti LuPone presented her musical memoir A Life in Notes at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The three-time Tony Award winner may be noted for outspokenly insisting upon thee-a-tuh etiquette in regards to audience members’ use of cellphones, face masks, etc., but the second LuPone took the stage L.A. ticket buyers erupted with a spontaneous ovation. Throughout her one-woman show, the mezzo-soprano was cascaded with admiration, ebullient but always respectable, by a near-sold out crowd filled with affection for the two-time Grammy Award winner.

TCM CLASSIC FILM FESTIVAL 2024: Film Review

Part I:  The “Coachella of Classic Movies” Rides Again at Hollywood

By Ed Rampell

With splendid sumptuous sets and sonorous singing, LA Opera’s risqué revival of Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata is a veritable feast for the eyes, ears and senses. Translated from the Italian (the language this opera is sung in, although its action is set in France), the words “La Traviata” mean “The Fallen One,” and the title refers to the not-so-virginal Violetta Valèry (voluptuous soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen from Washington state), a highly successful Parisian prostitute (who is believed to have been based on an actual escort). The opera opens with a party Violetta is throwing for her exclusive circle of bourgeois pals at her elegant, exquisitely designed, capacious home, replete with chandeliers and wall-to-ceiling windows with excellent views of the City of Light (the dazzling sets and costumes are designed by Englishman Robert Innes Hopkins). The kinky courtesan’s opulent lair is the home that sex built – the world’s oldest profession can certainly be lucrative.

In 1927 Sergei Eisenstein – the wunderkind of Soviet cinema, whose 1925 Potemkin swept the globe – was reportedly pressured to cut Leon Trotsky out of October, aka Ten Days that Shook the World, the film he was commissioned to make celebrating the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, by Joseph Stalin, who was then engaged in a faction fight with Trotsky and the Left Opposition. Almost 20 years later, after Stalin had butchered Lenin’s Central Committee, Eisenstein directed Ivan the Terrible to great acclaim, winning the State Prize of the Soviet Union – Stalinskaya Premia. However, Eisenstein’s sequel, Ivan the Terrible, Part II, was banned – the betrayer of the Russian Revolution realized that Eisenstein intended Ivan to be a not-so-subtle veiled reference to Stalin. Eisenstein never lived to see the release of his masterpiece in the late 1950s after Stalin’s death and Khruschev’s “thaw” opened the USSR up, because, it’s believed, that the Kremlin put so much pressure on the filmmaker that the 50-year-old suffered a heart attack and died in 1948.    

A Noise Within’s gripping production of August Wilson’s King Hedley II is a brutal, harrowing odyssey into what W.E.B. Du Bois called “the soul of Black folks.” The drama is part of Wilson’s epic exploration of African American life consisting of ten plays set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh (except for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), where the award-winning playwright grew up. Wilson’s remarkable decology is known as the “American Century Cycle” and/or as the “Pittsburgh Cycle.” Each one of the plays is set in the 20th century during a different decade; for instance, Fences takes place in 1957 in that Pennsylvanian city.

The 31st annual Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival is taking place this weekend. LAWTF shines the limelight on women of various ethnicities who perform solo shows. This year’s theme is “Telling Our Truths.” On March 23 the Festival held “Intersection: Day of Workshops and Panels,” wherein, according to publicity, “participants gathered in a series of enriching workshops and engaging panels led by experienced industry professionals” at the Lankershim Arts Center in North Hollywood.