TheFrontPageOnline.com A & E

Backwards in High Heels: A Bronze Start to a Silver Jubilee Year

Frederik Sisa — 2010-03-05

I like to think of the International City Theatre in Long Beach as the off-Ahmanson. That is, the ICT is to the Ahmanson what off-Broadway is to Broadway; it may not be the first theatre that comes to Angeleno minds when craving the stage, but it’s the source of many gems and well worth the drive. The reason isn’t all that difficult to articulate: excellent production values and bravura choices, including Mark Twain’s Is He Dead and Berthold Brecht’s Threepenny Opera from past seasons. Alas, as the ICT’s silver jubilee season gets underway, the inaugural production doesn’t quite meet the high standards set by previous productions. Backwards in High Heels: A Ginger Rogers Musical has all the temperament of a high school play.

‘A Serious Man’: Serious About Questions, But Not About Answers

Frederik Sisa — 2010-02-26

Note: In anticipation of the Oscars, the following is a review of a best picture nominee missed during its original theatrical run.
We join, without fanfare, a life in progress as physics Prof. Larry Gopnick experiences what is euphemistically described as a “rough patch.”

Inglourious Basterds: Revenge Without Glory…or Humanity

Frederik Sisa — 2010-02-19

Note: In anticipation of the Oscars, the following is a review of a best picture nominee missed during its original theatrical run.

Valentine’s Day: Sweet Candy, Empty Box

Frederik Sisa — 2010-02-12

What is it about Los Angeles that eludes filmmakers? Of the many attempts to capture the urban character of this fair metropolis, only two come to mind that achieve any sort of success: Swingers and L.A. Story, both of which deliver the city’s foibles, and qualities, with a knowing wink.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: A Mirror Wonderland

Frederik Sisa — 2010-01-29

It almost seems unfair to frame a discussion of Terry Gilliam’s latest foray into the depths of phantasmagoria with Heath Ledger’s death, but there it is, haunting the film ts the close of a career defined by high-voltage performances in “Brokeback Mountain” and “The Dark Knight.” Much fuss has been made of Gilliam’s solution to salvaging the performance, recasting only those parts existing within a mirror-bound mindscape with not one but three actors: Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell.

Avatar: Nobody Home In These Beautiful Bodies

Frederik Sisa — 2010-01-22

Leap Year: Skip It

Frederik Sisa — 2010-01-15

According to the rom-com guide to romance, the surest way for a man to win the heart of a woman he doesn’t know he loves begins with acting like a jerk. Then, at the right moment, he can reveal the soft underbelly beneath his prickly exterior, thereby confirm that what women truly want is a bad boy who isn’t really so bad provided a womanly influence, intentional or not, draws out the domestic tendencies lurking deep inside. Poppycock.

The Many Moving Parts of an Artist

Ari L. Noonan — 2010-01-15

Performing or Writing, She Makes Mellifluous Music to Our Ears and Eyes

Ari L. Noonan — 2010-01-08

“Tears blurred my vision as I performed Faur�’s Elegy alone in the living room of my family’s summer cabin. I had just heard the news of my grandfather’s passing, and I was pouring my sorrow and anger at the loss of so much history and memory into the dramatic fast notes leading to the piece’s climax. My spirit wailed through this phrase, only calming into quiet resignation as I completed the final bittersweet melody. This was my private memorial to my mother’s parents, both now gone” — Carter Dewberry

Sherlock Holmes: Deduce and Destroy

Frederik Sisa — 2010-01-08

Director Guy Ritchie’s vision of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s seminal detective is the sort of modern revisionism that both titillates the adrenaline glands and offends literary sensibilities. Much like J.J. Abrams’ re-invention of the original Star Trek series, Ritchie’s take on Sherlock Holmes indulges the fetish for action that has come to define almost every effort of late to adapt classic books and television series, an indulgence that often gleefully throws intellect under the box office bus.

‘Up in the Air’: A Flight Worth Taking

Frederik Sisa — 2010-01-04

Ryan Bingham is a hatchet man. The human resources incarnation of Death. He’s the man who gets called in to inform an employee that his or her position within a company no longer exists. But – credit the finely-tuned confluence of script, direction and George Clooney – he is certainly not a sadist. When he compares his job as a corporate downsizer, or career transition counselor, to that of a ferryman shuttling lost souls through limbo until they can see that first glimmer of hope, he is perfectly serious. With unflappable, professional, detached empathy, he specializes in talking people down from the ledge that comes with being fired.

Haunting Silence Where There Used to be Laughter

Dr. Janet Hoult — 2009-12-29

To our many friends in Culver City:

On Dec. 18, granddaughters Julia (age 2) and Catherine (age 4) were laid to rest at Mt. Sinai Cemetery after having been murdered by Charley’s ex-wife.

We are still working on funeral arrangements for their mother, Charley’s daughter Liza.

We want to thank you all for your support and condolences and remind you to cherish your loved ones and give them hugs right now.

Janet and Charley Hoult

AVPA ‘Nickleby’ Cast Rewarded for First-Place Finishes

Garth Sanders — 2009-12-23

Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts production of Nicholas Nickleby, a first-place winner in Los Angeles County this month, will be remounted on a large stage on campus next month.

Stash: Porn-Be-Gone!

Frederik Sisa — 2009-12-18

That friend to low-budget filmmakers everywhere, the mockumentary format, provides fertile soil for reality-based concepts rooted in the simple technique of a camera crew following people around. The trick lies in sowing a premise that is clever enough to take root and grow into something more than a gimmick. Fortunately, writer-director Jay Bonansinga hits on a quirky premise in “Stash” that is outlandish enough to be taken seriously — like a so-strange-it-must-be-true blip in the weird news section.

Backlot Film Festival Winner Comes to Television This Weekend

Ross Hawkins — 2009-12-03

Writer Allison Gryphon, author of the original screenplay for La Cucina (The Kitchen), said that the film that had its world premiere at last year’s Backlot Film Festival, will debut on television on Friday.

Planet 51: We Have Seen the Alien, and It Is Us

Frederik Sisa — 2009-11-20

This is the sort of film that aims the story for the hearts and minds of younger children but delivers it with enough in-jokes to keep adults amused. It’s a strategy that has worked well for many animated films whose appeal who be otherwise confined solely to kids. In the first fifteen minutes of Planet 51 alone we find visual gags and pop-culture nuggets calibrated to jolt a sly recognition among viewers with a good grasp of science-fiction movies.

‘Goats’ Will Be Funny, if You Don’t Stare Too Deeply

Frederik Sisa — 2009-11-13

Timidity is rarely an attractive quality in either people or film, and The Men Who Stare At Goats features plenty of both. The film’s protagonist, a hapless but likeable sort thanks to Ewan McGregor’s easy-going appeal, floats along like driftwood with the currents of the plot, never truly affecting anything and learning only the flimsiest of life lessons.

Criss Angel’s Believe: Some Things Just Shouldn’t Happen in Vegas

Frederik Sisa — 2009-10-30

What happens when you take an acclaimed illusionist, wrap him up in a Cirque du Soleil production, and put the whole shebang on a Vegas stage? A lesson in the value of reading reviews before watching your money suffer an irrevocable disappearing act. Of course, as a critic I prefer to approach a play, a movie, a production, without the prejudice of other reviews. It doesn’t usually make a difference what other critics think, but there’s something to be said for the tabula rasa approach. Yet, by Houdini, had I possessed an inkling of the calamity that is Believe - on stage at the Luxor – I would have certainly gone to any one of the other Vegas shows.

‘Where the Wild Things Are’: Nowhere Worthwhile

Frederik Sisa — 2009-10-16

There is a scene in which the indeterminate monster Carol (voice of James Gandolfini) erupts into a rage and rips an arm off his bird-like friend Douglas (voice of Chris Cooper). There is no fountain of blood; sand trickles out of the stump. If that surprising, whitewashed act of violence — this is a movie based on a children’s book? — isn’t enough, one-armed Douglas spends the rest of his screentime with a twig pathetically jammed into the stump.

Champions of the Backlot Festival

Ross Hawkins — 2009-10-15

Here are the award winners from last week’s 4th Backlot Film Festival, at the Vets Auditorium, where actress Terry Moore made the presentations on Saturday night:

Whip It: Rollicking Entertainment, Not Whiplash

Frederik Sisa — 2009-10-09

Stories centered around a) sports and b) underdogs inevitably expose themselves to a climactic dilemma: Do the plucky challengers win that crucial match against seemingly invincible champions or do they build character through a glorious second-place finish? Call it the Robert Frost conundrum; the end result involves taking the predictable road to avoid taking the other predictable road

Documentary Screening on Friday Regarding Oil Drilling

Ari L. Noonan — 2009-10-08

In an elaborate form of preparation for next Thursday’s signal community meeting with County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, a Baldwin Hills area activist group is sponsoring a free screening on Friday evening of a film warning of the perils of oil drilling for neighbors. “Split Estate,” a documentary billed by supporters as “a film everyone living near oil and gas production must see,” will be shown at 7 o’clock at Windsor Hills Aero Magnet School Auditorium, 5215 Overdale Dr., city of Los Angeles.

Three Days to Go for Backlot Festival

Ross Hawkins — 2009-10-08

There are three more days of events and screenings at the 4th Backlot Film Festival, based at the Vets Auditorium, at the intersection of Overland and Culver Boulevard. Highlights of the next three days include a screening of Patrick Swayze's last film, "Jump," which will be released in December.

Backlot Film Festival Unfolds This Afternoon

Garth Sanders — 2009-10-07

A unique Culver City happening, the fourth annual Backlot Film Festival, begins a 4-day run this afternoon at the Vets Auditorium. This is the first year Backlot has been staged in the autumn. Not coincidentally, the opening film, to be screened at 2 o’clock, 1940’s “Strike Up the Band,” stars Mickey Rooney, who will be honored with Backlot’s most prestigious award.

'Fat Stupid Rabbit' - A Little-Known Russian Gem

Frederik Sisa — 2009-09-25

A delightful penchant for inappropriately spouting Shakespeare in the midst of a children’s play isn’t the only sign of life beneath Arcady’s worn fa�ade. A sparkle in actor Aleksey Maklakov’s eye, a burst of passion, a gesture…we get the feeling there is a bon vivant coiled inside Arcady, suppressed by the inertia of countless years performing the same role in the same play in the same theatre. This inertia has the entire cast stuck in rut but it is Arcady who has the talent and passion to be more than a rabbit in a cutesy fairytale. The role of King Lear, for example, beckons.

‘Sole Mate and Death and Giggles.’ Some Death. Mostly Giggles. All Magic.

Frederik Sisa — 2009-09-23

There’s a dose of Cirque du Soleil in Daisuke Tsuji’s Sole Mate and Death and Giggles, which is no surprise given his tour as a clown with the Japanese edition of Dralion. The great physicality in his performance — drawing on all the usual clowning disciplines of mime and physical comedy, and more — matched by the ability to evoke an almost child-like sense of wonder certainly distills an essence of the Cirque. The comparison is apt; Death and Giggles is very much a non-narrative piece of performance art more loosely sketched and surreal than coherent and realistic.

9: Apocalypse Doll

Frederik Sisa — 2009-09-18

9 could have been an eloquent eulogy for an extinct civilization from the perspective of non-human life, ironically cast as humanity’s unwitting legacy to an otherwise dead planet. As the titular, doll-like hero gains those first glimmers of consciousness and takes hesitant steps into a world of rubble and ashen skies, the gloom of a masterfully articulated, post-apocalyptic landscape takes a firm hold. How and why the world ends is, of course, one of the film’s key mysteries, alongside other concerns such as what the dolls (dubbed “stitchpunks” by Acker) are and how it is they can be alive. But though wildly stirring the senses with stunning imagery of potent, melancholy beauty – the kind that crowns director Shane Acker with the risky title of visionary – 9 blunts with a story that gradually subjects its premise to the slow death of d�j�-vu.

Backlot Film Festival Returns with Swayze’s Final Movie

Ross Hawkins — 2009-09-17

Joshua Sinclair's true life drama "Jump," starring the late Patrick Swayze, in his last motion picture role, and Ben Silverstone, will screen at the Backlot Film Festival on its second evening, Thursday, Oct. 8, at 7:45.

‘My One And Only’ Deserves to be Yours

Frederik Sisa — 2009-09-11

Like the tonally similar Easy Virtue, My One And Only is a layered film that puts a comic veneer on some form of pathology. The difference is that where Easy Virtue’s wit is droll and mordant, My One And Only is more caustic and poignant, a shift that comes from focusing on the dysfunction of a broken family rather than Noel Coward’s barbed observations of class hypocrisy.

(500) Days of Summer: Missed It By That Much

Frederik Sisa — 2009-09-04

A bumper sticker summary might read “chick flick for guys,” but that would be a glib description for a film that inverts Hollywood’s usual cut-and-paste gender roles on-screen romances. This time around, it falls to the guy – played with a sparkling despair by Joseph Gordon-Levitt that almost makes us forget his part in the trashy G.I. Joe – to fulfill the thankless, tormented role of a lovesick romeo.