French Crime Wave Hits Los Angeles

Art meets the underworld at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is featuring French crime thrillers this weekend through June 20. Série Noire depicts 1950s/60s/70s French society and its trench-coat, fedora-wearing denizens: gangsters, gunslingers, gamblers, rogue cops, bank robbers, jewel thieves, thugs, bar flies, tricksters dangerous dames... 

See the mean streets through the eyes of Jacques Becker, René Clement, Alain Corneau, Jules Dassin, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Claude Sautet, Bertrand Tavernier, and François Truffaut. This dark celebration includes films based on work by Jim Thompson, David Goodis and August Le Betron (who did time!), so grab your moll, leave the gun, and go see the series.

May 29  7:30 pm  Série Noire

May 29  9:30 pm  The Clockmaker

May 30  7:30 pm  Police Python 357

June 5  7:30 pm  Bob le flambeur

June 5  9:20 pm  Le Doulos

June 6  7:30 pm  Touchez pas au Grisbi

June 6  9:10 pm  Rififi

June 12  7:30 pm  Le cercle rouge

June 13  7:30 pm  Purple Noon

June 13  9:35 pm  Elevator to the Gallows

June 19  7:30 pm  Classe tous risques

June 19  9:20 pm  Garde à vue

June 20  7:30 pm  Coup de torchon 

June 20  9:45 pm  Shoot the Piano Player

LACMA  |  5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036  |  323 857 6000  |  http://www.lacma.org/

Memorial Day : : My Dad

Born: May 6, 1922

WWII

Korea

Vietnam

Died: March 18, 1975

Dalton Trumbo at The Egyptian

The Egyptian is screening four films by blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, including a premiere of the digitally remastered Johnny Got His Gun, today through Sunday.

A few facts about Trumbo:

* Wrote for Vogue, Vanity Fair, The Saturday Evening Post...

* Published his first novel, Eclipse, in 1934

* Started on the road to quick Hollywood screenwriting success in 1937

* Won an American Booksellers Award (now the National Book Award) for his 1939 novel, Johnny Got His Gun

* Saw everything go south in 1950

* Named one of the Hollywood Ten for refusing to give testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activities

* Served one year in a federal penitentiary for contempt of Congress

* Followed it up with a reportedly boozy exile in Mexico

* Wrote under various pseudonyms while still under blacklist

* Won Oscars anyway (“Robert Rich,” The Brave One, and “Ian McLellan Hunter,” Roman Holiday)

* Everything started looking up again

* Credited as “Dalton Trumbo” for Exodus and Spartacus, helping to break the blacklist stranglehold

* Died in September, 1976

* Awarded a posthumous Oscar as “Dalton Trumbo” for Roman Holiday in 1993

Thursday, May 21, 7:30 pm

Johnny Got His Gun (1971) and Lonely Are The Brave (1962)

Between films, join a discussion with Trumbo’s son Christopher, his daughter and unit photographer, Mitzi, DP Jules Brenner, and actor Timothy Bottoms.

Friday, May 22, 7:30 pm 


Spartacus (1960)

Join a discussion with Christopher Trumbo before the film.

Saturday, May 23, 7:30 pm 


Exodus (1960)

Join a discussion with Christopher Trumbo before the film.

The Egyptian Theatre

6712 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA 90028

(Between Las Palmas and McCadden, just east of Highland Avenue)

Click here to read an article by Christopher Trumbo on HuffPo.

Gluttony

May 20, 1799 is the birth date of Honoré de Balzac,

the creator of the original Ugly Betty. His novel,

La Cousine Bette, is the delicious tale of an old maid* who has an appetite for destroying her wealthy relations, and enlists the services of a prostitute in fulfilling her vengeful schemes.

Balzac understood enormous appetites because he had one himself. According to A Literary Book of Days,** a typical meal for Balzac included “a hundred oysters, twelve lamb cutlets, a ducking with turnips, two roast partridges, sole á la Normande, fruit, wines, coffee and liquers.”

Who saved room for cake?

* Played with relish by Jessica Lange in the film version.

** A Literary Book of Days, Crown Publishers, researched and edited by Timothy Murphy, 1994

The Devil Inside

Tuesday, May 19, is National Devil’s Food Cake day. 

If you’ve never considered what sets Devil’s Food apart from other chocolatey cakes, here are some specific differences:

* The use of cocoa, instead melted chocolate

* The use of hot or boiling water as the primary liquid, rather than dairy

* The inclusion of more baking soda

Since baking soda reacts with cocoa and creates a reddish cast when baked, early Devil’s Food cakes made with unprocessed cocoa were often referred to as Red Velvet. Modern recipes made with processed cocoa result in a cake that’s less red, so modern cooks include beets or red dye to create Red Velvet.

Although Devil’s Food is traditionally served with a thick white frosting, Martha Stewart’s chocolate glazed Devil’s Food cake with chocolate ganache is a dark, delicious delight that will lead you into temptation. If it does, remember what Oscar Wilde said about temptation: the best way to get rid of it is to yield to it. 

Strangers In A Strange Land

Obit-mag.com’s Died On The Same Day juxtaposes lives and deaths to fascinating effect. 

Consider these legends who died on the same day:

February 20: Good girl Sandra Dee and wild man Hunter S. Thompson

March 9: Petite cigar-chomper George Burns and xxx-large cigar-chomper Notorious B.I.G.

July 18: Cultural icon who died young, Nico, and cultural icon who died young, Jane Austen 

December 8: Activist/leader Golda Meir and activist/lead singer John Lennon

Today’s May 18 match-up:

Gustav Mahler, the 19th century late romantic composer. His wife, Alma, claimed Gustav said that “as a Bohemian in Austria, an Austrian among Germans and as a Jew throughout the world,” he felt like an intruder. 1911

Ian Curtis, the 20th century lyricist and singer of Joy Division. His music helped to define a generation focused on alienation. 1980

Let The Sun Shine In

Here’s another stunning image by Mark Shaw at Svenska Möbler’s Andrew Wilder Gallery. The Swedish modern showroom features fashion images by Shaw, who was renowned as the Kennedys’ “unofficial” photographer and for work featured in Life, Harper’s Bazaar and Mademoiselle.

Left: Shaw’s Model on the Beach, Deaville, ca. 1950 — it’s one of his early works. Numbered digital prints from Shaw’s original negatives, using archival paper and inks, are available from The Andrew Wilder Gallery at Svenska Möbler.

Svenska Möbler, 154 North La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036

To view the entire series of Mark Shaw images, including Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot, click here.

To learn more about Mark Shaw, visit markshawphoto.com

Jules Dassin At The Aero

The Aero will screen six of Jules Dassin’s most acclaimed urban noir films this weekend, May 15 — May 17. As a director, screenwriter and actor, Dassin first gained Hollywood fame before fleeing the blacklist to Paris in 1953.

Although he spoke only a little French, Dassin directed Rififi in 1954 and won best director the year after that. Rififi inspired Ocean’s Eleven, Mission Impossible and other genre films. Realism, expressionism, grit and sentimentality mingle in Dassin’s gallery of cops, robbers, rogues, promoters, truckers, prostitutes and the occasional chanteuse. Each night of this weekend’s tribute offers double-trouble with cool blondes, dark themes and smoking guns.

Friday, May 15, 7:30 pm

The Naked City (1948) and Never on Sunday (1960)

Saturday, May 16, 7:30 pm

Rififi (1955) and Topkapi (1964)

Sunday, May 17, 7:30 pm

Night And The City (1950) and Thieves’ Highway (1949)

American Cinematheque at The Aero Theatre

1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica, CA 90403

In The Chips

Today, Friday, May 15, is National Chocolate Chip Day (thenibble.com). Which means it’s time to get back to basics: chocolate chip cookies, milk and a nap after lunch. Cheers!

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

Re-live the Jazz Age with the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles at the historic Avalon Casino Ballroom. Fred and Ginger will have nothing on you as you dance the Charlston to the Avalon Ball Dance Orchestra. Who knows -- you might hear echoes of Benny Goodman, Glen Miller and other Big Bands who played at the ballroom during its heyday. (It’s the Casino’s 80th birthday.) 

When: Saturday, May 16, 2009, 6 to 10 p.m.

Where: Avalon Casino Ballroom, Catalina Island

Who: Call (310) 659-3326 or visit ADSLA to order advance tickets until noon, May 14

How: Presale — ADSLA members, $27, non-members, $37;

At the door — ADSLA members, $30, non-members, $40

Ten More Bad Mothers

Bookfinder.com posted a list of mothers who aren’t just bad, but who are arguably the ten worst in literature. Visit here to see if you agree.

If you had a happy childhood, these books may send you on a thrilling exploration of the matriarchy gone awry. If it was rotten, this list may direct you toward catharsis.

You’ll Really, Really, Really Like My Mother

I imagine my mom and my friend Mike sitting in the shade of my imaginary garden, surrounded by roses, hummingbirds, chocolate mint, tomatoes, a prickly lemon bush and rusty lawn furniture plumped with striped cushions in Martha Stewart colors. There they are, Mom and Mike, Diet Cokes in hand, challenging each other for the “I Had The Worst Mother” championship.

Unfortunately I can’t take the fantasy much farther than that because they could go on for hours, and I have stuff to do. For starters, I need to eat a half-jar of Skippy Creamy (the Costco size), lament the fact that I ate so much, and then spend hours working it off.

I lucked out — my mom is everything her mother wasn’t, and if that weren’t enough, she makes the world’s best pies. But in honor of offspring everywhere who deserved a better start in life, I’ve posted several entries about books that might make you look at your own mother with increased gratitude. Or not.

You’ll Like My Mother, Naomi Hintze

After her army husband is killed in combat, pregnant widow Francesca Kinsolving travels to Duluth, Minnesota to meet her mother-in-law. The heavily pregnant widow becomes stranded by a blizzard, but that’s just the beginning of Francesca’s troubles. Soon she uncovers dark secrets, including the fact that her husband’s brother is a psychopath who has escaped from a mental ward, and that her mother-in-law is hiding him in the basement. I can’t believe my own mother let me read this suspenseful, heavy-handed potboiler when I was a kid. (Thanks, Mom, for always encouraging my love for books!)

The Lucky-You-Survived Mother

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz

The novel is ostensibly about the title character, Oscar, a 300-pound “lovesick ghetto nerd,” and his multi-generational family struggling under a Dominican curse, but his mom, Beli, nearly steals the story as an angry, abusive mother who doesn't know how to back down.

A Real Mother Of A Mother

Mommie Dearest, Christina Crawford

The relationship depicted in Mommie Dearest between Joan Crawford and her adopted daughter, Christina, is the reason why I hate using a toothbrush to clean anything.

Runaway Mother

Loving Frank, Nancy Horan

A fictionalized account of Frank Lloyd Wright’s relationship with Mamah Bothwick Cheney, the wife of client Edwin Cheney. She was an educated sufferagette and mother of two; Wright was an architect on the rise and married father of six. They ran off together, which ruined her reputation although it didn’t seem to make much of a dent in his. Mamah was vilified as a bad mother and then bigger tragedies ensued.

A Mother Who Can Throw Her Weight Around

Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge may not be a character you’ll like, but she’s someone you may like reading about. She’s overbearing, passive-aggressive, aloof, moody and sharp-tongued, but she’s also the one woman in town whose acid-drawn words and irritable wisdom provides the kind of dead-on insight that can make you squirm.

The Mother Who Won’t Hesitate To Kill Her Young

Lithium For Medea, Kate Braverman

A junkie named Rose copes with addiction, the boho squalor of Venice Beach, an impotent boyfriend who loves Star Trek, a father who’s dying of cancer, and a mother who’s a complete narcissist. From the first line, when we encounter Rose shooting up in the bathtub, until the last line, which offers a new kind of beginning, Lithium for Medea is poetry.

Medea, Euripides

The tragic tale of Medea, whose husband, Jason, dumps her for a real princess. In retaliation or grief, she kills their children.

The Wicked Stepmother

Cinderella, Charles Perrault

A gorgeous waif, a handsome prince, a mean stepmother, and two jealous step-sisters that had to have been horrible to have such big feet in the days before there was a Nordstrom stocked with women’s shoes up to size 14... Cinderella dates back to 9th century China, and it first appeared in print during the 17th century in a book by French author Charles Perrault, which means there has been plenty of time to work out the story’s details.

So what I want to know is this: Where was the father when his new wife and her mug-faced daughters were making Cinderella’s life miserable? No “World’s Best Dad” mug for him.

One Crazy Mother

The Almost Moon, Alice Sebold

Helen Knightly, an artist model and mother of two, smothers her mentally ill mother. Then during the following 24 hours, Helen washes and drags her mom’s body to the basement; goes to her job at an art school, where she poses nude; has sex with her best friend’s 30-ish-year-old son; gains the assistance of her ex-husband, Jake; and thinks about her beloved, long-dead father. You might hate The Almost Moon, but you won’t forget it.