To the Fore (Por Fung)

Hong Kong's submission to the 88^th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the few fictional features dedicated to the world of professional cycling.

Representing a detour from his well regarded crime thrillers, director Dante Lam Chiu-yin's To the Fore (Por Fung) tackles the trials and tribulations of three competitive cyclists. Ming (Eddie Peng Yu-yan) and Tian (Shawn Dou Xiam) are lead-outs, tasked with slipstreaming the team's sprinter to the final meters of the race and then break away, to allow Korean sprinter Ji-won (Choi Siwon) to race to the finish line.

Unlike other features, To the Fore focuses mostly on the lead-out rather than the sprinter, well describing the high pressure, high stamina and endurance faced in this propulsive race.

While engaging, the sportscasters' comments, as well as the professional rivalry and love triangle plot involving chinese ex-cyclist Shiyao (Wang Luodan), dampen the races' visually immersive momentum.

Shot on location in Taiwan and Asia, the steep, arduous terrain boasts increasingly sharper bends demanding more speed and control. Attention to detail and technical ingenuity creates an authentic portrayal and close-proximity feel of the diverse cycling styles, action choreography, stunts and the heart-stopping crashes. 

Goosebumps

In this entertaining take of author R.L. Stine's popular young adult horror series that started to be published in 1992, we find teenagers Zach Cooper (Dylan Minnette) and his friend Champ (Ryan Lee) accidentally and unknowingly unleashing a real-life scary monster trapped inside a chained Goosebumps book. The monster quickly releases all of the other monsters in the books and together, they start terrorizing the town. Zach, the fictionalized Stine (Jack Black) and his beautiful daughter Hannah (Odeya Rush) attempt to trap them back into the books before it's too late.

The monster-hunt includes over 23 monsters including the Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, the Cuckoo Clock of Doom, mutant insects, the Werewolf of Fever Swamp, knife throwing garden Gnomers, and the main villain Slappy the Dummy. Use of simple but effective computer graphics are instrumental in keeping the scare factor low for the younger audience.

In addition to the great, at times silly and purposively exaggerated performances, the well balanced execution by director Rob Letterman and screenwriter Darren Lamke keeps the action-adventure, screams, and laughs constant in this fun, roller coaster thrill ride.

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records

All Things Must Pass opens with the striking statement that Tower Records, one of the largest record stores in the world, earned one billion in 1999. With the onset of the digital age and globalization, it filed for bankruptcy five years later and closed its last store in 2006.

With wit and humor, first time director Colin Hanks and writer Steven Leckart trace Tower's rise in Sacramento in 1961 to its fall, capturing the chain's charisma, family atmosphere, and personal approach through interviews of its visionary founder, octogenarian Russ Solomon, Tower's employees and customers. Included are regulars Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone's contributing editor Steve Kopper, Dave Grohl, and 1970's footages of Elton John at Tower's Sunset Strip store.

An insightful documentary about the lasting legacy of this cultural landmark and the end of the vinyl records industry era.

Steve Jobs

Based on Walter Isaacson's best seller, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's (The Social Network) and director Danny Boyle's (Trainspotting, 127, Sunshine) ambitious, quasi-verite style drama about Apple CEO Steve Jobs, convey the character's essence rather than a comprehensive biography.


Divided into three time-lines, the feature represents Job's career-turning product launches: the 1984 unveiling of the first Macintosh by the 29 year-old at De Anza Community College in Cupertino,

California, the 1988 NeXTs “black cube” computer, and the 1998 iMAC launch. Each section has its own distinctive look shot in 16mm, 35mm, and high definition digital respectively. Stylistically different from director Boyle's previous works, the thrilling drama encapsulates fast paced, continuous action and exceptional dialogue.

Strong performances include Kate Winslet as marketing executive Joanna Hoffman, Seth Rogen as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Michael Stuhlbarg as Mac software designer Andy Hertzfeld, Jeff Daniels as Apple chief executive John Sculley, and Katherine Waterston as ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan.

Despite the lack of physical resemblance to Jobs, Michael Fassbender, superbly portrays the pulsating energy that drives this multidimensional character, and his relationships with key life figures, with an emotional center on Jobs' relationship with daughter Lisa (Makenzie Moss, Ripley Sobo, and Perla Haney-Jardine).

The Walk

In August 6, 1974 the 24 year-old French high-wire artist Philippe Petit walked a distance of 140 feet on a tight rope strung between the newly constructed World Trade Center Twin Towers, at an elevation of more than 1,300 feet above ground.

Robert Zemeckis' heist-like, narrative, docudrama starts with Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) sketching the, at times comedic, climactic sequences that framed the aerial feat, culminating with a breathtaking and gripping depiction of Petit's death-defying walk.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's captivating performance provides a glimpse of Petit's character. Lesser developed are the integral team of co-conspirators including Petit's mentor, the Czech acrobat Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley), Petit's girlfriend Annie Allix (Charlotte Le Bon), photographer Jean-Louis (Clement Sibony), a math teacher deathly afraid of heights Jean-Francois (Cesar Domboy), electronic salesman Jean-Pierre (James Badge Dale), insurance broker Barry Greenhouse (Steve Valentine), Albert (Ben Schwartz) and stoner David (Benedict Samuel).

Creating a shivering, vertiginous, edge of the seat momentum is director of photography Dariusz Wolski's groundbreaking and impressive use of 3D camera angles and stop motion photography placing the viewer on the tight rope looking down at the digital recreation of 1970's Manhattan's skyline, as Petit sits, lies down and walks on the wire.

The Martian

Unlike most space sci-fi genre films Ridley Scott's latest feature is more based on believable science rather than futuristic fiction, it is not laden with action nor special effects and yet it is an engaging, stirring, thrilling adventure marked with powerful performances.

Adapted from Andy Weir's 2011 best selling novel, the story is about astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) who is lost in space during an emergency evacuation of Mars.

Presumed dead Watney is left behind by mission captain Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), pilot Rick Martinez (Michael Pena), chemist Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie), and specialists Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara) and Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan). When NASA becomes aware of Watney's survival, a high risk, suspenseful rescue mission is contemplated.

While focusing on Watney's physical and psychological existential difficulties, director Scott interjects lighthearted, at times comedic, introspections.

One of the best movies of the year with an outstanding performance by Matt Damon. A must see.

Noah Purifoy: Junk Dada

Viewing art as affecting change, the California-based artist and
 founding director of the Watts Towers Arts Center, Noah Purifoy, 
embraced dichotomy and explored disparate juxtapositions in his work,
 making use of material at hand. He found “beauty in what has been
 discarded” states Franklin Sirmans, Terri and Michael Smooke 
Department Head and Curator of Contemporary Art at Los Angeles County
Museum of Art (LACMA), “to give new life to an object by changing its
 context, transforming it from junk to artwork”.


The exhibit includes, among others, abstract topography, a mixed media collection, furniture, and a Nkisi, a ritual object from lower Congo, made by the artist from nails and an old piano pedal. At times Purifoy’s art has a hint of humor, such as the Office Chair, The last Supper, and Rags and Old Iron II, a collage of tattered clothing evoking Tanya Marie Harris’ song Second Hand Dreams, as well as multiple art pieces with references to Jazz musicians such as Black Brown and Beige (1989) after Duke Ellington, representing gigantic fingers pointed towards the sky playing the piano.


Purifoy's landmark exhibition 66 Signs of Neon, is an exhibition of
 works constructed from fire ravaged debris collected after the 
8/11/1965 Watts rebellion. Displayed are selections of his surviving 
works from his landmark exhibition that set him on the path as an
 artist. 
Presented are approximately one dozen assemblage works, three-dimensional standing-alone sculptures, by Purifoy and other 
artists, including
 Judson Powell, Debbie Brewer, and Arthur Secunda.

 

Spending the last 15 years of his life in Joshua Tree, Purifoy
 established his Outdoor Museum, an international cultural destination
 with more than 120 large scale sculptures over 10 acres, composed
 entirely of junk.

Special to this exhibit are eight 
large-scale assemblages rarely seen 
outside of the Noah Purifoy
 Foundation's Joshua Tree Outdoor Museum, 
and include From the Point of
 View of the Little People (1994), Ode to
 Frank Gehry (1999), and 65
 Aluminum Trays (2002). The public can enjoy 
four of the large-scale
 works displayed within the exhibition 
galleries, and four situated
 outdoor on LACMA's campus adjacent to the 
Resnick Pavilion and in the 
Los Angeles Times Central Court.


The exhibit runs from June 7, 2015, through September 27, 2015, at BCAM, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/

50 for 50: Gifts on the Occasion of LACMA's Anniversary

In 50 years Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) established itself as the largest and most diverse museum in the western United Stated with a collection of more than 12,000 objects.

In honor of LACMA's 50^th anniversary and with a focus of underscoring diversity, 50 for 50 presents magnificent artworks spanning several centuries and cultures, gifted or promised to all curatorial areas of the museum. The transformative gifts include African, French Baroque, Italian, neoclassical paintings, Spanish colonial, German, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, American pop art and works from 1960's LACMA founding point.

From the A. Jerrold Perenchio collection is the largest single gift of art promised in LACMA's history. Approximately 50 objects including 19^th century European Art and Masterpieces from the 12^th century. The majority, from 1870 to the 1930's, reveal significant stages of development of Modernism: Impressionism, Post-impressionism, Cubism, and Surrealism. 
Of the 50 masterpieces, six are on view including works of Edgar Degas (At the Café-Concert: The Song of the Dog, 1875), Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Jane Avril: Profile of a Woman, 1893) and Edouard Vuillard (Sacha Guitry in His Dressing Room, 1911), as well as Jean Baptiste Carpeaux's (1827-1875) Study for Dance (1865).

Showcased from the collection of Jane and Marc Nathanson, are works by Roy Lichtenstein (Interior with Three Hanging Lamps, 1991), James Rosenquist (Portrait of the Skull Family, 1962), George Segal (Laundromat, 1966-67), and Andy Warhol's seminal Two Marilyns (1962). 

Featured are also gifts promised from the collection of Lynda and Stewart Resnick, with masterpieces by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (The Virgin with the Host, 1860), the Medici court sculptor Giambologna, (Flying Mercury,
probably 1580s), and François Boucher's mythological (Leda and the Swan, 1742). Included is Christ Blessing (1480-85), the first Hans Memling to enter LACMA's collection and a crucial addition of one of the most important artists working in the late 15th-century Flanders.

Debuting in 50 for 50 is also Claude Monet's Two Women in a Garden (c. 1872-73), a future gift of Wendy and Leonard Goldberg; an African Serpent Headdress (possibly late 18^th century) sculpture made by the Baga peoples, Republic of Guinea, a promised gift of trustee Bobby Kotick; and Vija Celmins' seminal 1964 painting T.V., a gift of trustee Steve Tisch, marking the first painting by Celmins to enter LACMA's collection and joining Celmins' sculpture Untitled (Comb) (1970), acquired by LACMA in 1972.

Seldom represented in US museum collections are a stunning group of 5 rare Ethiopian crosses from the 12^th through 16^th centuries AD and their extraordinary linkages to Byzantium and early Christian communities of the Mediterranean.

Noteworthy are a Albrecht Dürer's Melencolia (c. 1514), the leading artist of the German Renaissance, Bernini's sculpture Portrait of a Gentleman (1670) a gift of The Ahmanson Foundation and, following Giotto's tradition, is Taddeo Gaddi's Crucifixion with the Madonna and Saint John the Evangelist (c. 1360), one of the most important painters in 14^th century Florence, a promised gift of Suzanne Deal Booth.

Pioneering Los Angeles artist DeWain Valentine's Red Concave Circle (1970), at the entrance of the exhibit, will also join LACMA's collection, thanks to the generosity of Bank of America, one of the sponsors of the 50 for 50 exhibition.

A number of large scale works and installations acquired in honor of the 50^th anniversary are on view throughout the campus: Robert Irwin's Miracle Mile (2013), Frans Snyder's Game Market (1630's) and Kiki Smith's Jersey Crows (1995) collection.

50 for 50 will be open to the public free of charge on the opening day, in honor of LACMA's 50^th Anniversary Free Community Day.

The exhibit runs from April 26, 2015 through September 13, 2015, at the Resnick Pavilion, at 5909 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit http://www.lacma.org/