by Sandy | Jan 12, 2009 | Actors, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll
It got me again. The 2nd season of “Damages” has begun. This TV show on the FX channel, stars Glenn Close, as lawyer Patty Hewes, Rose Byrne, as her protégé Ellen Parsons, and a group of other excellent actors, looks like it will be as terrific and full of plot twists as its 1st season.
The show will again highlight violent conspiracy amongst ambitious, “A” personality types. All the major characters are so smart, so devious, so manipulative and so dishonest, – all done with a half smile. It sort of undercuts your faith in your fellow human beings (who said, “If you’re looking for loyalty, get a dog”). Meanness and intrigue can be so addictive. It’s like watching a bunch of snakes in a barrel. Like seeing an accident and not being able to turn away, no matter how gory.
Season 1 is available online and as cable loves to do, there will probably be repeats of all season 2 episodes in some sort of weekend marathon event and I will probably watch the reruns just as I did last year.
“Damages” is not “fun, family” TV, but it is excellent TV.
by Sandy | Dec 28, 2008 | Art, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Drawing, Exhibits, Museums
“Raphael to Renoir: Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna”
January 21 – April 26, 2009
500 years of drawings from the Renaissance to the 20th century will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The usual suspects from Italy, France, Holland and England are all represented in all their diverse styles:
Raphael, Rembrandt, Watteau, Fragonard, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Manet, Whistler, Degas, Cézanne, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh and more!
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1/21/09 – 4/46/09
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
www.metmuseum.org
Image: Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)
by Sandy | Dec 20, 2008 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Concerts, Events, Live Performance
If not, you can always go northwest to Vancouver, Canada for a few days. I live in San Francisco and we declare an emergency whenever the temperature drops below 45. I can’t really complain when I compare our weather to back east where digging your car out of the snow is a community event. But, just in case you’re looking for a little more chill, go visit British Columbia.
Beginning January 20 to February 8, 2009, Vancouver will put on its 5th “PuSh“ International Performing Arts Festival. There will be music, dance, and theater – 18 events in all. The city may be a bit frigid, but there will be a lot going on.
http://www.pushfestival.ca/
by Sandy | Dec 18, 2008 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll, Books, Writers
The ambitious intentions of the playwright August Wilson, (Apr. 1945 – Oct. 2005), consisted of a play for every decade of the 20th century that would chronicle some part of the black experience in America. Through the use of his great ear for dialogue, Wilson was able to give us some insight into the daily life – both struggles and triumphs – of an assortment of universal characters that his audience could easily recognize.
An ambitious undertaking, but, his huge vision was realized and, btw, it resulted in 2 Pulitzers and a Tony award. He accomplished a lot doing what he loved to do and perhaps more importantly, August Wilson left a powerful body of work that will be read and performed for years to come. Dreaming big has rewards of all kinds.
All 10 of August Wilson’s plays are collected in hard cover with a nice presentation box. Each has an introduction by either an actor, director, or writer familiar with his work.
In 2005, August Wilson completed the ten-play cycle:
by Sandy | Dec 14, 2008 | Arts, Entertainment and Music, Blogroll
All episodes of this dynamic HBO series about Baltimore are now in a DVD box set.
Jaded inhabitants, dangerous streets, glaring corruption, greed that knows no gender, race or creed could probably be found in aging inner cities anywhere, but the series creators chose this eastern port city, up the coast from Washington, D.C., as a full fledged character in the show.
This tough show, created by David Simon and mostly written by him and former policeman Ed Burns, first aired in June 2002. I depended on Netflix for my “Wire fix”. It took 15 months or so for a season to get to DVD, so I was always behind. Now its 5 seasons available – 23 disks.
Each year’s shows have a specific focus – getting drug dealers off the corner with wire taps, honing in on corrupt politicians who get fat on drug money, the Baltimore docks and where/how can dock workers support families as this once bustling waterfront slowly turns into blocks of condos.
2006 followed 4 kids thru a school year and takes a look at how they deal with death, drugs and poverty outside the classroom and bureaucracy, low expectations inside the classroom. The show also gives insight into the saying coined by former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill, “All politics is local.”
A lot of the same characters stay with the show year after year and the viewer becomes familiar with all their dreams, demons and idiosyncrasies. You root for them when they appear to overcome and “do better” and you’re disappointed with them if they slip deeper and deeper into their self made abyss. (My favorite is Michael K. Williams. He plays “Omar Little” – the clever, gay, 50 caliber gun toting gangster with a code of ethics.Terrific.)
Regardless of the theme or focus of a season, they all involve some one’s desperation – desperate to get over, desperate to get rich, desperate to have power. The parts of Baltimore that we see here have seen better days, but occasionally you catch a glimpse of the revitalization in other areas. What will it take to be one of the “haves”? – have more power, more respect, more things than the other guys on the corner. Whether drug dealer or politician, policeman or teacher, a lot of the characters are run by – “I have to get mine.” (Regular folks can wait for crumbs, the smart ones take.)
The writing and acting are superb- all are committed to telling a “truth”, not the only truth, but a slice of life they feel we all need to see and hear.
However, even in this bleakness, there is humor and even slivers of kindness and humanity amidst the brutality. Life is multi faceted, even in Baltimore.
“The Wire”
by Sandy | Dec 5, 2008 | Art, Artist, Arts, Entertainment and Music, Exhibits, Museums, sculptor
Calder Jewelry * December 9, 2008–March 1, 2009
I never knew that American-born artist Alexander Calder (1898–1976) made earrings.
He is best known for his mobiles, sculptures, and paintings etc. In this exhibit, his necklaces, rings, bracelets and earrings, in gold, silver, brass, will be on display at The Met. I expect his jewelry will be as beautiful, inventive and abstract as his other art pieces.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 12/9 – 3/1/09
The Helen and Milton A. Kimmelman Gallery,
Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, Modern Art, 1st floor
5th Ave and 86 Street, NYC
www.metmuseum.org
Also a book:
Calder Jewelry
by Mark Rosenthal (Contributor), Alexander S. C. Rower (Editor), Holton Rower (Editor), Maria Robledo (Photographer)
