Media Arts Preview: Psychedelic, Apocalyptic and More
Screening in LA this week: psychedelic, apocalyptic and hallucinatory anime, lesbian sci-fi, a space western and more.
Thursday, August 4
The Japanese American National Museum's series of vintage Japanese anime films from the 1920s and 1930s (the Golden Age of Japanese silent film) continues tonight at 7:00 p.m. Summer Classic Anime Film Series (Part 3) is the final show in the series, and includes more than 10 shorts.
Friday, August 5
LACMA will screen Sergei Parajanov's beautiful 1969 film The Color of Pomegranates tonight at 7:30 p.m. The director's work is described as both hallucinatory and extraordinary, and this film in particular is dubbed "modern in its abandonment of cinematic conventions while also classical in its attention to archaic aesthetics."
The Echo Park Filmmobile has selected Arthur Dreifuss' Riot on Sunset Strip (pictured above) for its outdoor screening tonight at 8:00 p.m. Wikipedia bluntly describes the film as a "1967 low budget exploitation movie" and it is generally celebrated for its hippies, pot, LSD and a trippy psychedelic sequence, as well as its garage band soundtrack. Check the Echo Park website to find out the location of the screening.
Saturday, August 6
The Levi's Film Workshop at MOCA continues this weekend with three different events, including today's workshop, "Making Music Videos With Monkmus," an artist known for his animated videos for a variety of artists, including Kid Koala and Badly Drawn Boy. The workshop will focus on the conceptual side of music video creation as participants work with a short musical track and develop concepts and visuals. The workshop is at 1:00 p.m. at the Geffen Contemporary.
Pow! Whiz! Bam! is Visual Communications' celebration of animation with a series of three events designed to highlight some great contemporary animation. The series includes a screening of several shorts followed by presentations by artists showing how projects were created (at 2:00 p.m.), as well as a screening of ICE, "a sci-fi, apocalyptic, lesbian take on Romeo and Juliet" (at 5:00 p.m.). At 8:00 p.m., Trigun: Badlands Rumble screens; the film is a space western based on a TV show from the 1990s about a "killer with a mysterious past..." Attend one event, or purchase a festival pass for all three.
Sunday, August 7
American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre presents Voyage in Utopia, a film by Laurent Le Gall capturing the experience of Burning Man, with terrific cinematography and an emphasis on founder Larry Harvey. The film screens at 7:30 p.m., but the Egyptian's Courtyard will be home to numerous interactive activities and art installations before the screening, beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Monday, August 8
Join film critic Stephen Farber at the Landmark Theater in West LA for Reel Talktonight at 7:00 p.m. The event features a screening and discussion of Senna, an award-winning documentary portrait of Aryton Senna, a Brazilian race car champion. Farber will be joined by the film's director, Asif Kapadia.
Tuesday, August 9
Iconic LA artist Paul McCarthy will be at the Hammer Museum tonight at 7:00 p.m. to talk about the work of Paul Thek, currently on view at the museum.