Known as “the Blonde Bombshell” and “the Laughing Vamp,” Jean Harlow became an international screen sensation in Howard Hughes’ 1930 aviation adventure Hell’s Angels. Although untrained and only 19, Harlow continued her winning streak throughout the 1930s, playing sassy, vampy dames alongside the likes of James Cagney, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy. In 1933, Harlow […]
Newsletter - Arts
Elizabeth Turk’s Art Takes Flight at Orange Coast College’s ‘ThinkLab LIVE .002: Extinct Bird Cages’
It’s Elizabeth Turk’s first day at her open studio at Orange Coast College’s Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion. One wall is covered with dozens of silhouettes of extinct birds; there’s a video of her at work setting up sketches and preparatory drawings, and then at play, rolling around the gallery in a desk chair; there […]
Flor Edwards Survived the Notorious Children of God Doomsday Cult, Turning Her Pain Into a Poignant Book About Healing
The year was 2010. The setting was my intermediate print-journalism class at Cal State Fullerton. Flor Edwards, one of my students, was part of my “Love, Sex and Romance” mock press conference. Three volunteer female student panelists stood before the class taking questions from their male classmates about all things love, sex and romance. Then, […]
![You’ve Got to Have Faith [Special Screenings, Sept. 13-20]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/screenings-moses_fathom-events-2-348x180.jpg)
You’ve Got to Have Faith [Special Screenings, Sept. 13-20]
Madeline’s Madeline. A theater director’s latest project takes on a life of its own when her young star (newcomer Helena Howard) takes her performance too seriously. Molly Parker and Miranda July also star for writer/director Josephine Baker. The Frida Cinema, 305 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana; thefridacinema.org. Thurs., Sept. 13, 12:30, 5:30 & 7:30 p.m. […]
Trendzilla: Birdwell and the Art of Never Going out of Style
In Orange County, “heritage brand” means something different. There are no tailoring houses that have been owned by the same family for centuries or dressmakers that can trace their origins to the court of Louis XIV. Southern California has historically been a very casual place, and most of the clothing companies that are […]
Mapplethorpe and Wild Nights with Emily are Big QFilm Award Winners
Mapplethorpe, an eye-opening look at the life of controversial gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and Wild Nights with Emily, an irreverent exploration of the famous poet Emily Dickinson, were multiple award winners at last weekend’s 25th anniversary QFilm Festival in Long Beach. The narrative features, documentaries and short films presented at Qfilms aim to embody the […]
Santa Ana to Be Hit with a Perfect Storm of Tiki Events
Escape is in the air! This Saturday, fans of tiki culture can sail the mystical seas to two very colorful events in Santa Ana. During the day, Original Mike’s restaurant will host the Tiki Island Expo, an event that will feature live music, food, drinks, and an extensive assortment of vendors selling tiki-centric wares. Then, […]
Paul Frank Is Still Orange County’s Friend
“You know what? I’m going to have him wear a spacesuit when he does it,” says cartoonist Paul Frank. The mind most famous for bringing the charismatic Julius the monkey to the world in the mid-1990s is in the middle of a brainstorm. He’s scheming with his intern, Drew Tran, while explaining to a humble […]
What Would Neil Think? Rating OC’s Fall Productions Before They Happen
Neil Simon died last month. Based on what we saw on social media, lots of people took it hard. Palpable was the anguish, sincere were the remembrances of this most commercially successful of playwrights (who died at the ripe age of 91), barbed were the attacks on the snooty-nosed contingent who don’t consider the appellation […]
![Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog [Special Screenings, Sept. 6-13]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/screenings-lilo-and-stitch-disney-8-348x180.jpg)
Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog [Special Screenings, Sept. 6-13]
2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, which was spun out of Arthur C. Clarke’s short sci-fi story, is about a spaceship’s onboard computer system squaring off in a death match with its human master. The Frida Cinema, 305 E. Fourth St., Santa Ana; thefridacinema.org. Thurs., Sept. 6, 2, 5 & 8 p.m. $7-$10. […]
Long Beach Indie International Film Fest Honors Female Stories and Filmmakers
Films about girls and women in peril were big award winners at Sunday’s culmination of the 2018 Long Beach Indie International Film Festival (LBIIFF). The Broken Rose, which tells the story of human trafficking in Oakland through the eyes of a girl who grew up abused in foster care, received the Best Narrative Feature honor […]
Newport Beach Mojo Works: Trailer is Out for Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind
The release of a trailer for The Other Side of the Wind, which had been lost to time, money and the death of its creator, shows that much has changed since the Weekly began tracking the local connections to what will go down as Orson Welles’ final completed motion picture when it premieres at the […]
There’s Nothing Fishy About Coastline Art Gallery’s ‘Fish Out of Water’
Serving up fishy realness, but not in the way you might think, curator David Michael Lee and Coastline Art Gallery have cast a wide net and snagged a bevy of fun, often imaginative, quite enjoyable art around the eccentric theme of California fish. There are several images in “Fish Out of Water” that don’t really […]
![Just Super [Aug. 30-Sept. 6]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/screenings-justice-league_warner-bros-5-348x180.jpg)
Just Super [Aug. 30-Sept. 6]
Long Beach Indie International Film Festival. For the fifth year, more than 150 diverse features, shorts, music videos, TV pilots and web series from across the globe are presented. Since its inception in 2014, the indie fest has drawn entries that have gone on to gain national or international distribution as well as Oscar, Golden […]
‘Art Colony: The Laguna Beach Art Association, 1918-1935’ at Laguna Art Museum Revisits Another Time of Upheaval
A great art upheaval hit the United States in 1913, as the first abstract paintings arrived from Europe in such great numbers that an armory was needed to display them all. Horror and outrage was the response, not unlike European audiences’ near riots at The Rite of Spring, a ballet with dissonance in Stravinsky’s score […]
Some (Virtual) Ink for “Ink” at Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA)
The Museum of Latin American Art’s “Ink” is a complex, sophisticated history of tattoo art in California—in particular the way Navy town Long Beach served as a focus for artists who’d go on to help invent a distinctly Chicano vocabulary of imagery. Think of it as a lesson in art, history, sociology, culture and politics […]
Now See This: Phantom Thread @Fullerton Public Library
Every month, Fullerton Public Library hosts its own art-house night with a different contemporary flick for local cinephiles. This month, it’s running the latest Paul Thomas Anderson/Daniel Day-Lewis vehicle, Phantom Thread. The Oscar-nominated , critically lauded film follows Reynolds Woodcock, a mercurial-albeit-accomplished couture designer living in 1950s London who meets his match in a young, […]
Mission San Juan Capistrano Hosts Native American Storytelling Twice Monthly
Before ethnocentric white folks with Manifest Destiny fever claimed the land for their own, the Acjachemen Nation were Orange County’s native citizens. Join cultural storyteller, award-winning indigenous educator and Acjachemen descendant Jacque Tahuka Nunez on the first Sunday and/or second Saturday each month for “Journeys to the Past: Celebrating California’s First People.” This multi-sensory exhibition […]
ScreenX Marks the Spot at Irvine Spectrum
The summer blockbuster The Meg continues a string of recent movies that are joint American and Chinese productions, but the Asian influence extends beyond what is onscreen to the actual screen itself. With a 7 p.m. Aug. 16 showing of The Meg, Regal’s Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 became the fifth American moviehouse to host ScreenX, […]
![Not as Charming as You Think You Are [Special Screenings, Aug. 23-30]](https://www.ocweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/screenings-last-vegas_cbs-films-3-348x180.jpg)
Not as Charming as You Think You Are [Special Screenings, Aug. 23-30]
Eighth Grade. Standup comic Bo Burnham’s writing and directing feature debut is about an introverted girl (Elsie Fisher) trying to survive her disastrous eighth-grade year before she is off to high school. Directors Cut Cinema at Regency Rancho Niguel, 25471 Rancho Niguel Rd., Laguna Niguel, (949) 831-0446. Thurs., Aug. 23, 11:50 a.m., 4:50 & 10 […]
Now See This: Cinema Twain @Brea Improv
Val Kilmer has a long acting resume of impressive credentials. To many people, he is the quintessential Doc Holliday, Jim Morrison, Moses, etc. But for his current performance, he presents himself in the persona of non other than Mark Twain for an evening of comedy! Cinema Twain is a film, which features Kilmer in the […]
