TEMPESTUOUS

A dream cast, a marvelously rugged locale in the Hawaiian Islands, one of the most durable and enticing works in all of Shakespeare's canon (with a sly, feminist twist), and the inimitable touch of visionary director Julie Taymor: what could possibly go wrong with The Tempest? The answer is, not much, in Taymor's long-awaited screen version of Shakespeare's most wistful, magical, and elegiac final play. True, some parts bump along, and the film as a whole offers less of the sheer visual rapture-per-frame than her masterful debut feature, Titus. But this is still vintage Taymor, necessary viewing for anyone following her remarkable career, and an insightful adaptation that in many ways strips down Shakespeare's tale to its essential humanity.

In Taymor's gender-bent revision, the mighty Helen Mirren stars as "Prospera." A wise ruler devoted to study and science, she's suffered the fate of so many studious women who are in the way of somebody else's plans: she's been accused of witchcraft and exiled with her daughter to a remote island by the usurper brother who now rules her kingdom. The uninhabited island is alive with magical forces, which the seething Prospera (the ultimate Woman Scorned) has imperiously enslaved. The airy sprite, Ariel (Ben Whishaw) is bound to do her bidding after she released him from a magical prison. The native-born "monster," Caliban (the great Djimon Hounsou, caked in variegated mud and rags) is her beast of burden.

12 years later, as a ship carrying many of her friends and enemies from court goes sailing by, Prospera uses sorcery to call up a fearsome storm, wrecks the ship, and conspires to land all the passengers ashore to taste her revenge. Much wandering about the island ensues, as the audience plays Name That Actor. Yes, that's Chris Cooper as the usurper brother, Antonio, and David Strathairn as the stoic, noble neighboring king, Alonso. Tom Conti emanates twinkly goodness as Alonzo's old counselor, Gonzalo, sympathetic to Prospera. For comedy relief, we have Alfred Molina as the drunken butler, Stephano, and Russell Brand as court jester Trinculo, the buffoons that poor Caliban mistakes for gods.

(Btw, I, for one, think Brand is perfectly cast as the jester, beribboned, in his tattered dandy's finery, with his working-class accent and pragmatic opportunism. Trinculo is not one of Shakespeare's wise, soulful clowns, like Feste or Lear's Fool, and Brand dives in with the antic brio of an innate funnyman who understands he has to be amusing or starve. Check out this video of Brand's hilarious 5-minute improv on his character's backstory to see how he gets into the spirit of the thing.)

Meanwhile, Prospera's now-grown daughter, Miranda (Felicity Jones, as a barefoot wild-child) falls in love with the first white man she's ever seen—Alonso's stalwart young son Ferdinand (Reeve Carney, of the band, Carney, and star of the upcoming Spider-Man Broadway musical). But the most profound relationship is between Prospera and Whishaw's wonderfully fey, yet heartfelt Ariel, who serves her with glee, yet risks her wrath daring to remind her of her promise to set him free. With a female Prospera, their usual master-servant, parent-child relationship takes on a complex new dynamic (especially as they bandy about the question of love). She may use him to her own ends, like Elizabeth I deploying one of her besotted courtiers, but its Ariel's poignant suit for justice that helps restore this wily female sorceress to her full humanity.

What disappoints about this film is that so much of the magic feels so earthbound. Titus was such a visual treat because of the way Taymor made her simple, yet dazzlingly poetic stagecraft work onscreen—the eerie, percussive dance of marching soldiers; fountain statues morphing into live figures in a bathhouse; yards of blood-red ribbon issuing from a tongueless mouth. But most of her magical effects here are CGI. You can feel Taymor's delight in being able to realize her wildest images onscreen, and, sure, it's a kick when Ariel tears across the screen in all directions, growing huge and tiny, racing rings around himself. But it just doesn't have the same "cool" factor, in terms of sheer ingenuity.

Still, the package is intriguing. The music by longtime Taymor collaborator Elliot Goldenthal combines electronics, soaring chorales, and peppery pagan-influenced rhythms. Sandy Powell's costumes range from the punk aesthetic of black leather and chains to the sort of found plumage and ruined finery one might scavenge on a deserted island. This Tempest is certainly roiling with ideas, and if it's not Taymor's most successful work, it nonetheless sweeps you along for the ride.

SEIZE THE DAY

DIY art show won't be here long

Usually, I'm all for planning ahead. (Hey, I'm a Virgo!) But seizing a window of opportunity that opens up unexpectedly can lead to happy surprises as well. Case in point: the tasty new DIY exhibit up for just a few more days at the Santa Cruz Art League.

When local artists Carol Bowie and Sefla Joseph heard the SCAL gallery space was going to be vacant for 11 days between exhibits, they did what any red-blooded American entrepreneur would do: they called up some of their friends and said, "Hey, kids, let's put on a show!" That show is "Polishing the Mirror," featuring the work of ten Santa Cruz County artists at the top of their game.

The SCAL gallery is the perfect place for such a scaled-down, intimate show; each artist has plenty of space for a representative sample of work, but there's also enough breathing room between pieces for the viewer to wander around and see everything. About half of the pieces are paintings, mostly figurative, loosely exploring the thematic idea of "Who's there now," gazing back out of the mirror.

Bowie is showing some handsome new larger works in oils, in what she calls "somber" colors, in keeping with this introspective theme. Many depict a figure (or figures) rendered in bold, linear strokes that recall her vibrant etchings, placed before a solid background. (She's also having some cheeky fun painting life-sized department store mannequins.) Joseph also contributes some newer work, figures sketched in bold colors, captured in moments of reflection or discovery.

Carol Jeneid is showing some larger landscapes with a series of small (about 12" square) mixed-media pieces with a lot of graphic energy. There's something vivid, yet emotionally muted in the color palette of blues, greens, and rust in which Susan Dorf paints her impressionistic portraits and figures. (That's her intriguing, "She Sings to Them," above.) Dorf's trio of "Muses," one morphing into a ripe pomegranate, the others moodily mysterious, was my favorite.

Another favorite was Susan Leone Howe's "Stagelight," a dynamic whirlwind of movement, tension and color, in which figures seem about to spin off the canvas in the midst of confetti colors and pulsing stars. Also featured are Barbara Bartel's abstract series of watercolor portraits, "About Face," and the mixed media of Bill Clark.

"Star Gazer," by Peggy Snider (above)

Complementing the 2D work are pieces from ceramicist Peggy Snider (inquisitive, piquant-faced figures from her "White Album Collection"), the compelling, demon-haunted spirit figures of clay sculptor Tom Wolver, and an impressive selection of handmade antler and driftwood baskets from Larry Worley.

"Shaman's Bowl," by Larry Worley.

There's plenty to ponder and enjoy in this show, and it'll disappear like Brigadoon after Sunday, March 20, so put down that keyboard and go!

And speaking of limited-time-only offers, the Dante Aligheri Society of Santa Cruz is presenting one of the all-time classics of Italian cinema (or any cinema) this week: Otto e Mezzo (better known as 8 1/2). The great Federico Fellini directs this 1963 masterpiece about love, art, memory, and cinema. Marcello Mastroianni stars as a celebrated filmmaker turning to the women in his life—past and present—while trying to draw inspiration for his next movie. Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee and Sandra Milo lead the femme cast.

The movie won Oscars for Foreign Language Film and Black-and-White Costumes—proving that the absence of color in no way interferes with a film's visual panache, especially in the hands of a maestro like Fellini. (Fun factoid: from the '40s to 1967, two Oscars were awarded every year in each of the three visual categories—Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costumes—one for color and one for black-and-white. Since then, hardly anybody makes movies in B&W any more, which is cinema's great loss.)

8 1/2 also spawned various adaptations, most notably Paul Mazursky's Alex in Wonderland (1972), with Donald Sutherland, and the lavish Broadway musical, Nine—which, in turn, was made into a movie in 2009, starring Daniel Day Lewis. But Fellini is the real deal. Don't miss this chance to see it on a big screen, and if you've never seen it before, your film education starts here. Showtime is 7 pm, Sunday, March 20, at the VAPA Art History Forum Room 1001, Cabrillo College. Admission is free, and you're invited to come early with an Italian snack and non-alcoholic beverage to share. Visit the Dante Society website for more info.

IN THE SPIRIT

Feeling pummeled and over-stimulated by modern media? In particular, do you long for a richer, more meaningful and exalted musical experience than American Idol? (Present season excepted, of course; go James!)

Wouldn't you love to return to days of yore when music was unplugged and awe-inspiring?

Well, you won't need Mr. Peabody's Way-back machine to experience the grandeur of vintage music sung live onstage when our very own Santa Cruz Chorale teams up with guest chorus the San Luis Obispo Vocal Arts Ensemble next Sunday, March 20, for a live concert at Holy Cross Church.

Be prepared to bask in lush choral music from five centuries; program will include selections from Renaissance/Baroque composer Antonio Lotti to Johann M. Haydn, and Johannes Brahms, from Anton Bruckner to special arrangements of folk songs from America, Canada, and South Africa.

Now in its 28th year, the Santa Cruz Chorale is currently under the direction of Christian Grube, formerly of Berlin University of Arts. It's a community-based volunteer adult chorus made up of ordinary local folk with an extraordinary passion for music. A recent addition to the group is my friend Bill Raney, founder and former owner of the Nickelodeon Theater, and author of the travel memoir Letters To Zerky. Which only goes to prove that however much you have going on in your life, you can always make room for one more activity you love.

Btw, there's nothing like hearing vocal music as the gods intended, live and in person. When Art Boy and I were in France for the first time a few years back, we and our traveling companions visited Chartres Cathedral on a Monday in June. The town of Chartres is a jumble of stone cottages, timbered houses, and cinderblock apartments crammed together on the steep hills leading up to the cathedral. (All cathedrals in Europe were built on high hilltops to impress centuries of pilgrims and penitents with their proximity to God.)

Despite the unusual volume of cars and tour buses parked every which way in every side street and alley, we found an available stretch of curbside and parked at the foot of a steep cobbled lane. Up we trudged in the late afternoon sun, the looming Gothic spires of the cathedral always visible up ahead in the spaces between the buildings crowding the lane on both sides. And as we ascended, glorious medieval chants came wafting down from on high, like a chorus of angels. How atmospheric, I thought; they're piping out chants for the tourists.

But I was wrong—blissfully, rapturously wrong. As we gained the square facing the cathedral, we saw a robed chorus singing live in the churchyard adjoining the cathedral, moved outside to make room for the thousands of faithful crowding inside for the service. Pagans that we are, we had unknowingly stumbled into Pentecost Monday at one of the greatest pilgrimage destinations in all of Europe.

Pentecost commemorates the moment the Apostles were seized with the Holy Spirit.And as we all stood there, bathed in sublime, centuries-old choral music, I knew just how they felt. Swept up in such music, you don't have to be an Apostle, nor even a Christian, to feel a little Holy Spirit.

Showtime for the Santa Cruz Chorale and the San Luis Obispo Vocal Arts Ensemble is 4 pm, Sunday, March 20, at Holy Cross Church. Click here for ticket info and get in the spirit.

(Above: All roads lead to the cathedral in Chartres.)

GREEN PARTY

Johnny Depp has always been an experimental character actor trapped in the body of a guy who looks like Johnny Depp. But he finds a way to do an end run around the burden of his own good looks—and unleash his inner clown—in Rango, an abundantly silly and entertaining animated family comedy in which Depp brings voice and life to the film's unorthodox hero, a bulbous-eyed green lizard with big dreams.

Directed by Gore Verbinski (who has shepherded Depp through all three Pirates of the Caribbean movies), from a very funny script by John Logan, Rango both spoofs and celebrates the traditional Western set-up about a lone stranger in a hard-luck pioneer town. (Complete with a hilarious owl mariachi quartet singing a ballad of the story as it unfolds.) Big kudos are due to Industrial Light and Magic for its remarkable CGI animation; sure, the anthropomorphic cast of reptiles, rodents, and birds talk, walk upright and wear clothes, but each creature is rendered in impressively lifelike detail, right down to the tiniest scale and whisker. But the film is also a freewheeling pastiche of movie references (all genres, all eras) that will keep trivia fans on their toes, while amusing the young'uns with its slapstick verve. (Read more...)

One very cool thing about this movie is the way they filmed it with all the actors actually playing their parts on a soundstage together. Using an updated digital version of rotoscoping (the motion-capture cel animation technique pioneered by Disney in Snow White), Depp and his co-stars acted out entire scenes together on camera, from which their animated characters' physical movements were generated. This not only imbues the characters with loopy humanoid grace, the actors playing off each other keeps the dialogue fast and fresh as well.

Watch this funny featurette about how they shot it, then tell me your'e not dying to go see the movie right this minute!

IN THE '60s GROOVE

The '60s returned to Santa Cruz with a vengeance last Sunday, when the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County held its annual Primavera fundraising event up at Chaminade. Lured by a fashionista's dream theme, "The Far Out & Fab 1960s," guests were invited to participate in a silent auction with cocktails, a live auction of big-ticket items onstage with the effervescent Rob Slawinski of Slawinski Auction Company, a lavish sit-down dinner, and dancing to—who else?— the White Album Ensemble.

As usual here in Santa Cruz, when costumes are involved, the crowd really got into the spirit of the thing. Art Boy and I were volunteers at the event, working the silent auction room, which gave us a ringside seat for the flashback fashion parade. Every nanosecond from the span of '60s culture was represented, from Mad Men-style sheath dresses and bouffants to mod Swinging London ensembles (vinyl caps, go-go boots, paisley, bell-bottoms) to fringed hippie vests, tie-dyed T-shirts, Afros, and love beads; from Holly Golightly to Andy Warhol.

Most local folk faced with this kind of fashion challenge head straight for one of the fine costume emporia we have in this town. The praises of Closet Capers and Cognito were sung throughout the evening among the most severely duded-up participants. Me, I just strap on my miners' headlamp and go spelunking into my own closet, where old clothes never die, they just get shoved to a less prominent part of the rack.

Sadly, the old bell-bottom blue jeans with the floral print patches I sewed all over the butt that I actually wore in the '60s have long since disintegrated. Another obstacle to recreating the full-press hippie look I paraded around in in high school is that I no longer have that long, lank, Janis Joplin hair. But I did unearth the flowing gauze number pictured above, with the lacy yoke and batwing sleeves. Reader, I got married in this dress, and I was delighted at the chance to finally wear it a second time.

True, it's not technically from the '60s (for those of you keeping score at home, I bought it for $21 at Santa Cruz Imports in 1978), but it's completely true to the hippie/earth mother spirit of the times. In fact, my inspiration was Mother Nature in that vintage TV commercial for margarine. ("It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!") I should have had a circlet of flowers in my hair, but it was pouring rain all day Sunday and I opted not to dash out to Beverly's for faux fabric daisies. But now, as I scrutinize myself in that little, unadorned gold headband, I think I look more like a refugee from a low-budget Jane Austen movie. Well, at least I'm wearing an athentic macramé necklace, actually hand-made for me in the '60s by my friend Diane Plummer.

Btw, that's CCSCC Events Coordinator Ann Ostermann on the left, in her groovy lime-green mini-dress. Next to her, in the Carnaby Street duds, Isaiah Williams, chief event expediter and natty dresser (in any era). Then myself, and the ever-fetching Art Boy. Thanks for a great party, Ann!

FRIDAY FRESH

Lion or lamb, March has snuck in while we weren't looking, and that means it's already time for another First Friday Art Tour. As always, there are venues as far afield as Harvey West (the Michaelangelo Gallery, featuring printmaker Robynn Smith), UCSC ( a closing night reception for the retrospective of the work of painter/printmaker Geoff Morten at the Porter Faculty Gallery, and Chip Lord's "Public Spaces" exhibit at the Sesnon), and the Davenport Gallery (the collective, mixed-media show, "Our Oceans").

But now that the days are getting perceptively longer (she says hopefully), FFAT is a great opportunity for local artists, art lovers, and schmoozers to reconnect with our downtown and see what's new. Local favorites showing downtown this month include James Aschbacher (aka Art Boy), showing his folk art-inspired mixed media on wood paintings at Artisans Gallery (above), Jane Gregorius, with a series of mixed-media monoprints from her "Church Series" at Lulu Carpenter, and Coeleen Kiebert's expressive clay sculpture at Felix Kulpa. This is also the last week to catch the excellent Clay and Glass show at the MAH.

What's extra fresh for this month? How about local childrens' art on view at two downtown locations. Over at L'Atelier Salon, on the corner of Pearl Alley, check out mixed media artwork from the students at Westlake Elementary K-12. The piece above is uncredited, but boy, do I love it! There's nothing like a kid with a paintbrush (or some torn colored paper) to capture the pure joy of self expression.

Then take a short stroll down to Louden Nelson Center to see work from the students at Mission Hill Middle School. Teacher, artist, activist, and one-woman dynamo Kathleen Crocetti presides over the art department at Mission Hill, and she's always dreaming up exciting new things for her students to do. This show is called Machines of Memory Boxes, featuring student artwork inspired by the work of Joseph Zirker, which was shown at the MAH last fall.

Finally, the new downtown offices of Cruzio (in the building formerly known as the Sentinel) is open for business and participating in FFAT for the first time. Five artists affiliated with the UCSC Digital Arts and New Media MFA program are staging a tech-based installation (sound, light, video and sculpture) in the Cruzio workshop for a First Night "interactive artistic experience." Okay, fine, but if you're like me, you just want to know what's been going on in that space for the last two years. Will some vestigial spirit of the old Sentinel printing press come thrumming through the fiberoptics into the new media? Drop in 5-9 pm Friday night and pick up the vibe.

POST OSCAR POST

Due to popular demand (thanks, Annie!), here's a peek at my 2011 Oscar Barbies. It was such an uninspiring group of nominees, costume-wise (all modern women in contemporary clothes, yawn...) that I almost didn't bother. But I decided to do Natalie Portman in Black Swan because I just happen to have a 50-year-old Barbie ballerina outfit in my possession, and when will I ever have another chance to use it?

Once I got into the spirit of the thing, I didn't want to be rude and leave anyone out, so here's the rest of the Best Actress lineup. Most of them anyway; I opted not to do Nicole Kidman, since I didn't see Rabbit Hole. Instead, I added Melissa Leo in The Fighter, in all her trampy glory. (Clutching a pair of boxing gloves that I happened to have left over from an old Hilary Swank, Million Dollar Baby Barbie.)

To the far side of the "Oscar," that's Annette Bening in The Kids Are All Right, Jennifer Lawrence's mountain girl in the frigid Ozarks in Winter's Bone, and Michelle Williams as the embittered young wife in Blue Valentine. Like I said, not much to work with this year, but, hey, it keeps me off the streets and out of trouble.

My favorite real-life, grown-up outfit at the Oscars this year? Annette Bening's beaded, Art Deco-patterned metallic number in shades of black and silver. Okay, she missed out on the Oscar she deserved, but she gets my vote for the coolest dress—sort of a cross between slinky Fortuny glam and Robot Maria (from Metropolis). And this is absolutely the last thing I have to say about the Oscars for the rest of the year. Promise.

FEARLESS OR CLUELESS?

Speaking of the Oscars, if you have any serious money riding on the outcome, check out my fearless predictions in this week's Good Times. In the meantime, here's the no-frills version:

BEST PICTURE: The King's Speech. This is fine with me, impeccable as it is in every way, although I'd love to see Toy Story 3 win.

BEST DIRECTOR: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech.

BEST ACTOR: Colin Firth, The King's Speech. And good for him; he's always great. My favorite? Javier Bardem, Biutiful.

BEST ACTRESS: Natalie Portman, Black Swan. No power of earth can stop her in this category, but damn if I can figure out why. My favorite? Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christian Bale, The Fighter, well-deserved in a very strong field.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Melissa Leo, The Fighter. Oscar loves a lady who transforms into a tramp. My favorite? Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech.

Fearless or clueless? Find out Sunday night. As usual, should these prognostications fail to pan out, I'll be here next week to deny I ever made them.

IN STITCHES

In Oscar season, it's all about the clothes

Look at this cool website I just discovered! For the last 17 years, the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in Los Angeles has hosted an annual exhibit of the year's best movie costumes during Oscar season (February-April). The exhibit is not limited to the year's Best Costume nominees (although they are included), but covers films of all genres and budgets for an annual look at the most interesting onscreen clothes. (That's Arwen's coronation gown, designed by Oscar winner Ngila Dickson, and worn by Liv Tyler in The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King, in situ at the FIDM exhibit from 2004.)

This years exhibit (costumes from 20+ movies from 2010, including all five Oscar nominees, up close and personal) runs through April 30. But for those of us not heading south anytime soon, the FIDM website provides a virtual online archive of its movie costume exhibitions. Not all of them; this year's and last year's exhibits are not yet online. Exhibits from 1997 and 1998 are represented only by a few fuzzy still photos. But from 1999 through 2009, the online collections expand to numerous photos images (many in drool-worthy detail) of an astonishing variety of films—the Elizabeth movies; the Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean trilogies; Julie Taymor movies (Titus and Frida); Tim Burton movies; Austin Powers movies; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Moulin Rouge; The Girl With the Pearl Earring; Chicago; Shakespeare In Love, and, well, the list goes on and on.

My only complaint is the lack of consistency on the site. In some featured years, only costumes from the five nominated films are online, while another year might feature costumes from 20 films or more. And no two of these online exhibits are organized exactly the same way; you have to do a lot of scrolling around and searching for appropriate buttons to access all the displays. Some have drop-down menus, others pop-up windows (the 2008 exhibit is only represented by a video featurette, where you can hardly see the clothes at all), but in most cases, if you can find and follow the prompt arrows, or the words "Enter" or "View," you'll probably see it all eventually. And it's worth seeing, especially the 2000 gallery, which features a side exhibit of costumes and accessories from the previous 100 years of film, from Fred Astaire's elegant dancing shoes to Sharon Stone's rude little white dress from Basic Instinct.

And let's face it, at Oscar time, it's all about the clothes. Me, I'm as much a sucker for the clothes worn to the ceremony as the clothes worn onscreen, so at this Sunday's Oscarcast (ABC, 5 p.m.), I'll brave the inevitable blithering of the TV interviewers to catch the red carpet fashion parade during the pre-game show. After all, by the time the actual ceremony rolls around, there aren't going to be that many surprises onstage, so we depend on the red carpet to deliver the drama.

My all-time favorite Oscar dress? Probably that luscious, faux-Edwardian teal green number that Kate Winslet wore the year she didn't win the Oscar for Titanic. To my amazement, this dress churned up a lot of controversy; self-appointed fashion Nazis lambasted it as too weird or matronly or something (this no doubt from the same pundits who used to complain that Kate Winslet—Kate Winslet, fer crying out loud!— was fat). But I just thought it was stunning, in a funky-chic retro way. After all, it's not like she showed up with a dead swan draped around her neck. (Which reminds me: I wonder what Natalie Portman will wear this year?)

You want to know how demented I am about the Oscars? For years, I've paid my own homage to the art of movie costuming by dressing up my vintage Barbie dolls as the Best Actress nominees. It began as something I did as a lark to spruce up the place back when Art Boy and I used to throw lavish Oscar Night parties, but then I started getting into the challenge of the thing. (You try transforming a Barbie doll into Kathy Bates in Misery. I dare you!) We don't throw those big parties any more, but I still find it therapeutic now and then, in a non-verbal, Zen sort of way, to costume the occasional doll.

Nominees in big, juicy, historical epics are the most fun to dress, of course; I was delirious the year both Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare In Love, and Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth were in the running.

Not that the 20th Century can't be interesting too. This was my tribute to the nominees from the lurid '50s melodrama of Far From Heaven, the sassy, Depression-era '30s of Chicago, and the bohemian '20s and '30s of Frida.

And sometimes, it's all about the props, like the year Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis were both nominated for Thelma and Louise.

The Best Actor costumes are rarely as much fun, but I made an exception for Captain Jack Sparrow. I had to go to Goodwill and pop two bucks for a recycled Ken doll, but seriously, Ken never looked better.

So kids, in the spirit of this year's Best Picture nominee, Toy Story 3, the moral is, never throw your toys away. Recycle them to the Goodwill instead. You never know what sort of swashbuckling afterlife is waiting for them there!

CAT TALES

This just in from Julian Soler at the Santa Cruz Film Festival. A new film sure to be dear to the hearts of anyone who's lived in Santa Cruz for longer than about four minutes will have its World Premiere at this year's fest (May 5 to 14). The Catalyst is a feature-length documentary devoted to the life and times—and, of course, the music—of that most venerated and enduring local nightclub, put together by two local folks who probably know the subject better than anyone. Producer Dean Newbury was the Catalyst booking agent for years, during the proprietorship of the late Randall Kane (whom Newbury refers to as his "father figure"). Director Michèle Benson is herself something of a Santa Cruz institution as longtime court photographer/historian/archivist at the Cat, as well as my colleague at Good Times for many years.

Ten years in the making, the film is dedicated to preserving the funky/hip spirit of the Cat, as envisioned by Kane, who shepherded the place from bohemian '60s coffeehouse/hangout to A-list music venue. Interviews with the always-quotable Kane and various staff alumnae will be combined with rare, painstakingly-unearthed concert footage of such Catalyst headliners as Neil Young, Patti Smith, Nirvana, The Doobie Brothers, Greg Kihn, Tina Turner, The Tubes—well, the list goes on and on. Since basically everybody has played the Cat, from Alanis Morissette to The Zutons, my mind is literally boggling as we speak just imagining what sort of musical treasures Benson and Newbury might have turned up. Check out the film's tasty trailer and get the vibe.

According to my friend Mary Offermann, you know you're a real Santa Cruz old-timer when you can remember all the previous businesses that used to be in this or that downtown retail space. (Remember when Kianti's was the original Pretty Mama's? Remember when the Walnut Avenue Cafe was The Old Theatre Cafe? Remember when the Gap building housed Woolworth's?) Those of us who have been here forever still think of the club's current Pacific Avenue location as "the new Catalyst." When I first arrived as a dewy coed in the early '70s, we used to hang out at the "old" Catalyst under the St.George Hotel. The main entrance was on Front Street, or you could take the scenic route, a surreal stroll from Pacific Avenue through the St. George lobby and into the atrium, with its skylights and burbling fountain (pictured above). The bar was sandwiched in there somewhere, en route to the erm, intimate stage and dance floor over on the Front Street side of the floor plan. There, my best friend, Jan, and I frittered away many happy hours. Among my most cherished Cat memories? Dancing the night away to Oganookie, Annie Steinhart on fiddle, gearing up for the last raucous crescendo of "The Orange Blossom Special." Go visit The Catalyst movie website and jump-start your own!

(All images © 2010 All Access Productions, LLC.)

And btw, speaking of SCFF, they will still be accepting film submissions for this year's fest through next Friday, February 25. Click here to read all the details, or find out about Festival Passes.

SPELLBOUND

Good news for fans of the esoteric: one of my all-time favorite movies is coming this weekend to the Aptos Weekend Matinee Classics series!

Maybe you had to be an impressionable teenager, like I was, when the movie Black Orpheus (Orfeu Negro) first cast its simmering spell over me. I seem to remember watching it in a classroom, probably in 16mm, on one of those rickety, square pop-up screens, so it was probably with the after-hours movie club I joined in high school. But I've never forgotten the impact of this moody, romantic 1959 update of the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice with the pulsing samba beat.

Set in vibrant Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval, it's about a guitar-strumming young bus conductor, Orfeu (Breno Mello) who falls in love with Eurydice (the beauteous Marpessa Dawn), newly arrived in Rio. But her past catches up to her in the lurid figure of Death during the riotous Carnaval parade, and Orfeu must literally descend into a kind of hellish underworld to reclaim the woman he loves.

Shot in Portuguese by French filmmaker Marcel Camus, the story is set to a propulsive score by Luis Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim, introducing their hip samba fusion music to the world. The haunting "Manha de Carnaval," soon to spark the entire bossa nova craze of the early '60s, was the theme song from Black Orpheus. An international hit, it won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Picture. None of which made any difference to me; all I knew was I absolutely loved this movie to pieces when I saw it back in my misspent youth. Will it hold up after all these years? Let's find out this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, 10:45 a.m. at Aptos. Prepare to be swept away!

(Breno Mello and Marpessa Dawn in Black Orpheus, and, yes, the movie is in color.)

CRITICAL MASS

Just remember, if you go see Black Orpheus on Saturday, you can also come see Bruce Bratton, Wallace Baine and moi at the Nickelodeon on Sunday for our annual slugfest, oops, I mean discussion of the movies of 2010. Back in the day, when Morton Marcus was leading his bi-monthly film discussion group at the Nick, we all used to convene for a year-end wrap-up of our favorite (and otherwise) films of the year in January, followed by a pre-Oscars discussion the week, before the Academy Awards.

Nowadays, we streamline the event into a single, annual mash-up of opinions. Yes, we'll cover what the three of us predict will win the Oscars (along with what SHOULD win, often two entirely different things) when the Academy Awards are handed out next Sunday, February 27. But Wallace, Bruce, and I also reveal what our personal favorite films of the year were and tell you why we liked them. (Handouts of our respective Top Ten titles will be provided, in case you want to rush home and enter them in your queue.) But it's not all about us; we also want to hear about the films you liked (or not) this year. Here's your chance to tell the critics what YOU think! So hie thee down to the Nick, this Sunday (Feb 20), 11 a.m. Turn off your cell phone and join the conversation!

WHAT'S THE STORY?

Okay, it took us a couple of months to catch up with the clay and glass show at the MAH, but, boy, is it worth seeing. Presented upstairs in the Solari Gallery, this selection of work from members of the Association of Clay and Glass Artists of California (ACGA) offers a compelling and inspirational assortment of pieces from both statewide and local artists. Work on view ranges from vessels and vases to totems and installations, with every conceivable kind of abstract, figurative, functional, and sculptural artwork in between.

Me, I'm drawn to the figurative, as you probably know by now if you read my posts on Zimbabwe sculpture and other recent art shows. Maybe it's the storyteller in me, but in 3D art as well as painting, I like threading my way through the implied narrative when figures take center stage. So pardon my bias, but the most exciting discovery for me at the ACGA show is Bay Area ceramicist Fred Yokel. His sly, whimsical sculptural vignette, "The Build," is the highlight of the show for both Art Boy and me. It was love at first sight; one look, and our eyes were bugging out of our heads like a Tex Avery cartoon.

In this piece, a monumental human form is being constructed out of stone blocks by four or five small worker drones; they're still bustling about the litter of blocks at its feet, trying to fill in the last couple of open spaces in the form. Are they constructing a man-shaped temple to their god? A ceremonial effigy? A Trojan Man? It's all in the perspective. I like to think of these little guys as a person's various inner selves, caught in the act of assembling the complete individual, the sum of all their parts. Or not. That's the cool thing about art, it's open to endless interpretations. Feel free to make up your own.

Evidently, Yokel is well known for a series he calls "Jestures," playful figures of monumental-seeming proportions, yet small format (the central character in "The Build" is only about two feet tall) in expressive poses. Yokel's other piece in the MAH show, the delightful "Woody: Ancient Artifact," captures this spirit, a breezy little character brilliantly textured and painted to resemble carved wood.

I've rhapsodized about local clay artists Coeleen Kiebert and Peggy Snider before; both of them have dynamic pieces in the show. So does Tom Wolver, whose "Contemplation" features a brooding "Thinker"-like character with a typically Wolverian, jackal-headed demon laughing over his shoulder.

Among other intriguing out-of-town artists I "discovered" at this show is Natasha Dikareva. I love her "Shell Dweller" (above) with its poignant little human face emerging from the organic cocoon of the shell. I was also drawn to Vicki Gunter's "The Reading Chair," an evocative ceramic representation of a stuffed, saggy old armchair covered in flowered chintz. The object itself is one thing, but the story that goes with it (written out in the artist's attached note), about memories of the old family chair she crawled into as a child to hear stories, completes the narrative in the most fitting way—with the written word. Another piece I found weirdly haunting was "Legerdemain," by Charlene Doiron Reinhart, which celebrates the idea of sleight-of-hand with four tiers of digits unfolding from each other like the petals of a rose. (Don't forget to peek around at the back of this piece for the punch line.)

This is just a teeny, tiny sampling of the work on view at the MAH show. (And by the way, I think it's great that the MAH now regularly features local artists in its exhibits, after so many years as mainly a venue for traveling art shows from elsewhere. Big kudos to Susan Hillhouse and her staff for finding ways to bring both local artwork and traveling shows to the party.) No matter what your personal bias, there's much to inspire you here. The ACGA show runs through March 13, so there's still plenty of time to go get the story.

TIME'S WINGÉD CHARIOT

Heads up, kids! Here come two great movies you need to go see right away. As usual, some of the best films of the old year are just now trickling down onto local screens, and opening tomorrow are two of the best of 2010, either one (or both) of which I might have put on my personal Top Ten if only I'd seen them in time. Very different kinds of films, each deals with the passage of time with compassion and urgency.

How long is long enough to save the world? Even the miniscule portion of your immediate world where you might actually be able to make an impact? This is the dilemma faced by the hard-luck protagonist played with furious grace by the great Javier Bardem in Biutiful, a man clawing a living out of the urban underbelly of Barcelona who discovers he has only a short time left to straighten out his messy life for the sake of his beloved children. Brooding and heartfelt, it's a dark, yet tender vision of life on the fringe from the always provocative Alejandro González Iñárritu. (Read more.)

(High Hopes)

Here's the thing about Mike Leigh. From the very first of his films that I saw, the irrepressible High Hopes, in 1988, I knew that he and I were on the same wavelength. This most passionate bard of Britain's working class has always been a champion of the disenfranchised, with a dry, often scathing wit coupled with a huge heart for the human condition.

High Hopes is a blisteringly funny look at class warfare and family ties in Margaret Thatcher's England. At its heart is a scruffy young, leftist couple in the Kings Cross district of London; she's a nurturing earth-mother, he's a disappointed Marxist always railing scornfully (in unprintable but hilarious terms) about the evils of government by the corporate rich. Sadly, not much has changed in the world since then, except that the corporate stranglehold is even more severe and the plight of the lower classes even more desperate.

Leigh's absolutely wonderful new film, Another Year, could be about the same couple, 25 years later. Indeed, the same marvelous actress, Ruth Sheen, plays the wife in both films, and in both cases, she is the wry, good-humored, compassionate soul of the story. This time out, she's paired with the great Jim Broadbent; he's Tom, a geologist bursting with sly wit and bonhomie who does not suffer fools gladly, but most of the time just manages to keep a lid on his snarky opinions. Sheen plays his wife, Gerri, a caring mental health counselor at the local hospital. They live in a comfy brick flat north of London, but spend most of their free time at the neighborhood "allotment," an open plot of land where they tend their garden of vegetables and herbs. Their marriage has been long and happy, produced one droll and loving son (Oliver Maltman), and they still spend all their free time together, cooking, gardening, laughing, and hanging out.

Things have not worked out so well for their friends, most of them alone or unhappily wed, miserable in their jobs, dissatisfied with themselves, and no longer able to ignore the grim fact that life is passing them by. Time, not politics, is the enemy this time around, and the film takes place over the seasonal cycles of one year, from spring through winter, as time's wingéd chariot inevitably whooshes onward. (When Gerri comments on the book he's reading in bed, Tom dryly observes, "I never liked history in school, but the older I get, the more relevant it seems.")

But Tom and Gerri have faced life's challenges and made something of their lives together. The delicate tension wrought by Leigh in the film comes from the desperation with which their misfortunate friends are lured to the nurturing flame of their happiness and stability. Chief among these is Lesley Manville in a fearless and devastating performance as Mary, a lonely, long-divorced secretary at Gerri's hospital clinging to the memory of youth with her too-revealing clothes and too-brittle perkiness, who keeps pushing the boundaries, desperately trying to upgrade from work mate to surrogate family status. Peter Wight plays Tom's old school chum, also divorced, compulsively gorging himself on food, drink, and cigarettes to fill up the emptiness inside. (His neighborhood pubs are now "full of young people, talking about nothing!" he complains.) Tom's elderly old codger of a brother, Ronnie (David Bradley, best known as sinister Hogwarts groundskeeper Filch in the Harry Potter movies), is a new widower reduced to near catatonia, with an explosively angry son.

(David Bradley and Lesley Manville)

Leigh famously workshops his story ideas with his cast to arrive at a script, and there's not a false syllable in the entire movie. Every conversation, however fragmented, has the ache and vitality of real life, as well as every potent glance, and all the things that remain unspoken as these characters face up to life's disappointments. And the movie teems with sudden, breathtaking insights; when Mary talks to Ronnie about the music they loved as kids—The Beatles and Elvis—we realize this is what's become of the generation that was going to change the world back in 1968.

Working with his longtime cinematographer Dick Pope to replicate the changing seasons within a rigorous eight-week shooting schedule, Leigh also masters the look of the film as the year and his dramatic themes evolve. As vibrant as their kitchen is, with its warm, curry-colored walls and vivid tiles, the same interior looks washed out and cold in a later, winter scene when Tom and Gerri are not in it.

Despite the wistful melancholy of its theme, this is a delicious, savvy, and resonant film, peppered with irreverent wit and real feeling. Do not miss it.

(Trivia note: look out for Phil Davis—Sheen's co-star in High Hopes, pictured above—in a cameo in Another Year as a guest at a backyard BBQ.)

SINS OF OMISSION

Sorry, but I'm not one of those people who gets all worked up about Oscar's sins of omission. I know my personal taste in movies is way off in the outer limits of mainstream Hollywood culture, so I never expect the movies I like best in any given year to even be in the running, let alone win gold. Imagine my shock in 2009 when my second-favorite film of the previous year, Slumdog Millionaire, actually won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I figured either the Academy was getting smarter or I was getting more lenient in my dotage. Or Door Number Three: the Academy had been taken over by aliens, still the most logical explanation.

(What beat out Slumdog for my favorite movie of 2008? It was the magnificent The Fall, which went on to rank #3 in my Top Ten Movies of the Decade, although—surprise!—it received zero recognition from Academy voters.)

So I have to say that this year's Oscar nominations are at least (and at best) par for the course. This year's safe, "Masterpiece Theatre" entry, The King's Speech, cleans up in nominations—as well it might, excellent as it is in every department. Expanding the Best Picture category to 10 titles gives the Academy a chance to recognize some smaller, dark horse contenders that might formerly have slipped through the cracks at awards time (like the equally excellent—in its own, weird way—Winter's Bone), although we all know the five serious contenders are those whose directors are also nominated in their category. With the addition of Toy Story 3D, that places three of my personal 10 favorite movies of the year on Oscar's list—a pretty remarkable average, all things considered. (Hmmm ... maybe the Academy IS getting smarter...)

(Btw: conventional wisdom says that TS3D won't win because it's also up for Best Animated Feature, which it IS sure to win. Apropos of which, don't miss Wallace Baine's impassioned article calling on the Academy to disband the Animated Feature category and let the worthy animated films duke it out with the live action features. Good point, sez I. It's the message, not the medium; a beguiling film like TS3D (like the utterly wonderful Up last year, also nominated for Best Picture) is equal in emotional resonance, wit, and heart to any other film on the list—and superior to most.)

By now, we all know how often Oscar accolades are cumulative, honoring a body of work (think of John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn, or Paul Newman in The Color of Money, or Martin Scorsese for, erm, The Departed?). Or at least retroactive. Don't get me wrong, Heath Ledger deserved every inch of Oscar gold he won for his breathtaking Joker in The Dark Knight, but you know the Academy was suffering a collective case of (posthumous) bestowers' remorse over not having awarded him the Best Actor Oscar he so richly deserved for Brokeback Mountain a couple of years earlier. The retroactive factor is the primary reason we can expect to see Colin Firth claim the gold this year for The King's Speech, after his fine performance last year in A Single Man lost out to Jeff Bridges—who was winning HIS well-deserved cumulative award for Crazy Heart. (How Bridges himself managed to evade Oscar recognition for so long in such incredible performances as Fearless, and Starman remains one of the great mysteries of the age. Not to mention his criminally un-nominated performance as the scruffy, disorderly children's book author/artist in The Door in the Floor in 2004. He even did his own artwork!)

(Jeff Bridges in The Door in the Floor. Go stream it this minute!)

I'm convinced the main reason Johnny Depp was getting all those nominations for awhile (Finding Neverland; Sweeney Todd) was because Oscar voters neglected to hand him the gold after nominating him for Best Actor in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I'm serious! Nothing against Sean Penn (who won that year for Mystic River), but any great actor can act. What Depp did was create a classic and enduring movie icon, virtually out of whole cloth. Captain Jack Sparrow as we know him was not conceived in the script or out of the director's vision; he sprang as fully-formed as Athena out of the fervid, goofball imagination of Johnny Depp.

But I digress. Despite my habitually lowered expectations, there is one especially glaring omission among this year's Oscar nominees that can neither be ignored nor rationalized away. The category is Best Actress, and, Academy voters, I have two little words to say to you: Noomi Rapace. She is, of course, the woman who played Lisbeth Salander in all three of the "Millenium Trilogy" movies released this year: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Yes, the films and the performance are in Swedish, but that doesn't stop the incendiary Rapace from giving the iconic female movie performance of the year. It might be argued that the part itself is so iconic, half the actress' work is done for her, but an actress with one iota less of Rapace's guts, sass, vulnerability and smoldering righteousness could never have brought it off. Oscar voters, what were you thinking?

On the other hand, it's nice to see Christian Bale moving into the frontrunner's position in the Supporting Actor race. Although his career trajectory put him on the fast track for leading man roles early on, he's always been a character actor at heart, with a taste for the edgy. (How about his self-imploding insomniac in The Machinist, or downed Air Force pilot Dieter Dengler in Rescue Dawn? And what other actor would even consider American Psycho?) He's paid his Hollywood superhero dues as well, but he's savvy enough to know you don't win Oscars for playing Batman; you win them for playing The Joker. Bale gets his juicy Joker role in The Fighter, as a jittery, crack-addled ex-boxer running on the fumes of a once-promising life (and career), and he makes something pretty amazing out of it.

Finally, in the Heath Ledger Memorial "What's A Guy Gotta Do To Get An Oscar Around Here?" category, consider Christopher Nolan. It's one thing that he's not nominated for directing Inception, one of the year's most intriguing thrill rides (although the film itself made it on to Oscar's Top 10). But neither Nolan nor his phenomenal Memento was even nominated back in 2002. In both cases, Nolan at least snagged a screenwriting nomination (impossibly, he didn't win for the intricate and audacious Memento, losing to the safe bet, Gosford Park), but come on, kids, these movies don't direct themselves.

PS: If you want to see where the next generation of Christopher Nolans is coming from, drop by Open Projector Night on Thursday (Feb 3), 5-8 pm at the Vino Tabi Winery in the Swift Street Courtyard out on the West Side. Presented under the auspices of the Santa Cruz Film Festival, it's a chance for budding filmmakers to bring their short films (10 minutes or less) to show on a big screen before an appreciative audience. No entrance fee; first come, first screened. There'll be wine, munchies, and camaraderie; here's the lowdown.