MARY POPPINS RETURNS; PUSSY RIOT PERFORMS
Thanks to KCRW’s Partner Screenings, LACMA and Disney, I was treated to a screening of “Mary Poppins Returns” at LACMA’s Bing Auditorium. There’s just one thing you need to do when you go to see this movie: Surrender. To the fantasy. To the sweetness. To the joy. Let it wash over you…just stop thinking and enjoy. It’s simply wonderful. We all wish we could find our child’s sense of wonder again and this film restores it, if only for a few hours.
It’s hard to believe that Emily Blunt’s range as an actress extends from Rachel Watson, the seriously drunk and paranoid woman she plays in “The Girl on the Train,” to the comedic skills she demonstrates with Jason Segal in “The Five Year Engagement” and now this magical reincarnation of a beloved children’s icon, Mary Poppins. And she can sing and dance, too!
I never read the book, nor did I see the original movie (shocking I know), although I did attend a wonderful stage adaptation of Mary Poppins. So I had some grounds for understanding that this Mary appears at just the right moment to help the same Banks children she saved before (in a different body, i.e. Julie Andrews). Michael (Ben Whishaw) and his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer), now both adults, are in extreme need of rescue. Michael’s wife has died, he’s trying to keep the family together, he is failing and is about to lose their family home.
Blunt is utterly convincing. Whishaw is more than sympathetic. The three children are each appealing in their own ways and you’ll have a hard time not pulling out a hanky when Mary first sings “The Place Where Lost Things Go” and later when the children sing it to their Dad. Oh, and by the way, Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame) gets a starring role too, along with a Mary Poppins version of a hip-hop song. And bonus points: Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke make cameo appearances.
This one’s going to be a holiday favorite for many years to come. It’s playing in wide release all over town.
BERGAMOT ART STATION
This week I also attended the Bergamot Art Station winter open house, taking note of a couple of galleries’ offerings.
Nothing comes close to the awe inspired by Peter Fetterman’s gallery of fine art photographs. “Toujours Paris” showcases French humanist photography, images of everyday post-war life, all in black and white. Whether capturing a moment in the life of the city, couples kissing, architectural highlights, or portraits of artists, these images are simply outstanding.
Henri Cartier-Bresson’s images of cubist artist George Braque moving through a gallery and Henri Matisse, surrounded by leaves in the middle of a garden, capture something of the soul of these two painters.
There’s a stunning image by Marc Ribout of a painter on the Eiffel Tower looking like Fred Astaire dancing on a ladder. And some hauntingly moody works by Sabine Weiss feature a couple kissing in a window above a restaurant, two empty chairs in the snow at the foot of the Eiffel Tower and a man lighting a cigarette on the street on a very foggy night.
Fetterman’s curatorial eye is as tasteful as his appreciation for the classic artists of photography. The exhibition is on view through February 23.
Lia Skidmore Contemporary Art
The ceramic works in Shalene Valenzuela’s “Home State” look as if they are everyday objects that she repurposed and painted over. But here’s the thing: they’re ceramic! I didn’t understand that while I was admiring her toasters, her vacuum cleaners, her potholders. Now that I know I’m even more impressed.
She “slipcasts,” a technique for molding clay around existing objects and then applies her sense of irony in cartoon-ish style illustrations featuring women in her hand-painted imagery. It’s clever, colorful and even meaningful. Here is part of her artist’s statement about the works on view: “Stylistically, my imagery is pulled from somewhat dated sources that represent an idealized time in society and advertising. Beneath the shiny veneer of these relics hides a complex and sometimes contradicting truth of what things seem to appear as upon first glance.”
You’ll have till January 5 to be blown away at Lia Skidmore Contemporary Art at Bergamot Art Station.
BIG NEWS FROM THE BROAD STAGE
Grab your pink pussy hat and get yourself to the box office ASAP because the notorious Pussy Riot is coming to the Broad Stage!
Pussy Riot—Vladimir Putin’s least favorite female activist performance art collective—will do a special live performance on February 11, the second of a two-part evening. In collaboration with Sotheby’s Institute of Art, The Broad Stage is presenting an ARTISTS TALK featuring Pussy Riot Founding Member Nadya Tolokonnikova, and renowned street and design artist Shepard Fairey, celebrated photographer Catherine Opie and conceptual artist Tavares Strachan in conversation about “Artists, Activism, Agency.”
These internationally-renowned artists will have a wide-ranging discussion on how they see their work pushing boundaries at a time of great political and social resistance. To join them; click on http://thebroadstage.org/artiststalk2019
Sarah A. Spitz is an award-winning public radio producer, now retired from KCRW, where she also produced arts stories for NPR. She writes features and reviews for various print and online publications.
