For the third free outdoors concert of the summer season tonight at 7, the Culver City Music Festival is dramatically changing the cadence and the sound from last weeks Brazilian rhythms.
For two hours, Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys will entertain the audience with rockabilly music in the Courtyard of City Hall, 9770 Culver Blvd.
Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite Boys have been a touchstone in the roots music scene in the U.S. since 1988.
Tonight at 7 in the Courtyard of City Hall, Katia Moraes and Sambaguru perform a repertoire of sizzling Brazilian music with Asian and African influences in the second weekly concert in the Culver City Music Festival series.
Presented by the Redevelopment Agency and produced by Gary Mandell of Boulevard Music and the city of Culver City, the eight-week Thursday night series features the best of world music and the best of Americas musical sounds and styles.
The Actors Gang production of Gullivers Travels, it has to be said, is a masterful cornucopia of stage effects and innovative production techniques. Shadow theatre, puppetry, zany and elaborate costuming; there are no brakes on the imagination put into visualizing the fantastical places Lemuel Gulliver visits throughout his voyages.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Sometimes, the best thing that can happen to a story is a movie.
In this fifth outing, we join Harry (Radcliffe) as he struggles to deal with the return of Lord Voldemort, a struggle made all the more complicated by a fascist politics-driven takeover of the school by the Ministry of Magics sickeningly cutesy yet malevolent Dolores Umbridge (Staunton). Even worse are nightmares pointing to a disturbing mental connection with Voldemort himself. And amidst all of this is the continuing story of Harrys coming-of-age, which includes his very sweet, and naturally confusing, first kiss.
Summer is about to become official.
The popular Culver City Music Festival free concerts in the courtyard of City Hall returns tonight with a slimmed-down season schedule of eight Thursday evenings at 7, through the end of August.
Nostalgia is the theme for Opening Night.
The Surf City All-Stars will kick off a spirited summer series that will spotlight Culver Citys favorite musical genres, rock, Brazilian, swing, Gypsy Jazz and Cuban.
Its interesting to note that Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer has an overall freshness rating of 37 percent at rottentomatoes.com. Interesting, but perhaps not surprising given how the first film in the superhero franchise wasnt a critical love-fest, either.
To be sure, the films script opens itself up to nitpicks. Doctor Doom, played with deliciously villainous panache by Julian McMahon, is presented here less as the threatening super villain he is supposed to be than as a mere nuisance in a cool suit of armor. On the philosophical side of things, scriptwriters Don Payne and Mark Frost choose a curiously army of one solution to the threats faced by the Fantastic Four, a dissatisfying choice that is incongruous in a film ostensibly about the value of family and teamwork. That this solution is based on a plot twist thrown in more for comedic effect than because the story calls for it does not count as a feather in the cap.
After launching a new exhibition, More Than Meets the Eye, on Tuesday, The Artists Gallery in Santa Monica will host an Artists Reception at 5 p.m. on Saturday for the featured photographic artists, Karen Florek, Jesse Welles Nathan and Melisa Sharpe.
Of Flashlights and Brushes
A couch. Darkness. A person.
These are the basic elements of Light Therapy, Ms. Sharpes adventurous departure from black and white into color photography.
I don’t know how literal the book series’ film translation is – I grew up with the Hardy Boys – but it’s hard to imagine that the movie isn’t at least true in spirit to the iconic young adult mystery series. In any case, “Nancy Drew” stands on its own as film for which “family friendly” isn’t the kiss of the death for older filmgoers.
"The New Girl", a short film produced by Lin Howe Elementary School students, recently earned Best of Show honors at the statewide Student Media & Multimedia Festival, the nation’s oldest festival for student media and multimedia work, which annually recognizes the best films produced by students.
The premiere featuring the short films of the school’s fourth- and fifth-grade students will take place at 7 this evening at The Culver Studios.
“Ocean’s 13” continues the tradition of Soderbergh-designed heist thrillers that began so enthusiastically with “Ocean’s 11” and continued with “Ocean’s 12.” Of course, thriller doesn’t refer to the creepy chills and bite-your-nails-off suspense psycho-horror films aim for. Rather, this is the more innocent thrill of a roller-coaster movie that sizzles with a jackpot-winning cast clearly having fun, a script bursting with wit, and stylish direction that drips with cool. Comedy, drama and plenty of how-will-they-get-out-of-that moments, all add up to a movie’s movie, a smart escapist affair of pure entertainment.
