Hollywood Progressive

The Past Is a Grotesque Animal Review

Ed Rampell — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 04:13:37 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive Don’t cry for me, Argentina The REDCAT is known for its experimental theatre, which can be hit or miss. The Past is a Grotesque Animal is one of this stage’s better productions, and is being presented for a short time only by Argentina’s Grupo Marea. A series of witty and poignant vignettes, Grotesque is sort [...] The Past Is a Grotesque Animal Review

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George Clooney Wins Progie Lifetime Achievement Award

Ed Rampell — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 03:52:07 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive Progie Awards Honor Outstanding Films and Artists of Conscience and Consciousness Los Angeles, Feb. 24, 2012 – George Clooney has won The Sergei Progie, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the James Agee Cinema Circle’s fifth annual “Progie” Awards for Best Progressive Films and Filmmakers of 2012. A Better Life, a film about Latino immigrants, has won The Trumbo [...] George Clooney Wins Progie Lifetime Achievement Award

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Channeling Nico in Silverlake

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:04:54 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive If you wandered into the Bootleg Theater in Silverlake last Thursday night just before 9, you would have seen about 50 mostly middle-aged people sitting at scratched-up bar tables laughing and drinking, interrupted suddenly by six musicians, also mainly middle-aged, who joked as they entered the room, stepped onto a crowded old stage, and set [...] Channeling Nico in Silverlake

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I’m Not a Playa; I Just Rap a Lot

Derrick N Ashong — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:09:33 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive In the opening weeks of the Million Download Campaign, we’ve had a ton of questions about what we’re doing, how we’re doing it & why. Thus far I’ve tried to break down some of the basic economics of the record business as well as the thinking behind the idea of open source music. We’ve even touched on why artists do what [...] I’m Not a Playa; I Just Rap a Lot

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Tanness, Anyone? Oscars and the Bronze Beauties

Walter M. Brasch — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:52:47 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive It’s the end of February, and one of my friends is still sporting a summer tan. I know it’s phony—and she knows I know it’s phony—but I have long ago stopped teasing her about it. In her never-ending quest to appear to be beautiful and healthy, she has slathered skin tanning lotion into every pore of her [...] Tanness, Anyone? Oscars and the Bronze Beauties

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Dark Knight: Dick Cheney in the Global War on Terror

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:48:43 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive Of all the members of the Bush administration, none has generated as much controversy as Richard B. Cheney. In his memoir “In My Time,” the former vice president defends his support for numerous controversial policy decisions, including the invasion of Iraq and the authorization of waterboarding, which numerous military, intelligence and political officials, including Attorney General [...] Dark Knight: Dick Cheney in the Global War on Terror

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Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

Ed Rampell — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:39:15 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive Widely perceived as a hoity-toity elite art form for the 1%, opera often gets a bum rap as stuffed shirts’ sonic sphere, but Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra (based on a similarly named historical figure) gives the lie to this cliché. Marx and Engels wrote in 1848’s Communist Manifesto that “the history of all hitherto existing [...] Simon Boccanegra: Who Let the Doge Out?

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Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

Ed Rampell — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 02:29:15 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive The Pan African Film and Arts Festival is for Black-themed movies what the Panama and Suez Canals are for international shipping: A vital gateway for the transshipment of, in PAFF’s case, film culture. Here are two examples — a challenging documentary and an Oscar nominated animated feature. Dark Girls Bill Duke is best known to [...] Pan African Film Festival: Duke’s Doc and Adult Animation

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Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

Randy Shaw — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:45:15 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive I have always loved the sight of old painted advertising signs on the sides of buildings. Such murals bring history alive, revealing once popular but now forgotten cultural products. In 1997, Frank Jump decided to begin photographing New York City’s fading advertising murals. Jump made photographing old murals his life work after being diagnosed in [...] Seductive Power of Fading Advertising Signs

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And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

Michael Sigman — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:32:13 +0000

From the Hollywood Progressive Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions. – Albert Einstein I’m no Buddhist. (Then again, neither was the Buddha.) But you don’t have to meditate to see that in satisfying our innate desire to make lists, [...] And Now for Something Completely Indifferent

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