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Theater

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Mark Watters Team with Disney for Animated Shorts Program, Featuring New Score, Print for "Sorcerer's Apprentice"

On Saturday, June 13, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will present "LACO @ the Movies: Celebrating Walt Disney Animation Studios." It'll be a glorious evening of scores and eye-popping animation spanning more than 80 years, performed live with six-time Emmy-winning composer Mark Watters inside the Ace Hotel--that gorgeous Spanish gothic movie theater in the heart of L.A.'s theater district.
  • Harry Treadaway of Showtime's 'Penny Dreadful' Breathes Life Into Dr. Frankenstein Not with Joy Division, Brothers of the Head or Lizardsun...But Glenn Gould?

    Harry Treadaway stars as the fabled Mary Shelley character Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Showtime's 'Penny Dreadful,' alongside big 'Black Hawk' heartthrob Josh Hartnett as the Victorian-American Ethan Chandler. Classicalites, surely you've heard that famous shriek by Dr. Frankenstein when his masterpiece comes to life, but what you may not know is that the actor who plays the young doctor on premium cable, Britain's own Mr. Treadaway, likes to compile playlists of classical music to help him get into character. Treadaway says, "If I need to connect with the conversations I had initially, I can go back and listen to the music. It helps."
  • Film Critic David Thomson's Assessment of Director Woody Allen Flawed

    English film critic David Thomson's dislike, dare I say contempt, of Woody Allen is well known. Look up a Thomson review of an Allen film and it is most likely negative, the one most recent one being "Match Point" (2005). In his wonderful book, "The New Biographical Dictionary of Film," Thomson leveled this charge against Allen, "Moreover, some of his films are so inconsequential, so much a matter of habit, that they make his productivity seem artificial." Is this true? Are some of Allen's films so easily dismissible? If so, what does it say for Woody Allen's stature in the history of cinema? Conversely, is it fair? Has Allen's longevity and creative output surpassed any comparable measure of legacy we have available?