Results tagged “stevemartin”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced this afternoon that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will co-host the 82nd Academy Awards next year. Martin earned an Emmy nomination after he hosted the 73rd Academy Awards. He also hosted the 75th ceremony. Baldwin has never hosted the show. The Oscars will be aired on ABC on Sunday, March 7, 2010, from the Kodak Theatre. As for the Golden Globes next January, Ricky Gervais will host.

LAist has just gotten word that a handful of tickets just became available for the three sold-out Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers bluegrass performances at Largo at the Coronet next week. These exclusive LA concerts will take place Tuesday (Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.) and Wednesday (Sept. 30 and 8:30 p.m.) Martin, who released his first full-length banjo CD earlier this year, recently performed with the Steep Canyon Rangers on A Prairie Home Companion. And as the New York Times highlighted earlier this year, among country and bluegrass musicians, Martin is "regarded as a master of a difficult five-fingered playing style." To reserve your tickets, call Largo at the Coronet at (310) 855-0350.

                     

If you didn't see Waltz with Bashir in the theater, you have the opportunity to correct that mistake today on DVD. It is rare that a film so perfectly combines a complex, powerful story with such dazzling visual technique. Concerned with lost memories surrounding the 1982 Lebanon War, this is a must-see film for any fan of cinema (or history for that matter). Confessions of a Shopaholic is not such a picture. Pink Panther 2 is not such a picture. Inkheart is not such a picture. Thankfully, both My Dinner with Andre and Last Year at Marienbad are.

Steve Martin’s playing the banjo tonight at 8 pm to raise money for the Los Angeles Public Library. The comedian-bluegrass musician will be in conversation with Dave Barry to launch the ALOUD at L. A. LIVE series. Held at L.A. LIVE’s Club Nokia, Martin will be performing songs from his musical debut CD, The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo. The Steep Canyon Rangers band will appear with Martin and the CD’s producer, John McEuen (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band founder) will join the group on stage during the performance. Tickets are $25-$250.

It's a very festive time right now. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, and there's a lot of copying & pasting in Film Digest land. The Indian Film Festival continues its run at the Arclight, as well as its mixed masala line-up. Joining it are the 10th Annual Polish Film Festival, the 4th Annual Jewish Film Festival & a virtual continuation of last week's Japanese Film Festival at the Egyptian with a series dedicated to controversial auteur Nagisa Oshima. If those aren't exotic enough, you can always make the journey to San Pedro for the L.A. Harbor Film Festival, or trek all the way to Orange County for the Newport Beach Film Festival. Even the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is getting in on the act, with panels dedicated to Hollywood biographers & the adaptation of The Soloist.

Japanophiles unite! This week marks not one, but two free previews of Tokyo!, a new anthology work featuring contributions from Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind), Bong Joon-ho (monster-masterpiece The Host) & Leos Carax (The Lovers On The Bridge). Opening later this month at the Nuart, use these screenings to get the jump on your otaku buddies & save a few bucks along the way. For the purists, perplexed by the lack of a single Japanese name amidst that trio, take heart in LACMA's premiere of Tokyo Sonata, featuring the writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to Akira) as special guest, or any of a number of programs featuring experimental video artist Takahiko Iimura.

Between special screenings, TV tapings & incestual industry conduct, filmmakers are a common appearance in this town. When the New Beverly hosts a filmmaker, it's truly special. Eclectic personalities take complete control of the theater's programming, spotlighting elements of their own work, their influences, or simply their favorite, lesser-known films. Previous hosts include Edgar Wright, Patton Oswalt, Joe Dante & Peter Bogdanovich, and now writer-director Rian Johnson has the slate. A new kid on the block compared to those names, Johnson's hard-boiled sleeper Brick is one of the most unique & enjoyable films of the last few years. His "Festival Of Fakery" (running through the end of February) features advance screenings of his new film, The Brothers Bloom, and a cadre of con men, criminals, thieves & scoundrels.

An all-star cast was enough to propel newcomer He Only Wants To Sleep with You to the top of the weekend box-office. The generic romantic comedy tallied an impressive $27.4M to easily beat last week's champ Taken ($20.3/$53.3M). The superb Coraline managed to snag $16.3M worth of kiddie dollars as parents weren't scared away by the film's dark themes. After that it was the unnecessary and dreadful The Pink Panther 2 ($12M) followed by the equally boorish Paul Blart: Pathetic Fatso ($11M/$97M).

Do you remember the days when you looked forward to the new Steve Martin movie? Is anyone anywhere looking forward to The Pink Panther 2? Speaking of bad movies, Push is proof that you shouldn't try to do effects-driven films on a tight budget. I'm just not that into He's Just Not That Into You. Fanboys was once a good movie before being raped by its distributor. Coraline looks amazingly good and amazingly creepy.

A lot of our sport fan/fiend friends are convinced that this Sunday's Super Bowl event will be a boring blow out - "the Cardinals will win how?" is oft heard. But for a lot of media dorks, ourselves included, the Super Bowl is all about the ads. We already know that GoDaddy and PETA have had their ads denied (as must have been planned for). Adweek's Barbara Lippert analyzes past Super Bowl commercial foibles as well as a list of all expected advertisers for XLIII. On Saturday, CBS also takes a trip down memory lane with a program on the "best" commercials of years past.

If you can't absorb Suze Orman's sage advice because it gets lost in the shrillness, this video may be the answer. Steve Martin and Amy Pohler ponder getting out of debt the obvious way.

December is list-making season. And for us music journalists, it is a time to look back on scores of albums, reflect upon the music and recapitulate our favorites. But this year, just like the last, we took this opportunity to flip that tradition upside down, asking the artists that influenced us what influenced them. The prompt was not limited to albums that came out in 2008.

So much of this holiday season is about giving ‘gifts’. It’s all so commercialized, bro. You’ve got gifts for kids, gifts for drinkers. You’ve even got gift ideas for people who sure as hell can’t afford to buy you a gift in return. Thanks but no thanks, douchetards. This year, it’s all about getting people shit they don’t need. And probably don’t even want. For stocking stuffers, I’m just getting everyone a picture of my wiener inside the stocking they’re holding on to. That’ll teach you to trust a twentysomething with limited income and anger management issues. Bro.

No bookish events on Mr. King's Day.

I'm hoping you got a bunch of DVDs to tide you over during this dead week as well as until the writer's strike ends. It looks like TCM is running an "aviation in movies" marathon tonight and IFC's featuring Harvey Keitel. For further marathon action, check out BRAVO which is showing all of Project Runway's fourth season (starts at 6:00pm).

I hope you've got a bunch of stuff Tivo'd because there's nothing on until Sunday. You tell me that there is stuff on tonight? What, you mean Friday Night Lights, NUMB3RS, or Las Vegas? Please. Tomorrow, there's no reason to turn on prime time TV unless it's for Citizen Kane on TCM at 8:30. The Big Story is Sunday, check it: Sunday 8:00pm Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project HBO - Special. Don Rickles is...

It's been a busy summer for 'wild and crazy guy' Steve Martin. From writing a children's book with cartoonist Roz Chast, to finishing his memoir Born Standing Up, and getting ready for an August start date for filming the Pink Panther II, he found time to squeeze in a life changing event. After inviting Tom Hanks, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Carl Reiner, Ricky Jay, and about seventy other friends for a party at his Los Angeles home, the guests were surprised with a wedding. Martin married writer and former New Yorker staffer Anne Stringfield. The ceremony was officiated by former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey. SNL head honcho Lorne Michaels served as the best man. The bride wore Vera Wang while Martin donned his Inspector Clouseau mustache.

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Critics come up with Best Of movie lists all the time, but today we wanted to see what the people want. The people who get their home movies from Netflix, that is. It's easy enough: Netflix has a feature that lists the movies that are tops with members in one city that don't do so well elsewhere. Here in LA, we're self-obsessed — Steve Martin's LA Story, from 1991, tops the list — we like movies about moviemaking, and we seek out the short films of David Lynch.

If you've only seen one of the nominated movies, haven't voted in any pools and are really only tuning in to the Oscars to see Jon Stewart, the, highlights of the evening are not so much the awards as any funny or memorable moments in the ceremony.

So Jon Stewart will host the Oscars this year. Hosting the Oscars solo is a little like climbing Everest: the idea of doing it is always there, taunting America's elite comedians and raconteurs. Some, like Bob Hope, can beat it — 12 times he hosted alone, and more times with helpers tagging along. Others end up like Beck Weathers and David Letterman, beaten and barely alive, knowing they'll never do it again. But the challenge to climb it remains, irresistable, until the opportunity is seized. Many who've tried have passed into that good night. Stewart, we love ya: please bring a sherpa.

Shopgirl is undoubtedly a uniquely Los Angeles kind of movie. From the romanticized sky-high shots of freeway traffic and hyperbolic starry skies over Los Feliz, almost every frame radiates LA the cinematic, LA of the lovelorn, LA the coolly distant, and LA the eternal optimist. Steve Martin, who adapted his novella into the screenplay, and, not surprisingly plays the surprising romantic lead, has once again penned a paean to this glimmering jewel of a city; a city whose residents may sparkle on the surface, but when they dare to draw you close may reveal their deeply cut flaws.

One of the best perks of living in LA is access to movies in limited release. After all, they help counteract the proverbial blockbuster fizz. Here are a few movies opening in limited release right now.

• American Zion - Western starring Sam Hennings and Brenda Strong. In 1833 Missouri, the Steed family witnesses the persecution of a community of Mormons, which eventually spurs a massive migration to the West. [local showtimes]
• Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - Comedy starring Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan. A petty thief (Downey Jr.) lands a high-profile acting gig. He enlists a detective (Kilmer) to show him the ropes. The two get involved in a real murder case that may involve the theif's high-school crush (Monaghan). [local showtimes]
• Protocols of Zion - Documentary by Marc Levin. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is a century-old [forged] document claiming to document a Jewish master plan to take over the world. This documentary explores anti-Semitism, hate, bigotry and religious intolerance in America. [local showtimes]

Checking out with no idea what to expect was an interesting experience. This 1981 movie is not the minor comedy we'd vaguely anticipated, but an artsy quasi-musical whose dramatic turning point involves a tap-dance striptease by Christopher Walken.

So have you heard that King Tut is coming to town? He's embarking on a 27 month tour, stopping in four US cities, and our very own LACMA gets to put out the red carpet welcome. This smacks of a high-profile rock star tour, with the main attraction being even older than the Rolling Stones. Tut and his glittering goodies haven't made a US appearance in almost thirty years; the last visit in 1978-79 sparked something akin to Tut Fever--remember Steve Martin's King Tut song parody? So how will Tut fare in the 21st Century? Well, our eyebrows raised a bit when ABC's 20/20 called Tut the 'King of Bling', so we know his golden artifacts have a current equivalent in our lexicon. And he's garnering media oomph aplenty; Good Morning America is featuring the event prominently, and the "premiere" is expected to be a celeb-heavy happening. Where does that leave the public? Well, in line, it would seem. Pre-sale tickets have been available since March, and have surpassed the 250,000 mark. We know from back in the day at LACMA's "Van Gogh's Van Goghs" show that even a ticket still means a line, and the Egyptian P-Diddy is guaranteed to attract throngs of spectators, eager to take in "more than 130 artifacts from the tombs of King Tut, several of his relatives and his 18th Dynasty (1555 B.C. to 1305 B.C.) contemporaries". Never fear--Tut isn't doing a one-night stand, he's here June 16-November 15, so we say plan to go a little later. But plan on going--who knows when this lived-fast and died-young King is going to make his comeback!

LAist loves watching bad musicals and horror movies in the summer. Much to our delight, the programmers at the American Cinematheque are screening a week of horror movies and musicals, probably as a prelude to their upcoming Festival of Fantasy, Horror and Science-Fiction.