a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.

tue. aug. 1

itasca @ resident


thu. aug. 3

molochs, juan wauters @ resident


fri. aug. 4

hepcat @ alex's bar
race & space v: women of the l.a. rebellion FREE 8 PM @ epfc filmmobile @ kaos network
cosmonauts, adult books, winter @ teragram
billy changer @ smell
dr. strangelove MIDNIGHT @ vista
shark toys, sea lions @ all star lanes
sleepwalkers local, secret names @ rec center


sat. aug. 5

piper at the gates of dawn 50th anniversary tribute show @ lot 1


sun. aug. 6

bart davenport, earth girl helen brown @ zebulon
classic films by joyce wieland @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian


mon. aug. 7

black sea, drinking flowers @ bootleg


tue. aug. 8

flying hair @ bootleg


thu. aug. 10

race & space in los angeles vi FREE @ epfc filmmobile @ japanese american national museum
prettiest eyes FREE @ harvard & stone


fri. aug. 11

freaks MIDNIGHT @ vista


sun. aug. 13

limite @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian


fri. aug. 18

levitation room, creation factory FREE @ echo park rising @ stories
billy changer (8:30) FREE @ echo park rising @ spacedust
blue velvet MIDNIGHT @ vista


sat. aug. 19

frankie & the witch fingers (3:50) FREE @ echo park rising liberty stage
levitation room (8:00) FREE @ echo park rising @ nico & bullitt
ex stains (6:40), prettiest eyes (7:30), laetitia sadier (8:30) FREE @ echo park rising @ echoplex
laetitia sadier source ensemble @ the sanctuary


sun. aug. 20

qui (7:00) FREE @ echo park rising @ echoplex


tue. aug. 22

melvins @ troubadour


thu. aug. 24

loons, creation factory @ alex's bar (LB)
lee noble @ betalevel


fri. aug. 25

ghost world @ cinespia @ hollywood forever


thu. aug. 31

l.a. witch FREE (RSVP) @ levitt pavilion


sun. sep. 3

sunset boulevard @ cinespia @ hollywood forever


sat. sep. 9

the rantouls, the teutonics, etc @ bargain rock v @ thee parkside (SF)
coming to america @ cinespia @ hollywood forever


sun. sep. 17

moment trigger @ coaxial


fri. oct. 6

woggles @ echo


sat. oct. 7

eagle rock music festival
california avocado festival @ carpinteria


sun. oct. 8

california avocado festival @ carpinteria
an evening with matt groening & lynda barry @ ace hotel theatre


thu. oct. 12

desert daze @ institute of mentalphysics (joshua tree)
angelo de augustine @ bootleg


fri. oct. 13

desert daze @ institute of mentalphysics (joshua tree)
dalek @ resident


sat. oct. 14

desert daze @ institute of mentalphysics (joshua tree)
hope sandoval & the warm inventions @ fonda
budos band @ echoplex


sun. oct. 15

desert daze @ institute of mentalphysics (joshua tree)


wed. oct. 18

black angels @ mayan


thu. oct. 19

race & space in los angeles ix @ epfc


sat. oct. 21

cactus blossoms @ echo


sat. oct. 28

roky erickson @ roxy


thu. nov. 2

colleen, mary lattimore @ zebulon


tue. nov. 14

the clientele @ teragram




WHAT IT IS:


CLASSIC FILMS BY JOYCE WIELAND
Long overdue is this retrospective screening of classic experimental films by Joyce Wieland. Wieland is regarded as Canada’s foremost woman artist.  She produced an acclaimed body of work in a great variety of media, from drawing and painting to quilts and film.  Her work tended to be overshadowed in the United States by that of her husband, Michael Snow, but her cinematic explorations elude easy categorization.  She gained a unique respect for incorporating strong personal statements in her work about issues of feminism, nationalism and ecology long before it had become fashionable to do so.  Her retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario was the first-ever afforded a living Canadian woman artist.  She passed away almost two decades ago, and although a few of her films have appeared in scattered shows in LA since then, this is a chance to see most of her finest works in one screening.  We’re delighted to have Lauren Howes, executive director of the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre, introduce the show.
Screening (all from 16mm, Total – 82 mins):
** Water Sark (Canada / 13:30 / 1965 / sound / color)
I decided to make a film at my kitchen table, there is nothing like knowing my table. The high art of the housewife. You take prisms, glass, lights and myself to it. “The Housewife is High.” “Water Sark” is a film sculpture, being made while you wait. (JW)
** Handtinting (Canada / 6:00 / 1967-68 / sound / color)
"Handtinting’ is the apt title of a film made from outtakes from a Job Corps documentary which features hand-tinted sections. The film is full of small movements and actions, gestures begun and never completed. Repeated images, sometimes in colour, sometimes not. A beautifully realized type of chamber-music film whose sum-total feeling is ritualistic.” - Robert Cowan, Take One
** 1933 (Canada / 3:50 / 1967 / sound / color)
"1933. The year? the number? the title? Was it (the film) made then? It's a memory! (i.e. a Film.) No, it's many memories. It's so sad and funny: the departed, departing people, cars, streets! It hurries, it's gone, it's back! the film (of 1933?) was made in 1967. You find out, if you don't already know, how naming tints pure vision." - Michael Snow
** Sailboat (Canada / 3:00 / 1967 / sound / color)
‘Sailboat’ has the simplicity of a child's drawing. A toy-like image of a sailboat sails without interruption on the water, to the sound of roaring waves, which seems to underline the image to the point of exaggeration, somewhat in the way a child might draw a picture of water and write word sounds on it to make it as emphatic as possible. The little image is interrupted at one point by a huge shoulder appearing briefly in the left-hand corner." - Robert Cowan, Take One   "
** Cat Food (Canada / 13:00 / 1967 / sound / color)                                                                  
"A cat eats its methodical way through a polymorphous fish. The projector devours the ribbon of film at the same rate, methodically. The lay of Grimnir mentions a wild boar whose magical flesh was nightly devoured by the heroes of Valhalla, and miraculously regenerated next morning in the kitchen. The fish in Wieland's film, and the miraculous flesh of the film itself, are reconstructed on the rewinds to be devoured again. Here is a dionysian metaphor, old as the West, of immense strength. Once we see that the fish is the protagonist of the action, this metaphor reverberates to incandescence in the mind." - Hollis Frampton
** Rat Life and Diet in North America (Canada / 16:00 / 1968 / sound / colour)
"I can tell you that Wieland's film holds. It may be about the best (or richest) political movie around. It's all about rebels (enacted by real rats) and police (enacted by real cats). After long suffering under the cats, the rats break out of prison and escape to Canada. There they take up organic gardening, with no DDT in the grass. It is a parable, a satire, an adventure movie, or you can call it pop art or any art you want - I find it one of the most original films made recently." - Jonas Mekas"The film is witty, articulate, and a far cry from all the other cute animal humanism the cinema has sickened us with in the past. Nevertheless it is a vital extension of the aspect of her films that runs counter to the structural principle: ironic symbolism." - P. Adams Sitney, Film Culture  
** Solidarity (Canada / 10:40 / 1973 / sound / colour)
A film on the Dare strike of the early 1970s. Hundreds of feet and legs, milling, marching and picketing with the word “solidarity” superimposed on the screen. The soundtrack is an organizer's speech on the labour situation. Like her films “Rat Life and Diet in North America,” “Pierre Vallieres” and “Reason Over Passion,”
“Solidarity” combines a political awareness, an aesthetic viewpoint and a sense of humour unique in Wieland's work.  
** A & B in Ontario (Canada / 16:05/ 1984 / sound / b/w)                                                                     
“Hollis [Frampton] and I came back to Toronto on holiday in the summer of '67. We were staying at a friend's house. We worked our way through the city and eventually made it to the island. We followed each other around. We enjoyed ourselves. We said we were going to make a film about each other - and we did.” - Joyce Wieland“A & B in Ontario” was completed eighteen years after the original material was shot.  After Frampton's death, the film was assembled by Wieland into a cinematic dialogue in which the collaborators (in the spirit of the sixties) shoot each other with cameras.


LIMITE
1931, Brazil, b& w, 1.37:1, 120 minutes
When the magazine Filme cultura conducted a poll in 1968 on the best Brazilian films of all time, Limite ranked tenth, even though the film had been out of circulation for over thirty-five years and completely inaccessible for almost a decade. Limite was long consigned to a game of telephone, yet it was precisely that trajectory that granted it a fate most Brazilian silent films never had. Like Greed (1924), Citizen Kane (1941), A Brighter Summer Day (1991), or Hard to Be a God (2013), it is a rare cult film that lives up to its mythology, a singular work born out of peculiar insularity. When seen today, the film still seems to open doors to cinematic territories that remain vastly unexplored. This historical missing link can really be understood only through this prism, a legacy of decay, missed connections, and passionate reinvention... Dir. Mário Peixoto