Films

Showing at The Alcazar Theater located at 4916 Carpinteria Avenue.  Hosted by the Carpinteria Arts Center.  Suggested donation at the box office: $5  

Click on film in table below to jump down page for detail.  You can also watch the cinematic trailer in the table or down page.

FEATURED MOVIES & SHOWTIMES

AN ECONOMY OF GRACE	02/17/19	3:00PM	TO WATCH CINEMATIC TRAILER, CLICK ON PROJECTOR
BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING	03/17/19	3:00PM	TO WATCH CINEMATIC TRAILER, CLICK ON PROJECTOR
AND STILL I RISE	04/28/19	3:00PM	(pending)
A BIGGER PICTURE	05/19/19	3:00PM	(pending)

 

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AN ECONOMY OF GRACE

(Below from producer Show of Force website - click HERE to watch film trailer.)

Inspired by childhood visits to the Huntington Library outside of Los Angeles, where he grew up, Kehinde Wiley set out to address the conspicuous lack of black subjects in western European art. He began by painting portraits of young men – models he hand-picked from the streets of Harlem – placing them in the vernacular of artists such as Ingres and Titian. The poses were classical, the clothing, the model’s own. The result was an arresting alchemy of highbrow and hip-hop that put a brand new spin on a traditional form.

Since then, Wiley has gone global, expanding the reach of his subject matter to include models from China, Africa, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and Israel. His work has been the subject of exhibitions worldwide, and is in the permanent collections of numerous museums, including: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Phoenix Art Museum; Milwaukee Art Museum; and the Brooklyn Museum, New York.

Wiley undertook an exciting new project: a series of classical portraits of African-American women. As with his previous work, the models will be street-cast in New York City and posed in the manner of society figures from the 18th or 19th centuries. Only this time, they won’t be wearing their own clothes.

Instead, each woman will be dressed in an original couture gown. To realize his vision, Wiley joined forces with Riccardo Tisci, creative director of Givenchy, in an utterly unique and extremely high-profile collaboration between art and haute couture.

Tisci’s custom dresses boldly incorporate the powerful urban attitude Wiley’s artwork examines with the signature delicacy and elegance of Givenchy’s style. Worn by Wiley’s models, Tisci’s dresses create an arresting, new image of feminine power.

We took our cameras behind the scenes of this glamorous venture, following Wiley’s progress from start to finish. An immensely talented artist, Wiley is also an intelligent, articulate and highly charismatic presence with a lot to say not only about art, but also about the world we live in. We captured it all. We were there in the streets of New York as he cast his models, in meetings in Paris and New York as he worked with Tisci to create looks for the portraits, in his China studio as he put paint to canvas, and in the Sean Kelly Gallery where the stunning works were hung, and quickly consumed by the public.

Although Kehinde embraces serendipity and chance as he casts his models, he could not have created a more compelling cast for the film. By pure luck he selected from the streets of Harlem, Brooklyn and Queens Chanel, a prison guard on Rikers Island; Shantavia, a bubbly teen mother working to get her G.E.D; Cali and Dacia, young lovers in the throes of a new romance; Treisha, an immigrant from Barbados with attitude to spare; and Ena a nurse who hopes to open an art gallery of her own.

Kehinde specializes in combining beauty, chance, fantasy and the real– a talent only partially represented in his gorgeous paintings. This film offers a unique perspective into the fullness of his process and the characters at play. In the end, An Economy of Grace offers up a tantalizing inside look at the intersection of art and fashion, both of museums and of the streets. The film is an intimate portrait of one of this generation’s most intriguing and accomplished visionaries, and an exploration of what beauty is in the 21st century.

PRIOR SCREENINGS

New York premiere at BAM, Peter Jay sharp building (30 Lafayette Ave, New York, NY)

Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival

Marfa Film Festival
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
Nantucket Film Festival, Bennett Hall (62 Centre St.)
Provincetown International Film Festival
deadCENTER film Festival, Oklahoma City, Love’s Theater at Harkins (150 East Reno Ave.)
The Reel Artists Film Festival, Toronto

PBS broadcast

SXSW, Austin, TX - WINNER, best Short Documentary

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BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING

A funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White.

Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, Wayne started his career as a cartoonist in New York City.  He quickly found success as one of the creators of the TV show, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse”, which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture.  Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world.

BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING chronicles the vaulted highs and the crushing lows of a commercial artist struggling to find peace and balance between his work and his art.  Acting as his own narrator, Wayne guides us through his life using moments from his latest creation: a hilarious, biographical one-man show.  The pieces are drawn from performances at venues in Tennessee, New York and Los Angeles including the famous Roseland Ballroom and the Largo Theater.

Whether he’s parading a twenty-foot-tall puppet through the Tennessee hillside, romping around the Hollywood Hills dressed in his LBJ puppet suit, relaxing in his studio picking his banjo, or watching his children grow up much too soon, Wayne always seems to have a youthful grin and a desperate drive to create art and objects.  It is an infectious quality that will inspire everyone to find their pleasure in life and pursue it at all costs.  At its core, this film is a reminder that we should all follow our passion. It is those creative impulses that will lead us to where we need to go.  (Excerpt from beautyisembarrassing.com)

Read the below film review from the New York Times ("Far Beyond 'Playhouse,’ Artist Remains Playful”).

“Playhouse” contributors — Mr. Reubens, the artist Gary Panter and the musician Mark Mothersbaugh — recount the show’s hothouse of invention, especially during its first season, when it was shot in a Manhattan loft. Mr. White designed and provided voices for some of the marionettes, including the musician Dirty Dog and the troublemaker Randy.

A documentary highlight is priceless backstage footage taken at the time by Mr. White. “Playhouse,” he has said, “was a downtown New York art project on TV.”

But life after “Playhouse” — Mr. White followed the show to Los Angeles — had its challenges. Despite award-winning work in music videos (the Smashing Pumpkins, Peter Gabriel), he struggled in children’s TV (“Beakman’s World,” “Shining Time Station”). Then he found his own answer to Warhol’s Brillo boxes: wry, droll or superficial statements, often comments on the South or the venality of Hollywood (“Maybe Now I’ll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve”), scrambled on a canvas or meticulously emblazoned across cheesy landscape paintings.

The Los Angeles restaurant Fred62 displayed the pictures, and soon the designer Todd Oldham was inspired to assemble a monograph of Mr. White’s work.  "Bang!” Mr. White says. “I’m in the art world, just like that.”

There are other forces sustaining Mr. White: his wife, the graphic novelist Mimi Pond, and their children; his banjo and harmonica; and his connections to the South. Seeing Mr. White parading in an oversize Lyndon B. Johnson head mask or assembling a giant puppet with his Tennessee buddy Mike Quinn, we appreciate the liberating, delirious joy of creativity.

But this exuberant documentary’s most affecting message concerns a timelessly profound verity: the value of roots, humor, family and old friends.

Directed by Neil Berkeley.  

Written (story) by Neil Berkeley, Chris Bradley, and Kevin Klauber.

Cast includes Wayne White (himself), Paul Reubens (himself), Mimi Pond (herself), Matt Mothersbaugh (himself), Matt Groening (himself).  

For full cast and crew - CLICK HERE

Watch cinematic trailer - CLICK HERE

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AND STILL I RISE

INFORMATION COMING SOON!

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A BIGGER PICTURE

INFORMATION COMING SOON!

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Prior Art in Film Series Showings

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CITY OF GOLD

CITY OF GOLD is about the transformative power of food and food writing in how we experience where we live.  Pulitzer Prize winning critic, Jonathan Gold, is our Virgilian guide, casting his light upon a vibrant and growing cultural movement, a movement in which he plays the dual roles of high-low priest and culinary geographer of his beloved Los Angeles.

Read the below film review from the New York Times ("Tastes of Los Angeles in 'City of Gold'").

“Criticism is criticism,” says Jonathan Gold, who writes about food for The Los Angeles Times.

“An aria is like a well-cooked potato.” To which I can only say: Amen. Creative inspiration can be found in a great variety of human pursuits, and criticism is the name we give to the act of identifying and sharing it. A painting is, in that respect, like a poem. A well-written book is like a well-built shelf. A newspaper column is like a documentary film.

“City of Gold,” directed by Laura Gabbert, is an affectionate portrait of Mr. Gold, a genial walrus of a man with a graying ginger mane and a gentle, gaptoothed smile.

The film accompanies him in his green pickup truck as he patrols the streets of Los Angeles, pointing out the best places to find fiery Southern Thai stews and sublime Oaxacan moles.

We sit in on editorial meetings and peek over his shoulder as he writes on his laptop at the dining room table. Colleagues and expert witnesses are summoned to pay tribute to his genius and annotate his quirks. We spend some time with Laurie Ochoa, his wife and erstwhile editor, and their two children. We learn about Mr. Gold’s childhood, his early career, his Pulitzer Prize. Ms. Gabbert, in other words, follows the usual documentary recipe.

But “City of Gold” transcends its modest methods, largely because it connects Mr. Gold’s appealing personality with a passionate argument about the civic culture of Los Angeles and the place of food within it.

His enthusiasm and generosity of spirit stand in definitive rebuke to the myth that critics are crabbed, hostile, pleasure-hating creatures. Rejecting the restaurant reviewer’s customary anonymity, Mr. Gold is warmly received by cooks, servers and restaurateurs, many of whom are grateful for his positive reviews.

This is more than boosterism. Mr. Gold, whose first love was music — he studied classical cello and fell in love with punk rock — blends his search for culinary excellence with advocacy and ethnography, and writes in the service of a humane, multicultural vision of urban life.

While he eats in and writes about high-end restaurants and ambitious, would-be celebrity chefs, his heart is in the vernacular gastronomy of immigrant and working-class neighborhoods.

He is a Walt Whitman of taco trucks, hot-dog stands and pho parlors, of unassuming storefront and strip-mall joints that bring the flavors of the world to Southern California.

Images utilized here credited to Sundance Selects and @Cityofgoldmovie.

Directed by Laura Gabbert.  

Written (story) by Laura Gabbert.  

Full cast and crew - CLICK HERE.  

Watch cinematic trailer - CLICK HERE.  

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LUTAH - A PASSION FOR ARCHITECTURE: A LIFE IN DESIGN

This film explores the life of Lutah Maria Riggs, who designed the Lobero Theater, Vedanta Temple and the Botanic Garden.  Riggs was integral to rebuilding a damaged Santa Barbara after the 1925 earthquake. 

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DELI MAN

A look at the history of delicatessens in the United States.  The film explores Jewish culture as it reflects the heart of a vital ethnic history.  Learn about traditions that make deli one of America’s great cuisines.

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GREGORY CREWDSON - BRIEF ENCOUNTERS

A film shot over a decade with unprecedented access to the photographer Gregory Crewdson and the artist’s process.

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MY SHAKESPEARE - ROMEO & JULIET FOR A NEW GENERATION

This documentary follows 20 non-actors from a disadvantaged neighborhood in London as they put on a production at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts after only four weeks of preparation.

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MUSCLE SHOALS

A documentary that celebrates Rick Hall, the founder of FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and the signature sound he developed in songs such as “I’ll Take You There”, “Brown Sugar” and “When a Man Loves a Woman.”

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