July 2017
Film Independent at LACMA: The Defiant Ones
2017, 108 minutes, color, DCP | Directed by Allen Hughes; with Dr. Dre, Jimmy Iovine, Bono, David Geffen, Eminem, Nas, Ice Cube, Gwen Stefani, Jon Landau, Tom Petty, Trent Reznor, Snoop Dogg, Bruce Springsteen Includes a conversation with director Allen Hughes Episodes 1 & 2 This exciting and hugely entertaining multi-part documentary series from director Allen Hughes (best known for his films with his twin brother Albert, such as Menace II Society, American Pimp, Book of Eli, and, on his own, Broken City) has…
Find out more »Film Independent LACMA: Chasing Coral
2017, 93 minutes, color, DCP | Directed by Jeff Orlowski Includes a conversation with director Jeff Orlowski Director Jeff Orlowski’s examination of the destruction of the Earth’s coral beds, Chasing Coral, was the winner of the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. And given that there now seems to be a tragic race between what will disappear sooner—the coral, or the efforts of the Environmental Protection Agency to combat damage to ocean beds—there’s no better time to see Orlowski’s…
Find out more »Film Independent at LACMA: Preacher
2017, 44 min, color, DCP | Developed for television by Sam Catlin, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg; based on Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon; with Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Joseph Gilgun, Ian Coletti, Graham McTavish, Noah Taylor, Pip Torrens, and Julie Ann Emery Includes a conversation with writers / executive producers Sam Catlin, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg Episode 205 Based on the popular cult comic book franchise of the same name, Preacher is an absurdly twisted and action-packed thrill ride. When Jesse Custer, a small-town preacher with…
Find out more »Film Independent at LACMA: Bring the Noise
1985, 94 min | Written by John Hughes; directed by John Hughes; with Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly Le Brock Includes a live performance by Ulises Lozano, Carlos Chairez, and Gil Cerezo of Kinky Lead Sponsor: Hollywood Foreign Press Association It’s writer-director John Hughes’s 1985 sci-fi comedy about the geeks (Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith) inheriting the Earth—or at least, one of its most powerful denizens, a doll brought to life by their experimentation and played with effortless charisma by…
Find out more »Film Independent at LACMA: Step
2017, 83 minutes, color, DCP | Directed by Amanda Lipitz Includes a conversation with documentary subjects Blessin Giraldo, Tayla Solomon, Cori Grainger, Gari McIntyre (Coach G), Paula Dofat, and director Amanda Lipitz Step is the true-life story of a girls’ high-school step dance team against the background of the heart of Baltimore. These young women learn to laugh, love, and thrive—on and off the stage—even when the world seems to work against them. Empowered by their teachers, teammates, counselors, coaches, and families, they…
Find out more »December 2017
Film Independent at LACMA: I, Tonya
Includes a conversation with writer Steven Rogers Who would take a real-life incident that sounded as much like a slapstick caper as a mean-spirited act of revenge, and make a movie of it starring Harley Quinn with the director from Lars and the Real Girl? The people behind the based-on-a-true-story I, Tonya, which brings Margot Robbie into the mix playing Tonya Harding, the tough-as-a-blade-sharpener ice skating competitor who saw a chance to knee-cap her main rival, Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver) and took…
Find out more »An Evening With…Sam Esmail
Includes a screening of The Shining and conversation with creator Sam Esmail The cable series, Mr. Robot, now in its third season, contains multitudes. Creator Sam Esmail uses the series to comment on the loneliness and personal distance created by technology, as well as using the language of cinema in television to deal with race and gender. He employs the tools of filmmaking – and negative space — to make his narrative elastic and expansive. In other words, the impact of Stanley Kubrick is evident…
Find out more »January 2018
Free Screening: Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dream
2018, 60 minutes, Color, DCP | Based on the short stories of Philip K. Dick; with Gumuliaukas Vaclovas, Dominc Capone, and Juke Hardy An exceptional group of executive producers, including Emmy Award-winner Bryan Cranston, is behind this international anthology series of hour-long episodes based on the works of the futurist paranoiac Philip K. Dick, whose daughter Isa Dick Hackett is also an executive producer on this Amazon program. The author’s fiction has become the basis of such memorable projects as Blade…
Find out more »An Evening With … Rian Johnson
1973, 110 minutes, Color, 35mm | Written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck; directed by George Lucas; with Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Paul Le Mat Includes a screening of American Graffiti and conversation with director Rian Johnson Lead Sponsor: Hollywood Foreign Press Association Before he completed the latest installment of the Star Wars saga, writer-director Rian Johnson made his name with three independent features that teemed with activity and menace. His debut film Brick, a film noir set in the halls of a…
Find out more »They Live
1988, 94 minutes, Color, 35mm | Written by Ray Nelson; screenplay by John Carpenter; directed by John Carpenter; with Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster In 1988, master horror/suspense filmmaker John Carpenter (The Thing, Escape from New York and, most importantly, Halloween) made an action thriller about aliens surreptitiously taking over the Earth by planting subliminal messages everywhere and turning humans into mindless consumers. Thirty years later, the impact of that film, They Live, is still being felt—Shepard Fairey adapted the graphic style of…
Find out more »The Chi
2018, 60 minutes, color, DCP | Written by Elwood Reid and Justin Hillian; directed by Tanya Hamilton; with Jason Mitchell, Jacob Latimore, Ntare Guma, Mbaho Mwine, Alex Hibbert, Yolonda Ross, Tiffany Boone, and Armando Riesco Includes a conversation with creator Lena Waithe Before she exploded on the scene as a part of Aziz Ansari’s transformative Netflix series Master of None, Lena Waithe was plying her trade as a writer bathing under the influence of TV, while questioning why her existence as…
Find out more »February 2018
Film Independent at LACMA: Notes From The Field
2018, 90 minutes, Color, DCP | Written by Anna Deavere Smith; directed by Kristi Zea; executive produced by Gary Goetzman and Anna Deavere Smith; with Anna Deavere Smith and Marcus Shelby Includes a conversation with writer/executive producer/performer Anna Deavere Smith The newest showcase from writer/executive producer/performer Anna Deavere Smith (Twilight: Los Angeles), a version of her most recent stage production recorded for HBO and directed for the screen by Kristi Zea takes a hard and unflinching look at the gaping…
Find out more »Film Independent at LACMA: The Party
2018, 71 minutes, B&W, DCP | Written by Sally Potter; directed by Sally Potter; with Patricia Clarkson, Bruno Ganz, Cherry Jones, Emily Mortimer, Cillian Murphy, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Timothy Spall Includes a conversation with writer/director/actor Sally Potter Writer/director Sally Potter (Orlando, The Tango Lesson, Ginger & Rosa) returns to the big screen for her newest film, a comedy of manners about a group of primarily ill-mannered people. All sorts of hitherto closely held secrets are revealed at a gathering meant to celebrate…
Find out more »March 2018
Film Independent at LACMA: A Child Is Waiting
Includes an introductory conversation with 2018 Film Independent Spirit Awards John Cassavetes Nominees Please note: Film Independent at LACMA ticketing is no longer handled by Eventbrite. All ticket purchases/reservations are now routed through the LACMA box office online ticketing system. As we do each year just prior to the Film Independent Spirit Awards, we will recognize the nominees for this year’s John Cassavetes Award, which is bestowed upon filmmakers who have managed the extraordinary accomplishment of completing a feature film with a budget…
Find out more »Film Independent: Lean On Pete
2018, 119 minutes, color, DCP | Written by Andrew Haigh; directed by Andrew Haigh; with Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi, and Chloe Sevigny For LACMA Film Club and Film Independent members only Includes a conversation with writer/director Andrew Haig Director Andrew Haigh (Greek Pete, Weekend, 45 Years, Looking) shifts from the urbane to something more laconic with his newest film Lean on Pete, which follows unhappy teenager Charley (Charlie Plummer) who suffers in a small place made even more claustrophobic by his angry dad. When…
Find out more »Free Screening: Billions
2018, 60 minutes, Color, DCP | Written by Brian Koppelman, David Levien and Andrew Ross Sorkin; directed by Neil Burger; with Paul Giamatti, Maggie Siff, and Kelly Aucoin Includes a conversation with co-creator, executive producer and showrunner Brian Koppelman, and actors Maggie Siff and David Costabile The stakes are higher than ever in a new season of the Showtime Original Series Billions. Season three finds Chuck Rhoades and Bobby Axelrod in a world that has shifted on its axis. Both men are still determined to…
Find out more »Film Independent at LACMA: Blazing Saddles
1974, 93 minutes, Color, 35mm | Written by Mel Brooks, Norman Steinberg, Andrew Bergman, Richard Pryor, and Alan Uger; directed by Mel Brooks; with Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, and Slim Pickens In conjunction with Richard Prince: Untitled (cowboy) In conjunction with Richard Prince: Untitled (cowboy) at LACMA, we present director Mel Brooks’ srolling (and roiling) 1974 comedy Western that was a mainstream movie first. Brooks used feature film artistry to demonstrate that genre could be deconstructed in the most popular way possible, while embracing the…
Find out more »October 2018
An Evening with New York Times OpDocs
A curated collection of the most acclaimed documentary films of the year. We bring both films and the creators to industry insiders and film enthusiasts throughout the fall season. Synopsis: Watch a selection of five recent award-winning films from Op-Docs, the Oscar-nominated short documentary series from The New York Times. The program will include: Charlie Tyrell’s My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes; I am Bisha: The Rebel Puppeteers of Sudan by Roopa Gogineni, on a satirical puppet show mocking an authoritarian ruler ; We Became…
Find out more »May 2019
The Bauhaus at 100: Modern Legacies
April 2 through May 5 Germany's Bauhaus art and design and architecture school opened in 1919 and operated for only 14 years until the Nazis shut it down in 1933. From there, its students and teachers spun out worldwide, but especially to America, where artists such as Josef and Anni Albers, Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius joined faculty at the likes of Black Mountain, Illinois Institute of Technology and Harvard and trained an entire generation of new architects based on ideas that developed…
Find out more »July 2019
Beyond Line: The Art of Korean Writing
Beyond Line: The Art of Korean Writing is the first major U.S. survey to examine the history of Korean calligraphy. The exhibition explores the role of calligraphy in Korean society by looking at the lives and legacies of writers from prehistory until the present day, a narrative spanning nearly 2,000 years. Featuring nearly 90 works, the exhibition focuses on the people -- royalty, scholars, diplomats, monks, and artists -- who produced calligraphic works in a variety of mediums including paper, stone, ceramic,…
Find out more »August 2019
The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China
Materials like plastic, wood, hair and gunpowder factor into the premiere of this traveling exhibition. Exhibition organizer Wu Hung, of the University of Chicago’s Smart Museum, has categorized the creators at the center of The Allure of Matter as “material artists,” and, well, that’s a pretty to-the-point description. The 21 featured artists all employ unconventional materials to create their works (each installation includes photo documentation of the piece’s construction), like Zhang Huan’s use of temple incense ash to form a landscape of field workers…
Find out more »“Mineo Mizuno: Harmony” at LACMA
After Mineo Mizuno spent most of his life living and working in cities, he fled to the wilderness of the Sierra Nevadas in Northern California. The Japanese-born artist traded in masses of people for forests filled with pine, oak, and cedar trees, some hundreds of years old. His new installation on the Resnick Lawn at LACMA incorporates ceramics, fallen trees, and manzanita shrubs removed to avert fires. "Tea House" will stay put all summer, a play on the traditional Japanese structure that balances…
Find out more »December 2019
Julie Mehretu at LACMA
On view: November 16, 2019–January 11, 2020 A mid-career survey of Julie Mehretu at LACMA presents a timely look at the artist’s past 20 years and the progression into her unique personal style. For Mehretu, line is everything, whether structured and plotted out to demarcate architectural space, or a more intuitive line that bears emotional weight and idiosyncratic style. It is the mixing of the two (like a shift between left brain/right brain) that makes the work really sing. Much…
Find out more »March 2020
Luchita Hurtado at LACMA
On view: February 16–May 3, 2020 Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn presents the first career survey of paintings and works on paper by multifaceted artist Luchita Hurtado (Venezuela, b. 1920). Prior to 2016, the remarkable breadth of Hurtado’s eight-decade career was virtually unknown, as her works were kept in storage and out of public view for most of her life. This exhibition will introduce museum audiences to several distinct bodies of work, including Hurtado’s early…
Find out more »November 2021
Obama Portraits & Black American Portraits at LACMA
As part of a five-city tour, the Obama portraits have come to Los Angeles (Kehinde Wiley’s painted portrait of Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s of Michelle Obama). While the paintings themselves are notable — the Obamas are the first African American subjects to be featured in presidential portraits, and Wiley and Sherald are the first African American artists to receive a presidential commission — LACMA has also curated a companion show, Black American Portraits, which is drawing crowds to the…
Find out more »March 2022
Barbara Kruger at LACMA
If you don’t know Barbara Kruger by name, you likely know her aesthetic. Kruger’s impact on visual culture has been vast, and the first room in her 20-year retrospective at LACMA — featuring collaged images of posters, campaigns, and T-shirts that crib her aesthetic (the Streetwear brand Supreme is one of the most notable examples) — nods to the constant appropriation of her work. Another gallery is wallpapered with black and white text that riffs on war, gender, and mortality.…
Find out more »April 2022
Lee Alexander McQueen at LACMA
At LACMA, an inventive exhibition celebrates the legacy of the late fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen, pairing iconic looks from various McQueen collections with LACMA’s own. It’s an opportunity to not only dust off some objects from LACMA’s archives but to speak to the collaborative nature of McQueen’s practice, which looked to a diverse array of cultural histories for constant inspiration. On view beside a plentiful array of garments and runway show images from across McQueen’s oeuvre are objects ranging…
Find out more »September 2022
Jazz At LACMA Presents Black Nile
On Friday, September 2nd, Jazz At LACMA presents Black Nile. Black Nile are brothers Aaron and Lawrence Shaw, who have been playing music together for much of their lives, embodying blends of the old and the new. They are representative of the the newest jazz artists emerging from the exploding LA Jazz Renaissance.
Find out more »KCRW Summer Nights at LACMA Members Only w/ KCRW DJ Jason Bentley + Guest DJ Bardo of Chicano Batman
Advanced ticket is required for this event. Attention KCRW and LACMA Members! This Summer Night is just for YOU! Come hang with us for an exclusive Saturday night at LACMA, featuring live sets from KCRW DJ Jason Bentley and very special guest DJ Bardo, frontman of KCRW fave, Chicano Batman. We’ll have bars, food offerings, special surprises and an evening of sights and sounds inspired by LACMA’s current exhibitions. Also, major perk — LACMA is staying open late and gallery…
Find out more »September 2023
Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction at LACMA
When we speak about abstraction, we often think about paintings that rejected the formalism, figuration, and representation of their forebearers to pursue bold new nonrepresentational forms on canvas. Less talked about are the parallel lineages that have influenced abstraction’s history (no art genre is an island!). LACMA’s woven history does just that, charting a course through fiber’s long history and drawing parallels to abstraction’s progressions. Yet, the exhibition also insists on fiber art as a key medium of artistic exploration,…
Find out more »April 2024
Ed Ruscha at LACMA
LACMA’s ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN is Ed Ruscha’s first retrospective in over twenty years. As a defining figure of postwar American art, Ruscha has drawn inspiration from Los Angeles throughout his career. In this exhibition, LACMA presents 250 artworks from across all media, including painting, drawing, printmaking, photography, and artist’s books. The comprehensive exhibition places his most acclaimed artworks like Standard Station (1966) alongside lesser-known aspects of his practice. With a career spanning over sixty years, Ruscha has consistently…
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