FRIDAY, APRIL 10
Television Festival
GOOD FRIDAY? TRY GREAT FRIDAY!
It’s Good Friday — and by “good,” I mean that it’s the opening day of the fantastic PaleyFest09. If you’ve never been, then you must be one of those people who refuse to own a television for some sociopathological reason, so please stop reading now. For each event, you’ll be with like-minded superfans who know far too much about the show being saluted. Though not every attendee can agree that all the shows being honored are worthy, the one thing each can agree on is that he or she would be better at programming the festival. You’ll watch a few episodes of the show, then cast and crew members will convene onstage to share the creative process and answer your pressing questions. Can’t get tickets? Show up anyway and see if you can spot the differences between the True Blood fans (see Monday) and the Big Love geeks. For the first time, the fest honors a “new media property,” the quirky Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Also being honored: 90210; Battlestar Galactica/Caprica; The Big Bang Theory; Desperate Housewives; Dollhouse; Fringe; The Hills; It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; The Mentalist; and Swingtown. Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight, 6360 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood; April 10-24; $45 & $60 (screening of unseen Pushing Daisies is $15). (866) 468-3399 or www.ticketweb.com. —Libby Molyneaux
Film
ASS-ICAL BRASS
Tinto Brass, the Italian director known for his warped and sensual take on human nature — culminating most notoriously with his abortive directorial work on Guccione’s Caligula — turned 73 in March. To celebrate, CineFamily presents The Psychedelic ’60s of Tinto Brass, screening some of his rarer films every Friday at midnight throughout April. In the same vein of Ken Russell or Andy Warhol (or Wes Craven’s career, only in reverse), Brass spiked his bizarre visions with more accessible sensibilities of being an “ass man” — and what full-blooded Italian in the ’60s was not? — focusing on sexy bits of the body until the meditation became almost surreal in its tactile obsession. As with most CineFamily fare, these films are exceedingly rare, generally unavailable on DVD and if they do show up on video, they’re from a deeply cruddy nth-generation of a bootleg PAL VHS. His 1970 film l’Urlo (screening April 10), loosely based on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, involves more women in search of themselves as they break free from the ossified cocoon of the middle class, while Deadly Sweet (1967, screening April 17) stars Ewa Aulin and Jean-Louis Trintignant and comes off initially as just another corpse-packed giallo but becomes something completely other as Brass crams in as much contemporary pop culture as he possibly can: fumetti, swinging London, the art of Crepax and the always-popular theme of the sinful dwarf. Brass’ aesthetic comes from a simpler time: one in which everything was thrown against the (stomach) wall and, more often than not, most of it worked — or, at least, stuck like a stabbed record. Silent Movie, 611 North Fairfax Ave., L.A.; Fri., mid.; thru April 27; $10. (323) 655-2510. —David Cotner
SATURDAY, APRIL 11
Dance
ABSOLUTELY FABRIC
Choreographers Kitty McNamee and Ryan Huffington move deftly between the commercial and artistic dance worlds, combining individual projects with their collaborative efforts as co-artistic directors of Hysterica Dance Co. After what seems like an extended absence, Hysterica returns with McNamee and Huffington’s latest, Crust, with eight dancers swathed in yards and yards of fabric. Huffington has established his credentials as a costume designer for Hysterica, other companies and for his own projects. T.S. Eliot wrote about preparing “a face to meet the faces that you meet.” In Crust the voluminous material serves both literal and figurative functions, the layers sheltering and obscuring the bodies of the eight dancers but also as a “crust” to be removed, revealing the movement and the dancers. In a town where what one wears can be defining, Hysterica promises to explore how dressing prepares a similar face to be donned and removed, and the consequences of both. Unknown Theater, 1110 N. Seward St., Hollywood; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m., Sun., 6 p.m.; thru April 12; $18. (323) 466-7781 or www.unknowntheater.com. —Ann Haskins
Classical
FOUND: OPERA
When we talk about The Birds, we don’t mean Hitchcock’s horror classic. We’re talking opera — one that you’d probably never get to see if it weren’t for LA Opera conductor James Conlon and his laudable Recovered Voices Project. For the past three years, this incredible undertaking has been devoted to exploring and restoring forgotten operas by the lost generation of composers who suffered under the Nazis and their notorious “Degenerate Art” witch hunt that sent so many brilliant artists and intellectuals to the concentration camps and execution chambers. One of those victims was Walter Braunfels, a popular German composer who was forced to withdraw from public life due to his part-Jewish heritage, and whose works were banned and subsequently fell into oblivion. Braunfels composed “Die Vogel” in 1920; the composers described his free-wheeling adaptation of the Aristophanes play The Birds as an “airy play of imagination ... everything here is a game, a metaphor.” The Birds established Braunfels as the most important composer of German opera next to Richard Strauss, and this week, LA Opera presents the West Coast premiere of this delightful work, with soprano Désirée Rancatore in the role of the Nightingale and tenor Brandon Jovanovich, winner of the 2007 Richard Tucker Award, as Good Hope. The cast also includes soprano Stacey Tappan and baritones James Johnson, Martin Gantner and Brian Mulligan. James Conlon conducts the new production staged by Darko Tresnjak. At the Music Center; opens Sat., April 11, 7:30 p.m.; continues Sat., April 18 & Sun., April 26, 2 p.m. & Thurs., April 23, 7:30 p.m.; thru April 26; $20-$250. (213) 972-8001 or www.laopera.com. —Mary Beth Crain
