July 24, 2008
By Ron Garmon
Thursday 24
“Every Gun Makes Its Own Tune”
Tonight, the Aero is doubtless proud to present Sergio Leone’s masterpiece, The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966). Three verminous gunfighters on a long and twisted quest for a buried $200,000 in the Civil War-era Eurowest gun down every smelly owlhoot in their paths. Thrill to Ennio Morricone’s peerless score as Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach (“in the role of Tuco”) exchange treacherous sidelong glances in glorious Techniscope. The last-named’s 360-degree run through a desolate cemetery, scrambling ratlike for the grave of “Arch Stanton” and a final payout that’s already taken the lives of dozens, opens the greatest showdown in Western-movie history. $10. 7:30 p.m., 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com/aero.
Friday 25
Let the Syrup Commence
International Pop Overthrow kicks off its 11th annual installment tonight at The Knitting Factory’s AlterKnit Lounge, with the sugary likes of A Penny for Jane, The Craze and The Trainwrecks. As usual, IPO will spread the sunshine all over Clubland, with turns at Fitzgerald’s, the Joint, Spaceland, Molly Malone’s, and the Bordello before wrapping up at the Good Hurt Aug. 9. Over 140 bands will play over the course of 14 shows, which is enough chiming guitars and McCartneyesque melodicism to madden a mastodon. $10. 7 p.m. 7021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. knittingfactory.com.
Saturday 26
Jump to Your Doom with Crimebo
The ghoulish folk over at Esotouric (your four-wheeled carnival of carnage) tonight take a few hardy souls on their Pasadena Confidential crime-bus tour. Join Crimebo the Crime Clown on a romp around the snooty old burg, with stops along Millionaires Row and sites of such notable disasters as the 1926 Rose Parade Grandstand Collapse, the dread heights of Suicide Bridge, and the spot where famed lunatic Jack Nance (Henry from Eraserhead) made his final exitus. Everywhere has a vile and horrible past and the good folks at Esotouric will take you right to where the skeletons are buried. $38. 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Departs from Fair Oaks/Arlington in Pasadena. esotouric.com.
Sunday 27
Palpitations
Tonight at LACMA is the final L.A. performance by the iPalpiti (Italian for “heartbeat”) Orchestra. Selected by the iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates to promote “the continuity of great traditions in classical music,” these young musicians from 19 different countries will be performing a varied program featuring Mozart’s Sonata in G-Major and Schumann’s Fantasy Op. 131. Free. 6 p.m. 5909 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood.
Monday 28
Toback Side-by-Side
The New Bev presents two modern classics by James Toback, the eccentric American director (who claims to hold the record for most hits of LSD swallowed by a biped) whose compulsion was the basis of Karel Reisz’s The Gambler (1974). Screening first is Fingers (1978), featuring Harvey Keitel as a hit man who dreams of becoming a concert pianist. Paired with Exposed (1983), which again features heavy-faced Harvey – though the focus this time is on Nastassja Kinski’s ravishing naturalism as a Wisconsin farm girl adrift in ambition and intrigue in New York. $7. 7:30 & 9:20 p.m., 7165 W. Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles.
Tuesday 29
Politics: The Action-Adventure Way
DreamCatcher Films presents the world premiere of Finding Our Voices at the Action on Film Festival in Pasadena tonight. The film tells the stories of eight dissidents who departed from the cultural script and spoke out against the unending U.S. war in Iraq, and the festival is a tribute to the action-adventure film, broadly construed. If protest and cops aren’t action-adventure, what, I ask, is? $8. 8 p.m. Laemmle’s One Colorado, 42 Miller Alley, Pasadena. aoffest.com.
Wednesday 30
“The Queen Promised to Ream Us with 20-Inch Cattle Prods and I’m Still Waiting!”
Join our friends at the Egyptian as the Cinematheque demonstrates the unrivaled class to screen a special restored version of Richard Elfman’s 1980 crass fantasia Forbidden Zone. A door to the Sixth Dimension leads pretty-but-incomprehensible Frenchy (Marie-Pascale Elfman) into the horny clutches of King Fausto (Hervé Villechaize, a.k.a. “Tattoo” from Fantasy Island), which mightily offends bassoon-voiced Queen Doris (the great Susan Tyrrell) and surreal hijinks ensue. Featuring much copulation, over-the-top racist humor W.C. Fields might well have blanched at, a memorable rendition of “Pico & Sepulveda,” and Tyrrell howling the deathless rejoinder, “Bullshit! You just wanna slip her the pork!” $10. 8 p.m. 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. americancinematheque.com.
Published: 07/23/2008
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