A group of students from Albuquerque’s Public Academy for Performing Arts just got back from Los Angeles where their short dance film “Re-Step” was screened at the 12th Annual Dance Camera West. All told, PAPA won awards in six categories at the April festival for both film and photography. So congratulations are in order all around. If you’re interested in checking out what PAPA has been doing, several works by advanced PAPA film students will be screened alongside professional filmmakers at the N4th theater’s Wild Dancing West celebration this Friday night.
The last of the 2012-13 season finales are wrapping up, and the networks are in severe “cut our losses” mode. Last weekend, the broadcast networks started announcing their new shows for fall 2013. That means programmers have to make room in their schedules for all the new content. That’s bad news for a lot of folks in Hollywood who got a mess of pink slips last week telling them that their prime time meal tickets had been canceled.
Late last month, the Off Broadway vintage clothing store and costume shop in Nob Hill paid tribute to an appearance by actress Tippi Hedren at the KiMo Theatre. They did so by turning the store’s display window into a fashion show inspired by Hedren’s iconic appearances in classic Alfred Hitchcock movies. Keeping on the cinematic tip, Off Broadway has now transformed their Central Ave. storefront into a salute to director Baz Luhrmann’s version of The Great Gatsby (hitting theaters this Friday, May 10). The display features authentic 1920s fashions inspired by the jazzy film. Check it out throughout May at 3110 Central SE.
At the beginning of this month, movie download service Netflix let its contract with Starz expire. The end result was the loss of almost 2,000 films from the Warner Bros., MGM and Universal libraries. This occurred largely because Warner Archive wants to set up its own instant download service. Soon you’ll be able to pay every studio in Hollywood $10 a month to access films out of their library—and only their library. But the other reason for the loss is that Netflix figures nobody wants to watch a bunch of old movies anyway, so who cares? The kids today are only interested in new content. So Netflix is changing its plan to serve as an alternative to video stores (which no longer exist anyway) into something new: serving as an alternative to HBO and Showtime.
This Saturday, May 4, is Free Comic Book Day, an annual orgy of illustrative art in which fair-weather fans descend upon stores to snatch up piles of complimentary comic books. If you’re a true lover of “sequential art” (as comic book genius Scott McCloud calls it), you might want to extend the holiday and head over to Guild Cinema on Sunday, May 5. Local word-and-picture publishing organization 7000 B.C. is sponsoring a special movie screening at 1 p.m. only. The documentary Dear Mr. Watterson looks into the life and art of “Calvin & Hobbes” creator Bill Watterson.
