Results tagged “katharinehepburn”

There's something incredible at the corner of Olympic and La Cienega. Something shocking. And inspiring. Everything in this town traces back to the cinematic, and yet truly independent film promotion is rare (mini-majors like Fox Searchlight don't count). Which is why I'm entranced with Polanski, opening this Valentine's weekend at Laemmle's Sunset 5. Taking its cue from The Room, the brazen billboard sports writer/producer/director/actor Damian Chapa (of Street Fighter & Under Siege fame) gazing deep into the viewer's soul as he forces himself onto a little girl. It's doubtful the production will help the tragic auteur's legal situation (there's a reason this gift is wrapped with "Unauthorized"), it should make for quite the Valentine. Go with someone you love.

Katharine Hepburn is considered by many to be the finest actress ever to grace the screens of Hollywood. That she was also a firebrand of a personality only added to her considerable legend. To commemorate the 100th year of her birth, The Los Angeles Museum of Art is running a long series of her films starting tonight. Do yourself a favor--go to the LACMA after work to see the George Kahn Quintet at 6 p.m., have a few pops, then stay for what may be the best of the nine films that Hepburn starred in with Spencer Tracy, Adam's Rib.

A fairly mundane week of new releases. is coming this Christmas. Kevin Dillon's career shows eerie parallel to Johnny Chase's. Psycho religious freaks raise normal son. The HD/Blu-Ray assault continues...

Okay, it's true confessions time. We've been waiting for Tea at Five, the one-woman play about the life of Katharine Hepburn, to hit the west coast for over two years now. We took our seat in the lovely and historic Pasadena Playhouse opening night, practically biting our nails in nervous anticipation. After all, it seems to take a Kate (or a Cate) to play the Great Kate, and we were ready to see Mulgrew tread the boards in shoes that could be too big to step in to. Tea at Five takes place at Fenwick, the Hepburn family's second home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, the first act one stormy eve in 1938, and the second act in 1983. The two acts are almost as disparate as the decades they represent, and stikingly so. Mulgrew bears a fair resemblance to Hepburn the younger; what she lacks in physical proximity (she's shorter and more voluptuous, certainly) she tries to make up with prancing and posing. While it's in an effort to capture the boundless energy and athleticism of the outspoken star, at times it is distracting and a tad bit far-fetched. Act one plays like a frantic highlight reel of Hepburn's trials and tribulations: she's considered "box office poison" after a series of flops, she's not in the running to play Scarlett O'Hara, her brother Dick has penned an inflammatory play, she's turned down a Mr. Hughes' proposal, and there's a hurricane a-comin'. Granted, all of these moments are absolutely historically accurate (though perhaps not on the table all in the same day), but many of the more so-called intimate insights are full of invention and error. The fault lies not in Mulgrew's bold and daring performance, but in Matthew Lombardo's try-hard script; surely if his aim was to uncover the secret thoughts of "Katharine of Arrogance" he would have studied the same material that any devoted fan would have. Certainly the objections of Hepburn's extended family did not gain him access into any top-secret material, and some of his liberties, such as the convoluted tale of her first lover Luddy, border on offensive. It seems Lombardo put the 1993 All About Me videotape on a loop and copied down Kate's witticisms as fast as he could type--the cleverest lines were all written or said by Hepburn herself.