Star Trek Exploring New Worlds is a delightful exhibition that explores the quite relevant themes the series – in all its iterations – sought to explore. A history of the sci fi show’s production – we can thank Lucille Ball in part, for her belief in the project when others found it too costly or unappealing; costumes; culture; and various characters are all a part of a thoroughly engaging collection.
Costuming art Commercial conquests Props of all kinds
Props and artifacts, the storyline of each series and spin-off, and production models are all there. Delightfully well-curated, the exhibition treats the series and both its message and artistic design with both reverence and humor. Pose in the Captain’s chair or try out your prop phasers and get beamed up in a variety of video scenes you can watch enfold via Blue Screen magic.
As much fun as the exhibition is, it is the unfolding of its cultural impact, its messages of inclusiveness and kindness that both the Skirball, and the series itself, explores to purpose. To say that Star Trek the series went where no series had gone before is entirely true. It introduced many of the concepts we now discuss in daily life, as well as some classic catch phrases. It took an early look at the issues and understandings we now strive to reach, or at least attempt to do so, including equality between cultures and races as well as between men and women. One of the reasons for both the original series’ appeal and that of the iterations that came after it, is that the tenets it holds most dear, of learning to accept one another and our differences, never gets old.
Interactive Fun
Thematically, tolerance, reverent history, championship for those who need championing, and a willingness to explore are all inherent in the Skirball’s own mission, adding further resonance to the exhibition.
Both charming and informative, with savvy insider production knowledge and an intelligent look at the series’ impact on viewers and the entertainment industry, Exploring New Worlds offers a smart look at a pop-culture phenomena viewed through a lens of appreciation and the hope for a better tomorrow.
Heartily wishing the Skirball Cultural Center’s deeply enjoyable exploration of Star Trek will live long and prosper. The exhibition runs through February 20th, 2022, a space trip for all ages.
A new site-specific sculptural installation is opening at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont on November 13th. Artist Brandon Lomax combines fine art and scientific horticulture in vividly motion-filled sculptures. His art in the garden is beautifully designed to fit the environment. Immersive experiences tied to natural cycles are the thematic components of many of his many sculptural and installation works. Empathetic and encompassing, Lomax reminds viewers and exhibition participants of their place in the universe.
In this exhibition, Lomax’s sculptural works will be shown at various stages of completion, from fully fired clay works as durable as stone, to unfired clay pieces more vulnerable to the weather and natural garden elements. Guided by garden horticulturists, Lomax has embedded some works with native plant species. During the exhibition, which will run until June 2022, these unfired works will disintegrate and rejoin the soil, their once solid forms replaced by new plants.
The work is designed to reference many meanings about place, restoration, and diversity, reminding viewers that we’re all vital contributors, and instilling the hope that human beings can celebrate our own biodiversity. Lomax’s wish is for us to work together to create a more positive symbiotic relationship with each other and the earth itself. Lomax himself is currently completely a master’s degree in ecology at the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland.
His works here suggest the impermanent transience of population diversity within a given place. Some pieces, just like plants and people, last far longer than others, with the fired works serving as monuments to sustainability, and unfired pieces representing the natural cycle of selection and species dominance.
On opening day, Lomax will be onsite at the California Botanic Garden for some public workshops. While space is limited, viewers can participate in a public installation using unfired clay infused with native plant seeds to create small sculptures. These will be added to the artist’s own large-scale installation. Participants are encouraged to return periodically to the site over its 7-month span to see how their own sculptural works transform to native flora. To check availability, visit https://www.calbg.org/events-programs/events
Garden hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free for members; tickets: https://www.calbg.org/
Looking for a place to spend the night? Well, you can’t stay overnight – at least not yet – although that may be in future plans, but you can, and should, spend the evening Elsewhere at The Madcap Motel.
Located in DTLA’s arts district, the immersive mix of walk-through theater and clever art installation might remind you a bit of Meow Wolf’s immersive offerings, and also reminded me, at least, of the 2019 film Bad Times at the El Royale, but it’s entirely unique.
Motel “guests” check-in at a comfortable lobby and wait their turn to enter, entertained by an improv-prolific maid who serves as de-facto leader of small groups of motel guests into another waiting room, a motel-suite.
From there, you’ll meet a mad, or semi-mad, scientist, various walking shrubbery, mysterious maids and other staff, and explore a wide range of surreal and super fun room installations.
You’ll travel into a storyline that is all about time travel, alternate dimensions, and the mysterious disappearance of one J.D. Sando, the motel’s original owner. You’ll uncover weird worlds and a variety of possibly illicit relationships in the bargain.
There are plenty of photographable moments for your social media sharing of choice, as well as lively improvisational performances, super cool miniatures, and a clever path through one door into another room and into another time.
Along with the elements of a missing person and assignations – noir aspects that brought to my mind the Jeff Bridges-starring El Royale film, there is of course a distinct hip art vibe coupled with Alice in Wonderland.
From the minute dioramas…
…to the oversized, step-inside TV and giant chair, guests enter one White Rabbit hole after another.
It’s a lot of fun and has a more intimate feel than other installation experiences, involving its “travellers” interactively with character encounters as well as experiential rooms.
Yes, a smoke effect may transport you into space, a beam of light lure you down a distant corridor, and a visit to the very “alive” greenery-filled courtyard encourage you to sit awhile.
You’ll also be privy to false doors and magical mirrors, an enormous blue/green coral reef, vehicles trapped inside walls and others filled with a jungle of plants.
There’s groan-worthy broad humor, lively performances, and abundant art and design, but above all else, your stay comes with a special kind of room service – a willing transcendance of disbelief into a magical throwback of pure fun.
You’ll find rooms at a slant and floating furniture; strange emerald green plants alight in terrariums; miniature desserts and towns and undersea life caught inside incandescent portholes, and more.
The experience takes somewhere around 90 minutes, and guests of all ages will enjoy their mini-vacation. We sure did!
Like any good traveler, if you want to bring home a souvenir from your trip, you can do that, too.
Tickets are $40 for adults; $30 for kids; 3 and under are free. Purchase in advance online.
We reviewed a number of features at the 2021 Dances with Films – with more ahead – but the short film program is such a powerful part of Dances with Films, it’s time to take a look at some of truly terrific offerings we viewed this year before I return to the feature offerings we screened.
Outside the shorts program per se – a part of the Downbeat music selections – was the absolutely charming animated squirrels in The World’s Gone Nutz. This hilarious – and insanely catchy musical featurette is part of a series from animator Daniel Robert Cohn’s squirrel world. In this iteration, the first all-squirrel band, Squirrel Me Bad offers a pithy comment on politics and social mores over the past year. Seasonal squirrel offerings are also afoot on Cohn’s website which thanks to DWF 2021 I’m alerted to enjoy.
If you’ve ever flown in one of the great birds of the sky known as airplanes, there was plenty of fun to relate to in “Airway,” a smart, quick, hilarious fear of flying gone mad.
“Anniversary” is a visual and emotional stunner from writers and director Craig Ouellette & Neal McLaughlin that looks to be just the beginning of the road for this team. Subversive and strange. We were ready for more.
Generally creepy was the tension-filled and sleek “Black Hole.” “Bossbabes” was a ride with lots of humorous twists and turns to keep viewers guessing and laughing. Vibrant and compelling the music pulsed through the message of a powerful “Enough.”
“Georgia” was a heartbreaking and perfectly told story of parents seeking justice for their daughter’s tragic attack and death.
“The Huntsman and the Hound” created a brilliant atmospheric that anchored the tale of two hitmen at odds.
“Incognito” was a well-polished period story of forbidden love and secret consequences that offered a nice mix of the imagined and the real.
All nightmare was the mordantly funny, riveting, horror-tinged “The Jester’s Song,” offering the aftermath of a Rapture in which all the good people seem to have left the earth behind. But briefly, let there be music. Hope to see much more from writer/director Michael Woloson.
“Klutz” offered a happy ending to a sorrowful but sweet story of loss and spiritual connection in a tale of sisterly love and supernatural conversation.
More shorts coverage is coming, but for now –
Returning to feature selections at DWF…
New Year is an emotionally harrowing long night’s journey into New Year’s Day. Beautifully shot in black and white, the intimate cast moves from edgy friendship and sputtering marriage to confessional disaster. Director and co-writer Nathan Sutton keeps viewers as tense and involved as his characters celebration, as married duo Benjamin and Katherine, host a party with closest friends before moving from LA to NYC.
A sense of elegy also permeated Sing to Me Sylvie, in which former bandmates reconnect in Portland. One is married but still attached to her past, the other a surprisingly content homeless itinerant musician. This was one of the film’s that didn’t quite connect for me, but the turbulence of a touring performer’s life had undeniable appeal.
In another encore performance from the virtual 2020 fest, Take Out Girl pulls viewers into the nightmare that pursuit of the “American Dream” has often become. Here, the “take out girl” for her family’s struggling restaurant begins to deliver the goods for a drug kingpin as well, with potentially shattering results.
With festival offerings overall less lighthearted than some viewed in previous years, They/Them/Us with a zany blended potential family and kinky sex play offered a humorous perspective in this slice of the Brady Bunch life for modern times.
A festival standout for me was Voodoo Macbeth, a collaborative work by multiple directors and writers through the USC film program. This simply terrific film took on a true story and made it sing with heart and hope. Set in a beautifully realized 1936 Harlem, the first all-Black cast production of ‘Macbeth’ struggles toward opening night under the helm of an increasingly unhinged young director, none other than Orson Welles. Fascinating story, filmmaking, and a fantastic cast – it glued viewers to their seats. An incredibly fine film.
Black and white, Chaplinesque from its score to shooting style, What? offered an engaging look at today’s LA in silent-movie style. The fairytale-like quality of this story of a deaf actor tired of discrimination against him, the film is reminiscent of 2011 Academy Award winner The Actor, and equally lovingly-made.
Also calling back a previous film for me – in this case Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was the extremely well done and haunting love story that marks the central tenet of the Russian film Dreamover. Mysterious and magical, a journey from loneliness into the the love language of the past proves a trip worth taking.
And, speaking of journeys, there’s Holidays at All Costs. This French comedy of errors takes viewers into an hilarious and harrowing vacation, hard earned by a loving father who has more than earned a far better resort stay than this one. Lots of fun.
More features and final words ahead and so many rising stars and smart screenings at DWF 2021.
Genie Davis; photos courtesy of filmmakers, also by Jack Burke
