Nashville @ the Charles Theatre this week

Don't forget that the Saturday screening starts early.


Showtimes:
Saturday, April 18 at 11 AM
Monday, April 20 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 23 at 9 PM

1975 Robert Altman. Ned Beatty, Karen Black, David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Keenan Wynn, Vassar Clements, Elliott Gould, Julie Christie. 159m.


In 1975, legendary film critic Pauline Kael dubbed Nashville “an orgy for movie-lovers” in a worshipful review that seemed more than a little over the top at the time, especially when the film flopped at the box office. Audiences, used to predictable generic conventions (was it a musical, a political satire, a docudrama?) didn't get Altman's sprawling, multi-layered bicentennial epic and stayed away in droves. When the director was asked why it failed, he wryly replied, “Because we didn't have King Kong or a shark.” More than three decades later, it's clear that Kael's judgment has triumphed over the taste of the times. Today Nashville is acknowledged as everything Altman's outsized vision demanded: it's a seminal film and a great one, and it changed the definition of what movies could be. Challenging, to be sure. Seamlessly juggling the stories of more than two dozen characters over five days in Music City, USA, Nashville refuses to tell us where to look or how to respond. But give yourself over to the spectacle and you can't help but be moved by the miracle of it, by the sheer audacity of its scope and depth. If any film ever demanded to be seen more than once, this is it-maybe 24 times would be apt, once for each character. It's guaranteed that each viewing will yield up a multitude of new pleasures and insights. Enjoy the orgy. (Linda DeLibero)

Photos from Altered States @ Load Of Fun

Posted Originally on the City Paper website
Transmodern, Day Four: Altered States
By Alex Ebstein
Altered States, a satellite Transmodern exhibition and the latest curatorial endeavor by Jamillah James, delivers an impressive--dare-we-say all-star, both local and national--roster of video, installation, and new media artists, with a killer live performance at the opening to boot. Bringing the work of major, contemporary artists--including a video piece by the Providence-based collective Forcefield, which consists of Matt Brinkman, Jim Drain, Ara Peterson, and Leif Goldberg--into the Baltimore and Transmodern spectrum, while simultaneously highlighting local artists working in the same vein, Altered States helps to uphold the level of professionalism that the Transmodern festival has achieved with each year's manifestation.

Though unfortunately limited to the smaller, second-floor gallery at Load of Fun, James more than made due with the space's awkward, hallway layout. Projecting two larger videos and screening additional pieces on television monitors--along with three major installations by Erin Womak, a collaboration between Caitlin Williams and Sarah Milinski, and the New Jedi Order--the space is full without being overcrowded. Cohesive in its overall aesthetic and celebrating the action of making work over the idea of art as product, the exhibition is an intentional throwback to 1960s fringe, communal subcultures. A majority of the included works are collaborative projects, with the pieces by individual artists echoing the idea of a collective ceremony. Womack displays a beautifully eerie series of masks, many of which were seen in her ritual, performance/installation during last year's Transmodern festival, while Jimmy Joe Roche plays the part of a spiritualist in his video.

As a whole, the video work is comprised of experimental forms and ambiguous imagery. Familiar images and symbols lose their recognition and meaning within each strange context. In watching the looping footage melt from one visual reference into the next, a greater narrative is never obvious. EMR's (Matt Bass and Dylan Mira's Extreme Mature Respect) and Forcefield's respective pieces reflect a vague communal or teamwork effort to an indeterminate end, although EMR's repetitious imagery of linking arms arguably climaxes with an unrelated explosion.

Marking the closing of Transmodern and the opening of Altered States, Sunday night's music performances were similarly themed and well-considered. Featuring the indisputably awesome line-up of the Lexie Mountain Boys, Soft Circle, and Ra Khuit Noor (a performance by Erin Womak and Ravi Binning, which exceeded the average attention span by three minutes or so). Perhaps the only blip was the inclusion of New York's Blues Control. Purposefully ambient, the band has the stage presence of an iPod, an uncomfortably sharp contrast to the upbeat energy of its fellow performers.

Despite its satellite location, Altered States pushes the Transmodern envelope and manages to capture its generally uncontainable energy in a gallery exhibition. Perhaps a glimpse into the future of the festival, and certainly a concise and digestible cross-section of the overall, four-day program, Altered States helps to establish this Baltimore institution's art-world relevance and reinforces its infinite potential. Altered States was a one-night-only event, and compelling enough to make us look forward to James' future projects.

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical @ BBOX

MICA students, faculty, and staff will perform the musical that celebrates the heyday of the 1960s hippie movement, in BBOX, the performance space of MICA's new Gateway building, 1601 W. Mount Royal Ave. The performances coincide with the Broadway revival of the iconic show, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008. HAIR is directed by Peter Shipley and produced, designed, and performed by a “tribe” of more than 60 MICA students, faculty, and staff—talented visual artists, singers, musicians, set designers, costume designers, and performance artists. Audiences will experience the full transformation of MICA’s new BBOX performance space into a colorful, joyous, uninhibited space, where the “tribe” will put a vivid art-school spin on the musical’s 1960s sensibility.

Tickets:
Opening night special, $5 for everyone; all other shows, $10, students with ID; $15, everyone else. Tickets are on sale at the MICA store, 1200 W. Mount Royal Ave. For more information, call Judy Lidie at 410-225-2350 or e-mail jlidie@mica.edu.

Showtimes:
Performances take place Tuesday-Thursday, April 14-16 at 8 p.m.; Friday, April 17 at 7 p.m.; Saturday, April 18, special midnight show; and Sunday, April 19, 2 p.m.

Sondheim Finalists Announced

2009 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize Finalists:

BDC (Baltimore Development Cooperative), Baltimore, MD
Leslie Furlong, Baltimore, MD
Ryan Hackett, Kensington, MD
Jessie Lehson, Baltimore, MD
Molly Springfield, Washington, DC
Karen Yasinsky, Baltimore, MD

HMMMMMM..... Thoughts? Blandheim? Blahndheim?

Off The Wall Opening @ The Whole Gallery April 18

OFF THE WALL
Art that Grows from the Floor and Drips from the Ceiling
curated by Emily C-D

Opening SATURDAY APRIL 18TH, 7-11pm
with performances that will challenge the verticality of the space!

@ the WHOLE gallery
405 W. Franklin St.
3rd Floor of the H&H Warehouse
Baltimore

thru May 17th, hours by appointment, email shout@emilycd.com

Exhibiting Artists:

Alzaruba
Jeanne-Marie Burdette
Gina Denton
Liz Ensz
Matt Gemmell
Annie Gray
Jill Greenberg
Rebecca Habtour
Jen Kirby
Edward Knapp
Christina Martinelli
Sarah Matson
Kaitlin Murphy
Freda Mohr
Ellen Nielsen
Phuong Pham
Rachel Schmidt
Melissa Webb
Liz Zacharia

Sneak peek at some of the installations

Also check out the new Whole Gallery Blog!