By Casey Burchby
Second only to Walt Disney, Chuck Jones was one of the most influential American animators in history. Eleven years after his death at age 89, Jones' style continues to influence animators and cartoonists by the dozen. Closely associated with Warner Bros. throughout his career, Jones directed hundreds of Looney Tunes shorts and created Marvin the Martian, Pepe le Pew, the Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote.
By Casey Burchby
Jim Van Bebber's film, The Manson Family, about the sycophantic cult that sprang up around Charles Manson in the 1960s is disturbing and convincing in its evocation of that specific and deeply unsettling milieu -- a time and place where young people believed in hedonistic pleasure without consequences, where unlimited acid and sex were the keys to a liberated existence.
By Evan Karp
Forging ahead while founder Caitlin Myer rewrites one of her two in-progress novels from Uruguay, The Portuguese Artists Colony returns to the Hotel Rex for the latest in its semi-monthly series with the theme "Road Trip."
In town from Chicago as one of the featured readers is Patricia Ann McNair, whose short story collection The Temple of Air was selected as book of the year by the Chicago Writers Association.
The 12-year-old Ray of Light Theatre, which produces a couple of musicals every summer, had been talking, for 10 of those years, about creating a cabaret series so that it could have year-round offerings and be able to "build their base," says Justin Sadoian, the company's executive producer. Last year, the dream finally came true when the company teamed up with Martuni's, the venerable piano bar, to create the Spotlight Series, and this month's event, "Sunday at the Bar with Steve" -- that is, Stephen Sondheim -- is in honor of Ray of Light's first show of the season, Into the Woods.
By Silke Tudor
The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts was started in the 1970s by a group of SFSU students who refused to let their lifeblood flow along the periphery. They wanted the art, music, poetry, and dance of Latin Americans, of Chicanos, to move beyond the confines of the neighborhood and take center stage. Thirty-five years later, with few resources and a mostly volunteer staff, MCCLA has grown into the largest center of its kind in the country. Tonight, poet, co-founder, and professional storyteller Nina Serrano will weave tales from the threads of the center's rich history as part of Luna Negra, a celebration of women's art that is held once a year on the full moon.
It was Renoir who said that a work of art "must seize upon you, wrap you up in itself, and carry you away." Interviews with artists should have a similar effect. With "Artist's Statement," our weekly interview series with prominent and upcoming visual artists in San Francisco, SF Weekly speaks to the people behind the art you see in the galleries, in the museums, and in the streets.
