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(Photo courtesy Atlanta Dogwood Festival)

The drought has taken a toll on the city’s cultural scene, evident in this year’s relocation of the ATLANTA DOGWOOD FESTIVAL from Piedmont Park to Lenox Square. The 72-year-old festival, beginning Fri., APRIL 4, may have a hard time convincing Atlantans to celebrate the arrival of spring at the mall, but if the weather turns dismal, everyone can shop! And it’s close to MARTA! There will be the proverbial child-crack of inflatables, music and a large artists’ market where you can purchase art, and if the price is right, maybe an actual artist. Interestingly enough, the festival was originally conceived by Rich’s department store head Walter Rich as a way to lift Atlantans’ mood during the Depression, so perhaps this year’s festival can serve a similar purpose in our post-Bear Stearns economic slump. Through April 6. Free. Fri., noon-9 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., noon-6 p.m. 3393 Peachtree Road. 404-817-6642. www.dogwood.org.

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CNN anchor and special correspondent Soledad O’Brien will host CNN Presents: Black in America, a series of investigative reports, beginning with a special devoted to the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death called “Eyewitness to Murder – The King Assassination,” April 3 at 9 p.m. Speaking by phone from New York in her unmistakably cheerful and warm voice, O’Brien described the perils of a journalist’s life (too much time in airports, too much Panda Express) and what America wants: “I have never once had a question where someone says, ‘Tell me more about Paris Hilton.’”

Continue reading Speakeasy.

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Atlanta seems to be running out of landmarks in the frenzy to demolish and redo. Thankfully, denizens of the Westside can navigate by a charming new landmark. Artist Mark Leibert’s 14-foot-tall, roughly 700-pound PERCH on the roof of Sandler Hudson Gallery has become a beacon of homey sweetness amid the industrial boom. In the works since July, Leibert’s anthropomorphic beacon continues Mon., MARCH 31, and is crafted from an artificial tree cradling a tiny wooden house with a stained-glass window. The work originated with his desire to create an exhibition room on the gallery’s roof, but that urge slowly transformed into the current storybook house form – a beguiling, homespun juxtaposition to the skyscrapers and cranes visible on the horizon. Through June 7. Free. Tues.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat., noon-5 p.m. and by appointment. Sandler Hudson Gallery, 1009-A Marietta St. 404-817-3300. www.sandlerhudson.com.

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(Photo courtesy Magnolia Pictures)

Movie fans know that some of the most haunting 20th-century filmmaking has come from Japan. Films such as Rashomon (1950), Onibaba (1964), and Woman in the Dunes (1964) have the kind of impact that lingers for decades. Georgia Tech suggests that the national cinema continues to both enchant and get under our skin with its mini-film festival GHOSTS, LEGENDS, AND TECHNOLOGY IN JAPANESE CINEMA, beginning Tues., MARCH 25. The series features four notable Japanese films centered on folk tales, ghosts and the country’s unique dreamy surreality. The mini-festival opens with Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu (1953), one of Japanese film’s masterpieces known for its visual beauty and progressive gender politics. The series also features Kwaidan (1964) and Kairo (2001, pictured), a Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard award winner, which unites themes of ghosts and technology for the 21st century. Through March 31. Free. 7 p.m. Student Success Center, Press Rooms A and B, 2R Level, 219 Uncle Heinie Way. 404-365-9239. www.lcc.gatech.edu.

Here’s the trailer for Kwaidan, directed by Masaki Kobayashi…

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George Kuchar may not have the household name recognition of other underground filmmakers who emerged in the ’60s such as John Waters and Andy Warhol. But the 8mm kitsch-and-sex extravaganzas he made with his twin brother Mike are legendary among outré cinema fans. John Waters has called the Kuchar films, featuring the twins’ Bronx neighbors acting out steamy, DIY variations on Hollywood melodramas, a bigger influence on his films than even Warhol and Kenneth Anger. Kuchar will appear March 20 at Emory and March 21 at Eyedrum with a selection of his films (andel.home.mindspring.com).

Continue reading Culture Surfing.

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Bethany Marchman co-owns an underground gallery, Rabbit Hole, and is known for her clever, high-meets-low fusion of art history and kitsch. Her Caravaggio-inspired portrait of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka was a highlight of Alcove Gallery’s December Wonko show. Marchman’s work can currently be seen in another Alcove show, Toyland, and in Sons of the South at Foundation One Gallery.

Continue reading Culture Surfing.

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(Photo courtesy of Warner Independent Pictures)

If you thought Michael Haneke’s 1997 Austrian feature Funny Games was an exercise in sadism, then you should check out the ad campaign associated with his current Hollywood remake of the film starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Michael Pitt centered on a vacationing family tortured by a pair of privileged teenagers reminiscent of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. In a certifiably sick movie tie-in, viewers can go to the Funny Games website:

Click on “Play the Game.”

Go ahead. I dare you.

Customize an e-mail message and a phone message using the name of a friend or loved one and receive a message for your friend delivered in the voices of the film’s killers. It’s an incredibly creepy promotional gimmick.

It’s strange to see this diabolical device used to promote a film by this exceedingly smart, subversive director. Does Haneke know? If I had his e-mail address and phone number, I might have to customize one for him.

(more…)

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(Photo Joeff Davis)

I wrote about the wacky/cool global sensation that’s sweeping the nation, the salon/show-and-tell Pecha Kucha, in this week’s CL.

This Sunday is the fourth installment of Pecha Kucha and the organizers have just released the list of participants, who skew heavily on the architectural side of things.

VOLUME FOUR
March 9, 2008, 6:40 p.m.
Octane Coffee Lounge
109 Marietta St.

Danielle Glasky
An American Barista in Japan

David Sweeney
Dynamic Dish

Gavin Holmes
Anatomy of a 30 Second Spot

Jennifer Smith
Recent Favorites or My Mom

Mark Cottle
My You Tube

Merrill Elam
Buckhead Branch Library

Robert Cheatham
Public Domain, Inc.: Past, Present

Ruth Dusseault
I hoed beans

Ryan Gravel
20 Moments On the Belt-Line

Scott Ingram
Art and Architecture

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“Doc Melhorn and the Pearly Gates A,” Norman Rockwell, 1938

(Photo: Collection of Pfizer Inc./© 1938 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis)

Did you miss Norman Rockwell’s homespun assault on Atlanta in 1999 for the High Museum’s Americana blockbuster Pictures for the American People? No worries: A selection of 11 Rockwell paintings (along with the work of contemporary medical illustrators) depicting members of the medical profession are on view through June 4 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You heard me right: The CDC is also an art hot zone.

Seeing art at the CDC’s Global Health Odyssey exhibition space on Clifton Road is fun, because you get to feel like a character out of a Tom Clancy thriller as your trunk is searched. If you’re lucky, they’ll make you pop your hood and show them your engine. Maybe if real museums took these precautions, the wackos wouldn’t be stealing and slashing artworks.

Usually by the time I make it through security, I am all primed to see guys in biohazard gear leisurely strolling around, looking at art. I am generally disappointed on this front.

Talk about a retro flashback. When was the last time doctors were treated with such reverence, a virtual halo perched on their caring heads? Doctors today are so harried, filling out insurance-company paperwork and dealing with onion-peel bureaucracy, a contemporary Rockwell would probably feature a stressed-out lady doctor eating lunch at her desk.

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“I photographed him after he died, but I couldn’t do it while he was alive. It involved such a loss of dignity, dying. I think I draw the line when it involves a real exploitation of someone’s vulnerability.”

– Sally Mann speaking to Creative Loafing in 2004 about her photo project What Remains. Excerpts from What Remains and Self-Portraits appear March 7-April 26 at Jackson Fine Art in Buckhead.

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