The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is launching a new Cafe Vienna series, doling out rich coffee and miniature sandwiches in a pop-up dining space inspired by the museum's current retrospective on Austrian artist-designer Koloman Moser.
In collaboration with Decorative Center Houston, the MFAH tapped interior designer Punita Valambhia to transform the museum restaurant into a fin-de-siècle European bistro with a contemporary twist. For the next three Mondays, guests can enjoy a small lunch inside the "cafe" followed by private tours of the Moser exhibit . . . all while the building is closed to the public.
"I've tried to evoke the show by concentrating on stripes and geometric patterns, elements that define much of Moser's work," Valambhia tells CultureMap.
"We've taken the silvers and golds and cobalt blues from the show and translated them into the cafe. It's like Koloman is alive and with us today."
A pivotal figure in the proto-modernist Vienna Secession movement (Austria-Hungary's answer to Art Nouveau), Moser would join artist Gustav Klimt and architect Josef Hoffman to create the influential Wiener Werkstätte studios to produce artistically-inspired functional household goods, examples of which are on display in the MFAH exhibition.
Café Vienna will pop up on the lower level of the Beck Building on Oct. 28, Nov. 4 and Nov. 11. Tickets to the event — available on the MFAH website — are $65 each and $55 for MFAH members.
Houston designer Punita Valambhia has created a space inspired by the lines and patterns of Austrian artist Koloman Moser.
Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Houston designer Punita Valambhia has created a space inspired by the lines and patterns of Austrian artist Koloman Moser.
A variety of actors have had the good fortune of having career resurgences thanks to someone giving them a chance after they passed their prime, including John Travolta after Pulp Fiction, Keanu Reeves after John Wick, and Brendan Fraser after The Whale. Pamela Anderson is the latest actor hoping to be reclaimed thanks to her starring role in The Last Showgirl.
In the meta-story, the 57-year-old Anderson plays Shelly, an aging showgirl at a third tier Las Vegas casino. The show itself, called Le Razzle Dazzle, is on its last legs, and Shelly finds herself at a crossroads, with no other skills or financial means on which to fall back.
While younger showgirls like Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) and Mary-Anne (Brenda Song) are willing to move on to more sexually-suggestive shows, Shelly is only comfortable with the tried-and-true showgirl way. Three other people in her life — estranged daughter Hannah (Billie Lourd), best friend Annette (Jamie Lee Curtis), and stage manager Eddie (Dave Bautista) — seem to help and hurt her in equal measure.
The effectiveness of the film, directed by Gia Coppola and written by Kate Gersten, depends heavily on whether the viewer is willing to accept Anderson, who’s still best known for her role on Baywatch, as a serious actor. If Coppola and Gersten are trying to show a different side of Anderson, they fail; having her play a character with little-to-no makeup and a dramatic arc does not make up for her poor acting skills and a high voice that borders on shrill.
And because the story is so dependent on Anderson — she appears in literally every scene — it never has a chance of becoming interesting or involving. Her character has personal issues that are objectively sad, but any weight that might have resulted from those storylines are lost along the way. She’s not helped by an over-the-top performance by Curtis, who seems to be milking her Oscar from Everything Everywhere All at Oncefor all it’s worth.
Coppola seems to be going for an old-school feel for the film to match the storyline. The film has a weird, unfocused look to it at times, giving the audience visuals that are definitely not high-definition. Whether she’s actually using an old film stock or manipulating the image to make it look like an old film, the effect is the same, with imperfections appearing on the screen often.
Anderson — who earned a nomination for a Golden Globe for Best Female Actor for her role — and Curtis seem to take up most of the oxygen of the film, leaving little to remember from anyone else. Shipka had a breakout movie year thanks to appearances in Twisters and Longlegs, but her role here gives her little to do. The same goes for Bautista, although at least he gets to put on a grey wig and act in a way that doesn’t emphasize his bulky physique.
While actors should never be shunted aside simply because they’ve aged out of an accepted age range, you also have to have the ability to prove you still belong. Anderson can’t get out of her own way in The Last Showgirl, and consequently the film itself never has any dramatic depth, either.
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The Last Showgirl opens in theaters on January 10.
