Over 245 eight-by-10 inch pieces of decorated tin served as the basis for Lawndale Art Center's 23rd annual Día de los Muertos retablo silent auction and gala. The art organization invited artists to create a retablo or ex-voto inspired work for the auction, all of which were bid upon by the party's discerning viewers.
The retablos decking the walls of the Grace Cavnar Gallery included first-time artists as well as local heavyweights the likes of Al Souza, Joan Laughlin and John Runnels. The selection was in every sense diverse, from Carlos Pozo's hard-edge sketching and Clark Kellogg's woodcraft wizardry to Myke Venable's mod Ellsworth Kelly tribute and Kendall Gremillion's oil spill abstractions.
Installations by local schools filled the lobby and migrated upwards into the building's mezzanine, where the band Mr. Bristle and friends lured bidders with Latin grooves. Guests sipped St. Arnold brewskies and cocktail interpretations of Vitamin Water and Cabo Wabo Tequila.
In the maraca mix were event chairs Miri Wilkins and Penelope Gonzalez Marks along with Diana Hudson, Lawndale chair of the board of directors and Día de los Muertos underwriter. Also spotted in the circulating swarm were architect James Glassman spying on his Etch-a-Sketch retablo, Big Show guest curator Paul Middendorf and Lawndale director-cum-emcee Christine West.
The exhibition of retablos is on view through Nov. 6.
Writer/director Ryan Coogler has become so well-known for his blockbuster films — Creed, Black Panther, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever — that it’s easy to forget that he made his debut with the small-but-powerful 2013 film, Fruitvale Station. After more than a decade, he’s finally returning to original material with his latest film, Sinners.
Each of Coogler’s films has either starred or featured Michael B. Jordan, and this one gives moviegoers a double dose, as Jordan plays twins who go by the nicknames of Smoke and Stack. Set in 1932, the two hustlers have recently returned from mysterious (and possibly criminal) work in Chicago to their hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi to open a juke joint.
They call upon a number of friends and family to help them with the venture, including cousin and guitar player Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), Smoke’s old girlfriend Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), piano player Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo), bouncer Cornbread (Omar Miller), and Chinese couple Bo and Grace Chow (Yao and Li Jun Li). Trouble is never far from the brothers, though, whether it’s Stack’s old girlfriend Mary (Hailee Steinfeld), the Ku Klux Klan leader who sold them the property for the juke joint, or something even more sinister.
Coogler began his feature film career by confronting the issue of unjustified shootings of Black people by police. How Black people are perceived by society has been a part of everything he’s done since. By placing this film firmly in the middle of the Jim Crow era, he infuses the story with all manner of subtext, including the injustice of sharecropping and prevalent segregation in the South.
Music, specifically Blues, plays a big part in the film as well. It’s championed through the emerging talent of Sammie and the veteran presence of Delta Slim, but it’s also a driving force for other parts of the plot. Sammie is decried by his pastor father for playing “the devil’s music,” while strange newcomer Remmick (Jack O’Connell) seems to appreciate it a little too much. A fantastically surreal scene at the juke joint turns into an entertaining and educational lesson on the history of Black music.
It’s Remmick’s obsession that’s at the center of the final hour or so of the film, one in which all hell breaks loose. The manner of that hell is probably better enjoyed if it’s not spoiled here, but suffice it to say that Remmick has an evil to him that threatens to destroy Smoke and Stack’s venture before it even gets started. The horror aspect of the film is fine, but it winds up being the least interesting part of the story.
Jordan can occasionally go over-the-top with his performances, and with him playing twins the threat of doing so was doubled. But he remains relatively restrained for most of the film, giving each twin their own unique spin. Caton, a rising R&B singer, makes his acting debut in the film and winds up stealing every scene he’s in. The rest of the cast complements each other well, with Mosaku and Steinfeld being standouts.
Coogler has proven himself to be a savvy filmmaker in each of his previous four films, and with Sinners he combines the personal with crowd-pleasing elements to great effect. It features great music, an insightful story, and even some gory action for an experience you’re not likely to find anywhere else.