We flew from Oakland to Burbank yesterday for a few days of sightseeing in Los Angeles. We wanted to stay in the Mid Wilshire area to spend time with visiting the Academy Museum of Arts and Sciences, AKA the “ Oscars” museum, as well as the Los Angeles County Museum and the Peterson Automobile Museum next door. We also wanted to spend time with our friend Marilyn.
We took a long Uber ride to our chosen hotel, the Wilshire Crest Hotel. It is an old fashioned hotel in a residential area with delightful old world charm, large rooms and a continental breakfast.
Lobby and dining area.
Marilyn picked us up and drove to the Formosa Cafe, a delightful Chinese restaurant that served lots of stars since it was next to the Paramount movie lot. Famous stars would stop for their food in between work. The place is covered with pictures that show a history of the motion picture industry. It is also a railroad car!
We started the morning with a continental breakfast and a spirited conversation with another hotel guest, a retired teacher from Marin. We spent the day at the Academy Museum. It’s a wonderful place. It’s literally two blocks from the hotel. We began our tour with the Oscars, listening to various acceptance speeches over the years.
Just for fun: posing inside the Godfather’s office, conducting business on a very heavy phone. I forgot how heavy they were.
Elizabeth Taylor’s acceptance dress, surrounded by videos of other winners giving their acceptance speeches.
This featured director won the Academy Award for “Parasite.” His works were outlined in this section. This section is changed periodically.
His influences
Storyboarding a scene was a fascinating exhibit. The drawings were matched to the screen images, with notes explaining technical aspects of the shot.
This is the monster in one of this director’s films. It does not have feet! Optical illusion.
His films often contrast the lives of the uber rich with those of the downtrodden members of society. I have only seen “ Parasite “ but will seek out more of his films.
The section on costumes and makeup was riveting, with interviews from the artists and designers.
”Glow” brought us an 11 minute montage of images showing various forms of light.
One of the most distinctive productive design teams is showcased, highlighting how they develop the overall look and visual concept of a movie. I especially enjoyed their work on “Beauty and the Beast,” where they found inspiration from the Jean Cocteau film “ La Belle et la Bete,” which played recently at the Orinda Theatre. The Barbie motifs were fun too.
All of the exhibits were great but I especially enjoyed the exhibit Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood Icon, honoring her on her 100 th birthday. It was very busy. The costumes, newsreels and videos really captured her life with its triumphs and tragedies.
We needed to eat, so returned to the first floor, to Fanny’s Cafe, where we had a Fanny Brice burger, and imbibed a MARILYN in her honor: it contained champagne, grenadine, and amoretto, with a cherry on top!
We only had a few more exhibits to finish our day before the closing of the museum. Hollywoodland explored the history of the rise of Jewish filmmakers in the dawn of the movie industry. Jews were banned from certain professions during these early days of filmmaking, but filmmaking was considered a disreputable profession so they excelled in creating the global epicenter of the cinema.
This was our last exhibit and it was quite popular, perhaps because it is so close to Halloween.
We went to the top of the building to enjoy the view.
The weather has been quite warm here but is getting cooler each day. We had a very busy day and spent the evening recovering from all that culture. We both thoroughly enjoyed our time spent there. This museum has been on my sister’s bucket list since it opened, since we are both such movie fans.
Tomorrow we go to LACMA , the Los Angeles County Museum of Art!
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