Guillermo Del Toro: At Home with Monsters at LACMA 2016, Pt. 2

[Note: To read Part 1 of this post, please click here.]

As I mentioned last time, the primary focus of the Guillermo del Toro exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (aka LACMA) that we attended yesterday (Oct. 26, 2016) was naturally on the films and artwork of Mr. Del Toro himself. With the massive collection of props, costumes, storyboards, sketches, and fully realized figures representing his monsters and characters on display, how could it not be so?

But the secondary – though equally as important – focus was on his influences, a great many of which (if not the vast majority) also happen to be my influences as well, but Del Toro filters them through his quite remarkable talent and attention to detail that a high percentage of the time produces hauntingly memorable cinematic art for the world. Me, I just take those same influences and go, "Wow, that monster was pretty cool."

As before, much of the artwork and collection is to be found (normally, when they aren't on display in an exhibition at a museum) at Del Toro's Bleak House. If anyone ever needed an absolutely on the nose answer as to what I would do if I had the money to do whatever I wanted, taking a look at this exhibition is pretty much what you would get. Well, apart from the fact that I would also have a life-size Robby the Robot, a Batmobile, and the Robot from Lost in Space. But you get the gist. Del Toro's commissioned pieces include diorama featuring Harry Earles, Johnny Eck, and Schlitzie the pinhead from Tod Browning's horror classic Freaks, a scene showing Ray Harryhausen sitting comfortably in a chair (while wearing slippers) as he handles some of the models he created for his still astounding stop-motion animation features, Jack Pierce applying makeup to a seated Boris Karloff as they work on creating Frankenstein's Monster, and a fairly elaborate scenario featuring the Monster meeting his Bride while a catty Dr. Pretorius stands aloofly to the side. There was even an oversized lifelike bust of master makeup guru Dick Smith.

Dick Smith, makeup artist extraordinaire.

Frankenstein plays a major part in the exhibition. The head of Karloff's monster looms large over the entrance to the room containing many issues of comics and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, and there are numerous spots where paintings of the monster, original Berni Wrightson drawings from his acclaimed illustrated edition (which I still need to replace; note to myself), various editions of the book, and even a life mask of Boris Karloff from 1960 were on display.

Among the life-size figures were writers who count amongst Del Toro's favorites and influences, including (in totally expected fashion) Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. There were also cases displaying the writings and books of Lord Dunsany, Charles Dickens, Andrew Lang, and many others. The case featuring Dickens also contained an assortment of spirit photographs from the mid-19th century, which proved to be one of the more unnerving displays for me, not so much for the supposed spirits contained in the photos but because they were deathbed images of real people.

Of course, Famous Monsters of Filmland and the other Warren Publications played a role in the exhibit. I was a little upset by the width of the box frame surrounding the issues because, in combination with the lighting from above, it served to create shadows on the top row of the comics and magazines making snapping a picture rather annoying. Scattered throughout the collection, I also found some pretty cool artwork from the Warren mags done by Richard Corben.

Of the vast amount of artwork on display in the exhibit, I was more than a little skittish about shooting photographs of it. I know they were fully allowing photos, but for whatever reason – and believe me, I was also a tad bit shy about taking the other photos – I was weirding out a little about taking pictures of paintings. Eventually, I overcame my shyness, but I really wish that I could go back and see all of them again. There was a fantastic Dave Cooper painting over which my brother Mark and I – seeing it at separate moments during the morning – each went equally gaga. I took a quick snap so I could reference it later and look up information on it, but the result was not clear or good enough to post here. I really wish to go back to check it out again.

Other shelves and cases revealed a vast number of interesting images and models. One case which held special interest for me contained several cast statues by Ray Harryhausen from his original designs, such as Talos from Jason and the Argonauts and the Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth. Most striking to me was a tableau showing Harryhausen at work filming a scene on his table in his garage. The same case also held the mask from Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise, and a truly strange marionette of Peter Cushing which went largely unexplained, but was fascinating nonetheless. Another case held various memorabilia from assorted vampire movies, such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Del Toro's own Blade II, and Nosferatu.

Will I get back to the exhibit again before it closes on November 27? Time and money are against me, but I sure hope to find an opening. There was so much there, I really regretted it after I stepped out to get a snack with the rest of the family, because once I left, I could not get back into it. I could have easily done another hour in there, if not more. Short of getting a chance to work with Del Toro in his real Bleak House, it's the closest that I will get. Should the opportunity arise, I will go again.

RTJ

Guillermo Del Toro: At Home with Monsters at LACMA 2016, Pt. 1

The inside entrance to At Home with Monsters, guarded by the
Angel of Death from Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

It was a long enough wait, and October 29th finally rolled around today. My brother Mark, his wife Marci, and my teenage nephew (and burgeoning rock star) Aerin were in town from the north part of the state to join Jen and I at the Guillermo del Toro exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (aka LACMA). We had planned this excursion a few months earlier in July and I, like many horror and fantasy fans in the area, was just beyond waiting any longer to go see it.

Titled At Home with Monsters, the exhibition, curated by Mr. del Toro himself, was meant to do multiple things. First was to celebrate the art and films of the man himself; second, to pay tribute to the influences – from art to literature to cinematic or otherwise – that have influenced del Toro since his childhood days and straight through his remarkable career in film; and third, to give us a glimpse into what his inner sanctum is like, in this case, his home base (though it is not his actual home) in Los Angeles that he has named Bleak House after a favorite Dickens novel. (He has so much crammed into Bleak House, that he has a sequel house already called Bleak House 2.) Most of the contents of this exhibit, from paintings to sketches to models and even the life-sized statues of figures such as Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Frankenstein's Monster, and Johnny Eck (from Freaks) take up space in this place that also houses his working office, art studio, and research libraries.

I have decided to split this photo essay in two. This first part will feature photos of costumes, figures, and props related to Del Toro's own films; the second part will be exclusively devoted to objects in the exhibit portraying the wide range of influences on his talent and career.

The Faun from Pan's Labyrinth.

The Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth.

In addition to the full-sized figures such as the characters above and below, many of the rooms had video screens on the walls that played montages (in loops) based around common themes in his work, such as Death and Resurrection, Monsters, or Beauty and Brutality. There were also several stations spread throughout the vast exhibit that allowed you to push buttons to select different pages that had been scanned from his working notebooks, to get a sense of how devoted he is to his craft at seemingly every moment of his life.

The Ghost of Edith's Mother from Crimson Peak.

An illuminated book created for Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Insect paintings, sketches, and models in a section
mainly devoted to Mimic.

Costumes from Crimson Peak.

Weaponry and artifacts from the Hellboy films.

The Cronos Device (right) from Cronos.

Costume, weapon, and other pieces from the Hellboy films.

A wall-sized poster of a shot inside Del Toro's actual Bleak House.

Costumes from Pacific Rim.

An illuminated book from Pan's Labyrinth.

Pt. II, featuring some of Del Toro's major influences, will be posted tomorrow...

RTJ

Having A Less-Than-Average Parking Experience: The Kids in the Hall Preshow Debacle

...And so, we went to see The Kids in the Hall.

Here's the lesson, and it's one that we almost learned the hard way. We knew enough when to leave Anaheim to go into L.A. to see a show on a Friday night. We figured on enough time to allow to arrive at our destination properly. Even with the more than likely appearance of the Evil Traffic Wizard, we would get to the show with plenty of time to spare.

What we didn't do was have even a small amount of cash on us for parking.

My friend, if you are going to travel to the far-distant land of Downtown L.A. to see a show at the Orpheum, make sure to at least have a couple of tenners on you. Or a handful of fives. If you are a guy who has a shameful need for a larger wad in your pocket to compensate for a small sense of purpose, a roll of ones. Something, so at least when you pull up to the Orpheum parking lot, you are able to plunk some bills into the attendant's hand so as to enable you to take a parking space.

Otherwise, you will have to do what we had to do: find an ATM machine after 7 p.m. in an area not exactly known for its financial health or area security.

We had each considered getting cash beforehand. Myself, I had thought about doing it thrice while at work. But we didn't. Trying to help, the attendant reeled off a couple of locations to us. The only one we even halfway heard was "9th and Figueroa". We were on 7th, so one would assume that 9th and Fig would be easy to find. Perhaps for someone used to driving in Downtown L.A. -- but we weren't. My time in the area had been spent around the L.A. Wilshire Grand Hotel, and except for venturing to the mall area across the street, I was hopeless in my knowledge of the surrounding avenues and their cousins. Besides, I don't drive at all, so I usually pay little attention to street names. Jen had spent zero time in the area, and so the question, once we reached 9th, of which way Figueroa lay was a 50-50 choice. And we chose wrong, since we never found the road, though we may have passed it.

The second problem was traffic patterns. Every time that we thought we were on the right track -- with the clock clicking slowly down to show time, now only 35 minutes away -- there would be a rush of turners in the lane where we ourselves needed to turn, or we would find a street, but it was one-way, and we were on the wrong side. On and on this went, with our frustrations mounting to a fever pitch. We each had one eye on the clock and one on the road, and we began worrying about even seeing the show, figuring that by the time we actually found a magical supply of cash, we would end up parking miles from the venue.

On one of these passes where we were on the wrong side of the street, we saw a Union Bank of California with a pair of handy ATMs in front, right next to a bus stop. But we were forced to turn, and as we attempted a loop to the rather safe-looking area (also another problem on some very suspect streets), I saw a Rite-Aid on a corner. Because I had one of those behind-the-eyes headaches that often spring up in these situations and we were ibuprofen-free, I thought "well, I can go in, buy some medicinals, get cash back on my card, and we will be scot-free instead." A fine plan, except for three hitches: 1) there were no parking spaces, so Jen dropped me off and then tried to loop the several blocks to get back around to pick me up, 2) the store had closed at 7, but the lights were on and people were moving about inside so one could not tell that easily from the street (there was no CLOSED sign either), and 3) I didn't have my phone on me so I could call Jen and tell her that.

And then I attempted what could have been a foolhardy move. I had seen an ATM sign at a jewelry store at the other end of the block, so because I move faster walking than many people run, I figured I could hit it and get back before Jen had circled. The store, of course, had also just closed, mere minutes before from the looks of the clerks inside, and I zipped back to the agreed upon pickup spot. Suddenly, I became the fast-walking white guy in a neighborhood of unfamiliar social status, and to anyone not familiar with my speed of movement, I perhaps seemed outwardly a bit nervous and anxious to exit the terrain. Naturally, I will admit that I was noticed by just about everyone, including a group of teenagers in a pickup, who decided to mess with me and yell a series of harmless epithets regarding my lack of skin color in my direction as they sped past. Finally, as I reached the corner, Jen had to pull out of the spot she had just found as there were people wishing to park, and she is a generous soul. I watched her fly off as my feet found the corner, and I had to wait another five minutes for her to circle around again.

And then there was the GPS. Our Global Positioning System works just fine, and we have used it on several trips now. Of course, we knew how to get to LA, but finding the Orpheum Theatre was another matter for us. The GPS allowed us to find it without a problem, but once we took off on our ATM quest, the machine all but put a gun to its head as it became completely confused as to why we didn't stop after it had told us we had arrived at our destination. We were looking for 9th and Figueroa, of course, and the problem with the GPS is that it is designed for exact locations, not corners. I could only punch in one of the streets, but it kept asking me for a street number, which I could not provide in the least. I finally faked one and then tried to expand the map to see the surrounding streets, but that method really was a dead end, since most of the street names do not show up on the GPS. The streets just kept more and more orange as its trail kept tracking over itself, and I finally threw the device to the ground.

Just as we were approaching exhaustion over our frustration in locating a machine, we stumbled, with about ten minutes left until the show, on the Union Bank that we had passed earlier. And then we almost got sucked into a traffic vortex once more, but Jen pulled a quick move to shoot us across the lane and then to a rest in front of what appeared to me as ATM Paradise. Two banks, several machines -- choices, glorious choices at last. I sped to the nearest and least populated machine and finally made my withdrawal. We then moved as quickly as possible back to the theatre, and ending up at the third lot a couple of streets behind the Orpheum just before 8 o'clock. I have never been so happy to hand ten dollars over to a parking attendant.

And in a bubbly, chirping mass of fellow Kids in the Hall fans, all in pleasant moods despite also being exactly as late to the show as ourselves, we made our way to the Orpheum. Only, when we got there, we found our tardiness didn't matter. A line of ticketholders stretched about a hundred yards down the street as we discovered that the Orpheum may be a beautiful, old theatre inside, but it is really poorly designed for letting crowds into shows (or letting them out, for that matter.) The next ten minutes became a nervously slow crawl into and through the Orpheum, up several series of stairs, all completely packed with and pushing against people I really had no outward desire to rub body parts with (well, some of them were just fine for that purpose, but I digress...)

But it wasn't as bad as we had just had it. Sure, it may have been sweaty bedlam inside the Orpheum, but after practically being lost on the streets of LA for over an hour, searching for the proverbial needle in the stack of heroin addicts, a little pansexual, preshow frottage was absolutely no problem at all. After all, it was the motherfuckin' Kids in the Hall...