My Weekend with Marilyn

Last Saturday was wet, and Los Angeles is not designed to cope with rain – there are no drains or run-offs on the road, so water gathers and pools on the tarmac.  Water gushes out onto the sidewalk from random down pipes and flooding occurs very rapidly.  Driving anywhere is not a great deal of fun.

Looking for something local to do we made the mistake of visiting the Pasadena Museum of California Art, just a couple of blocks away from the apartment.  The museum is housed in a large building with a surprisingly small doorway.  There is nothing on the door to advertise the fact that you are entering the museum, presumably that’s to keep out the plebs like me.  PMCA is one of those places that appears to be aimed at that elite band of “people in the know” as opposed  to encouraging the artistic enlightenment and self-improvement of Joe Public.  

LA Raw - Abject expression in Los Angeles 1945-1980, is the title of the current exhibition,  a rather grisly collection of graphic images of severed limbs and body parts, and yes you can guess exactly what particular predominantly female body part is mostly on display.

I know I have a predilection for art to be easy on the eye, but if it isn’t easy on the eye then at least it should be meaningful and thought provoking.  The only thought this sleazy collection provoked in me was how soon could I leave.   I felt I was intruding on someone’s personal nightmare and it was a very unpleasant way to spend the afternoon.  If the PMCA wants to enhance the cultural experience of the average Pasadenian then it really needs to come up with something less pretentious and more appealing than this.  I actually left the building thinking that rather than charging an entrance fee they should be paying me to go in; it really was that grim. 

So in need of some light relief we decided to head off to the cinema.  The previous weekend we had gone to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which was also pretty grim and made 1970’s England look so grey and depressing I wonder how anyone made it out of the decade alive. The weekend before that we'd seen The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. This week we really did need entertaining.

Having recently sat through a whole load of movie trailers promoting action packed, high kicking explosive big budget forthcoming Hollywood releases, we decided to go instead to the art deco Laemmles Playhouse on Colorado Boulevard and sit in a theatre the size of a living room to watch My Week with Marilyn. The sun was shining in 1950’s England; the film was beautifully shot and the story intelligent, quirky and amusing. Nobody died; nobody got blown to kingdom come, and there were no severed body parts. It was definitely a good choice and more than made up for the depressing afternoon at the PMCA.

Fortunately by Sunday the streets of Pasadena were once again dry and the sun had come back out.  A big sigh of relief all round the Bubble Household, no need to venture into any more art galleries.