Issue No. 5, TV | FILM

REFUGE Film Review

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REFUGE. Amy Behr (Krysten Ritter) becomes a mother out of unexpected circumstances. She tries to raise her two younger siblings who struggle with day-to-day life: her younger brother, Nat (Logan Huffman), writes to-do lists concerning mundane tasks, like attempting to converse with other people, after he has a brain tumor removed that mildly disables him . Amy’s teenage sister, Lucy (Madeleine Martin), has a hatred of high school and experiments with drugs and shoplifting as her grades slip.

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Art, Culture, Film, Issue No. 3

ART in the Folds of the Subconscious

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The Orange County Museum of Art opened its doors this past weekend in Newport Beach to the aptly titled, yet deceptively simplistic, Sarkisian & Sarkisian: a father and son co-exhibition of works spanning a combined fifty years, from as early as the 1960s to today. Originally thought up as a survey of one Peter Sarkisian’s video installation work over the last twenty years, it was decided by OCMA Interim Director and Chief Curator Dan Cameron that parallels seen between Sarkisian’s work and that of his father, Paul, warranted a side-by-side unveiling of the two masters’ crafts, in a collective of astonishing pieces that perform double helixes around one another without ever really colliding or crossing paths.

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Fashion, Fashion | Health

Oscars Fashion

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Going to the Oscars is an exciting event; The #RedCarpet event was a jaw dropping fashion show, from amazing silhouettes to detailed embroidery, sexy lace to stand out colors. This Oscars was the most exciting fashion show yet. It was the epitome of inspiration and glamour!

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Culture, Film, OCMA Film, TV | FILM

TINY: A Story About Living Small hits the nail on the head

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TINY: A Story About Living Small hits the nail on the head. TINY, which premiered at the SXSW festival in early March of 2013, follows the filmmakers’ journey toward self-discovery when Smith decides one day that he’s going to build a tiny home on a trailer that he can then haul out into the middle of a plains-area (of which he owns some property) and live “the simple life.” Although the internet and research tell him otherwise, Smith optimistically predicts that construction will be completed by the end of the summer.

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Culture, Music | Theatre

Matthew Morrison Impresses Segerstrom Audience

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The set pieces all come from Morrison’s latest album release, Where it all Began, which can aptly be described as a collection of standards, many first made famous in Broadway musicals. An appropriate assemblage when you consider that the singer/dancer/actor himself got his comeuppance in the Great White Way many years prior to his television namesake.

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Culture, Film, OCMA Film, TV | FILM

If You Build It, A Film

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The film is split into three distinct sections seamlessly tied together with the help of Oscar-nominated editor, Doug Blush, and appropriately, iconic graphics. Following Pilloton and Miller, we meet the wood shop class students: boys and girls who are depicted at first to fit the uncertain, marsh-riddled town stereotype of drowning in muddled obscurity. Students who seem so woefully different from what we—especially in Orange County—expect or are used to when it comes to 16-year-olds (arguably), but who we very quickly realize are as different from us as we are from ourselves.

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Eat | Drink

A Vintage Food Tour in Old Towne Orange

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ORANGE COUNTY, CA – When I first look at the outside of Ruby’s Streamliner Diner in Orange, there isn’t anything wonderfully distinctive about it—and to many travelers, the same sentiment could be assumed of Orange County itself. Thanks to reality television, the OC is viewed by outsiders as a cultural wasteland; a place where plasticized housewives claw and snarl at each other over designer handbags. However, there is an extensive arts and cultural scene growing faster than weeds through cracks in the pavement …

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Culture, Fashion, Fashion | Health

Fashion Report: Airy and Light

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LOS ANGELES, CA – Sometimes you need an outfit to take you through your hectic day straight into your fabulous night meeting your gals for drinks. Fashion Stylist, Ali Levine shows us a great way to do this with this stylish #romper by Haute Hippie. A romper is a comfy piece that allows you to run all the errands you have during your busy day while still looking like the fashionista that you are.

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Eat | Drink, Wine & Beer, Wine Country

Dinner with Winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani

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ORANGE COUNTY, CA – As I approach the Antonello Ristorante entrance, the warm, humid temperatures and blustering Santa Ana winds are painting beads of sweat across my face. My guest and photographer for the night is snapping photos—his striped tie fluttering in the breeze on a warm Southern California evening. It is both our first time dining here at Antonello Ristorante, a highly-acclaimed Italian restaurant and landmark of Orange County for the past three decades, boasting an authentic menu and impressive wine list that captures Old World sensibilities.

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Culture, Los Angeles, Music

Pacific Symphony Orchestra

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A rousing performance from start to finish, the 35th Anniversary of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra segues into the pre-holiday season with an eclecticism of pieces as profoundly intuitive as they are performed. Led by Music Director Carl St. Clair, the players outdo themselves once more as they partake in transformative renditions of, first, the overture to the folktale odyssey, Russlan and Ludmilla, then finishing the evening off with Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. However, it’s a fact (well, depending on who you ask) that if you really want to hit the proverbial nail on the head when it comes to classicist grandstanding, you need look no further than the beloved—and oft-referenced—Tchaikovsky poesy, Piano Concerto no. 1, performed tonight by the gracefully fierce guest artist, Joyce Yang. In a production as equally “altogether everywhere” as its conductor, the only truth more fully realized is that tonight will surely be unforgettable.

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Eat | Drink, Los Angeles, Southern CA, Southern CA

The Playground DTSA

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I noticed a small touch: a glass of Szigeti Sparkling Gruner Veltliner was waiting at my place setting. Opening a dinner with a nice glass of bubbles does wonders to not only clean the palate, but it allows one to relax before the Amuse Bouche, our first course. We were presented with an extremely interesting, but amazing, choice for the Amuse Bouche: a green chile Mexican chocolate milk with a crispy tortilla lavash topped with age cheddar cheese foam. The warm chocolate milk with a slight hint of acidity perked the taste buds, while the quesadilla soothed them, as if foreshadowing the flavors to come; at the same time, telling the taste buds, “Relax. There is plenty more where that came from.”

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Eat | Drink

A Winter Menu Southwestern Style

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As we try to make room on the table and rearrange our plates in order from lunch to dinner, we decide that our first conquest on the lunch menu will be the Winter Arugula Salad—a peak of arugula drizzled with Champagne vinaigrette and topped with creamy goat cheese crumbles, roasted golden beets, pickled leeks, shaved roasted fennel, crunchy noodles, and crisp gala apples. The salad is simple—but not to a fault. The Champagne dressing and goat cheese meld together delightfully and the added crunch of the Asian noodles, bell peppers and apple frolic with the taste buds, never feeling overwrought by an overuse of contrasting flavors and textures.

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Fashion, Fashion | Health

Fashion Report – The AMAs

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This weekend’s AMAs had us cheering and voting for our favorite artists to win awards, wondering what Miley would do next (she didn’t let us down), and drooling over the gorgeous gown that walked the red carpet and the stage. Black and white seemed to be the “it” colors of the night and sequins and metallic took a place in the spotlight. See some of our favorites below,and check back on Thursday as we recreate two of these amaze looks for less!

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Music

Eroica Trio

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And yet, all of this pales in comparison to the headliner of the evening, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C Major for violin, cello, piano, and orchestra, performed by one of the most successful all-women chamber ensembles in the world, the Eroica Trio. Garnering its name from a Beethoven piece denoting a “middle-period” in the composer’s work where pieces henceforth were riddled with emotional depth and structural rigor, the group—made up of cellist Sara Sant’ Ambrogio, pianist Erika Nickrenz, and violinist Sara Parkins—similarly takes audience members aback with their incredibly magisterial ferocity and practiced wit. What better piece to emphasize the skills of the titan threesome than the Triple Concerto, a sporadically played arrangement that brings out the magical allure of each member, burdened with individual yet simultaneous solos throughout. Sant’Ambrogio said it best in a recent interview: “It is incredibly exciting watching three soloists toss these amazing melodies and virtuosic fireworks back and forth to each other and the orchestra while the conductor holds it all together and shapes that lush wave of orchestral sound that Beethoven is so famous for.”

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Eat | Drink

Wine and Wagyu

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The “Dairyman”, in my opinion, had much more character than the Silver Oak, and certainly complimented the intricate blueprint of the Wagyu. Rather than compounding the flavors into a long-after-finished linger as its Cabernet counterpart, this Pinot Noir serves more as a brief, albeit refreshing, clearing of the palate between bites. However, being the glutton that I am, my love affair with the smoother and prolonged effect of the Silver Oak’s constitution was almost a given before I’d sat down to enjoy the meal.

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Culture, Fashion, Fashion | Health

Fashion Report: It’s All About the Kicks

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Running shoes with everyday wear no longer have to be on your fashion don’t list. These comfy shoes popped up everywhere on the streets of this years NYFW and their popularity is still growing momentum. Seen everywhere from urban outfitters to Instagram to the streets, this trend and the outfits we’ve prepared below will have your running to the store to purchase your very own pair.

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California, Eat | Drink, Los Angeles

Porktoberfest

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It is Halloween’s Eve, a little before 7 P.M. I pull into the parking lot outside of Five Crowns Restaurant and Steakhouse and immediately start to panic—valet parking. Suddenly I’m extremely nervous, not because I fear strangers driving my car, but because my car is literally beginning to disintegrate—rendering it almost inoperable. After three broken door handles inside and outside, getting in and out of my car has proven to be a difficult and ridiculous affair: I have to roll down my window and open it from the outside door handle (fortunately only halfway broken) to get out.

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California, Culture, Film, Limited Edition, OCMA Film, TV | FILM

Hankin, ’16 Acres’ appeals to the human side of politics

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When it comes to politics there are generally two sides of the fence: you’re either interested, or you aren’t. Then there are the rare moments when an event is so catastrophic, a policy so egregious, that everyone, young and old, find themselves getting involved whether they like it or not, out of moral obligation or personal vendetta. The devastating tragedy of September 11, 2001 is one of these. However, busy as we are supporting our troops, admonishing our government, or going about our lives with an air of indifference, it is perhaps the revelatory spotlight on the question of what to do with the 16 acres of land where the twin towers once stood that has plagued the nation—especially New Yorkers; a question whose answer lies in the celluloid folds of Richard Hankin’s aptly-named biographical documentary, 16 Acres.

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Culture, Music | Theatre

Pacific Symphony’s “Rodrigo’s Concierto”

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In the center of the lobby, classical guitarist Joseph Yashar crawls his fingers across guitar strings in a masterful rendition of Romance Anonimo, one of the most gorgeous and recognizable Spanish guitar pieces of all time, yet sadly attributed to an unknown composer. Others in the lobby are creating their own poetry with large magnetic tiles boasting phrases from Federico García Lorca’s poetry. The activities are an enticing precursor to the night’s main event and a burst of applause and the raising of wine glasses begin to emerge as the guitarist concludes, echoing the last note with precise fingertips.

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Fashion, Fashion | Health

Fashion Report – Folk Inspired

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Folk-inspired pieces are currently having a moment and we can see why. The detail of the embroidery mixed with loose, flowy fabrics allows us to be polished and bohemian at the same time. These pieces make us want to pair our loosest dress with a long cardigan and ankle booties and lay in a field of sunflowers with a camera in hand and an equally as fashionable friend by our side. This trend has #Instagram photo shoot written all over it.

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