Oscar winner among plans to attend LACMA ‘popcorn summit’
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When Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, sits down with angry film buffs next month to discuss the fate of the museum’s screening series, he’ll have to contend with a three-time Academy Award winner sitting across the table.
James Acheson, who has won three Oscars for his costume design work, is among the 10 people scheduled to represent Save Film at LACMA, an informal group of cinephiles who have banded together in a fight to reverse the museum’s decision to end its popular weekend film program. The gathering is being referred to as the ‘popcorn summit.’
Acheson won Oscars for his work on ‘The Last Emperor,’ ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ and ‘Restoration.’ He was also the costume designer on the three ‘Spider-man’ movies, all directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire.
Other planned attendees include movie critics, film programmers and other cinema professionals.
LACMA’s film program, which had been scheduled to end in October, is now set to close in June 2010 thanks to a recent donation of $150,000 from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., Time Warner Cable and Ovation TV.
‘We are working on adjusting our agenda for the summit subsequent to this news,’ said Debra Levine, a co-founder of Save Film at LACMA, in a statement to The Times.
‘For us, there are still unanswered questions about how many weekends will be devoted to classic high Hollywood and international films.’
She added that they will also discuss who will be programming the series over the next year in light of the news that LACMA will be creating a new film department within its curatorial ranks.
The other conference attendees are Lael Lowenstein, Shannon Kelley, Margot Gerber, Jared Sapolin, Michael Schlesinger, Brent Simon, Doug Cummings and Kyle Westphaul.
-- David Ng and Susan King
