Art

For_Immediate_Release:
August 30, 2009 –
Internationally acclaimed artist James Owens is proud to announce the publication of an in-depth interview in Hemmings Motor News Publication, “Hemmings Classic Car”.

Associate Editor Mark J. McCourt has created an entertaining article covering James Owens’ beginnings, influences, techniques and the long and winding road that led to prominence in the automotive and pin-up fields. Also included are numerous reproductions of James Owens’ original paintings.

In the spirit of vintage pulp novel cover artists as well as pin up artists like Gil Elvgren and George Petty, James Owens creates works that are edgy and at the same time witty and sexy.

The September 09 issue of Hemmings Classic Car , issue #62 will be available on newsstands on everywhere by the 3rd week in September.

To see the art of James Owens go to www.car-noir.com

Former SOPRANOS star JAMES GANDOLFINI booted an audience member from a recent performance of his Broadway play GOD OF CARNAGE, after the fan sneaked onstage during the intermission.

Gandolfini was stunned when he returned to the stage for the second half of the show and found a man sat in his seat.

The male revealed he was a fan and wanted to meet his idol, but Gandolfini showed no mercy and tossed the man into the wings, where a security guard ejected him from New York’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, reports the National Enquirer.

The star, famous for his role as tough mob boss Tony Soprano, regained his composure before the curtain came up - as his co-stars Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden and Hope Davis looked on stunned.

“Step right up, you’re doing fine
I’ll pull your beard, you pull mine
Yank it again, like you did before
Break it up with a tug of war.”

These are some of the lyrics to the square dance that Bug Bunny sings to the two hillbillies in the Warner Brothers cartoon comedy classic, “Hillbilly Hare.” Bugs becomes a square dance caller and sings a song that makes the two hillbillies perform acts of violence upon one another.

“Now into the brook and fish for the trout
Dive right in and splash about
Trout, trout, pretty little trout
One more splash and come right out.”

Trust me, it’s howlingly funny.

If you’re like me, you grew up watching the inimitable Bugs Bunny and all his cartoon friends, Daffy, Elmer, Sylvester and Tweety, Porky, the Roadrunner and the Coyote, Yosemite Sam, Marvin the Martian, Speedy Gonzalez and yes, even poor love-struck Pepe LePew, yuck it up in brilliantly conceived ten minute animated pieces of modern art. (Although to be honest, I never really cared for the Roadrunner. I always rooted for the coyote.) Available on virtually every TV channel at one time or another, I mention Bugs and the Gang for one reason:

They don’t seem to be on TV anymore.

At least not on my cable system. Even the old reliable June Bugs, the annual Cartoon Network Warner Brothers cartoon marathon, seems to be a thing of the past. Now if you recall, there WAS a movie a couple of years back called “Looney Tunes, Back in Action” but apparently, it did poorly enough at the box office for Warner Brothers to shut down production of a series of planned future Looney Tunes shorts and features. According to various google results, the classic cartoons starring Bugs and the gang ARE still in syndication, but I can’t find them. Even if they are, they don’t seem as popular as they should be. I mean, these are classics!

Is it the violence that keeps these cartoons on the far back burner of television entertainment? Is it the legalities of corporate ownership? Or is it just that today’s entertainment industry movers and shakers simply have no taste or foresight, except for instant profit? I don’t know the answer, but none of these reasons are acceptable to me.

Sure sure, I can buy DVDs of all my favorite Warner Brothers animated classics. And I have, and they claim a prominent place in my DVD collection. But it’s not the same thing as experiencing them on TV. Am I simply pining away for a bygone era whose time has long since past? If so, I mourn its passing.

These are cultural icons, come on! They never get old. And today’s children are being bombarded by the entertainment industry’s reliance on cheaply-made, tame and largely unfunny cartoons along with prepackaged, preteen celebrities and derivative and tame children’s sitcoms. If kids are going to spend all their time in front of the TV (which I don’t is a good idea at all), why not give them quality? Let them grow up watching Bugs and Daffy exchange quips:

“Duck season! Wabbit season! Duck season! Wabbit season!”

It STILL makes me laugh. Let these kids learn what real comedy is all about.

Let’s get Bugs Bunny back on TV. And while we’re at it, let’s show cartoons at the movies again, but that’s a subject for a different column.

Here’s a reminder that there will be a reading of Hoboken playwright Louis LaRusso’s 1980 off-Broadway play, “Marlon Brando Sat Right Here” this weekend, Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6.

“The Sopranos” actor Vincent Pastore is one of the many stars who will perform in the New Artists Theater Company’s production. Tickets are $25 and reservations are strongly recommended; please call (201) 656-2240 to pay by credit card, or stop by the museum at 1301 Hudson St. to reserve your seat.

In addition to Pastore, who played Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero, the cast will include several more actors from “The Sopranos:” Maureen Van Zandt, Nicholas Giangiulio, Joe Lisi, Garry Pastore, Tony Rossi, Anthony Ribustello and Janet Sarno. Other actors are Gerard Canonico from the Broadway hit, “Spring Awakening,” as well as Sedley Bloomfield, Ernie Mingione and George Palermo (a Hoboken native who starred in the ABC soap opera “Loving” and also owns Sullivan’s bar on Washington Street).

According to director Frank Licato, the play is set in gritty Hoboken circa 1955, a year after the town hosted silver screen icon Marlon Brando and the multiple Oscar-winning cast of “On the Waterfront.” The regulars who frequent Gracie’s restaurant, the very longshoremen depicted in the movie, try to recall the glory days when their hometown was a movie set.

“Marlon Brando Sat Right Here” is a prequel to LaRusso’s “Lamppost Reunion” (also starring Pastore), which was performed to a sold-out crowd at the Hoboken Museum two years ago and then moved off-Broadway.

The reading will take place two nights only, Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m., near the museum in the vacant retail space behind Starbucks, at 12th St. and Shipyard Lane (the old video store).

“Marlon Brando Sat Right Here” is a benefit for both the New Artists Theater Company and the Hoboken Historical Museum.

Source: http://www.nj.com/hobokennow/index.ssf/2009/06/sopranos_stars_to_perform_in_m.html

James Owens was born with gasoline in his veins.

Born and raised in Detroit MI, America’s rich history of the automobile runs deep in his family. “Half my family worked in the auto industry. Both my grandfathers worked in the industry. On my mother’s side, my grandfather went to work for Ford Motor Company in the 1920’s.

My dad retired from Ford, my brother designs for General Motors and my cousins are employed by the big three.”

Jim earned his BFA in 1986 from The College for Creative Studies in Detroit MI. For nearly two decades he worked with some of the biggest ad agencies in the world creating story boards and finished illustrations for Ford, Chrysler, General Motors as well as AAA, Philips Electronics, Dupont, Home and Gardens Television and Dreamworks.

Although trained as a product illustrator, doing airbrushed cutaways of shock absorbers was not his idea of fun. “I prefer paintings that have some human element in them. I want to see the artists brush and choices on the canvas.”

Recent work has included a series of paintings combining his love for Cars and Film Noir. Full of dames that are sweet and deadly, and cars with big trunks, Jim refers to them as “Car-Noir”.

Today Jim works out of his studio in Southern California where the sun always shines, birds always sing and all the little hot-rodders are happy.

http://www.jamesowensstudio.com/Gallery.html