Virtuous by Kimberly Deisler

This was one of those perfect mornings where I whiled away the hours just watching films.  Starting with the Bestor Cram documentary Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison, I found this to be a real throw back to a time in Cash’s life that’s not really been explored. 

In depth interviews with family members, band members and former Folsom Prison inmates, offer insight to Johnny’s writing process and expose it and his songs with more intimacy than we’ve seen before on film.  

Next up, was an independent feature directed by Anthony Fabian and based on a true story titled Skin.  Despite the global spotlight on South African struggles, this uniquely complex story reveals the political and racial atrocities of how apartheid ripped apart one family in particular.   To look at Sandra Laing one would assume that the dark skin and nappy hair would lead them to a set of black parents.  The opposite would be true and that was the life conflict that initially glued and ultimately compromised the family. 

Tonight will be an exceptional night here in Santa Barbara.  Again the Lobero Theater plays host to the Fantastic Five or The Virtuosos, as they are more formally referred.  Awarded for scene stealing performances, Viola Davis’ portrayal in Doubt of an incredibly compromised mother, Richard Jenkins quiet yet penetrating performance in The Visitor, Rosemarie DeWitt shines brilliantly in Rachel Getting Married, Melissa Leo also plays a mother who gives from the gut and Michael Shannon’s flawlessly flawed voice of reason in Revolutionary Road will be on hand for a Q & A as well as film montage examples of each virtuoso’s stunning performance.  Certainly not a night to be missed.