travels with toby

My daughter treated me to this museum while she was here for my birthday and we had such fun! She got timed entry tickets for when they opened at 10:00. There was a bit of traffic and I knew we weren’t going to make it at 10:00. So she called after they opened to let them know we’d be a little late. She went through a series of menu options when finally there was a recording just for people like us, stuck in traffic. The message was so nice! Something like they know all about the traffic in L.A. and understand that people might be late. The message said to just come on in when we get there.

There were specific exhibits that Miss M wanted to see. And we watched two movies prior to our visit to the museum to prepare us: Boys N the Hood and Parasite. These aren’t movies I would normally watch but it did help to see them prior. The exhibits were that much more interesting and I was able to relate to them. Parasite was just a piece of the Bong Joon Ho exhibit. Miss M had seen others of his movies so she was explaining some of them to me.

Next we headed to the Oscar awards exhibit. There was one room that had monitors and they were playing some of the well known acceptance speeches. We watched speeches by Barbra Streisand, Hattie McDaniel and Sacheen Littlefeather who made a protest speech about the treatment of American Indians by the film industry. Ms. Littlefeather was there on behalf of Marlon Brando in 1973 who would not accept the award.

On to the Boyz N the Hood exhibit where I learned a few more things about John Singleton. He wrote the story while still an undergraduate student at the University of Southern California. It premiered at the 1991 Cannes film festival and went on to great success.

By this time we were getting hungry but we hadn’t seen all that we wanted to see so we asked a museum worker if we could leave and come back. I was shocked to hear that yes, we could as long as we had our wrist bands still on. How cool is that?? We headed down the street to a place I picked out and had a very nice lunch. My darling girl even treated me to lunch, so sweet!

Back to the museum to see the Color in Motion and Cyberpunk exhibits and on the way was the only remaining model of the shark in Jaws.

I really didn’t know what to expect and it was so enjoyable. There was another area of the museum where you could watch videos on the history of Los Angeles. There was a film about the Jewish founders of the Hollywood studio system called Hollywoodland that was fascinating. Click on the following link for more information that tells the tale.

New Academy Museum Exhibit Details How Jews Pioneered the Film Business

Here’s some photos of the Color in Motion and Cyberpunk exhibits where there’s a pair of the Ruby Slippers:

Since the La Brea tar pits are right next door we took a walk through the gardens, stopping at Urban Light by Chris Burden outside the L.A. County Museum of Art on the way, then wandered around looking at the tar pits. It’s a very strong smell of tar which was a bit overwhelming so we didn’t linger too long there.

All in all a very fun day with my favorite girl. Like many museums, we couldn’t see it all but we sure enjoyed our visit. I’d recommend it even if you’re not a movie buff. There’s something for everyone there.

https://www.academymuseum.org/en