BEAUTY IS EMBARRASSING
Thursday, January 17, 2013 – Sunday, January 20, 2013
(USA/2012—directed by Neil Berkeley)
Wayne White was raised in the mountains of Tennessee, which
may well seem an unlikely background for the celebrated cartoonist who went on
to design the extraordinary, iconic physical universe of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Neil Berkeley’s engaging documentary portrait
of Wayne White chronicles the vaulted highs and troubling lows of a commercial
artist whose life becomes a tightrope, delicately balanced between the need to
work and the high demands of the art he loves so deeply. At the core of the
film, White guides us through his wonderfully entertaining life story by way of
his latest creation: a hilarious, biographical one-man show consisting of
performance pieces as well as his dryly witty “word paintings,” which have
brought him to the attention of the world of fine art. (87 min.)
“A thoughtful, skillfully executed pure pop pleasure, from start to finish.” –Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
“A funny, enormously entertaining film… one of the more pleasurable moviegoing experiences I’ve had this year.” –Leonard Maltin
“The creativity grows like kudzu in Beauty is Embarrassing, and it yields a thousand blossoms. Enlightening and hilarious.” –Andy Webster, The New York Times