"Planning to make a joke on Twitter about bombing something? You might want to reconsider: According to a
report from Britain, two tourists were detained and denied entry into the U.S. recently after they joked about destroying America and digging up Marilyn Monroe. That the Homeland Security Dept. and other authorities—including the FBI—are monitoring such social media as Twitter and Facebook isn’t surprising. That these authorities are willing to detain people based on what is clearly a
harmless joke, however, raises questions about what the impact of all that monitoring will be."
* [more inside]
posted by ericb
on Jan 30, 2012 -
98 comments
ink&paper A short film about the last paper shop, and the last letterpress, in Los Angeles.
"There are days go by that there can be absolutely no business at all."
posted by OmieWise
on Dec 21, 2011 -
22 comments
"Imagine 12 men in a dorm all in diapers and sitting in their own feces," he says. "It smelled like a combination of what people had for lunch that day and pus from people's open wounds. I've been in a wheelchair now for three years, and the jail is by far the worst place I've ever seen for a disabled person." --
L.A. Weekly on "Wheelchair Hell" in the L.A. County Men's Jail
posted by bardic
on Dec 8, 2011 -
42 comments
Although [Michael] Mann has said he was inspired by a true story from Chicago in the late 1960s, the film is no gritty realist number about desperate thievery. Rather, HEAT is a high-gloss creature of its time, utilizing the classic "duel between cop and robber"... to thematize lifestyle issues in the mid-1990s. Specifically I argue that, for all its slickness and emphasis on style and personality, HEAT is a film about work and its increasing personal costs. For the characters in HEAT, work provides excitement* and challenge, but it ultimately excludes any emotional life outside of the demands of the job. *That's the shootout scene
posted by Trurl
on Nov 21, 2011 -
108 comments
After 25 years I revisited To Live and Die In L.A. (1985), William Friedkin's cynical, fatalistic, hardboiled and high-energy crime noir about corruption and survival in the city of no angels. The script is literate, the characters are believable, the performances are brutally honest, the unpredictable twists keep coming, the action never stops, and the car chase is shot for real without any fake process. (spoilers)
posted by Trurl
on Nov 4, 2011 -
60 comments
Alex Cox:
REPO MAN was made as a "negative pickup" by Universal at the time when Bob Rehme was head of the studio. At the time, the big deal over there was STREETS OF FIRE, and nobody really noticed our film [8 MB PDF] at all. Which was lucky for us, since Bob Rehme had "green-lighted" a film which was quite unusual by studio standards. (previously)
posted by Trurl
on Oct 31, 2011 -
92 comments
"Offstage, with his Fleshlight in his hand, 'D-Bone', who will be flown to Austin to compete in the Air Sex finals next month, didn't break character. 'I feel fantastic,' he said. 'It's always a pleasure to be the best air-fucker in the city. I'm going to have tons of chicks over at my place tonight, with lots of cocaine and drugs.'"--L.A. Weekly covers
the Air Sex (Regional) World Championships (kinda NSFW)
posted by bardic
on Oct 26, 2011 -
38 comments
"In the last few years, the rise of free online porn — content-rich sites that tease viewers to subscribe for more — and pay-site juggernauts like Brazzers have put the L.A.-based adult-video industry against the ropes. Its answer, in part, has been the high-dollar parody, designed to attract ComicCon nerds, science fiction fans and other pop culture aficionados who must collect everything within their target oeuvre." -- The troubled US economy affects pornstars too, so
"Porn Defends The Money Shot" (NSFW)
[more inside]
posted by bardic
on Sep 29, 2011 -
80 comments
This weekend, the busiest freeway in the United States,
Interstate 405 in Los Angeles, will close for bridge demolition to allow for a northbound carpool lane. The stretch handles 375,000 cars on a typical day and up to 500,000 on the weekends. This event has been dubbed "
Carmageddon."
[more inside]
posted by Mister Fabulous
on Jul 15, 2011 -
211 comments
As a public transit geek, I really enjoyed
this story. We've talked about taking public transit on
unlikely routes
previously, and I read the original
blog post giving the directions on how to get from SF to LA using only public transit. But the article from
SF Weekly's In Transit blogger, Joe Eskanazi, really brings the trip to life.
posted by agatha_magatha
on Jun 27, 2011 -
28 comments
Los Angeles Plays Itself is a dazzling
cinematic essay by the filmmaker
Thom Andersen about how the city of Los Angeles is portrayed in films. Watch it now on YouTube: Part
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12 [more inside]
posted by jonp72
on Feb 5, 2011 -
36 comments
Portraits by Richard Dumas; a page (one of many) of
actors and directors; a Brooklyn gang (photographed by Bruce Davidson)
in 1959; photographs by
Ernesto Bazan. Clive Limpkin.
Some Warhol Polaroids. Film set photographs and portraits by
Brigitte Lacombe. Photographs by:
Dennis Hopper [nsfw],
Weegee [nsfw],
Jeff Bridges,
Julia Calfee [nsfw],
Ed Templeton [nsfw],
Lauren Dukoff,
Robert Frank,
Sid Grossman and
Allen Ginsberg. A
Princeton Dance Weekend in 1960, an
American family vacation in 1950,
Los Angeles,
Coney Island,
et cetera. A diverse livejournal collection of photographs.
posted by xod
on Jul 29, 2010 -
14 comments
