A Teacher's Secret Life Hillel Aron's look at the life and death of Harry Major, a Hollywood High teacher with a penchant for taking in ex-cons, had readers riveted last week ("The Pen Pal Murder," Oct. 17). Anon can't wait for the movie version, saying, "Great story and writing. Write...
After 40 — yes, 40 — years of cooing and obsessing over Sanrio’s adorable mascot, Hello Kitty is getting her own fan convention. The first Hello Kitty Con takes place Halloween weekend at MOCA’s Geffen Contemporary. The festivities launch Thursday morning with a packed schedule of panels and demo sessions. Check out talks such as “Inspired by Her — Artist and Hello Kitty” and “Guys Love Hello Kitty Too!” There also will be classes on flower arranging, cookie decorating and scrapbooking. Given that this is a convention at an art museum, you can expect lots of art-filled activities. On Thursday, Vancouver-based artist Camilla d’Errico will teach and lecture throughout the day. Esther Kim, Dabs Myla and Martin Hsu will appear later in the convention, while five tattoo artists will be available for appointments throughout the weekend. If you’re looking for something less permanent, get a Hello Kitty manicure from nail artist Masako Kojima. Hello Kitty merchandise, including exclusives and limited items, will be on sale as well. Somehow not enough for you? K-town’s hipper-than-thou Line Hotel is offering Hello Kitty packages during the convention. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 N. Central Ave., dwntwn.; Thu., Oct. 30-Sun., Nov. 2, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; $20-$30 (most days sold out). sanrio.com/hellokittycon-eventinfo.More
Today’s generation might be familiar only with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise’s 2005 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, but on Halloween Eve 1938, back when radio was the lifeline of the home, Orson Welles’ retelling of the sci-fi novel became the most infamous radio broadcast in American history. Many of the nearly 1 million people who tuned in to the CBS program were convinced that a meteorite had landed in New Jersey, sending an army of Martian invaders to eat them. Though Welles and his Mercury Theater assured listeners the program was merely a play (their “version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of the bush and saying ‘boo’ ”), mass hysteria and even reports of suicide set in, to the delight of the press. Fake Radio re-creates that fateful night when aliens conquered the country, employing a cast of more than a dozen actors, period music and costumes. Since 1998, the local troupe has been re-enacting old radio scripts from the 1930s to the 1950s, including The Wizard of Oz, The Phantom of the Opera, It’s a Wonderful Life and All About Eve. Past guests have included George Wendt, John Larroquette, Fred Willard and Jeff Garlin. Trepany House at the Steve Allen Theater, 4773 Hollywood Blvd., Hlywd.; Thu., Oct. 30, 8 p.m.; $20. (323) 666-4268, trepanyhouse.org. More
Looking for the perfect place to show off your Black Widow costume? Stan Lee’s fourth annual Comikaze Expo launches on Halloween at the Los Angeles Convention Center. At this pop culture extravaganza, learn how to pose for cosplay photos or get a crash course in steampunk. Check out a screening of Return to Nuke ’Em High Volume 1 with Troma co-founder Lloyd Kaufman. Bring the kids: On Friday, the convention’s exhibit hall hosts a massive trick-or-treat adventure. Stick around throughout the weekend for a huge Tetris 30th-anniversary gathering or catch Spike and Mike’s new Halloween special on Saturday. Sunday is “Family Day,” with fun for all ages, including a panel with the stars of Power Rangers Megaforce and a Land of the Lost reunion. The whole weekend is filled with celebrity guests — from Adam West and Julie Newmar to Game of Thrones stars Gwendoline Christie and Alfie Allen. Look out for the convention’s founder, Stan Lee, as well as Cassandra Peterson (aka Elvira), who is a partner in the event. Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., dwntwn.; Fri., Oct. 31, 1-7 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 1, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 2, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; $30 day pass, $70 weekend pass, children under 12 free with paying adult. comikazeexpo.com. More
Though it’s the fleshiest gathering outside the Playboy Mansion, the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval is not clothing-optional. In fact, the 500,000 attention-getters expected tonight have been working on their amazing outfits almost since the day they shed last year’s Miley Cyrus’ wrecking-ball gear. The biggest people-watching event in town — and, as a parade, second only to the Tournament of Roses — includes 50-plus performers, live bands and DJs across six stages, a costume contest and the crowning of the honorary “Queen of the Carnaval” (last year, Queen Latifah held that title). So what will be the most popular costume idea this year? Maleficent? The three-breasted woman? Ebola? Put on a hospital mask or hazmat suit and find out. Santa Monica Boulevard between Doheny Drive & La Cienega Boulevard, W. Hlywd.; Fri., Oct. 31, 6-11 p.m.; free. (800) 368-6020, visitwesthollywood.com.More
When it comes to the life of Bruce Haack, separating truth from fiction is not easy. The groundbreaking electronic music composer and inventor is said to have taught himself to play piano by age 3. By 8, he apparently was escaping his abusive mother's wrath by sneaking off to Indian...
Visual allure often isn't a virtue we value when chasing obscure flavors in L.A.'s international neighborhoods. In fact, adventurous diners tend to appreciate the opposite: The grungier the location, the more accomplished we feel for having sought it out. Looks be damned — let the fireworks happen on the flavor...
The Los Angeles art world has been saying a collective "hallelujah" since the arrival in January of Philippe Vergne as MOCA's new director. Although some East Coast commentators condemned the appointment — citing in particular a budget crisis scandal in which Vergne resorted to selling off a number of works...
It's just math. With ever more overflowing arts districts and only so many Saturday nights a month, a bumper crop of shows opens tonight in Culver City — and several galleries are ringing in the new season by showing off their marquee rosters. Exact hours and show durations vary, so you'll want to check gallery sites for complete details. Promising and must-see highlights include Brooklyn-based artist KAWS at Honor Fraser, offering new work extrapolating from the Peanuts comics. The artist styles these images to the point of abstraction with his trademark bold color schemes, along with more gestural, black-and-white works (through Oct. 31). Also Kehinde Wiley's World Stage series at Roberts & Tilton (through Oct. 25) continues with an iteration based on Haiti's pageant culture, using the artist's iconic portraits of everyday folks rendered in his lavishly regal style. Zackary Drucker & Rhys Ernst's Post / Relationship / X at Luis de Jesus (through Nov. 1) surveys their years-long transgender love affair and artistic collaboration with recent photos that debuted at Paris Photo L.A., as well as a brand-new video piece. Sandow Birk at Koplin Del Rio (through Oct. 17) presents the third in his aesthetically and emotionally intense series transcribing the entire Koran and illuminating it with images of contemporary secular life in America. Rebecca Farr offers haunting mixed media paintings on canvas and the release of her new book at Klowden Mann through Oct. 18). The Miaz Brothers take on "The Masters" in a new series of ghostly, witty paintings at Fabien Castanier (through Oct. 11), in the Italian sibling-collaborators' first U.S. show. Tim Gratkowski at Walter Maciel (through Nov. 1) shows new two- and three-dimensional, retro-slick and expressively abstract mixed-media collages. Patricia Chidlaw at George Billis Gallery (through Nov. 1) installs a diverse suite of urban landscape paintings, which go beyond photorealism to show us our common world in an uncommon light. Honor Fraser Gallery, 2622 S. La Cienega Blvd., Culver City; thru Nov. 1; free. (310) 837-0191, honorfraser.com.More
“Adam Mars: Once Upon a Time, We Weren’t Stalkers” opens this week at Gusford Gallery, but at least one of its key text-based images (“I Loved You, Then I Googled You”) is already up on a billboard — which is kind of perfect, since the work is about how much we relentlessly chronicle every moment of our lives in public. The emotional highs and lows, triumphs, epic fails and misapprehensions that once were private affairs have become 140-character public confessions, one-way broadcasts in which we hurl our bullshit into the public sphere without filter. OK, so maybe social media–fueled narcissism isn’t a sign of the apocalypse, but the confluence of word, image, technology and bottomless need for attention is certainly a phenomenon worth addressing — and Mars’ visual art, which both celebrates and impugns the practice, is the perfect way to do it. By painting his texts on a tactile, expressive, brick-backed abstract patterning, he both evokes the “real world” in a literal brick-and-mortar sense, and addresses the outside voice represented by truncated, decontextualized online pronouncements. Also, they are hilarious. Please try to remain aware of the irony when you repost them on Instagram, OK? Gusford Gallery. 7016 Melrose Ave., W. Hlywd. Thu., Nov. 6, 6-9 p.m.; continues Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m., through Dec. 20; free. (323) 452-9563, gusfordgallery.com.More
Tuesdays-Saturdays, 6-9 p.m. and Tuesdays-Saturdays, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Continues through Dec. 20
When we first meet the title character in Olive Kitteridge, she considers the revolver in her hands and looks up at the cloudless sky above the woods one last time. The 25-year journey (and the accumulation of mistakes and bad luck therein) that leads the elderly Olive to that moment...
This essay contains a spoiler or two for John Wick. There's too much violence in movies today -- too much of the wrong kind, though if you asked me what the "right" kind is, I would only be able to tell you that I know it when I see it...
The best that can be said of The Pact 2 is that its existence might draw the attention of more viewers to The Pact, a superior indie creep-out from 2012 whose creator, the writer-director Nicholas McCarthy, fashioned it according to three inviolable principles.
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Before the job had a name, the king of a television show was usually unknown beyond his kingdom -- the gangs of tool-belt-wearing union workers, divisions of actor prettifiers, regiments of writers and editors.
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The autumn passage of the New Wavers continues apace with this, the final film by the late great postmodernist, whose movies were always fraught with our often self-destructive need for narrative.
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SeaWorld's stock prices and attendance numbers have deflated, apparently, as a result of criticism from the PETA-promoted Shamu documentary Blackfish. The park in summer announced the expansion of its orca whale captivity pools, a move widely believed to be a response to the criticism. Now PETA is gloating again because...
Thirteen is a lucky number for Pasadena, which just acquired the 13th California outlet of the Taiwanese bakery cafe 85°C. In case you’re not familiar with this chain—until now the closest branches were in Torrance and Gardena—the name indicates the perfect temperature for hot coffee. This leaves out the bakery...
Folks that have been in Los Angeles for a while know that fall still brings plenty of hot days with it. On days when highs near 90 in the San Gabriel Valley — which is the forecast for today — one of the best ways to beat the heat is...
Yesterday — barely 24 hours after we published a first-person essay critical of Uber — L.A. Weekly's editorial assistant was contacted by a stranger offering a first-person essay about how great Uber is. It was kind of strange. It was purportedly written by a former taxi driver named Cabdi Xuseen ("Confessions...
We've all been there. When we were kids it was trick or treating and sugar highs. Later, we found ourselves at out-of-control Halloween parties where, for some reason, wearing costumes empowered guests to behave erratically. Now, you fancy the idea of a quiet night in handing out candy to lots...
It's no wonder that people from across the land and around the world still come to California seeking virtual gold. It's still the state with some of America's greatest potential salaries, at least when it comes to small-business employment. So says personal finance site NerdWallet, which this week revealed the...
Vladimir Nesterenko left the Ukraine 28 years ago following the Chernobyl disaster, one of the worst nuclear power plant failures in history. The 1986 explosion and fire flung radioactive particles into the sky and across the western USSR and Europe, causing cancers and deformities that are still emerging today. Nesterenko...
UCLA is one of the top 10 universities on the planet. If you think you've read that here before, you're right. See also: UCLA a Top 8 University, According To Times Higher Education World Ranking But this isn't a case of déjà vu. It seems more like a case of U.S...
This week, karaoke gets a close examination at USC, and an animated cat appears repeatedly in an immersive Hollywood installation. 5. Playing with foodRobert Heinecken’s TV dinners, gritty, dimensional photographs of dinners from the frozen-food aisle, look as if they actually went through the microwave themselves. The dinners alone make...
Friday, Oct. 31 If you're averse to traditional horror films but still want to spend Halloween at the movies, try Old Town Music Hall's 8:15 p.m. screening of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The legendary comedy duo encounter a trifecta of classic Universal monsters (Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Dracula) to produce...
If we loved Lou Amdur's little wine shop when it was tucked in next door to Sqirl (and we did), we really love his new wine shop, 1.5 miles away in Los Feliz. With a much bigger selection and a tasting counter, it's a wine-geek's paradise, especially if you get...
“We live in 2014; everybody has something to say. There is more power in being silent,” says Jake Udell, an artist manager at Th3rd Brain Management who represents Krewella and, more recently, a mysterious producer who calls himself Zhu. In February, Zhu made a huge splash on EDM music blogs...
You know a music trend has lost its sparkle when even a guy who’s benefited from it starts looking elsewhere. Two years ago, Salva got his big career break after he and RL Grime dropped a trap remix of Kanye West’s song “Mercy.” The track arrived right when the trap...
The just-out Home Everywhere (Captured Tracks) is veteran noise-pop combo Medicine’s followup to last year’s critically huzzah’d To the Happy Few, which was released after a near 20-year break for the band. The trio — made up of guitarist/producer Brad Laner (Electric Company, Savage Republic), singer/bassist Elizabeth Thompson and drummer...
Several hours after they crossed the Arizona border, the nauseating flash of lights and sirens forced their rented car to the roadside. The Pillsbury-faced cop commanded the driver to step outside the vehicle. The charge: exceeding the speed limit by three miles an hour. “I repeatedly apologized and told him...
By ten minutes after eight o’ clock last night, there were already no chairs left at Human Resources. About 150 people had shown up for “decolonizing the white box,” a discussion of racial and ethnic diversity or the lack thereof in art institutions. But the lack of chairs would become...
Want to meet new people worth having over for poker or with whom to swap your second-hand novels? Try your voting precinct's active voters — also known as neighbors. There are about 1,000 of you per precinct, and it's always interesting to see who's out and about from your enclave...
The slightly rotund disposition of KTLA Morning News entertainment journalist Sam Rubin became the focus of global headlines this week after traffic reporter Ginger Chan called him out live on-air. She apparently didn't realize her mic was hot when she blurted that Rubin has "always been" overweight. Her facial reaction...
At Bountiful Bakery in Montrose, owner Denise Assad is no stranger to early mornings (if you can even call them that): She wakes up at 3 a.m., makes her way to some Stumptown coffee and then heads to the kitchen where hours are spent kneading, twisting, stirring, pounding. The real fun begins...
It was all for a good cause: a celebrity poker match held at Microsoft's sleek compound in Playa Vista by the Peace Fund, a Sherman Oaks charity founded by Highlander: The Series actor Adrian Paul. As the daylong tournament got rolling, the stars couldn't help but divulge their strategies for...
Vladimir Nesterenko left the Ukraine 28 years ago following the Chernobyl disaster, one of the worst nuclear power plant failures in history. The 1986 explosion and fire flung radioactive particles into the sky and across the western USSR and Europe, causing cancers and deformities that are still emerging today. Nesterenko...
Folks that have been in Los Angeles for a while know that fall still brings plenty of hot days with it. On days when highs near 90 in the San Gabriel Valley — which is the forecast for today — one of the best ways to beat the heat is...
We've all been there. When we were kids it was trick or treating and sugar highs. Later, we found ourselves at out-of-control Halloween parties where, for some reason, wearing costumes empowered guests to behave erratically. Now, you fancy the idea of a quiet night in handing out candy to lots...
Thirteen is a lucky number for Pasadena, which just acquired the 13th California outlet of the Taiwanese bakery cafe 85°C. In case you’re not familiar with this chain—until now the closest branches were in Torrance and Gardena—the name indicates the perfect temperature for hot coffee. This leaves out the bakery...
UCLA is one of the top 10 universities on the planet. If you think you've read that here before, you're right. See also: UCLA a Top 8 University, According To Times Higher Education World Ranking But this isn't a case of déjà vu. It seems more like a case of U.S...
“When Disaster Strikes, take a look and sit on the sidelines and bear witness.” – Busta Rhymes Reporter: What's the best thing this team does right now? Kobe: "Defend." Assemble your rations. Turn your basement into a fortified shelter sturdy enough to withstand Stephen Curry fire-bombings and Y2K panic. You’ll...
Painter David Hockney, the moody Brit turned part-time Angeleno who made those fantastically flat, sunny pool paintings in the 1960s, had no idea, when Adobe executives invited him up to Silicon Valley in 1989, that he would become obsessed with drawing on his iPhone. Adobe was launching a program it...
Yesterday — barely 24 hours after we published a first-person essay critical of Uber — L.A. Weekly's editorial assistant was contacted by a stranger offering a first-person essay about how great Uber is. It was kind of strange. It was purportedly written by a former taxi driver named Cabdi Xuseen ("Confessions...
Friday, Oct. 31 If you're averse to traditional horror films but still want to spend Halloween at the movies, try Old Town Music Hall's 8:15 p.m. screening of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The legendary comedy duo encounter a trifecta of classic Universal monsters (Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Dracula) to produce...
The Democrat-Republican divide often comes down to the difference in how we believe America can best prosper. Democrats say the collective power of the people can protect the financial interests of the everyday worker. Republicans often argue that freedom from government fosters economic well-being. It turns out the Democrat way...
Reggae will always be relevant. For evidence, see the Bob Marley posters perennially tacked to the dorm room walls of stoned college students across the country. However, few move beyond the genre’s most popular practitioner. If you listen to Peter Tosh, you’re probably one spliff away from being your residence...
Controversial cop Frank Lyga was terminated by Los Angeles Police Department Chief Charlie Beck, the detective's attorney, Ira Salzman, told L.A. Weekly today. Lyga was sent home with pay in June after a recording of comments he made to an ongoing-training course for law enforcement was brought to the media's...
Standing in front of a coffee shop in Huntington Beach, Shaile Socher is taking a photo of the potted succulents on the table. It looks like a typical centerpiece. “I won an award for this piece at the San Diego Cake Show,” she says. It’s made out of sugar and...
A Teacher's Secret Life Hillel Aron's look at the life and death of Harry Major, a Hollywood High teacher with a penchant for taking in ex-cons, had readers riveted last week ("The Pen Pal Murder," Oct. 17). Anon can't wait for the movie version, saying, "Great story and writing. Write...
Jake Gyllenhaal is used to exhaustion. During his research for the LAPD drama End of Watch, he spent five months patrolling the streets with real-life police officers, on shifts that ended at 7 a.m. It was good preparation for his new movie, Nightcrawler, a blistering portrait of a morally corrupt...
Director Laura Poitras' Citizenfour boasts an hour or so of tense, intimate, world-shaking footage you might not quite believe you're watching. Poitras shows us history as it happens, scenes of such intimate momentousness that the movie's a must-see even if, in its totality, it's underwhelming as argument or cinema. Here...
Johnny Rotten once was asked what the Sex Pistols biopic Sid and Nancy got right about the doomed couple's real life bad romance. "Maybe the name Sid," he sneered. The film is no less beloved for being questionably true — and let's be honest, Rotten spent much of 1978 drunk...
It's an unwritten rule that we're supposed to feel most in step with people our own age, as if sharing the same cultural and historical references somehow enables our ability to look into one another's hearts. So why do we sometimes tumble into deeper friendships with people who are 10...
This essay contains a spoiler or two for John Wick. There's too much violence in movies today -- too much of the wrong kind, though if you asked me what the "right" kind is, I would only be able to tell you that I know it when I see it...
When we first meet the title character in Olive Kitteridge, she considers the revolver in her hands and looks up at the cloudless sky above the woods one last time. The 25-year journey (and the accumulation of mistakes and bad luck therein) that leads the elderly Olive to that moment...
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Get Editors' Picks of the best things going on each week, full restaurant listings, last night reviews of concerts, events, and nightlife, slideshows by the city's best party photographers, hundreds of local event listings every day, and much, much more.