You Ignorant Sluts California's election results brought out the fury and glee in L.A. Weekly readers — in particular, the defeat of Proposition 46, a plan to raise the medical malpractice cap ("Consumer Watchdog Gets Blown Out on Health Care Propositions 45 and 46," Nov. 5) and the Weekly's "California...
The last in a series of HoliDIY workshops hosted by The Women’s Center for Creative Work and Otherwild, the Meditation of Candle Making teaches the calming effect of hand-dipping your own beeswax candles. Led by the Lower Lodge’s Hannah Vainstein, this isn’t your typical Crafternoon — the focus here is on the magic and art of this ancient process (humans have been turning beeswax into candles since 40 B.C.E). You’ll leave with as many tapers as you manage to dip, and the skills to make more at home. With its mild honeyed scent, beeswax won’t overwhelm the aromas of turkey and gravy at your Thanksgiving table, which makes it the perfect dinnertime candle. Any extras will make great gifts — how awesome would it be to light a menorah filled with your own hand-dipped candles? This is one DIY workshop that will have you glowing, literally. Otherwild, 1932 Echo Park Ave., Echo Park; Thurs., Nov. 13, 7-9 p.m.; $75 (incl. materials). (323) 546-8437, otherwild.com. More
Known for his indie-infused electronic remixes, RAC (an acronym for the original name, Remix Artist Collective) focuses on making his music interesting and eclectic rather than danceable. Still, we can’t help but have a good time listening and swaying along to this guy’s silky beats. Very little of what RAC does is predictable, and his performance at the Fonda promises to be consistently surprising and full of feel-good vibes. With support from The Knocks and other guests, it will be a night of chill indie-pop with an electronic flair.More
The late Larry Sultan, whose LACMA retrospective just opened, photographed his father and mother with the same curious distance he employed when photographing porn stars in the valley, which says a lot about his work. It’s all about style, posture and personality, but it’s best when those personalities have some moral ambiguity to them, so that the humanity of a subject doesn’t distract you from Sultan’s fantastic eye for detail. Hours vary, closed Christmas and Thanksgiving.More
Respect Drum and Bass has been going on since 1999, and prides itself as L.A.’s longest running weekly drum 'n’ bass event. The pop-up club typically comes to Dragonfly in Hollywood on Thursday nights, but it has also showed up at Avalon and, soon, at Exchange LA. The crowd at Respect’s events is famously considerate; you don’t need to know anything about the genre itself in order to feel accepted by the scene. If you do need some liquid courage to dance, Dragonfly has the added bonus of offering $4 drink specials before 11 p.m.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...
The late Larry Sultan, whose LACMA retrospective just opened, photographed his father and mother with the same curious distance he employed when photographing porn stars in the valley, which says a lot about his work. It’s all about style, posture and personality, but it’s best when those personalities have some moral ambiguity to them, so that the humanity of a subject doesn’t distract you from Sultan’s fantastic eye for detail. Hours vary, closed Christmas and Thanksgiving.More
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays-Sundays. Continues through March 22
Thirty years ago, manga artist Akira Toriyama embarked upon a hero’s journey with his warrior-in-training Goku. The result, Dragon Ball, became a global phenomenon that launched multiple TV series and films. Decades later, the franchise remains one of the staples of anime conventions. Even the critically reviled, live-action flick Dragonball: Evolution couldn’t quell the fan’s love for Goku and company. Saturday night, QPop and friends presents a Dragon Ball 30th anniversary tribute in their new Q2 space. More than 80 artists are already scheduled to take part in the exhibition, which will cover Toriyama’s full body of work, with emphasis on Dragon Ball. Q2, 319 E. 2nd St., Suite 121, Little Tokyo; Nov. 15; 7-10 p.m.More
Tales of the Old West continue to make up a significant portion of our cultural narrative, mostly because we still like to comfort ourselves with stories showing that ours is a land of opportunity. Making the trek to the American frontier promised a new life or, at the very least,...
Tales of fame and its trappings — and the way they're never enough to build a life — are as old as show business itself. Maybe for that reason, almost any story about discovering the hollowness of fame is written off as a cliché. But what's the difference, really, between...
Erik Peter Carlson's The Toy Soldiers is a pitch-black spin on American Graffiti, set in a brightly colored place during what's remembered as a brightly colored decade.
more...
2014 has been a good year for redemption-through-music stories, with high points such as God Help the Girl and My Little Pony: Equestria Girls — Rainbow Rocks and lesser efforts such as Rudderless.
more...
The Occupy movement persists in fits and stutters around the globe, and though its inability (stateside at least) to resolve internal issues around race, class, and gender shouldn't be ignored, neither should its successes.
more...
It's one thing to watch sturdy, dexterously charming Jean Gabin as a working-class joe who doesn't mind dangerous manual labor, figuring that's his lot in life.
more...
Beneath the rom-com pacing and peppy underscoring of a Lifetime movie, Delusions of Guinevere is a surprisingly dark satire of modern celebrity.
more...
From the opening robbery in a hard-land gas station, Simon Hawkins and Zeke Hawkins' Bad Turn Worse floors it straight into the past -- it plays like one of the best of those chatty, reflexive, standoffs-and-monologues crime indies every young dude in L.A. whipped up after Tarantino hit.
more...
Whether you're choosing to fuel your practice with the promise of a cold pint at the hour's end or would rather down a draft before class to loosen up your sun salutations, no one's judging.
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.
Jen Candy had never done stand-up comedy when her friend Jeff Garlin convinced her to give it a try. They'd met on the set of a children's show where 34-year-old Candy was hired as a stand-in for Garlin — an odd staffing choice considering that the two actors look nothing alike. Candy, a T.V. producer, has short blonde hair, big eyes and a cheery near-permanent smile. Garlin, 52, whose personality is interchangeable with his Jeff Greene character on Curb Your Enthusiasm, wears dark wavy hair and a constant-scowl.
Still, the unlikely duo hit it off immediately. On stage at the Westside Comedy Theater last Thursday night, Garlin, the headliner of a show called "Virgin Sacrifice," said, "I knew there was something about Jen." It all made sense to him once he figured out what that something was: She's the daughter of the late comedian and actor John Candy. "That's why I have this affection for her that I can't explain," he added.
This was only minutes after she'd lost her virginity — stand-up virginity, that is — and had been "sacrificed" live on stage. The concept of the monthly stand-up show is that someone who's never done stand-up before performs a set for the first — and, presumably, only — time in his or her life. Candy's entire set turned out to be a tribute to her father. Garlin's set, meanwhile, was a tribute to her.
click to enlarge
Photo: Mickey Blaine
Jen Candy
"SCTV is one of the reasons that I went into comedy," Garlin went on, referencing Second City Television, the variety show where John Candy got his start before becoming synonymous with the endlessly quotable, lovable goof balls in John Hughes' The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Garlin lost his stand-up virginity a week after his 20th birthday (he lost his real virginity to a heckler at one of his stand-up shows not long after) and said, "Every show was like 'holy fucking shit'" kind of terrifying.
Of course, Garlin quickly got over that short-lived case of virgin stage fright — so much so that at last week's show, his improvised routine was so candid and so exhaustive that it seemed as if he'd forgotten he was on a stage at all. At one point he took a seat on a corner of the stage after tiring himself out with rants about the anxiety of texting ("I have lost sleep over not what was said, but what wasn't said"), the futility of hiking ("I have never been on a hike") and the racial profiling in that controversial cat-calling video ("Every fucking guy who yelled something was either an old black man or an Italian man — it was right out of Central Casting").
Candy's set was more focused, with a central theme: road trips. In her opening monologue about a trip from L.A. to her native Toronto (one of many), she recounted stopping at Biscuits Diner just outside of Denver one night, only to discover a family shoplifting everything from the gift shop next door: shot glasses, magnets, teddy bears. The moral of the story? "Never eat at a fucking diner named Biscuits."
At the heart of her set was a road trip story that suggested her father was exactly the larger-than-life king of road trips that he played on screen, in iconic roles like Del Griffith ("the shower curtain ring guy") in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Gus Polinski ("the polka king of the Midwest") in Home Alone. In one real-life family road trip from L.A. to Toronto (one that Candy says her father attempted to do in four days — which is possible with only two bathroom breaks total), her father got pulled over for speeding. (At least their speedometer hadn't melted like Griffith's after a car fire in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.)
Still, things escalated pretty quickly when a cop pulled out his gun and pointed it at the family. Next thing they knew they had been booked at the Canadian police station, held for what felt like hours until the cops finally realized who they were dealing with and burst into laughter. John Candy spent the rest of the day posing for pictures and signing autographs for every single cop at the police station.
"If you ever want to go on a road trip with the Candys, be prepared for weird shit to happen," Candy said, and then exited the stage to roaring applause, including that of her mother and brother, who were both in the audience. The virgin sacrifice was complete, and Candy wasn't half-bad. Even Garlin agreed. Jennifer Swann on Twitter:
Encuentro 2014, an inspiring, monthlong festival of 18 Latino performances and readings, just closed at Los Angeles Theatre Center downtown and a couple of off-site locations. It could accurately be described as a reactionary event. "Reactionary," however, does not refer to a yearning backward. Rather, in the purest sense of...
Nina Hartley and Ernest Greene never have sex in the bedroom. Their MacArthur Park loft has seen more than its fair share of intertwined naked bodies in the 15 years that the veteran porn star and the legendary bondage filmmaker have lived, swung and shot here, but the bed is...
A trio of young Latino musicians is playing on the floor of a rehearsal room in East Los Angeles. A familiar melody fills the tiny room as Natalie Camunas begins to croon the lyrics to Morrissey's 1988 classic "Suedehead." Backed by Andres Solorzano on acoustic guitar and Cesar Solorzano, not...
Jen Candy had never done stand-up comedy when her friend Jeff Garlin convinced her to give it a try. They'd met on the set of a children's show where 34-year-old Candy was hired as a stand-in for Garlin — an odd staffing choice considering that the two actors look nothing...
A photographer documents his eccentric, glamorous parents obsessively and a group of women host a utopia building workshop. 5. Dinner can mean a lot Artist Orly Olivier’s work is almost all about food and heritage, particularly the heritage of her Jewish-Tunisian family. She is cooking this weekend at Clockshop while...
It’s hard to watch Season Two of Getting On without thinking about The Office. The parallels are obvious. Both are British imports from namesake series, and both, at least in the early going, inherited an understated, gloomy brand of humor from their sardonic predecessors. Yet the most vital link is...
Some Disney movies make great stage musicals (see: Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King). Some Disney movies make not-so-great stage musicals (see: Tarzan, The Little Mermaid). Some Disney movies are better as stage musicals (see: Newsies). And then there's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Based on Victor Hugo's 1831...
This week's dance shows include a collaborative work from L.A. Contemporary Dance, dance about community from Israel and JazzAntiqua celebrating American jazz. 5. High voltage to low watt dance After an opening weekend jam-packed with energized dance, the debut edition of the performance festival Alternate Currents takes a more reflective turn...
When it comes to the state of Los Angeles theater — particularly of its small stages — there seems to be a general consensus that it is in a bad way. Why or how depends on whom one asks. Some mention the economy, still shaky from the Great Recession. Others...
In his new memoir, I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend, Martin Short writes about the string of tragedies he’s endured over the years: His brother died in a car crash, he was orphaned by the time he was 20 and he lost his wife, ex-girlfriend Gilda...
Jessie Kahnweiler feels pretty inadequate when compared to veterans. Which is why this Veteran's Day, the L.A. comedian is looking to give back in a pretty, uh, selfless way. "Our vets have been getting fucked, right?" she says. "So now it's time for me to fuck a vet." That's the premise...
This week's dance shows include a new dance festival in Venice, five companies interpreting one song and the return of Ballet Boyz 5. Boyz will be boyz Launched 14 years ago by Michael Nunn and William Trevitt to provide adventures beyond the classicism emphasized by Britain’s Royal Ballet, Ballet Boyz...
Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar is a big, ambitious picture but it didn't connect with our critics. We discuss the film at the top of this week's podcast before moving onto a few other notable films on screens large and small this week. - The Disney film Big Hero 6...
The party is in full swing at V Lounge in Santa Monica. Twenty-somethings in animal-print jumpsuits and glow-in-the-dark face paint form a circle around a break-dancer in a furry dragon costume. When he jumps out of the circle, a tiny woman in a formfitting storm-trooper bodysuit glides in and executes...
In her book Generation Me, author Jean Twenge characterized Millennials, the demographic born between 1980 and 2000, as noticeably more narcissistic than preceding generations. This self-absorption is evident in the core concept of "Modern Millennial," the performance art exhibit in which 25 year old artist Moses Storm crowdfunded a loft...