Halloween turns L.A. suburbs into haunts


By
 1 Comment/in ,
Living in Los Angeles has its perks come Halloween, especially on the city’s outer edges where some of the entertainment industry’s best makeup and special effects artists live amid eerily disconnected suburban sprawl. Localized haunted attractions have always been a seasonal offering in L.A.’s family-oriented neighborhoods, but the success of specialized theme parks such as […]

Food blogs aren’t just for critics


By
 in ,
You’ve probably never noticed food bloggers before. But if you look around, they are everywhere — from fancy bistros, cafes and celebrity chef-owned restaurants to food festivals, food trucks and the latest hole-in-the-wall hot spots. They lug their fancy DSLR cameras or whip out surreptitious iPhones, snapping away at anything and everything edible, from sloppy […]

Simpsons’ opening a suddenly dark turn


By
 3 Comments/in ,
You might have thought that the seminal animated series The Simpsons ran out of good bits for its “couch gag” introduction by now. After all, the show is in its 22nd season — that’s 467 episodes — which is a long, long time to keep coming up with ideas. And, for the most part, audiences […]

Exhibit a look into L.A. poet’s life


By
 1 Comment/in ,
Los Angeles might be well known for sun, surf and celebrities, but its literary history has a reputation for being dark, depressing and — in the case of Charles Bukowski — drunk. Like other 20th century L.A.-based writers such as John Fante, Raymond Chandler and Joan Didion, Bukowski made his career writing tales of the […]

Cycling event gets Angelenos out of cars


By
 1 Comment/in ,
After serving as the epicenter of California car culture for more than half a century, it’s no wonder Los Angeles residents only take to the streets for Lakers championships and riots. Sunday, however, will hopefully change all that as a seven-and-a-half-mile stretch of Los Angeles asphalt gets closed off to cars and opened up to […]

Alumnus proves ties pay off in long run


By
 in ,
Richard Outten, professional screenwriter and USC alumnus, would not be among the handful of fantasy scribes that the average moviegoer associates with big-budget studio pictures. He has worked consistently since his first sale but is unlikely to market himself based on prestige or public demand in the way that Eric Roth, David Koepp or Akiva […]

Low-key district creates sonic fest


By
 in ,
Northeast Los Angeles is a community-defining term unknown to many native Angelenos. South Los Angeles, East Los Angeles  and “the Westside” have all become common area identifiers, but Northeast Los Angeles remains an abyss in the minds of many locals even though it encompasses some of the oldest and most culturally flourishing parts of the […]

More to Korean street food than taco trucks


By
 4 Comments/in , ,
Thanks to the influx of the popular Korean-fusion food truck Kogi and its imitators, an Angeleno is most likely to think of sesame seed-sprinkled beef on corn tortillas when talking about “Korean street food.” Obviously, street food takes a different scene in the actual streets of Korea. Instead of the rumbling, Twitter-savvy, colorful trucks that […]

A golden year for cinematic excellence


By
 in ,
You might not be aware, dear reader, but we are in the midst of a good ol’ knock out of a movie year. Not since 2007 — the year of There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men and Juno — has the silver screen shone so bright. Yes, there was something magical in […]