What does it mean that Spielberg's other founding partners, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, are no longer with the company?
As we get older, we no longer ask so many questions aloud. Our questions become more private: Why? Why are we on this earth? Events occur, and we ask: Why me? Or, why not me?
"Without people like the Broads,we wouldn't have commissioned work of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven and so many of the great painters. How they use their capital is commendable." -- Dustin Hoffman
It was at college that he first met Allen Ginsberg. "He was 17. He was a bit crazy, and he was more eccentric than I was," Gold said.
I decided to watch every film adapted from Philip Roth's work. My mission started simply enough: a search on imdb.com turned up eight works on film and TV, stretching back to the 1950s. Some had never been released on video, some are only in VHS, some were available at the local video store, some had to be tracked down in specialty shops or in university or museum archives. My quest led me across Los Angeles and afforded me the pleasure of visiting some of the city's most beautiful libraries and research facilities, as well as some of its best-stocked video stores.
He was famous for being the first man in Hungary to own a car, and my grandmother kept a clipping from the Royal Hungarian Automobile Society with a picture of him seated at the controls of his Benz with a little girl on the rear rumble seat. Beneath the photo was the caption in Hungarian, German and French, proclaiming "Hatsek Bela le premier automobiliste Hongrois sur son voiture Benz en 1895."
As to whether "Zohan" will advance the cause of peace in the Middle East and increase regard for Israel and Israelis in the world at large, even as Israel itself celebrates its 60th anniversary, that's hard to say
The last time BookExpo was in Los Angeles, the convention floor was constantly, overwhelmingly crowded, with so many booths that the author autographing section had to be relegated to a basement hall
Preservation Hall's formula was simple and is followed to this day: No reservations, no food, just music in a small room. Shows began at 8 p.m. Each set lasted around 35 minutes, and tickets were priced low (they're now $10 a show, Wednesday through Sunday)
What does it mean to be a Jew in a Post-Zionist world?
William Shatner is God. And Pharaoh. And Moses, too.
Just in time for Passover, the Jewish Music Group (a division of Shout Factory) has released "Exodus: An Oratorio in Three Parts," performed by the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. It is conducted by David Itkin, who created and composed the Oratorio, sung by baritone Paul Rowe and includes dramatic readings from the Bible and from the haggadah, spoken by none other than Shatner.
Dutton's Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles' independent bookstores, will close on April 30.
It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times.
So who is Steve Binder, and why was the "Singer Presents Elvis" special from 1968 so special that 40 years later, people still regard it as one of the greatest TV musical performances ever?
Every so often, I read a book that is extraordinary, a book that is so good, so well written, so moving, so memorable that you just want to holler out: Read this! Such a book is "The Invisible Wall" by Harry Bernstein.
When it comes to Bob Dylan, I think it's fair to say that I'm a fan of long standing -- my wife still teases me about the time, shortly after we'd moved to Los Angeles, when in her car, radio on, she was surprised to hear me as a call-in contestant to KSCA's "Lyrically Speaking" correctly identify the author of the verse in question as, "My man, Bob Dylan."
So you might think that I would be excited to see "Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-66," opening at the Skirball on Feb. 8. But I was somewhat skeptical.
In an underground office on the campus of Santa Monica College, Claude Brodesser-Akner is working with his producer, Matt Holzman, and associate producer, Darby Maloney, to describe the current status of the Oscar broadcast -- and work in a pun.
In February, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will unveil the first phase of its renovation and expansion, including the opening of a new building devoted to contemporary art -- the Broad Contemporary Art Museum (that's Broad as in Eli and Edythe Broad, our local Medicis) or, as the acronymists at LACMA have dubbed it, BCAM.
Let me state, for the record, that I know nothing about sports.
I don't watch them; I don't follow them. My parents didn't. I never did as a kid. I don't now with my family. Occasionally in the finals of a season, a few names flutter into my consciousness and then, just as quickly, disappear. I'm not proud of this. I watch, rather wistfully, as sports informs the conversations of a wide range of folks, as I watch families and friends gather in living rooms or in bars to scream and shout and be together.
An appreciation of Julius Shulman, the still much-in-demand architectural photographer famous for his photos of Modernist homes, who turned 97 a few weeks ago.
Interview with novelist Michael Chabon.
Producer, songwriter and musician Larry Klein is having a good year. In a way, one could say his current success is the culmination of a process of recontextualizing his background, his experience, his talents and his interests.
Why Iran? Why now, you may ask.
In part, it is incredible that such an old and established Jewish community is unknown to most of us, and that the life they led is, for the most part, no more.
With slight trepidation, the new year stands before us, calling us to dive in and embrace the fall.
Lately, I have been thinking about Zsa Zsa, and it makes me sad. A few years ago, she crashed her car on Sunset, and she has been wheelchair-bound since. She had been a recluse for some time before that, depressed, not wanting to leave the house. She, who for so long relied on her looks, no longer wants to be seen in public.
When I heard that the circus was coming to town, I couldn't wait to take my daughter. I'm talking about the Greatest Show on Earth, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, appearing in Orange County until Aug. 5.
"The plov is great." Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly's restaurant critic and the 2007 winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, e-mailed me the above about Uzbekistan (the restaurant on La Brea, not the country), where we were planning to meet.
Today in Los Angeles, the three Jewish women profiled below - Andrea Grossman, Louise Steinman, and Julie Robinson - have created their own 21st century versions of the salon. Whereas once the salon was a private, exclusive gathering, today it has become far more democratic.
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Writing with Light
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A Literacy of Images: Nancy Newhall and the Art of Photography
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VideoJew Jay Firestone is back with the second 'volume' in his VideoGuide to L.A. This week -- driving around town
Parshat Ha'azinu (Deuteronomy 32:1-32:52) It isn't nice to say, but if I were hanging out in the desert with my friends -- all excited about moving in to a land of milk, honey and great falafel -- and an old man with a stutter insisted on "speaking into our ears" a weird doom