Tag Archives: Los Angeles

COLORS 30

In the 1950s and 1960s Dennis Hopper was a young actor appearing in classic films like Rebel Without a Cause, Giant and The Sons of Katie Elder. But by the late 1960s Hopper was tired of directors telling him what to do. He felt like he knew better and he’d prove it if he could [...]

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Sharp New Blade

I saw a media screening of Blade Runner 2049 on Monday night. Just so you know, it’s a very good addition to the Blade Runner universe that connects to the first film as well as one might ever expect. It differs from the Ridley Scott film in that it’s less of a pulp noir (especially [...]

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Whisky Doors

Earlier today I saw a tweet about the 50th anniversary of The Doors first gig at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. Of course I immediately thought “Oh, perfect — I can blog about that.” Turns out it’s the 51st anniversary of The Doors debut at the club, and while it’s not an [...]

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Seeing Colors

Spike Lee’s controversial new film, Chi-Raq shines a spotlight on the out of control gang violence in Chicago. In 1988, Dennis Hopper similarly pointed a camera at the gang violence in his own Los Angeles backyard. Hopper’s film Colors was a gritty-for-the-time cop drama starring Robert Duvall and Sean Penn, but its most important contribution [...]

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Jim Morrison’s HWY

45 years ago, in the summer of 1969, Jim Morrison shot his experimental film HWY in Los Angeles and in the Mojave Desert. Morrison had hitchhiked hundreds of miles in his younger days as a college student and the thumbs-up locomotion of the protagonist (played by Morrison) at the center of HWY finds the director/actor [...]

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Beatle VS Beetles

A tree near the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles has been destroyed, much to the consternation of rock fans around the world. Why do music nerds care about a tree? Spin has the story… A tree planted to honor of the memory of the Beatles songwriter George Harrison has been killed by actual beetles. As [...]

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A Chat with Charles Bukowski

Film director Barbet Schroeder’s nearly four hours of interviews with the late poet Charles Bukowski have taken on an air of legend since their initial release on VHS in 1987. Various segments from the captured conversations have appeared on YouTube in the past, but this is the first time I’ve found the entire interview available [...]

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