Gallery Los Angeles Music Henry Rollins Spins At Amoeba for Record Store Day

April 27, 2011 - 11:08 am

In the country, hell, the world, few other music stores know how to have as much fun as Amoeba. You go there, you remember why there’s no more Waxie Maxie’s, no more Tower. You have an Amoeba, you’re gold.

And what began as a novelty in 2007 — hardcore vinyl fans uniting to officially salute the lo-fi music of their youth — has grown into a global phenomenon, with Amoeba in Hollywood possibly among the best places to go and celebrate. This year, Henry Rollins was on hand to DJ, sign some stuff, talk with fans, and even inspect tattoos.

Not Impressed

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Gallery Music Social Distortion @ the Music Box : Prohibition-Era Punk Rock

April 26, 2011 - 10:22 am

There’s a lot of you out there (you know who you are) who long ago consigned yourself to the age-old credo “punk is dead.” You’d probably be hard-pressed to believe that even Social Distortion‘s recent Music Box performance could be the best argument in years to such a hastily-conceived notion. In addition to the debut of their newest and most raucous album in years, Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes, the boys really raised that punk bar a bit more: it wasn’t just a great concert with a tight band, it was a glorious punk rock/rockabilly/cinematic spectacle.

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Film Fridays Geek A New Look At Green Lantern’s World, Attack the Block’s New Trailer, and The Boycott Against Akira Grows

April 22, 2011 - 7:46 pm

Ryan's Jolly Green Giant

The new extended TV spot for Green Lantern is out, taking us deeper into the world of Oa and Kilowog…honestly I wasn’t too sure about veteran James Bond director Martin Campbell handling this one (guess you can’t have Nolan or Arronofsky for every comic book film) but the trailer has me pretty sold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVbBsf4akXY

Meanwhile Star Trek veteran George Takei lashes out against the whitewashing of Japanimation masterpiece Akira in a series of tweets…“Akira epic fail–all actors up for Kaneda & Tetsuo are white? Sign & RT the petition…”  He ain’t the only one pissed off about it, as the petition’s been live on Facebook for months now.

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Film Fridays Study Shows Nicolas Cage’s Hair May Have an Effect on the Quality of His Films

April 15, 2011 - 7:15 pm

Bangkok D

It might be that that he named his kid Kal-El (after Superman’s real name?), and says it so casually in interviews, like his name is Mikey. Or maybe the fact that he has so much goddamn money, he bought a buncha houses and a castle, and then went bankrupt. The rumor is that if you interview the guy, and he catches you looking at his hairline, he will end the interview. It might be that.

On that same subject, a bizarre trend of recent hairstyles has recently caught many moviegoers off-guard. While many of us realize we’ll never get the pompadour of Peggy Sue or the Elvis-loving locks of Wild at Heart, it’s Cage’s recently off-kilter mugs that make his films harder to concentrate on.

3. Bangkok Dangerous (see above) — Sporting a cut similar to John Travolta’s in Pulp Fiction, this is a cut that might look cool but even someone as cool as Travolta was walking that fine line. It sort of proves that this late in life, having the long hair is more of a distraction from that face. We love ya without it, Nic. But that’s okay, cause all I had to do was see those locks on the movie poster to know enough to ignore it.

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Gallery Music Uh Huh Her @ The El Rey: Chicks Dig ‘Em

April 4, 2011 - 12:30 pm

Upon first listen, it doesn’t look or sound like Uh Huh Her is doing much new. Like countless others, they’re riding the 1982-87 New Wave for all it’s worth, packing their stage full of vintage analog synths, programmed digital drums, and guitars drenched in delay. Watching such a spirited performance at the El Rey on Friday night, it was even hard not to think of the female road warrior from Mad Max — or those slicked-down backup dancers from that Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” video.

But unlike so many others, UHH gets it right, capturing the post-punk spirit of what made bands like Joy Division and The Creatures so catchy. Songs like “I See Red” are infectious and ethereal, even dreamy; “Never the Same” (a preview from the upcoming Nocturnes), is awash in an astral noise that’s somewhere on the spectrum between Enya and M83.

Whatever it is, it’s working: judging by the rapturous applause and two encores, they stole hundreds of girls’ hearts tonight. As for the boys, who cares.

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Film Fridays What You Should See This Weekend (A Movie About a Killer Tire) and What You Should Avoid (Everything Else)

April 1, 2011 - 6:20 pm

Rubber (Balls and Liqour)

Even though it’s April, consider the summer film season officially on. After last week’s almost universally panned Sucker Punch, the industry seems on the rebound with a slew of some of the year’s best-reviewed films.

But the one we’re recommending is Rubber, the tale of a living, presumably breathing and extremely pissed car tire named Robert – who wants nothing more than to hook up with chicks, watch exercise videos, and make heads explode, Scanners-style.

Read on for the trailer and mo…

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Art/Design Gallery In Your Face Decadence At Pop Tart Gallery

March 29, 2011 - 9:28 am

Wedged in between two subdivisions and a huge church in the middle of Koreatown, Phyllis Navidad’s Pop Tart Gallery is perhaps the last thing you’d expect to find in any suburb, really. A collage of transvestite/transsexual/glammed-out portraits that would make Ratt and Poison look like a bunch of Steve McQueens, tonight’s Your Face Here, curated by Lenora Claire, featured work by celebrated photographer of all things glam-n-drag Austin Young: Huge pictures of Margaret Cho, Perez Hilton and other gender-defying celebs adorn the white walls of this tiny gallery with a great big heart — while a chick/dude in a Dangerous-era Michael Jackson outfit spins mutant strains of classic disco mixed with modern R&B. All as you grab free cocktails. Then Kilsonic, a 50-piece ensemble brass band emerges, just in case you weren’t paying attention.

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Film Fridays Why Video Games Make Sh*tty Movies…and Why the End is In Sight

March 25, 2011 - 5:56 pm

Sucker what

to make up for what you’re about to see.

As a sort of tribute to Sucker-Punch — which is a lot like a video game in that it’s very pretty to look at, lots of stuff gets blowed up good, and you have to defeat lots of big bosses and collect a sort of triforce of power thing (which in this case will allow you to escape rapists, sadistic dominatrixes and a Cuckoo’s Nest-style mental ward) — this week seems appropriate enough to pay a tribute to an age-old Hollywood disease that began, innocently enough, with this:

Picture 20

Take a stroll through cinema hell and view some of the worst video game to film translations ever, and find hope in why the genre might be dying out.

Does a Body Good

But first focus on this. Ok, here we go

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Film Fridays Cinema’s Top Wusses Who Become Badass Vigilantes

March 18, 2011 - 5:39 pm

I Am Tyler's Multiple Personality Disorder

Edward Norton – Fight Club: A scrawny-looking schlub, Norton plays a sort of yuppie Man With No Name who takes sh*t from everyone and in his spare time orders stuff from an LL Bean catalog. Then Tyler Durden comes out. “You’re not your f*cking khakis,” he growls at Norton/us, and thus is born one of the greatest vigilantes in cinema history. Now Norton is free to go bat-shit — which is not restricted to beating himself senseless to frame his boss for assault, shooting himself in the face, and soap-bombing a bunch of evil conglomerates. Not to mention braving the man-boobs of Meatloaf.

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Film Fridays The Five Most Disappointing Aliens in Cinema History

March 11, 2011 - 6:40 pm

The scariest family photo, ever

Disclaimer: Not including Ed Wood/MST3K-style stuff here, just cuz it’s too easy… Otherwise it’d probably be “Santa vs. the Martians.”
5. Aliens from Alien Nation : Alien Nation continues with that pesky problem that plagues many of its fellow Hollywood ilk: Aliens who came from billions of light years away don’t have to look entirely unlike us, but couldn’t they have at least tried harder than a simple bald cap and some painted spots on the head? Bonus: the guy aliens get pregnant, complete with their own OB-GYNs.

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