Falling James explains what poetry is/isn’t for you.

Not posting the link here, but LA WEEKLY stalwart Falling James wrote an article where famous local poets/authors recommend local readings and venues.  These places tend to be more pedigreed than not.

So let’s turn the floor over to Falling James deigning to define what isn’t poetry to him:

For those who crave to hear more artistically ambitious poetry and short fiction performed live, there are nonetheless a dizzying variety of places where subtle wordplay is appreciated, although one sometimes has to search carefully to discern the more adventurous and experimental spoken-word artisans amid the overriding clamor of actor types and comedians manqué shouting over one another in telling their personal anecdotes at generic storytelling events.

Quentin Tarantino and the changes coming to L.A.'s New Beverly Cinema.

After years of holding the lease on the building in which Los Angeles' revival theater New Beverly CInema resides (and having some say over recent programming--including a long run of DJANGO UNCHAINED upon its original release), Quentin Tarantino has gained full control of the theater--removing Michael Torgan (son of the late Sherman Torgan, who ran the theater from the 70s until his death in 2007) from film scheduling--plus removing the digital projection system installed last spring.

Here's a link to an interview Tarantino gave to LA WEEKLY:
http://www.laweekly.com/publicspectacle/2014/09/05/quentin-tarantino-on-his-new-role-running-the-shows-at-new-beverly-cinema

Michael Torgan's response from the comments section of LA WEEKLY: An important clarification to this article: like most business owners, my family did not own the physical property from which we ran our business.  We leased it since 1978, so we did not literally own the physical theater.  However, we did own the business known as the New Beverly Cinema 100%.  In addition to being the manager/chief programmer, I was also the owner of the business entirely.  This point has often been misunderstood, so I felt a need to make this statement even if I chose not to be interviewed for this piece.

Chris Willman's response to Torgan:
Does "did own" mean Tarantino has finally purchased the business from you? That doesn't seem clear. Thanks, Michael.

Article sympathetic to Michael Torgan from the website LAist:
http://laist.com/2014/09/05/new_bev_changes.php

And there's the possibility of Quentin Tarantino expanding his revival-house empire with an interest in purchasing the currently-closed Rialto Theatre in South Pasadena CA:
http://south.pasadenanow.com/quentin-tarantino-said-to-be-among-rialto-bidders/

UPDATE: The following comments originally appeared on September 7th after a Deadline.com article about Tarantino and the New Beverly:
David: Kudos to Tarantino! As a former ‘real’ film studio projectionist, I lost my job due to digital conversion. There is nothing like being surrounded by film cans! For years when going to a theater to see a movie, I couldn’t help but watch for the reel change mark in the upper right corner of the screen. Now those too have disappeared. I will indeed be by to watch real movies at the Beverly Cinema.

Michael Torgan: David, just a clarification: the New Beverly Cinema may have added a digital projector to supplement its programming, but it by no means went through a digital conversion. We screened over 360 35mm film prints a year via reel to reel change-over projection, and that wasn’t going to change just because I simply added a digital projector to the booth. It’s a revival theater, after all, and 35mm would have ALWAYS remained the preferred format. I had 5 projectionists on staff, and no one was losing a job over the digital projector. We’ve been screening “real” movies at the Beverly Cinema for 36 years.

Here's the link to the Deadline.com article: 
http://deadline.com/2014/09/quentin-tarantino-new-beverly-cinema-takes-over-theater-830233/

Henry Rollins explains Las Vegas in 2014 for you.

What I don’t understand is that, when you have the chance to build a place in the middle of nowhere so you can do what you want, this is apparently what you want — to eat at the same chain restaurants, to drink the same alcohol that you can get anywhere but with the added bonus of getting fleeced by professionals.

The above passage is from Henry Rollins' current LA WEEKLY column:
http://www.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2014/08/07/henry-rollins-fake-city?showFullText=true

Scenes from a literary marriage: James Ellroy, Helen Knode and THE HILLIKER CURSE.

I haven't read enough of the work of crime novelist auteur James Ellroy.  But I speedread through part of Ellroy's latest venture into autobiographic memoir THE HILLIKER CURSE. Unfortunately, it reminded me of a GQ/ESQUIRE article bloated into book form so Ellroy could make quick-and-easy cash waving around his "this is it, hepcats" public persona one more time.

The portion of HILLIKER (premise/hook: Ellroy's mother's mysterious violent death colors Ellroy's relations with women thereafter) I read covered the marriage of Ellroy to the LA WEEKLY film reviewer/liberal provocateur Helen Knode.  Knode, in her own way, has.had the same kind of grandstanding persona as Ellroy; her film reviews often positioned her as the scourge of mainstream Hollywood sexism, while occasional WEEKLY here's-my-life columns rhapsodized on subjects such as the young Helen enjoying carnal delights in bathtubs with Frenchmen.

So, Ellroy and Knode met, made love and married.  Knode found herself putting much of her writing career (one novel called THE TICKET OUT excepted) on hold while Ellroy zoomed to megafame with the film adaptation of L.A. CONFIDENTIAL plus the writing of AMERICAN TABLOID and THE COLD SIX THOUSAND (not to mention his original memoir re the death of his mother, the still-worth-reading MY DARK PLACES).  And the marriage which started out as a hipster-meets-Reaganite variation of Scott-and-Zelda ended up dissolving in an ANNIE HALL manner (with Ellroy closing himself off mentally--and ultimately physically--from Knode; HILLIKER exemplifies this distance by recounting Ellroy's in-the-mind infatuation with opera star Anne Sofie Von Otter).

There could have been a great DOUBLE FANTASY-esque book with alternating chapters written by both Ellroy and Knode examining a loving but competitive-and-ultimately-doomed marriage between two literary stars of varying wattage.

And it's regrettable, to put it mildly, that Ellroy couldn't have given Helen Knode a chance to tell her side of their story (and participate in the royalties as well).

Aaron Hillis now rivals Hugh Bonar as one of the tackiest LA WEEKLY film reviewers ever.

There's a student-film-level geriatric romance/sex comedy called PLAY THE GAME opening this weekend (not planning to see it, having suffered the give-just-about-everything-away trailer) with Andy Griffith in his first major role since appearing in Adrienne Shelly's WAITRESS.

Aaron Hillis' negative review (don't know if it originated in the LA WEEKLY or with one of the other Michael Lacey alternapapers) of the film (look it up on http://www.laweekly.com) starts off okay in a young-man-writing-to-his-age-group fashion. But Hillis goes for the worst kind of insensitive-to-cruel snark in his final sentence:
"We're thankfully only treated to a chaste closeup of Griffith's doughy puppet face as he's [receiving a certain sex act]--think AVENUE Q [the adult NYC musical with imitation Muppets]."

Great, Aaron. Just freaking wonderful.

LA CITY BEAT: Here's a chance to compare Andy Klein to his replacements.

Recently, veteran alternapaper film critic Andy Klein was relieved of his weekly duties at LOS ANGELES CITY BEAT.

So readers will know what they'll be missing, here are some samples of Klein's work:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/godard_s_missing_link/7932/

http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/blinded_by_the_light/7919/

Now, let's shine a light on Klein's replacements at LA CITY BEAT.

First up, here is a review of PAUL BLART MALL COP by Megan Seling, who, in her prose stylings, tries hard to emulate both departed LACB editor Rebecca Schoenkopf and short-lived LA WEEKLY mid-90s snarkster Hugh Bonar:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/food_court_blues/7952/

Next is a review of the Bollywood/Kung Fu hybrid CHADNI CHOWK TO CHINA:
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/currying_favor/7951/ by Brendan Kiley, who, in his prose stylings, comes off as a slightly punkier version of Ben AT THE MOVIES Lyons.

Assuming the rationale for hiring Ms. Seling and Mr. Kiley at LA CITY BEAT was something like: "Hey, their salaries combined are a lot less than what we were paying Andy!"
[CORRECTION TO THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH: Seling and Kiley are, according to critic Luke Y. Thompson, syndicated critics now being carried by LA CITY BEAT. Here's Thompson's complete post in the comments section on HOLLYWOOD-ELSEWHERE:http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/01/newbies.php Sorry for the inaccurate assumption. And here's a comprehensive entry on Thompson's blog addressing the post-Andy CITY BEAT: http://www.lytrules.com/weblog/archives/003006.php]

Ladies and gentlemen, you've seen the past and future of alterative newspaper film criticism.

Which era do you prefer?

Some opinions as to why LA alternapapers are pitiful shadows of their former selves.

First up: former LA WEEKLY left-to-center columnist Marc Cooper's lengthy-but-fascinating take on how the paper wound up in the hands of NEW TIMES troglodyte Mike Lacey: http://marccooper.com/la-weekly-the-autopsy-report/
Don't forget to read the voluminous section of comments, if only to see Rick "The Finger" Barrs from the old NEW TIMES LOS ANGELES (now editing Lacey's Phoenix paper) rear his contentious head. Suffice to say that Rick's still freakin' incredible.

Also, Dennis Romero covers CITY BEAT LOS ANGELES' difficulties, with some mentions of the sins of the Rebecca Schoenkopf-as-editor period:http://www.danceblogga.com/2009/01/dance-music-news-media-notes.html

And both papers have engaged in film-critic firing lately; Andy Klein (who I've enjoyed overall since his tenure at the late LA READER) has been let go by CITY BEAT and Ella Taylor has been dropped from the LA WEEKLY by NEW TIMES management.

COMMIE GIRL Rebecca Schoenkopf out as editor of LA CITY BEAT.

A stain on alternative journalism has been removed: Rebecca Schoenkopf (who once charmingly told a reader who wrote a complaining letter "f--- you") is no longer editor of LA CITY BEAT, the alternaweekly which underwent an in-your-face-with-slick-magazine-cover makeover last summer.

Schoenkopf (formerly COMMIE GIRL columnist for OC WEEKLY) started her tenure at the paper with a loud fart of an article about how the Los Angeles County Museum of Art should be destroyed because the then-current Chicano art exhibit wasn't sufficiently with-it. And the smirkiness kept coming.....

To Schoenkopf's credit, she brought some talented ex-OC WEEKLY writers (notably Steve Lowery and Jim Washburn) to CITY BEAT. But the general "we're SO better than you right-wing boneheads" bratty 'tude of the pre-Mike Lacey era OC WEEKLY {excepting then-writers such as Victor Infante and Jaimes Palacio) apparently didn't play too well in Los Angeles. And when Schoenkopf's ex-boss Will Swaim was tapped to run CITY BEAT....the results are summarized by Kevin Roderick of LA OBSERVED: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/11/schoenkopf_out_as_citybea.php

Now CITY BEAT looks like it will mutate into what Kit Rachlis' (who runs the old-folks home for former LA WEEKLY writers called LOS ANGELES magazine) version of the LA WEEKLY between the late 80s/early 90s minus the occasional spasms of quirkiness (not-so-fondly remembering John Powers writing about a truffle and an attempted seduction and Helen Knode rhapsodizing about being in a bathtub with a Frenchman)--essentially MOR liberalism.

Which is more than can be expected from the current LA WEEKLY (which ran off Marc Cooper recently), which tilts center/right now (and has Jill "I Still Heart Richard Riordan" Stewart as an editor).

One nervously awaits Mike Lacey bringing Rick "The Finger" Barrs back to L.A. Then the humiliation of the WEEKLY (currently celebrating its 30th anniversary with an issue that brings back and/or namechecks most of its former writers) will be complete.

Erin Aubry Kaplan likes her hips--and Michelle Obama's too.

When African-American author Erin Aubry Kaplan wrote for the LA WEEKLY, the size of her derrierre (and, by implication, the awesomeness of her body) became the subject of one column. Here's a past writing from her on this subject from her website: http://erinaubrykaplan.net/thebutt.htm

And, inevitably, Ms. Kaplan noticed Michelle Obama's backside and felt compelled to write about it in SALON: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/11/18/michelles_booty/

No comment except to say that Ms. Kaplan, who can write thoughtful articles/newspaper columns, apparently wants to raise her media profile in spite of the risk of being a one-shtick pony.

Repurposing film critics' reviews: not just for alternaweeklies.

Kevin Roderick of the site LA OBSERVED makes a note of Carina Chocano's recent departure from THE LOS ANGELES TIMES in favor of Tribune majordomos using reviews from THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE's Michael Phillips [who departed with Richard Roeper from Disney's AT THE MOVIES a few months back]: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2008/11/carina_chocanos_replaceme.php

Of course, this isn't a brand-new phenomenon. Since Michael Lacey swallowed up a lot of alternaweeklies into his empire, readers of the not-what-it-once-was LA WEEKLY can occasionally read reviews from J. Hoberman (THE VILLAGE VOICE) and Robert Wilonsky (DALLAS OBSERVER).

Way cheaper than hiring new critics or even free-lancers who don't qualify for benefits.