RIP to Steven Bach and LA CITY BEAT.

Former United Artists executive (he was around for the release of films such as APOCALYPSE NOW, MANHATTAN and RAGING BULL) and biographer (including books about Marlene Dietrich and Leni Riefenstahl) Steven Bach recently passed away. Here's the NEW YORK TIMES obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/movies/28bach.html?_r=1&scp=64&sq=%22los+angeles%22&st=nyt

Given the passage of time and the current disinterest in examining films of yesteryear, it's likely that Bach's role in Michael Cimino's HEAVEN'S GATE (an overreaching followup to the critical and popular success THE DEER HUNTER)--plus Bach's still-worth-reading memoir FINAL CUT--won't be remembered by today's media.

LA CITY BEAT, formed years ago to keep LA WEEKLY from having a monopoly on the city's alternapaper market, died as of last week's issue: http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2009/03/weekly_down_citybeat_to_s.php

Recent editorial/business decisions didn't help, including hiring Rebecca Schoenkopf and Will Swaim (in separate regimes) to give the paper some of the OC WEEKLY bratty "attitude" (more apparent during Schoenkopf's tenure)--and the discharge of respected film critic Andy Klein.

And now, one can imagine that Mike Lacey and Jill Stewart are in triumphant celebration--bathing in the delusion that their now unchallenged center-to-right alternapaper speaks for all of Los Angeles, and praying that no one comes up with enough capital to challenge them either in paper editions and/or on the Web.

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.