Vol 07 Issue 09

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NEWS

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75851-LA City Beat & Pasadena Weekly-9.375x11.22-4C-2.26 LACITYBEAT 4 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009


CONTENTS

metro.net

Alan Aldridge Mr. Love Pants

February 26-March 4, 2009 volume 7 issue 9

Metro Briefs

11 07 News

“In the last 18 months, Luis Garcia says unknown assailants have launched a half dozen attacks on his house and property – including a Molotov cocktail assault that scorched the front end of his truck just feet from his home. No one has ever been caught in connection with the crimes. But this much is clear: Someone doesn’t want Garcia to run for Cudahy City Council.” By Jeffrey Anderson and Matthew Fleischer. “Roger Mahony’s spokesperson attacks City Beat for revealing the cardinal’s role to block Iraq War vet’s sexabuse claim.” By Matthew Fleischer

11 On the Cover

“An L.A. resident for many years, Alan Aldridge is only now being remembered and celebrated as the man who almost singlehandedly invented the instantly recognizable look of Britain’s Swinging ’60s, through book jackets, album art and myriad eye-grabbing innovations. In Alan Aldridge’s heyday, anything straight was of little use.” By Ron Garmon

14 Film

Annlee Ellingson reviews Scott Walker: 30 Century Man: “Inside the studio, his instruments include a full orchestra, a garbage can dragged across a giant wooden block, a side of pork, and a braying donkey.” And then we have something positive to say about Madea Goes to Jail.

Subway, Rail Project Get Green Light

20 Music

“Pocahaunted has been together for almost three years and released 27 albums, but this week marks a milestone in its musical evolution: Never before have they used actual words.” By Daiana Feuer. David Cotner on Thurston Moore: “It’s a welter of America’s finest noise artists in this sold-out night at the Smell, and this is the sound of the unheralded – art that only resolves into proper perspective today, the 100th anniversary of Marinetti’s publication of the ‘Futurist Manifesto’ in Le Figaro.”

22 Classical

The Ring includes “a ring that gets stolen from supernatural creatures and needs to be returned, a pair of siblings who fall in love, a hero whose mortal enemy happens to be his granddad. Ah, yes, Star Wars, you may think, or Lord of the Rings, and you’re welcome; Wagner came first, by a century or more.” By Alan Rich

Metro’s Board of Directors voted to begin environmental reviews of extending Metro Rail into West LA, developing a downtown rail connection and continuing the Metro Gold Line farther east. Extension of the Metro Orange Line in the San Fernando Valley was also approved, with construction scheduled to start later this year.

Metro Day Pass Is Going TAP Metro is combining the ease of the Day Pass with the convenience of the TAP card. TAP will be replacing Metro’s paper Day Pass on March 15. To buy a Day Pass after that date: load it onto your TAP card at any Metro bus farebox; in rail stations, load your TAP card at the ticket vending machine. For more information, go to metro.net.

Metro Ridership Hits 37 Million

23 Stage

While the pain at the pump may have subsided, it seems the benefits of riding Metro continues strong. Ridership for Metro bus and Metro Rail during December 2008 increased nearly three percent from last year. A total of 37.3 million riders used Metro for the month, up from 36.2 million last year.

25 Eat

TAP Ready For Reduced Fare Customers

“Purists will howl with outrage when they take a gander at Josh Chambers’ staging of Molière’s great 1664 comedy Tartuffe.” By Don Shirley “As foreign as the Valley may seem to those who don’t often stray from La Brea, diners devoted to the dishes of Central America know El Katracho is a second home.” By Miles Clements

MANAGING Editor Tom Child Executive Editor Chris Ziegler Senior Editor Matthew Fleischer Arts Editor Ron Garmon Copy Editor Joshua Sindell Editorial Contributors Miles Clements, Alan Rich, Richard Foss, Carl Kozlowski, Joe Piasecki, Don Shirley, Greg Stacy, Jeffrey Anderson, Cornel Bonca, David Cotner, Daiana Feuer, Oliver Hall Editorial Interns Sarah Tressler Art Director Paul Takizawa Web & Print Production Manager Meghan Quinn Classified Production Artist Tac Phun Contributing Artists and Photographers Joe McGarry, Luke McGarry, Josh Reiss, Rosheila Robles Sales DIrector Michael DeFilippo Sales Supervisor Bill Child Co-op Advertising Director Spencer Cooper Music & Entertainment Sales Manager Jon Bookatz CLUBS ACCOUNT MANAGER Patrick Hodgins Account Executives Andy Enriquez, Alex Kaptsan Classified Account Executives John Schoenkopf, Jean-Paul Lamunyon VP of Operations David Comden VP of Finance Michael Nagami Human Resources Manager Andrea Baker Accounting Ginger Wang, Archie Iskaq, Tracy Lowe, Christie Lee, Angela Wang (Business Manager) Circulation Supervisor Andrew Jackson Receptionist Candon Murry Publisher Will Swaim

Metro riders with Senior, College/Vocational or Student K-12 discount passes need to submit an application for a new reusable TAP card. You can get applications at Metro Customer Centers or online. Check metro.net/reducedfares for details or call 213.680.0054.

Thousands Go With Metro Employer Pass More than 7,800 employees at 335 worksites in LA County are finding a better and less expensive way to get to work with the Metro Employer Pass. It’s a win-win situation: employees get the benefits of riding Metro and the company gets tax savings, reduced parking demands and improved employee morale. Find out more at 213.922.2811.

HOW TO REACH US 5209 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 (323) 938-1700 Classified Advertising: (323) 938-1001 • Fax: (323) 938-1661 • SUBSCRIPTIONS One year: $149 (Mailed 1st Class)

FEBRUARY 26-March 4, 2009 5 LACITYBEAT

If you’d like to know more, please call us at 1.800.464.2111, or visit metro.net.

GEN-JE-09-009 ©2009 LACMTA

LA CITYBEAT newspaper is published every Thursday and is available free at locations throughout Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. One copy per reader, additional copies are $10 each. Copyright: No articles, illustrations, photographs, or other editorial matter or advertisements herein may be reproduced without written permission of copyright owner. All rights reserved, 2009.


LETTERS

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2/19/09

SAFE SEX STILL SAFER Sarah Tressler’s “The HIV Morning-After Pill” [February 12] made some good points, but contained some problems that need to be addressed. It is wrong to state that there is “no PEP for you” if you are a gay man. The truth is post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) can be very expensive and hard to find no matter who you are – harder still if you are uninsured. Even if you find a physician to prescribe PEP for you, there is little consistency regarding which of the many possible HIV medications you might receive. Although some physicians may be reluctant to support the idea of an official PEP program for sexual exposures because of the concern that it might lead to an increase in high-risk sexual behavior, two large prospective studies (one of which Tressler cites) showed that there was no increase in risk behavior among those who used PEP. That’s because these programs were strongly linked to risk-reduction education, and participants left the program not only with memories of their harrowing experience but also with practical knowledge about how to improve their chances for being safe in the future. Doctors know that PEP is not something to be administered lightly. 9:11Although AM PageTressler 1 states as much, PEP is not a pill, but rather pills – a lot of

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them. These pills must be taken within 72 hours of a high-risk sexual exposure and continued consistently over the next 30 days. This is hardly a trivial matter. The side effects associated with it often are severe enough that many people who are prescribed PEP don’t finish the full course of treatment. They decide that accepting the risk of HIV infection is better than enduring the physical effects of the drugs. It is misleading to state that PEP will “protect against unprotected sex,” or that it is “81 percent effective.” A single study of health care workers who had occupational (usually needlestick) exposures did show an 81 percent reduction in HIV infection with PEP, but that study should not be used to suggest similar results following sexual exposures. We assume that because there is some efficacy in occupational exposure it is reasonable to think there may be some protection in sexual exposure. But the fact remains that PEP is a backup plan, that the main way to prevent HIV is to use condoms and limit drug and alcohol use – notorious for short-circuiting intentions for practicing “safer sex.” If you have high-risk sex with someone you believe to be HIV-positive, you may be eligible for PEP. For now, the best course of action is to go to a

local emergency room. At that point, the emergency physician will determine whether PEP is appropriate for you – not because of your sexual identity, but because it’s the right treatment for your exposure. For the future, a comprehensive Los Angeles PEP Program is being developed that will address issues of cost, ease of access, consistent risk assessment and appropriate prescribing. We hope the program will begin sometime this summer. Robert Bolan, M.D. Medical Director Department of Health and Mental Health Services L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center Re: Ron Garmon’s “Orson & the Hand Jive” [February 19]: For Pete’s sake, stop celebrating this lousy film [F for Fake]. With two potentially interesting stories – De Hory and Irving’s hoax – Welles wanders around both pretentiously before the whole thing devolves into an embarrassing mash note to his new piece of ass, Oja. Key scene: Welles, having devoured a lobster dinner, commanding the waiter, “Bring me the steak au poive!” Plwinkler Via lacitybeat.com

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LACITYBEAT 6 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009


NEWS

election less than a week away, a treacherous situation is unfolding only 10 miles away from downtown Los Angeles – one that is simply unimaginable in small, wealthy cities like Beverly Hills or West Hollywood. Authorities appear unwilling or incapable of guaranteeing a fair, safe election.

WAR PAINT

Our own private Afghanistan Police look the other way as guns, Molotov cocktails and vandalism mark the last weeks of Cudahy’s campaign season By Jeffrey Anderson and Matthew FleischeR The images are grainy, but surveillance video from the night of October 26, 2008, is clear enough to show a hooded thug run up to the home of Cudahy City Council candidate Luis Garcia and hurl a brick at his front window. Seconds later, Garcia emerges from his house in a full sprint, clad only in his underwear, chasing after the assailant. In the last 18 months, police reports show unknown assailants have launched a half dozen similar attacks on his house and property – including a Molotov cocktail assault that scorched the front end of his truck just feet from his home. No one has ever been caught in connection with the crimes. But this much is clear: Someone doesn’t want Garcia to run for Cudahy City Council. On March 3, the 1.2-square mile city in southeast L.A. County will hold just its second election in 10 years. The last election, in 2007, ended in a razor-thin, 33-vote defeat for Garcia and his running mate Daniel Cota, amidst allegations of electioneering and gang influence at the polls. That same election saw challenger Tony Mendoza drop out of the race after

receiving telephone death threats. Since then, Cudahy’s anemic democracy has only deteriorated. Earlier this month, police say, Cudahy Councilwoman Rosa Diaz first said she wouldn’t run for reelection, then decided she would – and then found her security camera disabled and the window of her townhouse shot with a pellet gun while she was home. Diaz was a first-time victim. Since 2006, Garcia’s truck has been splattered with paint four times. Last July, an unknown assailant threw a brick through his front window. Two weeks later, the Molotov cocktail assault was caught on a surveillance camera. A vehicle belonging to Garcia’s running mate Daniel Cota was spray-painted. Mendoza, Garcia, Cota and Diaz all have two things in common: they ran for city council, and subsequently became targets of vandalism and terrorization. Police reports show that Garcia got a license plate of a getaway vehicle in the October brick attack, yet, so far, Maywood police have failed to make a single arrest in any of the dozen or so

attacks on Cudahy candidates. “You could draw a pattern here,” admits Maywood Police Chief Frank Hauptmann, whose department polices Cudahy on a $2 million per year contract. “Maybe there’s a common motive.” Yet Maywood police have not identified any suspects, and Hauptmann implies they have stopped investigating: “Without further evidence, we can’t conclude that it’s the same individual or different individuals who are responsible. We don’t want to point fingers.” Hauptmann’s situation is precarious. The FBI is investigating corruption in Cudahy, according to veteran law enforcement sources and the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. Maywood police have been under state and federal investigation since 2006 for allegations of brutality and receiving kickbacks from a tow truck company. Yet Hauptmann denies knowledge of either investigation. “I don’t believe [the feds] would inform me unless they thought I should know,” he said, in an interview with City Beat last August. With the 2009 Cudahy City Council

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 7 LACITYBEAT

In the mid-20th century, a rancher named Michael Cudahy founded the city he named after himself, and mapped out a series of deep, narrow lots that allowed for small farms. As agriculture and the subsequent automobile industry came and went, the demographics shifted and Cudahy became a city of workingclass immigrants, many of them undocumented. It has a population of 26,000, with a scant 4,500 registered voters and just 1,000 actual voters. It also has a dark side that is easily concealed in the rundown houses and apartment complexes that have since filled the city’s deep lots. A review of crime reports and news accounts over the past 30 years and interviews with law enforcers and numerous longtime residents suggests that contemporary Cudahy is a narcohub – a haven for gangs and mid-level drug mules. In the 1980s, major arrests were frequent: A 1986 drug bust in Dallas, Texas, involving a Mexican national from Cudahy, netted the largest amount of Mexican “black tar” heroin ever seized in the U.S. Two years later, police seized $2.4 million worth of cocaine from two Cudahy homes. In 1989, a Cudahy man was caught with 288 pounds of cocaine in the trunk of his car; that same year, a drug task force seized more than 400 pounds of cocaine at a Cudahy house on Clara Street. During the 1990s and early 2000s, suspects from Cudahy branched out across the United States. A Santa Ana undercover narcotics team seized 154 pounds of cocaine in 1993, and again, one of the suspects was from Cudahy. In 1998, law enforcers made a “significant dent” in the cocaine and heroin supply in Utah, when they arrested suspects in Cudahy and Salt Lake City. One of Ohio’s largest drug recoveries of 2002 (44 pounds of cocaine) involved a Cudahy man. In 2003, a brazen daytime abduction reminiscent of the tactics of a Mexican drug cartel resulted in the body of a Cudahy man turning up in an industrial area near Watts. Throughout the 1990s, the L.A. County Sheriff had a contract to police Cudahy. But in 2000, Cudahy’s fortunes changed. Then-City Councilman George Perez stepped aside and was immediately installed as City Manager, in a move that sparked a grand jury investigation ➤


NEWS

torn signs are the least of the candidates’ worries

by District Attorney Steve Cooley into an alleged conflict of interest. No charges resulted, and since then, Perez, a former janitor who has since amassed significant real estate holdings, has ruled Cudahy with an iron fist. In 2003, he fired the Sheriff and hired Maywood P.D., a force with a reputation for hiring problem officers and for suspected internal corruption. In 2007, Cudahy was off to a violent start with a number of homicides, including two men executed in broad daylight in front of the Elizabeth Learning Center. A Maywood detective who spoke to fifth graders at Park Avenue Elementary, near Cudahy City Hall, said 50 percent of the kids reported seeing guns in their homes, and 30 percent reported seeing drugs or paraphernalia. Though killings tapered off in 2008, a dispute between the dominant 18th Street Gang and newer sets Down in Action (DIA) and Just Blazin’ It ( JBI) have added to a complicated landscape that already included Florencia 13 and Cudahy 13. A neighboring gang from the troubled city of Bell Gardens known as Kansas Street also has been associated with violence in Cudahy. According to law enforcers, the Mexican Mafia makes its presence felt through these gangs. Yet despite the crime, police seem to make residents feel more anxious than safe. “Officer Lawrence Mesa is probably the most popular traffic cop you will ever see,” boasts an article on the city of Cudahy’s website. More like “infamous.” Around Cudahy, people call him “El Moto.” At a recent city council meeting, a woman who had recently been pulled over by Mesa got up to angrily denounce the officer for unfairly targeting Latinos in traffic stops. She accused him of hunting for undocumented residents so he could impound their cars and

minimal and incidental: a city vehicle loaded with political propoganda

generate revenue for the city. Alfredo Leal, 25, an Army veteran only two months back from Iraq, says he’s already been pulled over several times by Mesa since returning home – and has never been charged with a moving violation. “He can’t touch me, because I have a military ID,” says Leal. “But he towed my mom’s car.” Hauptmann acknowledges Mesa’s predilection for aggressive traffic stops, and recently advised him to mount a surveillance camera on his motorcycle. But the discretion to turn the camera on lies with Mesa, and Hauptmann says the primary intent is to protect Mesa from frivolous or unfounded complaints. Democracy’s last best hope in Cudahy may be the upcoming election. But District Attorney Steve Cooley has denied any jurisdiction over election matters, including detailed allegations, reviewed by City Beat, of criminal threats made against Mendoza in 2006 and of election tampering in 2007. D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons says Cudahy is a matter for the FBI. On a recent Saturday, City Beat observed what appeared to be city resources being used for campaign activity: signs endorsing Mayor David Silva and City Planning Commissioner Josue Barrios were stacked in a city vehicle parked outside the home of a city employee, Gerardo Vallejo – a twotime felon and right-hand man to City Manager George Perez. Another vehicle with campaign signs was parked behind City Hall next to a black Ford Mustang that Perez and Vallejo use to actively campaign for Silva and Barrios. Later that day, the same Mustang was spotted in the parking lot of grocery store owner and city councilman Osvaldo Conde – right next to the same black 1999 Jeep Cherokee that Garcia says he spotted leaving the scene of the October attack.

Deputy District Attorney David Demerjian, head of the office’s public integrity unit, acknowledges that city resources being used for campaign purposes is illegal, but refers to the specific observations in Cudahy as “minimal and incidental.” L.A. County election officials and the state Fair Political Practices

Committee have not responded to requests for information about election monitoring protocols. Garcia says March 3 can’t come fast enough, but despite the threats he isn’t backing down. “This is America,” he says. “The people of Cudahy deserve to feel safe in their own city.” ✶

HOLLYWEIRD ROMANCE I dated a guy for a minute and then broke up badly. I told you (my best friend) all the details … and then found you dating the guy. And not just dating him – which, well, whatever: this isn’t about the guy, it’s about you dating him with an entire propaganda campaign designed to take me down for alleged acts of personal disloyalty. A mutual friend sent me an intimate picture of you and the guy, a picture you posted on Facebook moments before you linked to all of my other friends. And then came your text messages and phone calls to those friends. Look, it’s not like it hurt to see this guy in the arms of another woman mere seconds after we stopped dating. But to have those arms connected to the shoulders beneath your fucked-up head? On Facebook? What were you thinking? Yeah, I was bent. And then to start getting the calls from friends wondering what had happened – between me and the guy, between the guy and you, between me and you. It was as if celebrity culture had filtered down to the lowest common denominator. It was a Hollyweird bitchfest with fire and sex but without the high-profile and really interesting personalities – like Brad, Angelina and Jennifer but anonymous. The fight was so savage because the stakes were so low – except for our friendship. Which I valued. So fuck you. Enjoy the short-term romance. Enjoy being right about me being wrong. And say goodbye to your lifelong friend. –Anonymous

Adjust the scales of justice by sending your L.A. City Bitch rant to tomc@lacitybeat.com.

LACITYBEAT 8 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009


FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 9 LACITYBEAT


NEWS

Sex abuse means never having to say ‘sorry’ Church spokesperson attacks ‘City Beat’ for revealing Cardinal Mahony’s effort to block Iraq War vet’s sex-abuse claim By Matthew Fleischer Look out kid, it’s somethin’ you did God knows when, but you’re doin’ it again –Bob Dylan Several weeks ago, City Beat ran an article detailing the legal efforts of Cardinal Roger Mahony’s Los Angeles Archdiocese to deny a man his day in court. In that story, we detailed the case of Iraq war veteran John TH Doe, as he is identified in court documents. Doe claims he was molested by an L.A.-area Catholic priest as a teenager, but was on active military duty when a 2003 legal window opened that would have allowed him to file suit. Federal law grants extensions to military personnel involved in legal battles, but Mahony’s

team argued that the law didn’t apply to Doe. That February 4 story, “Mahony to Iraq War Vet: Screw Yourself,” generated a powerful response from readers, most of them outraged by the Archdiocese’s cynical legal tactics. “Leave it up to Cardinal Mahony and his lawyers to use every legal tactic he can find, to re-abuse victims,” wrote Judy Jones in the comments section of LACityBeat.com. “Because of the protection [Mahony] gave those sexually predatory priests the blood of hundreds of children is on your hands and no amount of rancid oil is going to wash that blood away,” wrote Victoria G. “Mahony, may you hear those screams in your sleep for the rest of your life, and beyond.”

One commenter wasn’t quite so supportive. Los Angeles Archdiocese spokesman Tod Tamberg alleged a litany of errors in our story and demanded its retraction. “Neither Cardinal Mahony nor the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are named in the lawsuit,” Tamberg wrote. “The Archdiocese merely appeared at a hearing called to determine whether there are enough facts to allow the man’s complaint to proceed at all.” Could we really have screwed up that badly? As it turns out, no. “Tamberg is parsing words,” says John TH Doe’s lawyer, Vince Finaldi. “In molestation suits where the plaintiff is over the age of 26, defendants can’t actually be named until the discovery

LACITYBEAT 10 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009

period of the trial, when the judge issues what’s called a certificate of corroborative fact. Until that point the plaintiffs are given Doe names. “For Tamberg to suggest that neither the Archdiocese nor Cardinal Mahony are defendants in this case is completely disingenuous. I can confirm that both Mahony and the Archdiocese are defendants in this suit.” And you don’t have to take Finaldi’s word for it. A “Memorandum of Points and Authorities,” filed by Hennigan, Bennett & Dorman, the Archdiocesan law firm, states that Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” “pretty much sums up the complaint against the Los Angeles Archdiocese ... .” Never mind Tamberg’s semantic gymnastics: City Beat never reported that the Archdiocese was “named” in the suit, simply that the Archdiocese was using an obscure legal maneuver to keep John TH Doe out of court – which they are. And using a Bob Dylan lyric to help throw out a war veteran’s molestation case? Not cool. Tamberg’s other claims? It’s true, as Tamberg asserts, that the alleged molestation took place in Orange County. We never said otherwise. In fact, the priest in question was trained in the L.A. diocese, and John TH Doe isn’t the first person he stands accused of molesting. What’s critical, Finaldi says, is Doe’s suit will show the archdiocese had knowledge of the priest’s character defects and did nothing to stop him. As for Tamberg’s assertion that City Beat was in conversation with the defense, we plead guilty. That’s called reporting – and it’s why Finaldi’s name appears in the original article. Lee Potts, the Archdiocesan lawyer on the case, didn’t return our calls for comment or we would have spoken with him, too. If he had called us back, he could have discussed perhaps Tamberg’s most ridiculous critique – John TH Doe is lying about his molestation. We never wrote that John TH Doe was molested. That’s for a jury to figure out. We merely argued that he deserved his day in court. Finally, Tamberg raised, without evidence, the possibility that Doe wasn’t really an Iraq War vet. Finaldi says John TH Doe flew missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo as well as Iraq. He’s a recipient of the Global War on Terror Service Medal, among more than a dozen other citations. After demanding a retraction from us, Tamberg didn’t respond to a week’s worth of calls for this story. Needless to say, City Beat won’t be retracting anything. ✶


A rock star among designers, Alan Aldridge survives, prevails and looks good doing it BY RON GARMON

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onfronted – along with the rest of 1960s England – with the bent shapes, ballooning voluptuousness and radioactive colors favored by Alan Aldridge, Francis Bacon wasted no words. The dean of the English art world and no mean hand at shock himself, Bacon surveyed Aldridge’s psychedelic work hanging near his own at the fashionable Arthur Tooth Gallery and pronounced sentence: “Alan is the only artist I know who never learned to draw a straight line.” Aldridge – an L.A. resident now and for many years, currently celebrating the release this weekend of the comprehensive The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Art of Alan Aldridge (Abrams) – is only now being ➤

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remembered and celebrated as the man who almost singlehandedly invented the instantly recognizable “look” of the Britain’s Swinging ’60s, through book jackets, album art and myriad eye-grabbing innovations. He giggles, with a rasp, telling this story about the time the old school met the no-school-atall and departed aghast, leaving it to the listener to realize that those unsteady lines were foundation of an uncommon legacy. In Alan Aldridge’s heyday, anything straight was of little use.

he only thing interesting is that how I got into this game was an accident,” says the 65-year-old artist, his low, confiding voice marinated in the East London glottals of Terence Stamp in The Limey. “I worked in a slaughterhouse, killing chickens. There were a lot of butchers in the East End and that was probably the lowest you could get on the totem pole. I went from that to what we call it in London ‘blagging my way in.’ It means to present a front. A girlfriend of mine was going to an art studio for a job and I said I’d walk with her and we got to this place Charlotte Studios, which was in a back alley – an atrocious, filthy looking place. She didn’t want to go in, so I borrowed her bag and talked my way in. I hauled this huge bag upstairs and I opened the bag and he said ‘Did you draw these key lines?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Did you take this photograph?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Then you got the job.’ If he’d have asked how I’d drawn the key line, I’d have been destroyed!” His family was against this eccentric career choice – “There was an artist in the family,” he says. “Me Uncle Sid. He was the black sheep and he died of drugs, women and syphilis, only me mum pronounced it ‘sisasis.’” But to prepare for a life of art and moral ruin, young Aldridge had an early1960s fling in Paris, living the Hemingway dream on an Orwell budget. “Ah,” says Aldridge, warming to mention of Down and Out in Paris and London. “I, too, was a plangeur, like Orwell,” referring to the hellish conditions and short pay that were the lot of the lowest class of restaurant dishwasher. “A very tough existence – long hours in huge, steamy kitchens, and certainly the one I worked in wouldn’t pass muster, or even get a C rating today,” he laughs. “In Paris and environs, the only way I thought I could make a living once I’d gotten fired in the kitchen was by drawing. I thought I could go into a bar and palm it off for a free drink. Didn’t work very well. I came back from Paris with a suitcase full of terrible drawings, took them round to all the art galleries and everyone said, ‘No, they’re terrible.’ That was the end of it.”

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n 1936, Walter Benjamin warned that painting as a popular culture form was dying out – an archaic individual art overtaken by mechanical reproduction and soon to be superseded by the motion picture. But by the 1960s, the painter was back with a vengeance in the form of the designer, as Andy Warhol’s massproduced representations of junk products and Roy Liechtenstein’s giant comics panels helped usher in revolutions in graphic art. Floods of paperbacks – with gaudy, surreal covers only notionally related to contents – found favor in most of the industrial West, supplanting increasingly bland Hollywood product Marxist philosophers like Benjamin thought would democratize culture. The bales of comic books and detective, SF and girlie magazines publishers had been churning out since the 1930s actually did do the democratizing trick, having had a nearly incalculable effect on what Benjamin would call “exhibition art.” At some point, “art” becomes once again something more than what gets shown in galleries. That’s where we must begin to reckon with Alan Aldridge. “My group,” Aldridge explains now, including with him an entire generation of musicians, writers and artists, “that came into existence in the Swinging ’60s, was certainly the first 20-somethings to ever have any power in Britain at all. That was primarily through the Beatles, but we all had the confidence. There was electricity in the air – and we wanted to rip down the self-conscious class society that England was. There was a rejection of everything from the 1950s. For my part, certainly, the official art was all gray – there was nothing I wanted to look at.” John Lennon made him design consultant to the Beatles, which led to a line of puckish Apple-shaped clocks and other tchotchkes and, more importantly, to the innovative book, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, which is how most of us in Fab-obsessed L.A. know him. He hung with Hendrix, fought off Salvador Dali in an airport drawing duel, and his album covers for the likes of Cream and the Who are likely better known today than the music etched therein. He lives far from a recent career retrospective at the Design Museum in London timed to the release of The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes. His nearest analogue is Aubrey Beardsley, the illustrator who put his spidery, whimsical stamp on 1890s Art Nouveau and the Aestheticist movement that grew up around Oscar Wilde. A self-taught outsider who fluked into the job of art director for Penguin Books, Aldridge oversaw the fusty publisher’s design upgrade, flooding Great Britain with scores of covers – blobs of vibrant color within the pervading Airstrip One gray of the eras of Wilson and Heath. British Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman told The Times of London that “no one comes close to matching his influence on illustration in the 20th century.”

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he text of Kaleidoscope Eyes prepares us for the seeming-sudden conquest of the U.K. art world by this winsome fellow – not so much by a this-then-that list of steps as by capturing an irresistible Alfie-like character who isn’t so much man as unstoppable mixture of charm and front. “Most illustrators I’ve met over the years are very sheepish and mousy, as if embarrassed by their careers,” he says. “I was anxious to be different; didn’t see any point in being the same. I chose a career in which the overwhelming majority of people in it are anonymous – shadowless, almost.” Aldridge projected an outsized personality to go along with the walleyed art then plastered all over London, from the cover of A Quick One by the Who to the creepy campaign ads he worked up for the Labor Party, featuring a gallery of corpse-like Tories over the legend “Yesterday’s Men, They’ve Failed Before.” Attention from peers, the press and the ultra-fashionable rock set also drew attention from authorities, most notably Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher, the notorious British drug cop (and framer of rock stars like Mick Jagger and George

LACITYBEAT 12 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009


Harrison) whose lads tried to plant hashish in the artist’s jacket pocket while they posed as maintenance men. Kaleidoscope Eyes might well force mainstream art to reconsider Aldridge’s influence, which, by the time one turns the last color-slathered page, bulks to R. Crumb’s dimensions if not Gustave Dore’s. Of the hundreds of artists he’s arguably influenced since, one may see his influence plainest in Keith Haring’s fat, funky figures, or the anthropomorphic smears of Kenny Scharf. But the idea of artist as pop-culture star – let alone wiseass hipster – wouldn’t exist without his example. Beyond that, Aldridge has kept alive a tradition of outsized whimsy in British art that goes all the way back to Hogarth’s fleshy hedonists. Even his more outlandish projects, like a luxuriantly weird 1973 expansion of William Roscoe’s 1802 poem The Butterfly’s Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast, went on to notable success, and he still sells ideas to movie and TV producers based on odd or arresting images, like the idea of a Humpty Dumpty murdered by electric frying, that tickled one mogul enough to option a story based on it. Even so, he’s still not without detractors – a casual call to the press office at MOCA met with a pointed refusal to even discuss him. And Francis Bacon’s above dismissal is an estimation Aldridge loves to cite because it rates him as that most irritating of figures – the successful outsider. “I wasn’t part of any time of official illustrative society in London,” Aldridge says. “I never went to the Royal College of Art, didn’t join the Royal Art Society, I was never a member of any club associated with art,” he continues, flicking away each with a dainty gesture. “I was a total loner and that’s how I lived anyway. Painting on refrigerators and having the Sunday Times come and cover it was the sort of thing I did. I felt that if I couldn’t draw, I was savvy enough to come up with alternatives to hide that, so I painted on girls, on cars – I learned to catch the eye in other ways.”

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hough arguably as well known today for being father to fashion photog Miles or model/journalist Saffron, Aldridge knew considerable post Summer of Love success, both for the fantastically ornate cover for Elton John’s 1975 LP Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. E.J.’s confession of bisexuality was enough to cancel Aldridge’s projected film of the album, and the artist eventually landed in L.A., spending the past several decades working on children’s books, a stint as creative director at the House of Blues and peddling the odd higher-than-high-concept. Among the many just-so-loony-it-can’t-help-but-work notions is “Fee Fi Fo Fum,” which he describes as “a children’s playground I designed, like installation art. It arrives in town in the dead of night, like a magical inflatable tent with actual antibacterial games inside,” he laughed. “Very eco.” While his cadre has long since gone on to glory and the world considerably less gray, Aldridge still plugs away with characteristic immodesty, as befits the owner of one of the world’s most instantly recognizable visual styles. Along with the retrospective from Abrams and assorted other projects, Aldridge is working away at an “illustrated memoir” and is hard at work setting up Alan Aldridge, Inc., which will license all the images he’s created down through the years. He’s also planning his first trip to Burning Man this summer, so any idea the Guv’nor has retired to purely career-curatorial functions should be dismissed, as no established artist without big plans for installation work would bother with such a hellish ordeal. As with much else, this is part of an old, old obsession. “I’ve always tried to tell people, particularly in interviews,” Aldridge winds up, gesturing at the posters he designed flecking the bare white walls. “There’s nothing more magical than the journey you go on when you look at a piece of white paper and you have an idea in your head. The minute your pencil begins its manipulation on the paper, you enter this crack into another dimension and nothing else matters. A little like writing. You can work for 10, 15 hours straight and go to places beyond the periphery of the drawing. You’re being bombarded with images; I find myself laughing or being sad. It’s hard to explain the seductiveness of it, since most of my life I’ve spent on that trip.”✶

The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes: The Art of Alan Aldridge is out March 1.

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 13 LACITYBEAT


FILM

A Dash of Weed Couldn’t Hurt Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea Goes to Jail’ gets a reprieve

Scott Walker in studio

Get out of pop New doc says Scott Walker’s music was decades, if not centuries, ahead of its time By Annlee Ellingson Neither a “Walker” – nor quite a “Scott,” for that matter – Noel Scott Engel formed the Walker Brothers with John Maus and Gary Leeds in Los Angeles in 1964. It’s an appropriately sly beginning for a musician as reclusive as he is influential – who walked away from Beatles-esque stardom in the ’60s to pursue his own strange muse. Fascinated by classical composers like Sibelius, existential novelist Sartre and the films of Ingmar Bergman, Scott Walker went solo after the band split in 1967 with four eponymous albums of classic ballads, his own highly literate compositions and covers of songs by Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel, and by Scott 4, he was ready “to get out of pop.” Although his discography consists of just three albums since, Walker still helped shape contemporary rock music. Stephen Kijak’s 30 Century Man finally shows us why. The film opens with a dramatic analogy to Orpheus, the Greek poet and musician who is said to have charmed animals with his music and inspired trees and rocks to dance. The comparison is apt – one of Walker’s songs is even named after the ancient figure – but ultimately falls apart:

Walker neither descended into Hades nor reemerged, despite the press’ tendency to label each of his sporadically released three albums in the latter majority of his career a comeback. With unprecedented access to a musician known for keeping his ball cap pulled low over his eyes, Kijak and his crew worked for four years on this film, winning extended interviews with Walker and observing him in the studio for the making of 2006’s The Drift. They got the hat off his head, but he’s constantly filmed in profile, addressing his interviewee offscreen rather than the viewer – it feels like eavesdropping on an intimate conversation. As revealing as these moments with Walker are, perhaps even more so are the interviews with his fans – including David Bowie, Sting, and Brian Eno. Throughout the film, the focus is on the music, and Kijak utilizes a split-screen to achieve the effect of sitting with these aficionados as they discuss “the boundary between chords and discords” in his music and how his voice is “beautiful and unpleasant at the same time.” It’s this command of paradox – which

came 40 years ahead of its time – that’s the signature aspect of Walker’s difficult twothings-at-once discography, presaging the sophisticated work of bands like Radiohead and even Arcade Fire. And it’s this paradox that reflects most vividly in the rarely seen character of Walker himself. At one point, his artful lyrics fill the screen, backed by psychedelic graphics – programming for the videos at the concerts he doesn’t give anymore. Most revelatory of all, however, is the peek Walker allows at the making of the album. Inside the studio, his instruments include a full orchestra, yes, but also a garbage can dragged across a giant wooden block, a side of pork, and a braying donkey. At this time, one might think of certain Herzog-ian protagonists – seekers with objectives specific, bizarre, personal and somehow wonderful, who don’t mind if the hard way is the only way. Even now, Walker remains unique – as an individual and as an artist. The film’s production notes call Walker “one of the most astonishing and important sound-makers of the last 30 years.” It might be blunt, but it’s the only accurate description of a man who looked at rock like Michelangelo looked at rock – as a chance to carve out something almost alive. V Scott Walker: 30 Century Man opens Fri., Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223. Screening for one week only. Call theater for showtimes.

LACITYBEAT 14 FEBRUARY 26-March 4, 2009

Love him or hate him, Tyler Perry’s back with the woman who made “lurve” a meme that won’t go away. Perry reprises his role as the oversized, overaged, ex-pole-dancing grandma with a tendency to skirt the law in Madea Goes to Jail, a comedy with a dash of weed and a “Captain Save-A-Ho” plotline dropped smack in the middle of the whole hot mess. In case you were wondering, parts of it are hilarious but the alternating plot lines are an odd combination, and switching to the more serious one effectively serves as a buzzkill just as you’re wondering if it’s possible for someone to get a contact high from smoking weed through a hospitalissued nasal tube. Despite the best efforts of her family to keep her out of trouble (including an anger management session with none other than Dr. Phil) Madea pushes her luck with the law one too many times and finds herself in jail with a mishmash of mixed-up and off-the-wall broads, including a buoyant Latino serial killer and the resident diesel-dyke with a hankering for Choco Tacos. Meanwhile, up-andcoming assistant district attorney Josh Hardaway (Derek Luke) has to pass a prostitution case to his fellow assistant D.A. (his fiancée, Linda) when he realizes that the girl in trouble is his estranged childhood pal, Candace Washington (Keshia Knight Pulliam). Naturally, Josh finds himself torn between the demands of his haughty fiancée and his attempts to save Candace from the kinds of things hookers get mixed up in. (Read: other hos, smack, and pimps who smack hos). With Linda as prosecutor on the case, Candi ends up getting more than her fair share of time in jail, where Madea befriends her and protects her from the other inmates in that “Momma’s gonna knock you out” kind of way. TV Judges Mablean Ephriam and Greg Mathis make appearances, as well as Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Harvey and Al Sharpton. Topping it off, Viola Davis delivers a spot-on and comparatively composed performance as a no-nonsense jailhouse preacher. You don’t have to endure her runny nose in Doubt to get a dose of Viola – can I get a hallelujer?✶ Madea Goes to Jail. Directed by Tyler Perry. Featuring Tyler Perry, Derek Luke and Keshia Knight Pullman. Citywide. -Sarah Tressler -


SHOWTIMES

CULVER CITY, MARINA DEL REY

FEB. 27-MAR. 5, 2009

The Bridge: Cinema De Lux & IMAX Theater, The Promenade at Howard Hughes Center, 6081 Center Dr, Westchester, (310) 5683375. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sat 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30, 9:55, 12:15 a.m.; Sun-Wed 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30, 9:55; Thur 12:15, 2:40, 5:05. Coraline 3D Fri-Sat noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:30, 11:50; Sun-Thur noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:30. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 12:45, 4, 7:15. Echelon Conspiracy Fri-Sat 11:45 a.m., 2:20, 4:55, 7:30, 10:05, 12:25 a.m.; Sun-Thur 11:45 a.m., 2:20, 4:55, 7:30, 10:05. Fired Up Fri-Sat 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30, 9:55, 12:30 a.m.; Sun 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30, 9:55; Mon 3:15, 5:15, 7:30, 9:55; Tue-Thur 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30, 9:55. Friday the 13th Fri-Sat 12:30, 2:55, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10, 10:40, 12:15 a.m., 12:40 a.m.; Sun-Thur 12:30, 2:55, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10, 10:40. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Tue 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 10:30; Wed 1:30, 4:30, 10:30; Thur 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 10:30. The International 5, 7:40. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 12:05, 12:35, 2, 2:30, 3:55, 4:25, 5:50, 6:20, 7:45, 8:15, 9:40, 10:10, 11:35, 12:05 a.m.; Sun-Thur 12:05, 12:35, 2, 2:30, 3:55, 4:25, 5:50, 6:20, 7:45, 8:15, 9:40, 10:10. Milk Fri-Sat 1:15, 4:10, 7:05, 10, 12:35 a.m.; Sun-Thur 1:15, 4:10, 7:05, 10. A Powerful Noise Thur only, 7:30. Push Fri-Sat noon, 2:35, 10:20, 12:35 a.m.; Sun-Thur noon, 2:35, 10:20. The Reader Fri-Sat 1, 3:50, 6:40, 9:30, 12:15 a.m.; Sun-Wed 1, 3:50, 6:40, 9:30; Thur 1, 3:50, 7:20, 9:55. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sat 1:10, 4:05, 7, 9:55, 12:25 a.m.; Sun-Thur 1:10, 4:05, 7, 9:55. Stevie Wonder: Live at Last Wed only, 7:30. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sat 12:10, 2:30, 4:50, 7:10, 9:30, 11:50; SunThur 12:10, 2:30, 4:50, 7:10, 9:30. Taken Fri-Sat 12:30, 2:55, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10, 12:35 a.m.; Sun-Thur 12:30, 2:55, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sat 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7, 8:15, 9:30, 10:45, midnight; Sun-Wed 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7, 8:15, 9:30, 10:45; Thur 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7, 8:15, 9:30. Watchmen Thur only, 12:05 a.m., 12:15 a.m. Culver Plaza Theatre, 9919 Washington Blvd, (310) 836-5516. Defiance Fri-Sun 2:30, 7:30, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2:40, 8. Delhi 6 noon, 2:45, 5:30, 8:20. Desbocados Fri 3:05, 7:45, 9:45; Sat 2:40, 7:30; Sun 3:05, 7:45, 9:45; Mon-Thur 3:05, 7:45. Doubt 2:40. Frost/Nixon Fri-Sun noon, 5:10; Mon-Thur noon, 5:25. Gran Torino Fri 12:20, 5:15; Sat 12:05, 5:05; Sun-Thur 12:20, 5:15. Milk Fri-Sun 12:05, 5:05, 7:40, 10:20; MonThur 12:05, 5:05, 7:45. The Reader Fri-Sun noon, 2:30, 5:05, 7:35, 10:05; Mon-Thur noon, 2:30, 5:05, 7:40. Revolutionary Road 12:05. The Wrestler Fri-Sun 2:35, 5:05, 7:20, 9:30; Mon-Thur 2:35, 5:05, 7:20. Loews Cineplex Marina Marketplace, 13455 Maxella Av, (310) 827-9588. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri 1:30, 4:05, 7, 9:45; Sat-Sun 10:45 a.m., 1:30, 4:05, 7, 9:45; Mon-Wed 1:30, 4:15, 6:55, 9:25. Coraline Fri 1:40, 4:10, 6:50, 9:30; Sat-Sun 11:05 a.m., 1:40, 4:10, 6:50, 9:30; Mon-Wed 1:40, 4:10, 6:40, 9:10. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri 3:30, 6:45, 10; Sat 12:15, 3:30, 6:45, 10; Sun 12:15, 3:30, 6:45, 9:55; Mon-Wed 2:30, 5:35, 8:45. The International Fri 1:15, 4:20, 7:15, 10:10; Sat-Sun 10:30 a.m., 1:15, 4:20, 7:15, 10:10; Mon-Wed 2:45, 5:45, 8:55. Taken Fri 2:50, 5:20, 7:45, 10:05; Sat-Sun 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:45, 10:05; Mon-Wed 2:20, 4:45, 7:05, 9:20. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri 2, 4:45, 7:30, 10:15; Sat 11:25 a.m., 2, 4:45, 7:30, 10:15; Sun 11:25 a.m., 2, 4:45, 7:30, 10; Mon-Wed 1:45, 4:25, 7, 9:30. Pacific Culver Stadium 12, 9500 Culver Bl, (310) 855-7519. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 10:15 a.m., 12:40, 3:10, 5:40, 8:10, 10:50; Mon-Thur 1:20, 4:25, 7:25, 10. Coraline Fri-Sun 10:20 a.m., 12:55, 3:15,

Note: Times are p.m., and daily, unless otherwise indicated. All times are subject to change without notice.

BURBANK AMC Burbank 16, 140 E Palm Av, (818) 9539800. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 11:30 a.m., 2:10, 4:50, 7:30, 10:10; MonThur 2, 4:50, 7:35, 10:10. Coraline Fri-Sat 10:15 a.m., 12:55, 3:35, 6:10, 8:45, 11:20; Sun 10:15 a.m., 12:55, 3:35, 6:10, 8:45; Mon-Thur 1:10, 3:35, 6:10, 8:45. Coraline 3D Fri-Sun 11:20 a.m., 1:55, 4:30, 7:05, 9:40; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4:30, 7:05, 9:40. Echelon Conspiracy Fri-Sun 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 4:55, 7:35, 10:20; Mon-Thur 1:35, 4:20, 6:55, 9:25. Fired Up Fri-Sat 10:55 a.m., 1:25, 3:50, 6:15, 8:40, 11:05; Sun 12:10, 2:35, 5:05, 7:40, 9:55; Mon-Thur 1:25, 3:40, 5:55, 8:15, 10:30. Friday the 13th Fri-Sat 10:10 a.m., 12:40, 3:10, 5:40, 8:10, 10:40; Sun 8:10, 10:30; Mon 1, 3:20, 5:40, 8:05, 10:25; Wed-Thur 1, 3:20, 5:40, 8:05, 10:25. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sat 10:30 a.m., 1:35, 4:40, 7:45, 10:50; Sun 10:30 a.m., 1:35, 4:40, 7:45, 10:40; Mon-Thur 1:15, 4:10, 7:15, 10:15. The International Fri 11:10 a.m., 2:05, 5, 7:55, 10:55; Sat 11:10 a.m., 2:05, 5, 7:50, 10:55; Sun 11:10 a.m., 2:05, 5, 7:50, 10:35; MonThur 1:55, 5:05, 7:50, 10:35. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sun 11 a.m., 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15; Mon-Thur 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in IMAX 3D IMAX Fri-Sat 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15, 11:30; IMAX Sun 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15; IMAX Mon-Wed 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15; IMAX Thur 2:30, 4:45, 7. A Powerful Noise Live Thur only, 8. Push Fri-Sun 11:05 a.m., 1:50, 4:35, 7:20, 10:05; Mon-Thur 1:50, 4:35, 7:20, 10:05. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun 10:35 a.m., 1:30, 4:25, 7:25, 10:25; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4:25, 7:30, 10:20. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri 10:20 a.m., 12:50, 3:20, 5:50, 8:25, 11; Sat-Sun 10:20 a.m., 12:50, 3:20, 5:50, 8:25, 10:45; Mon-Thur 2:15, 4:40, 7, 9:30. Taken Fri-Sat 11:15 a.m., 1:40, 4:05, 6:30, 9, 11:25; Sun 11:15 a.m., 1:40, 4:05, 6:30, 9; Mon-Wed 1:40, 4:05, 6:30, 9; Thur 1:40, 4:05. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri 11:55 a.m., 2:40, 5:25, 8:05, 10:45; Sat 11:55 a.m., 2:40, 5:25, 8:05, 10:35; Sun 11:55 a.m., 2:40, 5:25, 8:05, 10:45; Mon-Thur 2:35, 5:10, 7:55, 10:40. Watchmen IMAX Thur only, 12:01 a.m.. The Wrestler Fri-Sun 10:40 a.m., 1:20, 4:15, 7:10, 10; Mon 1:20, 4:15, 7:10, 10; Tue 1:20, 4:15, 10:35; Wed-Thur 1:20, 4:15, 7:10, 10. AMC Burbank Town Center 8, 210 E Magnolia Bl, (818) 953-9800. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 12:55, 3:40, 6:15, 9; MonThur 3:35, 6:15, 9. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Fri-Sun 11:05 a.m., 2:30, 6, 9:30; Mon-Thur 2:15, 6, 9:30. Fanboys Fri-Sun 11 a.m., 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15; Mon-Thur 3:15, 5:30, 8, 10:15. Fired Up Fri-Sun 12:15, 2:40, 5, 7:30, 10; Mon-Thur 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10. Friday the 13th Fri-Sun 11:50 a.m., 2:10, 4:35, 7:15, 9:40; Mon-Thur 2:20, 4:40, 7:15, 9:40. Gran Torino Fri-Sun 11:10 a.m., 1:50, 4:25, 7:05, 9:50; Mon-Thur 1:50, 4:25, 7:05, 9:50. Hotel for Dogs Fri-Sun 11:10 a.m., 1:35, 4, 6:30, 9:15; Mon-Thur 1:55, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15. The Reader Fri-Sun 11:15 a.m., 2, 4:45, 7:45, 10:30; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4:30, 7:20, 10:10. AMC Burbank Town Center 6, 770 N First St, (818) 953-9800. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sun noon, 3:05, 6:10, 9:15; Mon-Thur 3:05, 6:10, 9:15. The International Fri-Sun 1:10, 4:05, 7:10, 10:05; Mon-Thur 2:30, 5:35, 8:30. Paul Blart: Mall Cop Fri-Sun 11:45 a.m., 2:10, 4:35, 7, 9:25; Mon-Thur 2:10, 4:35, 7, 9:25. The Pink Panther 2 Fri-Sun 11:50 a.m., 2:20, 4:45, 7:20, 9:35; Mon-Thur 2:15, 4:45, 7:15, 9:30. Taken Fri-Sun 12:25, 2:50, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15; Mon-Thur 2:50, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15. The Uninvited Fri-Sun 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:35, 10; Mon-Thur 2:40, 5:05, 7:35, 10.

5:35, 7:55, 10:20; Mon-Thur 1:25, 4:10, 7:20, 9:35. Fired Up Fri-Sun 10:05 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7:35, 9:55; Mon-Thur 1:50, 4:45, 7:50, 10:05. Friday the 13th Fri-Sun 10:35 a.m., 12:50, 3:05, 5:20, 7:50, 10:25; Mon-Thur 2, 4:55, 7:40, 10:10. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sun 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:30, 7:45, 10:40; Mon-Thur 1:35, 4:40, 7:35, 10:20. The International Fri-Sun 10:50 a.m., 1:50, 4:40, 7:20, 10; Mon-Thur 2:10, 4:50, 7:55, 10:35. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sun 10:30 a.m., 12:45, 3, 5:10, 7:30, 9:45; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4, 7, 9:15. Push Fri-Sun 10:40 a.m., 1:40, 4:15, 7:05, 9:50; Mon-Thur 1, 4:15, 7:10, 9:55. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun 11:10 a.m., 1:55, 4:35, 7:15, 10:05; Mon-Thur 1:05, 4:20, 7:15, 9:50. Taken Fri-Sun 10:10 a.m., 12:20, 2:35, 5, 8:05, 10:35; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 9:40. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sun 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:30, 1:30, 3:20, 4:20, 5:45, 7, 8:15, 9:25, 10:45; Mon-Thur 1:15, 2:15, 4:05, 5:05, 7:05, 8, 9:45, 10:30. UA Marina, 4335 Glencoe Av, (310) 823-1721. Echelon Conspiracy noon, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:20. Fired Up 12:10, 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10:30. Gran Torino 12:40, 3:20, 6:50, 9:40. Milk 12:50, 3:50, 7, 9:50. Open Captioned Performance - Selected Film Daily . The Reader 12:20, 3:40, 7:20, 10:10. Slumdog Millionaire 12:30, 3:30, 7:10, 10.

4:15, 5:40, 8:30, 11:20; Tue noon, 2:50, 4:15, 5:40, 8:30, 10:15, 11:20; Wed noon, 2:50, 4:25, 5:40, 8:30, 10:15, 11:20; Thur noon, 2:50, 4:15, 5:40, 8:30, 10:35. Taken Fri-Wed 11:10 a.m., 1:30, 4:10, 7:10, 9:30; Thur 11:05 a.m., 1:45, 4:05, 7:55, 10:15. Watchmen Thur only, Midnight. The Wrestler Fri-Wed 11:45 a.m., 2:25, 5:15, 7:55, 10:55; Thur 11:45 a.m., 2:25, 4:55, 7:45, 10:05. Grauman’s Chinese, 6925 Hollywood Bl, (323) 464-8111. Private Screening Mon only, 7. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sun 12:30, 3, 5:30, 8, 10:30; Tue-Thur 12:30, 3, 5:30, 8, 10:30. Los Feliz 3, 1822 N Vermont Av, (323) 6642169. The Reader 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Waltz With Bashir 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. The Wrestler 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Mann Chinese 6, 6801 Hollywood Bl, (323) 461-3331. Fired Up Fri-Mon 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Tue 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:20; Wed-Thur 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10. Friday the 13th Fri-Mon 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:20; Wed-Thur 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:20. Gran Torino Fri-Tue 4:10, 9:50; Thur 4:10,

9:50. Private Screening Tue 7:30; Wed 7. Push Fri-Tue 1:10, 7:10; Thur 1:10, 7:10. Revolutionary Road 12:50, 3:50, 6:50, 9:40. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sat 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30, 11:45; Sun-Thur 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail noon, 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10. Pacific’s El Capitan, 6838 Hollywood Bl, (323) 467-7674. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15, 11:30; Sun-Thur 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15. Pacific’s The Grove Stadium 14, 189 The Grove Dr, Third St & Fairfax Av, (323) 6920829. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Mon 11:55 a.m., 1:15, 2:35, 5:25, 7:10, 8:10, 10:50; Tue 11:55 a.m., 2:35, 5:25, 8:10, 10:50; Wed-Thur 11:55 a.m., 1:15, 2:35, 5:25, 7:10, 8:10, 10:50. Coraline 10:55 a.m., 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Fired Up 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:05. Friday the 13th 12:20, 2:45, 5:20, 7:55, 10:30. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Mon 10:25 a.m., 1:35, 4, 4:45, 7:50, 9:50, 10:55; Tue 10:25 a.m., 1:35, 4:45, 7:50, 10:55; Wed-Thur 10:25 a.m., 1:35, 4, 4:45, 7:50, 9:50, 10:55.

“#### “ Karen Berg, OK! MAGAZINE

“Funny, Sexy, and Smart–a triple threat! YOU WILL LAUGH OUT LOUD, VERY LOUD!”

DOWNTOWN & SOUTH L.A.

Mark S. Allen, CBS/CW TV

Downtown Independent, >251 South Main St, (213) 617-1033. LA Comedy Shorts Festival Thur only, Midnight. Laemmle’s Grande 4-Plex, 345 S Figueroa St, (213) 617-0268. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri 5:10, 7:30, 10; Sat-Sun 1:55, 5:10, 7:30, 10; Mon-Thur 5:10, 7:30. Polanski: Unauthorized Fri 5:50, 8, 10:10; Sat 1:30, 3:40, 5:50, 8, 10:10; Sun 1:30, 3:40, 5:50, 10:10; Mon-Thur 5:50, 8. The Reader Fri 5, 7:40, 10:15; Sat-Sun 1:40, 5, 7:40, 10:15; Mon-Thur 5, 7:40. Slumdog Millionaire Fri 5, 7:35, 10:10; Sat-Sun 1:50, 5, 7:35, 10:10; Mon-Thur 5, 7:35. Magic Johnson Theaters, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, 4020 Marlton Av, (323) 2905900. Call theater for titles and showtimes. University Village 3, 3323 S Hoover St, (213) 748-6321. Fired Up 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45. Friday the 13th 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30.

HOLLYWOOD ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, 6360 Sunset Bl, (323) 464-4226. The Class Fri-Mon 1:20, 4:20, 7:20, 10:20; Wed-Thur 1:20, 4:20, 7:20, 10:20. Coraline 3D Fri-Tue 11:05 a.m., 11:50 a.m., 1:45, 2:40, 4:25, 5:10, 7:05, 8, 9:45, 10:30; Wed 11:05 a.m., 11:50 a.m., 1:35, 2:40, 4:05, 5:10, 8, 10:30; Thur 11:15 a.m., 11:50 a.m., 1:55, 2:40, 4:25, 5:10, 7:15, 8, 9:55, 10:30. Crossing Over Fri-Tue 11:25 a.m., 1, 2:05, 4, 5:05, 7, 8:05, 9:50, 11:05; Wed 11:25 a.m., 1, 2:05, 4, 7, 9:50; Thur 11:10 a.m., 1, 1:40, 4, 4:50, 7:30, 10:10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Fri-Wed 11:55 a.m., 3:25, 7:15, 10:45; Thur 11:55 a.m., 3:25, 7:05, 10:45. Doubt Fri-Wed 11:15 a.m., 1:55, 4:45, 7:35, 10:05; Thur 11:25 a.m., 2:05, 4:45, 7:25, 9:45. Frost/Nixon Fri-Tue 11:20 a.m., 2:10, 5, 7:50, 10:40; Wed 11:20 a.m., 2:10; Thur 11:20 a.m., 2:10, 5, 7:50, 10:40. He’s Just Not That Into You 11 a.m., 1:50, 4:40, 7:40, 10:50. The International Fri-Wed 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 4:55, 7:45, 10:35; Thur 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 5:05, 8:05, 10:55. Lawrence of Arabia Mon only, 8. Milk Fri-Sun 11:30 a.m., 1:15, 2:20, 5:20, 7:25, 8:10, 11; Mon 11:30 a.m., 1:15, 2:20, 5:20, 8:10, 11; Tue-Wed 11:30 a.m., 1:15, 2:20, 5:20, 7:25, 8:10, 11; Thur 11:30 a.m., 1:15, 2:20, 5:20, 7:35, 8:10, 11. Notorious Wed only,. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun noon, 2:50, 4:15, 5:40, 8:30, 10:15, 11:20; Mon noon, 2:50,

SCREEN GEMS PRESENTS A MOVING PICTURES AMG/GROSS ENTERTAINMENT/CHARLES WEINSTOCK PRODUCTION A FILM BY WILL GLUCK “FIRED UP” NICHOLAS D’D’AGOSTO AGOSTO ERIC CHRISTIAN OLSEN SARAH ROEMER MOLLY SIMS DANNEEL HARRIS ADHIRMUSICKALYAN ANNALYNNEEXECUTIVE McCORD WITH PHILIP BAKER HALL AND JOHN MICHAEL HIGGINS MUSIC GROSS ANN WESTON CROWLEYEY BY RICHARD GIBBS PRODUCERS WILL GLUCK WRIPADDYTTEN CULLEN MARCY DIRECTED SUPERVISOR WENDE CROWL PRODUCED BY MATTHEW GROSS PETER JAYSEN CHARLES WEINSTOCK BY FREEDOM JONES BY WILL GLUCK NOW PLAYING CENTURY CITY AMC Century 15 • 310/289-4AMC Fri-Sun 11:05 AM, 1:45, 4:40, 7:20 & 9:45 PM Mon-Wed 1:45, 4:40, 7:20 & 9:45 PM Thur 1:45, 4:35, 7:20 & 9:45 PM Fri & Sat Late Show 12:05 AM 3 Hours Free Parking Additional 2 Hour Parking $3.00 with AMC Validation

L.A./BEVERLY HILLS Pacific’s The Grove Stadium 14 • 323/692-0829 #209 Daily 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40 & 10:05 PM 4 Hours On-Site Validated Parking Only $2.00

HOLLYWOOD Mann Chinese 6 • 323/777-FILM #002 Daily 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40 & 10:10 PM 4 Hour Parking at Hollywood & Highland Only $2.00 (with Validation)

WESTWOOD AMC Avco 310/475-0711 Fri, Mon-Thur 2:00, 4:35, 7:00 & 9:30 PM Sat & Sun 11:30 AM, 2:00, 4:35, 7:00 & 9:30 PM $4.00 Parking Fri-Sun/$3.00 Parking Mon-Thur At The Avco Center Parking

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 15 LACITYBEAT

SANTA MONICA AMC Santa Monica 7 • 310/289-4AMC Fri-Sun 11:45 AM, 2:30, 5:00, 7:50 & 10:10 PM Mon-Thur 2:30, 4:50, 7:15 & 9:30 PM SHERMAN OAKS ArcLight Cinemas At The Sherman Oaks Galleria 818/501-0753 Fri-Sun 11:40 AM, 2:15, 4:35, 7:05 & 9:25 PM Mon-Thur 11:40 AM, 2:00, 4:35, 7:05 & 9:25 PM 4 Hours Free Validated Parking

UNIVERSAL CITY CityWalk Stadium 19 with IMAX® 800/FANDANGO #707 Fri-Sun 10:20 AM, 12:55, 3:10, 5:25, 7:40 & 9:55 PM Mon-Thur 12:55, 3:10, 5:25, 7:40 & 9:55 PM Movie Parking Rebate $5 General Parking Rebate at Box Office with Movie Ticket Purchase (Excludes Preferred & Valet)

WEST LOS ANGELES The Bridge Cinema De Lux 310/568-3375 Digital Projection Daily 12:15, 2:40, 5:05, 7:30 & 9:55 PM Fri & Sat Late Show 12:20 AM

AND AT A THEATER NEAR YOU FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS. SORRY, NO PASSES ACCEPTED FOR THIS ENGAGEMENT.


The International 10:50 a.m., 1:55, 4:50, 7:45, 10:40. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 10:20 a.m., 12:35, 2:55, 5:15, 7:35, 9:55, 12:15 a.m.; Sun-Thur 10:20 a.m., 12:35, 2:55, 5:15, 7:35, 9:55. Slumdog Millionaire 10:30 a.m., 1:25, 4:25, 7:25, 10:25. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sat 11:25 a.m., 12:30, 2, 3, 4:30, 5:30, 7:05, 8:05, 9:35, 10:45, 12:05 a.m.; Sun-Thur 11:25 a.m., 12:30, 2, 3, 4:30, 5:30, 7:05, 8:05, 9:35, 10:45. Taken noon, 2:25, 4:55, 7:20, 9:45. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sat 11:10 a.m., 12:10, 1:50, 2:50, 4:35, 5:35, 7:15, 8:15, 10, 11:05, 12:10 a.m.; Sun 11:10 a.m., 12:10, 1:50, 2:50, 4:35, 5:35, 7:15, 8:15, 10, 11:05; Mon 11 a.m., 12:10, 1:50, 2:50, 4:35, 5:35, 7:15, 8:15, 10, 11:05; Tue-Thur 11:10 a.m., 12:10, 1:50, 2:50, 4:35, 5:35, 7:15, 8:15, 10, 11:05. Watchmen Thur only, 12:10 a.m.. Regent Showcase, 614 N La Brea Av, (323) 934-2944. Call theater for titles and showtimes. Vine, 6321 Hollywood Bl, (323) 463-6819. Vista, 4473 Sunset, (323) 660-6639. Slumdog Millionaire Fri 4:20, 7, 9:40; Sat-Sun 1:40,

4:20, 7, 9:40; Mon-Thur 4:20, 7, 9:40. Watchmen Thur only, 11:59.

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, UNIVERSAL CITY Century 8, 12827 Victory Bl, (818) 508-6004. Coraline 11:35 a.m., 2:10, 4:40, 7:10, 9:45. Fired Up 12:40, 3, 5:20, 7:40, 10. Friday the 13th 12:15, 2:45, 5:15, 7:50, 10:15. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9:10, 11:20; Sat 10:20 a.m., 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9:10, 11:20; Sun 10:20 a.m., 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9:10; Mon-Wed 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9:10; Thur 12:30, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9:10, 11:20. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 12:05, 2:35, 5:05, 7:35, 9:55. Slumdog Millionaire 1:20, 4:20, 7:20, 10:20. Taken Fri-Wed noon, 2:25, 4:45, 7:15, 9:50; Thur noon, 2:25, 4:45, 7:15. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail 11:45 a.m., 2:20, 4:55, 7:30, 10:05. Watchmen Midnight Thur only,. Loews CityWalk Stadium 19 with IMAX, 100 Universal City Dr at Universal CityWalk, (818)

508-0588; IMAX Theater (818) 760-8100. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sat 11 a.m., 1:30, 4, 6:35, 9:05, 11:35; Sun 11 a.m., 1:30, 4, 6:35, 9:05; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4, 6:35, 9:05. Coraline Fri-Sat 1:50, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15, 11:45; Sun-Thur 1:50, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15. The Dark Knight: The IMAX Experience IMAX FriWed noon, 3:30, 7:05, 10:30; IMAX Thur noon, 3:30, 7:05. Desbocados Fri-Sun 10:50 a.m., 1:05, 3:25, 5:45, 8, 10:15; Mon-Thur 1:05, 3:25, 5:45, 8, 10:15. Echelon Conspiracy Fri-Sat 10 a.m., 12:30, 3:15, 5:55, 8:45, 11:25; Sun 10 a.m., 12:30, 3:15, 5:55, 8:45; Mon-Thur 12:30, 3:15, 5:55, 8:45. Fired Up Fri-Sun 10:20 a.m., 12:55, 3:10, 5:25, 7:40, 9:55; Mon-Thur 12:55, 3:10, 5:25, 7:40, 9:55. Friday the 13th Fri-Sat 10:45 a.m., 11:20 a.m., 1:10, 3:35, 4:45, 6, 8:30, 10, 11; Sun 10:45 a.m., 11:20 a.m., 1:10, 3:35, 4:45, 6, 8:30, 10; Mon-Thur 1:10, 3:35, 4:45, 6, 8:30, 10. He’s Just Not That Into You 12:20, 3:20, 6:30, 9:30. The International 1:55, 7:10. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 10:30 a.m., 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45, midnight; Sun 10:30 a.m.,

12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45; Mon-Thur 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45. Paul Blart: Mall Cop Fri-Sat 11:55 a.m., 2:20, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40, 12:05 a.m.; Sun 11:55 a.m., 2:20, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40; Mon-Thur 2:20, 4:50, 7:15, 9:40. The Pink Panther 2 12:25, 2:45, 5:05, 7:45, 10:05. Push Fri-Sat 12:35, 3, 5:40, 8:15, 11:05; SunThur 12:35, 3, 5:40, 8:15. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sat 11:45 a.m., 2:30, 5:20, 8:10, 10:55; Sun 11:45 a.m., 2:30, 5:20, 8:10, 10:45; Mon-Thur 2:30, 5:20, 8:10, 10:45. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sat 11:10 a.m., 1:45, 4:25, 7, 9:35, 12:10 a.m.; Sun 11:10 a.m., 1:45, 4:25, 7, 9:35; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4:25, 7, 9:35. Taken Fri-Sun 11:55 a.m., 2:50, 5:10, 7:35, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2:50, 5:10, 7:35, 10:10. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sun 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:55, 5:30, 8:05, 10:40; MonThur 12:15, 2:55, 5:30, 8:05, 10:40. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Fri-Sun 10:30 a.m., 12:50, 3:05, 5:35, 7:55, 10:20; MonThur 12:50, 3:05, 5:35, 7:55, 10:20. The Uninvited Fri-Sat 10:05 a.m., 12:05, 2:15, 4:30, 6:55, 9:10, 11:30; Sun 10:05 a.m., 12:05, 2:15, 4:30, 6:55, 9:10; Mon-Thur

Own it on Blu-ray® and DVD 03/03/09!

12:05, 2:15, 4:30, 6:55, 9:10. Watchmen IMAX Thur 12:01 a.m., 3:25 a.m. Thur 12:20 a.m.

SANTA MONICA AMC Santa Monica 7, 1310 Third Street Promenade, (310) 395-3030. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 11:15 a.m., 2, 4:30, 7:15, 10; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4:15, 7:10, 9:55. Coraline Fri-Sun 11 a.m., 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:30; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4:25, 7, 9:25. Fired Up Fri-Sun 11:45 a.m., 2:30, 5, 7:50, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2:30, 4:50, 7:15, 9:30. Friday the 13th Fri-Sun 11:55 a.m., 2:50, 5:35, 8, 10:40; Mon-Thur 2:45, 5:20, 7:45, 10:05. Frost/Nixon Fri-Sun 10:50 a.m., 1:50, 4:40, 7:20, 10:20; Mon-Thur 1:20, 4:10, 7:05, 9:50. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sun 10:30 a.m., 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45; Mon-Thur 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45. The Pink Panther 2 Fri-Sun 2:15, 7:40; MonThur 2, 7:40. Push Fri-Sun 11:30 a.m., 4:45, 10:30; MonThur 5, 10. Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, 1332 Second St, (310) 394-9741. The Class 1, 4, 7, 10. Dog Eat Dog Sat-Sun 11 a.m. Doubt 1:50, 7:20. Man on Wire Sat-Sun 11 a.m. Rachel Getting Married Sat-Sun 11 a.m. Slumdog Millionaire 1:10, 4:10, 7:10, 10. Waltz With Bashir 4:30, 9:50. The Wrestler 1:30, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Loews Cineplex Broadway, 1441 Third Street Promenade, (310) 458-1506. Echelon Conspiracy Fri 2:05, 4:40, 7:15, 9:50; Sat-Sun 11:30 a.m., 2:05, 4:40, 7:15, 9:50; Mon-Thur 1:40, 4:25, 7:15, 9:55. Fuel Fri 1, 4, 7, 10:15; Sat-Sun 11 a.m., 1:40, 4:25, 7:10, 10:15; Mon-Thur 1:45, 4:30, 7:20, 10. Milk Fri 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, 10:30; Sat-Sun 11 a.m., 1:55, 4:50, 7:45, 10:35; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4:20, 7:10, 10:05. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri 12:15, 2:45, 5:15, 7:45, 10:10; Sat-Sun 12:15, 2:45, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2, 4:40, 7:05, 9:25. Mann Criterion, 1313 Third Street Promenade, (310) 395-1599. Gran Torino 11:50 a.m., 2:30, 5:10, 7:50, 10:30. He’s Just Not That Into You 12:50, 4:05, 7, 10:10. The International 1:10, 4:20, 7:10, 10:20. The Reader 1, 3:50, 6:50, 9:40. Taken 12:10, 2:40, 5, 7:30, 10. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail 11:40 a.m., 2:10, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50.

SHERMAN OAKS, ENCINO

See Watchman in theatres 3/6 For a chance to win a Grand Prize of 4 tickets to see Watchmen or a free Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic DVD, send your name, address, and daytime phone number to contests@lacitybeat.com

Watched any great books lately? Now you can. The most celebrated graphic novel of all time continues to break new ground. All 12 chapters of the story are included, from the mysterious demise of the Comedian to the crisscrossed destinies of loosely allied superheroes to their fateful impact on the world. Be in the know. Be watching. With Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic. WATCHMEN, WONDER WOMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics. Smiley Logo: ™ The Smiley Company. Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic, Package Design & Supplementary Material Compilation ©2009 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Distributed by Warner Home Video, 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522. All rights reserved.

LACITYBEAT 16 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009

ArcLight Sherman Oaks, 15301 Ventura Bl, Sherman Oaks, (818) 501-0753. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 12:05, 2:50, 5:40, 8:30, 11:20; Mon-Thur 12:05, 2:45, 5:40, 8:35, 11:05. Coraline Fri-Wed 11:55 a.m., 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10; Thur 11:55 a.m., 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10. Crossing Over Fri-Sun 11 a.m., noon, 2, 3, 4:50, 5:50, 7:30, 8:40, 10:05, 11:25; MonThur noon, 1:30, 3, 4:20, 5:45, 7, 8:20, 9:50, 11. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Fri-Sun 1:15, 7:20, 10:50; Mon-Thur 3:30, 7:25. Fired Up Fri-Sun 11:40 a.m., 2:15, 4:35, 7:05, 9:25; Mon 11:40 a.m., 2, 4:35, 7:05, 9:25; Tue 11:40 a.m., 2, 4:35, 10:35; Wed-Thur 11:40 a.m., 2, 4:35, 7:05, 9:25. Friday the 13th Fri-Sun 10:45 a.m., 1, 3:15, 5:45, 8:45, 11:15; Mon 12:25, 2:55, 10:25; Tue-Thur 12:25, 2:55, 5:25, 7:50, 10:25. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sun 10:50 a.m., 1:40, 4:55, 8:15, 11:10; Mon-Thur 11:30 a.m., 2:15, 5:15, 8:30, 11:20. The International Fri-Sun 11:35 a.m., 2:20, 5:15, 8:05, 10:55; Mon-Thur 11:35 a.m., 2:10, 5:05, 8:10, 10:45. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri 10:30 a.m., 12:40, 1:10, 2:50, 5, 7:10, 9:20, 11:30; Sat-Sun 10:30 a.m., 12:40, 2:50, 5, 7:10, 9:20, 11:30; MonThur 12:40, 2:50, 5, 7:10, 9:20. The Pink Panther 2 Fri-Sun 10:40 a.m., 1:05, 3:25, 5:50, 8:20, 10:45; Mon-Wed 12:15, 2:30, 4:50, 7:15, 9:45; Thur 12:15, 2:40, 4:50, 7:15, 9:45. Raging Bull Mon only, 7:30. Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation Tue only, 7:30. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun 10:35 a.m., 11:15 a.m., 2:10, 4:40, 5:05, 7:50, 10:40; Mon-Wed


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11:45 a.m., 12:45, 2:35, 5:20, 8:05, 10:55, 11:25; Thur 11:45 a.m., 12:45, 2:35, 5:20, 8:05, 11:25. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sun 11:30 a.m., 1:55, 4:45, 7:35, 10:20; MonThur 11:35 a.m., 1:55, 4:45, 7:20, 9:40. Taken Fri-Sun 12:10, 2:30, 5:20, 7:45, 10:15; Mon-Thur 12:10, 2:25, 4:55, 7:35, 10:15. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sun 11:20 a.m., 1:45, 4:25, 7:15, 10; Mon-Thur 12:30, 3:05, 5:35, 7:55, 10:20. Watchmen Thur only, Midnight. The Wrestler Fri-Sun 11:25 a.m., 2:35, 5:25, 8:25, 11; Mon-Thur 12:20, 3:10, 5:50, 8:40, 11:15. Laemmle’s Town Center 5, 17200 Ventura Bl, Encino, (818) 981-9811. Bob Funk 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Medicine for Melancholy 3:10, 7:40. Must Read After My Death 1, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:45. The Reader 1, 4, 7, 9:45. Repo! The Genetic Opera Fri only, 11:55. The Room Sat only, 11:55. Two Lovers 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 10. Waltz With Bashir 1, 5:20, 9:50. Mann Plant 16, 7876 Van Nuys Bl, Panorama City, (818) 779-0323. Confessions of a

Shopaholic 11:20 a.m., 1:50, 4:20, 6:50, 9:20. Coraline 11:40 a.m., 2:10, 4:40, 7:10, 9:40. Fired Up 12:10, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10. Friday the 13th 11:30 a.m., 12:30, 2, 3, 4:30, 5:30, 7, 8, 9:30, 10:30. Hotel for Dogs 11:10 a.m., 1:40, 4:10, 6:40, 9:10. The International 1:15, 4:15, 7:15, 10:10. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 11 a.m., 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11; Sun-Thur 11 a.m., 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 11 a.m., 1:30, 4:05, 6:30, 9. The Pink Panther 2 11:15 a.m., 1:45, 4:15, 6:45, 9:15. Push 1:20, 4:10, 6:50, 9:30. Slumdog Millionaire 11:10 a.m., 2, 4:45, 7:30, 10:20. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li noon, 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10. Taken 11:50 a.m., 2:20, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail 12:15, 2:45, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15. The Uninvited 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:50, 10:20. Pacific’s Sherman Oaks 5, 14424 Millbank

Now Available on Blu-ray® and DVD

St, Sherman Oaks, (818) 501-5121. Doubt 1:15, 4:15, 7:10, 9:45. Gran Torino 1:20, 4:20, 7:15, 9:55. Milk 1, 4:05, 7, 9:50. Push 1:10, 4:30, 7:20, 10:05. Revolutionary Road 1:05, 4:10, 7:05, 9:55.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, BEVERLY HILLS, CENTURY CITY AMC Century City 15, 10250 Santa Monica Bl, (310) 277-2011. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 10:45 a.m., 2:05, 5, 7:45, 10:40; Mon-Wed 2:05, 5, 7:45, 10:40; Thur 2:10, 5, 7:45, 10:40. Coraline Fri-Sun 11:20 a.m., 1:55, 4:50, 7:30, 10:05; Mon-Thur 1:55, 4:50, 7:30, 10:05. Echelon Conspiracy Fri-Sat 9:45 a.m., 12:25, 3:05, 5:40, 8:20, 11; Sun 9:30 a.m., 12:10, 2:50, 5:30, 8:15, 10:50; Mon-Thur 12:10, 2:50, 5:30, 8:15, 10:50. Fired Up Fri-Sat 11:05 a.m., 1:45, 4:40, 7:20, 9:45, 12:05 a.m.; Sun 11:05 a.m., 1:45, 4:40, 7:20, 9:45; Mon-Wed 1:45, 4:40, 7:20, 9:45; Thur 1:45, 4:35, 7:20, 9:45. Friday the 13th Fri-Sat 9:35 a.m., 2:55, 8:10; Sun 3:10, 8:20; Mon-Wed 2:55, 8:10; Thur 4:40. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sun 9:30 a.m., 12:40, 4:10, 7:35, 10:50; Mon-Wed 12:40, 4:10, 7:35, 10:50. The International Fri-Sun 9:50 a.m., 12:45, 3:50, 7:05, 10; Mon-Thur 12:45, 3:50, 7:05, 10. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sat 11 a.m., 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15, 12:30 a.m.; Sun 11 a.m., 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15; Mon-Thur 1:15, 3:30, 5:45, 8, 10:15.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in IMAX 3D IMAX Fri-Sat 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15, 11:30; IMAX Sun 10 a.m., 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15; IMAX Mon-Thur 12:15, 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15. The Pink Panther 2 Fri-Sat 9:40 a.m., 12:10, 2:45, 5:15, 7:50, 10:25; Sun 9:40 a.m., 12:20, 2:45, 5:15, 7:50, 10:25; Mon-Thur 12:20, 2:45, 5:15, 7:50, 10:25. A Powerful Noise Live Thur only, 8. Push Fri-Sat 12:05, 5:25, 10:45; Sun 12:30, 5:35, 10:45; Mon-Wed 12:05, 5:25, 10:45; Thur 2:05. Revolutionary Road Fri-Sun 10:15 a.m., 1:10, 4:15, 7:25, 10:20; Mon-Wed 1:10, 4:15, 7:25, 10:20; Thur 1:10, 4:15, 7:25. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun 10:20 a.m., 1:20, 4:35, 7:40, 10:30; Mon-Thur 1:20, 4:35, 7:40, 10:30. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sun 9:55 a.m., 12:30, 3, 5:35, 8:05, 10:35; MonThur 12:30, 3, 5:35, 8:05, 10:35. Taken Fri-Sat 11:10 a.m., 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 9:40, 12:10 a.m.; Sun 11:10 a.m., 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 9:40; Mon-Thur 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 9:40. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sat 10:10 a.m., 1, 4:05, 7:10, 9:50, 12:25 a.m.; Sun 10:10 a.m., 1, 4:05, 7:10, 9:50; Mon-Thur 1, 4:05, 7:10, 9:50. Watchmen IMAX Thur 12:01 a.m. Thur 12:01 a.m. Laemmle’s Music Hall 3, 9036 Wilshire Bl, (310) 274-6869. Cherry Blossoms Fri 5:40, 8:30; Sat noon, 2:50, 5:40, 8:30; Sun 2:50, 5:40, 8:30; Mon-Wed 5:40, 8:30; Thur 5. Defiance Fri 5:10, 8:20; Sat-Sun 1:40, 5:10, 8:20; Mon-Thur 5:10, 8:20.

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Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe star in Body of Lies. The CIA’s hunt is on for the mastermind of a wave of terrorist attacks. Roger Ferris is the agency’s man on the ground, scrambling to stay ahead of ever-shifting events. An eye in the sky satellite link watches Ferris. At the other end of that link is the CIA’s Ed Hoffman, strategizing events from thousands of miles away. Body of Lies © 2008. Package Design & Supplementary Material Compilation © 2009 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. Distributed by Warner Home Video. 4000 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91522. All rights reserved.

“A TRIUMPH OF REMARKABLE TALENT... BARBARA SARAFIAN GIVES AN OSCAR®CALIBER PERFORMANCE.” -Doris Toumarkine, FILM JOURNAL

“A FLEET-FOOTED MAY-DECEMBER COMEDY. IT’S USELESS TO DENY THE SIMPLE PLEASURES OF THIS FILM.” -Leo Goldsmith, indieWIRE

NEOCLASSICS FILMS LTD. PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH BAVARIA FILM INTERNATIONAL A PRIVATE VIEW, VTM AND HET VLAAMS AUDIOVISUEEL FONDS BARBARA SARAFIAN JURGEN DELNAET AND JOHAN HELDENBERGH MOSCOW, BELGIUM EDITING ALAIN DESSAUVAGE MUSIC TUUR FLORIZOONE SOUND DIRK BOMBEY LINE COSTUME ART DIRECTOR OF DESIGNER TINE VERBEURGT MAKE-UP FRANK VAN WOLLEGHEM DIRECTION STEVEN LIEGEOIS PHOTOGRAPHY RUBEN IMPENS PRODUCERS DRIES PHLYPO AND MIEKE DE WULF PRODUCER JEAN-CLAUDE VAN RIJCKEGHEM WRITTENBY JEAN-CLAUDE VAN RIJCKEGHEM & PAT VAN BEIRS DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHE VAN ROMPAEY WWW.MOSCOW-BELGIUM.US.COM

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Fri.- Sun.: 12:00 2:30 • 5:00 • 7:30 • 10:00 Mon.- Thurs.: 5:00 • 7:30 • 10:00

Don Carlo - Verdi (Opera) Sun 11 a.m.; Thur 7:30. The Wrestler Fri 5:30, 8:10; Sat-Sun 12:10, 2:50, 5:30, 8:10; Mon-Thur 5:30, 8:10. Laemmle’s Sunset 5 Theatre, 8000 Sunset Bl, (323) 848-3500. Bob Funk 1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40. Medicine for Melancholy 3:10, 7:40. Must Read After My Death 1, 3:10, 5:20, 7:30, 9:45. The Reader 1, 4, 7, 9:45. Repo! The Genetic Opera Fri only, 11:55. The Room Sat only, 11:55. Two Lovers 1:40, 4:20, 7:15, 10. Waltz With Bashir 1, 5:20, 9:50. Beverly Center 13 Cinemas, 8522 Beverly Blvd., Suite 835, (310) 652-7760. Bride Wars 1:30, 3:30, 5:40. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 1, 4:20, 7:50. Defiance 9. Echelon Conspiracy 12:40, 3, 5:20, 7:50, 10:10. Frost/Nixon noon, 2:40, 5:10, 7:30, 9:50. Gran Torino 12:30, 3:10, 5:30, 7:40, 10. Hotel for Dogs 12:10, 2:20, 4:30, 6:40. Inkheart 12:30, 2:50. Notorious 12:10, 2:30, 4:50, 7:20, 9:50. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 12:40, 2:40, 5, 7, 9:10. The Pink Panther 2 1:20, 3:30, 5:40, 7:30, 9:30. Push 12:20, 2:50, 5:20, 7:40, 10. Rachel Getting Married noon, 2:20, 4:50, 7:10, 9:40. Twilight 11:50 a.m., 2:10, 4:30, 7, 9:30. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans 5:30, 7:20, 9:40. The Uninvited 8, 10:10.

WESTWOOD, WEST L.A. AMC Avco Center, 10840 Wilshire Bl, (310) 475-0711. Fired Up Fri 2, 4:35, 7:25, 9:50; Sat-Sun 11:30 a.m., 2, 4:35, 7:25, 9:50; Mon-Thur 2, 4:35, 7:25, 9:50. Frost/Nixon Fri 1:35, 4:20, 7:15, 10:05; SatSun 11 a.m., 1:35, 4:20, 7:15, 10:05; MonThur 1:35, 4:20, 7:15, 10:05. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri 2:20, 4:50, 7:30, 10; Sat-Sun 11:45 a.m., 2:20, 4:50, 7:30, 10; Mon-Thur 2:20, 4:50, 7:30, 10. Taken Fri 2:30, 5, 7:45, 10:10; Sat-Sun 11:55 a.m., 2:30, 5, 7:45, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2:30, 5, 7:45, 10:10. Laemmle’s Royal Theatre, 11523 Santa Monica Bl, (310) 477-5581. Gomorrah 1:40, 4:50, 8. Landmark’s Nuart Theater, 11272 Santa Monica Bl, (310) 281-8223. Nightwing Midnight Fri only,. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Sat only, Midnight. Scott Walker: 30 Century Man Fri-Sun noon, 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10; Mon-Thur 5, 7:30, 10. Landmark’s Regent, 1045 Broxton Av, (310) 281-8223. Confessions of a Shopaholic FriSun 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:20; Mon-Thur 4:40, 7, 9:20. The Landmark West Los Angeles, 10850 W Pico Bl, (310) 281-8223. The Class Fri 1:35, 4:25, 7:15, 10:05; Sat-Mon 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:25, 7:15, 10:05; Tue 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:25; Wed-Thur 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:25, 7:15, 10:05. Crossing Over 11:30 a.m., 2:10, 4:50, 7:30, 10:10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Fri-Sun 3:20, 7:05, 10:30; Mon-Tue 4:30, 8; Wed 11:40 a.m., 3:20; Thur 4:30, 8. Doubt Fri-Mon 11:50 a.m., 2:15, 4:40, 7:05, 9:30; Tue 11:50 a.m., 2:15, 10:15; Wed 4:40, 7:05, 9:30; Thur 11:50 a.m., 2:15, 4:40, 7:05, 9:30. He’s Just Not That Into You 10:45 a.m., 1:35, 4:30, 7:25, 10:20. The International 11:20 a.m., 2:05, 4:50, 7:35, 10:15. Milk 10:50 a.m., 1:40, 4:25, 7:15, 10. Moscow, Belgium noon, 2:30, 4:55, 7:20, 9:40. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2009: Animated Fri-Sun 1:15; Mon-Thur 2:15. The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2009: Live Action Fri-Sun 11 a.m.; Mon-Thur noon. The Reader 11 a.m., 1:45, 4:35, 7:25, 10:15. Slumdog Millionaire 11:30 a.m., 2:15, 5, 7:45, 10:25. Two Lovers 11:50 a.m., 2:30, 5:10, 7:40, 10:10. Watchmen Thur only, Midnight.


The Wrestler Fri-Sun noon, 2:35, 5:10, 7:50, 10:20; Mon noon, 2:35, 10:30; Tue-Wed noon, 2:35, 5:10, 7:50, 10:20; Thur noon, 2:35, 10:20. Majestic Crest Theater, 1262 Westwood Bl, (310) 4747866. Slumdog Millionaire 2:30, 5, 7:30, 10. Mann Bruin, 948 Broxton Av, (310) 208-8998. He’s Just Not That Into You 12:40, 3:50, 7, 10. Mann Festival 1, 10887 Lindbrook Av, (310) 208-4575. The Reader 1, 4:10, 7:10, 10:10. Mann Village, 961 Broxton Av, (310) 208-5576. Friday the 13th Fri-Wed noon, 5:10, 10:20; Thur noon, 5:10. The International 2:20, 7:30. Watchmen Thur only, 12:01 a.m.

WOODLAND HILLS, WEST HILLS, TARZANA AMC Promenade 16, 21801 Oxnard St, Woodland Hills, (818) 883-2262. Confessions of a Shopaholic Fri-Sun 11:30 a.m., 2:10, 4:50, 7:35, 10:15; Mon-Thur 2:10, 4:50, 7:35, 10. Coraline Fri-Sun 10:45 a.m., 1:25, 4:05, 7, 9:40; MonThur 1:25, 4:05, 7, 9:25. Echelon Conspiracy Fri-Sun 10:55 a.m., 1:35, 4:15, 7:05, 9:55; Mon-Thur 1:40, 4:15, 7:05, 9:35.

Fired Up Fri-Sat 10:10 a.m., 12:30, 2:55, 5:25, 8, 10:40; Sun 10:10 a.m., 12:30, 2:55, 5:25, 8, 10:20; Mon 5:25, 10:20; Tue-Thur 2:55, 5:25, 7:55, 10:20. Friday the 13th Fri-Sun 11:20 a.m., 1:50, 4:35, 7:10, 9:50; Mon-Thur 1:50, 4:35, 7:10, 9:30. Gran Torino Fri-Sat 2:05, 10:30; Sun 2:05, 10:20; MonThur 2:05, 10:15. He’s Just Not That Into You Fri-Sat 10:15 a.m., 1:15, 4:20, 7:30, 10:45; Sun 10:15 a.m., 1:15, 4:20, 7:30, 10:25; Mon-Thur 1:15, 4:20, 7:20, 10:10. The International Fri-Sat 10:25 a.m., 1:30, 4:25, 7:20, 10:20; Sun 10:25 a.m., 1:30, 4:25, 7:20, 10:05; MonThur 1:30, 4:25, 7:20, 10:05. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience in Disney Digital 3D Fri-Sun 10:30 a.m., 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45; Mon-Thur 12:45, 3, 5:15, 7:30, 9:45. Paul Blart: Mall Cop Fri-Sun 10 a.m., 12:20, 2:50, 5:15, 7:50, 10:15; Mon 2:50, 7:50; Tue-Thur 2:50, 5:15, 7:50, 10. The Pink Panther 2 Fri-Sun 12:15, 2:40, 5:10, 7:40, 10:05; Mon-Wed 2:40, 5:10, 7:30, 9:50; Thur 3:35. A Powerful Noise Live Thur only, 8. Push Fri-Sat 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 5:05, 7:55, 10:40; Sun 11:35 a.m., 2:15, 5:05, 7:55, 10:30; Mon-Wed 2:15, 5:05, 7:40, 10:20; Thur 12:55.

Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sat 10:35 a.m., 1:35, 4:30, 7:25, 10:25; Sun 10:35 a.m., 1:35, 4:30, 7:25, 10:10; MonThur 1:35, 4:30, 7:25, 10:10. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Fri-Sat 10:05 a.m., 12:35, 3:05, 5:35, 8:05, 10:35; Sun 10:05 a.m., 12:35, 3:05, 5:35, 8:05, 10:25; Mon-Thur 12:50, 3:05, 5:35, 8, 10:15. Taken Fri-Sun 10:05 a.m., 12:25, 2:45, 5:20, 7:45, 10:10; Mon-Thur 2:45, 5:20, 7:45, 10:05. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail Fri-Sun 10:40 a.m., 1:20, 4:10, 7:05, 9:40; Mon-Thur 1:20, 4:10, 7:05, 9:35. Watchmen Thur only, 12:01 a.m. The Wrestler Fri-Sun 11:15 a.m., 4:55, 7:45; Mon-Thur 4:55, 7:45. Laemmle’s Fallbrook 7 Cinemas, Fallbrook Mall, 6731 Fallbrook Av, West Hills, (818) 340-8710. Arundhati Sat only, 10 a.m.

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Delhi 6 Fri-Sun noon, 3, 6:15, 9:30; Mon-Thur 2:30, 5:30, 8:30. Doubt Fri-Sun noon, 2:30, 5:05, 7:40, 10:15; Mon-Thur 1, 3:30, 6:05, 8:40. Gomorrah Fri-Sun 12:30, 3:40, 7, 10:10; Mon-Thur 1:30, 4:40, 8. Milk 1:50, 7:15. The Reader Fri-Sun 12:40, 3:40, 7:10, 10:10; Mon-Thur 1:40, 4:40, 8:10. Slumdog Millionaire Fri-Sun 12:50, 3:50, 7, 9:55; MonThur 1:50, 4:50, 8. Two Lovers Fri-Sun 12:10, 2:40, 5:15, 7:50, 10:15; MonThur 1:10, 3:40, 6:15, 8:50. Waltz With Bashir Fri-Sun 4:50, 10:10; Mon-Thur 4:50.


MUSIC L I V E

pocahaunted: Ghost notes

A and O Beyond resuscitation with Pocahaunted By Daiana Feuer Pocahaunted will soon utter its first word. The band’s been together for almost three years and released 27 albums, but this week marks a milestone in its musical evolution. Never before have they used actual words – with consonants. Amanda and Bethany (who don’t do last names) began in vocal primordial ooze – 16-minute drones, chanting “A” and “O” sounds, and distortion. If their discography were chronologically assembled for museum display, we’d start with one tone sustained so long it eventually gives into the natural order, mutating and evolving into syllables. It travels across continents, mingling its genetics with different rhythms and taking souvenir chromosomes to the next destination. “It’s very much a Natural History Museum evolution,” Amanda says. “We can’t just go straight into Coldplay lyrics. At the same time, we try so many things, it seems like this might be a good thing to try.” Pocahaunted’s musical seedspreading comes on vinyl, cassette, and CD-R by way of Not Not Fun – the label Amanda co-helms with husband and musician Britt Brown – and other

underground niche labels specializing in limited-edition experimental juju. L.A.’s Teenage Teardrops just released Pocahaunted’s Chains. And Passage arrives this month from New Jersey’s Troubleman. Passage is Pocahaunted’s ragga album: “dark ragga, North African Sahara, sitar-y stuff. We tried for an eerie sound,” says Amanda. So they found endless sand dunes, a lone camel, passing windswept mantras, and a hookah room in the middle of the Casbah. This album, as well as recent release, Island Diamonds, bats around world music like a kitten at play. “Right around the time we started recording Island Diamonds, I started listening to a lot of spacey dub and buying Soul Jazz box sets, trying to sink my teeth into that aspect of electronic music,” Amanda continues. “Real soulful, heavy on bass, Jamaican stuff. I said to Bethany, one day we have to make a dub album. Of course, it sounds nothing like a dub album.” Correction: it sounds like a Pocahaunted dub album. “Bobb Bruno wrote these electronic beats and we would sing to them, then we’d be like, ‘Now we want gunshots and

cash registers and sirens!’” Amanda now announces that next is the opening of Pocahaunted’s funk chapter. This comes with an evolutionary left turn – young co-founder Bethany has moved to New York City for school. While Bethany answers the call of the wild, Blackblack’s Diva Dompe will add voice and bass to Pocahaunted’s permutation. The current lineup includes Amanda, Dompe, Robedoor’s guitarist Britt Brown and Ged Gengas on drums, who also plays in Antique Brothers, and Cameron Stallones of Magic Lantern and Sun Araw playing organ. Though nervous without Bethany, Amanda is excited about the music. “It’s funk. We think it’s funky. Diva plays funk bass. You can dance to it more than you could dance to any other Pocahaunted stuff. And we’re singing words! We’re going to show up in Texas and people are going to say, ‘What on earth?’ You also hope that people are like, ‘Whoa ... good!’” Before SXSW, the band’s Echo Curio performance will be the first show without Bethany, the first with the new lineup, and the first where they plan to play more than one song. “We have always, from the beginning, always played one piece. And if it’s nine minutes then it’s nine minutes. When we opened for Sonic Youth, they were like, ‘Um yeah, you have to play for 25 minutes.’ The thing is we like to build ourselves into a total frenzy. When you’re doing that, you’re starting off calm and ramping up, up, up. By those last few minutes, you’re sweating and flailing. People are like, ‘More!’ There’s no more, man! If you are beyond resuscitation, then you did it.” Their longest and best set, according to Amanda, took place after midnight in a stranger’s tiny basement in Baltimore, Maryland. Harsh, strange conditions awakened Pocahaunted’s neo-primitivist mystique. The temperature was about 100 degrees. “We took off our shirts and we were wearing bikini tops because it was so hot, we were pouring water on ourselves. So we were wet, we were in bikini tops, the band was going crazy and we sang and screamed and danced our heads off for 25 minutes. No one knew what to do. We don’t make the kind of music where people are dancing or clapping. We make ‘artful music,’ so people are mostly sitting there, staring at you. So if you’re flailing and going crazy, they’re still just going ‘Hmm,’ like a panel, ‘this is interesting.’ Then you hope that on your last note everyone’s like, yes!”✶ Pocahaunted, with Robedoor, Sun Araw and Super Minerals, at Echo Curio, 1519 Sunset Blvd., Echo Park; www.echocurio. com. Sun., 9 p.m. Visit Pocahaunted at notnotfun.com/pocahaunted.

LACITYBEAT 20 FEBRUARY 26-march 4, 2009

R E V I E W

Thurston Moore @ The Smell Friday, February 20 It’s a welter of America’s finest noise artists in this sold-out night at the Smell, and this is the sound of the unheralded – art that only resolves into proper perspective today, the 100th anniversary of Marinetti’s publication of the “Futurist Manifesto” in Le Figaro. (Which brings to mind Chiang Kai-Shek’s remarks about the effects of the French Revolution: “Too soon to say.”) First – Randy Yau amplifies his breathing, which grows labored then gives birth and becomes less breath than a conduit into a universe of melted speakers, with woofers and tweeters intermingling in incestuous annihilation. Beware his intimidating shout! Second only to Conrad Bain! Grey Holger, the Charles Mingus of noise, transmits a deafening pulse as Hive Mind; the scraping of metal fingernails along brick increasingly collides into scree that could be doorways to uncharted purgatory. Dead Machines – John and Tovah Olson, bringing with them the squall of ungreased wheels, and suddenly a sax comes in, tentative as fog chased away by dawn. The Haters storm the stage with dense set of sonic entropy that pushes the walls outward and shortly blows every fuse in the building. And now Thurston Moore – his guitar issues forth spidery tendrils, spreading from another Heaven to an even more exotic place, with twinkling caverns opening up into different pathways to illumination. It’s as though because of his music the tip of the tongue was massaged into remembering words temporarily forgot. They’re a collection of moods, moments and transitory states – sounds at once joyous and lonesome, a testament to the restorative powers of noise. Moore turned 50 recently and he looks phenomenal. All hail the whammy bar, transitioning from contemplation to a Xanadu of pure noise – or at least noise made pure. (David Cotner)


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ART

monika RITTERSHAUS

vitalij kowaljow (woTan), gordon hawkins (alberich) and arnold bezuyen (loge)

The Sacred Plaything Wagner’s epic ‘Ring’ saga sounds as expensive as it looks (and vice versa) By Alan Rich Let’s first level the playing field. Richard Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung is a set of four music dramas about the beginning and end of the world. The music – deep, throbbing, chromatic, heroic – gets under peoples’ skin; it’s supposed to. Two things are inevitably associated with it. One is the expanse of its music drama, deeply moving like nothing else on earth (except Mozart, of course). The other is money. People clean out their bank accounts to see Wagner in Bayreuth, the home base, and the stuff isn’t much cheaper anywhere else, either. It sounds expensive, and that’s part of its greatness. The Los Angeles Opera’s Ring, which began at the Music Center last week, carries a price tag reported at $32 mil, and that’s about par.

The plot involves, among other devices, a ring that gets stolen from supernatural creatures and needs to be returned, a pair of siblings who fall in love, a hero whose mortal enemy happens to be his granddad. Ah, yes, Star Wars, you may think, or Lord of the Rings, and you’re welcome; Wagner came first, by a century or more. The Ring is the sacred plaything among operas and opera companies. On my own shelf there’s a DVD version set in naturalistic scenery, another in an Industrial Revolution setting among factories, another in the basement of a modern office building – plumbing ’n’ all. The San Francisco Opera is running a version set in the American Wild West. There have been Rings with a Freudian

spin, or a Marxist. There’s enough power in this remarkable score to cover all interpretations – or some, anyway. True believers among Wagnerian audiences can always be heard comparing how many Rings they’ve seen. They can usually count at least one Ring per finger. L.A. Opera’s Ring is the first ever mounted around here, not counting a cute condensed version that breezed in and out of Long Beach a couple of years ago. Its four sectors are being doled out over two seasons; Die Walküre, which has most of the hit tunes, comes in on April 4. Saturday night we got Das Rheingold, running through March 15, which is actually a kind of prologue that sets the whole kaboodle in motion. It runs a painless two-and-a-half hours; the other

LACITYBEAT 22 FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009

parts run four or five. Plenty happens, though; most important is that Wotan pulls the gigantic swindle which, 18 hours of opera later, will destroy him, the rest of the gods and all their offspring and start the whole cycle again. (Thus: “ring.”) The production – design and direction both – is the work of Achim Freyer, a German visual genius whose previous work here includes the spectacular Damnation of Faust. Not for Freyer this baloney of a transplanted Ring into the Wild West, or a Freudian rewrite. An abstractionist in Germany’s opera houses and art galleries, a much-honored painter adept at expressing much with minimums of light and line, Freyer has created a Ring that is deeply, intensely – and, for the most part, gorgeously – about itself. Following Wagner’s practice at his own theater in Bayreuth, Freyer covers the orchestra pit, setting the Rhine Maidens afloat in the almost total darkness of the Chandler Pavilion. Beams of light then rake the stage; they form a counterpoint as the evil Alberich perpetrates his grand theft, and they lead the eye upward to the gods’ world, from which Wotan, in need of closing the escrow on Valhalla, sets out with Loge to secure some new gold for the deal. Their visit to Alberich’s den of iniquity occasions one of the few iniquities in the production itself: rather than the charming ding-a-ding-ding of Alberich’s vassals pounding on their anvils, we get a less agreeable amplified thud. On a superior sound level, the vocal forces grapple bravely with Wagner’s not-always-ingratiating lines: Michelle DeYoung and Vitalij Kowaljow as the squabbling Wotans, Elie Dehn as the sweet-voiced, put-upon beauty-goddess Freia, Graham Clark as the blacksmith Mime – done up on an oversized face mask in an uncanny resemblance to newspaper tycoon Sam Zell – and, an irresistible scene-stealer, Arnold Bezuyen as the master-conniver fire-demigod Loge. The Wagnerian world, in Freyer’s design, is a stage-filling disc that flickers and oozes and bedazzles. In the moment of Donner’s thunderstorm, the entire great stage shatters and reforms as a billowing blood-red fabric inundation, out of which the cries of the cheated Rhine Maidens mingle with the heroic forecasts from James Conlon’s eloquent, surging orchestra. All the while, suspended overhead (OK, he’s in a toy airplane, so?), the god Froh traces the rainbow bridge that the gods will cross to the newly paid-for Valhalla. You gotta be there. ✶ Das Rheingold at the Los Angeles Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles; laopera.com. Sun., 2 p.m. $38-$250. Also Thur., Mar. 5, 7:30 p.m. Through March 15. Die Walküre begins Sat., April 4.


ART

ed krieger

taciturn tartuffe

Like, Totally Tartuffe A mutant Molière at Pasadena’s Boston Court By Don Shirley Purists will howl with outrage when they take a gander at Josh Chambers’ staging of Molière’s great 1664 comedy Tartuffe. Anyone who first experiences the play through this version at the Boston Court might not even realize that it’s supposed to be a comedy. Chambers sets a generally somber tone, reinforced by his own vaguely eerie incidental music. But his changes go far beyond tone. In the original, the bourgeois householder Orgon is duped by the title character, a sanctimonious houseguest who secretly aspires to seduce Orgon’s wife and eventually to take over his

property. Here, Tim Cummings plays Orgon and Antonio Anagaran plays Tartuffe (or rather, according to the program, “The Imposter”). But the two men dress identically, and Cummings speaks Tartuffe’s lines as well as Orgon’s, throwing his voice in order to speak for both characters, while Tartuffe remains mum. Conceptual reasons aside, it would be difficult for Anagaran to say much – his entire face is obscured by a tight mask that covers his head. He also wears gloves, and only his hands are initially seen, as he beckons Orgon from the sidelines. He

looks like an unusually dapper (yet still ski-masked) bank robber. Are Orgon and Tartuffe supposed to be two sides of the same man? Perhaps, but then why do the other characters interact with both men as they do in the original? Other than the fact most of them naturally resent Tartuffe’s hypocrisies and Orgon’s determination to marry his daughter off to this intruder, they don’t seem to notice that anything else is amiss about this masked man and his Jekyll-and-Hyde-like relationship to Orgon. Is it all Orgon’s dream? My guess is that Chambers is

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 23 LACITYBEAT

suggesting that the other characters perceive the usual Tartuffe, but that we see him as Orgon sees him – as a manifestation of his own worst impulses. Chambers is trying to woo us away from our simple conclusions that Tartuffe is a scoundrel, that Orgon is a fool and that most of the other characters are goodhearted victims of the two men’s alliance. Chambers makes the other characters much more troubled than did the playwright. Orgon’s son (Blake Silver) is fooling around with his stepmother (Teressa Byrne). Her brother Clèante (Matt Foyer) is getting it on with the allknowing maid ( Jaime Andrews) – that is, when Clèante, the play’s most articulate spokesman for moderation, isn’t in some uncharacteristic and unexplained stupor. Orgon’s daughter (Megan Heyn) is an addict who occasionally bursts into song, often in Spanish. Only her suitor (Adam Harrington) and her grandmother ( Judith Scarpone) hew closely to the playwright’s original concepts. Or fairly closely, that is – the production is supposedly set in the present-day San Fernando Valley. But the only way most theatergoers will realize this is to read it in the program. No references to Valley place names or nearby porn shoots are in Donald M. Frame’s 1967 translation. The only hint of the locale is when the words “like, totally” appear among the occasional comments on a big screen over the action, but then those words are hardly restricted to the Valley. Other aspects of the production are equally elusive. What’s with all the minutely choreographed movements of arms, hands, napkins and underpants? What are we supposed to think is happening in the famous unmasking scene, when Orgon and Tartuffe retreat to opposite sides of the stage instead of being right on top of each other? Near the end, Orgon also begins voicing the words of a minor character who represents Tartuffe’s interests – is this Tartuffe himself, now in drag as well as masked? If Chambers’ point is the same as Walt Kelly’s – “We have met the enemy, and he is us” – it dulls the edge of Molière’s satire. Orgon becomes pathological, not the naive victim of a charlatan. The reallife Tartuffes – the Bernard Madoffs, the Ted Haggards – would be overjoyed if we blamed ourselves instead of them for their transgressions. The Chambers vision is so clouded, and so unfunny, that this shouldn’t be anyone’s first experience of Tartuffe. But if you’re tired of the usual Tartuffe routines, this version will certainly grab your attention, even if you’re puzzling over it or swearing at it all the way home.✶ Tartuffe, Boston Court, 70 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena, (626) 683-6883. bostoncourt. org. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. $5-$32. Ends March 22.


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eat

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el katracho’s baleada

Tropically Hot Sweet heat at Honduran El Katracho By Miles Clements El Katracho’s paper placemats try to trace a convoluted tale of Central American civil wars and miscellaneous military advancements, all in an effort to clarify the Honduran restaurant’s name – which, those placemats eventually explain, derives from a jungle general whose name became a word (catracho) used to describe all things Honduran. But even with that helpful history lesson, the restaurant remains as undefined as ever. A lot of El Katracho’s identity is lost to location – the restaurant sits on an unremarkable strip of Burbank Boulevard that serves as a blurry border between Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys. As a result, those with freeway fatigue hardly ever haul themselves over the hill to try it. That unwillingness is

unfortunate – with a couple years of experience behind them, El Katracho is now home to some of L.A.’s best Honduran cooking. The restaurant is divided into two dining rooms, both of which draw on the same postcard décor: landscape paintings so lush they verge on neon, wooden masks whittled down to animallike faces, and a collection of flat-screen TVs permanently tuned to talk shows and mile-a-minute telenovelas. Similar as they are, the smaller of the two rooms is more interesting – its walls are striped with mirrors reflecting into infinity. El Katracho starts early with about a half-dozen Honduran breakfasts. Most simply scramble up eggs with sides of beans and cheese, but there are also tastier

plates built around fried sweet plantains and the like. However, El Katracho’s morning meals aren’t the best representatives of Honduran cuisine, which touches on tropical tastes far more often than neighbors like El Salvador and Nicaragua. Baleadas – thick, handmade flour tortillas folded over spoonfuls of mashed beans and cheese – are the staple starter here. To the American palate, the closest edible reference to a baleada might be a bean and cheese burrito. But El Katracho’s baleadas easily outclass that cheesy competition thanks to the restaurant’s wonderful tortillas – fat, fluffy discs pockmarked by charred black craters. The definitive dish at El Katracho (as with any Honduran restaurant) is sopa de caracol, a conch soup that’s the pinnacle of Honduran tropicalia: an intimidating bowl of plantains, yucca, chayote, carrots and conch meat. What separates the soup from other Latin American options is the broth, a golden stock cut with coconut milk for a sweet heat like Thai curry. The conch itself can often turn tough, but not here – El Katracho’s sopa de caracol (which can also be ordered with shrimp) is a supreme example in every spoonful. Those hoping to keep their appetites on land will also be plenty happy here. The carne asada and pollo guisado aren’t unfamiliar dishes, but at El Katracho they’re exemplary ones – both the steak and the chicken are cooked so tenderly that they eliminate any need for knives. Chasing every meal at El Katracho should be a sip from one of the restaurant’s buckets of beer – both domestic and imported six-packs are available on ice. Non-alcoholics, meanwhile, should order either a cool cup of passion fruit juice or a banana soda – a cadmium-colored drink that complements El Katracho’s almost-equatorial flavors. As foreign a place as the Valley can be for those who don’t often stray from La Brea, diners devoted to the dishes of Central America know that El Katracho is a second home. Nearly every aspect of the tropics is well represented here – all you have to do is pull yourself over the hump.✶ El Katracho, 14838 Burbank Blvd., Sherman Oaks. (818) 780-7044. Open Mon.-Thur. 9 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat. 9 a.m.-10 p.m., Sun. 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Closed Tue. Street and lot parking. Food for two: $10-$25.

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 25 LACITYBEAT

BITES Pie Mind Echo Park’s own little Sunset Strip got another boost with the opening of Two Boots, a New York City pizza import that combines tastes from shoe-shaped Louisiana and Italy. The Sunset Boulevard restaurant is the mini-chain’s first outside of New York and Connecticut, an establishment encouraged primarily by the mutual admiration between Two Boots and the folks at the Echo. The pies are focused on fusion (buffalo wings, andouille sausage, jalapeño pesto and sopressata are all topping options), though there are simpler salads, calzones and po’ boys, too. Echo Parkers also get a latenight bonus in Two Boots: not only is the restaurant open late (until 2 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays), but it also offers free delivery. Visit Two Boots at 1818 W. Sunset Blvd. and at twoboots.com for a menu and more.

See, Food Santa Monica got a double dose of good food news recently, a milestone marked by the 70th anniversary of Santa Monica Seafood. Coinciding with the festivities is the market’s move from its longtime home on Colorado Avenue to a new retail and café space at Wilshire and Tenth that also boasts a new Italian-inspired menu, crudo included. Sharing coveted parking spots with Santa Monica Seafood is the Huckleberry Café, Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan’s new Rustic Canyon spinoff. The café presents plenty of pastries (eclairs, tarts, cakes, crostatas), but also offers soups, sandwiches, fresh-baked breads and even full-scale catering. Visit santamonicaseafood.com and huckleberrycafe.com.✶ –M.C. Tips accepted … e-mail miles@eatfoodwith.me or visit eatfoodwith.me.


EIGHT DAYs IN L.A.

Edited by Tom Child

Thursday: Animal Collective, laid back

L.A. City Beat hand picks calendar selections from among the myriad events that happen weekly in Los Angeles. In order to be considered, please submit all information at least two weeks in advance to calendar@lacitybeat.com or write Calendar / L.A. City Beat / 5209 Wilshire Blvd. / Los Angeles, CA / 90036. No faxes or phone calls, please.

CLUBS

Compiled by Ron Garmon

runneth not to the contrary. The Echo, 8122 Sunset Blvd., (213) 413-8200; attheecho. com. Sat., 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Free. 21+. Hot Buttered Soul calls itself the “Westside’s hottest Friday night party” and some public spirited citizen ought to get back to me on this. Dakota Music Lounge, 1026 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica. dakotalounge. com. Fri., 9:30 p.m.- 2:30 a.m. Free before 11 p.m., $5 after.

Balance presents the finest in deep house for Boulevardiers, tonight with DJ Jask. King King, 6555 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood. (323) 960-5765; kingkinghollywood.com. Sat., 10 p.m.-4 a.m. $10 before 11 p.m./$20 after.

Hussy Saturdays with DJ Myles Hendrick and the beautiful people. The Beauty Bar, 1638 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 464-7676; beautybar.com/al. Sat., 10 p.m.-2 a.m. Free.

Central Fridays tonight sets a brandnew early-weekend standard in Hollywood swingin’. Guest-list only, lotsa schwag, hip-hop, rock & electro sounds outta DJ Cheapshot. Central Hollywood, 1710 Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood. Fri., 10 p.m. $10 before midnight, guest list only, e-mail amanda@greyelephantevents.com.

Kandy Masquerade promises some kind of ultimate Belshazzar’s Feast experience in hedonism and high-end decay for the everdeclining number of high-rollas among us. (800) 956-3809. kandymasquerade.com. Sat., see website for time. Only 600 tickets available; all gentlemen must wear masks.

Dirty South. Tonight, Giant presents Ozzie remix king Dirty South, live and spinning for the assembled hordes at the Vanguard. Yes, Clubland simply overflows with midgetsuperstar DJs these days, but the Melbourne wonder-boy’s remix of Evermore’s “Too Late” broke out of the Melbourne underground to take over the dance-dance world. You may expect the customary mob-scene, gate wait and pat-down from serious-looking gentlemen with meticulously shaved heads. The Vanguard, 6021 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 463-3331; vanguardla.com. Sat., 10 p.m.-4 a.m. $25 presale. Funky Sole is DJs Miles and Clifton working this long-running confunkshun, a weekend mainstay since the memory of Clubland

Naughty but Nasty Pajama Party. Club 740, 740 S. Broadway, downtown Los Angeles, (213) 627 6277; 740la.com. Sat., 10 p.m.-5 a.m. “or later.” Gentlemen in pajamas, free until 10:30 p.m; ladies in lingerie, free before 11 p.m. The Queen Mother is a “postpunk, nowave gothic rock revolution” with The Secret Society of the Sonic Six. The Medusa Lounge, 3211 Beverly Blvd., Silver Lake, (213) 382-5723; medusaloungela.com. Sun., 9 p.m.-2 a.m. $5.

MUSIC

Compiled by Sarah Tressler

Animal Collective. The Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, (310)

276-6168; troubadour.com. Fri., 8 p.m. $20. Mike Watt. Spaceland, 1717 Silverlake Blvd., Silver Lake, (323) 661-4380; clubspaceland.com. Sat., 8 p.m. $10 in advance; $12 at the door. Ra Ra Riot. El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., (323) 936-6400; theelrey.com. Sat., 8 p.m. $14 in advance; $16 at the door. Busta Rhymes. Club Nokia, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 7427340; clubnokia.com. Sun., 8 p.m. $31.50. Raphael Saadiq. House of Blues, 8430 W. Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 8485100; hob.com. Mon., 8 p.m. $22.50-$25. Fujiya and Miyagi. Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd., Echo Park, (213) 413-8200; attheecho.com. Tue., 7:30 p.m. $14 in advance; $16 at the door. 18+. Jodeci. Club Nokia, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 742-7340; clubnokia.com. Wed., 7 p.m. $31.50-$56.50. Jimmy Eat World. Club Nokia, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 742-7340; clubnokia.com. Thur., March 5, 8 p.m. $40. The Spazmatics and John Corbett. Canyon Club, 28912 Roadside Dr., Agoura Hills, (818) 879-5016; canyonclub.net. Thur., March 5, 10:30 p.m. $15. 21+.

THEATER

Compiled by Don Shirley The Bird and Mr. Banks. A seemingly dronelike comptroller (Sam Anderson) rescues a co-worker (Jenny Kern) from their lecherous boss (Chet Grissom). The comedy and unexpected horror-genre elements in Keith

LACITYBEAT 26 FEBRUARY 26-March 4, 2009

Huff’s play are dulled by a surfeit of avian imagery and other cloying stabs at excess sentiment. Mark St. Amant directs. Road Theatre, 5108 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (866) 811-4111; roadtheatre.org. Closes Sat., March 21. Candida. Shaw’s uncharacteristically Valentine’s Day-appropriate comedy, about a strong woman (Willow Geer) who’s asked to choose between her popular preacher husband (Mark Deakins) and the gangly and lovesick young poet Marchbanks (Johnathan McClain), is in the skilled hands of director Kathleen F. Conlin and a sterling cast. At last the lustrous Geer, who developed her talents at her family’s Theatricum Botanicum, is entering the wider world of L.A. theater. Colony Theatre, 555 N. 3rd St., Burbank, (818) 558-7000x15; colonytheatre.org. Phone or see website for times. $32-$42. Closes Sun., March 8. Divorce! The Musical. Erin Kamler’s lively and witty musical focuses most of its arrows on attorneys and other professionals who capitalize on troubled couples. Her splittingup protagonists, a Brentwood radiologist (Rick Segall) and a would-be actress (Lowe Taylor) are shallow and materialistic. Still, a little more background on their initial attraction might help us care about their fate as they’re buffeted by their attorneys (Gabrielle Wagner, Leslie Stevens) and their mediator (Gregory Franklin). It’s almost an evening of musical sketches instead of a full-fledged narrative, but director Rick Sparks gets maximum mileage from it. Hudson Mainstage Theatre, 6539 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 960-1056; divorcemusical.com. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m. $25-$34.99. Closes Sun., March 29.


CALENDAR Grand Motel. In Michael Sargent’s droll new comedy, the Tennessee Williamslike playwright Cornelius Coffin (Dennis Christopher) retreats to a clothing-optional gay motel in Palm Springs during the premiere of his latest Broadway fiasco. As in the Grand Hotel template, other guests and less welcome intruders pass through, under the fretful eye of the proprietor couple (Craig Johnson, Erik Hanson). Coffin and everyone else are drawn to the naked model (Andy Hopper, almost a Brad Pitt ringer) who’s apparently drifting into oblivion, but Coffin’s female friend (Shannon Holt) has other plans for the playwright before he enters his own coffin. Sargent’s playful but rueful script and his excellent cast are treated to a deluxe simulation of the tacky milieu by designer Chris Covics. Unknown Theater, 1110 Seward St., Hollywood, (323) 466-7781; unknowntheater.com. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 6 p.m. $18-$24. Closes Sat., March 28. Hamlet, or the Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Denmark. Can a company of nonTroubies master the distinctive Troubadour Theater blend of classic texts, clown comedy and music inspired by well-known pop stars? A CalRep troupe supervised by Troubie veteran Mike Sulprizio revives the Troubies’ 2005 text with mixed results. It’s possible to imagine some of the individual actors as Troubies, but the ensemble doesn’t yet click in a way that achieves Troubie magic. The venue is an energy-dissipating black box with the audience on three sides. The last part of the play is radically condensed (for example, no Yorick scene), no one is on stilts, the laugh meter is missing, the topical jokes feel dated, and Troubie mastermind Matt Walker isn’t in the room as either the star or as the main director (he’s on the road with Happy Days – groan). Armory, 854 E. 7th St., Long Beach. (562) 985-5526; calrep.org. Phone or check website for schedule. $17-$20. Closes Sat., March 14. The Increased Difficulty of Concentration. This seldom seen absurdist comedy by Vaclav Havel, the great Czech playwright/expresident, is oh-so-1968. A social scientist (Scott Rognlien) balances a nagging wife, sexy mistress and tempting secretary with the intrusions of another scientist (Amy Stiller), who’s trying to use a temperamental computer to analyze personalities. Stale sexual politics aside, the second act includes some funny, dizzying images of modern theories gone mad. Stephen Simek translated and Alex Lippard directed for The Next Arena. Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 960-7788; plays411.com/increaseddifficulty. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m. Closes Sat., March 28.

Ixnay. In Paul Kikuchi’s comedy for East West Players, an accident victim (Aaron Takahashi) enters an afterlife run by a fellow Japanese American (Gedde Watanabe) but balks at being reincarnated within the same culture, holding up the line for his fellow Asian or wannabe Asians who await their own next assignments. Despite individually strong performances, the conceit feels wobbly, especially as the author tries to balance arguments in favor of mixed marriages and pride in cultural heritage. Most of the characters sink into stereotype in Jeff Liu’s staging. Hwang Theater, 120 Judge John Aiso St., Little Tokyo, (213) 625-7000; eastwestplayers.org. Wed.-Sat, 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. $20-$35. Closes Sun., March 15. The Jazz Age. In yet another speculative dramatization of the lives of Scott (Luke Macfarlane) and Zelda (Heather Prete) Fitzgerald, plus Ernest Hemingway (Jeremy Gabriel), Allan Knee concentrates on suggestions of homoeroticism between the two men and an attempt by Zelda to seduce Hemingway. Michael Matthews’ staging features fine performances and Ian Whitcomb’s original music performed live by the composer and two other musicians. But it can’t shake that been-there, prospectiveminiseries feeling. Blank Theatre, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 6619827; theblank.com. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. Closes Sun., March 22.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Merriweather Post Pavilion was supposedly Animal Collective’s breakout album, but they broke local hearts in January with a set of last-minute cancellations that left particularly rabid fans clutching receipts and sending rage waves into the Internet. Tonight’s show is the apology and the first time post-Merriweather the band will appear in Los Angeles. With not even 60 days gone by, it feels like Animal Collective is less concerned with breaking out than shoring up with a collection of songs barely balanced between trance-y transcendence and indulgent repetition – perhaps we’ll forgive them this time? Animal Collective, with Ariel Pink and Lucky Dragons, Music Box @ Henry Fonda Theater, 6122 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 464-0808; www. henryfondatheater.com. Thurs., Feb. 26, 8 p.m. See website for tickets. (Patrick Newsom) teleplay version of the Cervantes/Don Quixote story into this revival of the more famous musical version (written with Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion). So Michetti’s staging for Reprise has a few unfamiliar lines, plus an excellent cast including Brent Spiner, Julia Migenes (Valerie Perri at matinees), Lee Wilkof and George Ball. Freud Playhouse, UCLA, Westwood, (310) 825-2101; reprise. org. Tue.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 7 p.m. Closes Sun., March 1. Minsky’s. This amusingly retro Bob Martin/Charles Strouse/Susan Birkenhead

musical examines the Lower East Side burlesque house in the summer of 1930, when hard times meant that even the show’s micro-costumes might have to be trimmed. The romance between Minsky (Christopher Fitzgerald) and the virginal daughter (Katharine Leonard) of a repressive councilman (George Wendt) is wan, but the gags and splashy musical numbers usually come to life under Casey Nicholaw’s direction. The second bananas include baggypants clown Gerry Vichi, monosyllabic stage manager Paul Vogt and two fish out of water played by John Cariani and SNL alum Rachel

Light Up the Sky. Moss Hart’s behind-thescenes glance at a ’40s Broadway-bound tryout launches several comic sparklers in Bjørn Johnson’s staging. Colin Campbell’s pretentious director is the swishiest ever, and Benjamin Burdick and Andrea Syglowski go for the brassy ring as a producer and his wife. Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 882-6912; openfist. org. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. $20. Closes Sat., March 7. Mammals. A London housewife is going bonkers tending her two young daughters (played by adults) while her husband travels for his job. When he returns home, he announces he’s in love with a colleague – the perfect moment for a couple of childless friends to stop by. John Pleshette’s U.S. premiere of Amanda Bullmore’s play is a funny but dead-eyed glance at the bending and breaking of two couples. Half of the roles are double cast, but the group I saw was exactly right, including the two women playing rambunctious kids. Lost Studio, 130 S. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, (800) 595-4849; tix. com. Closes Sun., March 8. Man of La Mancha. The late Dale Wasserman allowed director Michael Michetti to interpolate material from his original

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 27 LACITYBEAT

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CALENDAR

Institute Under Hand. Has your mind ever played upon the aesthetics of bullshit? Well, if not, then let the forward-thinkers at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry (ICE) take care of this salient detail for you with the Institute: Under Hand exhibition opening this Thursday. Seeking to upset “the traditional activity of the artist who makes unique objects or manipulates and retouches found objects under the ‘authority of the hand,” this exhibit highlights the ways storytelling, a/v recordings and disintegrating ephemera can document how the hand of the artist may construct untruth as readily as truth. If art is supposed to a true representation of the world, what are we to make attempts at deception? Opening reception, Fri., Feb. 27, 5-8 p.m. The Institute of Cultural Inquiry, 1512 S. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 2737181. culturalinquiry.org. Regular hours Thur., noon-4 p.m.; every odd Sat., noon-5 p.m. Free. (Ron Garmon) Dratch; their anti-showbiz number is a droll riposte to the more conventional hoorayfor-showbiz anthem sung by belter Beth Leavel. CTG at Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A., (213) 6282772; centertheatregroup.org. Phone or see website for times. $20-$100. Closes Sun., March 1. Noises Off. Art Manke’s staging of Michael Frayn’s madcap farce reaches its height in the deliriously absurd depths of the third act, when the play-within-the-play is tearing apart at the seams. The second act, with its view from backstage, isn’t quite as hilarious as in some versions, but then it’s appropriate that a long three-act comedy will reach its height of hilarity closer to the end. The cast includes the impressively knockabout Bill Brochtrup, Kandis Chappell, Nancy Bell and Timothy Landfield, among others. South

Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 708-5555; scr.org. Tue.-Wed., 7:30 p.m.; Thur.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2:30 & 8 p.m.; Sun., 2:30 & 7:30 p.m. Closes Sun., March 8. Pippin. Roger O. Hirson’s meta-theatrical parable, about a prince whose ambitions outpace his abilities, receives an exuberant makeover from Center Theatre Group and Deaf West Theatre, which imports its usual synthesis of signing and singing. ASL’s use of hands blends well with the efforts of Leading Player (Ty Taylor) and cohorts to beckon Pippin (Michael Arden singing, Tyrone Giordano signing) into going for the gold. Tobin Ost’s scenery is, literally, magical. Composer Stephen Schwartz adds the new “Back Home Again” but deletes the extraordinary “Extraordinary.” With Jeff Calhoun directing and no intermission,

the show sags briefly but recoups for its compelling finale. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A., (213) 628-2772; centertheatregroup.org. See website for showtimes. $20-$80. Closes Sun., March 15. Pope Joan. The legend of the medieval English woman who briefly became a crossdressing pope, while sleeping with the French king, lacks Pippin-like resonances in Christopher Moore’s wooden musical, directed by Bo Crowell. Whitney Avalon, in the title role, is a gamine who might pass as Peter Pan but not as a pope. A large cast performs the uninspired score. Michael Butler of Hair fame is the producer. Stella Adler Theatre, 6773 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 960-4412; popejoantix.com. Closes Sun., March 22. A Skull in Connemara. In Martin McDonagh’s early play, Mick (Morlan Higgins) clears old bones – including those of his departed wife – out of a rural Irish cemetery to make room for the new. Stuart Rogers’ staging is well acted but feels muted and looks literally too dark in act one. Theatre Tribe, 5267 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood, (800) 838-3006; theatretribe.com. $20. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m. Closes Sat., Feb. 28. Taking Steps. Alan Ayckbourn’s farce mixes up two conventional middle-class Brits (Andy Hoff, Marty Ryan) and their more freespirited mates (Melanie Lora, Kate Rylie), with a couple of amusing participants in a real estate deal (Jonathan Runyon, Bernard White). Directors Ron Sossi and Allan Miller get most of the laughs. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West L.A., (310) 477-2055; odysseytheatre.com. Phone or see website for times. $20-$30. Closes Sun., March 22. Time Stands Still. A news photographer (Anna Gunn) and freelance reporter (David Harbour), together for years, return to New York for recuperation and consider whether to settle into domesticity. They’re influenced in part by the examples of their photo editor friend (Robin Thomas) and his new, younger girlfriend (Alicia Silverstone), whose questions bring the issue of journalists as uninvolved spectators into sharp relief. Donald Margulies’ play is involving, but some of the second-act plot manipulations feel transparent and weakly motivated. Daniel Sullivan directs. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. (310) 208-5454; geffenplayhouse.com. Tue.–Thur., 7:30 p.m.; Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat. 4 & 8:30 p.m.; Sun. 2 & 7 p.m. $15-$79. Closes Sun., March 15. The Trial of the Catonsville Nine. Daniel Berrigan’s 1971 docudrama, about his and eight fellow Catholic activists’ trial for burning draft records during the Vietnam War, is famous in L.A. for Gordon Davidson’s premiere at the Taper, which was rumored to have been monitored by the FBI. Yet Jon Kellam’s revival is rather staid, especially in contrast to that other recently revived Vietnam protest docudrama The Chicago Conspiracy Trial. Andrew E. Wheeler achieves the requisite passion as the author. In a bit of cross-gender casting, Adele Robbins plays the judge, who was entirely too polite and reasonable to generate much dramatic fire. Actors’ Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, (310) 838-4264; theactorsgang.com. Thur.Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. Closes Sat., March 21. Violet Sharp. William Cameron’s script depicts the agonies that beset a maid (Meredith Bishop) for Charles Lindbergh’s in-laws, in the aftermath of the notorious Lindbergh baby kidnapping quality. An aggressive detective (David Hunt Stafford) considers her a prime suspect. The scenes

LACITYBEAT 28 FEBRUARY 26-March 4, 2009

feel like simulated re-enactments, with a docudramatic quality. As in many such stories, it isn’t easy to know how much is verified docu and how much is fabricated drama. Still, it’s an engaging demonstration of how seemingly innocent and anonymous bystanders can be drawn into the swath of a widely publicized news story. Theatre 40, 241 Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills High School campus, (310) 364-0535; theatre40.org. Check website for schedule. $10-$22. Closes Thur., March 12. A Year With Frog and Toad. It’s hard to believe that this Robert and Willie Reale musical, based on the Arnold Lobel books, made it to Broadway, since the target audience is between the ages of 4 and 7. Very young kids will probably eat it up, but the enjoyment by parents and grandparents will be strictly vicarious. South Coast Repertory, 655 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa. (714) 7085555; scr.org. Fri., 7 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m., 2 & 4:30 p.m.; Sun., 2 & 4:30 p.m. $20-$28. Closes Sun., March 1.

DANCE/COMEDY/ PERFORMANCE/ SIGNINGS Compiled by Tom Child

Batsheva Dance Company: Max, Royce Hall, UCLA, Westwood, (310) 825-4401; www. uclalive.org. Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m. $15$54. Calavera Comedy, Fake Gallery, 4319 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 644-4946; fakedotcom.com. Fri., 9 p.m. $10. Cookin’ With Gas, Groundlings Theater, 7307 Melrose Ave., Melrose District, (323) 934-4747; groundlings.com. Thur., Feb. 26, 8 p.m. $16.50. 18+. Doug Benson Loves Interrupting Movies, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, 5919 Franklin Ave., Franklin Village, (323) 9088702; losangeles.ucbtheatre.com. Thur. Feb. 26, 9:30 p.m. $5. Los Farruco, Royce Hall, UCLA, Westwood, (310) 825-4401; www.uclalive.org. Tue.-Wed., 8 p.m. $17-$60. Jon Lovitz, The Laugh Factory, 8001 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 656-1336; laughfactory.com. Every Wed., 8 p.m. $20+ 2 drink minimum. 21+. Rights to Expression vs. Regimes of Power in the Public Sphere, LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 857-6000; www. lacma.org. Thur., Feb. 26, 2:30 p.m. Free. Saturday Midnight Madness, The Laugh Factory, 8001 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (323) 656-1336; laughfactory.com. Sat., midnight. $20 + 2 drink minimum. 21+. Something to Crow About, Bob Baker Marionette Theater, 1345 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, (213) 250-9995; bobbakermarionettes.com. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.; Sat., 2:30 p.m; Sun., 2:30 p.m. $15; free for children under 2. Reservations are required. UCB Gets You Laid!, Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, 5919 Franklin Ave., Franklin Village, (323) 908-8702; losangeles.ucbtheatre.com. Fri., midnight. $5. 18+.

ART

Compiled by Ron Garmon

Bold Cabelleros and Noble Bandidas. Images of glamorous outlaws in Latino popular culture. The Museum of the American West at the Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, (323)


CALENDAR

FILM In 1964, Samuel Beckett (Phil Ward) arrives in New York to monitor the shooting of his experimental short screenplay Film by novice filmmaker Alan Schneider (Bill Robens), a stage director who helped introduce Beckett’s plays to America. At the taciturn Beckett’s suggestion, the great silent film comic Buster Keaton (Carl J. Johnson), now hard-boiled and almost 70, is the star. Playwright Patrick McGowan treats this stellar alignment with winningly whimsical surreality in Trevor Biship’s staging. The focus is split among Keaton’s memories of his own years as an experimental artist (Mandi Moss as the young Keaton), Beckett’s bumbling flirtation with a prop girl (Deana Barone), and Schneider’s exasperation over his inability to master film, in comparison to his rival Mike Nichols (Trevor H. Olsen). Schneider and Nichols become vaudeville partners in Schneider’s dream, and Nichols gets all the laughs. Theatre of NOTE, 1517 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 856-8611. theatreofnote.com. Thur.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun. 7 p.m. $18-$22. Closes Sat., March 21. (Don Shirley) 667-2000; autrynationalcenter.org. Tue.-Sun., 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. $3-$9; Children under 3, free. Through Sun., May 10. Drawing on a Printing Machine. Superstar artist David Hockney thinks Photoshop superior to any other kind of painting, but printing an image far too slow for commercial appeal, thus making the practice fine art by default. Opening reception Thur., 7-9 p.m. L.A. Louver, 45 N. Venice Blvd.,Venice, (310) 822-4955; www.lalouver.com. Through Sat., March 28. The Getty Commodus: Roman Portraits and Modern Copies. Focusing on the provenance of a single bust of the muchreviled Roman emperor. The Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Dr., Los Angeles, (310) 440-7300; getty.edu. Tue.-Fri., 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., 10 a.m.5:30 p.m. Free. Through Mon., June 1. Illiterature. A group show featuring the visual jump, jive ‘n’ wail of abstract art. Opening Feb. 21. Arena 1 Gallery, 3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 397-7449; santamonicaartstudios.com. Tue.-Sat., 1-6 p.m. Through Sat., March 21. Michael Pukac: Pukac Safari. Yet another showing by this rising young master of the absurd, but this time the theme is the members of the animal kingdom and the 1001 weird uses to which they can be put. Bailey Gallery, 564 S. Main St., Los Angeles, (213) 438-0900; pussyandpooch.com. Tue. & Thur., 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Wed. & Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun., noon-5 p.m. Free. Through Sun., March 29. New Mythologies. Six L.A.-based women artists build new archetypes. Pharmaka 101 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, (213) 689-7799; pharmaka-art.org. Wed.-Sat., 1-6 p.m. Free. Through Sat., Feb. 28. Other People: Portraits from the Grunwald and Hammer Collections. What Jean-Paul Sartre claimed as Hell is the subject of this far-ranging exhibit of portraiture from the 16th century to today. Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 443-7000. Tue.-Wed. & Fri.-Sat., 11a.m.-7p.m.; Thur., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m.-5 p.m. $7 adults; $5 seniors/UCLA alumni. Through Sun., March 15. Rock, Paper, Scissor. Showing off works done by artists with backgrounds in the music biz, among them Raymond Pettibon, Daniel Johnston and Thurston Moore. Opening reception Sat., Feb. 28, 7 p.m.10 p.m. Robert Berman Gallery, 2525 Michigan Ave., Bergamot Station; C-2, D-5 Galleries, Santa Monica, (310) 315-9506; robertbermangallery.com. Tue.-Sat., 11 a.m.-

6 p.m. Free. Through Sat., March 21. The Sharpie Show. Opening reception on Saturday for this self-explanatory, multi-artist exhibit, with live painting by Two Rabbits and beats by DJ Phyz Ed, from 6-9 p.m. Crewest, 110 Winston St., Los Angeles, (213) 6278272; crewest.com. Tue.-Thur., noon-7 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., noon-8 p.m.; Sun: noon-6 p.m. Through Sun., March 1. She: Original Works by Wallace Berman and Richard Prince. The female archetype is explored by two avant-art reconceptualists. Berman, a counterculture SF figure who died in 1976, is represented by previously unseen works and Prince specializes in projecting girly images onto a 1986 El Camino. Michael Kohn Gallery, 8071 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 658-8088; www.kohngallery.com. Tue.Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Through Sat., March 7. ’Til Death Do Us Tart. This new Glassell Park gallery hosts a group show to celebrate their inaugural. Butter Tart Gallery, 4124 Verdugo Rd., Los Angeles; buttertartgallery.blogspot. com. See website for times. Free. Through Sun., March 1. Twilight. The Eastside museum named for the preeminent movie monster is fitting host for this showing by Reno ceramics sculptor Rebekah Bogard, whose whimsical fantasy insects are like dainty pornography for fans of David Cronenberg movies. The Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park, (323) 265-8841 ; myspace.com/ vincentpriceartmuseum. Mon.-Wed., noon-4 p.m.; Thur., noon-7 p.m.; Sat., noon- 4 p.m. Through Thur., April 23. Vintage Futurism: Recent Works on Wood & Paper. Presenting former graffiti artist Kofie’One’s bold, fantastically detailed abstract cityscapes. Opening reception Fri., 7 p.m.-10 p.m. 01 Gallery, 530 S. Hewitt St., Barker Block, Suite 141, Los Angeles, (213) 689-0101; 01gallery.com. Tue.-Sat., noon-6 p.m. Free. Through Sun., March 29.

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FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 29 LACITYBEAT

UPCOMING IN-STORES at AMOEBA! All shows are FREE and ALL AGES! For full calendar of events visit: AMOEBA.COM

MOVIE MONDAYS @ SPACE15TWENTY

Mondays in March, join us for weekly, music-related films, curated by Amoeba Music! FREE movies! FREE Izze Soda! FREE popcorn from Snack Bar in the courtyard of Space15Twenty, just up the street from Amoeba! See Amoeba.com for the full schedule of films! 1520 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028

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Director Anton Corbijn’s (Control, music video director) new film - images set to music from U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon. In partnership with the U2 pop-up gallery and store we’ll be selling the new album at midnight. The first 500 people to arrive and purchase the album at the event will receive a limited edition U2 lithograph. The No Line ÂœÂ˜ĂŠĂŒÂ…iĂŠ ÂœĂ€ÂˆâÂœÂ˜ĂŠ Ă?ÂŤiĂ€Âˆi˜ViĂŠĂœÂˆÂ?Â?ĂŠLiĂŠÂœÂŤiÂ˜ĂŠÂ™ÂŤÂ“ĂŠÂ‡ÂŁ>Â“ĂŠÂœÂ˜ĂŠ March 2nd and 11am - 10pm on March 3rd.

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NEKO CASE

Celebrating her new release Middle Cyclone — out March 3rd on ANTI. Get a free poster with purchase of the CD (day of in-store only, while they last)!

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AMOEBA AUCTION!

Our host, Brently Heilbron, auctions everything from rare and collectable memorabilia to wacky, off-beat promo items & more! 03/07 AUCTION ITEMS INCLUDE: UĂŠĂŠ --ĂŠÂ˜iÂœÂ˜ĂŠÂ?>“ÊUĂŠ Ă€ÂœÂ˜ĂŠ >ˆ`iÂ˜ĂŠÂ?Ă•Â˜VÂ…ĂŠLÂœĂ?ĂŠĂœÂˆĂŒÂ…ĂŠĂŒÂ…iĂ€Â“ÂœĂƒ ĂŠUĂŠ Â“ÂŤĂ€ÂœĂ›ĂŠ/ˆVÂŽiĂŒĂƒĂŠUĂŠ ĂŒ°ĂŠ >Â?`ÞÊ-ÂŽÂˆĂŠ/ˆVÂŽiĂŒĂƒĂŠ All proceeds benefit local and global relief efforts! As always, Amoeba will match your individual donation up to $1,000!

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Eat the Tourists Edition Finding answers together - since 1986

BY RON GARMON You & Me Against the Machine: Since preparations for the municipal ego-drool that is the 81st Annual Academy Awards shut down a big chunk of Hollywood Boulevard last week, it’s small wonder the BLAZE party was as well attended as the couple of dozen Clubland exquisites on display at The Knitting Factory on Friday night. House music thuds the length of the Boulevard on almost any night, but the idea of fusing Japanese and American club culture was a good one that unfortunately died in the pre-Oscars pileup. I followed a pair of miniskirted legs into the venue’s courtyard and down the street, past the costumed imbeciles clustered around Grauman’s − who, according to reports this week, have started to ask for police protection from attackers while hassling tourists and blocking the sidewalk. The Snow Whites, Batmen and Chewbaccae getting stomped and mauled by vendors hawking sub-commercial-grade hip-hop CDs are just more casualties of the ratfight capitalism so everywhere apparent these days, but ceremony-prep enforced blocks of temporary peace. Taking the Red Line downtown, I found the alleyway outside The Smell caulked solid with the Seven Ages of Hipster and a SOLD OUT sign on the spray-painted door, tribute to the undimmed drawing-power of Thurston Moore. I fared better there the following Sunday, standing in the middle of a jammed front room as Exitmusic did a glittering set. The underground venue’s discovery by mainstream media has fetched the cell phone jades of Spaceland and The Roxy into the grungy red-brick

LACITYBEAT 30 FEBRUARY 26-March 4, 2009

venue, bringing their defensive swagger into this cozy and unguarded space. Still, it was another chummy night around the feedback fire, as the freakishly talented duo of Aleksa Palladino & Devon Church gently led us into dreamtime and some 70 of us stood foot-rooted and mind-bent before a great bleak gout of loveliness. Their hyper-melodic postpostpunk always makes me think of two sweet kids strolling hand-in-hand into Armageddon, and the pair rolled out no less a deafening plaintive whimsy for us. It felt ennobling, as reverb roared and La Palladino warbled, “We are sparks of light, but we hide it” to suddenly bashful, suddenly human us. Let One Woman Write My Epitaph: The Plump party staged last Saturday night at the usual ill-disclosed location in the Warehouse District was a similar lovefest, as Clubland itself looked to be bracing against an oncoming worst of all possible worlds. I hadn’t heard Cody Lee spin since my past Spundae, so the chunk-proggy-electro-house he flung to the dance-dance proletariat was as eagerly ingested as everything else this hedonistic early a.m. There was a shocking overpopulation of single ladies, so the few single males moved aristocratically in private pools of estrogen, temporary monsters of ease and privilege. I was in one such heady haze myself, only to be abruptly laugh-rocked from it when a sexy new acquaintance compared me to a nine-volt battery: “You know it will shock you,” she purred, eyes bright, “But you can’t stop licking it.” V


FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 31 LACITYBEAT


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FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4, 2009 39 LACITYBEAT


LACITYBEAT 2 FEBRUARY 19-25, 2009


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