Q: When did the word "provocative" begin to mean "gut-wrenching offensive in your face obnoxious self-glorifying smut"?

A: Right around the time that American Apparel billboard went up above the Echo Park store on Sunset & Alvarado.


For months people are talking about how from the right angle it actually looks like a nearby telephone pole is violating the faceless lady. Yes, it's yet another in Dov Charney's campaign to promote naked hipsters as provocative selling tools. Some people in New York had enough. Someone defaced the same billboard at the Houston Street store to read "Gee, I wonder why women get raped?" Good thing Jezebel shot a picture before American Apparel replaced it with another less provocative ad.


Read American Apparel's retort from a couple months back here. I especially like how they eat up the outrage with a big spoon and call it compliments. That's like calling a Tecate and a cigarette dinner. They belittle the outpsoken complaints from New York by explaining that LA is bored with their ads due to this post from Curbed LA. Exploring the American Apparel Daily Update today I gather sarcasm is not really a part of their "thing".

This is your call Los Angeles. Get up on that billboard and have some fun.

Labels: local, newsworthy, shopping

In an homage to L.A. Fashion week I spent last night at the new store opening party for Mas Boutique. OK. I went for the free beer. I stayed for the Eastside hipsters meets Beverly Hills ladies-who-lunch shenanigans. Only in Silver Lake on a Thursday night would both tribes of fashionistas fight over overpriced skinny jeans while exchanging plastic surgeon tips.

Speaking of skinny jeans - here's homeboy Jeffrey Sebelia's new Cosa Nostra Spring/Summer 2008 collection. Other blogs have been dissing on the Project Runway winner/vegan but I have to admit the embrace of the spats trend was a bold choice and upped a lot of these otherwise bland housecoats to wearable style. I also like a new designer who opts to design both a men's and women's show. But I can't embrace all the choices. The line is supposedly based on the memoir turned new movie Into The Wild. I can't say I see it. The silvery colors supposedly represent the ill-fated hiker Chriss McCandless ascent into Alaska. I just don't see it. Did McCandless fancy striped sweaters and Toms slipper shoes?






Mas is a cute clothing addition to the 'hood. I appreciate the boutique's location a little off the regular Sunset Junction track, drawing the street traffic out to the Sunset Blvd. edges. I fancied me some knit babydoll blouses and dresses there, especially the $180 yellow tank (I think it was by Clu). Hope the salesladies have a salesrack in the works.


Mas Boutique
3511 1/2 Sunset Blvd.
Silver Lake, 90026
323.663.3112

Labels: fashion, local

Film: The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford.
Date: 10/5/07
Place: Burbank AMC 16




The entire title could not fit on my ticket stub so I went to see "AssAss of" on a pleasant double date night. I was warned the film is LONG and I was warned the film is SLOW but ended up at a 10:40pm screening. Needless to say I nodded off more than a couple times. But that is not the end of my review. This is one interesting film. The acting all around is superb, especially Casey Affleck (Ford). And Mr. Pitt proves again why he is our shiniest Hollywood star. He's deeply sunken in to the tragic anti-hero Jesse James and radiates a dark charisma in each pale smile. Sam Rockwell, aka the most underrated character actor, fits into the cast nicely. He verges on buffoony but redeems the role-reversal of the central characters at the end. It could not be played more poetically.

The Burbank mall multi-plex is a theater to embrace all digital projection (vs. 35mm film). I haven't found myself affected by this yet, until now. Like an old record put up next to a remastered CD, the picture was crisp but left me cold. Cinematographer's magazine this month detailed the film's DP Roger Deakins' (of Jarhead, A Beautiful Mind, The Big Lebowski) bleach-bypass method and assured me this was indeed shot on film before undergoing the digital intermediate process. When I compare Deakins' gorgeous compositions to the iconic shots of Westerns past I miss the grainy warmth from a Peckinpah or Ford epic. But this is not your average Western. In fact, the flick doesn't feel like a Western at all. The parts are there - guns, bandits, and horses - but the revenge of Robert Ford has little to do with the genre. I admit I missed the bravado. Maybe I'm too fresh from 3:10 To Yuma. That film will go down as one of my favorite westerns of the past few years while Jesse James... will most likely fade to obscurity once post-Oscar season washes the celebrity away. The film weaves a voice-over narration into the story with moody montages shot behind beveled glass. A narrative purist, I usually detest the voice-over but the glass effect mesmerizes and the narration unfolds like a novel on screen. The poetry is so strong you think you see words gliding up over the homestead landscapes. But to what greater purpose? The source material is so iconic there doesn't seem to need to be another re-telling of the coward Robert Ford and how he shot Jesse James down. In fact, the film depicts Ford's audience growing tired of his weary tale. It's a beautifully executed moody, weary tale but I can relate to Ford's audience. I was left sleepy and wrapped up in the story of a man's great depression. Not depressed myself, just cold.

Labels: film journal

I survived Oktoberfest in Torrance last weekend. Next weekend I'll be dining on Brats once again at Nunchux: The Wine Toast VII's Oktoberfest themed event. Santos, the fearless founder behind The Wine Toast, brings the goods to this monthly speakeasy. He pours the wine at Silver Lake Wine and puts on the sommelier hat at the acclaimed AOC Wine Bar. Rest assured, foodies will not outnumber Oktoberfest fans at this wine event. Alternatively, Nunchux brings the best of both parties. Like the tastings at Silver Lake Wine there's bound to be some very delectable wines and beer along with eclectic and boutique pours. In this case the selection is all German. Santos has also made some tasty munchie selections. (He's promised high quality sauerkraut). Food prices stay around $5. Beer and wine is sold by the glass $4-$12. A cover of $4 ($2 if you RSVP in advance). All in all it won't set you back too much. As this is a true speakeasy - Cash Only.

Oh and did I mention the band I Make This Sound will do a live show? Their dreamy rock vibe pairs with a vibrant red quite nicely but I hope some Oktoberfest enthusiast requests the chicken dance.


Sunday, Oct. 14 7:30pm
Nunchux: The Wine Toast VII
2000 N. Figueroa (San Fernando & Figueroa)
Downtown, 90065
RSVP: nunchux@mail.com

Labels: bars, events, food

Great Northern plays a super secret show tonight at Silver Lake Lounge. They're the "special guest" on The Fold's website.
Why: They're hosting some big A&R New Yorkers in our 'hood.
How: Thanks myspace.


Wednesday, Oct. 3 8:30pm
Silver Lake Lounge
2906 Sunset Blvd.
Silver Lake, 90026

Labels: bars, events, music, random

As of late I've been out of the scene and enrolled back in school. UCLA's Moving Image Archiving Master's Program - I tell everyone it's like a program to make librarians for the movies. The highlight of the program is UCLA's very own Film & Television Archive where they not only preserve and house the second largest Film & TV archive in the country but they do their own restoration work and host a plethora of screenings year round. I'll not only be doing the prerequisite grad school reading and writing but I'll also be watching a lot of great movies. Some rare and some restored favorites along with my usual diet of multiplex openings and special events. Back in my undergrad film school days I had a brilliant professor who encouraged all his students to keep a Film Journal. We basically made a list of all the movies we would see with a couple paragraphs on not only it's critical significance to whatever we were studying but wrote about the personal experience as well. A lot of times I wish I had my old notebooks at my fingertips. As any film student can attest, we watch so many films day in and day out one can easily lose track. So as I embark on archiving some of cinema's lost treasures I'll try not to lose my own notes.




Film: Take A Letter, Darling (1942)
Date: 9/29/07
Place: Billy Wilder Theater

Part of the Screwball Comedy screening series hosted by the UCLA Film & TV Archives. The farce is Rosalind Russel plays a powerful advertising executive and Fred McMurray is her secretary. She constantly flaunts her sex and her by-any-means-necessary approach to nabbing the big clients. McMurry is an ex-football star/out of work artist who's god-given chauvinist charm gets put the test with every new assignment. The set design is so gorgeously stylized. McMurray hovels in a bohemian paradise then puts on full tails for nights on the town with Russel and their clients in restaurants each more opulent than the next.

I've been hooked on AMC's "Mad Men" all summer and this film is a perfect politically incorrect companion from the period not afraid to laugh at itself as long as you laughed with style. I've never seen McMurray look more handsome and Russel as supremely confident in the role of a fabulously clever and gorgeous executive. Of course they fall in love. Their romance gets complicated when (of course) she choses business over pleasure but longs for him to melt her heart and then further complicated when a wealthy tobacco family comes into the picture to marry off these two singletons. It's a formulaic 1940s "will they or won't they" but the cynical delivery keeps all the dialog so fresh and funny. Even though the strict studio code won't ever flat out address issues of sex the implications are everywhere and the screwball side comes out when every supporting character gets to assume McMurray is a gigolo when really he just aims to make the best of his position. Because why on earth would a male secretary make so much money? And why on earth would a man stand the demoralization by a female boss if he wasn't making good money? I don't see the theme as so far off from any other office romance comedy Hollywood's released in the last 60 years. Social implications aside, I keep remembering the sets. All staged interiors with detail but without the ornate fuss one's used to seeing in golden age hollywood films. Russel's cabin retreat is especially fun, where she steals McMurray away for a weekend of uninterrupted work. It's a two story modern playground for the camera decorated with a masculine fireplace and even a stuffed bobcat. A nod to the cougar stereotype not missed but today's or yesterday's audiences.

Labels: film journal