Los Angeles
LemmyWednesday, 01 December 2010![]() As Ozzy Osbourne puts it, “He’s just Lemmy. You just take him or you fucking don’t, and he doesn’t give a flying shit whether you do or not.” It’s this irreducible Lemmyness of Lemmy which lies at the core of the gnarled heavy metaller’s mystique.... Read more... |
Odd Future, The Drop, Stoke NewingtonSaturday, 06 November 2010![]() Given the somewhat viral nature of Odd Future's rapidly flourishing notoriety, it's both appropriate and a little ironic that their debut UK performance should take place in the basement of a pub in a part of north London where the underground doesn... Read more... |
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, The GarageTuesday, 02 November 2010![]() Bounding on stage in a purple version of the man dress pioneered by Mick Jagger at The Stones’s 1969 Hyde Park concert, Ariel Pink looks like a mistranslated version of what a late-Sixties rock star should be. His long hair is dyed blonde. The roots... Read more... |
TakersThursday, 30 September 2010![]() Over there is the gang who give the movie its title (though it was originally going to be called Bone Deep), because they take stuff, mostly money. They’re a suave and dude-ish bunch, headed by Idris Elba exuding his usual intimidating air of... Read more... |
Herb Alpert, Tijuana Brass and Other Delights, BBC FourFriday, 17 September 2010![]() I used to have a childhood fascination with the music of Herb Alpert, because I liked the tunes and always felt there was a hint of melancholy behind Herb’s breezy, nonchalant exterior. Everybody else found Alpert laughably cheesy, but happily,... Read more... |
Dark Blue, Five USAWednesday, 15 September 2010![]() Jerry Bruckheimer’s production stable has already given us a lifetime’s supply of law-enforcement stories. The hydra-headed CSI franchise has become more ubiquitous than I Love Lucy in its heyday, while Cold Case and the FBI missing-persons yarns of... Read more... |
Californication, FiverThursday, 29 July 2010![]() This award-winning series, created by Tom Kapinos in 2007, is groundbreaking television even by Showtime’s daring standards. Californication is a dark - very dark - comedy drama about Hank Moody (David Duchovny), a bad-boy writer who has lost his... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Los Angeles: Dennis Hopper (RIP) On ShowSunday, 25 July 2010![]() While most will be familiar with him as an actor, and some will know him also as a photographer and painter, few will be aware of the full extent of the late Dennis Hopper’s artistic practice. Hopper, who died in May of this year, did everything... Read more... |
I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw The Sky, Theatre Royal Stratford EastThursday, 08 July 2010![]() John Adams thinks his and poet June Jordan's fantasia on love in a time of earthquake flopped at its 1995 Berkeley premiere for two main reasons. The characters - three blacks, two whites, a Hispanic and an Asian - were deemed too self-consciously... Read more... |
Southland, More4Thursday, 01 July 2010![]() The world isn’t exactly sending up distress flares urgently demanding more cop shows, but this new effort from ER’s producer John Wells proves that the genre can still be cranked into life if the writing is strong and the performances feel authentic... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Los Angeles: Twilight in Tent CitySunday, 27 June 2010![]() The Los Angeles Film Festival would seem to have everything going for it. There's the perfect Californian weather, the vast number of stars who live and work in the city, and this year there’s been a glamorous new venue in downtown Los Angeles. The... Read more... |
GreenbergWednesday, 09 June 2010![]() Anyone who saw Ben Stiller in Zoolander will know that he is a very fine actor. He made his over-the-top character both believable and lovable (well, up to a point on the latter, but you know what I mean) while playing the fashion model’s... Read more... |
