Category: Los Angeles – Orange County

Things and Stuff

Now that the Olympics is over, some fun stuff, to distract from other things in life.

Slate shared the item from Associated Press – the White House dogs Bo and Sunny have schedules, and Bo thinks he has a job of monitoring the plants of the White House grounds. Sure, why not?

Awhile back, FC had shared with me, on Facebook, an adult Dora the Explorer parody; adult as in grown up, but still Dora (and probably “adult” in another sense). A ridiculously campy thing to share… trailer below.

Todd Van Luling wrote on Huffington Post about how he had been looking for Carmen San Diego  for 20 years (or trying to figure out who was the actress who played her in one of the tv incarnations of her). (h/t Slate‘s Facebook page post), and finally interviewed her. Personally, I was bummed to read from the article that the actress who played the Chief, Lynne Thigpen, had passed away. Thigpen was such a memorable character actress.

Slate posted this item of a short film, a la Pixar, about how Dust Bunnies are alive. Too cute.

Last but, least, the ridiculously talented Joseph Gordon Levitt, playing the drums on a subway platform in Los Angeles. He’s told that he reminded someone of Pee Wee Herman, who did something like that on the old Pee Wee’s Playhouse tv show. That was a guffaw generating moment. (h/t Time Out Los Angeles’s post, via something I saw from Time Out NY).

 

Oscars Sunday

(The following was written as I was more or less watching the Oscars; what a nutty, agonizingly long night).

Oh, Hollywood!

JK Simmons, for Best Supporting Actor! Nice, brief, touching speech, to remember your parents.

“Everything is Awesome” – the song from “The Lego Movie” – had a powerfully weird presentation.

I suppose this is the Year of the Weird Oscars. Hmm!

People are going to ignore the music and do their speeches. It’s their moment, gosh darn it. (this is still tv; timing, people).

Liam Neeson presenting the clips from “Grand Budapest Hotel” and “American Sniper” for Best Picture.

Shirley MacLaine had a nice grace in presenting “Boyhood,” “Birdman,” and “The Theory of Everything.”

Is it me or is it agonizingly longer than ever? (well, I stepped away; I know – very bad). Perhaps lengthiness is the Oscars thing; it’ll never go away.

Terrence Howard was strangely quite dramatic in presenting “Whiplash,” “The Imitation Game,” and “Selma.” It was as if he had watched the movies, got so teary, and was so pushing for all of them. Uh…

“Glory,” the song by John Legend and Common for the movie, “Selma” – quite a presentation for that stage. So powerful.

And, “Glory” won! Powerful speech by John Legend and Common. The fight for social justice is a never-ending one, indeed.

Why is Lady Gaga singing “Sound of Music”? Am I missing something? It’s beautiful, but… wait, is it the 50th anniversary of “Sound of Music”? Is this just to make the Oscars long as usual? It just doesn’t feel very necessary, and very anti-climactic after John Legend and Common’s making a big Oscar moment.

Sometimes someone gets to make a good speech – short, sweet, inspirational. Graham Moore, for “The Imitation Game” in Best Adapted Screenplay, said that it’s okay to be weird and to “stay weird”; one, day, that person will be on the Oscars stage one day too. That was a lovely Oscar moment too.

“Birdman” won for Best Director and…?

Patricia Arquette, Eddie Redmayne, Julianne Moore – lovely speeches.

“Birdman” for Best Picture! (“oh” to Sean Penn for dragging the moment out!).

Lots of moving speeches, with the attention to the families, the producers (yep, them), and social issues.

I just wished they’d cut out the unnecessary stuff. It didn’t feel like they did as much of the usual “Let’s learn about the history of films and have film appreciation” as much (which they usually do for the viewers who are unfamiliar to the Oscars and/or films). Neil Patrick Harris’ opening was nice and encapsulated the appreciation for movies in one full swoop.

But, as I said, Lady Gaga’s moment was just oddly needless, even though she sang well. And, the clips of the acting moments of the nominated actors and actresses – well, they were spoilery of the films they were in. The Oscars just went on and on. Well, it was still something to watch and we’ll see what this year’s movies will make us say!

A Weird Spring

It’s something I’ve learned over the years: spring is that time of year when weirdos and nuts come out of the wood works, or however that phrase goes.

I suppose we should be grateful that the leaking through the media of a recording of a private conversation of the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Don Sterling, has us talking about race and gender issues.   The new NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, has announced that Sterling would be getting a lifetime ban and a $2.5 million fine, and the NBA will try to force him to sell the Clippers, via a 3/4 vote of NBA ownership.  I won’t be surprised if there would be more actions in the form of lawsuits, since professional sports is all about contracts and money.  The unfolding issues are just fascinating for their potential depth and multiplicity.  There are all these complications of what goes on in the private and public spheres; what is the responsibility (if any) of a major corporate entity like the NBA, which has this huge egg on its face because of this scandal (in the middle of the 1st round of playoffs); what about what are we as sports fans/viewers/consumers supposed to do (do we really accept this blech from Sterling?); and, hey, it’s spring and it’s crazy…

Anyway, I thought these two posts by Gene Demby over at NPR’s Code Switch blog are good synopses/analyses; definitely worth a read if you want to figure out the developments of this sports/beyond sports story.

Basketball legend (and ex-New Yorker) Kareem Adbul-Jabbar is right on the money: “Let’s use this tawdry incident to remind ourselves of the old saying: ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.’ Instead of being content to punish Sterling and go back to sleep, we need to be inspired to vigilantly seek out, expose, and eliminate racism at its first signs.” I agree that the levels of misogyny and racism out of this mess are opportunities to learn and not just assume that some punishment and moment of shaming will solve everything (not really). Getting things out in the open and discussing them in a civil manner get us on the road of how to actually deal with the craziness and becoming vigilant.

Which reminds me: I ought to read Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent from last week’s US S.Ct’s decision, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action et al., as she has been quoted for writing, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”  Hmm.  (see here on Gene Demby’s post on the Supreme Court’s difficulty on debating on racial discrimination, over at the NPR Code Switch blog).  I think that if the US Supreme Court justices are having a difficult time debating how we ought to talk about the big issues, if we ever knew how to talk about them – well, clearly, we all need to learn something and these topics are everywhere as it is.

And, while also not related to the NBA situation, note this: “I’m convinced we won’t really learn how to deal with these issues until we learn how to talk about them. It’s time to break down the patterns; they’re only keeping us from really relating to each other on a subject that’s too important to get right.” – Eric Deggans, NPR critic, in discussing the reaction to his post on whether there would be more diversity on late night tv shows.

I’m not even an NBA follower, although I suppose the Brooklyn Nets are trying to keep things interesting with their playoff games against the Toronto Raptors.  I’m still waiting to see if Barclay Center will ever be a real financial boon for the neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, downtown Brooklyn, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope (which are all fighting to claim the arena; yeah, okay.., you’d think we’d all try to work together to spread the wealth, since Barclay Center is smack in the middle of the intersection of those neighborhoods).

At the least, we’re living in interesting times.