L.A. Machineguns: Rage of the Machines

Before L.A. Noire and before True Crime: Streets of LA (but after Police Quest: Open Season), there was L.A. Machineguns: Rage of the Machines.

Gaming site Kotaku has broke the news that Sega is planning on releasing the 1998 arcade light-gun shooter classic (release date TBD) for the Nintendo Wii console, as part of a dual pack with it’s 1996 predecessor, Gunblade NY.

Want to know the plot? Here it is, straight from the promotional poster:

The Story: Year 2025. A militia of androids has suddenly materialized in Los Angeles. Calling themselves the “R.O.M.” – “Rage of the Machines” – the androids launch a fierce offensive against the entire West Coast regions. The federal government responds by mobilizing its ace counterterrorist forces “S.I.F.A.T”. Against the backdrop of the Pacific Coast, a struggle of unparalleled intensity has begun.

So, are you ready to join the Special Independent Force Against Terrorism?

Let the “pew, pew, pew” begin!

Image via The Arcade Flyer Archive.

(This post is part of the LA Plays Itself in the Movies Series – thanks again to Julia for her organizational skills!)

There was no way I was going to make it through this series without covering a beach party movie. Los Angeles made the beach party movie genre happen. And if it weren’t for beach party movies, the world would probably be a much, much less wonderful place. Or at least my world would be a much, much less wonderful place, because it seems my appetite for 1960s campiness knows no bounds.

I really could have written about any beach party movie here – Beach Blanket Bingo, or any of the other Frankie and Annette movies would work, but instead, I want to spread the gospel of It’s a Bikini World, one of the most awesome and most LA-centric beach party movies. It’s also one of the hardest to find, because it’s not available on DVD, so be warned, I am crafting my commentary from memory, as the one and only time I saw this movie was about a year ago at a screening at the Egyptian. I therefore refuse to be held responsible for factual inaccuracies.

It’s a Bikini World stars Deborah Walley (who is totally the most underrated actress of the 1960s, and also is the best Gidget) as Delilah Dawes, which would obviously be my burlesque name if I were burlesque-dancing inclined. Delilah catches the eye of surfing rapscallion Mike Samson (played by Tommy Kirk) who decides to get in her pants. But Delilah will have nothing to do with him, so he disguises himself as his (imaginary) twin brother so that he can woo her. Meanwhile, local impresario Daddy (played by Sid Haig of House of 1000 Corpses infamy) is staging a giant race to advertise his new line of skateboards (seriously) and when she hears that Mike is entering the race, Delilah decides to enter, too, just to show him what’s what. Also, Delilah is wearing various ridiculous brightly colored bikinis during all of this.
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(This post is part of LA Plays Itself In The Movies, organized so awesomely by Julia)

“How could I have known that murder can sometimes smell like honeysuckle.”

— Walter Neff

For one of the last films in this LA Metblogs series, let’s look at one of the first to document the decadence and decay of the Los Angeles dream: Double Indemnity. Directed by Billy Wilder, co-written by Wilder and Raymond Chandler, it stars Fred MacMurray as insurance agent Walter Neff and Barbara Stanwyck as femme fatale Phyllis Dietrichson, along with Edward G. Robinson as Neff’s best friend and claims investigating coworker Barton Keyes.

As a kid raised on TV reruns in the 1970s I got to know MacMurray mostly as Steve Douglas the even-keeled and level-headed, father to those three sons of TV’s long-running My Three Sons, Same with Stanwyck, who was familiar to me as Victoria Barkley the widowed, wealthy and strong-willed matriarch in the series The Big Valley. So when I finally got around to growing up and seeing them as the unholy alliance that drives this classic, I was quite delightfully taken aback to see them so different in such deliciously devious roles in so devilishly dark a film.

Threaded together via MacMurray’s flashback voice-over, Double Indemnity matches Stanwyck’s predatory housewife with MacMurray’s congenial everyman. Together they connive and scheme a murder of her husband for purposes of desire and dough, but ultimately are doomed in large part to the dogged detective work of Keyes, remarkably portrayed by Robinson.

“Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it’s usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson dame is in it and a somebody else. Pretty soon, we’ll know who that somebody is. He’ll show. He’s got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they’ve got to meet. Their emotions are all kicked up. Whether it’s love or hate doesn’t matter; they can’t keep away from each other.”

— Barton Keyes

What’s never doomed is the wicked smart dialogue, as evidenced after the jump in one of my favorite exchanges between the dynamically deviant duo when they first meet (and dig on the awesome — and first — use of a noir staple: light through the venetian blinds):

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I think about LA Confidential every time I go to Target.

Here’s why (and you may have guessed by now): The Target in West Hollywood (which I go to most of the time) is right next to the Formosa Cafe, which figures fairly prominently in the film — specifically, the scene where Detective Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce) accuses Lana Turner of being a prostitute made up to look like Lana Turner, after which she throws a drink in his face. Whenever I see the Formosa, I get a little sad. Not because I long for some imagined, bygone halcyonity of the 1950s; no, I just wish I had been able to see what Los Angeles looks like in the days before it was crusted over with Targets and Pinkberrys and CVSes and Ralph’ses.

But then I stop being sad and start thinking about LA Confidential. And let me tell you: Man, I love LA Confidential. Love everything about it, from Guy Pearce’s snotty Superman performance to the dramaturgically spot-on set decoration and costuming. I love it so much that I’ve been sitting here for the past couple of hours staring at a blank document, trying to think of something to write that could do the Curtis-Hanson-directed, Brian-Helgeland-written movie justice. I did not have this problem writing about Midnight Madness.

So. What to write about? A few days ago I mentioned to my girlfriend that Johnny Stompanato — the mobster whose wedding tackle ends up locked in the vise-like fist of Russell Crowe’s Bud White — was a real guy. And she’s a reasonably smart cookie, so I figure there have to be more of you out there who don’t know where the fantasy of LA Confidential ends and the reality begins. With that in mind, here’s a quick rundown of some of the real-life aspects of the film.

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At one point in the course of Valley of the Dolls, Neely O’hara, the Eve Harrington of the movie, runs away to San Francisco and roams the mean streets of our northern neighbor. Drunkenly making her way past the x-rated theaters and strip clubs, she cries out “Boobies, boobies, boobies. Nothin’ but boobies. Who needs ‘em?” Well, apparently we Angelenos need them, that’s who.

If you were a space alien and you needed to learn about Los Angeles based on Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, you would conclude that drugs, stardom, parties, and boobs were the four corner stones of our culture. In fact, Jennifer, one of Neely’s best girlfriends, commits suicide when confronted with the prospect of a mastectomy, boobs being her most outstanding attribute, one might even argue, her skill set. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, being a Russ Meyer film, of course, exercises even greater reverence for a good rack. Meyer used to describe the perfect pair as “cantilevered.”

Honestly, Valley of the Dolls is not a terribly good movie; it is in fact, more terrible than good. The book, if also trashy, is more entertaining. It’s worth viewing in that sort of way you watch movies in the background while you fold laundry. But if you haven’t had the doubtful pleasure of seeing BOV, you should Netflix it for sure. Read the rest of this entry →

Saturday April 24 is Classic Eats #10 and you can keep voting! Polls will close on Monday.

Westside Counter Intelligence is pulling away from the pack!

Click here to vote for Classic Eats #10.

The options are:

1) Classic Eats #2 REPLAY – Downtown Delights: Traxx at Union Station and Phillipe’s.

2) Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Papoo’s Hot Dog Show and Bob’s Big Boy.

3) Westside Counter Intelligence (with a respectful nod to Jonathan Gold for that title): Johnnie’s Pastrami and The Apple Pan.

Click past the jump for more info on all of our choices.

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Well, more specifically, The Grove plays Pandora in the movies, tomorrow. Head there after 2 PM (that’s the press check-in time; the actual event starts a bit later), and you can see yourself turned into a Na’vi, just like whatshisname did in Avatar.

Sadly, this does not involve climbing into a tank and transferring your consciousness into an actual ten-foot-tall blue cat-person. Nor does it involve riding dragons or having awesome trippy ponytail-USB sex with a digitally manipulated Zoe Saldana. And instead of being surrounded by the primeval forests of a faraway world, you’ll be surrounded by Barnes & Noble and Wetzel’s Pretzels.

No, here’s what happens: The digital-effects journeymen at InWindow  Outdoor will use facial-recognition technology to morph shoppers’ faces in real-time into the big blue natives of Pandora. And you can presumably watch yourself on a screen, in Na’vi form.

Sadly, there’s no news of this on The Grove’s own site; I found the item on the movie news website chud.com (warning: site is lousy with those pop-up ads that boink into existence when you hover your mouse over highlighted phrases).

Our favorite Austrians are back in the USSA to celebrate the release of their newest phonebook sized collection of random text. Johannes is here in LA and along with contributors such as Jason Brown, John Wilcock and me, will be doing readings from the book on Friday night at Machine Project.

There is sure to be talk of assorted deities and assorted diets, assorted sexual practices and assorted practical sexutices. Don’t know what a sexutices is? You’ll just have to come and find out. There will also be all sorts of riveting international politics and possibly something about rivets.

More info can be found here. Friday April 16, 2010, 8PM – 1200 D North Alvarado Street, Los Angeles

Sure, everybody dreams. But that doesn’t mean your subconscious musings aren’t special.

Au contraire, my little Mirabilis jalapa, your dreams are so precious that not one, but three cultural organizations have banded together to help you unlock the mysteries of your nocturnal cognitions.

On May 1st, artSpa and Machine Project are hosting an overnight Dream-In at the Hammer Museum.

According to the Hammer’s website, the evening will feature “experimental dreaming workshops, concerts, and bedtime stories, followed by a waking concert in the morning, all facilitated by a dreamy batch of local artist-psychonauts.”

For the inevitable hangover, the next day, museum visitors may encounter “dream reenactments, workshops, and napping music.”

The experimental dream workshops will be run by Claire Cronin, Ecstatic Energy Consultants Inc., Katie Bachler, Krystal Krunch, Laura Steenberge, and Marc Herbst.

Online registration begins today.

Image: Seaside Unicorn by Steve Read.

Take a minute to process that photo. Yes, it’s real. And yes, I had the same “WTF” reaction you are probably having when I saw it on Kent’s blog. His buddy Douglas found this flyer on his car and they both thought it had to be a joke. Kent e-mailed her to let her know she was likely the victim of some nasty joke. She replied confirming the flyer was legit. Lisa wrote:

…I PROMISE TO MENTION YOU AS A MUSE IF I GET FAMOUS FOR THIS UNIQUE PLEA [FOR EMPLOYMENT FROM A UCSB GRAD. WHO MANY HAVE CALLED "THE MOST CREATIVE, ENTERTAINING, HILARIOUS, AND INTELLIGENT PERSON THEY'VE EVER MET."] I’VE ALSO RECENTLY BEEN CALLED “MAGICAL” AND “STUNNING” AND “ARE YOU A MODEL?” BY STRANGERS. SOUNDS GREAT RIGHT??

SO, WHY HAVE I BEEN UNEMPLOYED FOR OVER A YEAR AND CAN’T I GET A JOB THAT’S AT LEAST $15 AN HOUR AND F/T???

DO I NEED TO APPLY AT TACO BELL AND OTHER MIN. WAGE PLACES OR IS THERE STILL HOPE FOR ME TO HAVE A CAREER AND MAKE MY $80K UCSB LOANS WORTHWHILE??…

Sorry for that all caps rant. You might still not be convinced, I mean, she posted her bank AND routing number on a flyer, who would do that?? I wasn’t convinced so I e-mailed her myself too. I was sure it was a prank. She wrote back saying it’s not a prank, and is instead a real desperate move:

Hi Sean,

It’s not a prank. It’s a real desperate move coming from me since I’ve been looking for a job aka $$$ for over a year. I haven’t applied to Taco Bell or the equivalent min. wage jobs yet. Thanks to the Gov’t and the voters, I have been able to barely survive off Unemployment Insurance and several extensions. There’s a lot more to my story and I would be happy to tell you or anyone more about my situation.

Some guy emailed me yesterday about this and said he would help me publicize it w/ his 10,000 member Twitter account. Very nice.

I have been tempted to announce my desperate situation in many other ways, since Craigslist, EntertainmentCareers.net, Career Builder, ……………

HELLLLLLLLLLLLLP!

Sad times are these when “MAGICAL” and “STUNNING” people who are too good to work at Taco Bell have to resort to photocopying their banking info and leaving it on random cars around Los Angeles begging for people to make a deposit. You might think this must be a person who just doesn’t understand what is going on in the world to do something like that, but again you’d be wrong. Check out her twitter account where she opines on how celebs who are giving money to people in Haiti should be giving it to her instead. Over on her blog you can also read all about business plans that she wants you to invest in and, apparently, her campaign for president of the USA in 2020. (warning on both links: ALL CAPS!!)

Yes folks, this is all real. I love Los Angeles.

“Vegas, baby. Vegas.”

The film that spawned one of the most overused Vegas quotes of our time isn’t about Las Vegas at all. Swingers is so L.A.

Location. Location. Location. For me, the thrill of watching Swingers is noticing all of the familiar locations around town. The characters in this film never stay in one spot for long, always on the move from one bar to another bar, to a Hollywood Hills party, then to a coffee shop for a late night breakfast. All in their own separate cars of course. It’s laughable, but even today I notice that most of my friends in L.A. drive separately, despite that we all live in close proximity of each other and are meeting at the same place.

When I relocated to L.A. in 2003, the very first bar a friend took me to was The Dresden Restaurant to see Marty and Elayne perform. Immortalized by the film, The Dresden remains one of my favorite lounges in L.A. Located at 1760 North Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz, The Dresden makes its appearance in the scene where Mike (Jon Read the rest of this entry →

It’s that time of year again. The 1st 8th Annual Grilled Cheese Invitational is returning to Downtown LA (different location from last year’s, however) to flood the LA basin with melted butter & cheese.

They’ve added a costume contest to this year’s roster of events–apropos, given the number of insanely costumed people that descend on the event every year–and a Cheese Calling contest, similar in nature to a Hog Calling contest, but for cheese. Of course there will be the three sammich categories–Missionary, Kama Sutra, and Honey Pot (standard grilled, any-contents-goes, and sweet, respectively)–for all festivalgoers to vote on, and the overflow (there always is some) will get to enjoy Tillamook grilled cheese sammies chez this year’s sponsor (last year’s sponsor was Kraft, this year promises what will prolly be a more robust sandwich for the people).

Deets:
4/24/2010
12:00pm – 6:00pm
Los Angeles Center Studios, 1201 West Fifth Street, Los Angeles, CA.
http://grilledcheeseinvitational.com/

Tickets are $10 now but will prolly be $15 at the door. That’s still cheap, for a bizarro day full of fun, freaks and cheese.

Future Noir in an Overpopulated City of Angels

Several years ago, when I lived in Hollywood, my apartment was on the fifth floor. It was a twenties era place, very Art Deco.

I had a view of the Hollywood sign, and could see the giant billboard and digital marque of the then-new Hollywood and Highland mall from my window, looming over the neon waitress of Mel’s Diner.

One evening, and I remember this very clearly, the Police Helicopters were particularly loud, invading my room along with the heat and neon though the mini blinds. I was jarred from the Anime program I was watching, giving me a distinctly creepy feeling as I typed messages to a friend half a world away on my computer. It took me a few moments to comprehend what was causing this uneasy feeling, as the flying police vehicle circled its spotlight over my building once again.

It had happened.

I had entered the Dystopian Future. I was living in it.

I was practically a Nexus 6 Model away from living in Blade Runner.
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Woe is the artist who paints portraits. What pose, where the eyes are directed, standing vs sitting vs something between vs neither, background or no background, what background?  A great portrait and you have Mona Lisa; a bad one and you can’t even tell who it is.

That said, not many sit for portraits any more.  Instead, families, prom couples, and high school girls going for their glamor shot make a beeline to Target and Sears for their photo portraits.  They all have different motivations: to preserve a moment in time; to boast their virility; to fool others; to fool themselves. And yet, the effect of sitting for the photo is remarkably similar to sitting for a portrait: an Awkward Family Photo.  Faux austerity, grim smiles, absolutely no smizing, and a dirty, speckled blue curtain.  Perhaps now is the time to consider how the Future You would want to remember the Current You.  Perhaps with, say, a little more color?

Hello, Katherine Chiu.

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In addition to being a just plain fun movie and tribute to so many classic hand-drawn cartoon characters (Disney characters! Warner Bros. characters! and Fleischer characters! All together!), Who Framed Roger Rabbit is also a tribute to the Hollywood of yesteryear – when Hollywood the industry actually existed in Hollywood the place, and the Hollywood sign was still a big advertisement for the “Hollywoodland” real estate development (Fun fact: a Hollywoodland poster makes a cameo in the film, but when you see the sign and Cahuenga Peak in the background outside Eddie Valiant’s office, it only says “Hollywood” – it wasn’t actually changed until two years after the film takes place. Yes I am a nerd.). I love that it’s all about the real Los Angeles, where it was founded – what’s inland a bit, surrounding the river (the Glendale-Hyperion bridge does make an appearance!), not just palm trees and beaches like those shown in far too many films.

Oh, and apparently back then people said things like, “Who needs a car in LA? We’ve got the best public transportation system in the world!” Yea, that’s about when I started laughing/crying/exclaiming about how now they’re just picking on me, a car-free transit geek. It had been a few years since I’ve seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit, so I got caught off guard and a little emotional. But at first it was wonderful, when just a few minutes in one of those Big Red Cars with “Sunset Blvd” splayed across the top pulled into frame, and I was transported into some magical version of Los Angeles where the public transportation vehicles and the automobiles co-existed in happiness along our city’s major thoroughfares (I get so sad every time I remember that the big median down Eagle Rock Blvd. is just covering up where the Red Car tracks used to be!).

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