Saturday April 24 is Classic Eats #10 and no matter who you vote for, it’s going to be a doozy! You may have noticed by now that Classic Eats is not for the faint of heart of weak of stomach. These are not evenings with many (if any) veggie options — this is food made old school. Be prepared!

This being our 10th anniversary, I wanted to bring back one of the earliest evenings we had as a choice on our ballot. The other two choices are new and will be oh so awesome.

The options are:

1) Classic Eats #2 REPRISE – Downtown Delights: Traxx at Union Station and Phillipe’s. This was one of the funnest nights we had! Great group of people, we could walk to Phillipe’s from Union Station, great company, great food, great architecture, great signage.

2) Hot Dogs and Hamburgers: Papoo’s Hot Dog Show and Bob’s Big Boy. We can start at Papoo’s and then have dessert at Bob’s. Or not. You do it however you like.

3) Westside Counter Intelligence (with a respectful nod to Jonathan Gold for that title): Johnnie’s Pastrami and The Apple Pan. Seating being oh so very limited at the Apple Pan that I figured, eat at Johnnie’s, then pie at the Apple Pan. Or not. You can eat whatever, wherever you want. I’m not the boss of you!

As ever,we’ll start early, around 5pm the first location, then about an hour or two later we’ll mosey to the 2nd location. More details when the votes are in. The polls are open now and will stay open until Monday, April 19th.

Click here to vote for Classic Eats #10!

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

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If you are a Venice resident, tonight is your chance to listen to the 43 candidates running for the Venice Neighborhood Council Board. If you want change, this is a great place to go and ensure the right people are going to represent Venice and make headway on issues that are important to you. The actual election takes place on April 11th.

Venice Neighborhood Council Candidates Forum
April 8th, 6:30-9:30pm
Westminster Elementary School Auditorium
1010 Abbot Kinney Blvd enter from Westminster
Venice, California, CA, 90291

More info on the VNC website.

We offer a lot of rock and indie-rock tickets on this site but I didn’t want to neglect those of you who love a good slow jam. Mint Condition has been delivering prime cute of quality R&B that fuses influences as diverse as traditional jazz, funktastic grooves, even Latin and Jamaican rhythms, and plenty of soul. This should be a great date night. Grab some sushi at Katsuya next door, then hit Club Nokia for a night of music from some seriously experienced musicians.

Wanna go? Tell me your favorite R&B classic. We’ll pick a few lucky winners to go. Grab your date now.

Was sitting in my OC office, on a conference call when people stopped discussions to comment on the 5.3 aftershock at 9:44am (was previously reported as a 5.5).

I guess it’s a good time to post another screenshot from the USGS, which depicts the 7.2 quake over the weekend + a bunch of aftershocks since then.

Did you feel it? Fill out the survey!

Watching Crash, I felt like Sandra Bullock’s character: please, white man, don’t patronize me.

Hilton Als, writing in The New Yorker recently, reviewed a very bad play: “The sad fact is that, in order to cross over, most black actors of [Anthony] Mackie’s generation must act black before they’re allowed to act human.”

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Today is the 101st anniversary of John Fante’s birth, and if you’re downtown this morning, you can join councilwoman Jan Perry and others for the dedication of “John Fante Square” at 5th and Grand. The formal dedication, at 11, will be followed by speeches from members of Fante’s family (his children, perhaps?), scholars, and public officials; a trip on Angels Flight; and a walking tour of Bunker Hill that ends, appropriately enough, at a bar.

If you love L.A., it’s hard not to love Fante: “”Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town!”

And perhaps my favorite Fante line, “I have wanted women whose very shoes are worth all I have ever possessed.”

An aside: were I going, which I am not, since I will be on the other side of the planet in Chatsworth, I would build in time to walk a half dozen blocks for a maple bacon doughnut at the Nickle Diner and I’d take one of their pieces of salt peanut chocolate cake to go. Seriously people, peanut butter and crushed potato chips are involved. It is the best cake ever.

(j/k lolz‘s Ask the Dust picture used through a Creative Commons license)

It’s incredible how many different ways you can recycle, share, and swap items these days. I just had a baby one month ago and have quickly realized how fast they outgrow clothes, toys, diapers and other expensive items. I’m fortunate to be part of a group of ladies that swap baby items and it has been such a cost and storage saver.

If you have baby items that are collecting dust in the garage, or in need of some things, here’s your chance to clear the clutter and save some bucks.

DATE: Saturday, April 24th
TIME: 9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
PLACE: Douglas Park in Santa Monica
Wilshire and 25th St
Santa Monica, CA 90403

We will be set up closer to the North side of the park. (Close to the playground.)

WHAT: bring your old baby/kid clothes/books and toys etc – put them in the pile according to size and take out what you need from the next size up!

Kids welcome, if you promise to watch them.

We need as many parents as possible so please spread the word to your other friends. If you belong to a list, please post the information.

All items left at the end of the swap will be donated to charity.

Any questions, please contact Snow at snowwhtATgmail.com.

“You know, Sarah, this whole LA Plays Itself in the Movies series makes me wonder if Angelenos think more in cinematic terms.”

“Could very well be, Antonio. We are the creative capital of the world.”

“Exactly. And last night, as I was looking for inspiration for the tough job ahead of us, I dusted off one of my favorite DVDs. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

“Oh yes, I love Johnny Depp.”

“And you know, I’m thinking of incorporating some dialogue from my favorite scene on our next stop. Wanna hear it?”

“Um…”

The Mayor grabs a nearby mop head and places it on his face, effecting a makeshift beard. Then, in his best Scottish accent:

“‘Let no joyful voice be heard! Let no man look up in the sky with hope! And let this day be cursed by we who ready to wake … the Kraken!’

“Well, what do you think?”

“Not really sure. Could use finessing.”

Photo by alterna2 on flickr under a Creative Commons license

I had the chance to see Liars the last time they played the El Rey. Both LA Metblogs’ own Travis and myself were blown away by the epic performance, the charisma and the utter creativity. Liars are not an easy band. They are not hooky, jangly, beachy or full of earworm melodies. They’re a band for people who love to get meta with sound, who love to dissolve and discuss layers of sonic assault, for…record store geeks. Yep.

So, to win tickets, tell me your best record-store-geek anecdote. Make it clear to me how much cooler you are than the rest of us. Go all the way. Tell me about that band you loved before anyone else or how you really prefer this one seven-inch Japanese pressing of this one-off side project of this one obscure band that primarily did field recordings. Go. Win!

Info on the show is here chez Goldenvoice.

You know what the problem is with wacky college sex comedies? None of them were ever produced by Disney. Well, except one.

1980′s Midnight Madness was only the second Disney film ever to receive a PG rating (the first was The Black Hole, due to a long-since-deleted scene in which Maximillian Schell gets freaky with one of the robots). The film follows five teams of college students around Los Angeles as they compete in The Great All-Nighter, a citywide scavenger hunt designed and financed by Leon, a reclusive millionaire genius who lives in the Hollywood Tower with two women named Candy and Sunshine, with whom he presumably engages in hot, hot three-ways when he’s not planning and executing huge alternate reality games that span Los Angeles County. The script never really makes it clear.

Despite being part of the rich tradition of oversexed college goof-off films like Animal House, Porky’s, and Judgment at Nuremberg, Midnight Madness is relatively tame. It received its PG rating because it features alcohol consumption, a comedic description of female breasts, and the following frank discussion of human sexuality:

ADAM: Flynch, are you trying to tell me you’re a virgin?
FLYNCH: Oh, no, it’s not that. It’s just, I’ve never had a date.

There’s clearly a joke here, but it doesn’t stick the landing, and how Flynch lost his virginity despite never having had a date is never explained. He does talk a lot about his overprotective mother, so it might be best not to think about this too much and move on to the movie’s relationship with Los Angeles.

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The economic crisis has hurt a lot of people, especially children and families. There are social-safety net programs that are helping as best they can, but more than 2.2 million children live below the poverty line in California alone.

And did you know that diapers and wipes are not covered under WIC or food stamp programs? Poor and especially homeless families often have to make tough choices between food and diapers, forcing them to reuse old diapers or to keep their kids in dirty diapers longer than is healthy or sanitary.

On May 1st Help A Mother Out is hosting a Wine and Cheese Date Night. All you need to do is register here for your free ticket (hurry, the numbers are limited!), buy a package of diapers to bring with you (or 2 or 10!), get dressed up and come on over to the party! Yours truly will be one of the many lovely hostesses. Tillamook Cheese, Barefoot Wine and Fresh & Easy are donating food and drink, so you don’t even have to bring any money. Just bring those diapers!

If you can’t make the party, find other ways to help and lots more info at the HAMO website. They make even make it super simple to donate diapers online.

See you on May 1st!

My first screenwriting instructor told our class not to write movies about writers, because their work, unlike the activities of cops and criminals, does not contain the dramatic action that movies require.  Maybe he was right, at least as far as popular appeal.  “Barton Fink,” written by Ethan and Joel Coen and directed by Joel, only grossed $6 million domestically at the box office.  On the other hand, it won the Palme D’Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the awards for Best Director and Best Actor (John Turturro), and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Barton Fink hits L.A. and L.A. hits back, after the jump

Blue Thunder was released in 1983, and shot (I assume) in 1982. My first reaction watching this movie again for the first time in a while was Oh The SMOG! This movie is a time capsule for Stage 1 Smog alerts among other things.

Blue Thunder is about Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider), a Vietnam vet and police helicopter pilot who is assigned to test the most advance helicopter ever built. The cover story is that with the Los Angeles Olympics around the corner, they need a machine to quell potential riots, terrorism and crime. Frank is, uh, an interesting choice for this mission as he suffers from PTSD triggered flashbacks and, as other characters mention in the first act, has recently had a “wig-out” and should be on leave. These were different times. These were real men.

Soon the truth is revealed about the real reason Blue Thunder has been brought to Los Angeles….

Fly across the jump to read more and to see the trailer and a helicopter chase scene through the LA River.

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Need a ladder for a one-time project but don’t want to buy one? Out of town and want to borrow a bike for the weekend? Do you have a garage or attic full of stuff that you only use once a year? If so, NeighborGoods can help.

NeighborGoods is an innovative place where you can save and earn money just by sharing stuff with your friends. You can choose to share your stuff only with people you know, or you can expand your network and rent your lawnmower to a stranger, you decide. You can also post an alert to your NeighborGoods community when you need something.

If you’re still not sure exactly how it works, check out the short video below that explains how NeighborGoods can make your life a lot easier and a lot less cluttered. Oh, and you just might save the world too.

Sign up for NeighborGoods and start sharing now! Visit neighborgoods.net for more information.

(This post is part of the series LA Plays Itself in the Movies – a big sandshoe to Julia for organizing!)

A tattooed Luis Guzman answers the door to his house and is greeted by Wilson, a gray-haired Cockney, played by Terrence Stamp.

“Edward Roll?,” asks Wilson.

Guzman rolls his eyes, and says, “Eduardo Roo-el.”

It’s a fun exchange in the Lem Dobbs-written and Steven Soderbergh-directed late-’90s neo-noir The Limey (trailer), a film of understated performances, contemplative characters capable of brutal violence, and masterful editing that packs in more character development than seems possible in 90 minutes.

And, oh yeah, it’s set in Los Angeles.

Wilson, a career criminal who just finished a nine-year sentence for armed robbery, has come to L.A. to avenge the death of his daughter, Jenny.

Jenny had been dating Terry Valentine, a smarmy rock promoter (Peter Fonda, playing against character) who “took the whole ’60s California zeitgeist and ran with it.”

When Jenny died in a suspicious car accident on Mulholland Drive, her acting class friend, Eduardo, sent a newspaper clipping to Wilson.

Can you see where this is going?

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