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Culver City is urging all residents to attend a special meeting June 20 to update and review what's happening with the Inglewood Oil Field Project. This oil field is the largest urban oil field in the United States. 10% of the oil field is in Culver City; 90% is in unincorporated LA County. While Culver City residents may be deeply concerned about the oil field plans, the city's control is limited. The plan and processes have been acted upon by previous City Councils. After April's City Council...
There's a chance, if you dare, to see films you might never see; films at film festivals hope to nab distributors, yet most won't make it. You might get lucky enough to find them, one day, somewhere... That's what film festivals do; they curate, they cherry-pick, they create one splendid moment where their unusual finds come to you before their distribution hopes are crushed, or more likely, may get to join that heap of films you could never unearth. You have the prospect to see things that may...
In response to multiple coyote sightings in Culver City neighborhoods recently, the Culver City Police Department will conduct a community presentation next Wednesday to explain how residents can protect their families and pets from these wild animals. The program about coyote management will take place June 13 at 7 p.m., at the Linwood E. Howe Cafeteria, 4100 Irving Place. Culver City Police Chief Scott Bixby is inviting all residents to attend the program and heed all the police warnings...
Just as exotic spices and Marco Polo were at the crossroads of civilization, importing culture today, as well as the films that influence our culture, can shape lives. Ideas have a profound impact; impressions, dreams, data, images affect us long after we're first exposed. Remarkable film festivals have invaded, each hard to resist, and often, directly competing on the same night for our attention, hearts, and money. You can spend that money on drinks, or expensive food, or you can purchase...
By Carole Bell Do you know what Garifuna is? It's the most unusual film festival I've ever been to. This weekend, try to go to GIIFF, the Garifuna International Indigenous Film Festival. You are likely to come away feeling quite literally blessed. What they do is make you feel you are one with humanity. Your heart will feel lifted; your passion for what other people are going through will surprise you. The flavor of this film festival was different from any other I've been to. It's in Venice; a...
Just as exotic spices and Marco Polo were at the crossroads of civilization, importing culture today, as well as the films that influence our culture, can shape lives. Ideas can have a profound impact; impressions, dreams, data, images affect us long after we're first exposed. Remarkable film festivals have invaded, each hard to resist, and often, directly competing on the same night for our attention, hearts, and money. You can spend that money on drinks, or expensive food, or you can purchase...
"Mathletes" from Culver City won the 11th Annual Los Angeles Countywide Fourth- and Fifth-Grade Math Olympiads Tournament. El Marino Language School won first place in the team competition. 178 students throughout LA County competed in the tournament, held Saturday, April 14 at Linwood E. Howe Elementary School. Nine teams from CCUSD competed, with five members each: Three teams from Linwood Howe; two teams each from Farragut and La Ballona; one team each from El Marino and El Rincon. The team...
The charm that suffuses great films pervades COLCOA, the French film festival currently at the Directors Guild of America Theater, Even the name itself beguiles: City Of Light, City of Angels. This year's festival poster shows the road to LA with the city and dusky hills in the background. Where's the charm, one might ask? It's just, you see, the road to LA and the mountains happens to be passing directly under, and through, the Eiffel Tower. It's the blending of both cultures, tout à fait....
A historic dedication ceremony was held Wednesday at The Culver Studios, with a ribbon-cutting moment for the fabled bungalows' renovation. The four bungalows were actually moved to a prominent location on the historic production lot, relocated from a more remote area. They are now just behind the famed Culver Studios Mansion. The project involved constructing new foundations for the bungalows, then carefully putting back the interiors. The work was monitored closely by Culver City officials,...
"A stunning, disgraceful example of greed." That's how Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives (D-CA), described Donald Trump's tax agenda, speaking Wednesday morning in Culver City. Pelosi spoke at a "TrumpTax Town Hall" in the Veterans Memorial Building. Other speakers included Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA 33rd); Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA 44th); Donna Norton, Deputy Director, Moms Rising; Edward D. Kleinbard, USC Gould School of Law; and Jennifer Taub, Vermont Law School. There...
Do you miss movies you can chew? You know, the sort of movie you mull over later, that you want to kick around with friends? That's what I'm talking about. A fine film is no laughing matter. Hard to find these days midst the cluttered box office high gross heap of comic heroes, dark thrillers, and budget-eating animated crowdpleasers. "What did you think of the film? " "Yeah, it was good." "Let's talk about it." "You first." "Just let me check my email..." In this era where the need to know who...
"This funeral is not for your mother. It's for you to say goodbye to your mother." That's what my friend P. said when I called her at three am. I'd just been told my mother died; I didn't know what to do. P. knew all about funerals; her husband died while she was pregnant; plus she and a friend planned the friend's own funeral when he learned he was dying, laughing merrily as they decided to buy theater tickets for all his friends so they'd remember him. Should you feel good after a funeral?...
Love, timeless, ageless. But is it good for us? It can hurt. Surely you get that from country western songs. Moon, June, tune, spoon, it's all good, and then it's not. Is it truly better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? If you're lucky enough to have someone to love, or something to love, then you are indeed lucky. "Could it be otherwise?" Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the American poet and San Francisco bookshop owner, once said to me, albeit in a different context. He looked...
Walk, Carefully, Into The New Year I hope 2018 will be a year when you'll stay intact. Is the reason so many people are falling the time of year, or the time of life? "There are 27,000 ankle sprains every day in the U.S.," says Glenn Pfeffer, orthopaedic surgeon and Director of the Foot and Ankle Surgery Program at Cedars-Sinai. Half of all ankle sprains happen when you're not even doing anything athletic. It could be something as innocent as stepping on an uneven surface. One story I heard...
Did you see that little video online with the woman feeding a baby polar bear? From a few days after birth, it jumps to a week, then lists the number of days up to about three months as we see the little polar bear being gently comforted by touch, then nurtured from a bottle. It hardly looks like a polar bear at first; then it slowly becomes the little furry image of a polar bear. Sweet to watch, it makes one's heart feel good. Have you seen the video of a man jumping up-and-down, gesticulating...
The velvet texture of gratitude, as comforting as that first sip of hot cocoa on a chilling day; it cossets us, suffusing mind and body. Feeling grateful is good for us; it improves physical health and extends longevity. Grateful people have fewer aches and pains, and feel happier, according to Forbes. Studies show that gratitude can reduce depression. Empathy and sensitivity increase along with gratitude. Gratitude may be effective against trauma; it helped people's resilience after 9/11....
A good film entertains. A great film engages our feelings, and entertains; it teaches us. From Israel, Germany, Italy, and Spain, films beckon to our hearts. They call to us, at times as powerfully as the Greek sirens luring sailors by seduction. Sometimes a powerhouse film seduces as it goes on; the beguiling happens while we watch. At the Israel Film Festival, over 40 films and 30 filmmakers wiggle an index finger drawing you in. The diversity's delightful, and in theaters this week. Opening...
I decided to spend my birthday soaking in good news. Sunshine and laughter: a lovely way to spend one's birthday. * In Quebec, a six-year-old autistic boy was so super-sensitive it hurt to have his hair touched. Franz Jacob, a barber, grabbed his tools, following the boy around his hair salon, even laying down on the floor when the boy did, to keep cutting. The boy's mother was so grateful, she put the barber's photo online. * Prison inmates around the world, competing to be the most compassiona...
I decided to spend my birthday soaking in good news. Sunshine and laughter: a lovely way to spend one's birthday. * In Quebec, a six-year-old autistic boy was so super-sensitive it hurt to have his hair touched. Franz Jacob, a barber, grabbed his tools, following the boy around his hair salon, even laying down on the floor when the boy did, to keep cutting. The boy's mother was so grateful, she put the barber's photo online. * Prison inmates around the world, competing to be the most compassiona...
When the great Russian ballet dancer Ivan Nagy was asked if ballet dancing were as easy as he made it look, he confessed, "It hurts. It hurts," with a suffering smile and begging eyes. "It hurts." It hurts. It hurts to have a president who acts this way. It hurts that there are Americans who are thrilled to have a president who acts this way. Indelibly written on our minds and hearts: Puerto Rico. Las Vegas. Stained onto our consciousness: Donald Trump's actions and words. Behavior counts....
Congratulations to cities and people who are 100. In the UK, the Queen sends a greeting card to everyone on their 100th birthday. It's a silver cup in Japan; royal greetings in Sweden; a President's letter in Italy. But in Ireland, you get money: €2,540 ($3017). In the U.S., the President congratulates you. * In 400 BC, life expectancy was 30 years. Centenarian: lives to 100 or beyond. Supercentenarian: lives to 110 or more (only 1 in 1,000 centenarians.) There were 316,600 living c...
It's time for a couple of lyrical, and not so, anniversaries. The time was sensational. A half-century ago, The Beatles released their seminal Sgt. Pepper album, shaking up rock music and culture. The album won four Grammy's, was number one for 15 weeks, and ranked number one in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".A peek at making the album, "It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond," features John Lennon (in extreme close-up) explaining the group, with...
The real danger: Could Fascism replace our democracy? Are we heading to a second Civil War? Are we moving toward nuclear war? Who thought fascism and a Civil War redux would rise again? In the U.S.? At the same time? It's psychological warfare: gutting the EPA, health care, climate change (July 2017 was the hottest July in 137 years of record-keeping (NASA). Fascists oppose democracy and want totalitarianism; Mussolini and Hitler were heroes. It can't happen here. Right? Slippery slope....
Plein été. It's what the French call full summer. We're intensely in the middle of it. What's on your mind? Nothing, should be. Summertime, And the livin' is easy Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high George Gershwin wrote it in 1934 for the opera "Porgy and Bess." Summer's emblem, lyrics were written by DuBose Heyward (although ASCAP also credited Ira Gershwin.) Stephen Sondheim called them "the best lyrics in musical theater." It had more than 33,000 covers. It's so evoca...
A world in which men don't need women? We already have robot floor cleaners; now fake women can do the rest. By the rest, I mean sex. Men, how would you like a sex doll that lets you rape her? Women, how do you feel about that? This could be the ultimate payback on uppity women. I was laughing a lot as I wrote this; yet it could wind up no laughing matter. Roxxxy the Sex Robot is here, and you can rape her if you like. She won't like it, and won't be "appreciative" - but she'll let you. Let...
