Thursday, May 26, 2022

Stranger Things Pop Up @ LA Live May 26-27

 via Uncover LA:


For two days only at LA Live in DTLA, you'll have the chance to win a limited-edition Stranger Things Xbox Series S. Like the Stranger Things Store that opened at the Americana last fall, the Netflix x Xbox pop-up is open to the public—no reservation required—and will feature escape room-like elements and stock show memorabilia.

An official report from Hawkins National Lab (HNL) has unearthed special Xbox prizes within the Upside-Down. Those who accept the challenge will focus their energy on the rift and feel their power surge through the space. Their final score will unlock tiered rewards including the custom Stranger Things Xbox Series S console, Xbox game passes for one month of gameplay, and gift cards for one month of Netflix. Recruits who complete the mission can claim their prize from an HNL technician and snap a picture. Participants will also be given Xbox gameplay opportunities while guests can shop Stranger Things 4  memorabilia at the Netflix Shop Truck.

An onsite QR code will allow attendees to register alongside a ticker alerting them of how many consoles are left to retrieve from the Upside-Down. All registrations and prizes are limited and will be rewarded on a first-come-first-served basis.

Netflix x Xbox Stranger Things 4 Rift Experience at Xbox Plaza LA Live, 741-775 Chick Hearn Ct., L.A., 90015; Thursday, May 26 and Friday, May 27 from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Weekly What To Do: Memorial Day Weekend

Howdy, enjoy the extra day off and explore the city or the desert!
 
Pioneertown International Film Festival 
May 27-29 
Pioneertown 
$

 
And just another reminder that if you head out to the desert, specifically Pioneertown, you'll be at the first Pioneertown International Film Festival.  Which will have a Pie Duel, An American Tail: Fievel Goes West special screening, and some new and old cowboy films, live music and more.
 
Oh, and dressing up like a cowboy or cowgirl would totally be fine.
 
Not that far from Palm Springs to chill before or after or just head off to Joshua Tree.
 
 
 
 

 
 
Friday to Monday, May 27-30
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 
San Pedro Port
Free
 
 LA Fleet Week is an annual, multi-day celebration of our nation’s Sea Services held on the LA Waterfront at the Port of Los Angeles over the extended Memorial Day Weekend. Lots of fun for the entire family. And best of all, the weekend event is FREE to the general public!
 
Sat, May 28, 2022, 2:00 PM
Dynasty Typewriter at The Hayworth
2511 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90057 
$30 Advanced / $35 Day of Show
18+
*PROOF OF FULL VACCINATION IS REQUIRED UPON ENTRY. NAME ON VACCINATION CARD MUST MATCH YOUR ID.*

A furry free-for-all of a horror marathon -- an arkful of angry animals here to clear the decks of humanity!

After centuries of pollution and arrogance, it’s about time we’re taken out by Mother Nature. As such, these six mystery feature films are stocked to the gills with critters ready to unleash a bounty of guiltless killing. So root for the rooster and rally for the rodents, as bands of measly sapiens fend off creatures big and small -- and bigger!

 
Sun, May 29, 2022 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Ashland Hill 2807 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405 
$20 – $450
 
 Celebrate Memorial Day weekend with Main Street’s finest restaurants, bars, coffee shops, ice cream shops, and eateries at the 7th Annual “MAINopoly: A Taste of Main Street.” This all ages event is an interactive take on the classic board game, where every participating location you visit allows you to use "MAINopoly dollars" for tastings, and earns you credit to fill your game board map for a chance to win free prizes. Throw on your top hats and monocles, get your “dice” ready, and make your way down Main Street for a culinary walking tour of Main Street's finest eateries! A portion of all proceeds benefits the Main Street Business Improvement District.
Sun, May 29, 2022 1:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Marina Del Rey Hotel
13534 Bali Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Tickets are $15 presale and $25 entry at the door.
 
Kicking off Memorial Day Weekend on May 29 and lasting through September 4, Sunday Boat House brings the pool party experience to the westside with live DJs, dancing, plus an outdoor bar and restaurant. Skip the heat and head towards the ocean, where Del Rey Swim Club delivers an incredible afternoon paired with panoramic marina views. Sunday Boathouse takes place every Sunday and will have occasional themed events like Wild West, Neon Fiesta, Jungle Fever, and more. 

Resnick Pavilion 
May 29–Oct 2, 2022
LACMA
$ Museum Admission
 
Comprising approximately 400 works, including an unprecedented number of loans from the Museo del Oro in Bogota, this groundbreaking exhibition presents the diversity and materiality of ancient Colombian cultures and reframes how we approach ancient Colombian art. With the European conquest, Indigenous cultures and knowledge, based on millennia of intellectual efforts, were disregarded as crude superstition. The Portable Universe is designed to recapture some of that knowledge and to envelop the works with life and meaning, inviting visitors into a cultural dialogue that spans both space and time. 
 
 

Getty Center Museum presents two new exhibitions, The Lost Murals of Renaissance Rome and Judy Baca: Hitting the Wall. On view May 31 through September 4, 2022, the complementary exhibitions highlight the long history of mural art across the globe, from Renaissance Rome to downtown Los Angeles.
 
 

2021 kayaking season runs from Memorial Day (May 31) through Labor Day weekend (September 5)
 
Two different Kayak companies to choose from, spend a few hours on the LA River for a strange and beautiful experience of kayaking through the city.

Smorgasburg Los Angeles
Every Sunday 
10am-4pm at @rowdtla
Free Entry, Family Friendly Beer Garden, No Pets.
 
Smorgasburg is the largest weekly open-air food market in America, with markets in Los Angeles attracting 50,000 people each weekend to eat from a hundred local vendors.
 
 
 
 
Largo, known for comedy shows. Grab some tickets before everything sells out. Many new shows from some of LA's top comedians. We see Bill Burr, Patton Oswalt, Pete Holmes and Sarah Silverman performing here to name a few.
 
Street Food Cinema

 

 
 
Electric Dusk Drive-In
 
 
Hollywood Legion Theater

Monday, May 23, 2022

We Lost The Landmark Pico

The ever indie movie theater that looked like an airport hub in the lobby sadly closed with little fanfare on Sunday. The Landmark Pico has closed. Attached to a dead mall that's now Google offices it looks like it couldn't reach a deal with the landlords. 

We must have reported hundreds of events for special screenings and Q&A's at that theater. And it was another place in LA you could sit down or lounge out to see an indie. It will be missed.



Friday, May 20, 2022

More To Do: Crimes of David Cronenberg, Sunsets @ Getty Center & oNE Sheet @ Gallery 1988


Crimes of David Cronenberg
May 27 – May 30, 2022 
Los Feliz Theatre  
1822 N Vermont Ave Los Angeles, CA 90027
Free Screenings courtesy of NEON’s CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
 
Films include: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, EASTERN PROMISES, EXISTENZ, VIDEODROME, DEAD RINGERS, THE FLY and CRIMES OF THE FUTURE (1970)
 
*Looks like a ton of these sold out, but there'll be wait by lines.
 

Getty Center Extends Saturday Hours to 8 PM.Visitors can once again see the sunset from Getty Center.
 
Beginning June 18, the Getty Center will stay open until 8 pm on Saturdays year-round, creating an opportunity to enjoy the sunset from the iconic hilltop location.

The Restaurant will also serve dinner on Saturday evenings for the first time in more than two years.

Parking, normally $20, is reduced to $15 after 3pm and $10 after 6pm. Evening hours also provide a great opportunity to take advantage of Pay Once, Park Twice where visitors can hop from one Getty location to another in one day, using the same parking ticket.

Thursday, May 19, 2022

Anime Hype: Rick and Morty: The Anime, Spy X Family Episode 5 Best So Far, Shin Kamen Rider

 
Rick and Morty: The Anime is coming from the director of the other two anime shorts, Takashi Sano (Tower of God) to Adult Swim. It'll be 10 episodes and has nothing to do with the previous shorts. Not much else on details other than it's been green-lit, so no timeline for when it'll come out. 
 
Takashi Sano got a pretty good deal, because he has another anime headed to Adult Swim. Here's
the synopsis, seems dark as Hell.
 
Ninja Kamui follows Joe Higan who is a Nukenin - a former ninja who escaped his clan and is hiding from his violent past in rural America with his family. One night, he is ambushed by a team of assassins from his former organization who exact a bloody retribution on Joe and his family for betraying their ancient code. Rising from his seeming “death,” Joe will re-emerge as his former self - Ninja Kamui - to avenge his family and friends. Kamui is a 21st century ninja, a shadowy anachronism who pits his ancient skills against high-tech weaponry with brutal finesse. He must face off against trained assassins, combat cyborgs, and rival ninjas to bring down the very clan that made him. 

 
Spy X Family is out on Crunchyroll and we think episode 5 so far is the best. A crazy sitcom-esque series where the Dad is a super spy, the Mom is an assassin and their cute-as-Hell daughter is a psychic, who can read your thoughts. Oh, and only the daughter knows all their secrets. 
 
In Episode 5, Anya, the daughter, gets into a prestigious school and to celebrate, Loid, the Dad has his secret spy organization take over a castle theme park and try and stop him from rescuing, Anya as her reward. The animation, music and plot work all to well in this crazy rescue the princess scenario thought up by a little girl.

Watch it here.




Check out the ending theme to show, oddly has a lot of love for posh furniture. A friend said it's all mid century modern furniture. Guess an animator really loves designing backgrounds in the show.

Hideaki Anno's (Evangelion) Kamen Rider film has a poster and a teaser trailer, it seems really low tech. The film looks downright student made. Oddly, the evil organization of Shocker is mentioned on the poster as something it's totally not.

"...SHOCKER, an all-loving secret society that pursues happiness for all humanity." What does it all mean? We won't know for a year and some change when it comes out in Japan and then eventually gets released in the West.


Chainsaw Man looks like it's gonna be a fun one when it comes out.

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Weekly What To Do: Let's Hope We Don't Have To Eat Bugs For Another Decade


DOWNTON ABBEY: A NEW ERA
Director Simon Curtis
Actors Elizabeth McGovern
& Allen Leech
Friday, May 20 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
May 20, 2022 -
May 22, 2022
Billy Wilder Theater
Free, Must Register
 
This year’s UCLA Festival of Preservation marks the 20th showcase of the rich breadth of recent preservation work by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Spread over a weekend, the Festival brings together a fantastic mix of documentary, musical, newsreel, comedy, animation, noir and drama to the big screen. With 10 features, seven shorts and four television programs, ranging from classic Hollywood to themes of social justice, the Festival exemplifies the Archive’s dedication and passion for preserving and making accessible our moving image history.
 
 

 

May 21 - Sep 25, 2022 
The Broad
221 S. Grand Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets are $18 for adults, $12 for students (with valid student ID), and free for children 17 and under.
Regular admission is free, but this costs separate as it's a special exhibition. * I know, it's weird.
 
Takashi Murakami is back in town, we've covered his work over the years and his celebration of superflat. He might have never made his second Pokemon like movie, though we have heard Jellyfish Eyes 2 has started up production again;we always look with delight at what new idea he brings to the table with his anime style art.

"Murakami’s expansive artistic universe will be on view in Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, the artist’s first solo exhibition at The Broad.

 
That's not all, as we have some talks with Murakami as well coming up for his exhibit.

Thursday, May 19, 2022 
7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. 
Aratani Theatre + Livestream on Facebook and YouTube 
Tickets $20
 
 In advance of the opening of the special exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, The Broad presents an Un-Private Collection conversation between the iconic visual artist Takashi Murakami and the co-founder of RTFKT Studios Benoit Pagotto, moderated by The Broad’s Curator and Publications Manager Ed Schad.
 
Fri, May 20, 2022 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
JAPAN HOUSE Salon, Level 5
6801 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028 
 $25
Presented in conjunction with The Broad’s special exhibition Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow, on view May 21–September 25, 2022, this conversation with Etsuko Price—who with her husband Joe, amassed an unparalleled collection of traditional Japanese art focused on the Edo-period—and artist Takashi Murakami will explore how traditional Japanese painting has influenced and inspired Murakami’s creative practice.
 
 
May 21 - Sep 25, 2022 
The Broad
221 S. Grand Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Tickets are $18 for adults, $12 for students (with valid student ID), and free for children 17 and under.
Regular admission is free, but this costs separate as it's a special exhibition. * I know, it's weird.
 
Featuring over twenty artists, the special exhibition This Is Not America’s Flag spotlights the myriad ways artists explore the symbol of the flag of the United States of America, underscoring its vast, divergent, and complex meanings.
 
 
Saturday, May 21, 2022, at 6 pm
GETTY CENTER
Museum Courtyard 
Free | Advance ticket required
 
 Returning for the first time since 2019, the Getty’s free concert series Off the 405 is back with an impressive lineup, kicking off May 21 and running through August 27. Featured artists include Zsela, Bartees Strange, Los Retros, Hand Habits, and Standing on the Corner.
 
Concerts take place from 6 to 9 p.m. and attendees are welcome to arrive early, explore the Getty Center’s current exhibitions, bring a picnic, or purchase food and beverages onsite before the show begins. 
 
 Saturday, May 21 | 2:00 pm – 7:00 pm
 Santa Anita Park Infield (Enter Gate 6 off of Colorado Place – DIRECTIONS)
Admission:
$15 Online (includes Horse Racing Program)
$20 Walk-Up (includes Horse Racing Program)
Parking is FREE!

Taco Madness Vendors
Villa’s Tacos (2021 & 2022 LA TACO Madness Champions)
Teddy’s Red Tacos
Tacos Y Que
Macheen
Los Dorados
Tacos Don Cuco

 
Sat May 21-Sun May22
The Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Avenue
#Suite 203
Santa Monica, CA 90405 
$10-$30
 
The festival is designed for people who want more from a food festival than just tasting-sized portions and cooking demonstrations. The event features a highly curated group of local restaurants and exciting imports from across the country, serving food you won't find anywhere else. With live music throughout the day and panels from thought leaders and industry pioneers, EEEEEATSCON is as much about connecting with a community and getting inspired as it is about eating and being entertained.
 
May 21 & 22
The Natural History Museum
$ Admission
 
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM), is celebrating 36 years of Bug Fair! Join us back on-site for NHM's popular festival. Visit a variety of exhibitors and see everything from exotic insect collections to bug-related products. Come out to get crafty, experience up-close encounters with crawly creatures, learn all about the local bugs that call L.A. home, and more.
 
Start May 21st
Knott's Berry Farm 
Ghost Town Alive! and Knott’s Summer Nights is included with admission to Knott's Berry Farm
 
Your favorite town of Calico comes to life once again with the return of the award-winning, interactive Ghost Town Alive! Knott’s Summer Nights offers a variety of live music, classic summer eats and games for the whole family to enjoy. Guests will have the opportunity to enjoy a variety of top 40’s bands that rotate throughout the event at the Calico Mine Stage.
 
 
Knott’s Soak City Waterpark

Summertime at Knott's calls for a visit to Knott's Soak City Waterpark. With its longest season yet, the waterpark opens starting May 21 through September 18. Guests can catch a ride down 23 different speed, tube, and body slides or take a relaxing trip down one of the longest lazy rivers in the country. The 15-acre water park has something for each member of the family, an interactive kid's area, and for those more adventurous, The Wedge, a rip-roaring raft ride.
 
SATURDAY AT 12 PM – 6 PM
Revenge Of
3420 Eagle Rock Blvd Unit #1, Los Angeles, CA 90065
  Come join us in our parking lot for an afternoon of fun! We will have various vendors selling clothing, art, food, collectables and more. You will also find great sales on Revenge Of comics and gifts and exclusive drops of new Revenge Of merch!
 
 
Sunday May 22 and future Sundays
Mt Wilson Observatory
$50
 
The 100-inch telescope is the instrument with which astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered our place in an expanding universe and so expanded our comprehension. The dome for the telescope—designed by Chicago architect D.H. Burnham—is a 20th century temple to science whose acoustics rival the great cathedrals of Europe and provides a unique setting for this ambitious music series.
 

MON MAY 23, 2022 7:00 PM 
Los Feliz 3 | ‘Cinematic Void’ Series
$8.00 (member) ; $13.00 (general admission) 
 
* Don't worry about watching the first two, they have nothing to do with each other anyway. This a totally over-the-top bonkers film you need to see.
 
Cannon Film Group closes out its Shô Kosugi ninja trilogy with this off the wall gonzo cocktail of martial arts mayhem meets THE EXORCIST. The spirit of an evil ninja possesses an aerobics instructor who is transformed into a killing machine. The only way to stop her is, another ninja of course. Also starring Lucinda Dickey of BREAKIN’ fame as the ninja possessed aerobics instructor and James Hong (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, THE VINEYARD).
 
 

FINAL DAYS TO VIEW HAYAO MIYAZAKI
AT THE ACADEMY MUSEUM

Acclaimed Exhibition Closes Sunday, June 5
 
Hayao Miyazaki, the Academy Museum’s acclaimed exhibition, will close on June 5, 2022. Marking the first museum retrospective in North America dedicated to the legendary filmmaker and his work, the exhibition has been on view since the museum’s opening on September 30, 2021.

Smorgasburg Los Angeles
Every Sunday 
10am-4pm at @rowdtla
Free Entry, Family Friendly Beer Garden, No Pets.
 
Smorgasburg is the largest weekly open-air food market in America, with markets in Los Angeles attracting 50,000 people each weekend to eat from a hundred local vendors.
 
 
 
 
Largo, known for comedy shows. Grab some tickets before everything sells out. Many new shows from some of LA's top comedians. We see Bill Burr, Patton Oswalt, Pete Holmes and Sarah Silverman performing here to name a few.
 

Street Food Cinema

 

 
 
Electric Dusk Drive-In
 
 
Hollywood Legion Theater