Shawn

The gap is wide....

Elementary - Season 3. After a clunky beginning to the season it got into a groove.

Rapid gentrification has only thrown gasoline on the problem and now encroaching development is threatening to wipe skid row off the map as the developers hungrily start tearing into the old warehouse district for more upscale artist lofts. I go to the Arts district quite often, to get there you travel from the increasingly affluent historic downtown core...thru the refugee camp that is skid row...then suddenly just a few blocks later you're standing outside art galleries, expensive restaurants, coffee shops and converted-warehouse condo units.

L.A.'s chronically homeless population has grown 55%, to 12,536, since 2013, accounting for almost 15% of all people in that category, HUD reported. More than one-third of the nation's chronically homeless live in California, the agency added. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-homeless-national-numbers-20151120-story.html Another article that points to one of the primary reasons the homeless population continues to increase...the incredible gap between wages and housing costs. A recent headline stated that you have to make "172% of the median income...to afford a median priced house in Los Angeles". http://la.curbed.com/2015/2/10/9993452/los-angeles-rents-wages-lag

The vacancy rate in Los Angeles is under 2%, they can't build them fast enough. Here is an article detailing over 90 construction projects currently happening in downtown Los Angeles. The 26 buildings I mentioned earlier are actually all in the same neighborhood (right around LA Live and the Staples Center), where in reality you can't find a single block in downtown where something isn't going on construction wise, either a new project, or a major renovation. http://www.ladowntownnews.com/development/downtown-development-updates-on-projects/article_6886af8a-fb4a-11e4-80e3-f76f86390038.html This article is a year old...so I'm sure there are many more projects that have come online since. ....and this is only downtown, where in reality construction is happening all over the city, there have been 10 new apartment buildings that have sprung up in my neighborhood in the past 2 years.

Meanwhile there are 26 (!) mixed-used, high rise retail+condo/luxury apartment towers being built in downtown Los Angeles right now. And no, none of these apartments will be remotely affordable. Downtown is now more expensive for renters than Beverly Hills...

I haven't watched this series yet but I'm a big fan of Les Revenants which is also mentioned in the article. Which reminds me I need to see season 2... Will check out Spiral soon.

Almost finished with The Shield (currently on season 7) and quite a wild ride it has been! One of the most consistent series I've run across, with only season 5 being a slight notch below the rest (Forest Whitaker's character drove me so nuts I wanted to reach inside the TV and strangle him to death). Aside from that I've been watching The X-Files reboot (clunky yet endearing).

Stretching the definition a little to include this gorgeous video of Los Angeles locations taken by drone. Lots of lovely architecture and urban artwork.

I love this shot. Photo by Eric Smith. Coyote in the Hollywood Hills.

Melatonin worked well for me when I was having insomnia issues several years ago. It took a few days for it to really start working. I used it for about a month and then my normal sleep pattern returned.

It's always a challenge to adapt a first-person narrative to a visual medium.

Trumbo directed the movie. The book is written in first person, the movie jumps back and forth between narration, flashbacks, fantasy sequences and the conversations of the doctors and nursing staff to tell the story. The meat of the story remains the same.

I first heard his name because of this film: Metallica used footage from the movie for their music video "One" in 1989 which is how I first became aware of it.

Brilliant television.

I don't really care about the special effects in those movies, the actors and the overall atmosphere is what makes it for me. I can forgive the low budget trappings if the story is engaging. Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors was one of my favorites when I was a kid, I would watch anything with either Peter Cushing and/or Christopher Lee in it. That was the first of the Amicus anthology films, Asylum, Tales From The Crypt and From Beyond The Grave are also worth checking out. That third title takes the same basic premise as Dr Terror but has Cushing as the owner of an antique store that sells cursed artifacts.

That's pretty funny actually.

Elementary - Season 3. Started off a little clunky but found a groove. The X-Files - the new mini-series.

It was kind of a cloudy day but I liked the perspective of this shot...and I didn't even notice the reflection until after I got home and started going thru the photos.

Watched an interesting documentary on the Raiders called "Straight Outta L.A." (from NFL films) which was directed and narrated by Ice Cube. The documentary approaches the tenure of the Raiders when they played in Los Angeles from the viewpoint of the low-income people in South Los Angeles (primarily black and latino) who grasped onto the team. That same era also birthed Gangsta Rap which embraced the silver and black Raider image and pirate logo. The documentary also talks about the gang activity that began to become a blight on the Raiders games at the Coliseum when violence frequently erupted. The Los Angeles riots of 1992 are also covered.

That's awesome. Enjoy!

One of my favorite character actors has passed away, another artist taken too soon. Rickman was the type of actor who could elevate any material you put him in. By sheer personality he took an underwritten villain role in Die Hard (his first major feature) and made it one of the most memorable in screen history. I'm really saddened by his loss. He was 69. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-35313604

Sounds like you need to see Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, the two previous films with the same cast, both excellent. And for the record, my primary prerequisite for film is entertainment, I'm a buff, but I'm not a snob.

Glad to hear it, the reviews have been fairly bad here, but I think some of that is a backlash against the director using the same cast 3 films in a row. I'm still looking forward to seeing it.