Sex, lies and obsession play out in the somber streets of a rainy Vienna in director Nicolas Roeg’s 1980 baroque masterpiece “Bad Timing.” From its opening scene, in which paintings by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt appear alongside the jazz-tinged music of singer Tom Waits, “Bad Timing” comes on like a fever dream of Freudian psychoanalysis […]
Category Archives: Arts Columns
Out of Focus: ‘Harold and Maude’ screening on Valentine’s Day
Images of Vietnam washed across newspapers. Starry-eyed college kids with flowers in their hair staged demonstrations across the country. America was in flames and the revolution was televised. In the clink and clamor of war and protest during the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hollywood cinema started to change with the rest of the country. […]
Mixology: Valentine’s Day drinks
With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, it’s time to plan a night out. In this week’s Mixology, columnist Ashley Jakubczyk talks about the best picks for a Valentine’s Day cocktail in Westwood and how to celebrate if you plan on staying in instead. – – – Whether you’re planning on celebrating solo or taking your […]
Out of Focus: Mexican film traverses social commentary, coming-of-age
Long, black roads of tar and gasoline, visions of Jack Kerouac, greasy-spoon diners and desolate fill-up stations. Seedy motels, hitchhikers thumbing for rides and broken-down metal machines along the highway. These are the images conjured up when thinking of the traditional road trip. The road movie has always been seen as a uniquely American invention […]
Mixology: Whiskey
There are loads of trendy and diverse cocktails out there with complex and confusing flavors. Sometimes, though, it’s great to sip on a classic drink that’ll never quite go out of style. You know what you’re eating – shouldn’t you also know what you’re drinking? Each week, columnist Ashley Jakubczyk will talk about a new […]
Trending Now: Students leaps ahead of stores in high-waisted trend
Like history, fashion trends tend to repeat themselves. Wearing high-waisted bottoms is simply one of the many trends that continues to resurface over time. High-waisted bottoms first came to be in the 1940s, when more women gradually entered the work force and traditional pants as well as skirts were seen as too revealing. In the […]
Out of Focus: The films of Anthony Mann come to Westwood
Modern cinema is indebted to Anthony Mann, even if few are aware of it. Working under strict production codes and B-picture budgets, Mann crafted a string of brilliant movies in the 1940s and 1950s that chronicled outsiders and anti-heroes long before they became popular. These were films made practically on the run, churned out in […]