Forget the films, what about the food? Master chef Wolfgang Puck will once again take up kitchen duty for the Academy Awards this year, taking responsibility for the post-Oscars Governors Ball. If serving a multi-course meal to 1,600 guests doesn’t sound like a tough assignment, consider this:
The kitchen staff will have to wrap 2,750 dates in bacon, boil 6,000 chestnut tortellini, de-vein 7,500 shrimp and shuck 1,300 farmed oysters. And that’s just for a handful of the nearly four dozen separate dishes that Puck’s chefs will hand off to the waiters.
Read more on the labor of love for Puck and his staff, or just spend your time staring at food like we ended up doing.
Photos: Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times
The voice of a president: Obama’s head speechwriter, Jon Favreau, will be departing March 1, following seven years of service to the president. Favreau may try his hand, of all things, at a screenwriting gig, perhaps in Los Angeles.
Favreau’s career took off when, at age 23, he interrupted U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama during a speech rehearsal to offer some suggestions for improvement.
Read White House correspondent Christi Parsons’ full story here.
Photo: Pete Souza / White House
Gritty brilliance: Lee Marvin, the versatile Oscar-winner who died at 63 in 1987, is the subject of a new biography, a film-series retrospective and a Turner Classic Movies marathon.
Lee Marvin “is the guy who started it all in terms of modern American cinema violence,” according to Dwayne Epstein, the author of a new biography of the iconic actor.
Take Marvin’s intense performance as the sadistic gangster Vince Stone in Fritz Lang’s gritty 1953 film noir “The Big Heat,” which is as visceral and shocking today as it was 60 years ago. In the famous “coffee scene,” Marvin goes into an animalistic rage when he believes his girlfriend (Gloria Grahame) has told a former cop (Glenn Ford) about his nefarious activities. He twists her arm to get confirmation, but she refuses to say anything.
Here’s the full story from Susan King.
July 26, 1962: Actress Sophia Loren presses her hands into wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in front of a crowd that included an estimated 50 photographers.
Photo credit: Los Angeles Times Archive / UCLA
Heady aroma of Hollywood ambitions fills small coffeehouse: Kaldi Coffee & Tea in Atwater Village is a ways from Tinseltown but draws a regular crowd of screenwriters, producers, directors and the like — some successful, others still striving. “It’s very much a workplace,” says one.
Photo: Kaldi Coffee & Tea is home to a community of dreamers who share a singular ambition: They want to be part of the movies. Credit: Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times
Trying out Google’s Quest View mode.
The Artist Old Hollywood Guide to Los Angeles
Curbed LA’s guide to the glamorous Old Hollywood spots of The Artist
test reblogged from ladyjanela
The American Cinematheque has a Studio Ghibli retrospective starting Thursday at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
Photo: “My Neighbor Totoro.” Credit: Studio Ghibli
This is awful. Authorities reported at least 16 new arson fires early Saturday in Los Angeles, bringing to more than 35 the number of fires intentionally set in the city in the last two days.
LAPD on tactical alert after 19 arson fires overnight: The Los Angeles Police Department issued a citywide tactical alert this morning after a string of 19 vehicle arsons overnight in West Hollywood and Hollywood.
Photo: Firefighters battle a fire in the 1400 block N. Poinsettia Place that started in the carport and spread to the apartment structure. Credit: Shawn Kaye
test reblogged from latimes
LAPD on tactical alert after 19 arson fires overnight: The Los Angeles Police Department issued a citywide tactical alert this morning after a string of 19 vehicle arsons overnight in West Hollywood and Hollywood.
Photo: Firefighters battle a fire in the 1400 block N. Poinsettia Place that started in the carport and spread to the apartment structure. Credit: Shawn Kaye
test reblogged from bbook
Hollywood gazes into the future and sees skyscrapers: City Council is weighing new zoning guidelines that would allow bigger, taller buildings. Some residents fear more congestion and say the plan is based on faulty census data.
Photo: A pedestrian passes a new high-rise development along Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times
Santas converge on Hollywood bar scene for SantaCon 2011: As part of a worldwide event, a local St. Nick’s contingent joins the holiday pub crawl in full regalia.
Photo: A SantaCon reveler at a Hollywood bar. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times
Much has changed for gay and lesbian Catholics in L.A.: A Mass in Hollywood celebrates the 25th anniversary of the gay and lesbian ministry established by then-Archbishop Roger Mahony. Despite a larger acceptance, participants know that challenges remain.
Photo: Luis Manuel Torres, left, Nick Rocca, Doug Anderson, Frank Galvan and Renee Stampolis were among those who attended a Mass at Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood celebrating the 25th anniversary of the founding of a ministry for gay and lesbian Catholics. Credit: Liz O. Baylen / Los Angeles Times
