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Trafficking in People (Gary Mann and The Traffic School of America)
Road rules provide captive audience. It’s 7:45 a.m. on a Friday morning, and the Koo Koo Roo on South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills is almost full. I am here for traffic school. I ran a red light at the intersection of Robertson and Beverly boulevards, and the city of Beverly Hills has the photo to prove it. Our instructor, Gary Mann, is a handsome, trim gentleman in his early 60s, who looks 10 years younger. It seems too early,… -
Hungarians in Hollywood
On the distaff side, need we say more than Zsa Zsa? When my friend Lawrence Karman, cameraman par excellence, invited me a few weeks ago to a screening of "Bánk Bán," the filmed version of the classic Hungarian nationalist opera, I accepted enthusiastically. Not because I’m a big fan of opera in general or Hungarian operas in particular, but rather because it would give Larry and I an opportunity to wax nostalgic about our favorite subject: Hungarians in Hollywood. There… -
Campus Campaign
Hollywood launches ads to spark student support for Israel. While leafing through their college newspapers Monday morning, students at several major Southern California universities came across a full-page advertisement featuring Barad Zemer, a 23-year-old Israeli film student. Beneath Zemer’s photograph it read: “I love filmmaking, jazz and photography. I hate the image I carry of my classmate and his pregnant wife dying in a terrorist’s hail of bullets.†The appearance of the ad marked the launch of a $400,000 marketing… -
No Laughing Matter (Calvin Trillin, Peter Lefcourt and the comic novel)
New Trillian novel bucks literary trend and provides comic relief. Over the last year, I have read many wonderful novels: “The Lovely Bones†by Alice Sebold, “Atonement†by Ian McEwan, “The Hours†by Michael Cunningham. Well-written, emotionally resonant, all best-sellers, these highly praised literary works are required reading in book groups in Los Angeles and across the nation. Yet as excellent as they were, as one critic said of “Schindler’s Listâ€: “There weren’t that many laughs.†By contrast, “Tepper Isn’t… -
Polanski Hits a Sour Note in 'Pianist'
Truth to tell, I didn’t start to despise “The Pianist†— Roman’s Polanski’s Oscar-nominated film of concert pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoirs of Warsaw during World War II — until the very end of the film: The war has ended and a friend has taken Szpilman to a farm in the Polish countryside. There used to be a Soviet POW camp there, where the Nazi officer who spared Szpilman was asking for him. Now there is no trace of that internment… -
Is Hollywood Against the War?
Across the country, Americans are wondering, “Why is Hollywood against the war?†On TV programs and TV and radio talk shows, in magazines and newspapers, they see actors and actresses opining, talking the talk and walking the anti-war walk. This has led to a separate thread of programs and opinion pieces about whether Hollywood stars should even be called upon to discuss national issues. Around and around it goes. I can’t speak for Hollywood. But from where I sit, here… -
Is Lucian Freud Hot?
His paintings ask: Is this all there is? British painter Lucian Freud is considered Britain’s greatest living painter, one of the towering figures of realist portraiture. The largest retrospective of Freud’s work has now come to Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the only U.S. venue for this exhibit. Organized in 2002 for the Tate Britain in London, this show gathers Freud’s work over six decades — paintings, watercolors, drawings, as well as new works for this exhibition —… -
Overnight Sensation (Jill Sobule on The West Wing)
The Beatles on “Ed Sullivan.†Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk on the “Motown 25th Anniversary Special.†Ricky Martin at the Grammys. Each of these TV appearances launched a musical career into the stratosphere. On Wednesday Feb. 12, 2003, Jill Sobule appeared on “The West Wing.†Will lightning strike again? If you watched the episode, you may have seen Sobule, the singer-songwriter best known for her hit “I Kissed a Girl,†playing two songs in a bar as Toby and C.J. argued a…