los angeles times

Film Critic Carina Chocano Laid Off in Latest ‘LAT’ Cutbacks

7:35AM STV | Yet more bad news from the abattoir better known as the Los Angeles Times newsroom: Film critic Carina Chocano is one of 75 staffers put down today by butchers at the Tribune Co., bringing to 325 the number of LAT employees laid off since last summer and the fourth full-time film critic to vanish from a Tribune daily since July 2007. More »

7:50AM Defamer Hollywood | While these parts have been known to house a predatory cougar or two, nothing could have prepared us for the family of bobcats who have moved into a foreclosed home in Lake Elsinore. The brood — at least two adult cats and three kittens — have lived in the house for weeks, sunning themselves on an outside wall and hanging out by the koi pond. “They are great neighbors,” said local Scott Brown, “and as long as they don’t want to baby-sit my kids, it’s not a problem.” That’s how it starts, Scott, but before you know it, you’re forced to drag your autistic young brother through the house in a desperate attempt at survival. Be wary. [LAT] More »

‘Jackie Brown,’ and Other Glaring Mistakes on the LA Times’s Top 25 Films List

8:46AM STV | There’s a place and time for discussing the inanity of movie lists — usually early January, right when the radius of critics’ annual Top 10 circle jerk is at its widest. But a few prime exhibits pop up throughout the year as well, such as last weekend’s Los Angeles Times feature selecting the top 25 Los Angeles films of the last 25 years. While we wouldn’t begrudge the contributors’ right to close out the late-summer news cycle as energetically as possible (we’ve all seen what happens when John Horn gets bored), the tactical and intellectual errors that occurred along the way are an unfortunate example of zeal gone horribly wrong.

8:00AM STV | Red-Headed Step-Fox: The cycle of abusive box-office analysis is renewed today at the Los Angeles Times, where John Horn broke out his calculator and a hot wire hanger in assessing this summer’s winners (Paramount, Warner Bros.) and losers (Sony, Disney). And, as per recent LAT tradition, 20th Century Fox was carted in for the grand finale, an epic pinata smackdown invoking everything from Meet Dave to Fox films’ Rotten Tomatoes ratings while once again completely ignoring the total! phenomenon! that was The Happening; at last glance, Manoj’s Mint broke $150 million worldwide, which isn’t exactly a flop under the circumstances. Anyway, there’s always next year, Horn writes, “when it will have sequels to X-Men and Ice Age and a film version of The A-Team.” And don’t forget Watchmen! Seriously, John — is this even your regular beat? [LAT] More »

5:00AM Defamer Hollywood | Dog Days: By August 29, the struggling L.A. Times will have laid off 150 of its employees following job cuts announced last month. Exactly what does the paper plan to do with its diminished resources now that so many of its “non-essential” employees are gone? Why, run a 35-page “Stars With Puppies” slideshow, of course! The Elizabeth Snead-penned feature, entitled, “Do Hollywood stars look cuter with puppies?” (spoiler alert: yes) is full of penetrating insights like, “Ali Simms has never looked cuter than in this photo with a tiny teddy-bear-faced Yorkie puppy.” It’s enough to drive a terminated employee to drink — or at least eat penis. [Los Angeles Times] More »

8:25AM Defamer Hollywood | Compounding (and maybe even stealing) our acute grief at the news of Short Circuit Redux, LA Times columnist Jay Fernandez today mulls over the pandemic of horror glutting the marketplace. With this week’s release of Prom Night leading the way, Fernandez counts more than a dozen do-overs en route to theatres, including the certain evisceration of classics like Friday the 13th, The Birds and Near Dark; a Stanford professor deigns to comment that audiences can’t be bothered to think and dread at the same time, so they take comfort in the familiar. Kind of like Fernandez himself, in a way, who latched on to our Short Circuit distress by reworking our “End of Ideas” tag for a lede (”Smell that? It’s the decay of original ideas”), citing stars Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy being “at the height of their powers” (we said they were “in top form”) and hitting the 1986 original’s IMDB Quotes page to flesh out our mutual concern over Fisher Stevens’ garish Indian stereotype. We feel your pain, Jay — but you already knew that, didn’t you? [LAT] More »

8:25AM Defamer Hollywood | Compounding (and maybe even stealing) our acute grief at the news of Short Circuit Redux, LA Times columnist Jay Fernandez today mulls over the pandemic of horror glutting the marketplace. With this week’s release of Prom Night leading the way, Fernandez counts more than a dozen do-overs en route to theatres, including the certain evisceration of classics like Friday the 13th, The Birds and Near Dark; a Stanford professor deigns to comment that audiences can’t be bothered to think and dread at the same time, so they take comfort in the familiar. Kind of like Fernandez himself, in a way, who latched on to our Short Circuit distress by reworking our “End of Ideas” tag for a lede (”Smell that? It’s the decay of original ideas”), citing stars Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy being “at the height of their powers” (we said they were “in top form”) and hitting the 1986 original’s IMDB Quotes page to flesh out our mutual concern over Fisher Stevens’ garish Indian stereotype. We feel your pain, Jay — but you already knew that, didn’t you? [LAT] More »