Philip K. Dick

The Five Best Concerts in L.A. This Week

Tuesday, December 4 The Starvations THE ECHO Sometimes you gotta amend "never again" to "just once more," especially when there's a good reason, and this completely unexpected reunion of L.A.'s Starvations didn't come easy. It's a benefit for writer Joseph Mattson, author of a much-acclaimed novel ... More >>

Music Picks: Lauryn Hill, Bad Brains, Shuggie Otis

Total Recall: A Look Back at the Older, Better One

Just because it made loads of money, stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, and features a three-titted mutant doesn't mean Total Recall isn't ruggedly individualistic art. Just look at its outsider pedigree: Total Recall was loosely based on a 1966 short story from the flushed mind of Philip K. Dick, produce ... More >>

Total Recall Is a Retread of Blade Runner, Brazil, Minority Report...Oh, and Total Recall

By Chris Packham Total Recall, directed by Len Wiseman, aspires to be less stupid than its 1990 predecessor and kind of succeeds for the first third of the film. If you subtract all the metaphysical illusion-versus-reality nonsense, Philip K. Dick's Walter Mitty story "We Can Remember It for You W ... More >>

Music Picks: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, Esperanza Spalding, Jack White

Also, the Crystelles, Arturo Sandoval, Backbiter and others

Jonathan Lethem

L.A. Observed Preview

Thom Andersen and others present experimental nonfiction films about Los Angeles

Loscon 38: Robots, Filking and a Look at the Work of Philip K. Dick

Shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, a small conference room in the basement of the LAX Marriott filled to the brim. The science fiction fans attending this year's Loscon crowded together in tightly packed seats for a discussion of the life and work of Philip K. Dick led by noted authors T ... More >>

Yelping With Cormac: The Author of Blood Meridian Reviews Taco Bell

Yelping with Cormac​At its best, Yelp help can help you find a lunch that won't ruin your day.  At its worse, the website is, if not a petri dish for extortion, a willful enabler of bad, whiney writers.  The first big problem is, according to a judge, no longer up for debate, but the second ... More >>

Fassbinder's World on a Wire at LACMA

Art Brutal

Discovering the smart garage sound of Wounded Lion

L.A. Westside Subway Extension Debate

​CityWatch is refreshing for its willingness to allow advocates on each side of an issue to really air it out and allow readers to make up their own minds. Case in point, a debate over the Westside subway extension, which began last week with a Richard Lee Abrams attack on the subway, ominou ... More >>

Global Touch

The world according to David Mitchell

STAND BY YOUR DAN

John Woo: Back in Action

Director’s killer instincts return. Now if only his original Red Cliff would, too

Terminator Salvation: Save Yourself ...

... from McG's franchise add-on

Mythical Mystery Tour

Hoop of L.A.

What to do in L.A., October 3-9

Juxtapalooza

The Lowbrow sickness continues to spread, from Burbank to Laguna

Movie Reviews: Kurt Cobain: About a Son, Michael Clayton

Also Beyond Hatred, Blade Runner: The Final Cut and more

Sonic Youth Rides its Masterpiece

Don't Daydream it's over

Spice World

Getting to know enigmatic Paprika director Satoshi Kon

Film Reviews: Diggers, Next and Banished

Also Sing Now or Forever Hold Your Peace and more

The Meat of the Matter

Richard Linklater maps out his Fast Food Nation

Keanu, Darkly

Reeves and Linklater scan through Dick’s druggie dystopia

Crazed Catholics

I Art the '80s

Pettibon, Ocampo, Foulkes, Rath and Deen at Track 16; Herman at INMO

Ecstasy of Influence

Juxtaposed

The personal and the political

Exile in Godville

Profile of a postmodern heretic

David Ehrenstein, Meet David Ehrenstein

Some Very Excellent Books

The Meta-Media Madness Top 10

Viktor vs. Viktor, Live From Independence Square

Democracy’s Heroes

Brother From Another Planet

Tom Hanks in Spielberg’s The Terminal

In the Heart of the Universe

Jay Babcock talks with visionary comics author Alexandro Jodorowsky

Fast Forward

Stuck in the middle with Neo

The Matrix Reloaded, sorta

Letters

All Stories Are True

Michael Tolkin on rhythm, divinity and misunderstanding

Pre-Cognitive Dissonance

In Minority Report, the eyes have it

Majority Report

Paul Williams, Subjective Artist

Walk Like a Man

Sesame Osama

Clash of the Titans

Spielberg and Kubrick’s A.I.

The Short Story

New fiction from Mark Kurlansky, Stepan Chapman and Barry Lopez

Work the Dream

Home, the world and Eleni Mandell

Opera Elsewhere

Darkness and Light

From solitary to the salon