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SoCal Teen Troll 'Cutefuzzypuppy' Sextorted Females Online, FBI Says

An alleged Southern California criminal and troll used the online name "cutefuzzypuppy" and hacked into the computers of several females to capture nude webcam images, federal authorities say. They allege he then threatened to post the photos online if the women -- and in once case a 17-year-old gir ... More >>

Meet This Insanely Ridiculous and Awesome ELO Fan

Elouen Soviac is surely the world's biggest Electric Light Orchestra fan. You doubt it? Well, how about this: Elouen is not his real name, but a title he legally adopted in 2001 after using "elouen" (a word he made up) to describe the essence of ELO's sweeping orchestral pop rock. A teacher and com ... More >>

Michael Hastings' Dangerous Mind: Journalistic Star Was Loved, Feared and Haunted

Joss Whedon's The Avengers Grossed $1.5 Billion. His Next Film? A Shakespeare Play He Shot in His Backyard

The Economics of Music Festivals: Who's Getting Rich, Who's Going Broke?

By Chris Parker It's as though the sad, lamentable death of recorded music was accompanied by a kick-ass wake. Sure, label executives have had to sell their fancy homes and put their kids in public schools, but the rest of us have been feasting on a musical smorgasbord. Nothing better exemplifies ... More >>

An Artist Who's Obsessed With Dogs That Hang Out Around Art

The Museum of Jurassic Technology (MJT) in Culver City has a permanent exhibit devoted to the Sputnik space dogs, dogs found on Moscow streets, trained, dressed in dog-sized space suits then sent into orbit by the Soviet space program late in the 1950s and early in the 1960s. The exhibit features cl ... More >>

Five Artsy Things to Do This Week, Including Snowfall in Chinatown

See also: *10 L.A. Art Spaces That Change Our Idea of What an Art Space Is *Best L.A. Novel Ever: The Tournament *10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying This week, a Eurasian collective tells uncanny histories, artists take on maintenance work and a sculptor builds an uncomfortably large minimalis ... More >>

Karen 'Gary' Kazaryan Used Facebook For Nude Photo 'Sextortion,' Feds Say

A Glendale man who allegedly obtained 3,000 nude and semi-nude photos of as many as 350 women was arrested today in what feds are calling online "sextortion." Prosecutors in L.A. say Karen "Gary" Kazaryan hacked into victims' Facebook accounts, convinced them he was a female friend, persuaded them ... More >>

Country Star Brad Paisley's Veiled Liberalism

By Alan Scherstuhl Editor's note: Alan Scherstuhl sometimes writes about country music for our sister blog at the Village Voice. Brad Paisley, "Southern Comfort Zone" Current Billboard Country Singles Chart Position: 10 The Verdict: Holy shit, songs on the radio can still be important! In this ... More >>

Yung Jake, a Recent CalArts Grad, Could Be the Breakout Art Star of Sundance

Although half of Los Angeles will decamp this weekend to the snowy hillsides of Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, not everyone is going for the movies. Starry-eyed attendees relish access to the suits, the skiing and the swag, but what about the art? Shari Frilot has curated Sundance ... More >>

YouTube Stars Fight Back

Machinima and Maker Studios, two of YouTube's most high-profile networks, have come under fire from their own talent

Why 4:44 Last Day on Earth's Abel Ferrara Should Be Nominated for the Best Director Oscar

We'd Like to Help the Academy is our Oscar column highlighting the outliers that should be nominated (but probably won't be). The output of Abel Ferrara, a never-nominated New Yorker responsible for the likes of Bad Lieutenant and King of New York, may have been too superficially similar to that of ... More >>

We Attended Cinefamily's Entire 24-Hour Holiday Telethon. Here's the Mind-Blowing Stuff That Happened

It's somewhere on the wrong side of 4 a.m., John Hawkes is casually smoking cigarettes on an outdoor couch, the German actor Udo Kier just went back to the coffin he likely sleeps in, and Cinefamily's back patio looks like the early morning lull after a biker-gang Christmas party. There are beercans ... More >>

Kristen Stewart and Garrett Hedlund Chat About the Movie Adaptation of On the Road

The Bay Review: Barry Levinson Mimics an Amateur YouTube Documentarian

VIDEO: Obama Calls Mars Rover Team at JPL, Talks Martians and Mohawk Guy

As is tradition after big American achievements or tragedies (such as, earlier this month, Michael Phelps' 19th Olympic medal and the Sikh community's tragic loss), President Obama reached out to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory this morning over telephone. You'd think the big White House phone cal ... More >>

L.A. Weekly Wins Big With 6 SoCal Journalism Awards, 3 AltWeeklies Awards

Last night's SoCal Journalism Awards -- an annual affair put on by the L.A. Press Club -- were more star-spangled than usual. Among the presenters and honorees were Martin Sheen, Ron Perlman (so much shorter in person, but with an even bigger voice), Daniel Pearl's extended family and every journal ... More >>

La Vida Boheme: Venezuelan Disco Punks Perform Before the Dodgers Game on Sunday

See also: Viva Los Dodgers 2012 Lineup Announced: Ximena Sariñana, Ana Tijoux, More Henry D'Arthenay is psyched for this Sunday's Dodger game, and not just because it's only the second of his life. As he tells us over Skype from his home in Caracas, Venezuela, his band La Vida Boheme will also per ... More >>

Ana Tijoux: "Recording is like flirting with your songs. Touring is the relationship"

See also: *Viva Los Dodgers 2012 Lineup Announced: Ximena Sariñana, Ana Tijoux, More *Reviewed: Ana Tijoux performs at MacArthur Park, 8/11/11 Having grown up in political exile in France during Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's reign, it seems natural that rapper Ana Tijoux -- now 34 -- would c ... More >>

L.A.'s Best Body Painters Explain Their Secrets

Plenty of people walk around Los Angeles in various states of undress, but not many know what it's like to show up somewhere clothed only in paint. Yet body painting is alive and well in our fair city, practiced by a handful of artists who varnish nude or nearly nude models for film, commercials and ... More >>

Conan O'Brien's Workout Mixtape: Stuff White People Like

Last week, we received the following press release: "Curious on how Conan O'Brien maintains his lean physique? It takes hours and hours in the gym -- and to keep his energy up, Conan needs the right kind of music. We we cornered Coco and got him to reveal what's thumping in his headphones while he ... More >>

4:44 Last Day on Earth Review

Abel Ferrara's apocalypse

Brian Charette Is One Weird Organist

The last time I was here, I was chased out of my agent's place in West Hollywood with a baseball bat...Long story short, out comes the bat and I had to pack up my things in Trader Joe's bags and split. Halfway down the strip to my friend Samsonic's house, I passed a few other LA bums with their stuf ... More >>

Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO, Thrashed by Anonymous Old White Men in LA Times Roast

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesHudson takes on the haters.​Half a year into her stint as CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Dawn Hudson got a cutting performance review from the Los Angeles Times last weekend. The Times piece is not, at face value, an editorial evaluation of Hu ... More >>

Win A Date With The Singer! Kickstarter Bands That Actually Deserve Your Money

By Ed Carrasco Christmas may be over, but lots of local musicians are still hoping for a little seasonal generosity. They're seeking help footing the bill for production of their albums -- remember those? -- and have turned to Kickstarter. You may be feeling tapped out at this time of year, but, h ... More >>

Pennington Dance Project/Yorke Dance Project

Jonathan Gold Reviews Tsujita L.A.

Ramen and Tsukemen at the city's new noodle lover's paradise

Bella Lives

G-Funk All-Star Kurupt Sails Uncharted Rap Waters

L.A. City Councilmember Jose Huizar Has Missed Half His Meetings This Summer

No one plays hooky like Jose Huizar.​Leave it to Ron Kaye, former editor of the LA Daily News (til' he got too crazy -- read: too Valley -- for that shit), to comb through the L.A. City Council's abysmal attendance records for the last couple months, callin' out councilmembers on their devil-m ... More >>

Life in a Day Review

Calling Afghanistan: L.A. Schoolkids Try to Bridge a Gulf

Jim HakeThe linkup at Windward School​Teenagers spend a lot of time talking on the phone. But not too many of them get to call their peers in a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan. A handful of teens from Windward School, a charter school in West L.A., recently became the first to do so. The n ... More >>

Interview: Thundercat, Brainfeeder's Bass Master General

​ Thundercat - Daylight by BRAINFEEDER When L.A.'s world-class beat/electronica crew Brainfeeder takes over the Fonda later this week, you'll spot one guy up there making music the (comparatively) old-fashioned way. Him with the extraterrestrial sense of style and supernatural ability ... More >>

Luke Monahan, Camp Pendleton Marine, Dies in 8-Story Fall From Hawaiian Hotel; Was Memorial Day Drinkfest to Blame?

tumblr via everythingmarinecorpsLuke Monahan in uniform​At only 19 years old, San Diego County's Luke Monahan had yet to put his Camp Pendleton Marine Corps training to use. But you could say he died in the field last Friday, in a freak fall apparently tied to the Corps' extracurriculars. Lik ... More >>

Ten European Artists You Should Have Heard By Now

Parisian rapper Rohff​In the States, it's easy to be stuck in the bubble of our domestic music. Sadly, many European artists have a difficult time breaking into the North American market. Often, this stems from the language barrier, but it can also be due to the straight-up oddball nature of t ... More >>

Evan Kleiman Talks Global Street Food - Tickets on Sale Tomorrow

​Street food existed long before the myriad of Twittering food trucks took over Los Angeles. Evan Kleiman (chef/owner of Angeli Caffe, host of KCRW's Good Food) reminds us of that on May 1st, when she moderates the Global Street Food event featuring OC Weekly Managing Editor and food contribut ... More >>

We Heart Japan Brings Together Anime Industry and Fans for Earthquake Relief at Meltdown Comics

See more photos in Dianne Garcia's gallery "Voice Actors, Artists and Anime Fans Say 'We Heart Japan' at Meltdown Comics." "I always wanted to be an actor and anime was the first job, career thing, that let me be an actor," said Stephanie Sheh at Thursday night's We Heart Japan fundraiser at Meltdo ... More >>

Stage Raw: Furious Theatre Company and Pasadena Playhouse part ways

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE ON SPIDER-MAN, ON BROADWAYFURIOUS AND PASADENA PLAYHOUSE PART WAYSFor reasons having to do with Pasadena Playhouse's needs to lease its second space, The Carrie Hamilton Theater, and the need of Furious Theatre Company for a space with h ... More >>

AFI Fest A to Z: Hey Man, Yeah

Our critics' picks for what to see and skip at this year's festival

Preservation Road

Writer-director Wes Anderson and film critic/filmmaker Kent Jones discuss the Film Foundation series at LACMA

Movie Review: Going the Distance

Movie Reviews: Enemies of the People, Step-Up 3D, The Other Guys

Also The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest, Patrik Age 1.5 and more

Worlds Apart

Federal law gives gay citizens with foreign partners tough choices: Leave the U.S.A. Lose your love. Break the law

TV Newsman Goes Off On Perez Hilton

​Sam Rubin, the resident entertainment reporter at KTLA News in Los Angeles, went off on gossip blogger Perez Hilton Tuesday after the online celebrity walked off the set Monday without fulfilling an agreement to appear on the station's "Morning News." Rubin said on-air that Hilton was schedu ... More >>

Summer of Tough Love: Iraqi Double Agent Remains in Limbo

Web TV's Streamy Awards: Next Year It Could Be You Up There

Alexia TsotsisNeil Patrick Harris on stage at the Streamy AwardsOn approach the Wadsworth Theatre looked like it'd been swarmed Saturday night. Upon closer inspection the over 1300 people in attendance were as glamorous as glam could get at a first annual award show, and the critical mass was indica ... More >>

Samuel L. Jackson Interviewed: Discusses Hip Hop and Comics For the Premiere of Afro Samurai

21 years ago, Samuel L. Jackson snagged a bit part as Leeds in Spike Lee's School Daze. Since then, the prolific Tennessean has appeared in roughly 70 films -- some of them good (Kill Bill, Do the Right Thing, Hard 8,), some not so good (S.W.A.T, Amos and Andrew, Deep Blue Sea), and some that can ... More >>

Prop. S: The Revolution May Be Taxed

L.A. City Hall wants to tax your air. After all, it's an emergency

10 Unexpected Ways Your Hard Heart Was Moved Last Year

10 Unexpected Ways Your Hard Heart Was Moved Last Year