Upton Sinclair

Best L.A. Novel Ever: Upton Sinclair's Oil! vs. Oscar Zeta Acosta's The Revolt of the Cockroach People, Round 1

Here are some things Upton Sinclair's Oil! has the scoop on: Hollywood fad diets; illicit payments to players on the USC football team; phony miracles fabricated by a widely broadcast preacher. There's a Republican Presidential nominee from Massachusetts of whom Sinclair writes, "One thing, and one ... More >>

Duff McKagan On the "Rock-and-Roll Lifestyle": He Reads Tonight

Duff McKagan is the founding bassist of Guns N' Roses and the leader of the band Loaded. His column runs every Thursday on our sister blog Reverb. Today and tomorrow at the Viper Room in L.A. he'll be reading from his book, It's So Easy: and Other Lies. These will be no ordinary readings: today's w ... More >>

L.A. Fadeaway: Jordan Okun Turns His Experience as Hollywood Assistant Into a Novel

What Bret Easton Ellis's book American Psycho did to materialism and Wall Street power with his -- or, really, frankly, what Upton Sinclair did to the meatpacking industry with The Jungle -- Los Angeles native Jordan Okun attempts to do to Hollywood with his first novel, L.A. Fadeaway. While Hollyw ... More >>

Judy Holliday, a Gay Mormon Boy, and More New Theater Reviews

Jessica Abrams comedy about Hollywood, The Laughing Cow traffics in stereotypes but is nonetheless so delightful, says reviewer Rebecca Haithcoat, it grabs this week's Pick of the Week. Here are all the latest New Theater Reviews, or you can find them after the jump. Also, check out this week's st ... More >>

Uproar Over 'Pink Slime' in School Lunches

Remember pink goo? Let us refresh your memory. Pink goo, aka pink slime, is scraps of meat and connective tissue swept up from slaughterhouse floors that are doused with a pink chemical to kill dangerous pathogens -- since they've been, you know, on the floor -- then blended together into a substanc ... More >>

Eric Bauman, L.A. Democratic Party Kingmaker

Elevates the ossified, keeps out L.A. talent

Why Los Angeles Schoolkids Get Lousy Meals

Barack Obama is Definitely Not a Socialist, Says Joseph Kishore, National Secretary of the Socialist Equality Party

Joseph Kishore, an actual socialist.​Socialism returned to the United States in an odd way three years ago when pundits took to the airwaves to scream about gulags and breadlines, but the talking heads never actually explained what Socialism as a political ideology stood for. What better way t ... More >>

Todd Haynes' Mildred Pierce Review

THEATER REVIEWS: A CHICAGO CHRISTMAS CAROL, EXIT 10, THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT, OUR BEDS ARE CROWDED

Also, The Stories of Cesar Chavez, Traveling Carnival Freakshow, West Side Story and more

Stage Raw: Traveling Carnival Freakshow

COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGSNEW THEATER REVIEWSSTAGE FEATURE on three plays in NYC NEW REVIEW GO TRAVELING CARNIVAL FREAKSHOW ​Photo by Chelsea SuttonIf Tod Browning and the Brothers Quay had collaborated on a stage version of The Island of Dr. Moreau, the results might have resembled this whim ... More >>

Where the Elite Meet to Turn You Off Meat

Panic, Despair and Revolution

Yet from industry turmoil, great films arose

Steve Lopez Sends a Message to Car-Insurance and Billboard Giants

Consumer Watchdog.org​In his L.A. Times column today, Steve Lopez rails against Mercury Insurance and billboard giant CBS Outdoor. The two companies have been in the news lately because the insurance company pressured CBS into taking down an anti-Mercury ad paid for by Consumer Watchdog. On August ... More >>

Extract Preview: Punching the Time Clock with Mike Judge at the Aero

Nicole CamposMike Judge has something to live up to with his new comedy Extract, if the testimonial of an audience member during Saturday night's Q&A following a preview screening at the American Cinematheque at the Aero was anything to go by. Without naming the expert in question, the fellow point ... More >>

Time Magazine: The Food Crisis in America

Time magazine's new issue covers the food crisis in America: Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food. "Unless Americans radically rethink the way they grow and consume food," writes Bryan Walsh, "they face a future of eroded farmland, hollowed-out countryside, scarier germs, higher health co ... More >>

Theater Reviews: Eve's Rapture, Half of Plenty, The Country Wife

Also, Trafficking in Broken Hearts, Setup and Punch and more

Stage Raw: Touch the Water

This latest NEW THEATER REVIEWS are embedded within this week's COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGS; also, see this week's THEATER FEATURE on El Ogrito (The Ogreling) and Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad ZooHALF OF PLENTYHalf of Plenty Photo by John FlynnThe West Coast premiere of Lisa Dillman's play "on le ... More >>

Stage Raw: Ten to Life

Last week's NEW THEATER REVIEWS are embedded in the current COMPREHENSIVE THEATER LISTINGS; also, see this week's THEATER FEATURE on Kevin King's The Idea ManTEN TO LIFE"Hacienda Heights" (from Ten to Life) Photo by Nic Cha KimNEW REVIEW GO TEN TO LIFE Leave logic at the door  and you'll get ... More >>

Stage Raw: New Troupes on the Block

NEW TROUPES ON THE BLOCK Under the umbrella of Cornerstone Theatre Company, a new company called Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras (Day Laborer Theater Without Borders) launches at the Hollywood Community Job Center, 5669 De Longpre Avenue; December 20 at noon. The 15-member troupe will voice the s ... More >>

A Chicago Christmas Carol

Theater Reviews: My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, Scrooge Must Die!

Plus, A Grand Guignol Children's Show, A Chicago Christmas Carol and more

Stage Raw: Your Source for Free and Discount Theater Tickets

FREE AND DISCOUNT THEATER TICKETS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Plays411 is offering FREE & Discount Tickets: You only pay $3.50 Service Fee, or Half-off where indicated. Advance Reservations only: Go to: plays411.com, then select the show, use Promo Code: "LETMEIN" (unless otherwise instructed ... More >>

Stage Raw: Leslie Jordan's Trip Down the Pink Carpet

This Week's Theater Pick Leslie Jordan's Autobiographical Trip Down the Pink Carpet If a zest for life is infectious, there's probably no more delightful a carrier than Leslie Jordan. A diminutive stage, film, Emmy Award-winning TV actor, and fugitive from the Bible Belt, Jordan regales us ... More >>

Paul Thomas Anderson: Blood, Sweat and Tears

There Will be Blood director on making his masterpiece, and how baseball may have saved him

There Will Be Blood is Anderson’s Citizen Kane

Oil Welles

Blog This: 2007’s Best Films

No argument about this list

Daniel Day-Lewis: The Way He Lives Now

As his fourth film in a decade arrives in theaters, the movies’ most enigmatic leading man reveals the method behind his onscreen madness

Theater Reviews

Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins, Joe Orton's Loot, Neil LaBute's Fat Pig and more

Film Reviews: The Reaping, Are We Done Yet? and More

Alsoo reviews of Firehouse Dog, Sacco and Vanzetti and Operation Homecoming

How Alarcón Sold Out the Schools

Re-running for City Council, he got a free pass from the media over his troubling antics in Sacramento

The Meat of the Matter

Richard Linklater maps out his Fast Food Nation

Ed and Antonio

Ed Roybal and Latino politics in Los Angeles

Waiting for Lefty

To Succeed, Must We Secede?

Big Beef’s Dirty War

Meat industry has resisted cleaning up its act for decades

Give Us Liberty or At Least Give Us Dinner

Edited by Kateri Butler

The Researchers

Eric Schlosser and the new old journalism

Pier Pressure

Signs of a rumble on the waterfront

Two Toms

We have the vision of the one, we need the vision of the other

A Vision for the City: Introduction

Scavenger Hunt

Moseying through some of “California” at the County Museum

Shticks and Stones

Two new Jewish comedies set during the war

Less Than the Sum of Its Parts

Our fragmented progressive movement, and what to do about it

From Liberty Hill to the Living Wage

A brief history of Progressive Los Angeles