Whitney Friedlander

What Was it Really Like to Work for Walt Disney? New Book Spills Details

Love him or hate him, there's no escaping the impact that Walt Disney had on the film industry and, with Disneyland, Southern California lifestyle. The lord of the Mouse House died from lung cancer in 1966, but that hasn't stopped the stories (both good and bad) of what it was like to work for him ... More >>

Art Shaped Like Kidney Beans: A History

West Hollywood just got a lot more colorful. Three shiny, vibrant-hued, kidney-shaped sculptures from local artist Cosimo Cavallaro have been scattered like a giant jelly bean-themed Easter egg hunt across West Hollywood Park near the Pacific Design Center. Part of the city's Art on the Outside pr ... More >>

How Mary Tyler Moore Influenced Your Favorite TV Shows

From Murphy Brown and 30 Rock to Sex and the City, New Girl and The Mindy Project, television shows have depicted women starting over, figuring out their lives and juggling their work-life balance. And for this genre, these ladies can thank Mary Tyler Moore. In her new book, Mary and Lou and Rhoda ... More >>

10 Best L.A. Boutiques That Won't Break the Bank

See also: *10 Best Vintage and Second-Hand Boutiques in L.A. *10 Best Women's Shoe Stores in Los Angeles *Top 10 Weirdest Stores in L.A. Finding the right women's clothing boutique means a lot of trial and error. Somewhere between the dingy storefronts packed with poorly-made clothing in sizes that ... More >>

What's It Like for a Married Couple to Collaborate on a Violent, Sexually-Threatening Movie? Ask Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton

Mark Duplass has established himself as half of an independent film power couple. Over the last few years, the writer-director-producer-actor of the micro-budget mumblecore genre and his brother Jay (who are together known as the -- and whose production company is called -- Duplass Brothers) have wo ... More >>

Seinfeld Writer Peter Mehlman, Credited With Catchphrases Like 'Yada Yada Yada,' Tells Us About His New Book

Peter Mehlman certainly has a flair for the English language. As a writer for beloved 1990s sitcom Seinfeld, he mainstreamed terms like shrinkage, sponge-worthy and "yada yada yada," the last of which has such a footing in pop culture vernacular that it's part of the Oxford English Dictionary. Heck. ... More >>

As Live Talks Los Angeles Turns Three Years Old, Its Founder Explains What Makes a Great Conversation

Ronald Reagan may have been the Great Communicator, but Ted Habte-Gabr is obsessed with conversation. Habte-Gabr produces Live Talk Los Angeles, a series of events that pair interesting names -- often of the literary world -- for sit-down interviews in front of hundreds of people. His first event ... More >>

10 Best Women's Shoe Stores in Los Angeles

Whether you're indulging your inner Carrie Bradshaw's need for Manolo Blahnik or looking for your sneaker holy grail, Los Angeles has a shoe store for you. Here's a rundown of where to find the pumps, loafers, trainers, wedges, slingbacks, flats and everything in between to satisfy anyone's retifism ... More >>

Alexander Woo, a Playwright Who Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the 'Idiot Box'

Sexy Feminism Authors Give Tips on How to Be a Modern Feminist

Feminism -- or at least what it means to embrace it -- is a mess of opinions nowadays. While we almost always hold a united front on such things as equal pay and women's health, there are separate factions for everything from dating to dressing. Journalists Heather Wood Rudúlph (who used to ... More >>

10 Best Places in L.A. For a First Date

See also: *10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying *10 Oddball L.A. Museums Worth Seeing *10 Places in L.A. to Draw Nude Models Coffee dates are the worn-in blue jeans of the dating world: about as unoriginal as a third date at a sushi bar, but still used as the comfortable, familiar fallback of ch ... More >>

6 Awesome L.A. Sports Leagues You Can Join

See also: *10 Places in L.A. to Draw Nude Models *Top 10 Gyms in L.A. *Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A. For all those sick of the gym but who are still holding tight to their New Year's resolution to get in shape, there's Zogsports. The social sports organization that brings together you ... More >>

Dave Grohl On His Film Tribute to the Studio That Gave the World Nevermind

By Whitney Friedlander The lobby of Dave Grohl's Northridge-based 606 Studios has a Joan Jett book on the coffee table and a row of classic arcade games like Donkey Kong Jr. against one wall. On top of a photo booth sits an iconic "Moonman" MTV Video Music Award, festooned with a roll of toilet pap ... More >>

Sonia Sotomayor Chats With Eva Longoria: 7 Inspirational Take-Aways

Much as been made of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's rise from a poor girl from the Bonx to an Ivy League-educated assistant district attorney for New York and eventual judgeships before becoming the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in 2009. In her recently-released best-selling memoir ... More >>

$ellebrity: Photographer Kevin Mazur Discusses His New Film About Gossip, Paparazzi and the Cost of Fame

See also: *More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage It's possible that the price of fame has never been higher -- and not just in the tried-and-true Hollywood storylines of fame, fortune and the tragic falls from grace. In his new documentary $ellebrity, seasoned celebrity and event photographer Kevin Mazur ... More >>

How Two Guys Known as 'The Minimalists' Are Helping Us End Our Obsession With Stuff

There's a famous George Carlin routine where the late comic mocks our obsession with stuff -- clothing and cars and accessories that we buy in an effort to fit in, to make ourselves feel better, to feed the American nature of consumerism until these items rule our lives. Now, four years after Carli ... More >>

Is the Maya Doomsday Theory Offensive?

This card was meant to be funny. But is it offensive to blame today's turmoil on the Maya people? As your Facebook feed might have reminded you, the 2012 doomsday countdown is upon us. And while most people consider the idea of the world actually ending on December 21 to be nothing more than a mark ... More >>

Beverly Hills' Most Bizarre Crimes, From a Nude, Sunbathing Pilot to an Acid-Throwing Bridezilla

Beverly Hills is a city built on the Hollywood dream: Make it in the industry and you, too, can live in the giant mansions, eat at the finest restaurants and shop in the exquisite stores of the elite. So it's only fitting that the tiny town in the middle of Los Angeles is also filled with some of t ... More >>

5 Places in L.A. to See Affordable Opera

Centuries ago, opera was more affordable, not just something thought to be for the country club set when the dained to put on their long silk gloves and gold-rimmed glasses. Several companies in Los Angeles have strived to recreate this custom, but it hasn't always been easy. Ticket prices are one ... More >>

5 Lessons From Nick Hornby's Talk Last Night on Writing and Pop Culture

Nick Hornby rose to fame for expertly explaining the man-boy world to legions. His memoir Fever Pitch chronicles his devotion to the Arsenal football (soccer) league. His novels High Fidelity, About a Boy and, more recently, Juliet, Naked talk of grown men still struggling with relationships. But ... More >>

Larchmont Development Wars and Women in EDM Have Readers Talking

10 Best Lindsay Lohan Artworks

See also: *Marilyn Monroe's Seven Rare Mostly Nude Photos *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *Top 10 Artworks Inspired by Cult Movies Using celebrities as artistic inspiration is certainly nothing new -- just ask anyone who ever tacked up an Andy Warhol poster in a dorm room. Yet, there is ce ... More >>

Murderball Director Dana Adam Shapiro Has a New Book About Divorced People Giving Relationship and Sex Advice

See also: *5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week *Best L.A. Novel Ever: The Tournament What makes seemingly happy relationships go sour? And once a marriage crumbles, is it possible to find love again? Dana Adam Shapiro, a single, never-married, Venice-based filmmaker, traveled the country to find ... More >>

10 Best Ways to Get in Shape in L.A.

See also: *Our Best of L.A. issue and our Best of L.A. app *Top 10 Gyms in L.A. *Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A. You see the flab. You want the flab gone. You want it gone now. There's no New Year's resolution. There's no wedding dress to fit into. It's just getting in shape time. Becau ... More >>

L.A. Versus New York Fashion: Elle's Joe Zee Weights In

L.A. and New York are both known for their unique fashion -- and fashion disasters. And in the latest season of his Sundance Channel show, All on the Line, Elle magazine creative director Joe Zee has to deal with it all. More like Gordon Ramsay on Kitchen Nightmares than Project Runway mentor, Tim ... More >>

Penny Marshall on Her New Memoir, My Mother Was Nuts, and How She Influenced Women in Comedy

With today's 24-hour news cycle, it isn't uncommon for the Hollywood elite to take to social media or a friendly tabloid to debunk rumors about their personal lives and well-beings. Penny Marshall took it one step more: She wrote a tell-all book. "My brother just finished his second book, so I tho ... 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 >>

Suri's Burn Book: The Ultimate Dig at Our Celeb-Obsessed Culture, Now in Book Form

In our celeb-obsessed culture, it seems everything is fair game. We gather around blogs that pick apart stars' outfits and possible romantic entanglements and other scandals. So are celebrity children fair game? Blogger Allie Hagan attempts to make light of that idea. However, being a 25-year-old p ... More >>

Why Do We Fear Public Speaking? Speak, a New Documentary, Tries to Find Out

Speaking in public is often considered to be our number one fear. So who in his or her right mind would willingly hop on stage and compete to earn the title as the best at it? Westside documentary filmmakers Brian Weidling and Paul Galichia decided to find out and, following in the tradition as fil ... More >>

Top 10 Gyms in Los Angeles

If there's anything we are not lacking in Los Angeles, it's places to work out. But finding the perfect gym to tone, slim down or -- dare we even say it -- find a date is a highly subjective decision. Then there's that old real estate rule of location, location, location; you want something close t ... More >>