Yoda

Meet the L.A. Couple Who Are Finalists for the Doritos Super Bowl Ad Contest For the Third Year in a Row

Tyler Dixon and Heather Kasprzak met as nemeses at the Super Bowl in Dallas in 2011. Both had created award-winning ads selected out of thousands by Doritos to air during the Super Bowl. Both were also hoping to be ranked No. 1 by the USA Today Ad Meter, which would award them the $1 million Doritos ... More >>

Caltech Crafts Gingerbread Mars Rover

One giant leap for a pastry chef? We've seen a lot of cool gingerbread houses around town, but nothing tops the gingerbread Mars Curiosity rover that the nerdy minds at Caltech have come up with. Crafted by Kevin Isacsson, head chef of the Athaneum, the Pasadena university's private dining club, the ... More >>

Your Post-Presidential Election Food Guide: If Your Candidate Won

First, take a moment to sigh with relief. No, laugh. Because if there was ever a time to hoot and cheer as if you and your friends just narrowly averted death by trash compactor in the basement of the Death Star, this would be it. Maybe it wasn't as close as the pollsters predicted it would be, but ... More >>

Everyone at This Convention is Greener Than You Are

The AltBuild Alternative Building Materials & Design Expo, in its ninth year, is regarded as a place for the "green-curious" to make the leap to "green-committed." For people who had already waded past compact fluorescent bulbs deep into eco-consciousness territory, however, it was the place to ... More >>

How to Grow Weed in Los Angeles If Dispensaries Go Away

See Also: Medical Weed's Stay of Execution in L.A. Inside 420 W. Pico Ave. in downtown L.A., patients can pick their treatment from a menu; the strains of marijuana have names like "skittles," "sour diesel" and "sucker punch." The main attraction at Kush Connection, though, is "Master Yoda" -- known ... More >>

Prince Just Turned 54: Some Required Reading

By Reed Fischer If Prince was sticking to his Jehovah's Witness faith, he didn't celebrate his 54th birthday last week. (The religion considers birthdays pagan.) And, giving him gifts is pointless anyhow, because he's probably at the point where he has everything -- purple, anyhow -- already. Not ... More >>

Happy Star Wars Day: Use the Force to Make R2-D2 Ice Cubes, Stormtrooper Bento Boxes Other Ideas

If you want to amuse yourself, try calling Williams-Sonoma to ask what they're doing for Star Wars Day. You can imagine a nicely coiffed salesperson on the other end of the line, not completely understanding the question: "Star Wars what?" Or they'll laugh and ask if your kid put you up to this, t ... More >>

Do We Really Need Playwrights? Our L.A. Weekly Theater Issue Asks the Question

This week is our annual theater issue, which looks at ensemble-created work -- work that's not written by a playwright typing by themselves on a computer, but created during collaborative rehearsals involving an entire company of actors and directors. The issue includes an essay from our head theat ... More >>

Ecco Announces First 3 Bourdain Titles: Roy Choi and Some Other People

​Last September Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced that Anthony Bourdain (chef, crime novelist, No Reservations guy, friend-of-Chang, occasional writer of Treme episodes, etc.) would have his own line of books, one that would publish a small handful of titles every year. W ... More >>

'Bark Side' Super Bowl Ad, With Star Wars' Imperial March Sung by Dogs: Director Keith Schofield Explains How He Did It

Have you seen that video of the dogs barking the Darth Vader song? Chances are, if you have a pulse and an Internet connection, you have. The viral video is a teaser for a Volkswagen Super Bowl commercial, so yes, that makes it a commercial for a commercial. It's bold new territory for advertising ... More >>

7 Ridiculously Tacky Commercialized Christmas Tree Ornaments

You know that complaints about the commercialization of Christmas are as unfashionable as figgy pudding when "Your Ad Here"-equivalent Christmas ornaments are popular store items. Companies like Coca-Cola pay big bucks to buy advertising space on billboards and bus stops, but they've cleverly figu ... More >>

Sqirl to Open in Silver Lake: Q&A with Jessica Koslow

Margy RochlinTomato and coriander jam (left), sauerkraut (right).​This Wednesday, what was fleetingly Gus' Lunch Box will officially become Sqirl (pronounced "squirrel"), where you can buy over 15 varieties of owner Jessica Koslow's small-batch jams and preserves. Produced in custom-made coppe ... More >>

San Diego Comic-Con Preview Night: Inside Small Press

Shannon CottrellJenn of justJENN breaks out the Boba Fett and Yoda cookies inside Small Press​See more photos in Shannon Cottrell's gallery, "San Diego Comic-Con 2011 Preview Night." "Small Press almost like a mini-con within the Con," said Jenn of justJENN Designs when we interviewed her rec ... More >>

Origami Yoda and More at Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden's Origami Festival at Cal State Long Beach

Lisa HorowitzOrigami Yoda, folded by Michael Sanders as part of Alison Redfoot-DiLidda's composition​ The Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden at Cal State Long Beach turned out to be a lovely location to learn the art of origami, or Japanese paper folding, on Sunday. From humble beginnings mor ... More >>

Star Tours Revamp at Disneyland, the LA Weekly Review: The Force is Strong with This Ride

©2011 Disney Enterprises, Inc./Lucasfilm Ltd.Make sure all tray tables are in the upright and locked position.​ The crowds were thick on the opening weekend of Disneyland's newest offering Star Tours -- The Adventures Continue, with throngs of fans sporting prehensile Yoda backpacks plopping ... More >>

Short Attention Span Dinner Theater: Your Week in Food, 5/2-5/6

Flickr/Lauren Manning​ In which we highlight the past week in food, either at home or abroad. "This is the South. You have to have liquor. This is not California." Q & A With Amber Huffman: Bourbon Blunders, Derby Cocktails Cooking For Jess Jackson At His Kentucky Racehorse Farm. "Can 79 ... More >>

Star Wars Day: May the Fourth ( A Thematically Appropriate Cake) Be With You

pixelbitesHan Solo Frozen in Carbonite (and Cake)​ Being an avid reader of Wookiepedia, the proud owner of a plastic light-saber you keep holstered next to your cell phone, and a fan of the much-maligned 1978 Christmas special, you probably know this already: Today, May 4th, is Star Wars Day. ... More >>

Star Wars Street Art: Free Humanity Talks Barack Obama, Akira Kurosawa and Mr. Brainwash

Keith Plocek​See more posters at "Star Wars Street Art: The Works of Free Humanity."​Jabba the Hutt and Salacious Crumb, stenciled on top a page of the Wall Street Journal with the words "Greed is good." Boba Fett, standing alone with "I'm sorry for the deaths of the innocent but that happen ... More >>

Prince Still Sexes Us Up: "The Beautiful Ones" on "Lopez Tonight"

​The good news is, the first show of Prince's Los Angeles residency is tonight (!). The bad news is, he probably won't be performing "The Beautiful Ones." His Purple Highness teased the kickoff of his "21 Nite Stand" with a three-song set on Lopez Tonight, including the world premiere of hi ... More >>

Street Art, Travel Posters and Burlesque: Our Favorite Star Wars Finds of 2010

If the fact that we have a Style Council category devoted specifically to Star Wars weren't already an indication, we have a confession to make. A few of us on this arts/pop culture blog team are Star Wars fans. We've been known to spend hours looking at fan art online and chasing down cosplayers at ... More >>

Top 5 Absurd But Adorable Kitchen Gadgets

Like Alton Brown, we abhor single-use utensils, but the science of kitchen gadgetry (not to mention the power of advertising) is all about convincing you to buy useless products to solve problems you don't really have. In that vein, we present our version of a holiday gift guide, for the person in y ... More >>

Free Humanity's Thought-Provoking Star Wars Street Art at DesignerCon

Booth 105 at DesignerCon was a little different from most of the vending stations at last Saturday's toy and art convention when we passed it. There was no one standing behind the table to answer questions or sign autographs, no huge crowd looking for discounted items. There was, however, a lot of t ... More >>

Top 10 Star Wars Cakes: Let The Force (of Frosting & Fondant) Be With You

WasabimonStorm Troopers Like Cake, Too​ Cake is one confection that will never, ever go out of style. Witness shows like Duff Goldman's Ace of Cakes, Cake Boss, Amazing Wedding Cakes and now, Cupcake Wars, which not only engineer cakes, but make them, as Goldman says, "Bigger, badder, awesome! ... More >>

Music Picks: Phosphorescent, Bomba Estereo, Gangi, Pablo Heras-Casado

Also, Jimmy Cliff, Suzy Williams, Funeral Party and others

Squid Ink Food Fight: Banana Cream Pie, Apple Pan vs. Jar

Certain foods feel nostalgic, whether they were a part of your childhood or not. You don't need to have grown up in the 50s to have a sense of comfort sitting in an Eisenhower-era roadside diner, drinking burnt coffee and eying a piece of cherry pie sitting under a glass covering on the counter. Pie ... More >>

Dagobah Jedi Frog Habitat: Yoda's Houseguest Is An Amphibian

​Someone came up with a frog habitat based on Yoda's house in the Dagobah swamp. Why? Who knows! But it is awesome. I suppose the serious Star Wars nerd could build his or her own version of Frogobah out of the model toy Yoda house, which was never intended for the keeping of live frogs.  ... More >>

Yoda on Top...of the Christmas Tree

Yoda on top​Speaking of Star Wars (and when are we not), Jedi Master Yoda now comes as a tree topper. From the looks of things, he's been up for sale at the Star Wars Shop since October, and has since sold out. He's still available at several other places around the Internet for approximately ... More >>

Halloween in LA: The Recap

Patrick Range McDonald​Now that the costume stress and sugar rush are history, take some time to check out LA Weekly's Halloween party coverage.

Crazy Happenings in the South Bay

The New Cocktailians

The farmers market–loving, sleeve garter–wearing ladies and gentlemen of the bar taking over L.A.'s restaurants one glass at a time

Do Fries Go With That Ube Shake?

André Guerrero’s pastrami lessons at The Oinkster

Zen and the Art of Lawyer Maintenance

Disney Goes to the Dark Side

The Battle for the Mouse’s heart and soul reaches epic proportions