The Expo Line subway opens Saturday. Sifting through the ashes – 20 years since the L.A. riots. FilmWeek. Silence is golden, and other rules of etiquette for moviegoers. Plus, the latest news.
LA’s brand new Expo Line opens this weekend
Starting Saturday, passenger rail service to the Westside will be a reality again, with the grand opening of the Expo line.
The $930-million light rail project will run from downtown Los Angeles to Jefferson and La Cienega, with an extra segment going to Culver City due open this summer. Service to Santa Monica is expected within a few years. The new rail network will have 12 stations, two of which will be shared with the Metro Blue Line, and will serve USC, Exposition Park, mid-city communities, the Crenshaw District and Culver City.
"The knock on the transit system, particularly the rail transit system in L.A., is that it doesn’t go everywhere," said Steve Hymon, editor of The Source, MTA's blog. "So if you’re trying to decide should I take transit or if I should drive, you’re probably going to drive because, the transit either doesn’t get too short of where you want to go, it’s not convenient. As we add lines like Expo Line suddenly you can get to all these places, and it’s one less reason to drive."
It’s been almost 60 years since the Pacific Electric Railway stopped its trains to Santa Monica. Will the traffic-choked Westside finally get some relief? What new business opportunities will this bring to surrounding areas? Are Angelenos ready to ditch their cars and ride the rails?
Guests:
Steve Hymon, edits “The Source,” MTA’s blog at TheSource.Metro.net.
Robert Kleinhenz, Chief Economist, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation
Sifting through the ashes: 20 years since the LA Riots
The violence, despair and destruction that exploded in Los Angeles on April 29, 1992 left indelible memories on Angelenos and on Americans right across the country.
The city became unhinged after the jury acquittal of four LAPD officers criminally charged for the beating of black motorist, Rodney King. Tension spilled onto the streets. Fires burned from Long Beach to Pasadena. Looting was rampant. Gun violence spiked.
There are differing accounts of how many were killed over the course of those few days; as many as 63 Angelenos died in riot-related incidents according to new Los Angeles Times data. The worst trauma was race-related. Depending on whether you were black, white, Asian or Latino, the riots had different implications for you.
WEIGH IN
What did you experience of the turmoil that week, directly or indirectly? Did it have a lasting impact on your life? How do you interpret the events now? Where do you put the riots in the larger context of L.A., its history and its culture?
GUESTS
Leslie Berestein-Rojas, KPCC immigration reporter; writes the Multi-American blog on KPCC.org.
Kathy Choi, Contributor to KPCC’s Public Insight Network; Choi was 13 years old at the time of the riots, but it had a profound influence on her; Choi is making a film about the L.A. riots.
Brian Bentley, Contributor to KPCC’s Public Insight Network; Bentley was an LAPD officer at the time of the riots
André Birotte Jr., US State Attorney for the Central Region of California, Department of Justice.; Birotte was a public defender in Los Angeles at the time of the riots; former Inspector General of the L.A.P.D.
Rhonda Mitchell, Contributor to KPCC’s Public Insight Network; Mitchell was a 911 dispatcher at the time of the riots
Olsen Ebright, NBC4 social media lead on the digital team. Ebright launched real time tweeting of the events last Friday. The goal is to portray the events as if there was Twitter at the time and to inform people of the time line and the scope of the events as they develop in real time.
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FilmWeek: 'The Five-Year Engagement,' 'The Pirates! Band of Misfits,' 'The Raven,' 'Safe,' and more
Larry Mantle is joined by KPCC film critics Claudia Puig, Henry Sheehan and Charles Solomon to discuss this week’s new films, including The Five-Year Engagement, The Pirates! Band of Misfits, The Raven, Safe, and more. TGI-FilmWeek!
The Five-Year Engagement
The Pirates! Band of Misfits
The Raven
Safe
Guests:
Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and USA Today
Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and henrysheehan.com
Charles Solomon, animation critic for KPCC, author and historian for amazon.com
Silence is golden, and other rules of etiquette for moviegoers
You’ve bought your sixteen-dollar tickets, dropped twenty bucks on popcorn and soda at the concession stand and got to the theater early enough to get good seats. Then, after the trailers have started, a rowdy group of people show up and sit right next to you.
You pray their incessant chatter, texting, tweeting and phone use will stop once the feature presentation starts, but it doesn’t. You ask them politely to quiet down, and they simply ignore your request and keep on. You could go to the management, but they’ll surely only ask the miscreants to do what you just did. Besides, you’d have to get up and miss part of the movie!
This is just one of the many situations which raises the ire of moviegoers everywhere. Maybe it’s people coming in late, maybe it’s someone next to you chewing their popcorn too loudly or maybe it’s seeing the light from someone’s cell phone.
Everyone has their pet peeves, and it seems like too many people out there are either blissfully unaware or malevolently trying to drive audiences crazy with their total lack of movie theater etiquette.
To discuss this unsettling phenomenon, we’ve invited our FilmWeek critics on to give us their cinema dos and don’ts and share some horror stories they’ve seen over the years going to so many films.
WEIGH IN:
But what about you? What’s the most egregiously rude display you’ve seen at the movies? What particularly drives you up a wall? How do you handle these situations when faced with them? Any tips for the rest of us?
Guests:
Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and USA Today
Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and henrysheehan.com
Charles Solomon, animation critic for KPCC, author and historian for amazon.com