Still no heir-apparent for LAUSD's superintendent position, a Tribeca Film Festival Q & A goes awry, the man behind all of Westworld's android-like characters.
The LAUSD superintendent search: What's the latest and why you should care
Aurora Castillo was a feisty advocate for East LA
As women's history month comes to a close this week, we wanted to profile some women who have made their mark on L.A.'s history, like the late Aurora Castillo.
Castillo was the first person from L.A. to win the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the Nobel Prize for environmental activism. Castillo was given the award for her leadership in the The Mothers of East L.A. (MELA), a community activist group.
When she received the award, Castillo spoke to the Goldman Environmental Prize about her devotion to her East L.A home.
The Mothers of East Los Angeles will fight like lionesses for the safety, security and welfare of their children. We send out a message that they cannot come into East Los Angeles and pollute our community and endanger the security, safety and health of our children.
Castillo was proof that age doesn't stop someone with a mission. She was in her seventies when MELA was formed to fight the construction of a prison in East L.A.
Frank Villalobos collaborated with MELA to stop the prison plan. He remembers the protest march where the group got its name.
Channel 9 shows up and Channel 9 was floored with that image of them [the protesters] coming with the Virgin of Guadalupe in the the front and the mariachis playing in the front. They were just blown away and said, 'Who are those women?' And so out of the clear blue sky we said, 'Well, these are the Mothers of East L.A.'
Castillo was a key leader for MELA, often speaking to press and acting as a coordinator to ensure presence at protests and events.
She [Castillo] would sit there and call, say, we have a meeting, we have a march, we have a press conference, we have whatever. She would make sure that there would be a population there. The segment she was always after was mothers, women. She didn't mind men but she wanted always the women in the front.
Villalobos said Castillo was feisty and unafraid of an argument, and she also was a devout Catholic and well-respected throughout the community.
After stopping construction of the prison, Castillo and MELA battled against a toxic waste incinerator and a hazardous waste treatment plant being built in the area. After Castillo's death, MELA continued to fight for the East L.A. community.
For her years of dedication to preserving the environment for her East L.A. neighbors and their children, Castillo was nominated for the Goldman Environmental Prize by Villalobos and MELA members. She won the award in 1995 and passed away three years later at age 84.
‘This is not your grandfather's Inland Empire’ and that's good for business
The Inland Empire is changing fast. From housing to commerce, the two-county region is going through a growth spurt.
Nearly one million immigrants are part of the area's economic boom, according to a recent study released by UC Riverside’s Center for Social Innovation. That equates to about one in five residents– a proportion far higher than previously estimated.
We're launching a new report today on "The State of Immigrants in the Inland Empire" with
and
, which sets forth the history, resources, and partnerships that support and elevate the IE's immigrant population.
Download the report now→
— UCR Center for Social Innovation (@CSIUCR)
We're launching a new report today on "The State of Immigrants in the Inland Empire" with @CALimmigrant and @IC4IJ, which sets forth the history, resources, and partnerships that support and elevate the IE's immigrant population.
— Center for Social Innovation, UCR (@CSIUCR) April 18, 2018
Download the report now→ https://t.co/qSAGYj61c8 pic.twitter.com/IFIy4zERQ1
"It's a key piece of the Inland Empire's story that is not well told or well analyzed," said
, Director of the Center for Social Innovation. "Many people might have the stereotype of the region as being predominantly native-born, non-hispanic, white."
According to the report, nothing could be further from reality. It's just that public perception hasn't caught up the IE's evolution. "This is not your grandfather's Inland Empire," said Ramakrishnan. "It looks very different today than it did thirty, or even ten years ago."
Today, the Inland Empire is "majority hispanic"
Mexico is the No. 1 country of origin among Inland Empire immigrants, more than in Los Angeles.
Asian immigration is on the rise
Filipinos are the largest growing population among Asian immigrants, compared to Los Angeles, which has a much larger Chinese community.
Contributions to the regional economy
"You have a fair amount of immigrants working in agriculture, and Mexican immigrants tend to be overrepresented among those that work in agriculture," said Ramakrishnan. "This is especially true in the Coachella Valley."
Ramakrishnan said the report also found a correlation between Filipino immigration and the healthcare industry. "If you look at the settlement patterns, where you see concentrations of filipino immigrants tend to be around more hospitals."
Immigrations status in the IE
"About half of the immigrant population lacks citizenship," said Ramakrishnan.
But the number of naturalized citizens has increased about 10 percent over the last decade, and Ramakrishnan expects the number of people who complete the citizenship process will go up, partially spurred by anxiety over current immigration policies.
Changing perceptions
Ramakrishnan and his fellow UC Riverside researchers hope the new data will help community service providers better meet local needs, and also be used by lawmakers who work on immigration policies in the region.
"People do not think of immigrants when they think of the Inland Empire," said Ramakrishnan. "And I think we're starting to change that conversation."
10,000 people shouldn’t have guns in California — but it’ll take at least 4 years to get them back
Lessons learned from the disastrous ‘Scarface’ 35th anniversary panel
It's springtime in New York and the Tribeca Film Festival is in full swing. There are lots of interesting new movies, but one of the events that made the news was a panel about a decades-old classic: "Scarface."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQQHnqBa2E
The panel was one of the most anticipated events at the festival and featured Al Pacino, Brian De Palma, Steven Bauer and Michelle Pfeiffer, who rarely attends public events like this one. Vanity Fair's Rebecca Keegan was there for the panel that she described as a "sexist dumpster fire."
I would say in my many years of attending cringeworthy Q & A's this was the most cringeworthy. So much so that the audience kind of revolted when the moderator went about 15 minutes into the Q & A without posing a direct question to Pfeiffer and then his first question for her was to ask her what her weight was when she made the movie.
The question immediately received "boos" from the audience, said Keegan.
Pfeiffer had reasons to be thin when filming "Sacrface." Her character Elvira Hancock is a cocaine addict who wastes away over the course of the movies as she becomes sicker. Moreover, she has actually said many times in the past that she had difficulty maintaining that thin weight for the duration of the film and spent most of the shoot hungry.
"Had it been couched perhaps in the realm of her performance and what that was like for her maybe it would've been different," said Keegan.
PLUS:
- The most interesting box office to report on this weekend is Saudi Arabia’s, where public screenings of "Black Panther" began on Friday.
- Harvey Weinstein is battling with the board of his former company (which includes his brother, Bob Weinstein) for access to his emails.
On The Lot, Take Two's weekly segment about the business of entertainment and Hollywood, airs every Monday.
Meet your maker: 'Westworld' make-up artist shows his body of work
The ambitious HBO series "Westworld" returned last Sunday to much fanfare. The Robo-Western is about a futuristic wild west theme park where humans can indulge their every whim with the robot hosts there.
"We have the wood chopper from 'Westworld.' Some body parts on the table are for 'Santa Clarita Diet.' We also have a burnt body for the show 'Scandal,'" says Christien Tinsley, CEO of Tinsley Studio, a special effects makeup studio in Burbank. He and his team worked on season 1 of 'Westworld,' and received an Emmy for their make-up artistry.
Tinsley's specialties include prosthetics, fake blood, wigs and tattoos -- just like the abused, lifelike robot parts created by the engineers of "Westworld." Nowadays, the body parts we see in most films are made of silicon. "When I started out in this business, silicon wasn't widely used," says Tinsley. "The silicon-gel technology was primarily used in the medical field for prosthesis, for people with missing noses and ears."
Tinsley also created Aquaman's tattoo suit for "Justice League" and the upcoming Aquaman origin movie. Unlike the temporary tattoos found in dollar stores, these impressions don't wash off or rub off easily.
Fake blood has also come a long way since Alfred Hitchcock employed chocolate syrup in his movie "Psycho." The shade and texture of blood can vary widely, depending on the vision of the director. "Before we start shooting, I will request a blood test," says Tinsley. "I will put 20 different types of blood on a real person's body. we will film it and see which one photographs the best."
"I would still use chocolate syrup if we were doing a black and white movie. It has the right viscosity, the right density of color," says Tinsley. "It doesn't matter if it's red. We just need the right effect for the audience. "