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Post-Oscar Analysis, Update On Orange County, Yearning For Old Hollywood
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Feb 10, 2020
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Post-Oscar Analysis, Update On Orange County, Yearning For Old Hollywood

More on Sunday night's history-making Academy Awards, new recurring Orange County segment launches, digging into "The Big Goodbye."

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 09: (L-R) Executive producers Min Heoi Heo and Miky Lee, producer Kwak Sin-ae, and So-dam Park accept the Best Picture award for "Parasite" during the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 09: (L-R) Executive producers Min Heoi Heo and Miky Lee, producer Kwak Sin-ae, and So-dam Park accept the Best Picture award for "Parasite" during the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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Oscars and Analysis

Last night was the 92nd Academy Awards. Most of the big awards went to the expected frontrunners with the exception of one big shake-up: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck-9Wv6D2Ls

We dig into this historic win.

Guests:

  • John Horn, host of The Frame
  • Rebecca Keegan, the Hollywood Reporter

BongHive

Now some of the people most happy about Parasite's win were members of the "Bonghive." The hashtag Bonghive first showed up on Twitter, and —led by prominent Asian American critics and culture writers – drummed up a lot of Oscar buzz for the movie.

Guests:

  • Josie Huang, covers Asian American communities for KPCC

Vision Zero

This past weekend, veteran actor Orson Bean was killed after being struck by two cars while trying to cross the street in Venice. He was a mainstay on a variety of shows during the 60s, 70s and 80s. Bean was 91. His death has become part of an unfortunate statistic — and another preventable traffic fatality in the city. Last year, for example, 244 people were killed in L.A. because of a collision with a car. It calls into question how well the city's "Vision Zero" is going — it's an ambitious program to cut traffic deaths to zero by 2025. So, WHY hasn't Vision Zero made LA's streets much safer since it first began?

Guest:

  • Laura J Nelson reports on transportation for the Los Angeles Times 

Orange County Update

In the last year, officials in Orange County have made homelessness a top priority. A few years ago, the OC had one publicly-run homeless shelter - in Laguna Beach -  but as the number of people on the street grows, many of the cities within Orange County are dipping into budgets to create more shelter beds. It's not without a lot of strife, however.  So now, we are going talk about that as part of a new, regular weekly check-in on the biggest news happening in Orange County. We are calling this segment OC Update .

Guest:

  • Nick Gerda, writes for the nonprofit news organization Voice of OC

"The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the last years of Hollywood"

Sometimes one of the last lines of a movie is so perfect that in just a few words, it sums up everything you've just seen and gives you a lot to think about.

"Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown."

Those five words spoken at the end of the 1974 classic "Chinatown" pretty much boils down 131 minutes spent watching that movie: Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunnaway's Oscar-nominated performances, Robert Evans producing a Best Picture nominee, Roman Polanski's first Academy Award nomination as a director and Robert Towne's Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay. But it's also a reflection of the time it was made. How imperfect people can come together to create perfect things and how there's no way around the fact that sometimes when something comes to end, it's not happy or fair.

Guest:

  • Sam Wasson, Author "The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the last years of Hollywood"