A look at some possible SCOTUS nominees, running the numbers in the business of the Oscars, interview with Ben Caldwell, founder of KAOS network in Leimert Park.
Brian Sandoval Says "No, Thanks" to a SCOTUS Nomination
Thanks, but no thanks.
That's the basic gist of the statement Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval issued yesterday. The Republican said he told the White House that he was incredibly grateful to have been considered a nominee to the Supreme court but that he does NOT want to be considered at this time.
California's Attorney General Kamala Harris, also now running for Senate, has also made it clear she's not looking to take on this prestigious post. For more, Senior reporter at Politico, Josh Gerstein and Caroline Frederickson President of the American Constitution Society joined the show to discuss.
To hear the full interview, press the blue play button above.
What if the FBI tried to hack an Android phone instead?
The maker of the most popular smartphone system says it's against helping the FBI hacking into the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooters.
It's not Apple, though – it's Google.
Google's Android system operates on a majority of smartphones in the U.S. and the world, like Samsung Galaxies and Google's Nexus line.
But what if the San Bernardino shooters were like most Americans and had one of those phones in their hands? Would it be just as secure?
Mark Bergen from the technology site ReCode explains that the answer is complicated because different versions of Android run on different phones, and some are more tightly locked than others.
And the winner is ... LA businesses cashing in on the Oscars
$34, 000 for white truffles, $1 million on a six-tier chandelier, and $87,000 on champagne - Oscars night is a no expense spared type of affair.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Academy spends $21.8 million every year on the show itself. And then, another $17 million on related events: pre-parties, after parties, press events, screenings, and so on. A big chunk of spending goes to independent contractors and small businesses to make the magic happen.
Golden envelopes
One of them is veteran stationery designer Marc Friedland, who produces the elaborate envelopes and cards used in the Academy Awards ceremony. Each quarter pound creation is meticulously handcrafted by a team of six.
“The gold paper that we use has flecks of gold leaf in it so it reflects the light beautifully,” says Friedland. “It takes us about 110 man hours to create these.”
This is a lucrative gig for Friedland, but he doesn’t like talking money, and he's not the only one. Getting concrete numbers on how much people make from the Oscars is like uncovering the names of winners before the big night: almost impossible.
Economic impact
In 2008, the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation estimated that the Oscars pumps around $130 million into the local economy every year. While that may sound like a big number, Alec Levenson, economist at USC’s Center for Effective Organizations, says it likely doesn’t have that big an impact on L.A.'s long term finances. He compares the Oscars to other big events like the Olympics and the Super Bowl.
“It can seem like a lot. They can claim huge impacts on the local economy, but they’re usually pretty fleeting,” Levenson says. “While there are many people who might do fairly well for the small amount of time leading up to the Oscars or during it ... I really don’t see it having that much of a material impact on the economy."
Career building
The Oscars is the grand finale of a much longer awards season. This time of year means a big influx of work for many local contractors, like makeup artist Gabbi Pascua.
“This is my seventh awards season. From January to March, it’s a really good time. You can have a full twelve hour day where you have little breaks in between, but it can take you from 5am til literally 9pm, if it’s in the cards for you,” says makeup artist Gabbi Pascua.
These gigs are certainly good for freelancers, but economist Alec Levenson says, it’s pretty unusual for a business or contractor to depend on a single event, like the Oscars, to make a profit. But, of course, there are exceptions.
“There may be some unique boutique businesses, where they get a huge amount of their business throughout the year specifically focused around the Academy Awards, so it’s a big deal,” says Levenson. “They have to do it. They have to do it well. It could be make or break for them.”
This is true for freelance talent booker, Robin Reinhardt. “Honestly, awards season is half of my income for the year.”
Harder to measure than economic impact is the effect awards season can have on careers. Makeup artist Gabbi Pascua says her big break was working with high-profile clients for the first time during her second awards season, an opportunity she wouldn’t have had otherwise.
For Marc Friedland, creator of the winners’ envelopes, this long-time gig is his crowning achievement:
“For me, this is my own Oscar. Because ‘The envelope please...’ has probably been one of the most famous phrases for the last 80 years. And this is that envelope.”
From LA's historic black cinema to fostering art in Leimert Park
The all-white field of acting nominees at the Oscars has prompted a range of reaction, from demands for a boycott to pressure to change the make up of Academy voters to be more inclusive.
It's also added to calls for more programs to develop and support artists of color.
But decades ago, L.A. was already home to one of the most ambitious programs to do just that. The program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television came in the wake of the 1965 Watts Riots and amid the tumultuous civil rights era. It was a deliberate effort to expand access to cinematic tools and training for African Americans and other communities that had traditionally been excluded from movie-making.
It led to what's known as the L.A. Rebellion and fostered some of the most innovative filmmakers in black cinema at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nXw-8MXhVE
The trailer for Charles Burnett's classic Killer of Sheep, restored in 2007 for a theatrical release. Burnett was a key figure in the LA Rebellion movement.
"We would discuss it over coffee every night and watch multiple films because UCLA really immersed us in filmmaking," said Ben Caldwell, one of the filmmakers of the L.A. Rebellion, who now runs a media training group called the KAOS Network in L.A.'s Leimert Park, a hub of the city's historic African American art and culture.
Caldwell's transition to educator of other young filmmakers was about filling a void in Hollywood at the time and fostering new ways of artistic expression.
"When I was a student at UCLA, we took those imperial tools that the school had and brought it into this community so we could start training people to tell stories about us," said Caldwell.
For Caldwell, and others in the L.A. Rebellion, the lessons from that era are worth paying attention to today, as Hollywood continues to struggle with a lack of diversity. The era also produced accomplished female filmmakers, such as Carroll Parrott Blue, Barbara McCullough and Alile Sharon Larkin.
"I think our movement ended up showing that it was like a Blue Note," said Caldwell, comparing his generation's output to the legendary jazz label. "If you create real good, quality work, it lives forever."
Thanks to Ava DuVernay, the film 'Ashes and Embers' will now get a major audience
The film "Ashes and Embers," long respected and admired by many film buffs, never got a wide theatrical release, or was shown before a mass audience. That is, until now.
The film, about a disillusioned African-American Vietnam veteran, will be re-released and distributed on Netflix, starting February 29th, thanks to Ava DuVernay's independent film distribution collective ARRAY.
The movie was written, produced and directed by Haile Gerima, who was also one of the leaders of the 1970s L.A. Rebellion filmmakers. That group of young African and African-American filmmakers studied at the UCLA Film School, starting back in the late sixties.
Gerima came to L.A. from Ethiopia by way of Chicago.
"It was UCLA that I made the transition to film from the theater department and it had a lot to do, I would say, with the upheaval with the protest movement against the Vietnam War, war of independence in Africa, Latin America, Cuba," said Gerima. "I was in the theater department where they weren't used to doing anything black. I was enraged...and I stumbled in to the cinema department."
Ashes and Embers was released in 1982 and was reviewed by Janet Maslin in The New York Times. He stopped by Take Two to talk about his movie, his experience as a black man in America, and the state of diversity in film today.
Please click on the blue player above to listen to the whole interview, which starts with a film clip.
MLB makes new rule after controversial Chase Utley slide
Major League Baseball's spring training is underway right now and teams are getting ready for the upcoming season.
One of the things players will have to adjust to is a new rule banning what are called "rolling block" slides, the kind a player would do to try to break up a double play at second base.
If that sounds familiar, that's because it's come about in response to this play in last year's playoff series between the Dodgers and the Mets when the Dodgers' Chase Utley slid into Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada, breaking Tejada's leg:
Now, players will have to do a "bona fide" slide ahead of the base, and a violation could result in the runner and batter being called out.
Nick Theodorou, a former Dodger middle infielder, joined Take Two to discuss how the new slide rule changes the game.
Facebook Rolls Out New "Reactions" -- and Advertisers Love Them
If you've logged onto Facebook recently, you might've noticed your feed looking a bit more surprising. And happy. And sad.
That's because Facebook has finally rolled out what it calls "Reactions." Instead of just "liking" a post, you can now say if it makes you "angry" or "sad" -- or if it makes you go "wow" or "haha."
That's great for your friends -- but it's even better for advertisers. Julia Greenberg covers business and media for Wired, and she joined the show to break it down.
To listen to the full interview, press the blue play button above.
Atlas: The bullied bipedal robot designed by Boston Dynamics
Empathy is just one of the characteristics that make us human and you surely felt it if you saw Boston Dynamics newest video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVlhMGQgDkY
In the video we see Atlas, the bipedal robot's newest iteration being pushed, tripped and for lack of a better word...bullied.
Boston Dynamics is the same engineering and robot design company that brought you unnerving videos that featured these robots seen below:
However, the mistreatment of these robots was not in vain.
For more on Boston Dynamics, the Atlas robot and the abuse it faced, Senior Editor at CNET Ashley Esqueda, joined A Martinez to discuss.
Hopefully, the robot uprising and takeover is not imminent.
To hear the full interview, press the blue play button above.
How to address #OscarsSoWhite? LA artist says 'Make 'Em All Mexican'
The 88th Academy Awards are almost here. And while we don't know who the winners are just yet, we do know that the vast majority will be white.
In a repeat of last year's #OscarsSoWhite controversy, the Academy has again failed to nominate a single person of color for any of the acting categories.
So how to respond to the lack of people of color? L.A. artist Linda Vallejo says, "Make 'Em All Mexican."
That's the title of an art series she's been working on since 2011. In her most recent, Oscars-focused works, Vallejo takes existing photographs and transforms them with watercolor paint.
"That's how I wield a brush to change the color of history and the color of culture," Vallejo says.
The idea of focusing on the Academy Awards came from Chon Noriega, professor of cinema and media studies and director of UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center.
Noriega says he got the idea to contact Vallejo when the Oscar nominations came out this year. He knew she could take on the issue of the lack of diversity from an artistic, humorous point of view.
"I think it's what's been missing from the discussion," Noriega says. "There's been a lot of outrage when white British actors are cast to play Mexican drug lords, or even Michael Jackson, but no one's suggesting it could go the other way. And I think if it did go the other way, there's not a problem."
The painted images in Vallejo's series include one of Cate Blanchett, transformed into "Catarina Blancarte." Another image is of actor Paul Muni, a Hungarian-born actor who won an Oscar for playing a Latino character in the film "Bordertown." Vallejo has reimagined him as a Mexican actor, renamed "Pablo Mundial."
Another work in the series is a side-by-side comparison of the Oscar statuette, and the Mexican actor/director Emilio “El Indio” Fernandez. Fernandez, according to urban legend, served as the model for designer Cedric Gibbons who created the statuette.
While there's no proof that Fernandez actually was the model, Noriega says "the legend is important. It is telling you something important about the history."
What we do know about Emilio Fernandez, Noriega says, is that he started out as an extra in Hollywood in the 1920s and later became the preeminent director of Mexican cinema in the 1940s.
Plus, Vallejo adds, when you look at the photographs there really is a striking resemblance, "which means that all the Caucasian actors are going to be standing up with their Academy Award who's actually a brown guy."
A celebration of Bob Baker and his marionette legacy
If you are looking for family-friendly fun - head to downtown Los Angeles Saturday, February 27th for a celebration of legendary puppeteer Bob Baker.
Back in the 1960s, Baker opened up a tiny theater to showcase beautiful marionettes he handcrafted.
Puppets that flit and float and dance around a theater that doesn't look like it's changed much over the course of five decades.
Tomorrow, special guests will be making a special appearance at the theater to commemorate what would have been Bob Baker's 92nd birthday - he passed away a little more than a year ago.
To tell us more about the festivities and why this is a crucial time for the theater is head puppeteer Alex Evans.
To hear the full interview, press the blue play button above.
Magic Castle co-founder Irene Larsen dies at 79
Irene Larsen, co-founder of the Magic Castle, has died at 79.
Larsen passed away at her home at the Brookledge estate in Hancock Park, according to the Magic Castle’s Facebook page.
In the early 1960s, Larsen, along with her late husband Bill and brother-in-law Milt, took an old Hollywood Mansion and spent months restoring and transforming it into the Magic Castle.
The mansion opened January 1963, and now counts about 2,500 magician members as the official clubhouse of the Academy of Magical Arts.
“From the Castle’s earliest days, Irene and her husband, AMA President for Life, Bill Larsen Jr., spent each evening greeting guests as they walked through the doors… a practice she frequently continued, right up until her untimely death,” according to the Facebook post.
https://www.facebook.com/MagicCastle/posts/10153967323169399:0
"She was such a giant in Los Angeles and entertainment, and had spent more than 50 years making that castle just the world-wide center of all things magic and variety arts in LA," said Chris Nichols, who wrote Larsen's obit for LA Magazine. "It's developed into this labyrinth of just floor after floor after hidden floor, you don't exactly know where you're at sometimes when you're in that place."
Take Two speaks with Chris Nichols of LA Magazine about Larsen's life and legacy. To hear the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.