"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" is on Netflix Streaming. Just in case you need a memory refresher of how stunningly lovely, or what a wonderful actress Elizabeth Taylor was..

"Banksy is Coming to Dinner" is on Netflix streaming.

Joan Collins proves she's not only the most self-aware celeb on the planet, but one with the most self-deprecating sense of humor playing along with this "mocumentary" where a sometimes unpixelated actor (or is he? You judge the layers of meta..) plays infamous street artist Banksy who visits the Collins' "ancestral" home for a dinner party. This might be the reason that "Exit Through the Gift Shop" was so questioned as being real. It's great fun; you'll want an invitation to Joan's table.

Image: internets

Safari update:

New update, same old crashes. Every other visit to NYTimes.com crashes the browser. Report to Apple. Relaunch hangs, so Option/Command/esc to force quit. Report to Apple.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Better yet, use Firefox..

The Towering Inferno is on Netflix Streaming

If you haven't seen it since it came out in the 70's when, like me you were a teen, er baby, um thought in your parents head you should check out what is arguably the penultimate disaster movie. I'll reprint what I wrote in an Amazon review many years ago:

"Architect Paul Newman and owner William Holden have just completed their crowning acheivement; the 138 story Glass Tower. Unbeknownst to them, baddy builder Richard Chamberlain skimped on the building specs. He wired the building with tinsel or something; as soon as someone plugs in a hair dryer, the fuses go pop (why do the put the fuse boxes in the room used to store the oily rags and paint cans? Why do they need oily rags and paint cans on the 86th floor? Is there an oily rag and paint can room on every floor, or do people have to share?) and the all-star barbeque begins."

A little harsh. Yes, the cheese factor is high (the sets I referred to as "Frank Lloyd Wrong") and to modern audiences some of the plot holes are pretty evident. But there are shots in this that in this post 9/11 world where we are more aware of the issues facing first responders can't help but resonate. Oddly the building itself it prescient: we don't have 138 stories of mixed use, but the idea of a tower that combines residential on a narrow top and offices on a wider base was way ahead of its time in the 70's.

It's a perfect popcorn movie for a rainy night like this one in LA.

Image: Wikipedia

The Spinning Rainbow Must Go!

I mean really Apple, You've gone through multiple versions of Safari. Why am I sending you daily reports when you're freaking browser can't handle some random code on a web page? You're supposed to be the anti-Microsoft, right? The stuff that just works?

Work on it people..

Image: internets, after Safari crashed for the bazillionth time.

"Visual Acoustics" is on Netflix Streaming..

My mother was born and raised Catholic. She often said that the most didactic pain-in-the-butt Catholics were ones were converts. So you all will forgive my starchy, topsider-wearing Victorian-growing-up-in convert fan-boy kvelling over the fact that the documentary on the Chronicler of All Things Modern is out on DVD and Netflix Streaming. It is not only a testament to the modernist movement in Los Angeles and of a singular talent of the man recording it, it's a testament to the fact that life doesn't end at 60 or 70 or 80. I met him when he was into his 80's and I hope to half as interested, connected and charmingly inquisitive as he was when I'm that age. I hope I'm that way this week...

Info on the DVD is here..

Photo: from his archive

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Cool fireworks in Auckland, Sydney and Taipei.

I hope we all have a happy, prosperous and safe 2011!

screenshot from The Telegraph

Out Came the Rain..

This has been a wet weekend in the City of the Angels. According to the August LA Times, there has been record rainfall in Downtown and at the airport with more on the way. There's a stereotype about LA that people cannot cope with precipitation, and unlike most stereotypes there's a bit of truth in there. People either slow down to a crawl that is far out of proportion to the amount of rainfall or worse, speed like maniacs. I've more than once seen an SUV go merrily twirling through an intersection because the driver clearly thought the electronic nannies, all-wheel drive system and sheer mass made them immune to hydroplaning. Infrastructure seems to go wonky as well as at some major intersections traffic lights seem to conk out to 4-way blinking red at the first sign of moisture.

But the worst effect are slides. If there has been a fire in the recent past the area can easily collapse into a devastating mudslide. Even area that haven't been burned aren't immune: parts of Mulholland Drive have collapsed just because, one only a few months ago. We're on shaky ground in Southern California, in more ways that we can count.

So, fellow City dwellers, the sandbags are now available. Slow down, and look on the bright side. It could be snow..

Photo: my iPhone

I've stolen this from my great friend Terre who sent it on.

All props to her..

Ah, yes, as the year comes to an end, let me just say....

there were probably many, many times this year when

I may have... Disturbed You, Troubled You, Pestered You, Irritated You, Bugged You, Or got on your Nerves... So today, I just wanted to tell you

Suck it up, Cupcake!!

'Cause there

ain't NO CHANGES

planned for 2011!!

******************************************************

I've been De-Rapided!

A post (that I'm sure you've all read, riveted as you are on my every sentence) about five years ago lamented the fact that a "Rapid" bus was added to my line along Beverly to work. Thankfully for me they added a stop at Doheny Drive which made it more accessible, but I stand behind my original argument that it was a dippy idea in the first place. Apparently the people at METRO (what they're calling themselves these days until they collapse a street under an orphanage and change the name again) have decided the 714 was silly and are killing it. Could it be? A rare case of common sense from Metro? We'll see. They say that they will apply those resources to the non-express 14 line. I certainly hope this means that I can expect not to grow a beard waiting for a bus that actually goes to Beverly and Pico rather than just to the Beverly Center. Because, METRO, traffic is getting worse and worse. If you actually served the Westside people who live here might take you. The fact that I was late for a meeting at BH City Hall that was at 2:30 when I was at the bus stop on Olive downtown for your "Rapid" bus at 1:08 doesn't bode well for you. Or the fact that you don't run a Wilshire local bus past Westwood or a Santa Monica Blvd. bus past Sepulveda during the hours when anyone would be awake. I shudder to think what you'll do when you have your subway...

Here's a concept for you. Get out of your Lexus and take your system. You have the chance to align your subway with major bus routes; don't blow it. Stop the stupid practice of having local buses stop a block away from rapid ones; most of us don't care if we have to walk a few blocks, we just want to get there in the same year. In short, if you can't figure out some way to make this system work, how about asking some of us who make the choice to use it.

Perhaps even, I don't know, listen?

Image from http://www.chaffeeyiu.com