Los Angeles & Southern California - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [25]
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LA’s San Fernando Valley is the capital of the adult film industry. Studio tours are not available…
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The most memorable of James Dean’s scenes in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) takes place above Los Angeles in Griffith Park. A violent world of deals, sexual betrayal and double-crossing drive both good and bad cops to hubristic destinies – and deaths – in the LA of the crime-ridden ’50s in LA Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997). In The Graduate (1967), Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft play a game of nihilism, floundering and sexual awakening in 1960s’ Pasadena.
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SCIENTOLOGY
The LA-based Church of Scientology follows beliefs articulated by L Ron Hubbard in his book Dianetics (1950). Scientology’s celebrity followers include Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, Isaac Hayes, John Travolta, Beck and TV journalist Greta van Susteren.
According to the church’s website, following the methods of Dianetics ‘increases sanity, intelligence, confidence and well-being’ and removes ‘unwanted sensations, unpleasant emotions and psychosomatic ills that block one’s life and happiness.’ Church members famously oppose drug abuse and psychiatry. Many outside the church are deeply suspicious and consider Scientology a cult, or at best a commercial enterprise. Church members were convicted of fraud in French courts in 1999, and Germany does not accord it tax-exempt status as a religion.
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MUST-SEE LA ACTION FILMS
The Terminator (1984) – starring the Governator.
Die Hard (1988) – amazing action scenes in Century City.
The Bodyguard (1992) – a diva (Whitney Houston) will always love her bodyguard (Kevin Costner) in this action-packed story.
In the Line of Fire (1993) – Clint has to save the Prez.
Speed (1994) – great premise: the bus will blow up if the speed falls below 50mph. Big caveat: since when do buses reach above 50mph?
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CONTEMPORARY LA
Robert Altman’s Short Cuts (1993) weaves together several stories by Raymond Carver, showing a sadly depraved Los Angeles and leaving no aspect of LA culture unexamined. Another multistory tale is told in Paul Haggis’ Oscar-winning ensemble drama Crash (2005). In Joel Schumacher’s Falling Down (1993), Michael Douglas plays an unemployed defense engineer for whom a traffic jam triggers a war with the world. Quentin Tarantino, in Chandleresque fashion, creates a surreal Los Angeles from the bottom up in Pulp Fiction (1994).
Stand and Deliver (Ramón Menéndez, 1988), based on a true story, stars Edward James Olmos as a take-no-prisoners LA high school teacher who whips a bunch of Latino gang members into shape by successfully teaching them college-level calculus. John Singleton’s tragic Boyz n the Hood (1991), starring Cuba Gooding Jr, offers a major reality check on coming-of-age as a black teenager in the inner city. The small but filling What’s Cooking? (2000) looks at LA from four different cultural perspectives (African American, Jewish, Latino and Vietnamese) as families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving in their own way. It’s directed by Gurinder Chadha, who later directed Bend It Like Beckham. The 2007 film Freedom Writers (directed by Richard LaGravenese) stars Hilary Swank as a Long Beach high school teacher whose students work out their feelings about race and their own hardships through writing.
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Ridley Scott’s sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (1982) projects modern LA way into the 21st century, with buildings reaching far into the sky and chaotic, neglected streets.
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In David Lynch’s surrealist Mulholland Drive (2001), an amnesiac woman tries to put her life back together through encounters with weird and terrifying people on various edges of dark LA mindscapes.