A blower-upper on the market:A local real...
A blower-upper on the market:
A local real estate company has a vacant five-story building available for any movie production company interested in “arranging a dramatic and total demolition.” The building, the company adds, “was formerly occupied by the State Bar of California.” Then what’s the point of doing it now?
ON A CALIFORNIA ROLL: Sara Meric of Santa Monica, who sent along the accompanying ad, explains: “I like sushi as much as the next person. But even God rested on the seventh day!”
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: Subways seem to be busting out all over L.A., and we don’t mean just the MTA’s real-life project in Hollywood.
In the movie, “Strange Days,” some evil cops open fire at an innocent passenger at a Red Line station (she hadn’t even been doing anything as heinous as trying to sneak a candy bar aboard). In “Speed,” a hijacked Red Line car bursts through Hollywood Boulevard. Then there’s “Seven,” which was shot in L.A. but has an odd scene where an apartment is shaken by an unseen subway.
Even Venice High is getting into the act next month, staging a New York subway drama, “Whoever Fights Monsters.”
Of course, “Earthquake: The Big One” strikes several times a day on the Universal Studios Tour, an 8.3-magnitude shaker that hits tourists aboard a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) subway car.
Wait, there’s more--next up is “Money Train,” a Wesley Snipes-Woody Harrelson movie, set in Manhattan but with part of the action filmed at a functioning, mock subway built above-ground north of Chinatown. It’s a shame the half-mile of track has been disassembled. (After all, the Red Line is only 4.4 miles.)
A movie spokesman said, by the way, that the reason the Red Line wasn’t used for “Money Train” is that it doesn’t look like New York’s subway. That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said about the Red Line in years.
THE FAMILY MUST HAVE INCLUDED SEVERAL TEEN-AGERS: June Brown found an ad for a Culver City house that would seem likely to induce a Johnstown-type flood if it were hit by the Big One. Or even a Little One (see excerpt).
STOP THEM BEFORE THEY FILM AGAIN: The placement of two movie titles on a theater marquee in Downtown L.A. seems to suggest a sequel of sorts:
Copycat
Vampire in Brooklyn
L.A., THE PACESETTER: A recent Washington Post story, detailing “grim projections” from transportation officials for the D.C. area, carried this headline:
“Officials See L.A.-Style Traffic Crush Unless Area Acts Now.”
Hey, it wouldn’t be so bad, Washington. You people back there would be able to enlarge your vocabularies, learning such nifty terms as “Sig-Alert.” Of course, living so close to the Capitol, you already know what gridlock means.
miscelLAny It sounds to us as though a certain company is trying to capitalize on the success of one university’s football program in a new radio commercial. But if you listen closely, you realize that when the announcer says that the Trojans are No. 1 in the country, he is referring to a brand of condoms, not the football team.
