New Look

As you can see, we're right in the middle of a major update, so please bear with us as we transition to our new look.

The Social Network

Just got back from the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, where we saw The Social Network for the second time.  David Fincher's film about Facebook is better upon re-watching, which came as a surprise.  The cast is great and the music by Trent Reznor adds a darker edge to the proceedings.  The film was followed by a Q&A with Aaron Sorkin, Alex Garfield, Armie Hammer, and Justin Timberlake.

We have been musing about the ease with which anyone in Los Angeles can attend these high-level events, whereas they'd be closed to the public anywhere else.  People come to LA to see movie stars and hang out in Hollywood or drive by the stars' homes to catch a glimpse, when anyone can see stars here by paying $5 at the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences, or $11 at the American Cinematheque (the Aero and the Egyptian, both Sid Grauman theaters).

A couple of weeks ago, we attended a screening of Return of the Jedi at Paramount Studios to benefit the California State Parks Foundation (the chase scenes and the ewoks were all filmed in the Redwood forests in Northern California).  For $10, we got to re-live a bit of our childhoods and listen to a Q&A with Mark Hamill, who, it turns out, is quite the thespian and a great mimic.  His imitation of Harrison Ford is spot on.  (Did anyone see Ford's interview with Conan?!?  A man of few words or just plain drunk??)

Saw Harry Potter Hallows Pt 1 yesterday and really liked it.  Not really kids films anymore.  Why did they have to split the films in two and why does the next one only come out in July??  We went to our local cinema at LA Live, where they were setting up for today's American Music Awards. Apparently there was a whole lot of Bieber fever going on Downtown today.

Why all the movies?  Well, when in Rome...  Plus we've both been busy at work and have both obtained new positions within a day of each other.  The weather in Los Angeles is veering towards the chilly now.  Autumn weather just in time for Thanksgiving.

Long time no post...

And yet we've been pretty busy... Jona had a great summer, which included time with the family clan in Spokane, reading and relaxation, followed by a hurricane of activity when she returned to work a month ago. JM plugged away at work during the summer and has been keeping busy with music and travel (New York, Hong Kong and Mainland China).  Btw, photos are finally up from our East Coast trip in April.

Only went to the Hollywood Bowl once this year, to see Earth, Wind and Fire, which was well worth it. The only other concert was Monolake (Robert Henke, the co-founder of Ableton) at the RedCat across the street, so no great stretch there. Jona was very happy because we got to see Michael Sheen for a Q&A in between screenings of Fantabulosa (UK film about the devastatingly sad life of Kenneth Williams) and the camp classic Carry On Camping. This week, Sir Michael Caine's coming to our neighborhood, and we're both looking forward to that.

In the meantime, our strange weather continues, with rain alternating with sunshine, hot with cold, and summer with fall. We even reached a record high of 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) when JM got back from China. Strange days indeed.

Months go by...It's already July

With barely any posts in the past few months, we're trying to catch up with the blog and the site, which we've sorely neglected.

In the last two weeks alone, we've had a marathon movie streak: "Alien" and "Blade Runner" with a discussion with Ridley Scott in-between; "The Killers" with Burt Lancaster; "Toy Story 3"; an evening with Sylvester Stallone at the LA Film Festival (which was actually very cool); Capra's "You Can't take it with You," followed by a discussion with Pee Wee/Paul Reubens (also very cool); a documentary on the homeless Downtown called "Lost Angels"; and then "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" at the Academy of Motion Pictures on Monday.

In previous weeks, we went to see the Dalai Lama and Joseph Stiglitz speak (on separate occasions), we saw a few concerts (Groove Armada--meh; Air at the Disney Concert Hall--great; Massive Attack--fantastic), we went to New York City for a few days, then drove to New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and Jona went to Spokane for a couple of weeks.

So, it's been fun, but busy. JM's been working on some original music and will post some soon, in addition to a new mix and some photos form our trip. In the meantime, summer is upon us and there will be lots more to write about soon. Enjoy!

Lakers Fans Go Loco... Again

Well, it was an action-packed evening in Downtown Los Angeles tonight, with the E3 Electronics Conference running at the same time as the opening night of the Los Angeles Film Festival, a concert at LA Live and of course the Lakers/Celtics playoffs--all within a two-block radius. The Lakers won narrowly and mayhem ensued. After the riots last year that left the neighborhood worse for wear, the LAPD increased its presence for the game, but jubilant Lakers fans still ran riot around South Park, our old neighborhood by the Staples Center. We've been without TV for more than 6 months now, so we watched the events unfold online, listening to police scanners and live TV feeds from ABC and Fox. We can hear the helicopters hovering over the skyline, while we watch the images they're transmitting, which is all very surreal. We watched in dismay as hoods jumped on cars, trying to tip them or setting them on fire. We actually saw a taxi explode as people watched on. The helicopters are still hovering and what could have been a jubilant night for Los Angeles has instead turned sour again. Despite the havoc, there were some nice moments during the game, when Downtown went silent, erupting in cheers whenever the Lakers scored. When they won, the whole town went crazy, with people yelling from their windows and fireworks lighting up the sky. If only it could have stayed at that...

Website back up

It's still in progress, but the website is slowly coming back up online. All but a few mixes and the Influences section, which we may not keep. The next step will be to re-vamp the site and simplify, as we're going to be celebrating our 7th anniversary on the web this summer. Time for a bit of spring-cleaning.

The weather in Los Angeles has been chilly and rainy, but the air is clear and the view of the mountains from our balcony is spectacular at the moment.

Last weekend, Jona made a childhood wish come true by going to see the Pee-Wee Herman show live at Club Nokia with her dad and Sheryl. The reviews are in, and they're good. Hard to believe Pee-Wee's 58!

All Told

January seems to have disappeared in a blur. We went to the Los Angeles Public Library last week to see TC Boyle, as we're big fans of his novel, "Tortilla Curtain". He didn't disappoint, wearing a bright red suit, sneakers and his usual shock of red hair. We also met up with David and Ellen again at the RedCat (not even a five-minute walk from home) to see the Machine Orchestra. Most of the show was great: think Kraftwerk meets World Music. We also managed to see "Avatar" on an Imax 3D screen and, while it's not the greatest film ever made, it was fun to see the new technology at its best. Expect a lot more 3D films now.

You may have noticed, but we've added a Twitter feed at bottom right of this page (press Ctrl + Link to get to a new page with article), as we have found it to be a useful news feed. You can find it under "moorghen" in Twitter or go directly to: http://twitter.com/moorghen.

What else? The Grammy's were held last night, and, apart from some minor inconveniences with limos invading Downtown and not being able to get near a Starbucks because of all the limo drivers, it had zero impact on us. Tomorrow they're announcing the Oscar nominations, which is always big news in Los Angeles, but I can't say I'm excited about any of the films this year. However, we are very much looking forward to going to the Academy before the awards day to listen to the Foreign Language nominee directors.

The whole site is going back online at the moment. Please be patient as I have to manually activate each page, so it's going to take a while. I'm aiming to put the mixes back online this week. Also just finishing up a new vinyl mix, which I'm excited about.