Chen Si-Lan barefoot strikes a pose with sword, undated.
Photos from the set of Blue Harvest Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. These were the good old days when filmmakers would actually travel to locations like the forest moon of Endor instead of shooting on a green-screen stage in Burbank.
(EW)
Cinco de Mayo at Los Angeles City Hall, California, 1945.
Cesar Chavez gives a Cinco de Mayo speech at UCLA in Westwood, California, 1979.
Cinco de Mayo in Mission San Fernando, California, 1924. Photo by Charles C. Pierce.
Cinco de Mayo celebrations in Los Angeles, May 5, 1960. The 1862 Battle of Puebla is recreated with a tug o’ war.
A pro-Khomeini demonstrator swings a stick at an anti-Khomeini demonstrator during clashes near the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, California. June 29, 1980. Photo by Chris Gulker. (Off the top of my head, something like half of the Iranian-American population in the United States lives in California.)
The late Roger Ebert on Fight Club (1999):
“…the most frankly and cheerfully fascist big-star movie since ‘Death Wish,’ a celebration of violence in which the heroes write themselves a license to drink, smoke, screw and beat one another up.
Sometimes, for variety, they beat up themselves. It’s macho porn — the sex movie Hollywood has been moving toward for years, in which eroticism between the sexes is replaced by all-guy locker-room fights. Women, who have had a lifetime of practice at dealing with little-boy posturing, will instinctively see through it; men may get off on the testosterone rush. The fact that it is very well made and has a great first act certainly clouds the issue.”
Read more at Roger-Ebert.com.
The earth is rocking tonight. The U.S. Geological Survey agrees.
Young girl, musket, and chalkboard that reads “California Girls Sewing Club”, undated, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Storefronts in the Little Armenia neighborhood of Los Angeles, 2004. Photos by Martin Krieger. (Every year on April 24, Armenians gather in the area to take part in a protest for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.)
Armenian-American woman in Armenia, 1991. From the Shades of L.A. collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
A student protest seeks recognition of the Armenian genocide. Little Armenia, Los Angeles, 1988. From the Shades of L.A. collection of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Pasadena, California. June 18, 1956. “Suspect…in custody after hold-up of Pasadena cafe. His 2 pals escaped, are being sought in canyon.”
“TWO-GUN DAVIS” — James E. Davis (1889-1949) in a Los Angles Herald-Examiner photo dated April 19, 1931. Davis was the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1926 to 1931, and from 1933 to 1939. According to the LAPD’s very own website, he created a “gun squad” staffed with 50 cops, publicly pronouncing that “the gun-toting element and the rum smugglers are going to learn that murder and gun-toting are inimical to their best interest.” In terms more friendly to an action film, Davis also declared the LAPD “would hold court on gunmen in the Los Angeles streets; I want them brought in dead, not alive, and will reprimand any officer who shows the least mercy to a criminal.” His time as chief saw widespread police brutality, political corruption, red-baiting thuggery, and bribery. Davis’ controversial reputation, along with the fact that he was a prize-winning marksman, helped to earn him the nickname “Two-Gun Davis”.
(Photo from the Los Angeles Public Library. Information from here and here.)
