Kevin Scanlon

One of the fascinating Angelenos featured in L.A. Weekly's People 2012 issue. Check out our entire People 2012 issue here.

Nobody does "jaded twentysomething" better than Aubrey Plaza. The 27-year-old NYU- and UCB-trained actress has mastered the art of the dry wit and judging stare.

And that's not just on the small screen.

Best known for playing human eye roll April Ludgate on NBC's Parks and Recreation, Plaza's deadpan humor has cracked up audiences in such films as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Funny People. It also has made her the poster child for Gen-Y apathy. (Although she cares, really she does -- in fact, she was nice enough not to cancel a phone interview despite being bedridden in a New York hotel room with food poisoning.)

More >>

Zócalo Public Square/Flickr

From left: Carla Hall, Carol Squiers, Adrian Grenier, Carolyn Davis and Galo Ramirez

I just emailed my photo to Adrian Grenier. He asked me to. Me, and about 200 others in the audience last night at Zócalo Public Square's event, "Are We All Paparazzi Now?" at the Getty Center.

It was an experiment, so he said. More like a little trick. Per his instruction, we all had our phones out ready to shoot -- him, we assumed -- but at the last second he told us to turn the cameras on ourselves. Send him the photo, he said, and he'll post it on his production company's website. "You're all part of this collective experience," he said.

Are we? Perhaps he was just trying to make us feel important. Or perhaps he was trying to illustrate how simultaneously voyeuristic and exhibitionist we all are. Either way, it was one of the many ambiguous answers provided last night to the panel's title question.

More >>

Terry Richardson's James Franco in Drag, Courtesy of the artist and OHWOW Gallery

Franco poses in drag for fashion photographer Terry Richardson, as part of the "Rebel" exhibit currently on display at JF Chen.

"There's just a lot of dicks in there. A lot of porno," painter Ty Williams says, shaking his head. "But I get it, though. I understand the prevalence of penises."

We're standing in the alleyway behind JF Chen, a collectible-furniture showroom and exhibit space, at the opening party for "Rebel," an off-site MOCA multimedia extravaganza produced by the world's most famous grad student, James Franco, in collaboration with an all-star cast of contemporary artists, including Ed Ruscha, Aaron Young, Terry Richardson, Paul McCarthy and Douglas Gordon.

Though Franco was somehow involved in all of the projects shown here, and his ongoing obsession with the sexual secrets and adolescent turmoil behind James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause drives the exhibit, the lineup of bigwigs confers an air of legitimacy lacking at some of Franco's previous shows and stunts.

The exhibit itself has been impressively built-out, looking like a soundstage resembling the Chateau Marmont, with videos playing in individual bungalows and shrubbery strewn with blow-up sex dolls and other detritus referencing the art.

And yes, there were a number of penises on display inside, as Franco and his partners grappled with the pent-up, feverish sexuality of adolescence by exploring, among other themes, the homoerotic tension on-screen in the 1955 film, Dean's real-life bisexuality and a smattering of behind-the-scenes affairs that reportedly took place before and during the shooting of the movie.

More >>

Illustrations by Paul Rogers

A series of drawings depicting The Darjeeling Limited

Paul Rogers is a Pasadena-based illustrator and graphic designer who has worked on everything from USPS stamp lines to posters for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also has illustrated children's books such as Bob Dylan's Forever Young.

His new book, Name That Movie, features 100 sets of six drawings apiece. Each set depicts a different movie but isn't obvious about it -- depending on how big a fan you are, it might take some keen powers of observation to figure out what movie it is.

We have three different sets of drawings, each showing a different movie for you to guess. Answers are on the last page.

More >>

With his third book, Imagine, neuroscience researcher Jonah Lehrer (Proust Was a Neuroscientist, How We Decide) answers the question "Where does creativity come from?" with some questions of his own: Why do long jogs inspire jolts of insight? How did anybody dream up Scotch tape before Scotch tape existed? And what does any of that have to do with Bob Dylan?

Imagine, which came out yesterday, opens with a close look at something most of us would rather ignore -- abject failure. All those bad takes, rejected screenplays and shitty first drafts? Yes, they make us miserable, but they're actually essential. We're programmed to think of failure as something to avoid; Lehrer's research demonstrates that if it weren't for false starts, none of us would ever produce anything worthwhile.

"My favorite line in the book comes from the president of Pixar, Lee Unkrich," Lehrer told me by phone from his office in Laurel Canyon. "He says, if you're trying something new, you're going to screw up a lot. Failure is inevitable. The question becomes, how can we fail quickly? How do we get it out of the way?"

More >>

Raymond Burr: His longtime partner confirms that they met thanks to Scotty Bowers -- who arranged "tricks" for dozens of closeted Hollywood stars.

It was a real-life Perry Mason moment in the public trial of Scotty Bowers' credibility.

In his sensational memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, Bowers claims he procured female lovers for Katharine Hepburn and had threesomes with Cary Grant and his longtime companion, Randolph Scott. He depicts Old Hollywood as teeming with closeted gay stars willing to pay for discreet sex because they were worried about morals clauses, studio snitches, Confidential magazine and those self-appointed Hollywood watchdogs, columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper.

But the press has largely covered Full Service as cocktail-party gossip. Even the New York Times simply repeated Bowers' claims, with the down-and-dirty details -- e.g., that Charles Laughton liked shit sandwiches, that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were both gay, that Cole Porter would suck off as many as 15 young men at a time -- heavily sanitized.

Bob Benevides' conversation with the L.A. Weekly, then, was something new: fact-checking. Reached by phone, previously unaware that he was even mentioned in the book, he confirmed everything.

More >>

Asad Faruqi

Dr. Mohammad Jawad treats a patient in Pakistan.

"Where are the stars?"

Riffat Masood, the consul general of the Pakistani Consulate in Los Angeles, has hushed the crowd gathered in the living room of her palatial home in Beverly Hills. Now she just needs to find the guests of honor. "Where is the director? Where is the famous doctor?"

As the two make their way to her side, Masood explains what an honor it is to have them here this evening, the Friday before Oscar night. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is co-director and co-producer of Saving Face, the first Pakistani film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. The documentary explores the horrific acid attacks that disfigure hundreds of women in Pakistani villages each year, and its star is Dr. Mohammad Jawad, the plastic surgeon who labors to restore the victims to normalcy.

More >>

Wikimedia Commons

Billy Crystal at the Oscars

Ew, old people. They're so old! Especially that Billy Crystal. What is he, 105? Get off the stage! In your electric walker!

If you buy into the prevailing narrative of the post-Oscars Twitterverse, all Academy voters are elderly, with a quirky fondness for nostalgic moving pictures about moving pictures, such as The Artist and Hugo, which belong not at the Oscars but on the dusty VHS shelf at the Wheelchair-By-the-Sea Retirement Home. Last Sunday this band of old men conspired to send out their avatar, the ancient Billy Crystal, to perform the kind of offensive, Catskills-style vaudeville act that would make Al Jolson wince.

It's a narrative that has given everyone within 10 miles of Hollywood a license to try to prove how hip they are.

More >>

Mike Ciriaco

OWBC founder AB, aka Mormon Rockwell of the Air Guitar scene

This past Sunday, the Westboro Baptist Church gagged on a spoonful of its own medicine. During its annual demonstration against the Academy Awards show in Hollywood, the homophobic religious group, notorious for its zealous protesting of military funerals, was itself the target of picketing by the aptly named Occupy the WBC organization, at Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue.

While the WBC brandished placards stating "God Hates Fags," "God H8s Media" and the more event-specific "Whitney in Hell," its political analogs countered with signs of their own. Messages ranged from the positive ("God Loves Everyone," "...And the Oscar Goes to Love"), to the confrontational ("F*** You Haters"), and even the facetious ("I Have a Sign Too"). The OWBC movement leader, who simply answers to the moniker AB, claims the WBC has earned their ire.

"Why not target the WBC?" AB posits. "If you are looking for the most fervent, destructive, vindictive, religious extremist group in America, it's them."

More >>

Wikimedia Commons photo by Alan Light

As a native East Coaster, it's easy to claim that you miss the seasons as you enjoy your forever tan and non-water-damaged Uggs here in Los Angeles. While it may not snow, it barely rains, flowers bloom all year, and people wear parkas when encountering weather around 50 degrees, L.A. has plenty of seasons -- pilot season, bikini season and of course the season shining upon Hollywood as we speak: Oscar season.

To celebrate, we'd like to profile a few of our favorite L.A. Oscars.

More >>