Alexandra Wyman/Invision for LD Entertainment/AP Images

Duplass and Aselton

Mark Duplass has established himself as half of an independent film power couple. Over the last few years, the writer-director-producer-actor of the micro-budget mumblecore genre and his brother Jay (who are together known as the -- and whose production company is called -- Duplass Brothers) have worked on character-rich feature films like Safety Not Guaranteed, Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home.

But this isn't the only way Duplass keeps it in the family. With his latest film,Black Rock, he re-teams with his wife (and co-star on the F/X comedy The League) Katie Aselton. The feature, which Duplass wrote and Aselton directs and co-stars in with Lake Bell and Kate Bosworth, centers on childhood friends who set out on a camping trip to rekindle their friendships and end up in life-threatening circumstances after a drunken night of flirtation goes awry, opens May 17.

The film is, at times, dark with disturbing scenes that take on hot-button issues like war veterans' mental wellness and a woman's right to say no. The writer-director collaboration in making the film, however, wasn't nearly as polarizing.

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Tinder screenshots

Twenty-seven-year-old Justin Mateen knows a whole lot about your dating life. He knows how old you are, how many Facebook friends you have and what physical characteristics you're most attracted to in a potential mate -- that is, if you're a member of the nationwide, L.A.-made dating app, Tinder, which uses GPS to locate potential matches nearby.

The iPhone app's addictive, game-like premise is that users anonymously reject others almost solely based on their profile pictures. They can also initiate conversation with only those they're actually interested in, under the condition that the interest is mutual. There are no personal statements, compatibility quizzes or rating systems.

Since launching Tinder in September 2012 with CEO and fellow USC alum Sean Rad, Mateen says the app has made more than 40 million matches -- or, two people who mutually click the "heart" button on each other's profiles -- plus eight marriage proposals and counting. Not bad for a free app that was locally developed less than a year ago.

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Courtesy of Dave Welch

Cicada Club

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*10 Best L.A. Art Galleries For Partying
*10 Oddball L.A. Museums Worth Seeing
*10 Places in L.A. to Draw Nude Models

Coffee dates are the worn-in blue jeans of the dating world: about as unoriginal as a third date at a sushi bar, but still used as the comfortable, familiar fallback of choice for an outing you've been on more times you care to admit. You (and the person you're meeting) can do better. Los Angeles has other, sometimes just-as-affordable locales to get to know a potential new paramour.

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photo by Jacy Wojcik

"I want to start a dating app for people over fifty. I know a lot of hot guys over fifty," one woman pitched to a small group last night.

She was in the right place to get feedback, at the Dating and Social Networks Startup Showcase and Digital Dating Etiquette Panel, hosted by Kevin Winston, Founder and CEO of the tech networking group Digital LA. The event was held at ROC, a shared office space in Santa Monica that's home to many digital startups and entrepreneurs. The event attracted industry professionals of all ages and a solid split of genders to pitch their startup companies, as well as a panel of experts to discuss social media startup tips and online dating etiquette, just in time for everyone's favorite holiday.

Digital dating is getting a makeover. No more trolling profiles, looking at photos of people they took ten years ago during their "super hot college years." Gone are the days of reading a laundry list of interests and slugging through tedious paragraphs when you really just want to know if there is anyway you may have a coveted "connection." The startups and experts on this panel are moving online dating to a more natural place -- you may not be meeting these people in person for the first time but goddammit it is going to be as close to that as possible.

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Do Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough make you gag?

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*Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A.
*10 Bars Most Likely to Get You Laid in L.A.

Yes, yes. We know. Valentine's Day is overrated. If you're single, it's a day seemingly created just to make you feel bad about yourself. If you're in a relationship, it's a day seemingly concocted to make you drop cash on dinner and presents a mere two months after the holiday present season.

Luckily, plenty of places in Los Angeles feel your pain and are not above mocking the holiday -- meaning there are still ways to go out and actually have fun on Valentine's Day.

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World 8 lets you find an epic item for your gaming lover

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*10 Things to Do in L.A. on Valentine's Day for People Who Hate Valentine's Day
*Top 10 Bars With the Hottest Women in L.A.
*10 Bars Most Likely to Get You Laid in L.A.

"You always buy me the same shit."

If you haven't heard that before, consider yourself amongst the lucky lovers whose significant others keep their thoughts to themselves. That one year your girlfriend ooh-ed and aww-ed over the flowers and cleverly-packaged chocolates you gave her? She might have been faking it.

And even if your babe likes getting classic gifts for Valentine's day, it couldn't hurt you to maybe think outside the box when it comes to cute trinkets. Especially if you're looking to conquer a new beau. It's like a wise man once said: the more creative you are, the higher your chances of getting laid. Or something like that.

So hop in your love mobile and hit up Los Angeles' more cooky shopping spots for gifts that will make your Valentine's Day less lame.

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Star Foreman

Dale Vaughn and Elizabeth Menzel, photographed at Dystopian Studios

*Check out our entire 2013 Couples Issue here

Dale Vaughn, leader of men, and Elizabeth Menzel, leader of women, met playing beach volleyball. Vaughn is the founder of the NextGent men's self-accountability hiking group. Menzel is the founder of the Women's Wisdom Community support group. Right away they sensed each other's awesome energy.

According to Menzel, everything in life is about energy and energy frequencies. Her frequencies matched Vaughn's perfectly. That is, with one small exception: She is old enough to be his mother. (Technically speaking, she is five years younger than his mother.) He was 23 at the time they met. She was 42. They have been together five years now. As they see it, the age difference is not the salient aspect of their relationship.

Though for a while it was. For a while, because of it, there almost was no relationship.

Their volleyball group, organized on Meetup.com, would play for hours, until the sun set. Menzel and Vaughn can't remember exactly when they became aware of one another. She thinks she joined the group before he showed up. He thinks he did. "Probably what was happening was that I was there when he wasn't, and he was there when I wasn't," Menzel says.

"Except I was there every week," Vaughn says. He'd just moved to Los Angeles from Dallas by way of London. "I played every single Saturday," he continues. "It was, like, the thing I did."

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Star Foreman

Ritchie and Burton, at home with Phil

*Check out our entire 2013 Couples Issue here

Kate Burton and Michael Ritchie spend a quarter of their time living in different cities, a situation that can be difficult for any couple. But they feel it shows the strength of their relationship. Besides, for the first few days of each trip, they can indulge the habits that drive each other crazy. She can leave copies of the New Yorker around the house, for instance, while he can throw away plastic bags.

"Kate will save plastic bags from the grocery, and we'll have 80 of them," Ritchie says, in a voice that meshes his Worcester, Mass., accent with the nasality of Ray Romano. "There's not going to be a moment when we have to pack 80 plastic bags. Can we go down to 10?"

The couple sits in the living room of their impossibly charming though surprisingly low-key house on a narrow, curvy road in Los Feliz. The front door and garage door are a matching light blue, and there's a yard out back, where Ritchie's domain is the potted plants and Burton oversees the garden. Running around somewhere is their excitable lab mix, Phil.

That "surprisingly" is because of their high-profile careers. Ritchie is artistic director at L.A.'s powerhouse Center Theatre Group, which controls three stages, the Ahmanson, Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas, and regularly prepares shows for Broadway. Burton is one of the country's most celebrated theater actresses, once earning two Tony nominations in the same year (2002), for Hedda Gabler and The Elephant Man.

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Star Foreman

Scheer and Raphael, on the phone

*Check out our entire 2013 Couples Issue here

June Diane Raphael and her husband, Paul Scheer, make fun of bad Hollywood movies. They're also in them, occasionally, but why should that stop the mockery?

The couple's wildly popular podcast, How Did This Get Made, co-hosted with actor Jason Mantzoukas, attracts some 150,000 listeners per episode. It was also the readers' choice for best podcast in L.A. Weekly's 2012 Web Awards.

Over the course of an hour, films with bloated budgets and underconsidered plots — think Twilight, Wild Wild West and Barb Wire — get thoroughly dissected, their bad acting, garish set design and gaping plot holes pondered with great seriousness.

"We have a really joyful appreciation for bad movies," Raphael says.

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Star Foreman

Shawn Chapman Holley and her husband, Dorian, photographed at Kulak's Woodshed

*Check out our entire 2013 Couples Issue here

One Friday afternoon a few years ago, just as lawyer Shawn Chapman Holley dropped some highly confidential paperwork discussing her client's alleged illicit activities through the mail slot of a lavish home in the hills, she realized she had the wrong address.

Panicked, she decided that protecting the dirty secrets of Lindsay or Paris or Snoop — all of whom she has defended, none of whom she is willing to confirm as the celebrity in this story — meant waiting for the people to come home and convincing them to give her back the documents.

She called home to tell her husband that she wouldn't make it back in time for dinner.

"Next thing I know," Shawn remembers, "he shows up" — with burgers, fries and orange soda, braving torrential rain to wait with her.

And wait. And wait.

"We were there so long I had to pee in the Jack in the Box cup and pour it out in the rain," says Dorian Holley, laughing. Now that's love.

For years, you've seen this spunky, tireless litigator and her genial, bald clotheshorse of a husband standing behind the rich and famous. She does it on CNN and TMZ as an attorney to the stars; he does it on MTV and NBC, where he is currently lead vocalist in The Tonight Show band. (He's also a former American Idol vocal coach.)

Enumerating the full list of celebs these two have supported legally and vocally could take days. She's defended O.J. Simpson and Nicole Richie; he's sung with Jessica Simpson and Lionel Richie. And while many of their clients gallivant, self-medicate and stumble around insular bubbles of fame, the hardworking and humble Holleys somehow have managed to make an honest living amidst the razzle-dazzle of Tinseltown.

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