We spend most of the year criticizing Los Angeles' ugly buildings and other unfortunate aspects of the local built environment. Here's our chance to rundown some of the thoughtful, inspiring and downright stellar projects that make us L.A. proud, and that make our burg a better place in general.
Jim Simmons Grand Park downtown
See also:
Miriam Newcomer The Hammer Museum's Venice Beach Biennial
*5 Artsy Things to Do in L.A. This Week
*Top 10 Films of 2012
This year felt like a year of growing pains for art in Los Angeles. Maybe that's because 2012 started as Pacific Standard Time -- that regionwide, Getty-funded series of exhibitions on SoCal art history -- wound down and the art community shifted attention from past to present. Maybe it's because the deaths of artists Mike Kelley and Michael Asher, both beloved for being "conceptual" while caring deeply about their audiences, forced us to grapple with what populism and popularity mean in art more than we otherwise would have. Maybe it's because LACMA transported a 340-ton boulder from Riverside to Mid-Wilshire around the same time the Hammer Museum staged the first L.A.-only biennial and offered a $100,000 prize voted on by the public. And artists resigned from MOCA's board, fearing the museum's new allegiances with commercial culture would undercut its quality.
It's probably a combination of all these things, of course. The exhibitions and art events that stood out most this year felt like they were grappling with the growing pains and these questions of what spectacle is good spectacle, while trying to be conscientious, communal and still smart. Here are our top 10.
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See also:
The Master
*More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage
More than ever, boiling this concluding year down to the 10 "best" movies feels both arbitrary and reductive. Ideally, I'd have 25 unnumbered slots. I'd cite another five, formally varied nonfiction films: Tchoupitoulas, Detropia, The Ambassador, Only the Young and How to Survive a Plague. And were I crafting this list on another day or in another mood, any of the following indies -- all of which deserved larger audiences than they got -- could have made the cut for a top 10: Bernie, Dark Horse, Keep the Lights On, Damsels in Distress, The Color Wheel, Compliance, Middle of Nowhere, Bonsái, Goodbye First Love, The Day He Arrives.
The upshot being, essentially, that even as studio releases are becoming more generic and/or more obsessed with awards-baiting formulas and/or franchise longevity, the other side of the spectrum is looking pretty good. Great, even: It seems as though more worthy films than ever before are making the leap from the festival circuit to some form of theatrical distribution, while nontraditional distribution options (from streaming to one-night-only pop-ups) are increasingly acquiring happening-like cachet.
So I chose to abstain from voting in the Best Undistributed Film category in the Voice poll. The distinction between "distributed" and "undistributed" seems more artificially binary than ever. Honestly, I'm far more passionate about films that were barely distributed in 2011 (like Hong Sang-soo's In Another Country and The Day He Arrives, two features that got a New York release but thus far have not made it to Los Angeles) than I am about anything that seems in danger of falling through the theatrical cracks.
A dose of perspective: In 2010, at the end of my first year on this job, the overwhelming winner of the Best Undistributed honor in our poll was Jean-Luc Godard's Film Socialisme, which I described as "the only film ... whose lack of distribution seems like a scandal." With all of the newish, increasingly viable options for films to be seen, it's hard to imagine feeling so scandalized today.
Another category in which I went with the "no vote" as protest: animation. On the one hand, this is an admission of personal failure: I didn't review a single purely animated film this year, and I didn't see enough of them to feel fully qualified to evaluate the field. Also, like the distinction between distributed/undistributed, I wonder if the notion of animated versus non-animated shouldn't be up for redefinition. Where would The Avengers be without computer-animated enhancement? What are films like Life of Pi or The Hobbit if not live-action/animation hybrids, 21st-century versions of Mary Poppins? (That said, I'll take Mary Poppins over any of them.)
One final note: I love Bill Murray in Hyde Park on Hudson so much that I contemplated finding a place here for that soggy but not totally unsatisfying presidential farce. In the end, I went with a top 10 that I can fully defend.
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The satirical satyrs of Poor Dog Group's Dyonisia
The venerable "best bets for the new year" critic's post always carries with it the uncertain odor of the racetrack tout. Even the seeming sure things -- the NYC-anointed, blue-chip transfers of Broadway hits -- are too often diminished by dispiriting changes in the cast or production design that can leave one wondering what all the fuss was about. Worse, invariably some inspired dark horse production will emerge in the year's homestretch to sweep the field and make liars of us all.
Those caveats aside, the following represents what promises to be, to this critic at least, the top ten no-brainer ticket wagers for L.A.'s 2012 theater season:
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Nina Silver and Guy Birtwhistle in D is for Dog
From backstage mishaps to audience interruptions, theater is unpredictable, and no one knows that better than the actors, producers and others who work in theater every day.
We polled the theater community to find the oddest moments of last year in L.A. theater.
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photo by Colin Young-Wolff Occupy this...or that...or whatever you damn well please.
Twenty Eleven has been a year of occupies. Occupations. Occupitudes. You get the idea.
Sure, the Occupy Wall Street movement has only been around since September, but since then we've been occupying all manner of whatnot like there's no tomorrow (thanks to the Mayans, there actually might not be one in 2012). We've even been occupying all the bizarre intangibles that the internet and the clever asses behind it can come up with.
Here are the 50 craziest. If you make it to the end, there's a page you can lick that tastes like blue raspberry Kool-Aid.
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Fighting the good fight
Yes, bookstores are closing all around us, from the giant Borders to the tiny Village Books.
But Angelenos still read, and to prove it, we asked LA Weekly's staff writers, editors and freelance contributors to tell us their favorite book they read this year, and why. Answers after the jump.
What's your favorite book you read in 2011? Add it in the comments.
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Also see 10 Ways to Get Past a Bouncer and Top 10 L.A. Club Nights of 2011. 
Lina Lecaro
At the risk of referencing LMFAO again, LA knows its party rockin' and we do it bigger and better than any other city in the world. New York may beat us at chic soirees, Miami might be sultrier and Vegas gaudier, but Los Angeles is where the magic happens. The culture, the diversity and yes, the entertainment industry make for an audacious alchemy that truly is unmatched.
Sure there's a lot glitzy superficiality too, but the stereotypes about L.A. nightlife are hardly the whole picture. For every botoxed big boob-bot bumpin' at the bash hoping to be discovered, there are artists and writers and music lovers and makers, not to mention normal, cool peeps who go out simply to have a good time. Despite an obvious decrease in imaginative gatherings and decadent sponsored spectacles due to the recession, there were still several opportunities to do just that.
Yes, some of the best events were exclusive, invite-only affairs, but just as many were open to the public... if you knew about them. Here, the top 10 best one-off parties and events that went off in Los Angeles this past year (Halloween and New Years Eve -- last year and this weekend -- not included).
tv42/Flickr CicLAvia, architects John Friedman and Alice Kimm's choice for a key influencer in 2011.
What were the five most influential shifts in Los Angeles' architectural realm this year? It turns out they're not about pretty pictures.
Or at least that's the feedback we got when we took a poll to come up with this LA Weekly best of 2011 list.
Instead of touting singular designs, the answers of four influential architects were about building a better city -- despite attempts by developers to water down architecture to boost profit and L.A. politicos convincing themselves that wrapping buildings in head-to-toe advertising billboards is Los Angeles' great cultural contribution.
Here are five picks for the most influential architectural shifts in L.A. this year
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The barrage of blogs tallying the year in trends and fashion has begun, and of course, we are totally participating. We do it every year, after all.
Lina Lecaro
And while we try to note the obvious, we also strive to call out the stuff you're not likely to see on the other blogs, stuff we note while nightlife traipsing and stuff that inevitably moves from street to mainstream the following year. Like, did anyone else note the "tranimal" trend last year, but us? Nope. We wrote about it and then Gaga brought it into the mainstream, or tried to, soon afterward.
So yeah, there's some obvious inclusions here, but as always, we strive to spotlight the more cutting edge staples seen in Los Angeles. There were looks to love and/or laugh at. Sometimes both at the same time. And that, friends, is fashion, especially in L.A. and most especially after dark: a little frivolous, a bit freaky, but always a ton of fun.
So here, the top 11 fashion trends of 2011 (seen mostly at social functions, clubs and Trader Joe's in Silver Lake and Hollywood). Which look did you do and which ones are totally done? Read on...
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