LA Times

Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ surprises and dazzles SXSW audience

8 years ago Lily Garner
Late Sunday night, more than an hour into the sold-out world premiere of Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” at the South by Southwest film festival in Texas, a rallying cry began emanating from the audience. “Pew-pew-pew!” the crowd inside Austin’s Paramount Theater chanted, adding their own...

Joffrey Ballet dazzles in L.A. Opera’s ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’

8 years ago Lily Garner
Gluck’s “Orpheus and Eurydice” may be based on the Greek myth of a singer capable of beguiling even hell’s furies, but the opera has long been catnip to choreographers. One of the defining early works of Pina Bausch was her danced 1975 production, with the cast’s three singers shadowing far more...

Nokie Edwards, the Ventures’ influential lead guitarist, dies at 82

8 years ago Lily Garner
For any kid who picked up an electric guitar in the 1960s, it never took long before they’d take a stab at trying to play “Walk Don’t Run,” the genre-defining surf-rock hit from 1960 popularized by the Ventures, which used that reverb-soaked recording as a launch pad to become the most successful...

The iHeartRadio Music Awards should have let awards season die

8 years ago Lily Garner
Even DJ Khaled appeared to throw in the towel at the iHeartRadio Music Awards. More than his skills as a songwriter or a producer, it’s the hip-hop impresario’s sheer enthusiasm that’s made him a ubiquitous presence in pop over the last few years. He’s a striver, a refuse-to-quitter — a man for...