Happy New Year LA!

Remember, All Metro Bus and Rail lines will be free to ride on the night of New Year’s Eve. This means no fare will be charged on New Year’s Eve from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day. So, please, please don't drink and drive.

 Also, with everything shut down on New Year's Day try Little Tokyo for its fun Oshogastu Festival. Then come home and watch the last new Doctor Who until 2020, because the BBC is quite insane.

Japanese New Year's Oshogatsu Festival
Tuesday, January 1
Three Locations in Little Tokyo
1) Weller Court Shopping Center
2) Japanese Village Plaza
3) Frances Hashimoto Plaza (near Japanese Plaza)
Free

Kick off the new years in Little Tokyo. The Annual Japanese New Year's Oshogatsu Festival held at downtown Weller Court Shopping Center and Japanese Village Plaza. Japanese art and entertainment will be center stage.A festival vibe throughout Little Tokyo.

Hayao Miyazaki First Exhibit for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures

Though it won't be open until the end of next year, 2019, we got an update on the exhibits for the future Academy Museum of Motion Pictures that will be gracing Wilshire Blvd. And anime is getting some love.

In collaboration with Studio Ghibli the Academy Museum is going to have an exhibit on the work of none other than Hayao Miyazaki. There's not many more details beyond the press release below. They don't even really have a title for the exhibit, but will get trickles of information as we get closer to the launch and we'll share them with you.

From press release:

The Academy Museum’s opening temporary exhibition will be an unprecedented U.S. retrospective of famed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, curated by Jessica Niebel in collaboration with Studio Ghibli. Celebrated and admired around the world for his imagination, authorial vision, craftsmanship, and deeply humanistic values, Miyazaki continues to influence generations of filmmakers and film lovers. The exhibition will take visitors on a thematic journey through his cinematic worlds using original production materials from Studio Ghibli’s archives and features such films as My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Spirited Away (2001). The exhibition will present more than 200 concept sketches, character designs, storyboards, layouts, cels, backgrounds, film clips, and immersive environments. A catalogue, film series, and public events will accompany the presentation, and unique Studio Ghibli merchandise will be sold at the Museum’s shop.

New Year's Eve Guide of Guides

If you're a little out of it (do you know what day it is) like our friends and family during this Winter break, just a reminder that all of these take place on New Year's Eve Dec 31st.

We have two well known traditions and  guides with tons of options for you to seek out the way to ring in the New Year.


-Don't forget

All Metro Bus and Rail lines will be free to ride on the night of New Year’s Eve. This means no fare will be charged on New Year’s Eve from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. on New Year’s Day

N.Y.E.L.A.
Starts 8pm
Grand Park + The Music Center:
200 North Grand Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90012
Free

"What’s up Los Angeles? Dance your heart out and into 2019 with best friends, sweeties, friendly neighbors, and those cousins from out-of-town at the West Coast’s flagship New Year’s Eve celebration. Grand Park and The Music Center’s N.Y.E.L.A. is the place to dream together and welcome new beginnings with a countdown on City Hall, live music, food, and photo booths in one big, beautiful, colorful Angeleno experience to remember! #NYELA"

The Queen Mary’s New Year's Eve: Past & Present
Starts 8pm
The Queen Mary
1126 Queens Hwy, Long Beach, CA, 90802
Starting at $115,  additional service fees and parking when purchased

"Cheers to the New Year aboard the magnificent Queen Mary, December 31, 2018. Take a unique voyage through history exploring the ship’s themed decks and ballrooms, brought to life with celebratory live music, DJs, dancers, dueling pianos and more. One of SoCal’s best fireworks displays will light up the night sky off the stern of the ship at midnight."

Two Bit Circus' New Year's Eve Celebration
Starts 8pm
Two Bit Circus
634 Mateo St, Los Angeles, CA 90021
$75
21+

"Ring in the New Year with Two Bit Circus One ticket unlocks Games, Food, more games and Drinks. Jump on this special event - it is sure to sell out quickly. Your ticket include Unlimited game play Midway and Arcade 2 tickets to our main attractions (story rooms and VR) 2 drink tickets. Midnight Champagne Toast Late Night Food Fare 10pm"






-LAist made a great guide this year with some repeats from ours

The Best Things To Do On New Year's Eve In LA No Matter Who You Are

-Eventbrite's guide 

-New Year’s Eve: 30 ways to ring in 2019 with dinner in Southern California

Weekly What To Do: Other Than New Year's We're Pretty Dead This Week

We'll have a New Year's Eve guide or links to guides later this week. In the mean time, we have:

Alex Film Society Presents
8th Annual Greatest Cartoons Ever!!Wednesday, December 26, 2018 – 2:00 PM & 7:00 PM
Alex Theatre
216 North Brand Boulevard
Glendale, CA 91203
$17

Celebrating Mickey Mouse’s 90th Birthday with the screening of two iconic shorts: Plane Crazy (1928) and Through the Mirror (1936). In addition, Hollywood opens up its vaults to release classic cartoons from the Fleischers, Chuck Jones, Hanna Barbera, and more. Don’t miss the Raffle of Gift Baskets stuffed with goodies and holiday treats.

SCREWBALL COMEDY CLASSICS 2018

Thu, Dec 27, 2018 - Tue, Jan 1, 2019

Aero Theatre 1328 Montana Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90403

$ 

 

The Cinematheque again caps off the year with some of the funniest and most sophisticated films ever to hit the big screen, beginning with two holiday-themed features. Sparks fly when legendary director Ernst Lubitsch pairs Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart in THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, in which they play clerks who can’t stand each other in person but fall in love as anonymous pen pals. In CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT, celebrity homemaker Barbara Stanwyck has a secret to hide - she can’t cook and doesn’t own a home.

Simmba
Town Center 5 on Dec 28th
$

An Indian cop movie that will be totally crazy.

"Simmba is an orphan from Shivgadh from where our beloved Singham was born and raised. Contrary to the philosophies of Singham, Simmba believes that a Corrupt Officer's life is an ideal life which inspires him to become one. While Simmba enjoys all the perks of being an immoral and unethical Police Officer, a twist in the tale transforms him and forces him to choose the righteous path."






Japanese Whisky & Karaage Chicken Tasting
Friday, December 28, 5:00 PM - 10:59 PM
Best Girl
 927 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
$25-$60

Best Girl's filling that weird blackhole between Christmas and New Year's with something special: a one-night-only celebration of rare Japanese Whiskys paired with Chef Michael's special chicken karaage recipe, double-fried with a sprinkle of togarashi and served family-style with Kewpie mayo, edamame, pickled vegetables and fried sweet potatoes.

Japanese New Year's Oshogatsu Festival
Tuesday, January 1
Three Locations in Little Tokyo
1) Weller Court Shopping Center
2) Japanese Village Plaza
3) Frances Hashimoto Plaza (near Japanese Plaza)
Free

Kick off the new years in Little Tokyo. The Annual Japanese New Year's Oshogatsu Festival held at downtown Weller Court Shopping Center and Japanese Village Plaza. Japanese art and entertainment will be center stage.A festival vibe throughout Little Tokyo.

Have A Merry Godzilla Christmas, LA!

MATZOBALL LA on XMAS EVE & Free Metro

The Metro is free the Christmas Eve! Hey, no Christmas fatalities on the road, please.

"This means no fare will be charged on Christmas Eve from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. on Christmas morning and from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. on New Year’s Eve." -Metro blog

For my fellow Jews

MATZOBALL® LA
Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 9:00 PM –
Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 3:00 AM
The Argyle Hollywood
1600 Argyle Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028

$40 

Ages 21-49

"Bigger and better than ever, MatzoBall, the nations leading Jewish single’s event, kicks off its 32nd year with an unforgettable Jewcy adventure. With almost three decades of experience, nobody can do it bigger or better than Matzoball and this year will prove to be no different. Matzoball sets the stage for the ultimate party experience that you do not want to miss out on!"

The Magical Christmas Caroling Truck Now The Magical Holiday Parade

If you want to go out this Christmas Eve try following or finding the The Magical Christmas Caroling Truck. It might be going by the name of The Magical Holiday Parade. It's a festively dressed truck with carolers singing out holiday hits and spreading Christmas cheer through the streets of North Hollywood, Toluca Lake and Burbank.

Here's the current route and times.

You'll have a chance to find it between 4:30pm and 10pm, only on Christmas Eve.

A Very Spidey Christmas Album

Check out this small album of Christmas songs up on YouTube from the cast of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Spidey-Bells is an instant classic for comic book fans. And it gets so very sad.

Koreatown Pizza Company Like The Pizzas From Anime

The Kingsley

By Jonathan Bilski

Damn it, why did I eat so much of you. Kingsley, you kicked our asses. With a fried onion crown in the center, Korean bbq marinated beef, corn cheese, tomato sauce, onion and bell pepper. Protected by a "Gold Crust" composed of stuffed sweet potato mousse topped with cheddar cheese. You were too much for two men to finish in one sitting.

This concoction of a pizza, much different from other pizza, was both delicious and practically out of a Japanese commercial you might see on YouTube. Though this place is definitely in Koreatown. 

Koreatown Pizza Co. looks more like a trendy place to grab a beer, and it is, but they also dabble in delicious pizza. Coming with special stylized crusts and avant-garde ingredients you won't find at Domino's, this place is where you go to try something new. Check out their menu for pizzas that are not gonna have pepperoni. They have a breakfast pizza in the Morning Glory that contains scrambled eggs and hashbrown crust. The Patty Cake is essentially a burger pizza and the Sweet & Savory sounds like dessert. Those are just some of the pizzas to try.

It's highly recommend to not go alone. This activity should have more friends or family to try pizzas than just two. Do it for the safety of your stomach. You'll eat more than you should and someone else should be there to take a slice for you.

Though they do have a lot of beer on tap the place remained family friendly throughout the evening. Kids were placed up high, second floor seating, in what we think was a birthday party. While, we didn't even notice a game of beer pong was set up, up front. They have some TV's playing sports. So if you wanna watch a game and have a overflowing with meat pizza go ahead. It's still fine for those wanting to try new slices of Surf N' Turf. As the Ninja Turtles might say, "Cowabunga! Killer pizza!"







Koreatown Pizza Co. 

3881 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90010
213-738-0077

Hours:

Sun 11:00 am – 10:00 pm
Mon 11:00 am – 10:00 pm
Tue 11:00 am – 10:00 pm
Wed 11:00 am – 10:00 pm
Thu 11:00 am – 12:00 am
Fri 11:00 am – 12:00 am
Sat 11:00 am – 12:00 am

Parking
$2 Validated parking behind Koreatown Pizza Co. on St. Andrews Pl. Don’t forget to get stamped! =)

Marciano Art Foundation Polka Dots and Bamboo

On Wilshire, we had a chance to check out the latest exhibits at the Marciano Art Foundation. Ai Weiwei's Life Cycle will have you wandering around the main floor in awe of fantasy creatures and a large raft carrying figures made out of bamboo. There's some other oddities like millions of fake sunflower seeds and a vast area of broken tea spots that are utter oddities.

You"ll probably snag a few pics of Yayoi Kusama's With All My Love For The Tulips, I Pray Forever, which looks very much like a Target ad without a circle. Get read to put on some disposable socks over you shoes.

Then there's a very small, but almost NSFW work exhibit hidden on the Mezzanine. 

Marciano Art Foundation
4357 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010
Free, Must RSVP for timed entry 

millions of fake sunflowers seeds

broken teas spouts

The shirts, while cool, cost more than $100

Red Velvet Redmare Next Year

📣 An additional show for #REDMAREinLA has been added and scheduled for Thurs, 2/7 at 8PM at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium 💘 Tickets for this show go on sale Sat, 12/22 at 10AM PST. See below for the official ticket link! #REDMAREinUSA

🎟 Ticket link: https://t.co/g6VHD4MCKI pic.twitter.com/9aM01zio0b

— SubKulture Entertainment (@SubKultureEnt) December 20, 2018

The first show in LA looks almost sold out, so they added another one. Try out some K-Pop in the new year.

Christmas Horror Movie Guide 2018 Updated

 By Jonathan Bilski

This is an updated post from a month ago on new Christmas Horror to check out.

From Trancers

-Trancers (available on Amazon and other online streaming services)

from Trancers

Now we know it doesn't look like it, but it's technically a Christmas movie. Take a trip with a future cop that travels back in time to 1980's LA to stop an evil psychic from taking out the ancestors of LA's future government. It's Christmas in LA and even Santa can turn into a dirty Trancer, luckily Helen Hunt might help you out.

-LAist has a good list of all the Christmas movies to see in LA playing in theaters.











It's that time of year again, when a slate of horror-themed Christmas movies hit the market. And though we see no attempt by any US company to stream or put out Deadly Games from France, we are getting some crazy and wild new holiday themed horror.

Start your holiday horror viewing right with I'm Dreaming of a White Doomsday. A mother and son must survive after the apocalypse. And it looks like Santa is outside there bunker to deliver them presents or maybe someone just dressed as Santa just wants to get them? I'm not sure, but looks like there's gonna be some sulking because of a nuclear winter.* Santa in a gas mask is always creepy.

Out now on Blu-ray and DVD

Seen: Much more of a sci-fi movie, but does take place during Christmas, but a British Christmas, so a little less Christmas-y

Already out is Await Further Instructions, which seems to have a sci-fi premise. Some creepy substance is surrounding a home on Christmas. The family inside isn't happy and wasn't happy with each other from the start. At least their TV's work, except all the get is the message saying ‘Stay Indoors and Await Further Instructions' .We aren't getting a Doctor Who Christmas Special this year, so here's the closes thing that sci-fi Christmas horror.


Streaming, digital now

Seen: This came so close to being a perfect cult classic, but the director shows he still has to learn a bit before making really good films. Great musical numbers with some good gore scenes. Still, it drags like the zombies in it it sometimes.

Coming out this week in theaters is none other than Anna and the Apocalypse. We've been waiting for this one since it hit the film festival circuit a year ago, premiering at Fantastic Fest. We got it a Beyond Fest, but who wants to see a Christmas movie in early October? It's a Christmas-horror-zombie-musical and that pretty much makes people want to see it from the get go. It's been getting rave reviews and no matter what, it'll be sure to be a Christmas cult classic just for its concept alone.

In limited theaters Nov 30th  and expands nationwide Dec 7th
Anna and the Apocalypse

Wednesday, November 28, 7pm

Followed by a Q&A with John McPhail

and Actor Chris Leveaux

Anna and the Apocalypse Q&A  

Fri 11/30, Sat 12/1 & Sun 12/2 

with Director John McPhail & Actor Christopher Leveaux

ArcLight Hollywood

$

Seen: High hopes, but sadly it just wasn't that good, segments differ too much and the story keeping it together doesn't really pay off. This anthology was not the Christmas present I was looking for.

Early next week we get All the Creatures Were Stirring, an anthology horror Christmas movie. It's starts off with a story  about a couple finding a weird movie theater on Christmas Eve. From there we don't have a real theme just bad things happening on/around Christmas for the couple to view. We can wait to see what different directors are gonna do to make our holiday season a little bit more scary. Looks like it'll be so over-the-top it'll be funny.

Out streaming, digital and DVD Dec 4th

Seen: It's my least favorite of Nacho's work and that's just sad.
 On Hulu, we have the holiday horror series Into the Dark giving us Pooka and my heart went all aflutter when I found out Nacho Vigalondo was the director. He's one of my favorite directors and I've been fortunate enough to even interview him for the site. His work is great in sci-fi and horror, but at the same time his characters can be real chatty or there's a story that's way to human. Pooka has us following an actor dressing up like the most highly sought after doll for the holiday season and things start getting dark from there as the actor may be hurting people...or is Pooka?

Only on Hulu Dec 7th

That snows gonna be red when Christmas Blood comes out. It's a foreign Christmas horror movie from Norway, which always makes these movies a little bit more magical. A serial killer dresses like Santa and has been murdering people for the last thirteen years. Now it's up to two cops to stop all the killings. I'm gonna guess they don't succeed.

Out streaming, digital Dec 11th

*Extra

Now this one isn't listed for this Holiday season and it might wander the festival circuit before coming out. Hanukkah, yes, Hanukkah, has a horror movie. It's about how a son saw his serial kid killer father, the "Hanukiller" ,pffff, get taken down by New York cops in the 80's. The kid grew up and became an extremist himself whose going to repeat his father's bad call on how to celebrate the holiday on a group of Jewish teenagers. Oh vey, it sounds like it'll be a a fun ride. How do you kill people with a dreidel?

Out unknown?

*Extra Extra

Now there are some other Christmas horror films that have come out and...they look like they'll be so bad that they may be unwatchable.  Sure, they might be great to watch with friends and wonder how someone got to direct or make them, but here's three more that we don't recommend.

Elves- I guess it's a sequel to An Elf ? Someone left seven elves, one for each seven deadly sin, in a small town, and now they're gonna start killing people around Christmas.
Mrs. Claus- A serial killer is dressed like Santa Claus' wife and she's gonna kill a bunch of sorority girls.
Santa Jaws- Seen: I was wrong, this was just painful to watch, even as a joke with friends. Forget this garbage.
This came out when the last Sharknado movie hit the Sy-Fy channel, so not only is it a crazy concept, it's SyFy channel movie quality. When a boy wishes for his family to disappear, I guess a magical shark comes to eat them? Wait, this one might be fun to watch for how dumb it is.