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Isaac Psalm Escoto finds the intersection between L.A.’s art galleries and graffiti

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Isaac Psalm Escoto finds the intersection between L.A.’s art galleries and graffiti

“My car got impounded again. I am so sorry I’m late,” said Isaac Psalm Escoto, practically running into Jeffrey Deitch, a contemporary art gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard, energy drink in hand.

It was the second night in a row that his 2006 Scion xA got towed. Escoto, also known by the graffiti alias Sickid, is on a tight deadline to finish the final installment in his first solo exhibition, “Gas Station Dinner.” From the crevice of his ear to the shoelaces on his Converse sneakers, he’s covered entirely in unintentional paint splatters.

The unfinished piece is a 20- by 60-foot canvas wall that mimics a billboard — a size the graffiti artist is well acquainted with. The painting depicts a cityscape that brings together imagery from Escoto’s artistic world of dysfunction. A massive woman is sprawled across the horizon. Her body is framed by warped skyscrapers branded with Cup Noodles, the Playboy Bunny, Western Exterminators’ mascot, Mr. Little, and a blimp reading, “Ice Cube’s a Pimp.” Below the woman, the chaos of the city ensues, including depictions of a car accident, a police chase, a wounded skater, a strip of discount stores and a piano-playing duo. The spray-painted mural is complete with the religious imagery of a crucifix and several battling angels and devils wreaking havoc. All of Escoto’s work is set in this florescent realm of mischief and humor.

Isaac Psalm Escoto pauses in front of one of his works in “Gas Station Dinner.”

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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Inspired by his diet of 7-Eleven hot dogs and taquitos, the 25-year-old painter came upon the name “Gas Station Dinner” as both a joke and a tribute to the people in his life who have stuck by him and his art. The show will be on display until Aug. 10. Walking the line between hyper-realism and hyperbole, his ambiguous reality is inhabited by characters with brown skin, pointy eyeballs, rosy cheeks and rug-burned knees.

Escoto also exhibits a series of canvases featuring characters in acts of misconduct. They are pictured punching the screen of a Taco Bell drive-thru menu, chainsawing an ankle monitor and pointing a gun from behind the counter of a convenience store. No matter how outrageous the characters’ behavior, the artist grounds them in familiar settings such as a messy bedroom, a grocery store and a gas station bathroom.

In the gallery’s back room are a series of smaller-scale works that continue to explore points of view within the context of Escoto’s world. In some paintings, viewers are looking at the world through a microwave door, a fishbowl or a security camera lens.

“I’m inspired a lot by my viewing history of different forms of media. I’ll take something that was super impactful, like ’90s anime that inspired ‘The Matrix’ and ‘Blade Runner.’ Those kinds of things depict cities with a dystopian tone and mix it with culturally rich, diverse and funny imagery,” Escoto said. “I look to Eastern ways of shelling futuristic cities and landscapes and fuse them with my ideas of modern Los Angeles lifestyle.”

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The show is a product of Escoto’s first official practice at Tlaloc Studios, where he focused on painting. Before landing a coveted spot at the artist-run studio in South Central L.A., he worked out of a space he created within his mother’s walk-in closet. Over the last three years, Ozzie Juarez, founder of Tlaloc Studios and a fellow artist, has witnessed Escoto transition to bigger-scale works and continuously introduce new techniques.

“When I look at [Escoto’s] paintings, I see an artist that’s enjoying himself while making work,” said Juarez. “The amount of work he puts in tiny sections throughout his paintings is ridiculous. It’s those details that really give you an insight of who Isaac is, what his personality is like and, above all, what it’s like to grow up as Latino in Los Angeles.”

Escoto’s parents emigrated from Mexico and Guatemala. As he reflects on his childhood in East Hollywood, he says the neighborhood helped form his “opinions and viewpoints.”

The works included in “Gas Station Dinner” showcase Escoto’s ability to flesh out his world, where “uncommonality becomes the mundane” and his devious characters are free to run amok.

“It’s a city that’s shaped by other cultures from other countries and by the immigrant lifestyle. That’s kind of how I view my city,” Escoto said. As he says “my city,” he lets out a laugh.

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Alongside the inventive cityscape, Escoto’s work is deeply rooted in humor. Making fun of modernity while portraying absurdity is a balance he is well acquainted with. In the painting where a woman aims a gun from behind a convenience store counter, she is surrounded by SpongeBob SquarePants bongs, a wall of sex pills and potato chip bags with rappers’ faces on them.

“It’s not necessarily putting a bow on it or trying to romanticize a delinquency or dysfunction. Instead, I’m just putting out an image saying, ‘This is reality, and it’s not necessarily good or bad,’” said Escoto.

Although this is Escoto’s first major gallery exhibition, Los Angeles is already well acquainted with his work. Before he put his characters on canvases, he spent years painting them all over the city under the guise of Sickid. Instead of tagging his name like other graffiti artists, he is known for creating intricate scenes on billboards, the sides of buildings, bus stops and abandoned storefronts.

From a red devil baby urinating on an obstructed wall in Chinatown to outlandish depictions of luchadores, police officers and angels on an Echo Park billboard, Escoto first found his artistic style as a graffiti-addicted teenager.

He adopted the practice at age 14, spending weeknights sneaking out at all hours to draw his characters around town.

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“I was lucky enough to have supportive older siblings who took me to the places that were like gateway drugs to a deeper art experience,” said Escoto.

They first took him to Meltdown Comics, a beloved, now closed comic shop in West Hollywood that specialized in all things comedy and collectibles. Upon entering the storefront, everything changed for him. He equates the experience to entering an art museum for the first time; it was an introduction to a whole new world where he could blend the grit of graffiti with the lively spirit of comics.

“Graffiti is an empowering act because it’s so lawless, and there are consequences to it. So maybe it’s lawful. I don’t know,” Escoto said. “It puts my brain in a place where I put out only images I want to.”

The urgency of graffiti helped him commit to imagery and build confidence as an artist. Saving his “weirder subject matter” for the studio, he found that in the streets he didn’t need to worry about perfection.

A man stands in front of artwork.

Isaac Psalm Escoto is working on a tight deadline for his debut exhibition.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

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“What matters most is what you’re trying to come across in a piece. It’s all about your intention behind it and how are you trying to communicate that,” Escoto adds.

The namesake and owner of the gallery, Jeffrey Deitch, first discovered a Sickid billboard while driving on the 101 Freeway. Allured by the eye-catching imagery, he knew he had to meet the artist.

“Isaac is painting a different kind of L.A. that we all know. It’s those little convenience stores inside gas stations, the rack of products in car washes and the interior of liquor stores,” said Deitch. “He introduces us to that world which we all know but we haven’t seen yet in art. It’s a very interesting thing how he captures this essential aspect of contemporary Los Angeles.”

As Escoto enters his mid-20s, he‘s realized that the true theme of his work is rooted in the struggles that come with adulthood and wanting to return to a childlike place of comfortability.

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“A lot of pieces are not biographical but I’m projecting myself into a lot of my subject matter. I live vicariously through my figures, and that’s the basis of the painting,” said Escoto. “I’m depicting the struggles and insecurities of growing up and trying to find yourself through dysfunction.”

Hence the need for gas station dinners.

“As I was sketching the mural with the big extension roller with no ladder, an extreme sense of gratitude came over me, like this is what I would do down the street on a billboard,” Escoto said. “I’m using the same hand, and it’s like I’m looking up at a black billboard, but I’m on the inside of Jeffrey Deitch.”

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Movie Reviews

Roll On 18 Wheeler: Errol Sack’s ‘TRUCKER’ (2026) – Movie Review – PopHorror

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Roll On 18 Wheeler: Errol Sack’s ‘TRUCKER’ (2026) – Movie Review – PopHorror

I am a sucker for all those straight-to-video slasher movies from the 90’s; there was just a certain point where you knew the acting was terrible, however, it made you fall in love. I can definitely remember scanning the video store sections for all the different horror movies I could. All those movies had laughable names and boom mics accidentally getting in the frame. Trucker seems like a child of all those old dreams, because it is.

Let’s get into the review.

Synopsis

When a group of reckless teens cause an accident swroe to never speak of it.  The father is reescued by a strange man. from the wreckage and nursed back to health by a mysterious old man. When the group agrees to visit the accident scene, they meet their match from a strange masked trucker and all his toys with revenge on his mind.

Roll on 18 Wheleer

Trucker is what you would imagine: a movie about a psychotic trucker chasing you. We have seen it many, many times. What makes the film so different is its homage to bad movies but good ideas. I don’t mean in a negative way. When you think of a slasher movie, it’s not very complicated; as a matter of fact, it takes five minutes to piece the film together. This is so simple and childlike, and I absolutely love it. Trucker gave us something a little different, not too gory, bad CGI fire, I mean, this is all we old schlock horror fans want. Trucker is the type of film that you expect from a Tubi Original, on speed. However, I would take this over any Tubi Original.

I found some parts that were definitely a shout-out to the slasher humor from all those movies. Another good point that made the film shine was the sets. I guess what I can say is the film is everything Joy Ride should have been. While most modern slashers are trying to recreate the 1980s, the film stands out with its love for those unloved 1990’s horror films. While most see Joyride, you are extremely mistaken, my friend; you will enjoy this film much more.

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In The End

In the end, I enjoyed the entire film. At first, I saw it listed as an action thriller; I was pleasantly surprised, and Trucker pulled at my heart strings, enveloping me in its comfort from a long-forgotten time in horror. It’s a nostalgic blast for me, thinking back to that time, my friends, my youth, and finding my new home. Horror fans are split down the middle: from serial-killer clowns (my side) to elevated horror, where an artist paints a forty-thousand-year-old demon that chases them around an upper-class studio apartment. I say that a lot, but it’s the best way to describe some things.

The entire movie had me cheering while all the people I hated suffered dire consequences for their actions. It’s the same old story done in a way that we rabid fans could drool over, and it worked. In all the bad in the world today, and my only hope for the future is the soon-to-end Terrifier franchise. However, the direction was a recipe to succeed with 40+ year old horror fans like me. I see the film as a hope for tomorrow, leading us into a new era.

Trucker is set to release on March 10th, 2026

 

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Review: In ‘American Classic,’ Kevin Kline and Laura Linney deliver a love letter to theater

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Review: In ‘American Classic,’ Kevin Kline and Laura Linney deliver a love letter to theater

The lovely, funny “American Classic,” premiering Sunday on MGM+, is a love letter to theater, community and community theater. Kevin Kline plays Richard Bean, a narcissistic stage actor. He’s famous enough to be opening on Broadway in “King Lear,” but he has to be pushed onstage and is forgetting lines. After he drunkenly assails a hostile New York Times critic — caught on video, of course — he’s suspended from the play, and his agent (Tony Shalhoub) advises him to get out of town and lay low until the heat’s off, as they used to say in the gangster movies.

Learning that his mother (Jane Alexander, acting royalty, in film clips) has died, Richard heads back to his small Pennsylvania hometown, where his family — all actors, like the Barrymores, but no longer acting — owns a once-celebrated theater. To Richard’s horror, it has, for want of income, become a dinner theater, hosting touring productions of “Nunsense” and “Forever Plaid” instead of the great stage works on which he cut his teeth.

Brother Jon (Jon Tenney), running the kitchen at the theater, is married to Kristen (Laura Linney), Richard’s onetime acting partner, who dated him before her marriage; now she’s the mayor. Their teenage daughter, Miranda (Nell Verlaque) — a name from Shakespeare — does want to act and move to New York, as her mother had before her, but is afraid to tell her parents. Richard’s father, Linus (Len Cariou), is suffering from dementia, though not to the point he won’t actively contribute to the action; every day he comes out again as gay.

Across the eight-episode series, things move from the ridiculous to the sublime. Richard’s attempt to stage his mother’s funeral, with her coffin being lowered from the ceiling, while “Also sprach Zarathustra” plays and smoke billows toward the audience, fortunately comes to naught; but he announces at the ceremony that he’ll direct a production of Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play “Our Town” at the theater, to “restore the soul of this town.” (His big idea is to ignore Wilder’s stage directions, which ask for no curtain, no set and few props, with a “realistic version,” featuring a working soda fountain, rain effects and a horse.) Fate will have other plans for this, and not to give away what in any case should be obvious, the title of the play will also become its ethos, with a cast of amateurs, including Miranda’s jealous boyfriend, Randall (Ajay Friese), and ordinary people standing in for the ordinary people of Wilder’s Grover’s Corners.

The series has a comfortable, cushiony feeling; it’s the sort of show that could have been made as a film in the 1990s, and in which Kline could have starred as easily in his 40s as in his 70s; it has the same relation to reality as “Dave,” in which he played a good-hearted ordinary Joe who takes the place of a lookalike U.S. president. The town is essentially a sunny place, full of mostly sunny people, to all appearances, a typical comedy hamlet. But we’re told it’s distressed, and Mayor Kristen is in transactional cahoots with developer Connor Boyle (Billy Carter), who wants clearance to build a casino on the site of a landmark hotel. (Much of the plot is driven by money — needing it, trading for it, leaving it, losing it.) He also wants his heavily accented, bombshell Russian girlfriend, Nadia (Elise Kibler), to have a part in “Our Town.”

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As in the great Canadian comedy “Slings & Arrows,” set at a Shakespeare Festival outside of Toronto, themes and moments and speeches from the play being performed are echoed in the lives of the performers, while the viewer experiences the double magic of watching a fine actor playing an actor playing a part. Kline, of course, is himself an American classic, with a long stage and screen career that encompasses classical drama, romantic and musical comedy and cartoon voiceovers; the series makes room for Richard to perform soliloquies from “Hamlet” and “Henry V,” parts Klein has played onstage. He brings out the sweetness latent in Richard. Linney, who played against her sweetheart image in “Ozark,” is happily back on less deadly ground (though she’s tense and drinks a little). Tenney, who was sweet and funny on “The Closer,” and who we don’t see enough of these days, is sweeter and funnier here, and gets to sing. (All the Beans will sing, except for Linus.)

As a comedy, it is often predicable — you know that things will work out, and some major plot points are as good as inevitable — but it’s the good sort of predictability, where you get what you came for, where you hear the words you want to hear, ones you could never have written yourself. “American Classic” is not out to challenge your world view in any way but wants only to confirm your feelings and in doing so amplify them. Shock effects are fine in their place — and to be sure there are major twists in the plot — but there is a certain release when the thing you’re ready to have happen, happens, whether it brings laughter or tears. Either is welcome.

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‘Scream 7’ Review: Ghostface Trades His Metallic Knife for Plastic in Bloody Embarrassing Slasher Sequel

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‘Scream 7’ Review: Ghostface Trades His Metallic Knife for Plastic in Bloody Embarrassing Slasher Sequel

It’s funny how this film is marketed as the first Scream movie in IMAX, yet it’s their sloppiest work to date. Williamson accomplishes two decent kills. My praise goes to the prosthetic team and gore above anything else. The filmmaking is amateurish, lacking any of the tension build and innovation in set pieces like the Radio Silence or Craven entries. Many slasher sequences consist of terribly spliced editing and incomprehensible camera movement. There was a person at my screening asking if one of the Ghostfaces was killed. I responded, “Yeah, they were shot in the head; you just couldn’t see it because the filmmaking is so damn unintelligible.” 

Really, Spyglass? This is the best you can do to “damage control” your series that was perfectly fine?

I’m getting comments from morons right now telling me that I’m biased for speaking “politically” about this movie. Fuck you! This poorly made, bland, and franchise-worst entry is a byproduct of political cowardice.

The production company was so adamant about silencing their outspoken star, who simply stated that she’s against the killing of Palestinian people by an evil totalitarian regime, that they deliberately fired her, conflating her comments to “anti-semintism,” when, and if you read what she said exactly, it wasn’t. Only to reconstruct the buildup made in her arc and settle on a nonsensical, manufactured, nostalgia-based slop fest to appeal to fans who lack genuine film taste in big 2026. To add insult to injury, this movie actively takes potshots at those predecessors, perhaps out of pettiness that Williamson didn’t pen them or a mean-spirited middle finger to the star the studio fired. Truly, fuck you. Take the Barrera aspect out of this, which is still impossible, and Scream 7 is a lazy, sloppy, ill-conceived, no-vision, enshittification of Scream and a bloody embarrassment to the franchise. It took a real, morally upright actress to make Ghostface’s knife go from metal to plastic. 

FINAL STATEMENT

You either die a Scream or live long enough to see yourself become a Stab.

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