Entertainment
What it takes to build Coachella’s most recognizable icon
Scroll through Instagram any time in April and you’ll see a stream of photos that are instantly recognizable as being from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival thanks to the iconic backdrop of a Ferris wheel against a desert mountainscape.
Even though it’s not a permanent structure at the Empire Polo Club, the attraction, officially named La Grande XL, makes the journey to Indio every year on 20 semitrucks, according to owner and operator Ray Cammack Shows. It is assembled by 10 team members over five days with the use of a 70-ton crane.
Ben Pickett, vice president at Ray Cammack Shows, said the La Grande XL wheel, with 36 air-conditioned gondolas, made its debut in 2017, replacing the original La Grande Wheel. He said that hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers have ridden the attractions over the last 15 years.
La Grande XL travels around the country to events including the recent Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo as well as the L.A. County Fair and Orange County Fair. However, there is one element that is unique to Coachella and the Stagecoach Country Music Festival — a custom logo of a palm tree and a roadrunner at the center of the wheel that light up when the sun goes down. It was designed and built exclusively for the desert festivals.
“Because it is only used for Coachella and Stagecoach, the sign remains in Southern California when not in use. Altogether, the wheel features more than half a million LED lights and installing the logo is a detailed process that takes our team approximately six hours to complete. It’s the final element added during setup — we consider it the ‘cake topper’ that completes the entire wheel,” Pickett wrote in an email interview.
Pickett also offered some tips for taking photos of the wheel.
“Some of the best photos are taken at golden hour or sunset with the mountains and palm trees in frame. One of the most viral shots is the forced-perspective ‘holding the wheel’ angle and night shots also work well when the wheel is fully lit against a dark sky,” he wrote.
Riding the La Grande XL costs $15 for a 10-minute general admission ride, but you can spend $80 for a private gondola for up to six people and an express lane.
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Movie Reviews
Movie Review: Extorting Keanu? What “Outcome” can We Expect?
Perhaps the reason Keanu Reeves doesn’t quite grasp the tone in Jonah Hill’s Hollywood star in crisis over a scandal “comedy” “Outcome” is that director, co-writer and co-star Hill didn’t make what he was going for clear.
Maybe Hill didn’t quite know himself what notes to hit in a not-quite-funny romp through extortion, taking stock and making amends for the selfish lives stars must live to become movie stars. It doesn’t help that Reeves is a frustratingly awkward actor in any film that doesn’t have fight choreography, comedies and sensitive dramas or dramedies especially.
There are a couple of laughs in this picture, and a few poignant, almost “honest” moments provided by Martin Scorsese, who plays the talent manager who “discovered” the former child star Reef Hawk (Reeves), abandoned as Reef ascended to the pinnacle of Hollywood success,by Susan Lucci, as Reef’s estranged “Real Housewives” mother and Cameron Diaz as one of two high school friends (Matt Bomer is the other) who stuck with their 56 year old pal and got a posh free ride for their trouble.
But the picture doesn’t play, doesn’t send much of a message and most certainly never “lands.”
The title “Outcome” is a sophmoric pun, and in Hill’s antic “crisis lawyer” co-starring performance there are traces of every over-the-top comedy of his foul-mouthed cherub youth. As a bald, bearded David Cross-on-uppers lawyer who decorates his office with “client” photos of Kanye, the Clintons and Kevin Spacey, Hill’s Ira is forever trying misread-the-room “jokes” that he freely admits don’t “land.”
“I gotta go. Adam Driver bought a pet chimp and it ate some lady’s face off at the mall!”
Even the ones Ira doesn’t apologize for play as strained, with only Hill’s toothy, tasteless/tactless energy to put them over.
Reef, a former addict and all-around Hollywood “nice guy” is just about to end a five year hiatus from acting, kicking his heroin addiction and keeping much of that and a legion of people who apparently “hate” him — with cause — out of the public eye and unattached to his pristine image.
But the new landscape for celebrity has made him paranoid. “You’re always being watched, observed,” he fearfully grouses to Kyle (Diaz) and Xander (Bomer).
And now somebody has a video they’re threatening to release, something that could ruin Reef and his image. He compulsively Googles “Is Reef Hawk an ass—e,” “Reef Hawk scandal” and “Reef Hawk video,” waiting for a shoe to drop — which shoe, he has no idea.
Which is why fast-talking Ira sends him on an apology tour through his past — that first manager, his mother — who only meets with him in an interview for her “Housewives” show. Mom’s sense of victimhood, living through her wildly popular son’s rise having “sacrificed” and groomed him for stardom since childhood, is genuine and almost touching if not genuinely funny.
“Just because it’s performative doesn’t mean it’s not the TRUTH!”
Hill can’t find laughs in a meeting Ira stages with his crisis-management “team” — an Allred-ish abused women lawyer, a Rev. Al-ish civil rights pastor, an Asian rights advocate.
What? No Jewish anti-semitism minimizer?
“We ran the numbers. It turns out hating Jews doesn’t negatively impact a person’s career.”
David Spade pops up as a new Malibu neighbor whose very young, very pregnant wife (Kaia Gerber) lands the movie’s funniest line.
“I know you. You used to date my grandmother!”
Van Jones plays himself, an interviewer willing to be arm-twisted by the star insisting he be introduced as a (two time) “Oscar winner.” Drew Barrymore plays herself as an interviewer you maybe don’t want to screw with.
Soaking up the one-liners and Hill’s antic but comically winded patter makes one wonder if even recasting the lead would have helped.
But watching Reeves struggle with his alternately serious or faux dismayed reactions, a damaged soul with remorse for those he’s wronged but a human void that potential laughs spiral into to die is a burden this lightweight goof on the devolving nature of “fame” never overcomes.
Rating: R, profanity, a sexual situation
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Jonah Hill, Susan Lucci, Matt Bomer, Ivy Wolf, David Spade, Martin Scorsese and Drew Barrymore
Credits: Directed by Jonah Hill, scripted by Jonah Hill and Exra Woods. An Apple TV+ release.
Running time: 1:24
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