Entertainment
Estevan Oriol and Teen Angel see eye to eye in exhibition 'Dedicated to You'
Street photographer and artist Estevan Oriol, best known for his image of the “L.A. fingers,” remembers frequenting the corner of Fourth and Soto streets in Boyle Heights in the 1990s to pick up the latest issue Teen Angel, an art zine named after its creator that portrayed Chicano life. Oriol felt the magazine’s subject matter mirrored his own work — he was using his camera lens to capture Chicano life while Angel did it with his colorful, hand-drawn illustrations.
Now, the work of both artists is on display in “Dedicated to You,” a new exhibition at Melrose gallery Beyond the Streets.
Open until Sept. 15, the show explores the various intersections between two artists’ bodies of work while doubling as a window into L.A.’s youth Chicano culture of the 1990s and early 2000s. On display are photographs, drawings and artifacts that provide an often neglected history of the city that raised them. The exhibit allows for their work to come together in depicting a rich vignette of “the culture.”
Guest look at past issues of Teen Angel magazine during the “Dedicated to You” opening.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
Same time, same place
Oriol, 57, says he doesn’t consider himself to be inspired by Angel but someone who was experiencing the same city concurrently.
“It was cool because, at that time, I was shooting all that kind of stuff like the homies, the lowriders and the girls. I was right there side by side doing what was in the magazine,” said Oriol.
On the gallery’s opening night, a line of vintage lowriders and motorcycles lined La Brea Avenue. The show’s poster, a large black and white image of a young Chicano couple kissing, acted as a background to the impromptu car show.
Within the gallery’s glass walls are Oriol’s negative contact sheets. The film rolls depict old Echo Park gang graffiti, lowriders caught mid bounce, tattooed women, and shots of celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Danny Trejo.
Born in Santa Monica, Oriol says he got his first taste of Hollywood after he began working as a doorman for several L.A. nightclubs in the ‘80s The job allowed him to connect with hip-hop groups like Cypress Hill, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E. and Rhyme Syndicate.
“Everybody would mix at these clubs. You would see some break dancers here and some new wavers there,” he said. “There were cholos and rockers with crazy hairspray looks. We were all just starting. Everything was new and fresh.”
Oriol eventually landed a job as a tour manager for hip-hop group House of Pain. Around the same time, Oriol’s dad gave him a camera.
“My dad told me to start shooting all the stuff that you’re around,” Oriol said. “At that time, I was also building a lowrider and I was in a car club in East L.A. We used to have our meetings on Beverly and Atlantic at the Mobil gas station.”
Every Friday, Oriol would cruise all around Los Angeles, from Whittier Boulevard to Hollywood Boulevard — along the way he snapped photos.
“It wasn’t just showing up and taking pictures of something that I wasn’t a part of,” Oriol said. “I’m not an outsider. A lot of photographers who don’t come from the culture and take pictures of it say they want to do their own narrative. I’m not trying to do that. It is what it is. I just shoot what I see.”
Visitors of the gallery are met with several glass cases with relics from both Oriol and Angel’s lives — an arsenal of Oriol’s cameras fills the shelves, along with several pairs of Nike Cortez sneakers hanging from a wire, memorial candles and a hubcap from one of his first cars.
Angel’s display is centered on the very desk and chair where he created the magazine, complete with cigarette burns and paint splatters. Images of his workspace and home the day after his passing sit atop the desk. When Angel died in 2015, Oriol, despite never having met him, was invited to come take pictures of how he left everything. On both sides of the desk, more parts of his private life can be seen including his glasses, a model ship and several figurines of his popular drawings.
Estevan Oriol is embraced by OG Lepke, whom he took many photos of, during the opening day of the gallery exhibit.
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
The man behind the magazine
Born Dave Holland in Indiana, the reclusive Angel chased his obsession with old Chevys to Southern California in the 1970s, landing a job as an illustrator for Lowrider magazine. In 1980, he founded Teen Angel, which focused on publishing artwork by the incarcerated and putting a spotlight on what Chicano culture looked like at the time.
David De Baca, one of Angel’s closest friends who is now manager of his estate, helped curate the show at Beyond the Streets. He says seeing Oriol’s work paired with Angel’s is something that always made sense to him.
“Estevan sees beauty in these neighborhoods and he photographs it. And in the same sense, that’s the way Teen Angel was,” De Baca said. “He saw beauty in the neighborhood and through his magazine, you would see drawings of cholos and cholas and street scenes of a neighborhood where it was a little gritty and there’s graffiti on the wall. But, when it’s laid out appropriately in artwork, you see the beauty in it. He and Estevan always saw the same kind of beauty.”
A bookshelf, complete with every issue of Teen Angel, is positioned next to a wall featuring the magazine’s original cover art and other works. The complete collection belongs to Bryan Ray Turcotte, who has spent the last decade hunting down every issue. As a skater kid involved in the DIY scene, Turcotte says the publication was very meaningful in his adolescence.
“[Teen Angel] was so haphazard about his numbering system,” said Turcotte of amassing his collection. “There’s all these offshoots of magazines that popped up in the middle of the run, so I had to do massive amounts of research to figure out how many there actually were.”
Frankie Quinones poses in front of Oriol’s “L.A. Fingers.”
(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)
Rooted in dedication
One wall at the gallery is devoted to “Silent Signals,” a recurring series in the magazine that featured various hand signals meant to discreetly communicate with a romantic interest. His signature “Traviesa Twins,” reoccurring characters in the issues, hold up different signs that communicate the alphabet. Next to each of Angel’s drawings, Oriol puts a modern-day twist on the signals by taking photos of Latinas mirroring the twins. Together, the wall acts as a connection point between Teen Angel’s drawings from 43 years ago to today’s culture.
In the neighboring room, massive vinyl cutouts of Angel’s drawings fill the gaps between Oriol’s prints, including “L.A. Fingers.” To the photographer, the show is all about making the viewer feel something. But when he walks through the gallery himself, he gets “pissed off.”
“I start to think of all the pictures that I didn’t take,” Oriol said. “Or the days that I f—ing didn’t have my camera or I think about how I had my camera and I didn’t take a picture of something, like what a f—ing idiot.”
Despite never having met, dedication lies at the center of everything Angel created and Oriol continues to create.
“It’s dedicated to the West Coast,” Oriol said. “It’s dedicated to the homies that passed away. It’s dedicated to everyone who’s part of this or however you want to put it. For me, it’s dedicated to this city.”
Harold and the Purple Crayon is probably a great movie, if you’re a pre-teen. I’m not sure kids much older than that will enjoy it too much. The characters and plot are all obvious and I didn’t get the feeling that the moral of the story really had any impact.
It’s difficult to really tell what the moral of the story is. There’s the “don’t be evil” aspect, but that’s fairly obvious. And there’s a little of the “believe in yourself” story, but that again isn’t well done in the movie. The main character only looses faith in himself for about two minutes of the story.
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There’s a little bit of the “parent’s should believe/support their children’s needs” but that too doesn’t really land. I think the story tries to have a few moral lessons and the result is that none of them really stand out.
Maybe the moral of the story is: writers should stick to only one moral of the story.
All of that aside, the antics and imagination of Harold’s drawing adventures are probably appealing to a very young five-to-ten year old children. The movie does have a 92% by the audience at RottenTomatoes, so someone enjoyed it. The critics however did not enjoy it.
Grade: B
About The Peetimes: This is a short movie, only about 80 minutes without the end credits. I would recommend the first Peetime. It’s the easiest to summarize. Neither of the Peetimes has any crazy antics that kids enjoy.
There are extra scenes during, or after, the end credits of Harold and the Purple Crayon.
| Rated: | (PG) Thematic Elements | Mild Action |
| Genres: | Adventure, Animation, Comedy |
| Starring: | Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benjamin Bottani |
| Director: | Carlos Saldanha |
| Writer(s): | David Guion, Michael Handelman, Crockett Johnson |
| Language: | English |
| Country: | United States |
Plot
Inside of his book, adventurous Harold can make anything come to life simply by drawing it. After he grows up and draws himself off the book’s pages and into the physical world, Harold finds he has a lot to learn about real life.
Don’t miss your favorite movie moments because you have to pee or need a snack. Use the RunPee app (Androidor iPhone) when you go to the movies. We have Peetimes for all wide release films every week, including Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters, Fly Me To The Moon, Despicable Me 4, Inside Out 2 and coming soon Borderlands, Alien: Romulus and many others. We have literally thousands of Peetimes—from classic movies through today’s blockbusters. You can also keep up with movie news and reviews on our blog, or by following us on Twitter @RunPee.
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Movie Reviews
Nanban Oruvan Vantha Piragu Movie Review: This Sweet, Familiar Reel of Memories Is Long But Lifelike
Nanban Oruvan Vantha Piragu Movie Review: As if Anand (Meesaya Murukku fame Anant Ram) has recorded daily vlogs of his life or has written a personal journal, noting intricate details, Nanban Oruvan Vantha Piragu captures every stage of his journey with the utmost patience (the viewer too is expected to stay patient to reap the joy of watching this film). He unpacks the events right from 1992, which marks the debut of two people: Anand’s birth and AR Rahman’s entry into Tamil cinema. So, like a twin, Rahman’s songs always tag along with him.
Peppered with the 90s magic of Colony Friends, games like Seven Stones and WWE trump cards, Superstar and Thala references, CSK vs MI street fights and more, the delightful template of Tamil cinema’s coming-of-age film is brightly apparent. There isn’t much innovation either. Instead, Anant trusts the story of this man and the nostalgia it evokes – seeing someone wrestle with life’s obstacles and finally accomplish is any day audience’s favorite. The only trick is to get the emotions right, and with a dedicated cast and sincerity in writing, Anant smartly makes us root for him. He also has a knack for humour and isn’t hesitant to use memes in a film to convey the character’s thoughts. Sample this: When a scared young man enters the premises of his engineering college and is taken aback by the half-built premises, stone-like food, and other disappointing events, it’s compared to a scene from Chandramukhi where they detect the presence of evil. As if on cue, you’re in splits, reminiscing all your college memories. This sequence also plays right after an emotional conversation he has with his father and the shift in mood is so seamless. With Elango Kumaravel passionately playing the role of Anand’s father and VJ Vijay breathing life into the role of a cherished best friend, we are just drawn to empathise and relate to this world that’s formulaic but sweetly familiar.
The viewing experience of the film feels like reading a personal journal within two hours – intriguing but tiring – because of the film’s pace and detailing. You understand the need to show each stage of Anand’s life and how the people around him shape it – every time he falls, someone helps him get up; when he financially faces troubles, his best friend is always ready to pitch in; his parents don’t have the power to get him a job but are willing to spend all their life’s earnings to ensure he gets the best education possible. However, even with so many people trusting and supporting him, Anand fights and flounders. For most of the second half, Anand is seen crying, unable to iron out all the kinks and probably, we all see a little of us in him. We’re also reminded of too many films, thanks to the countless stories in this genre and Anant’s determination not to try anything different. But because we see a semblance of ourselves, our friends, and our own lives on screen, we are ready to overlook the slow pace, the unnecessarily dragged-out sequences, the overfed montages of memories, and the film’s several other flaws.
Anand yearns to get back home, relish the simplest of joys, and be around his friends and family, and at the end of the day, that’s what we wish for too. So, having taken a trip down memory lane, we walk out of the theatre happy and hopeful, and like Venkat Prabhu (in a cameo) tells Anand, “Isn’t life all about these little moments?”
Written By: Harshini SV
Sandy Bresler, who served as actor Jack Nicholson’s agent for six decades, has died at age 87.
The industry veteran died Thursday in Santa Monica after a short illness, his family said in a statement, adding that he had “established the gold standard for personally curated talent representation.”
“Sandy was a unique person, generous with his time and knowledge,” John Kelly, Bresler’s partner at Bresler Kelly and Associates, told The Times on Friday. “And always a great deal of fun!” The two co-founded the agency in 1983.
Bresler was born on Jan. 20, 1937. He met Nicholson when the two bunked together in the California Air National Guard. The son of “Casino Royale” producer Jerry Bresler, he was “another second-generation Hollywood kid,” Patrick McGilligan wrote in “Jack’s Life: A Biography of Jack Nicholson.”
“Like Nicholson, Bresler was a diehard film buff, raised on a steady diet of movies,” the biographer wrote. “He had the connections to check 16mm prints out of studio libraries and show them in Jack’s living room. That was part of their friendship.”
That friendship grew into a professional partnership when Bresler began representing the three-time Academy Award winner in 1961 — a year after he started his career as a secretary at William Morris Agency.
“For over a decade, Nicholson suffered from unaggressive and unimaginative representation,” McGilligan wrote. “The agent problem was to be eventually resolved, at the time of ‘Easy Rider,’ in the person of Sandy Bresler.”
“There is only one agent who has stayed with me, guided me, tolerated my tantrums, my operatic behavior and so forth,” Nicholson said while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes in 1999.
“His name escapes me,” he joked, continuing, “Sandy Bresler, my pal and comrade in arms!”
After leaving William Morris Agency, Bresler worked at ICM, eventually leaving to establish Bresler, Wolff, Cota & Livingston, later known as the Artists Agency, Deadline reported. He was a lifelong member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
He also served on the board of the Assn. of Talent Agents for almost three decades, and was president of the ATA for more than a decade.
“Throughout Sandy’s remarkable tenure, as a friend and leader, he demonstrated unparalleled dedication and visionary leadership, guiding the association through a period of significant growth and transformation,” ATA’s Executive Director Karen Stuart said Thursday in a statement.
“Under his stewardship, ATA expanded its reach and influence. Sandy’s unwavering commitment to the talent agency profession were instrumental in advancing the interests of our members and elevating the industry as a whole,” Stuart continued. “Sandy was a mentor to many and he leaves behind a lasting impact that will be felt for years to come.”
Bresler is survived by his wife of 58 years, Nancy; son Eric; daughter Jennifer Galperson; and his twin grandsons, Brandon and Jonah.
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