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)
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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.
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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.
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“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)
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is a horror comedy. Quinn, a female teenager, and her father, a doctor, move into Kettle Springs, a small town in the American heartland, far from their old Philadelphia home. They’re seeking a new start after Quinn’s mom died. The dying town once had a thriving factory with a giant sinister-looking clown as its mascot. Quinn quickly makes friends. After the annual Founders Day celebration, she sneaks out to attend a teenage party, where a horde of killer clowns emerge from the surrounding cornfield to kill everyone.
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD features a smart script with surprising character depth, plenty of twists, darkly funny lines, and a positive father-daughter relationship. The filmmakers assemble an appealing young cast with Katie Douglas as the lead, and a terrific Aaron Abrams as her father. The story moves like a freight train. However, it’s marred by a strong Romantic, politically correct, abhorrent worldview with a negative, politically correct view of Small Town America. CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD also has frequent foul language, graphic violence, and two teenage boys who resume a homosexual relationship.
Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:
Very strong Romantic, politically correct worldview with an Anti-American, politically correct view of small-town America (the villains turn out to be “strict” adults) and a developing homosexual relationship between two male teenagers (they kiss romantically near the end of the movie), but there’s a strong and positive father-daughter relationship;
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Foul Language:
At least 52 obscenities (including at least 35 “f” words), and one “I swear to G*d” profanity;
Violence:
Numerous graphic killings in extremely unique ways, with lots of blood showing and splattering, most kills cut away from the actual murderous act and leave it to the imagination, many are portrayed comically because they’re so outlandish, two people get impaled on pitchforks, two are decapitated, a girl is electro-shocked but not killed, a villain is smashed by a car, and his blood drenches the windshield, one teenage boy gets eviscerated with his intestines pulled out, a villain is stabbed in the neck by a person acting in self-defense, a father tries to kill his teenage son by hanging him;
Sex:
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A clothed teenage girl jumps on her teenage neighbor to his surprise and starts passionately kissing him and making it clear she wants intimate sex, but the guy stops her by admitting he’s actually a closeted homosexual, and he and another teenage male kiss romantically, and their relationship is affirmed by other people;
Nudity:
A teenage male is shirtless while doing bodybuildng exercises;
Alcohol Use:
Lots of teenagers drink alcohol at parties;
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Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:
Some teenagers are shown smoking marijuana; and,
Miscellaneous Immorality:
Two adult authority figures are revealed to be part of a group of murderous adults, and teenage girl sneaks out of her house to attend a teenage party.
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD is a fast-moving, comical horror movie in the vein of the SCREAM movies, in which teenagers and a new doctor in a small rural town must fight a small group of people dressing up as clowns and brutally murdering the town’s most rebellious high school students. CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD features a smart script with some surprising character depth and a positive father-daughter relationship, but it’s marred by a strong Romantic, politically correct, abhorrent worldview with a negative portrayal of Small Town America, frequent foul language, graphic violence, and two major teenage male characters who begin to develop a homosexual relationship during the movie’s story.
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Teenager Quinn Maybrook (Katie Douglas) and her father Dr. Glen Maybrook (Aaron Abrams) move into the small town of Kettle Springs in the American heartland, far from their old home in Philadelphia. They’re seeking a new start after Quinn’s mom died from a drug overdose. Quinn hates the small town, but she’s trying to help her father and is soon to graduate high school and go away to attend college anyway.
Quinn quickly meets her neighbor, Rust, a muscular guy with extremely awkward social skills, who warns her to steer clear of their school’s most popular clique. However, through a comical misunderstanding with a harsh teacher, Quinn winds up sharing detention with Cole, a good-looking guy who’s also the son of the town’s richest man. They have an instant attraction, and Quinn finds herself hanging out with his popular crowd after all, while learning that the dying town used to have a thriving factory called Baypen that had a sinister-looking giant clown as its mascot.
The factory burned down years ago, but the clown still is a menacing presence in the town. In fact, as shown in the movie’s opening sequence, the clown has been killing teenagers for decades. When Cole throws a big overnight teenage party after the town’s Founders Day celebration, Quinn sneaks out of her home and into the party – only to find a horde of killer clowns coming out of the surrounding cornfield and her friends fighting for their lives.
With her father also battling the killer clowns in order to save her, will the teenagers survive the night? Will she find new love with Cole? Can she and her father find a new start?
CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD has an amazingly positive portrayal of Quinn’s father, and the other entertaining filmmaking qualities mentioned above. Co-writer/director Eli Craig rose to cult popularity with his movie TUCKER AND DALE VS. EVIL, which had a similar mix of outrageous mirth and murder back in 2010. Here, he assembles an appealing young cast led by Katie Douglas as teenage lead Quinn, and a terrific Aaron Abrams performance as her dad. The script has plenty of twists and darkly funny lines, and the direction moves this movie forward like a freight train.
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Of course, a major problem with a slasher comedy like this is all the graphic, bloody violence. For example, people are impaled on pitchforks or lose their heads literally. That’s par for the course for this genre, and the regrettably frequent foul language is another concern.
The biggest problem with CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD, however, lies in its Romantic, politically correct worldview. For example, the movie has a Romantic worldview with a strongly negative view of small town American life. The killers are adults who hate the fact that some of the town’s teenagers don’t appreciate the town where they live. Also, two of the town’s best-known teenage guys “come out” and admit they’ve been homosexual lovers in the past. At the end of the movie, they restart their relationship with a passionate romantic kiss in front of other teenagers. This scene is unnecessarily pushing the homosexual agenda on impressionable teenage viewers.
Thus, media-wise viewers will avoid CLOWN IN A CORNFIELD. The movie is to be viewed only, if at all, by adult and older teenager with extreme caution.
NPR and three of its member stations filed suit in federal court Tuesday against President Trump‘s White House over the president’s executive order to block funding for public media.
Trump’s order called for an end to government dollars for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed entity that provides funding to NPR and PBS. He called the outlets “left wing propaganda.”
The suit says the May 1 action by Trump violated the 1st Amendment.
“The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President’s view, their news and other content is not ‘fair, accurate, or unbiased,’” the legal brief said, according to an NPR report.
The suit also says that the funding — currently at around $500 million annually — is appropriated by Congress. The allocation is made two years in advance.
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“Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” Corp. for Public Broadcasting chief Patricia Harrison told NPR in a statement.
Harrison said that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting is not a federal agency subject to the president’s authority.
“The Executive Order is a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech and association, and freedom of the press,” NPR President and Chief Executive Katherine Maher said in a statement.
The order is one of a number of attempts by Trump to limit or intimidate institutions he does not agree with. Targets included law firms, universities and media companies such as CBS, which is being sued for $20 billion over a “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.
NPR filed the suit with three public radio outlets, including Denver-based Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Pubic Radio and KSUT which serves the Four Corners region of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
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Both NPR and PBS have stressed that the bulk of the federal funding they receive goes to stations that provide local news and emergency alerts for their communities.
With nearly three hours of runtime and a plot that twists itself into knots, the latest instalment in the Mission franchise tests both Ethan Hunt’s endurance—and ours
The Snapshot: ‘The Final Reckoning’ aims high with explosive set pieces and emotional farewells—but gets bogged down by an overly complicated narrative that may leave audiences scratching their heads.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
7 out of 10
PG, 2hrs 50mins. Action Spy Drama.
Co-written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie.
Starring Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny and Angela Bassett.
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Now Playing at Galaxy Cinemas Sault Ste. Marie.
If you don’t feel exhausted watching Tom Cruise and his unparalleled stunts in the new Mission: Impossible 8, you’ll definitely be exhausted by it’s unnecessary three hour run time. Matter of fact, the only thing that’s even longer is the full title.
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning is the apparent end to the now 30-year-old spy franchise that redefined what was possible in the craftsmanship of stunts and action sequences in Hollywood.
For a grand finale, however, Cruise and returning director Christopher McQuarrie have crafted a film that is surprisingly devoid of stunts and action scenes. When the big scenes happen – boy do they deliver. The infrequency just feels a bit disappointing.
Despite excellent production and attention to detail in its convoluted, sluggish story, this latest entry (McQuarrie’s fourth in the franchise, starting with 2015’s Rogue Nation) is bogged down by long stretches of exposition and name-dropping that will confuse 99 per cent of the audience.
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The main conflict, of Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his elite team trying to stop a dangerous AI from activating missiles and starting a nuclear war, far-fetched even when it began in 2023’s previous film Dead Reckoning; sort of a part one to this movie.
Read more here: Tom Cruise’s Dead Reckoning? An impressive, impossible mission
Yet the last film was far more successful in balancing scenes of dialogue and discovery with the perilous, impossible stunts that action fans are here for. Not only was Dead Reckoning easier to understand – it was also plainly more entertaining.
If you can put aside the ludicrous plot and just focus on the simpler concept of “good spies versus bad spies,” the rest of Mission Impossible 8 still offers editing, acting and production scale far greater than most blockbusters these days.
While the whole ensemble is great, Cruise is clearly the worthy star, and his submarine rescue sequence mid-way through the film really is a true show-stopper. Great music, camerawork and editing give boundless energy to this nearly 15 minute dialogue free scene when Cruise really appears to do the impossible.
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The biplane chase and early prison break is also a highlight, though none of the stunts match the last film’s collapsing train escape that will likely keep it’s position at #1 for best in the series.
Having fun watching Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning really isn’t that hard: stop focusing on all the references from past movies and try to enjoy the action of the present.
Ethan Hunt’s mission is to show composure in the face of danger. Audiences who stay relaxed and open will truly succeed in the impossible mission of processing what’s going on around them.
A final word: special credit goes to actress Hannah Waddingham, playing Rear Admiral Neely. This weekend, she marks an impressive feat: as an ensemble member in both Mission: Impossible 8 and Lilo & Stitch (also opening today), she joins a small group of performers in the cast of two movies planning to debut at #1 and #2 of the box office in the same weekend.
