As a young girl of Generation Y who spent an immense amount of time jamming 11.5-inch Barbie dolls into my brother’s Imperial AT-AT walker, my affinity for the ‘70s, space-set saga started early. Announcing my fatherhood into oscillating fans, renaming the family dog to ‘Chewie,’ dueling my brother with light[Read More…]
Arts & Life
Content that focuses on popular culture, local art and music, entertainment and the events. Common topics include lifestyle, television and film, theater, music, video game, food, etc
Draglicious returns to CSULB
With her back to the audience, the red curtains gave way as a spotlight illuminated the tall figure of Lucinda Bianco. She batted her fake eyelashes under a voluminous, blonde wig as her long legs strutted into an act inspired by Lady Gaga. Nearly 200 people gathered to watch Bianco[Read More…]
The 2015 Long Beach Poetry Slam highlights the art of spoken word
A stew of lyrical life experiences and perspectives drop onto an audience, retorting reverberated cries and roars of agreement. Performing from his wheel chair, first-time participant at Saturday’s Long Beach Poetry Slam Mario DeMatteo spoke about his injury. “In 2004 I broke my neck diving into a shallow swimming pool,”[Read More…]
Comic book culture moves from basements to the big screen
After decades of shameful adaptations and cringe-worthy special effects, the next six years are gonna be like a wet dream for most comic book fans. “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” this summer’s highly anticipated comic book feature film, is only the beginning. Together, Marvel and DC have almost 40 different films[Read More…]
Gone astray
Life can be like a game of chutes and ladders. One wrong move and it’s straight to the bottom of the board. Terri Hayes learned that the hard way. But now, she’s making the climb back to the top— one rung at a time, one day at a time. Terri[Read More…]
From hardships to humor
Two Hollywood humorists sat in an office for hours, dreaming up a television show that would feature a Latino as the star. Fifteen years ago, this night in Sandra Bullock’s office was the first time someone gave George Lopez an opportunity. Lopez told the California State University, Long Beach audience[Read More…]
Jonah Hill and James Franco get serious in ‘True Story’
A little girl in footsie pajamas curls up, snuggling close to her teddy bear. In a yellow suitcase. At the bottom of a river. Right from the opening scenes of “True Story,” director Rupert Goold shocks his audiences into reevaluating morality and truth in his riveting film adaptation inspired by[Read More…]
Emmy nominated documentary brings sexual assault into light at the Beach
As the crown dropped on her head, it turned the rape victim into a beauty queen. The stage she used to pledge for change became the platform she used to transform ideas into action. The dark theater in the Beach Auditorium at California State University, Long Beach shed some light[Read More…]
‘Age of Adaline’ gets cheesier with time
Just like the maturation of cheese, “Age of Adaline” slowly but surely became what almost every romantic film falls victim to: cliché and tolerable with a glass of wine. The movie starts off with Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) who suffers a curse of staying 29-years-old forever after a freak car[Read More…]
‘Ex Machina’ draws a definition of humanity ‘from the machine’
No, it’s not “The Terminator” or “2001: A Space Odyssey.” “Ex Machina” is a film that demonstrates the rare ability to incorporate a variety of different genres and do justice to each of them. It is difficult to find a modern sci-fi film that doesn’t hammer “science” into its plot[Read More…]