Reporter Christine Pelisek recently asked the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety for a list of all legal and illegal billboards in the city, which activists have been trying to get for months. When she did, the department gave a head's up to billboard giants Clear Channel and CBS, who then took the city to Superior Court to stop it "from even thinking about giving the Weekly the list," the paper reports. But the media conglomerates were quickly shot down in court by Judge James Chalfant, who ruled the list is public information, not proprietary information, as Clear Channel lawyers argued. The department must release the list by April 4.

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly Quickly Wins Legal Fight with Clear Channel

"Like her fellow alt-weekly brethren, L.A. Weekly scribe Ella Taylor infuses prose with a touch of sass, delivering the well-read skinny on films great and small with dexterity and, oftentimes, the patience of a saint," Rotten Tomatoes writes. In this Q&A, Taylor talks about how she got into film criticism 19 years ago ("I was an uncomfortable academic sociologist who preferred journalistic to academic writing"), what she wanted to be as a kid when she grew up ("A shoe saleswoman") and the best part of being a film critic ("Free movies, and the regular opportunity to carp.")

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly Film Critic Talks About Her Career and Work

The paper finished first in four of the six categories for which it was eligible in the LA Press Club's inaugural National Entertainment Journalism Awards. Nikki Finke swept the online categories, winning first for Best News Story, Best Feature Story, and Best Critic. Ella Taylor took first for Best Critic in print, and Finke also finished second for Best News Story in print.

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly Dominates Entertainment Journalism Awards

Between Dec. 2005-March 2006, Sam Slovick wrote a series of Weekly cover stories on the everyday tragedies and triumphs found on Los Angeles's Skid Row, and now he's used that work as a jumping-off point for a five-part documentary. The short film, which is written and directed by Slovick and sponsored by GOOD Magazine, debuted this week on MySpace TV. "We couldn't be prouder of Sam and the light he's helped shine on this issue," Weekly deputy editor Joe Donnelly says.

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly Series on Skid Row Leads to Documentary

Mr. Fish, a.k.a. Dwayne Booth, who creates political cartoons for the Weekly, was listed as number one on "the 10 most important voices to listen to this election cycle" list by Best Life Magazine. "Political cartooning hasn't evolved much since the days of Ben Franklin, but the art form may have found a new voice that can help bring back the edge," Best Life says.

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly Cartoonist Cited as Important 2008 Election Voice

Los Angeles Times art critic Christopher Knight writes that the only thing missing from the third L.A. Weekly Annual Biennial, "Some Paintings," is "an exclamation mark at the title's end. A whopping 81 paintings by 80 artists, most made recently; here is a show that wants to make a point. And it does, with wit, verve and considerable taste." The show, curated by Weekly art critic Doug Harvey, opened Jan. 19. "Harvey favors an art that expresses a wild and raucous spirit of life," artnet Magazine says. "'Some Paintings' is a perfect antidote to the minimal cool of much successful art, which can often leave one feeling empty."

Continue ReadingL.A. Weekly’s Annual Biennial is a Hit

"I'm exhausted. I'm not feeling well. I'm overwhelmed," the L.A. Weekly columnist writes. She says she will return next Tuesday. Her blog has become the go-to source for news on the writers' strike, and she's reportedly been working nearly around the clock since it started. "I need a week away from the emails and the comments and the phone calls and the rumors. Most of all, I just need to rest since I've been going, going, going, since the strike started."

Continue ReadingNikki Finke Takes a Break

Some adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement hit the streets in front of the paper's Hollywood office on Friday, handing out flyers, waving upside-down American flags and denouncing longtime columnist Marc Cooper. The activists took umbrage with this turn of phrase included in a recent Cooper column on Cynthia McKinney: "She was one of the first high-profile adherents of the official whack-job '9/11 Truth' movement, directly implicating the U.S. government in the staging of the attack on the Twin Towers." The Weekly has a slideshow of the protests.

Continue Reading9/11 Truth Activists Picket L.A. Weekly Office