Ben Caron

Ben Caron at home on the stage at Rockwell: Table & Stage

 

BEN CARON

Rockwell: Table & Stage

1714 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles (Los Feliz)

With the advent of fan-funded projects such as the $5 million Kickstarter resurrection of the Veronica Mars film and the million dollars raised by Amanda Palmer for the recording, promotion, tour support and accompanying art book for her new album, there's no doubt that the concept is completely changing the entertainment industry. Los Angeles singer-songwriter Ben Caron is one artist who not only recognizes but embraces the power shift that is taking place.

"The music industry used to be modeled on this idea of the performer being up above and the audience being down below. There was this hierarchy of 'I'm the performer and separate from you. You are the audience that pays to come and see me, but you don't know me.' Since the Internet has come to be a powerful force, it has made the industry a lot more egalitarian so that the artist has come to meet the audience, and the audience has raised in power," he tells. "I want to find a way to eliminate as much of the disconnect between the audience and myself as possible, especially because my album was fan-funded. It's their music; they paid for it, and it was their enthusiasm that made the project possible. I don't have any room for there to be a disconnect because I am them and they are me. That's the relationship I want to move towards, that we are one thing."

In fact, his fans' contributions – collected via his personal website – funded a series of three EPs that were released over the course of last year, including January's Prologue, April's Wholeheartedly and November's Love Me Too. Ben was able to raise all of the money necessary to record, remaster and press physical copies of his 11-track self-titled full-length album, which combines the three EPs and is set for release on June 4. In anticipation of the album's release, Ben is doing a Sunday-evening residency at Rockwell: Table and Stage through June 2, and in keeping with the spirit of his open relationship with his fans, the show is going to be completely interactive.

"The plan is, when everybody comes in and sits down, there's going to be a song menu that includes all 11 songs from the album and four covers. Throughout the night I'm going to randomly choose a table and chair from the seating map, and that person gets to order a song off the menu. At one point during the evening we're going to do a completely improvised section. It could be that I pull up some friends to do an a cappella number or if I see a friend who's a drummer in the audience I might invite him up to play," he explains. "I'm trying to leave space for the unpredictable in the show so that whatever the universal energy is in the space can enter in and create something as well, and the audience and I can create something together. I don't think it's fair to ask people to come back every single week without giving them something different to experience. That's why I think this format will be really exciting."

The reinvented Rockwell: Table & Stage, which was remodeled to combine Rockwell, VT, Show at Barre and Vermont Kitchen and Bar into one venue/restaurant last year, is very special to Ben, who is also a film and stage actor. He has performed in several productions at the venue, mounted his first L.A. residency on its stage just as it was unveiling its transformation last year and currently works there as his 'day job.'

"One of the most crazy and exciting nights of my life, I was here working and we were doing the 'For the Record: Baz Luhrmann' show. An hour before we were supposed to start, one of the actors called and said he wasn't able to make it, and nobody was available to go on for him. With an hour prep time I ended up going on for him," Ben recalls. "You have to focus so much because you don't know what you're doing at all, so if you're out of it for one moment, it's like being on a tightrope, you'll just fall off. But it proved to me that I can really do anything that I choose if I put my mind to it. It's really only me that's standing between my desire and achieving my desire."

You can tell that Ben feels completely at home at Rockwell, and it's no surprise that when I ask him about his favorite drinks and dishes, there is absolutely no hesitation before he responds.

"My favorite specialty cocktail is Boys Life [Larceny Bourbon with honey syrup, basil and Honey Basil Ale]. As far as food, the Roasted Cotija Corn Mash, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Brussel Sprouts are really good, and the Braised Beef Short Ribs are pretty amazing. My friends and I did the Burger & Bottle deal the other night (a burger with fries and half a bottle of 2008 Chandon Pinot Noir Carneros), and the Blue Cheese Fondue Burger that comes with it is delicious," he answers. "Everything has a level of decadence, in the sense of richness and complexity of flavor. There's not anything on the menu that is a miss. The whole idea is, we want the entire night to be a cohesive experience. If you're coming in and seeing really amazing performers then you should also be able to experience really amazing food."

Although he lives near Hollywood & Highland, the community that surrounds Rockwell in Los Feliz has become Ben's second home, so I try to find out some of his favorite haunts.

"It's a cool dynamic that Los Feliz's Vermont and Hillhurst blocks have with each other. Each business does their own thing but supports one other. It has a vibe about it that is welcoming, even in the architecture. It has an East Village of New York feel, rather than a stereotypical L.A. feel," he shares. "Mess Hall is really cool, make sure to get the oysters. Spitz is delicious. Home is good. Alcove Cafe is amazing. I could be in Skylight Books for hours and hours. The Vintage Los Feliz 3 Cinemas is perfect. I love the movies that they choose to show. There are some great shops on Hollywood, all of these boutiques have amazing stuff. Co-op 28 is cool, and we know a couple of artists who work there. This whole neighborhood is really fantastic. If I didn't love how central I am at my place I would definitely move here."

"When I first moved here I didn't have a car. I was in school, and the first three years I hated the town. What I realized is that you can't really get to know L.A. until you have a chance to visit each of the communities separately and delve into their personalities because Los Feliz provides a very specific thing, and Silver Lake, Highland Park, Pasadena and Santa Monica are all different," he continues. "My favorite thing about L.A. as a city is that within an hour you can find any experience. If one day I feel like a beach day, it's not impossible for me to get to Santa Monica and have a beach day. If I want to connect with the mountains, I can go to Pasadena and there are great trails to hike. Los Feliz has this cool vibe where you can walk around, see a movie and go to a great restaurant. I love that you can get anything you want in L.A. within a short amount of time."

Although he's adjusted to life as an Angeleno, Ben is originally from Iowa, and growing up in the midwest definitely had an impact on his musical taste. Both of his parents are very supportive of his career, but his dad isn't very musical and his mom is incredibly musical. She purchased Ben's first guitar while she was pregnant with him and filled his childhood with song.

"She brought music into my life since before I could remember. Some of my first memories are of her singing to me, and she had very eclectic taste. There was Journey, Genesis, Madonna, Elton John and James Taylor. Growing up in the midwest, country music had a strong presence, so there was also Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, Alan Jackson and Clint Black. My music ended up being a combination of my mom playing oldies, the country influence – which is so much about storytelling and melody – and listening to a lot of Top 40 as a kid," he begins. "Over the last four years, another element has also been added because of a band called Vintage Trouble. They started off with residencies around  L.A., and a lot of the friends I have now were made from going to their shows a couple of times a week. They're a soul band, so that was the icing on the cake of the foundation of the Top 40, oldies and country. A lot of my newer stuff has soul influence in it. The record has songs that I wrote when I was 16 all the way up until now. There are a lot of different musical periods from my life included in the one record, and so I think the newer songs you can feel that Motown soul influence but the older songs you can hear the Top 40, oldies and country too."

Ben cultivated his love of music and performing while attending a small high school in Iowa and begin to form his own identity as an artist.

"The high school that I went to had 300 people in the entire school, so everybody had to do everything because you couldn't maintain an arts program, football program or anything in a school like that without everybody being involved. It created a really cool environment where you didn't have the social hierarchies that exist in other schools," he remembers. "My high school experience was key in developing the type of artist that I am because I am an actor, I am a singer and I also paint and write. I do a lot of different things because as I was growing up, everybody in my life said, 'Do everything you want to do, and then later on you can figure out what you want to focus on.' I grew up with a strong foundation in a lot of disciplines, so every time in my life when I've said 'I'm just an actor' or 'I'm just a musician,' there's something in my spirit that says, 'No, that's not the case.' I only feel fulfilled when I'm expressing myself in a lot of different ways."

Upon graduation, Ben was set to attend Iowa State University on a full-ride scholarship to study Pre-Law, but at the last minute decided to follow his heart to California and pursue his dreams as a performer. His path led him to California State University, Los Angeles where he spent five years honing his skills.

"According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county I grew up in is the whitest county in America statistically. To move out here to go to Cal State Los Angeles, where you have people from all walks of life, my mind just exploded and expanded," Ben recalls. "The people that I met, the experiences that I had and the points of view I was able to understand – I don't know if I would have necessarily been able to get that experience at any other school in Los Angeles. Everybody on campus was working so hard to be there, it didn't feel like anybody was entitled or felt like they had to go to college because their parents said so. Everybody was there because they wanted to make a better life for themselves, and that was so inspiring to me."

He started out as a double major but eventually had to choose acting over music in order to finish classes and graduate in a reasonable amount of time. He spent the first year after graduation hitting the pavement as an actor then realized that his life didn't feel complete without music.

"I'm trying to figure out how to keep the balance between these two forces because it takes a lot of time and energy to maintain a career in either one of them, and it can be exhausting to juggle them at the same time. In prepping the album a lot of my energy has gone to the music side of my career, but I have a feeling that at some point in the future acting will rise again and there will be an ebb and flow between the two."

Aside from preparing for the release of the album, Ben has also created a YouTube series with another L.A. singer-songwriter, Anthony Starble, who also contributed background vocals to Ben's self-titled release. Each installment of "Ben, Anthony and the Loft" consists of the two artists performing a cover song or mashup of tunes they love.

"The one that we've gotten the most response to is the very first one, a cover of two Fun. songs mashed together, but I had the most fun doing the mashup of Emeli Sandé's 'Next to Me' with 'Colors of the Wind' from Pocahontas because I'm a big Disney nerd and I know every word to every single Disney song. For me to be able to sing one of those songs in a non-cheesy environment, to make it work as a real song, was really fun," he says before revealing that his favorite Disney films are Aladdin and The Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid actually gets a mention in Ben Caron's closing track, "Molly May," and perhaps a "Part of Your World" cover will make its way into the YouTube series or onto a future EP or album. As for what else lies ahead for Ben Caron musically, all he can express is excitement.

"I usually fall in love with the song that I'm writing at that moment, so when I started recording the album I consciously made the effort to stop writing because I knew that if I kept writing I would have wanted the new songs to be on the album and not the older ones. I really needed to take the songs that already existed, put them on a recording and get them out there into the world before I could move on. I've just started writing again, and I'm really excited," he confesses. "I'm excited to take my music in directions that it hasn't gone before and explore different genres and sounds that I haven't before."

Ben Caron's self-titled debut album will be available June 4. Ben Caron performs at Rockwell: Table & Stage on May 26 and June 2. For more information, visit bencaron.info.

STREET SIGNS - Ewsoe y Kofie Mural

I came across this Ewsoe y Kofie Mural in the alley next to the Vista Theater on Sunset Drive (at Hollywood Boulevard) in Los Feliz one day after seeing a movie. A member of the West Coast Artists Crew, Augustine Kofie – who is known for the use of intersecting lines and geometrical shapes in his pieces – primarily painted the backgrounds of the mural. While PDB's Ewsoe did the house character, cracks and type. You can see more of Kofie's work in the #ArtShareLA exhibit at Art Share L.A. from March 1 through April 7, 2013 in Downtown.

STREET SIGNS - East Hollywood

I have a weakness for anything related to panda bears, so, of course, this electrical box on Maubert Avenue at Vermont Avenue caught my attention. One side is an ode the East Hollywood/Los Feliz neighborhood that the box sits in, another is all about peace. The third side has a rendering of Griffith Observatory next to a dinosaur and castle in the clouds. My favorite side is a little baby panda bear being held by its parent under a dove carrying a banner emblazoned with the word 'harmony.'

STREET SIGNS - Six Heads

Monte Thrasher is a designer and illustrator who created the alphabet symbols for the language used by the Romulan characters on Star Trek. He also painted this mural, Six Heads, on the side of a concrete building on Kingswell Avenue at Vermont Avenue in Los Feliz. Each head displays Thrasher's unique style of blending science with artful fantasy: studies of human skulls, Twiggy the World's Ugliest Dog, a Klein bottle and self portrait.

Mike Andrews

Mike Andrews at the L.A. River

 

MIKE ANDREWS

At the L.A. River

Access at Sunnynook Drive and West Legion Lane (Atwater Village/Los Feliz)

"See, there's a heron there!"

Mike Andrews' enthusiasm is infectious as he spots one of the large grey birds during our walk along the Los Angeles River. From the moment we met at our predetermined starting point of Proof Bakery on Glendale Boulevard and over the course of our 10-minute trek to the riverbed, the musician/film score composer's lust for life – his love for where he's from, where he is now and where he's going – is evident. He bursts with stories about the city. He doesn't just tell me the name of one of his son's favorite dishes at a local restaurant (the potato balls at Porto's). He tells me about the establishment's owner, her life and how the restaurant came to be. Maybe it's because he's a California boy through and through, but I think he's also just innately inquisitive about his surroundings.

"I've been jumping all around California since I was a teenager. I grew up in San Diego, then went to college at Berkeley. I started making records after school, so I was in L.A. and in San Diego for a little bit, then back to San Francisco," he says. "I came back to San Diego, lived down by the beach and toured a lot. Then I started working with movies, moved to Los Angeles and started Donnie Darko."

Mike (under the name Elgin Park) played guitar with a funk and jazz band in San Diego, the Greyboy Allstars, who were asked to score director Jake Kasdan's feature debut, Zero Effect, in 1998. The next year, Mike began another professional relationship that would prove to be as long-standing as his with Kasdan, when he worked on the music for "Freaks and Geeks" for executive producer Judd Apatow. But the project that really brought Mike to international prominence was his score for Donnie Darko, especially his cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World" with his childhood friend Gary Jules on vocals. By this time Mike was settling into life as an Angeleno.

"I lived in Downtown, at the Molino Street Lofts in the '90s, but I just felt locked in concrete. I grew up on the beach, so I couldn't take it. Then I moved to Glendale, and I felt like I was in some city that wasn't in California," he laughs. "I like that Glendale is away from the scene. I've always had an aversion to living around people that were just like me. I lived in Hollywood for a while, and I felt like I was 'in the biz.' You find yourself in any city finding those three or four things to do and just circle around them. Occasionally I branch out, but it's just nice to make a bigger place feel small. Finding that little triangle of where to eat lunch, get coffee, take a walk – all those places were inhabited by writer/director/actors [in Hollywood], and to me, it just felt weird."

In seeking those neighborhood spots around him, Mike discovered his haven of the L.A. River walk.

"This trail is so mellow. It's so peaceful, but the highway is right there. I guess it just sort of tunes out because it's like white noise," he says. "I come here once a week at least, sometimes more."

Most of the restaurants Mike likes to eat at are on the east side as well.

"We just found a great restaurant in Pasadena called Ración. It's a tapas place and is really good. La Cabanita is awesome, an old-school Mexican family restaurant. It's delicious and family oriented. We have our little guy, and he likes to make noise and spill stuff," he says with a laugh. "We go get pho a lot at Glendale Pho Co. and Viet. We like to go Downtown, too. We just went to the Flying Pig Cafe, another tapas-y joint. It seems like everybody's doing that: the little plate where you both have a bite, and it's over [laughs]. It just seems like those are the people who are caring about what they're making. Anywhere it feels like 'I'm going to make some real food out of some real stuff and be particular about it' is good."

After the success of Donnie Darko, Mike continued to put the same focus he does on finding quality food on picking projects like Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, the Duplass brothers' Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives at Home, Bridesmaids and the theme for "New Girl." He worked again with both Kasdan (Orange County, The TV Set, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Bad Teacher) and Apatow (Funny People, The Five-Year Engagement). When signing on to a film, Mike looks for a certain something in those he collaborates with.

"It's just a type of person: People who have a strong sense of self, who like to look at their work relatively independent of other people and aren't afraid to be non-referential," he says. "I love working with new filmmakers, first-time directors, too, because they don't have a rule book. As you develop your art, people tend to be like, 'oh, this is the way we do it; we don't do this or that.' When you start working in that world, then it's limiting. I'm just working from intuition, if the intuition is already boxed in by someone's preconception of what it's not supposed to be, it limits me in my ability to be inspired."

Even after all these years of scoring for film and television, each job comes with its own set of hurdles to overcome. Mike admits that his latest project, The Reluctant Fundamentalist (set for release in 2013), with acclaimed director Mira Nair was one of his most challenging.

"She's a very strong woman and very much like I am, in that, she is wildly both distracted and focused in her art. She's a perfectionist, constantly trying to make things better even if it's outside the realm of possibility – which I think is great because you have to do that in order to get better," he says. "Of course collaborating with someone who's in India editing is very difficult. They're twelve-and-a-half hours ahead. I would call her at the end of the day when I was fried, and  it was the beginning of her day so she was either in yoga or starting her day with a flood of ideas. Or it was my morning and I was trying to get a real dialogue with her after she worked 14-16 hours editing and dealing with all these issues. And it was an independent movie, so there wasn't a ton of money. Everybody takes a hit on an independent movie. You just deal with it for the sake of having more freedom."

Having the freedom to not only pick his film scoring projects but work on his own personal music is something that Mike relishes. Aside from producing albums for other artists like Brendan Benson, Metric and Inara George, Mike released his solo debut, Hand on String, in 2006. He releases his sophomore solo effort, Spilling a Rainbow, next week (Aug. 14).

"My personal records are mostly for me and people I care about. They're so personal to me; maybe someone else would relate to them in a personal way. They're cathartic, and it's fun to do just whatever I want because I don't spend a lot of time doing whatever I want," he laughs. "I really love my work. I love making movie stuff. I'm very fortunate to be able to do that, it's just a different kind of work. It's like being an architect. You create something that represents you, but it's in the context of someone else's needs and designs – trying to fit my sensibility in a collaborative form within the context of someone else's art/entertainment."

Spilling a Rainbow documents Mike's transformation as he became a parent. From finding out his wife was pregnant while at the dentist ("Dentist") and scoring one of their prenatal ultrasounds ("Music For Cell Division") to those first days of being a dad ("Waiting for You to Wake), he shares it all on the album.

"I waited a long time to have kids. Being an artist is very me-oriented, and finally having someone come into your life – besides, obviously a relationship – that doesn't even allow you to think of yourself is just such a relief," he says with a laugh.

One song that illustrates the joy he's found in fatherhood is about blowing bubbles, "Bubbles in Space." The video for the track, directed by his longtime friend Josh Hassin, is animated by a collection of drawings from art students.

"My friend Jeremy [Farson] teaches at the High Tech High International, which is a school in San Diego that focuses on science and art. I told Josh that I didn't really want to be in the video, so he came up with the idea to do an animated video, and it ended up that Jeremy's class would do the drawing," Mike shares. "Josh shot me for three hours one morning, along with all of our children at the beach. He edited that together, gave it to Jeremy's class and they drew everything. I was really pleased with it, that kids got to make something and it was a labor of love like my record. It was good times amongst friends making something cool."

Mike brings the same philosophy to organizing his August residency at Bootleg Bar.

"I'm going to have a couple collaborations with a few people, it's always different. I just have people come to my house, and we work on some songs. Either we interpret some of their songs or we do a cover that we're both interested in." He adds, "I'm going to try and do some kind of screening because they have a screen in the other room. Maybe score some stuff live or show some images and put some of my music that no one's ever head before in it. Just have fun with the night, make it a place where all the people I used to hang out with can get together because I don't get to go out very often. It's an opportunity to go out and be social and play music."

As for the future, Mike is forever open to whatever comes his way.

"I try not to tell myself, 'this is what's going to happen' or 'I'm really going to go after this thing' because I always feel like anything you really go after, it just sets you up for disappointment. I have always said, 'I'll keep playing, writing songs and just see where it leads me. And if worse comes to worse and I need to make a living, I'll just get a job,' and that was pretty much the extent of it," he says. "It seems like anytime you try to focus on a target, it's like you're missing all the other things that could happen. Stuff just comes at me and I deal with it whether it be a song, a movie, a person. It makes it easier I think, doesn't it? [laughs] Maybe it's the course of least resistance, but it's proved to be pretty good. The only thing is dealing with the psychology of not knowing ever what's in the future, which I've gotten used to over the last twenty-five years that I've been making records and music."

Spilling a Rainbow is currently available. For more information, visit elginpark.com.

Naama Kates

Naama Kates at Squaresville

 

NAAMA KATES

At Squaresville 

1800 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles (Los Feliz)

Within the first few minutes of meeting singer-songwriter Naama Kates, I learned that she's an avid shoe lover. So it was only appropriate that we sit down for our conversation in the shoe section at Squaresville.

"I have a pair of shoes that I got here that I really love. They're these little red pumps, classic '50s pumps," shares Naama. "I put them on with like a gray and black dress. I like off-matches a lot, so if a dress has a little pink on it I'll wear the red shoes for a pop of color."

The second floor of the vintage store is full of all kinds of shoes and boots, and it's obvious we could spend at least an hour just trying on every pair. Men's clothes are also housed on this floor, and Naama says she likes to peruse these racks for button-down shirts like the one she's wearing today. Downstairs is where the most fun can be had at Squaresville, amidst the rows and rows of dresses, graphic tees and accessories.

Naama trying on shoes and an outfit

"I've been here a bunch of times," says Naama. "This is my neighborhood. I live within walking distance, so I walked here today. I'm really glad I live here in Los Feliz because I like walking. I don't like driving all the time, it's nerve racking."

Besides Squaresville, there are a lot of shops and cafés up Vermont Avenue that Naama enjoys.

"Figaro, right next door, is my favorite café," she says. "I love the two bookstores, Skylight and Skylight Art Books. When I first got here, I went to Skylight, and it was awesome. I bought a book, and they happened to host the author's reading a little bit later."

Having grown up in a small rural town in Connecticut, Naama appreciates the diversity and anonymity of living in Los Angeles.

"When you live in that small of a town, you know everyone. People get all in your business," she says with a laugh. "Here, you meet all types of people who are open-minded and artistic. If you're in arts and entertainment, you need to live in the city to start."

For most of her childhood, Naama was focused on studying ballet, which immersed her in piano music.

"At ballet, there was always a pianist accompaniment," she explains. "My parents listened to a lot of classical music and jazz too. I didn't really develop my own musical taste until later than everyone else. I wasn't one of those kids who was cool and hip to music because I was doing my ballet thing. I moved to New York when I was almost 18, that's when the world of all different types of music really opened up."

New York is where Naama also began her acting career, which eventually led to a trip to Los Angeles for an audition and her eventual migration here in 2009.

"I got here, did acting and got really jaded and wanted to stop," she says. "There was this guy I was dating who was doing his dissertation in music composition. He had some dismissive ideas about me doing music, and after we broke up, I bought a keyboard. I don't know if it was a liberation from the relationship, if that really had that much to do with it. But I thought it would be fun to have the keyboard at my place and have something to do. I did the perfunctory two years of piano as a 7-year-old, so I wanted to print out sheet music and see if I could still read and play it."

The keyboard soon became Naama's best friend. She started writing songs and worked up the nerve to perform her first open mic night.

"It was at Unurban Café in Santa Monica. I could barely play my songs, I would stop and start. I look back and think, 'Oh god, how could I allow myself to do that.' But the guy who ran the night actually liked my music and ended up giving me shows there. I just had an impulse to share my art. Previously, I had a few blogs that were anonymous. But I wanted something more personal, I needed audience feedback."

Naama in a vintage hat

When Naama met musician/producer Cyrus Melchor, a career in music began to become a natural next step.

"I started working with [Cyrus], and then we formed a trio [Naama on vocals/piano, Cyrus on bass/guitar and Andrew Pompey on drums]. The three of us rehearsed every day for two months before recording in the studio, then after that we played our first shows."

Those recordings became Naama's debut album, The Unexamined Life, which was released in May. The title is Naama's tongue-in-cheek response to Socrates' famous quote, "An unexamined life is not worth living." Although it's called The Unexamined Life, Naama drew from her experiences from the past year – grueling auditions, heartbreak, loneliness of moving to a new city – and personal conversations when writing her songs.

"A lot of lyrics on The Unexamined Life are from things people have said to me," she says. "Like on 'Bleeding Heart,' 'rows of hearts I had impaled on the lawn' – that was something someone had said to me once, not phrased that way, but the idea."

Naama is also inspired by everyday life in Los Feliz.

"I take a lot of walks with my headphones. Even though I know this area pretty well already, I do find myself getting lost," she says. "I'll walk onto some little side street or the back lot of a church and there will be a playground there. Little things like that will putt some ideas in my head. So I'll walk back and write at home."

Not only has Naama found fulfillment of expression through music, she has also ventured back to the acting world. Earlier this year, she starred in (co-wrote and composed all the music for) The 10 Commandments of Chloe, which garnered her a Best Actress award from the Los Angeles Movie Awards and Award of Merit at IndieFest.

For more information, visit naamakates.com.

L.A. HAVENS – Vista Theatre

 

VISTA THEATRE

4473 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (Los Feliz)

Vista Theatre is hands down my favorite place to see a movie in Los Angeles. Originally opened as the Lou Bard Playhouse in 1923, the Vista truly represents Old Hollywood style and charm. I am a sucker for anything from the 1920s, so with Egyptian Art Deco design elements and plush, red velvet curtains adorning the walls, the theater won me over the first time I walked down its carpeted aisles.

From the marquee out front, you know at first glance that the Vista has just one screen. This is a huge factor in coming here, in that, only one movie playing at a time means no absurdly long lines to stand in to 1) buy a ticket,  2) buy popcorn and 3) actually get into the theater. I've seen lines wrap around the corner for screenings of blockbuster releases, but they're nothing compared to the havoc at the ArcLight, the Grove or Americana at Brand.

Prints from Ed Wood's Sarah Jessica Parker and Martin Landau

You don't have to pay for parking, and ticket prices at the Vista are always a lot cheaper than all of the multiplexes in the area. Its 50-foot screen and state-of-the-art Dolby Digital sound are on par with most of those theaters as well. The only time I go anywhere else is if a film is in 3D. Those with long legs also benefit from the amount of space in between the rows of seats – best legroom ever.

House manager, Victor Martinez, makes the theater-going experience even more fun when he takes your ticket with a smile – and in costume as a character from whatever movie is playing. I've seen him dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow, Spider-Man and Harry Potter.

The sidewalk in front of the Vista boasts celebrity handprints that any cult/indie cinephile would enjoy. The casts and crew of Swingers, Paper Moon, Showgirls and Ed Wood are just some of those immortalized. The theater also hosts concerts from artists like Tenacious D, Ricki Lee Jones and Jenny Lewis. I saw She & Him perform there in 2008, and the sound was great.

Instead of going to the multiplex nearest you, see The Dark Knight Rises at the Vista this weekend. Victor is sure to be wearing his Batman costume.