Go HERE for some more shots by Trevor Penna of JR’s newest L.A. mural!

Yesterday, French street artist and TED2011 winner JR revealed his latest large-scale masterpiece on the L.A. cityscape (conveniently located just down the street from the GofG L.A. office!). Read the full story

#5: Like the food of the gods, there’s nothing quite like a grilled hot dog. Not only are they delicious, but they actually taste like summer. Oh man, and if you get some Grey Poupon up in that, forget it! But hopefully you’ve evolved from your 7-year-old self and graduated from ordering off of the kids menu so there’s really no socially acceptable time to slam a Hebrew National these days, with the exception of summer BBQs. Read the full story

Go HERE for more photos by Trevor Penna and tag yourself and your friends!

Have you managed to make your way on over to Animal (not the restaurant) yet? I know, I know! Don’t worry if you’re experiencing some minor confusion, we’re about to make things crystal clear for you. Every Tuesday night, MyStudio plays dress up and disguises itself as Animal, making it socially acceptable to admit you’re venturing out to what the rest of the world and city of Los Angeles recognizes as MyStudio but technically isn’t, make sense? Read the full story

…unless you are “a leftist who hates liberty, or a snob who enjoys destroying civilization with your superior-sounding mendacity.” But if you’re neither of those things, “you will love this movie.” Do not believe the reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, they know nothing.

Date: Apr 27, 2011 10:58 AM

Subject: A movie recommendation: Go see Atlas Shrugged

To:

I’ve sent to this distribution list essays on limited government, and wonky quant finance papers. Now a movie recommendation (that is itself kind of a mini-essay on limited government).

Go see Atlas Shrugged. I did and loved it.

The critics hate it like socialist cats in the bath. The movie’s producer, a hero of mine, is close to shrugging (see link below).

It’s hard to spend money, time, and blood on something, and have the critics savage it (which sadly matters a lot to success if not at all to truth), and go on.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/04/atlas-shrugged-producer-critics-you-won-hes-going-on-strike.html

I am telling you it’s good. Particularly if what you’re looking for is a rather straight (though adopted for modern times) telling of the story. Does it have its amateurish moments and characteristics?

Sure. It was made for a trifle by Hollywood standards. The same critics that, if this tiny amount of money was spent on a poorly produced and acted “Indie” film, that happened to be about a hermaphrodite Palestinian boy who after escaping fascist Israeli persecution moves to Texas to face fascist American persecution (and isn’t immediately granted his full “right” to all the healthcare the USA can afford), would sing it’s praises and laud it’s signs of a tight budget as “authentic.”

I’m not sure if we have art imitating life or the other way around, but the critics are themselves Randian characters. They have an agenda—punish those who love liberty and have the temerity to defend it, then go to parties and be lauded by their friends for their heroic progressivism. And if they can make some snobby lies about cinematography along the way, more the better. (note—a small minority of critics have not seemed ideologically motivated, with them I simply disagree thinking they are using the wrong standard)

The book was also savaged by critics of the left and right in 1957, but loved by its giant number of readers beyond almost all others.

History is repeating, but that’s because sadly little has changed. We have to fix that. On Rotten Tomatoes (wouldn’t the left love for me to have left off the “e”?) the critics have been running, wait for it, 6% for the movie, 94% against. The people have been running 85% for the movie. Now, you could argue that the people have tended to be Rand fans so that’s biased. That’s a bad argument. Rand fans would be the first, the absolute first, to savage it if it wasn’t a good movie (have you ever seen Rand fans agree on anything except loving Rand?).

If you love the book, if you like the book, if you are at all open to the arguments in the book, you will love this movie. If you’re a leftist who hates liberty, or a snob who enjoys destroying civilization with your superior-sounding mendacity, you probably won’t like it so much.

Go see the movie.

—Cliff

p.s. The movie superbly preserves a message from the book that gives the lie to so much the left says about it. The heroes are not “businessmen” and the villains “government”. The book and movie clearly show the heroes are liberty loving creators and the villains totalitarian thieves—and those thieves come in the form of big business crony capitalists (those who don’t create but use the state’s power to steal to enrich themselves) as often as government apparatchiks (and never the defenseless poor). Look for this. The movie and book are honest, the critics are not.

Cliff Asness: Go See Atlas Shrugged [NetNet]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

If you do fashion, you go to NYC, and if you do entertainment, you go to L.A. That’s the general rule of thumb should you decide to pursue a career in either of those industries. L.A., you know I’m yours, but I feel like I’m perpetuating a really bad, embarrassing lie when I call it “LA Fashion Week.” Maybe “LA Fashion Appreciation Week” or even “Fashion Awareness Week” would be more appropriate, but suggesting it’s among the ranks of NYFW is borderline crazy. No, not borderline, it’s actually plain crazy. However, the two sisters behind Rodarte, the highly sought after fashion line responsible for the costumes in Black Swan, have no intention of leaving their SoCal roots for NYC. Read the full story

Go HERE for more photos by Venus Tong and tag yourself and your friends!

In a highly anticipated followup to last year’s standout Coachella weekend blowout that kept us dancing like fools ’til about 4am or so, A|X Armani Exchange and 944 Magazine returned with the 2nd Annual Neon Carnival Saturday night.  Considering how they killed it with arguably with best party of the weekend last year, we were delighted to see the old “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” philosophy in effect. Read the full story

It may be hard to believe that at least one member of the Kardashian clan hadn’t graced the cover of every single magazine on the planet, but apparently they still have some glossy ground to cover. The women of the Kardash crew (Kourtney, Kim, Khloe, Kendall, Kylie, and of course Kris included) kissed their Redbook cover virginity goodbye as they this next month’s cover family. Read the full story

You want to know what happens at Supperclub? Besides the kind of behavior that should make you want to weep for humanity but doesn’t actually because you’re too busy taking pictures with your camera phone and laughing at it, I mean. (Secret confession: it’s been 5 days and I am STILL laughing. Can’t even look at it without needing a moment to collect myself). Love happens at Supperclub. Between the mystique of the fog machines, thumping of house music and potent aroma of Acqua Di Gio filling the air, it is full-blown mating time at the zoo in Spring. Read the full story

Accel Partners, the venture capital firm known for invest in big tech homeruns such as Facebook, has gone Hollywood with a $40 million investment in Dark Knight producer Legendary Pictures, according to Forbes.

The deal is unusual because venture capitalists have typically stayed away from from risky bets on movies, which can easily be hits or flops. Investing in content is a much different business than investing in technology, which can be more easily evaluated by VCs or engineers working for them. Accel seems to have gotten beyond that worry.

Legendary Pictures in Burbank, Calif., is best known as the film production company that created The Dark Knight, one of the most successful movies of all time. Founded by Thomas Tull, Legendary co-produces and co-finances films with Warner Bros. Legendary had previously raised Wall Street private equity and hedge fund money from ABRY Partners, AIG Direct Investments, Bank of America Capital Investors, Columbia Capital, Falcon Investment Advisors and M/C Venture Partners.

The investment was led by Accel’s Jim Breyer, who was primarily responsible for driving the Facebook investment. Breyer earned some Hollywood chops as a member of the board of Marvel Entertainment, which made not only comics but blockbuster movies and has now been acquired by Disney. Breyer was named the No. 1 VC today on Forbes’ Midas List of top VC investors.

Accel has also moved beyond content risk worries by investing in game maker Rovio, whose Angry Birds game has become a monster hit on mobile with more than 100 million downloads across mobile devices.

Companies: Accel Partners, Legendary Pictures, Marvel Comics

People: Jim Breyer

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals

Dish Network landed the winning bid, valued at around $320 million, for Blockbuster its bankruptcy auction. The company actually expects to pay around $228 million in cash — after “certain adjustments” are made at the deal’s closing — for the rental chain, according to an announcement made this morning.

But don’t expect the deal to help Blockbuster’s remaining 1,700 beleaguered stores. Instead, Dish is likely aiming to take advantage of Blockbuster’s online video streaming service, disc-by-mail rentals and rental kiosks.

“Blockbuster will complement our existing video offerings while presenting cross-marketing and service extension opportunities for Dish Network,” Tom Cullen, executive vice president of sales, marketing and programing for Dish Network, told Reuters.

It’s unlikely that it would do so, but the smartest thing for Dish to do may be to rid itself of even more Blockbuster retail locations and focus on a wider proliferation of its kiosks, which compete directly with Redbox, as well as more on its video streaming service, which is available on multiple living room and mobile devices.

The purchase also opens the door for Dish to offer cross-promotion deals with its satellite TV and Blockbuster’s services. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dish ends up offering free Blockbuster streaming accounts and disc rentals to its subscribers as an added bonus. The combination of Dish and Blockbuster could attack Netflix — which doesn’t offer rental kiosks or traditional TV service — from multiple sides.

It’s also worth considering just how far Blockbuster has fallen. At its highest point, the company’s market cap sat at more than $5 billion in 2002. Now, Dish has managed to snag it for slightly more than two times what Netflix paid to stream Mad Men.

Dish’s bid still needs to be approved by federal bankruptcy court at a hearing on Thursday.

Tags: kiosks, video rentals, video streaming

Companies: Blockbuster, Dish Network

People: Tom Cullen

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals