Los Angeles Times

The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years "Los ANGELES isn't a real city," people have said, "it just plays one on camera." It was a clever line once upon a time, but all that has changed. Los Angeles is the most complicated community in America -- make no mistake, it is a community -- and over the last 25 years, it has been both celebrated and savaged on the big screen with amazing efficacy. Damaged souls and flawless weather, canyon love and beach city menace, homeboys and credit card girls, freeways and fedoras, power lines and palm trees . . . again and again, moviegoers all over the world have sat in the dark and stared up at our Los Angeles, even if it was one populated by corrupt cops or a jabbering cartoon rabbit.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee filed suit Wednesday against the University of California Board of Regents, demanding the release of police officers' names removed from a critical report on the controversial pepper spraying of UC Davis students. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court, contends that when university officials agreed in a court settlement last month to redact all but two names, they "failed to represent the interests of the press and public," leaving the newspapers with "no choice but to bring this petition to protect the public's right of access to this important information.

From its inception on Dec. 4, 1881, the Los Angeles Times has been an integral part of this great city. Our metropolis has changed dramatically over the last 130 years, but one thing has remained constant: The Los Angeles Times has landed on doorsteps -- and now computer screens and cellphones -- every single day. Our commitment to covering the news -- the first draft of history, as Phillip Graham famously called it -- is unwavering....

The Los Angeles Times said its Sunday magazine, facing tough challenges, will cease publication. LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine will print its final issue June 3, Kathy K. Thomson, president and chief operating officer, said in an email Tuesday to employees. The magazine came out weekly until 2008, when the paper's editorial department stopped publishing it. The Los Angeles Times Media Group then put out the magazine in a monthly format. "The entire magazine industry has been faced with a very challenging environment," Thomson wrote.

Dear Reader, As you may already know, the Los Angeles Times' parent company, Tribune, has filed to restructure its debt obligations under the protection of Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. What does all this mean for our readers and advertisers? As a practical matter, very little. Tribune Co. is continuing to operate its media businesses, including its newspapers, television stations and websites. And at the Los Angeles Times and latimes.com, we remain dedicated to providing you with the level of service and 24/7 news coverage you've come to expect from us. The decision to restructure Tribune Co.'s debt was brought on by the dramatic and unexpected operating conditions of this year.

THE Los Angeles Times named David L. Ulin, a veteran literary critic and champion of West Coast writers, as its book editor Wednesday. Ulin's appointment fills a position left vacant since Steve Wasserman resigned in May to take a position with a New York literary agency. Deputy Managing Editor John Montorio said Ulin will be responsible for the newspaper's Sunday Book Review and for book coverage and reviews in other parts of the paper.

Dear Readers: The future of the Los Angeles Times, in print and online, rests in our ability to meet the needs of our readers and deliver news and information that is unique, far-reaching and indispensable. In-depth journalism remains our hallmark and we are committed to that mission in the face of economic challenges to our industry and our nation as a whole. For proof, look no further than today's front-page story on California's war on wildfires, the first of a five-part series.

Lamar Odom is done playing for the Dallas Mavericks. Will any other NBA team take a chance on the enigmatic 6-foot-10 forward who is less than a year removed from winning the league's sixth man of the year award? Or perhaps the better question is, should someone give him another shot? Odom was known for his inconsistency during his seven seasons with the Lakers. But, by definition, that means there were good and bad times on the court for Odom in L.A. And particularly in the last few years, there seemed to be more good than bad, with Odom appearing to pull it all together last season by being named the league's best player off the bench.

Michael (Irish) O'Farrell, a Hells Angels leader, received the club's traditional funeral honors Saturday as bikers wearing jackets emblazoned with a winged skull escorted his body to a cemetery. O'Farrell, believed by law enforcement officials to be second in the Hells Angels hierarchy only to the motorcycle club's spiritual leader, Ralph (Sonny) Barger Jr., died during a bloody bar brawl on Tuesday. O'Farrell, 40, who along with Barger was awaiting sentencing on federal explosives convictions, was stabbed in the neck, chest and back, as well as being shot four times from behind, according to the Alameda County coroner's office.

WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed Jacqueline H. Nguyen of Los Angeles to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, making her the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appellate court. By a 91-3 vote, the Senate agreed to Nguyen's nomination as part of an earlier deal to begin acting on President Obama's nominees. Republicans had been holding up some of the president's choices as part of a protest over White House appointments. The Senate also approved Kristine Gerhard Baker of Arkansas and John Lee of Illinois to federal district courts - making Lee the second Korean American on a federal district court.

WASHINGTON - The Senate confirmed Jacqueline H. Nguyen of Los Angeles to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, making her the first Asian American woman to sit on a federal appellate court. By a 91-3 vote, the Senate agreed to Nguyen's nomination as part of an earlier deal to begin acting on President Obama's nominees. Republicans had been holding up some of the president's choices as part of a protest over White House appointments. The Senate also approved Kristine Gerhard Baker of Arkansas and John Lee of Illinois to federal district courts - making Lee the second Korean American on a federal district court.

The Los Angeles Times won Newspaper of the Year for 2011 among the state's largest daily newspapers and a total of 20 journalism awards as part of the annual Better Newspaper Contest, officials announced Saturday. The Times won first-place awards among newspapers with a circulation of 150,000 or more in the following categories: local government coverage, investigative reporting, sports, and arts and entertainment. The paper also received second prize for design and general excellence in the contest sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn., a nonprofit trade group.

When Dutch filmmaker Frans Hofmeester put the video "Lotte Time Lapse: From birth to 12 in 2 min. 45" on Vimeo one week ago, he thought it might generate some interest. After all, he had been filming his daughter Lotte once a week, every week, since she was born, and by stringing those videos together and speeding them up, he had amassed an impressive time-lapse-like record of his daughter as she grew from a wide-eyed baby  into a coy girl with a penchant for flower barrettes.

The Los Angeles Times determined we have 114 separate and distinct neighborhoods here in Los Angeles. The city has posted several hundred blue signs naming far more. L.A. is a mash-up of uncountable, diverse neighborhoods spread over 465 square miles; hard and soft, painted in colors from concrete gray and security bar black to putting lawn green and jacaranda snowfall purple; beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, welcoming neighborhoods, soundtracked by the music of more languages than you or I or even the Los Angeles Times can count.

NEW YORK—There are author success stories. There's winning the lottery. And then there's Chad Harbach. A long-suffering, often-starving MFA graduate, Harbach spent much of his 20s and 30s working temp jobs so he could write a novel, sometimes with barely $100 in his bank account. He thought no one would ever read his book, titled "The Art of Fielding. " It featured, after all, some pretty ambitious literary writing, a prominent gay character and a baseball motif, all no-nos for anyone with aspirations to the fiction bestseller list.

Long before Rick Bayless, the Too Hot Tamales and even Diana Kennedy, there was another teacher and cookbook writer who introduced authentic Mexican food to a wider American audience. Though she is all but unknown today, at the turn of the 20th century a remarkable woman named Bertha Haffner-Ginger not only learned how to cook Mexican favorites but also packed lecture halls nationwide and published a cookbook sharing her knowledge, whetting the country's appetite for a cuisine that wouldn't travel outside of the borderlands in earnest until the 1950s.

Lurking in the 2,592 entries in the third annual Scariest Story Ever Told contest were thrills, chills--and a frightening brain scan of what's on the minds of Southern Californians. Our eight winners included eight writers--Joe and Denise Altick of Ventura, Peter J. Estes of Lancaster, Sara Ludovise of Laguna Niguel, Michael Hook Mack of Sun Valley, Lynn J. Reinert of Irvine, Michael Schwartz of Reseda, and Lotus Yu of Yorba Linda--and one illustrator, Barbara Abbott of Newport Beach.

William Reagh, who recorded Los Angeles in black and white photographs for more than 50 years, has died. He was 81. Reagh died Wednesday at his Silver Lake home after a long battle with cancer, his wife, Harriet, said Thursday. Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Harvey has called Reagh "a sort of Ansel Adams of the Angels."

Jeffrey Chandler, an influential member of the family that built the Los Angeles Times and the last person with the Chandler name to play a significant role in the newspaper's ownership, has died. He was 70. Chandler, who had been a radio station owner and real estate developer in the San Diego area, died Sunday at his home in Rancho Santa Fe after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer, his family announced. Long a maverick who sought to return The Times to its conservative roots, Chandler was one of three representatives of his family on the Tribune Co. board of directors who forced a sale of the company to a group headed by Chicago real estate investor Sam Zell in 2007.

In 1944, 14-year-old Lucy Deutsch, a young Czech girl, was rousted from her home with her parents and two siblings and transported to Auschwitz.  Of her family, only she survived. Now in her 80s, Deutsch tells her story in the autobiographical musical "No Time to Weep," a rental production at the Matrix that features a book by Deutsch, lyrics by Deutsch and Deedee O'Malley, and music by O'Malley and Ivor Pyres, who also directs. Reviewing such a heartfelt endeavor feels a bit like correcting the grammar on a lovingly handcrafted Valentine.