Movie Locations Los Angeles

Ralph Jackson, vice president of the Angelo View Homeowners Assn., is fighting mad. A neighbor has repeatedly rented a house to film crews, allegedly disrupting the neighborhood, and Jackson says his calls to the Los Angeles film office have been largely ignored. When he has gotten through, "They say that 80% of the neighborhood has signed [waiver] forms permitting the filming," Jackson said.

Location shooting in the Los Angeles area rose slightly in September but continued to lag through the first nine months of 1999, mostly because of a slowdown in feature film work. The number of production days on the streets of Los Angeles was up 6.14% for the month, according to numbers released by the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., with film and commercial work rising.

Despite losing Monday in its court bid to block enforcement of Los Angeles' new gun ordinance, the entertainment industry has won on another front: City Councilman Mike Feuer said he will seek an exemption to the ordinance for filmmakers and others who use firearms as props. Feuer, who sponsored the gun ordinance, said it was aimed at making it harder for criminals to obtain weapons with high-capacity magazines--not at filmmakers who use them as props in so-called action movies.

Despite losing Monday in its court bid to block enforcement of Los Angeles' new gun ordinance, the entertainment industry has won on another front: City Councilman Mike Feuer said he will seek an exemption to the ordinance for filmmakers and others who use firearms as props. Feuer, who sponsored the gun ordinance, said it was aimed at making it harder for criminals to obtain weapons with high-capacity magazines--not at filmmakers who use them as props in so-called action movies.

What the heck is going on at Sepulveda Basin? One day, a lowlife with a gun is shooting at a rap artist in the tunnels beneath a sewage treatment plant. A few days later, ninja assassins are rappelling down a wall and crashing cars on an adjacent access road. Not long ago, a maniacal police chief at the plant's administration building dispatched a cyborg killer to execute a kick-boxing Secret Service agent. Then there was the problem with the exploding coconuts during the "Bio-Dome" experiment.

Location shooting in the Los Angeles area rose slightly in September but continued to lag through the first nine months of 1999, mostly because of a slowdown in feature film work. The number of production days on the streets of Los Angeles was up 6.14% for the month, according to numbers released by the Entertainment Industry Development Corp., with film and commercial work rising.

Beautifully envisioned, badly constructed, the only truly terrifying things in the new horror movie "Mama" are the fake tattoos, short black hair and black T-shirts meant to turn "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jessica Chastain into a guitar-shredding, punk rocker chick. That misfire becomes just one more bump in the road when you long for more bumps in the night. Though there are a few frights - a skittering shape that keeps showing up is the best - rather than dishing out pure scary movie chills, first-time director Andy Muschietti serves up a darkly twisted allegory about a mother's protective instincts.

The low-budget thriller "The Call" had a surprisingly strong debut this weekend, pulling in $17.1 million in ticket sales to beat out the Warner Bros. comedy "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone" to come in second place at the domestic box office. But even more surprising is the fact that "The Call," which stars Halle Berry as a veteran 911 operator, was filmed entirely on location in Los Angeles. The movie, produced by Troika Pictures and WWE Studios and released by Sony Pictures, is a rare example of a movie that returned to L.A. after producers were preparing to shoot in Canada, long the main foreign destination for Hollywood films lured away by generous subsidies offered to filmmakers.

"Texas Chainsaw 3D" easily sliced through the competition at the box office this weekend - not that its rivals were particularly threatening. As the only new film to hit theaters nationwide, the reboot of the 1974 horror flick only had to contend with a handful of movies that have been out for weeks. Still, the low-budget movie did better than expected, collecting a robust $23 million during its opening weekend, according to an estimate from distributor Lionsgate. Heading into the weekend, pre-release audience polling suggested that "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" would claim No. 1 for the fourth consecutive weekend, while "Chainsaw" looked poised to finish second with around $16 million.

What the heck is going on at Sepulveda Basin? One day, a lowlife with a gun is shooting at a rap artist in the tunnels beneath a sewage treatment plant. A few days later, ninja assassins are rappelling down a wall and crashing cars on an adjacent access road. Not long ago, a maniacal police chief at the plant's administration building dispatched a cyborg killer to execute a kick-boxing Secret Service agent. Then there was the problem with the exploding coconuts during the "Bio-Dome" experiment.

Ralph Jackson, vice president of the Angelo View Homeowners Assn., is fighting mad. A neighbor has repeatedly rented a house to film crews, allegedly disrupting the neighborhood, and Jackson says his calls to the Los Angeles film office have been largely ignored. When he has gotten through, "They say that 80% of the neighborhood has signed [waiver] forms permitting the filming," Jackson said.