The documentary world has been abuzz this week with the news that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is changing its Oscar rule yet again for the long-vexed documentary feature category. To be eligible for a Best Documentary Oscar, movies now must be reviewed by either the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times during a qualifying theatrical run of at least one week in both cities. In addition, the academy will send DVD screeners or stream films online for documentary branch members four times a year, rather than require that they see the films in theaters, as has been the case in the past. A short­ list of eligible films and the final five nominees will be voted on by the entire branch of 166 documentary filmmakers, rather than by selection committees. Read full article > >

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New Oscar documentary rules stir outcry (and some cheers)

The rule would require a movie review from The New York Times or The Los Angeles Times to qualify a documentary feature for the Academy Awards, according to a draft of the rule.

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Documentary Filmmakers Alarmed by Proposed Oscar Rule

The Los Angeles Times has the story of a healthy school lunch policy gone awry. It focuses on the Los Angeles Unified School District’s attempt to bring healthy, fresh options into schools. High school students, perhaps unsurprisingly, would prefer to eat Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by the thousands, a black market for unhealthful contraband is thriving and school officials are thinking about bringing back the exact foods they meant to push out: Read full article > >

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Building a junk food black market

From the moment he opened the Bazaar in Los Angeles, Jose Andres gave Tinseltown something to gaze upon other than its own navel — or Katherine Heigl ’s. In her four-star review for the Los Angeles Times, critic S. Irene Virbila wrote: How to describe the experience at the Bazaar by José Andrés in the new SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills? Fellini-esque, a gastronomical circus, a flirtation with the flavors and soul of Spain? Los Angeles has never seen anything remotely like this exciting restaurant from Spanish chef Jose Andres. Read full article > >

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Could Jose Andres open a Bazaar in Washington?

From the moment he opened the Bazaar in Los Angeles, Jose Andres gave Tinseltown something to gaze upon other than its own navel — or Katherine Heigl ’s. In her four-star review for the Los Angeles Times, critic S. Irene Virbila wrote: How to describe the experience at the Bazaar by José Andrés in the new SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills? Fellini-esque, a gastronomical circus, a flirtation with the flavors and soul of Spain? Los Angeles has never seen anything remotely like this exciting restaurant from Spanish chef Jose Andres. Read full article > >

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Could Jose Andres open a Bazaar in Washington?

This article written by Molly Hennessy-Fiske originally appeared on The Los Angeles Times on August 25, 2011 It was only a matter of time.

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‘Gaddafi’s Hat’ remix set to go viral [video]

Apple has already surpassed Google as the most valuable brand in the world, and it appears the tech giants will soon go head to head in the realm of cloud music. The Los Angeles Times reports that Apple has “tentative agreements” with four major record…

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Apple Woos Big Record Labels

On Sunday, the Obama administration appeared to accept the inevitable, calling for an “orderly transition” of power in Egypt. The Los Angeles Times says the Obama Administration recognized that longtime ally President Mubarak was doomed as early as…

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Obama Wants ‘Orderly Transition’

At L.A.’s Red Medicine, it’s soup or salad-unless you’re a restaurant critic, in which case, you can take your things and leave. Los Angeles Times longtime restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila was kicked out of a trendy new eatery, after the managing…

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Critic Kicked Out of L.A. Restaurant

Amid the judicial news about Obamacare, the Los Angeles Times reports a study that deserves more attention in the months ahead. “[S]ubstantial strides have been made in dealing with the consequences of disease,” [USC gerontologists Eileen Crimmins and  Hiram Beltran-Sanchez ] wrote, noting that people live longer with serious illness. But even life expectancy increases may be nearing an end, they wrote. “We have always assumed that each generation will be healthier and longer lived than the prior one,” they said. “The growing problem of lifelong obesity and increases in hypertension and high cholesterol among cohorts reaching old age are a sign that health may not be improving with each generation. . . We do not appear to be moving to a world where we die without experiencing disease, functioning loss, and disability.” And in a USC press release Crimmins elaborates: “The increasing prevalence of disease may to some extent reflect better diagnostics, but what it most clearly reflects is increasing survival of people with disease,” Crimmins said. “The cost of maintaining and providing care for people with chronic conditions is an important part of determining the economic well-being of countries with established social security and government-provided health services.” Historians of medicine have been noting related trends dating back to the 19th century. As medicine became more effective in preventing death from acute conditions, it (and other trends like changing diet and sedentary living) began to increase the proportion of the population with chronic conditions. See James C. Riley’s Sickness, Recovery, and Death , based on Victorian “friendly society” records. Of course there have been distinguished people on the other side of the question, like the demographer James Vaupel, who (when I last heard him speak at Princeton three years ago) predicted that the “plasticity of longevity,” the steady continued expansion of the human lifespan, would continue its reassuring upward march. Here’s an interview from 2004, and on the downside, a 2006 warning from The Atlantic about the perils of the “coming death shortage.” If the extension of the human lifespan, and the outlook for healthier old age, really are stalled, it’s a bigger story than all the world’s health insurance legislation. And if the trend that Crimmins and Beltran-Sanchez noted is real, we shouldn’t count on economic recovery to reverse it. There’s even evidence that the Great Depression had a net positive effect on the nation’s health, and that economic expansion might make things worse.

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Pick Your Health Crisis: Medical Stagnation or Death Shortage?

A man believed to be connected to the murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen shot and killed himself Wednesday night, as Beverly Hills police arrived with a search warrant, the Los Angeles Times reports. The name of the man and his exact connection…

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Chasen Murder Suspect Shoots Himself

Now this is low: The Los Angeles Times is reporting on a cadre of fraud artists targeting the unemployed. Scams offer work-from-home jobs and ask clients to pay a fee for starter kits, certification or processing. The Better Business Bureau reports a…

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Crooks Are Going After the Jobless