Eric Estrin writes the weekly column "Hollywood Breakthrough" at TheWrap.com. His own Hollywood breakthrough included writer/producer jobs on such series as "MacGyver," "Outer Limits" and "V.I.P." and freelance episodes written for "Miami Vice," "Cagney and Lacey" and "Earth 2." As a journalist, he wrote a monthly TV column for Los Angeles magazine and worked as special sections editor for the trade paper Television Week. He is the creator and producer of the LA Observed Script Project and its resulting script, "Right of Way." Eric lives in the Ventura County community of Oak Park. Email
On Writer Action, a computer chat-board for Writers Guild members, anything goes. Well, not anything. That's where I come in.
Until recently, the Los Angeles Times was a perfectly good name for a great metropolitan newspaper of record. These days, not so much. It's time for us to come up with something new.
Scott Ritter warns we're on the verge of nuclear war. History says we ignore him at our peril.
Our correspondent does battle with a robot at BMG Music — and appears to win in the end. Or does he?
I hate telemarketers. No matter how many you tell Do Not Call, there’s always another one to interrupt your work,...
My daughter ran into the house the other night screaming that there was a tarantula on an outside window near...
The first time I tried to surf I was 12 and had recently moved to South Florida from one of the fly-over states. It all came back recently during family day at Malibu Makos surf camp.
First of all, let me apologize to the Dodgers and their fans. The team rarely wins when I’m in the...
We’ve traveled a lot this summer, or at least it seems that way. First up was Israel, which my Florida...
Two years ago, in the summer of 2004, my friends Kerry and Deana hosted a party centered around a MoveOn.org...
Let me say at the outset that I have mixed feelings at best about so-called “reality TV.” I was putting...
| Humor comes to our downtown stages in two shows brimming with imagination: a "Magic Flute" that breaks the antique Mozartian mold and Matthew Bourne's hip "Sleeping Beauty" powered by a testosteronic high.
| Despite a meciocre record at Washington, Steve Sarkisian has been hired as USC's head coach. It may work out, but Phil Wallace says it wasn't his first choice. Interestingly, this move could lead to Jim Mora, Jr's departure from UCLA.
| "Wherever you go, there you are," says Buckaroo Banzai. Jon Christensen reads the new book "Trees in Paradise: A California History" on the long flight from LAX to Melbourne and reflects on what we can learn from history in a cosmopolitan era in which local diversity--biological and cultural--may be increasing rapidly, while the differences between places continue to shrink.
| Martinez riffs on the aromas of Thanksgiving and is thankful that a woman might be headed for the White House. You might not have noticed, he writes, but the upraised fist of today's political revolution is wearing nail polish.
| Take My Picture Gary Leonard is a regular weekly feature at LA Observed.
I went out to Hollywood Park Sunday for one of the last horse racing days before it is torn down. If the developers’ dreams come true, the famous race track will be replaced with about 3,000 homes, more than 600,000 square feet of retail and a 300-room hotel.
Before I lived in Echo Park, there was a tiny 1920s bungalow-cottage-standalone house on N. Occidental in Silver Lake. I...
I left my camera in the barn so for today, we'll just look at Walter's puppy face....
