“You gotta do something they never got’ em in the world.” Simon Rodia (1875-1965,) top right.

I have chills all over every time I look at this picture of Simon Rodia because it is an undeniable testament to the enormity of Rodia’s achievement: the Towers he single-handedly built on his residential lot in Watts over 33 years every evening after working a construction job and every Sunday, without nails, rivets, bolts, gloves, drill, blueprint, diplomas. I also love this close-up because it shows that Simon did it with immense pride and joy.

With their documentary feature “I Build the Tower,” Edward Landler and Brad Bryer have completed the fundamental task of immortalizing the story of Simon Rodia and the Watts Towers of Los Angeles. Inspired by their admiration for Uncle Sam (Brad Byer is Rodia’s great-nephew,) the two filmmakers have labored for the last fifteen years to present to us a loving yet objective portrait of Simon Rodia, what inspired him as an artist, what made him a genius of structural engineering and what were the forces at work in his spiritual life. The film spends equal time on Rodia’s offspring, the Watts Towers, and their fight to stand on their own after Rodia made the final move from Watts to Martinez.
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Edward Landler & Brad Byer, makers of the documentary “I Build The Tower” about Simon Rodia and the Watts Towers of Watts, Los Angeles. Photo by Gail Brown.

TACO: It took Simon Rodia 33 years to build the Watts Towers. You’ve been working on “I Build the Tower” for at least fifteen years, what has taken you so long?

Edward Landler: Los Angeles still doesn’t know how to appreciate the Watts Towers. One problem with viewing the Watts Towers as a work of art is that the man who built them didn’t have a pedigree. I think it’s one of the greatest works of art of the 20th century but we live in a city and a culture dominated by an industry that is mainly concerned with the bottom line: how much money did you make? Sam Rodia, the man who built the Towers, didn’t come from a school or studio, he was just a guy. How’s it going to make money? Who’s going to buy them?

The problem with getting the proper respect from the city is the Towers are in the wrong part of town. People don’t want to go there. They’re afraid. But they’re afraid of a myth. There are plenty of other areas of town which are just as dangerous as Watts but Watts has the history and aura of violence and gangs. There are parts of the valley with higher incomes and similar problems.

Rodia, building the third tower to the right.

Taco: I did a search on the internet and didn’t find a lot of local websites about the Towers.

EL: The Friends of the Watts Towers Arts Center have a basic information website (www.wattstowers.org) but it isn’t completely worked out yet. The film’s website wwww.ibuildthetower.com gives real information about the Towers and Rodia.

The City’s Department of Cultural Affairs website doesn’t really make mention of the Towers. They consistently seem to ignore and undermine the work of the Watts Towers Arts Center. They spent years doing conservation on the towers. We talk a little about the restoration work in the film. In 2003, after almost 30 years of the city’s conservation efforts, an independent inspector said that the city should develop a long-range conservation effort because it’s never been done. What were they doing for 30 years? They didn’t develop a long-range plan because of a short-sighted bureaucracy and because they treat the Towers with the same kind of benign neglect you see in South LA or East LA as whole. The town is controlled by financial interests and developers for whom anything east of La Cienega and South of Wilshire doesn’t exist, because they can’t make money there.

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This event was held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood on June 18th. A premier screening at the Royal Festival Hall.

Live printing by the Hit & RUN crew. J Rocc of the famed BEAT JUNKIES was spinning downtempo music for the crowd. Everyone was in an Irie mod. Gaslamp Killer took some time to chat with Taco about his new track on the “FROM L.A. WITH LOVE” compilation. Rethmatic also took the time to talk to everyone.

~ 455ER

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“Daddy would have gotten us Uzis.”

You don’t expect to find an event called LOS ANGELES DESTROYS ITSELF in the respectable UCLA Film & Television Archive calendar. It’s like finding a piece of sexy lingerie in your parents’ closet when you were looking for your dad’s old sweater and for the first time in your young life you find yourself hanging somewhere between fear and desire. It’s on that unsafe ground that our most secret fantasies take flight and it’s in the safety of movie theaters that we live them.

“My sister used to force me to watch movies like this when we were young but now I can force my wife!” Netflix customer.

A mini-film festival, LOS ANGELES DESTROYS ITSELF highlights five classic disaster epics. After reading dozens of people’s reviews online (all of the reviews quoted in this story are from lay people, not critics) I was convinced those films were well worth sharing with Taco readers because of the powerful connections people felt for the films, the opportunity to see Los Angeles in the 1950’s, 70’s, 80’s and 1990s and the political context in which some of those films were made.

The Los Angeles river circa 1954 in “THEM!”

If, like Taco contributing cartoonist Jessica Vliet, you have days when you want to see Los Angeles die … here’s your opportunity to indulge in this guilty pleasure. Five ways LA could die care of UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Los Angeles Film Festival:

This 1984 mock-horror zombie movie has two Valley girls (Catherine Mary Stewart & Kelli Maroney - the gun totting cheerleader) fighting flesh-eating humans who survive after a comet wipes out life in LA. The People’s opinion: ” I loved this movie as a kid in the 80’s. I’m still a sucker for it. My son (14) thought it was ok. Any child of the 80’s would like it.” “This is my favourite mock-horror zombie movie ever… Note the requisite shopping scene set to the tune of “Girls just wanna have fun.” “Not bad for 1980’s technology.” “If you want big action, big effects, look elsewhere, it’s about the girls.” “It is funny, the acting is decent and the dialogue full of humorous one-liners. Check your brain at the door, kick back and enjoy a silly return to 80’s mock horror/sci-fi at its best.”

“Night of the Comet”, Saturday, June 23rd @ 8:30pm. FREE outdoor screening @ Festival Promenade on Broxton Avenue in Westwood.

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One of the signs of a great producer is that when they work with a specific musician, the results are often considered the best work of the latter’s catalog. Throughout his career, David Axelrod has coaxed excellent performances out of people like Lou Rawls and Cannonball Adderley, and songs like Rawls’ “Dead End Street” confirm this, its direct, brutal and yet still humorous narrative a blueprint for rap. Another sign of a great producer is when even his most minor moments impact and inform future generations. Axelrod’s “The Edge” is famous for being sampled by Dr. Dre, but it’s Axelrod’s other clever details, like the jaunty bassline that appears (and quickly disappears) midway through “Urizen” (which forms the basis of Jurassic 5’s “A Day At The Races”) that highlight his brilliance.

Directed by Axelrod’s son Dana, “David Axelrod: Live at Royal Festival Hall” gets a much-deserved screening tonight at the Egyptian, and it’s a rich, funny, and engaging work. Not only is tonight the film’s U.S. premiere, but there will also be a post-screening reception and DJ set from J. Rocc, as well as a Q&A with Axelrod, an LA native. The “Live at Royal Festival Hall” DVD and CD, previously sold only through Axelrod’s website, will also be available for purchase, and the above song, taken from the concert, is a good idea of what to expect. Handling vocals on the Electric Prunes classic, Richard Ashcroft does a strong job with “Holy Are You,” and it’s easy to see where Verve songs like “See You In The Next One” got their inspiration from.

Holy Are You Featuring Richard Ashcroft

Hannari 

November 17-23 

Laemmle Music Hall 3 ~ 9036 Wilshire Blvd. 

Shining brightly as a major epicenter of film production has, sin duda, given Hollywood its share of terrible, tragic curses such as surgically hacked faces, multiple stab wounds to the back, dreams rerouted to rehab and temp jobs, plus the unwatchable Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

But when the blessings rain, they pour. The flood of films in the American Film Institute’s 10-day festival in Hollywood are first-class, with many countries’ Oscar entries being screened here first over the festival’s ten day run. AFI Festival screenings have, in the past, included our country’s first looks at City of God, Tsotsi, Talk to Her, and Hotel Rwanda, among many others. To overlook this festival is to miss out on one of the best benefits of being a resident of this great city.

This is the AFI’s 20th year of running their film festival in LA and this is one of its strongest with a competition of features, docs, and shorts from around the entire globe that are chosen by experts as the best and brightest in cinema, both contemporary and past, today.

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