AUSTRALIA - A CRUSH ON ANNA BILLER

Anna Biller makes movies about sex and sexy women who are smart, which is a super weird coincidence because she's exactly the same way. Take, for example, VIVA, essentially an ode to the swinging 70s that encapsulates all the best bits of Playboy, Russ Meyer and John Waters films, and lonely-heart love letters written by housewives in need of satisfaction. It was directed, written, produced, and edited by one Miss Anna Biller, and it was her first film. She also stars in the movie, which is lucky because she's awesome.

LOS ANGELES - DESTROYING THE FABRIC OF SOCIETY WITH FILM

When I was scanning the shelves in the video store two summers ago I was shocked to see that Transformers had made it to DVD so fast. It had come out in theaters like two days before, yet there it... ohhhh, shit. That's not Transformers. That's Transmorphers. Months passed, and more kept popping up. The Da Vinci Treasure. The Day The Earth Stopped. Snakes on a Train. The Terminators. AVH: Alien vs. Hunter. Sunday School Musical. Every big-ticket movie that comes out gets scooped by some fuckers who rush out a straight-to-DVD Weird Al version first.

LOS ANGELES - THE PROCESS OF THE PROCESS

Throughout the 40-minute ceremony at the Silent Movie Theater recreating a mass by the Process Church of the Final Judgment, people wearing dark robes (of course!) and carrying lit candles (no doubt!) spend time extolling the virtues of both Christ and Satan (“May the water give me life, Jesus Christ; Purify me with fire, Satan”) when they’re not singing Jefferson Airplane-like songs played by a four-piece band of hippies. 

LONDON - ZOMBIES, MYSTERY WALLS, INAPPROPRIATE ACRONYMS, AND JAMIE TAETE

Because the recession hasn't affected people's budgets as much as you'd have thought, Scion flew me halfway around the world to attend the opening of the Los Angeles Vice Photo Issue 2009 exhibition. Yay!

LA - TERROR AND DELIGHT IN PREPARATION FOR OUR PHOTO SHOW

You see that topless cutie beckoning to you over there on the twin bed? Jamie Lee Curtis Taete took that for our Photo Issue. Right now he’s in LA, where he used to live for a few months (sans car, like a lunatic), purging ambrosial drops of labor dew in the Scion gallery, prepping for the Photo Show opening tomorrow night.

LOS ANGELES - EATS, SHOOTS, AND PEES

This informative and hilarious story has moved here: http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2009/09/11/eats-shoots-and-pees/

LOS ANGELES - WHERE TO EAT BEFORE YOU STUMBLE HOME

What, it's Saturday and you're in Los Angeles and it's 3:27 AM and you need an anchor at the bottom of your stomach so you don't drift away on your own sea of vomit when you get home? We know you already know about Brite Spot, but check our Places to Go Late at Night, today's feature in our guide to Eating in Los Angeles for some other suggestions. As an extra bonus we're also tossing in South Central's culinary recommendations, just in case you actually wind up there.

LOS ANGELES - WESTSIDE FOODS

There's nothing like Beverly Hills to make you think having money is the lamest thing you can do with your life. It's the land where men wear their clothes oversized and play poker and golf, everyone's played God with their faces, and no one wears all black. Actually, there are so many hideous things in that part of town chances are you'll be the most attractive person in the whole neighborhood. So resist the urge to play Johnny Appleseed with molotov cocktails, heed the Westside chapter in Vice's guide to Eating In Los Angeles, and chill the fuck out over a burger or something.

LOS ANGELES - KEEP EATING

Today’s installment of Vice’s Los Angeles guide to shoving food down your gullet includes where to do that in Hollywood, which is pretty much the same neighborhood as another section we’re putting up called Places to Go When Someone Else Is Paying. And since it’s Thursday and you’re a grownup who can handle sensory overload, we’re also offering up Places to Go When You Want to Get All Historical, one of which is called Clifton’s, a diner inside a fake forest frozen in 1938. It feels like the yellowing set for a kinky animatronics goldrush porno, only instead of Smoky the Bear and busty blondes with pickaxes it attracts geriatrics with oxygen tanks and malnourished blobs stuffed into wheelchairs, a surreal refuge after a nightmarish caper in which my date drunk-drove me down a sewer tube, whipping beer bottles out the window, splashing down right into the L.A. river.
RAQUEL ALLIANCE

LOS ANGELES - JOHNNY RYAN SUNDAY

Hey Johnny Ryan stalkers, we’re gonna make it real easy for you this Sunday. He’s selling his stuff at Felt Club, which is about as un-depressing as a craft fair gets, along with Steve Weissman and some other bigshots. Then he’s heading over to Family for the Kramers Ergot 7 art show and book release party, an enormo-indulgent, mega-broadsheet-size hardcover issue including works from Chris Ware, Paper Rad, Jaime Hernandez, Blanquet, Matt Groening, Daniel Clowes, Mat Brinkman, Kim Deitch, Anna Sommer, Anders Nilsen, C.F., Adrian Tomine, and Kevin Huizenga. And that’s not even close to everyone. We heard the strip they included from Johnny Ryan is real respectful of the book, which hasn’t started slipping toward precious or anything.