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On a sunny summer weekday , a 15- passenger van pulled into the Woodland Park apartment complex in north Madison. A bunch of kids stood on the curb, assembled in a pseudo line, waiting for the van, excited and jostling for a better position. “You guys got Cheetos?” a little boy yelled out. The kids know the drill: the van comes every day to bring them free lunch and they wait as the volunteers set up the day's offerings: first carrots, then yogurt, crackers, a fruit snack, sandwich and juice boxes. The service is from The River Food Pantry as part of its Madison Urban Nutritional Children ’s Hotspot (MUNCH) program. When school’s not in session, MUNCH delivers lunch to kids eight north side low -income neighborhoods who might otherwise go without. THE NEED: ‘THIS IS ALL WE HAVE’ The MUNCH program started last summer and delivered over 10,000 lunches in 2016. This year, they’ve added more neighborhoods to their route and have already delivered over 30,000, with an average of ab...

"These hand-picked classics, obscure treasures, and independent gems capture a few of the diverse, vibrant, and wholly unique worlds—real and imagined—of timeless, quintessential Los Angeles ." —Jodi Wille, LA Cult Film Curator Created for cinephiles and eccentric non-tourists, The Standard Guide to LA Cult Films will have you exploring the city through a whole new lens. After hiding out in your room with these classic, cult, and culture-driven films, grab your map and head out into the city. Our guide will have you well-oriented in LA’s vibrant film subculture. ABOUT THE FILMS Wattstax (Mel Stuart, 1973) In the aftermath of the Watts riots, Stax Records produced a benefit concert for the people of the Watts community in LA. The result led to the creation of Wattstax , one of the most soul-stirring cinema verité music documentaries ever made. Key R&B, soul, gospel, and funk performers, such as Isaac Hayes and Richard Pryo...

The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club .  I'm sitting in the lobby of the Players Club, in Manhattan's Gramercy Park, waiting to meet my interview subject. She is a longtime celebrity assistant , a profession that is both hard to find and incredibly difficult to convince to talk to you about. I'm in the lobby because in order to walk past the entrance of the Players Club you have to be escorted by a member, and I'm waiting because her principal, which I will later learn is a fancy word that celebrity assistants use to describe their bosses, landed after a long flight with a laundry list of things he needed to talk about immediately.  It's during this time that my mind starts to wander to that classic and brutal  Brad Pitt movie.  The Players Club reminds me of Fight Club, if Fight Club took place in a Gothic revival mansion facing the only Manhattan park so exclusive that one needs a key to enter. And replace the barren cement walks with...