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How to spend a long weekend in Los Angeles

With the Oscars around the corner, the City of Angels is ready to roll out the red carpet for stars and international visitors alike.

Aerial view of the Griffith Observatory on Mount Hollywood and the Hollywood Sign seen in the distance, California, USA.
Aerial view of the Griffith Observatory on Mount Hollywood and the Hollywood Sign seen in the distance, California, USA.

Razzmatazz is such an entertaining word with a dazzling sound to match its meaning. And razzmatazz it is at a men’s basketball game between the LA Clippers and Utah Jazz at the former Staples Centre in Los Angeles, renamed Crypto.com Arena in a $US700m ($1bn) deal for an optimistic 20 years.

I get the bit that Utah defeats the home team and pick up the finer points of what I have seen in a report next day in the LA Times. But my takeaway impression is of energetic cheerleaders, Chuck the Condor mascot prepping the crowd, thumping rap and dance music, horn blasts – the sights and sounds of showbiz. How appropriate I am in the City of Dreams, home of Hollywood. And how it glows in the midst of awards season, with the 95th Oscars just around the corner on March 12 (the morning of March 13 in Australia).

In an old book I flick through, Hollywood: The Pioneers, there is a 1905 photograph of the area before the “moving picture people” invaded: a few buildings, citrus orchards and an expanse of flat, empty land. Those creatives flocked in search of “sun, space and somnolence”, with the LA Chamber of Commerce vowing 350 bright-sky days a year. Starting as an industrial estate for studios, Hollywood is now a suburb, a driving force of business and popular culture, and a state of mind. Well, that’s a grab of conversation I overhear in a Tinsel Town eatery.

LA is a sprawling city geared towards the auto and can be a challenging place for visitors. Walking between neighbourhoods is rarely an option and public transport is limited though improving. Thankfully, Uber cars are plentiful and efficient. Here on a short break, I’m keen to explore what’s new in two areas, Downtown and Hollywood.

Downtown Los Angeles

Let’s start in style Downtown, an area not noted for glamour in decades. But new commercial and residential buildings and the strengthening of a creative reputation have enhanced the appeal. The latest offering is The Grand LA, a multi-purpose project conceived by architect Frank Gehry with interior design by Tara Bernerd and incorporating the Conrad Los Angeles hotel; it sits opposite and complements Gehry’s playful Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bernerd’s work at Conrad is a joy. Sunlight pours through a high-rise floor-to-ceiling window in the Beaudry Room, with a volcanic lava bar top (the cocktails are hot stuff too) and tiles hand-painted by local artists. Check out the open-air pool, bar and cabanas of the 305-guestroom hotel, then settle in with a coffee on the terrace until the contemporary arts treat, The Broad, also across the street, opens.

Conrad Los Angeles.
Conrad Los Angeles.

A gift to LA from philanthropists Edythe and Eli Broad, who were savvy collectors of postwar American art, the museum is a jewel wrapped in a white, honeycomb-like veil. Take the escalator from the lobby up a long, dark flight to a revelation of light and colour on the first level of the collection. First sight is of a 15m-long work, Mark Bradford’s Deep Blue, an abstract depiction of the 1965 LA race riots, which in its luscious application of paint is reminiscent of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles in the National Gallery of Australia. On an easy meander through the exhibition spaces, test your appreciation (or otherwise) of pieces, some confronting, by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Cindy Sherman, Cy Twombly, Jasper Johns and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sculptures by Jeff Koons, including a larger-than-life, gilt-edged porcelain of Michael Jackson and Bubbles (the chimp), and portraits by Andy Warhol of Elvis and Elizabeth Taylor crank up the entertainment factor.

Hollywood

The logical next step is Hollywood, where a revivified precinct now called the Vinyl District is the top hit. A little removed from the movie-fan blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and taking its cue from the mid-1950s Capitol Records Tower, looking very much like a stack of discs ready to drop on to a turntable, the district is still home to recording studios, but also a new breed of music stores, hotels with names such as Dream and Mama Shelter, and restaurants for the in-crowd.

Mother Wolf, an homage to Rome in LA.
Mother Wolf, an homage to Rome in LA.

Mother Wolf is master chef Evan Funke’s homage to Rome and prides itself on wafer-thin wood-fired pizzas, “hyper-seasonal” antipasti and traditional handmade pastas. The rigatoncini alla vaccinara – oxtail ragu, guanciale, peperoncino and pecorino romano – is a winner. The restaurant occupies a busy, big space in a 1930s Art Deco building with tall columns, comfortable banquettes and vivid floral arrangements and artworks that reach for the ceiling. It once housed the Hollywood Citizen-News when print was a thing. Keep an eye out for Michelle Obama and Beyonce, who have shared a table here, in a private dining room, of course.

Opened late in 2021 and a pilgrimage for film lovers, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on Wilshire Boulevard is the showstopper of my visit. Its collection celebrates the history of cinema and early forerunners such as shadow plays, magic lanterns and steam-driven praxinoscopes. Hollywood makes up the lion’s share of displays, but there’s fair recognition of the contributions of world moviemakers. It’s hard not to be starry-eyed about the sled emblazoned with the enigmatic word Rosebud from Citizen Kane (Orson Welles had three sleds made to be burned: he didn’t like the first take, loved the second, so the third sled was saved); Gregory Peck’s Oscar for To Kill a Mockingbird; the menu for the first Academy Awards dinner in 1929 (fish or half broiled chicken on toast was the go, with ice-cream cake to follow); the Olympic typewriter used by screenwriter Joseph Stefano to tap out Psycho; brutal assessments of auditions for “girl” in Hitchcock’s Rebecca (Joan Fontaine, who got the part, was a “possibility, but has to show fair amount of nervousness to get any effect”); and a handwritten note from Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) to Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter), who tied for best actress in 1969, signed by Babs “with much admiration”.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Picture: Joshua White
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Picture: Joshua White

There are more stars than there are in heaven. A newly installed exhibition, The Art of Moviemaking: The Godfather, has costumes, sets and much else from the Mafia masterpiece, including a horse-head prop used in rehearsal for the memorable under-the-bedcovers scene. It comes with a Trigger Warning for faint-hearted viewers. A real horse’s head was used in filming.

For an extra charge, visitors can simulate the experience of walking on stage and collecting an Oscar, recorded and delivered to your phone. If you feel you haven’t put in the hard work for such an award, you’re not alone. Did Shakespeare in Love really merit seven Oscars, including best picture, in 1999?

Close to Los Angeles International Airport, I tour SoFi Stadium, a gigantic state-of-the-art venue built by LA Rams owner Stan Kroenke and home to his football team and the Chargers. An “immersive tour” comes with an opportunity to check out the locker rooms, run through the tunnel on to the field, and play with a football. For me, scoring a goal is as impossible as winning an Oscar.

The stadium will be a venue for the FIFA World Cup in 2026 and the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2028 Olympic Games. Expect Hollywood to shine.

Graham Erbacher was a guest of American Airlines and Los Angeles Tourism.

IN THE KNOW

American Airlines, which partners with Qantas, is again flying its own planes daily on the Sydney-LA route.

Rooms at Conrad Los Angeles from about $US370 ($540) a night.

The Broad is free to visit; closed Mondays.

Mother Wolf serves dinner nightly, bookings essential.

Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is open daily from 10am.

So-Fi Stadium standard tours from $US39.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/hooray-for-hollywoods-broad-appeal/news-story/b07f4a23caf2ac47dc932cd69e1aef4b