It’s odd the moments you remember after someone’s gone.
Scrolling through a seemingly infinite number of clips featuring Rob Reiner being compassionate and kind, scenes from his movies that feature a bone-deep empathy for the ways human beings struggle and strive to be better, I kept thinking back to a little wink in “This Is Spinal Tap,” the 1984 mockumentary Reiner directed and co-starred in, playing filmmaker Marty DiBergi.
I’ve seen this movie so many times that I could probably act out the whole thing upon request. It provided a soundtrack to a family trip to Stonehenge several years ago. But thinking about Reiner in the wake of the horrible news that he and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their home on Sunday night, their son Nick subsequently charged with their murders, I randomly landed on the scene where DiBergi talks with Spinal Tap lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) after guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) leaves the band.
St. Hubbins blithely insists he won’t miss Nigel any more than insignificant band members who played briefly in the group. DiBergi is stunned. He loves Spinal Tap and fears for its future. Reiner plays the moment with such sincere heartbreak, partly in character, but mostly I think because that’s who he was. Reiner couldn’t help it. He felt things deeply and spent much of his life working to make things better for those on society’s margins. He will be missed in so many ways.
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. How to describe this week? None more black will do. But Christmas is coming, and that Vince Guaraldi song never fails to make me smile. Let’s look at some good news for those who made the Oscar shortlists this week.
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The film academy announced shortlists for 12 categories at the 98th Oscars, whittling down the list of contenders and offering a few indications about what films are scoring early points with voters.
Ryan Coogler’s critically acclaimed, genre-defying blockbuster “Sinners” picked up eight mentions, as did “Wicked: For Good.” Both movies placed two songs on the original song shortlist and both were cited in the newly created casting category.
The bounty for “Sirât,” the Oliver Laxe thriller that is unquestionably one of the most memorable movies of the year, offered an indication that the word of mouth on this movie is strong enough to land it a spot among the nominees for international feature.
Can it do better than that? It should. Here are five suggestions for voters, including “Sirât,” as the lists are narrowed ahead of Oscar nominations on Jan. 22.
Cinematography: ‘Sirât’
“Sirât” contains so many surprising twists and turns that when asked to describe the plot, I simply tell people that it’s about a father who shows up at a rave in southern Morocco with his young son looking for his missing daughter. The long desert journey they end up taking is astonishing, and cinematographer Mauro Herce, shooting on 16mm film, captures every treacherous mile in dramatic detail.
Original score: ‘Marty Supreme’
Voting with the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn., I cast my ballot for Kangding Ray’s hypnotic score for (you guessed it) “Sirât.” But that was just one of many soundtracks that found its way into my life this year. Hans Zimmer’s synth-heavy “F1” score makes for propulsive listening while pedaling on an exercise bike and ranks among the celebrated composer’s best work. And I share Times film editor Josh Rothkopf’s enthusiasm for Daniel Lopatin’s throwback electronic beats in “Marty Supreme,” a delight for anyone who grew up listening to the ethereal soundscapes created by Tangerine Dream.
Casting: ‘Weapons’
I’m highlighting Zach Cregger’s horror-mystery “Weapons” here partially because of its inexplicable absence in the makeup and hairstyling category. I guess voters knew it was Amy Madigan in that bright red wig all along. That omission aside, “Weapons” is a prime example of what a great casting director can do, making use of familiar faces (Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Madigan) in unexpected ways, finding the right child actor (Cary Christopher) to deliver big emotional moments and elevating emerging talent (Austin Abrams) to unexpected heights. Allison Jones, one of the greats, belongs among the casting category’s inaugural set of nominees.
Documentary: ‘My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow’
Julia Loktev’s five-hour chronicle of the chilling Russian crackdown on independent journalists has won documentary honors from both the Los Angeles and New York film critics. The doc begins in 2021, when the journalists, mostly women, are forced to label themselves as “foreign agents” simply for doing their jobs, covering Putin’s regime in a factual manner. Things intensify after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, turning “My Undesirable Friends” into a cautionary tale about the perils of bending to an autocrat. It goes without saying, but this is essential viewing.
With the ongoing fracas over President Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, a number of other Trump administration-led attempts to remake the architectural landscape of Washington, D.C., have flown largely under the radar. This includes the sale and possible demolition of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, which was completed in 1940 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Part of what makes the building so beloved is a series of 1942 frescoes by Ben Shahn titled “The Meaning of Social Security,” commissioned as part of the Roosevelt administration’s robust New Deal art program. In a recent article in the New Republic, architectural historian Gray Brechin is quoted as calling the Cohen building, “a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.”
The structure, originally known as the Social Security Administration Building, has served as the headquarters for Voice of America since 1954. In March, Trump signed an executive order cutting funding for the agency that oversees VOA, and most of its staff was placed on administrative leave. In June, more than 600 VOA employees received layoff notices, and the service basically shut down.
At the beginning of this year, Congress agreed to sell the Cohen building, which had been suffering from major maintenance issues. The scope of the threat to the building became clear earlier this month when Bloomberg reported that “The White House is independently soliciting bids to recommend the demolition of the historic buildings [including the Cohen building], without the input of the General Services Administration, which maintains government buildings.”
“Federal properties can be sold quickly with limited public input. As powerful interests move in haste to sell this historic building, we call for the process to be paused and conducted with transparency, respect, and public participation,” the petition, which has garnered more than 4,700 signatures, states.
The Shahn frescoes aren’t the only precious New Deal artworks in danger. Other art housed in the Cohen building include murals by Seymour Fogel and Philip Guston.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wondering when enough is enough. Here’s your arts news for the week.
On our radar
Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Jamie Phan / Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Disney Hall-e-lu-jah It’s hard to imagine the holidays without music, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale has three days of caroling and chorusing that should lift anyone’s seasonal spirits. A new addition to the choir’s traditional offerings is the family-friendly “Carols for Kids” (11 a.m. Saturday. Walt Disney Concert Hall), featuring Youth Chorus LA and designed for even the squirmiest children, 6 and under. That will be followed by the “Festival of Carols” (2 p.m. Saturday. Disney Hall), a program of global holiday music. The group’s performance of “Handel’s Messiah” (7 p.m. Sunday. Disney Hall) is a worthy centerpiece of any celebration. If you’re ready to have your own voice be heard, “Carols on the Plaza” (6 p.m. Monday, across the street at the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza), is your chance to join in on free outdoor caroling with family, friends and fellow Angelenos. Festivities conclude with the Master Chorale’s “Messiah Sing-Along” (7:30 p.m. Monday) back at Disney Hall where 2,000 voices will unite for the “Hallelujah Chorus.” — Kevin Crust Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave.; Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY The Fruit Cake Follies In its 27th year, this madcap holiday variety show promises “music, mirth and merriment.” 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with dinner at 6:30 p.m.; 1 p.m Sunday, with brunch at 11 a.m. Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood. catalinajazzclub.com
Guadalupe Maravilla: A Performance Expanding on his solo exhibition “Les soñadores,” the transdisciplinary artist creates a collective ritual combining sound, vibration and healers from around the world alongside L.A.-based artists. 8 p.m. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Piotr Beczala The Polish-born tenor, known for his work in opera and the classical vocal canon, performs, accompanied by conductor and pianist Kamal Khan. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica broadstage.org
“Wet” by Sahar Khoury at Parker Gallery, 2025
(Sahar Khoury / Parker Gallery)
Sahar Khoury The interdependence of materials and their social and cultural environments inspired the sculptor’s newest solo exhibition, “Wet,” a series of pieces created from ceramic, steel, iron, brass and aluminum. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday, through Jan. 17. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
SATURDAY Christmas Joy Concert The free Third@First concert series continues with a program of carols, classic and new. 4 p.m. First United Methodist Church of Pasadena, 500. E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. thirdatfirst.org
Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps in the romantic drama “Love & Basketball.”
(New Line Cinema)
Love & Basketball Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood marks the 25th anniversary of her modern romance classic, starring Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard and Dennis Haysbert. 7 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
The cast of “Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet.”
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet This 80-plus city tour offers a distinct blend of classical ballet with avant-garde circus techniques and global influences, complete with 10-foot-tall animal puppets constructed by Roger Titley. For its 33rd year on the road, the production adds a new character: Sweets the Dog, created by Barry Gordemer of the award-winning puppeteer studio Handemonium. — Ashley Lee Noon, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles; and 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd. nutcracker.com
SUNDAY Collecting Impressionism at LACMA This new exhibition traces how the museum built its collection and its pursuit of legitimacy through early acquisitions of American and California Impressionism and donations of paintings by Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro from major Hollywood collectors. Through Jan. 3, 2027. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Actor Taylor Nichols, left, and director Whit Stillman at a 20th anniversary screening of “Metropolitan” at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
(Jemal Countess / Getty Images)
Metropolitan It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since the young socialites of the “urban haute bourgeoisie” entered our consciousness via filmmaker Whit Stillman’s delightfully droll film and its banter-driven, Oscar-nominated screenplay. Stillman and actor Taylor Nichols will be on hand for a Q&A with the screening. 2 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com
WEDNESDAY
Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter host the 2025 L.A. County Holiday Celebration.
(Music Center)
L.A. County Holiday Celebration The Music Center’s annual spectacular features more than 20 local music ensembles, choirs and dance companies. The free, ticketed event will also be broadcast on PBS SoCal. Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter are this year’s hosts. 3-6 p.m. Dec. 24. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
— Kevin Crust
Dispatch: A director with a human touch
Cameron Watson is the new artistic director of Skylight Theatre Company.
(David Zaugh)
Stage director Cameron Watson has one of the best batting averages in town.
His productions of “The Sound Inside” at Pasadena Playhouse, “On the Other Hand, We’re Happy” for Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix and “Top Girls” at Antaeus Theatre Company were morale-boosting for a critic in the trenches, offering proof that serious, humane, highly intelligent and happily unorthodox drama was alive and well in Los Angeles.
Watson’s appointment as artistic director of Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre Company starting Jan. 1 is good news for the city’s theater ecology. Producing artistic director Gary Grossman, who led the company for 40 years with enormous integrity, built the small but ambitious Skylight into an incubator of new work that embraces diversity and the local community.
Developing new plays is fraught with risk. Watson has the both the artistic acumen and audience sensitivity needed to usher Skylight through this perilous moment in the American theater when so many companies seem to be holding on by a thread.
Watson, like Peter Brook before him, knows how to convert an empty space into a realm of magic and meaning. For Watson, the play’s the thing. But for the spark to happen, actors and audience members need a director as intuitively attuned to the uncertain human drama as Skylight Theatre Company’s new leader. (The director’s current production of “Heisenberg” at Skylight ends Sunday.)
— Charles McNulty
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Moving in stereo The most Tony-nominated play in Broadway history, “Stereophonic,” is playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through Jan. 2. Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught opening night and wrote that the first touring production fails to capture the high notes of the Broadway original. A few days later, I sat down for an interview at Amoeba Records with Will Butler, the former Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist who wrote the music for the show. Our interview took place before Butler got onstage with the cast of the show for a short live in-store performance.
Boiling in Brooklyn Brooklyn was also on McNulty’s itinerary, where he saw Michelle Williams in the new revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” at St. Ann’s Warehouse. “Michelle Williams seems to have unlimited emotional access. Her inner intensity expresses itself in a frenzy of volcanic feeling that can never be tamped down once it reaches its boiling point,” McNulty writes.
The name game The Kennedy Center continued its Trump-era transformation Thursday after the board voted unanimously to rename the world-famous performing arts venue The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. It remains unclear if the move is legal, or if the name change will need to be made official via an act of Congress.
Viva Las Vegas I got a look at newly revealed architectural plans for the Las Vegas Museum of Art, which is expected to break ground in 2027. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré is designing the city’s first freestanding museum and says his ideas were inspired by the red rocks and canyons of the desert surrounding Sin City.
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LACMA United Workers at Los Angeles County Museum of art voted to unionize Wednesday. The vote in favor was 96%, and came after LACMA rejected workers’ requests for voluntary recognition. Staffers have expressed disappointment in management over what they are calling its anti-union campaign.
La malchance The Louvre is down on its luck. Maintenance issues have lately plagued the famous Paris museum, and then there was that infamous heist. Now workers have voted to strike over working conditions among other complaints.
No, our Women in Film issue doesn’t exclusively feature women — Noah Baumbach and Brendan Fraser feature in our Dec. 16 edition as well — but it does shine a particular spotlight on their extraordinary contribution to the year in film.
As performers and production designers, writers, directors and more, the women included here helped fashion deeply felt stories of parenthood, friendship, grief and betrayal, and that’s just for starters. Read on for more highlights from this week’s Envelope.
The Envelope Actresses Roundtable
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
This year’s Oscar Actresses Roundtable was full of laughter, sparked by everything from Gwyneth Paltrow’s impression of mother Blythe Danner to Sydney Sweeney’s tales from inside the ring on “Christy.” But when it comes to self-determination, this year’s participants — who also included Emily Blunt, Elle Fanning, Jennifer Lopez and Tessa Thompson — are dead serious.
As performers, producers and businesswomen, the sextet told moderator Lorraine Ali, the boxes that Hollywood and the broader culture seek to put them in need not apply. And realizing that is its own liberation. As Lopez put it, “I don’t ever feel like there’s somebody who can say to me, ‘No, you can’t.’”
‘Hamnet’s’ last-minute miracle
(Evelyn Freja / For The Times))
Since the moment I first saw “Hamnet,” I’ve been raving to everyone I know about its climactic sequence, set inside the Globe Theatre during a performance of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” (Well, if you can call it “raving” when you preface your recommendation with the sentence, “I sobbed through the last 45 minutes.”) As it turns out, though, the process of making the film’s final act was as miraculous as the finished product.
“There were only four days left of shooting on ‘Hamnet’ when Chloé Zhao realized she didn’t have an ending,” Emily Zemler begins this week’s digital cover story, which features Zhao, actors Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal and Joe Alwyn and production designer Fiona Crombie. What they created from that point, combining kismet, creative inspiration and grueling preparation, will buoy your belief in the power of art. “It was like a tsunami,” Buckley tells Zemler. “I’ll never forget it.”
A Is for Animal Wrangler
When I first read Helen Macdonald’s transporting “H Is for Hawk,” which combines memoir, nature writing and literary criticism, I can’t say I closed the book wondering when we’d get a film adaptation. Little did I know that director Philippa Lowthorpe, star Claire Foy and a pair of married bird handlers would provide such a thorough answer to my skepticism.
As Lisa Rosen writes in her story on the marriage of art and goshawk in “H Is For Hawk,” that meant shaping the production around the notoriously wary birds of prey, including its lead performance. “It wasn’t like having another actor who had another agenda or actions or a perspective that they wanted to get across in the scene,” Foy told Rosen of her extensive screen time alone with the five goshawks who stood in for Helen’s. “I was along for the ride with these animals.”
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter, wondering if you’ve felt that 1% decrease in traffic congestion this year. I had plenty of time to contemplate its veracity the other day while inching my way down the 405 Freeway on my drive home. Let’s just say I’m unconvinced.
Let’s think happier thoughts — the continued, sweeping success of the year’s best movie, “One Battle After Another.”
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I spoke with the women of Paul Thomas Anderson’s acclaimed epic, “One Battle After Another,” on a rainy day last month in the midst of that atmospheric river that washed through the city. You want to talk traffic congestion? Try going down San Vicente during rush hour on the way to a premiere at the Academy Museum.
The only movie worth that effort this year might be … “One Battle After Another.”
For our Envelope digital cover story, we gathered stars Regina Hall, Chase Infiniti and Teyana Taylor for a stunning photo shoot with Times contributor Bexx Francois, followed by a conversation accompanied by a slate of appetizers that evoked memories of the night before when Taylor’s French fries went missing at their Governors Awards table.
“I went to the bar during the dinner and came back,” Taylor says. “And Regina’s like, ‘Somebody took my plate.’ And I look down and say, ‘Somebody ate my fries.’” She motions at Hall. “Goldilocks over here.”
There were no beefs over the apps that day, just the kind of camaraderie evident by the care Infiniti showed her co-stars, helping them keep their immaculate outfits pristine. “One Battle After Another” feels like a lock for a Screen Actors Guild Award (now known as the Actors) ensemble nomination, in no small part due to the exemplary work of these three women, along with co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio Del Toro.
Taylor won a supporting actor prize Sunday from the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. for her portrayal of Perfidia Beverly Hills, the revolutionary leader of the French 75. The character dominates the movie’s 35-minute opening section, an extended prologue that ends with Perfidia betraying members of her group to avoid prison and abandoning her daughter in the haze of postpartum depression.
“Perfidia anchors this movie,” Taylor says. “We got a boat ride to the middle of the ocean and we gonna anchor this boat, and when we anchor this boat, I’m done.” She turns to Hall. “Then I need you to get on your jet ski and go.”
Taylor loves Perfidia, as do Infiniti and Hall. She’s protective of the character, admitting that, yes, Perfidia is selfish. But also: She has her reasons.
We talked about a scene that Anderson cut from the film featuring Perfidia and Hall’s steadfast Deandra, another member of the French 75. Perfidia calls Deandra from custody, Sean Penn’s Lockjaw lurking in the background, and tells Deandra, “Remember those baby socks I was telling you about? I need you to go out and get them.”
It’s code: Perfidia wants Deandra to make sure that she takes care of her baby, Willa, and get out of town.
“When people have certain opinions of Perfidia, that’s the part of her that they didn’t see,” Taylor says. “People write her off, but she made that phone call.”
“Perfidia and Deandra are best friends,” Hall says. “Watching the movie, you can feel that. But that scene made it clear.”
“But in hindsight,” Taylor says, “artistically that scene would not have made sense. We needed Perfidia to be selfish.”
“She’s not selfish,” Infniti, who plays Willa, interjects. “She was doing the only thing she felt she could do.”
“That’s true,” Taylor replies. “But she’s also selfish. That’s why I think Paul is a f— genius. He is a mad scientist. He really knew what to do with this movie to create a healthy dialogue. He got people talking.”
When I first came to London from Yorkshire in the late 1980s, I found the tube replete with bizarre novelties. Among them was the way most trains required me to sit sideways to the direction of travel, as on a fairground waltzer. Directly opposite me was another person or an empty seat, and while I knew not to stare at people, I did stare at the seats – at their woollen coverings, called moquette. I have since written two books about them, the first nonfiction, Seats of London, and now a crime novel, The Moquette Mystery.
I was attracted to moquette firstly because it, like me, came from Yorkshire (most of it back then was woven in Halifax), and whereas many foreign metros have seats of plastic or steel, moquette made the tube cosy. Yet it seemed underappreciated. The index of the standard history of the tube, for instance, proceeds blithely from Moorgate to Morden.
Barman moquette fabric, featuring London landmarks, on the Northern line. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
A moquette might last a decade or more on a particular vehicle, coinciding with a Londoner’s formative years, the design evoking forever after those tube rides to triumphs and disasters. For generation Z, the resonant one is likely to be Barman, introduced in 2010 to replace a range of moquettes deemed too diffuse. Therefore, our two-hour moquette tour begins on one of the many lines to use Barman: the Northern line, from Leicester Square to Charing Cross.
Barman is named after Christian Barman, publicity officer to Frank Pick who, as vice-chair of London Transport in the 1930s, commissioned the roundel symbol, the tube map, Charles Holden’s subtly modernist station architecture and many posters and moquettes. Barman was designed by Wallace Sewell (Harriet Wallace-Jones and Emma Sewell) and, unusually for moquette, it’s figurative; but it’s also mysterious. The landmarks it depicts seem suffused in a haze of blue rain, and the harder you stare, the more the top of Big Ben becomes Battersea Power Station – and is that Southwark cathedral looming ghostly behind the dome of St Paul’s?
At Charing Cross, we change on to the Bakerloo, which has a darker version of Barman, the same landmarks at night, perhaps.The sombre black, grey and brown colour scheme suits the crepuscular mood of these elderly trains; it is also historically valid. In the early 1920s, the first moquette widely applied on the underground – called Lozenge – was the colour of dried mud, a capitulation to the dirtiness of clothes in those days before widespread dry-cleaning.
A memorial at Piccadilly Circus to Frank Pick, who commissioned many moquettes. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
In the late 1930s, Frank Pick commissioned brighter moquettes from leading textile designers, including Enid Marx and Marion Dorn. He favoured red and green – red symbolising the town, green the country – and he considered green serene. My novel is set in this golden age of the underground, epitomised by the lambent glamour of Piccadilly Circus station concourse, which features a sort of shrine to Pick, showing his watchwords in brass on the marble wall. These range from “Utility” to “Beauty”, and moquette has usually been filed under the first word, but the second applies to the best of it.
We go from Picadilly Circus to Green Park on the Piccadilly line – Barman again, but with a richer blue than on the Northern line. It reflects the line colour and the dark blue of the Underground roundel bar, which a transport designer once described to me as “the reassuring colour of an old-fashioned police lamp”.
At Green Park, we take the Victoria line to Oxford Circus. This unnamed moquette uses multiple V-shapes, evoking she who was not amused. The Vs are white, which shows the dirt, but the radiated light suggests diamond facets and alleviates the claustrophobia of this line which never comes above ground.
At Oxford Circus, we observe some Central line trains, waiting for a lucky break. Most have Barman, but some refurbished trains have a new red, black and grey moquette called Tuppenny, the Central having once been “the Tuppenny Tube”. It is reminiscent of a Central line moquette of the late 80s, my “home” line back then, when the red and black seemed consoling, like a coal fire.
The new Elizabeth line seats have about eight colours. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
I suggested to Paul Marchant, head of product design at Transport for London, that Tuppenny was “retro”. “Yes,” he said, “I was on holiday when it was commissioned!” A joke (I think), but moquette is meant to keep pace with London; it is not supposed to be retro. Currently, only two Central line trains have Tuppenny, so the odds are against our sitting on it while heading west to our next stop, Bond Street.
Here, we board the Elizabeth line for Paddington. Most moquettes have four colours, but on the luxurious, hi-tech Lizzy line, it has about eight. The designers (Wallace Sewell) were briefed to incorporate royal purple, a strident shade unlikely to be “serene” if emphasised. So it’s subsumed here amid others, representing connecting lines and suggesting train movements digitally represented in some futuristic signal box.
At Paddington, we board a Circle or Hammersmith & City line train heading east. We are now on one of the “cut-and-cover” lines just below street level. If you don’t know which lines are sub-surface, the moquette on those trains tells you. The colours of the small rectangles set against a black background denote the Circle, H&C, District and Metropolitan lines.
Moquette cushions at the London Transport Museum. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Moquette has a pile – tufts – that can be left as loops or cut for a more vivid colour and a velvety texture, and this sub-surface one is entirely cut, so it is not as hard-wearing as others. The seats near the doors (the most popular ones) are badly worn, with the backing fabric “grinning through”, to use the technical term. I am assured there are “big plans” to address this.
At King’s Cross we head south on the Piccadilly line to Covent Garden and the London Transport Museum. In the cafe, we sip the museum’s excellent coffee while sitting on seats covered with their own special moquette, which is red and green in homage to Frank Pick. In the museum shop, moquettes past and present are for sale as bags, cushions, pouffes and so on.That Londoners are willing to pay to have a symbol of public transport in their homes is a tribute to the legacy of Pick. As the man himself said: “The quality of our surroundings contributes to the quality of our own lives.”
Andrew Martin’s novel, The Moquette Mystery, is published by Safe Haven. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
No one needs reminding that 2025 began in an L.A. aflame. Musicians didn’t escape the fires, especially in Altadena. Concerts were canceled but then became events of communal healing, a process that continues.
There were further troubling signs. Institutions continued to struggle to bring audiences back to pre-COVID numbers. Major orchestras and opera companies — San Francisco Symphony, Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, among them — feared fraught contract negotiations. Government funding for the arts dried up. Censorship, new to modern America, appeared a threat. And a military presence on downtown L.A. streets made trips to the Music Center and elsewhere in DTLA less inviting.
Our picks for this year’s best in arts and entertainment.
Still, classical music’s survival instincts proved reliable. New leaders of L.A.’s arts institutions are bringing vitality to the region, empowering musicians and giving fans hope and optimism. Here are my Los Angeles classical music highlights of 2025.
Coachella phenom of the year
It has been a year of transition for Gustavo Dudamel. The long “Gracias Gustavo” goodbye to the Los Angeles Philharmonic music and artistic director has begun. For its part, the New York Philharmonic, where Dudamel is headed next season, wonders how it can ever top the L.A. Phil visit to Coachella in April. Pop music crowds, 100,000 strong, shouted, “L.A. Phil! L.A. Phil!” and “Gustavo! Gustavo!” Big cheers rang as well at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl and on an Asia tour, particularly for Dudamel’s increasingly rich Mahler performances. In late winter he led an impressive Mahler Grooves festival; the summer brought an exhilarating performance of Mahler’s First Symphony and the fall an extraordinary Second Symphony.
Gustavo Dudamel onstage April 12 at the 2025 Coachella festival in Indio, where he conducted the L.A. Phil.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Orchestral visionary of the year
In his own transitional year, Esa-Pekka Salonen finished an unhappy five-year tenure as music director of a San Francisco Symphony that foolishly failed to share his vision with a startlingly dramatic Mahler Second — known, tellingly, as “The Resurrection.” That was followed three months later by the L.A. Phil announcing it was all in with its transformative former music director and had created a new position of creative director in which he would rethink the role of the symphony orchestra in society. As a preview, Salonen had conducted a revelatory performance of Pierre Boulez’s “Rituel” in the spring, with the L.A. Phil musicians and L.A. Dance Project dancers spilling around the Disney Hall stage.
Dancers from L.A. Dance Project perform as Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the L.A. Phil in Pierre Boulez’s “Rituel” on May 11 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(David Swanson / For The Times)
L.A. opera director of the year, although you’d never know it in L.A.
Peter Sellars was barely home in 2025, although that is certain to change with the return of Salonen. Among his newsworthy projects in New York, France and Italy, a busy Sellars collaborated with Salonen on an unflinching, intense and unforgettable staging of two end-of-life monologues: Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” and, with yet more Mahler, the end of “Das Lied von der Erde.” On opening night, it left a gala audience stunned.
Former L.A. opera director of the year, although you’d never know it in L.A.
L.A.’s next-generation opera revolutionary, Yuval Sharon, bid his own farewell to the city where he founded the experimental company the Industry, and where he became L.A. Phil’s first artist collaborator. He now serves as artistic director of Detroit Opera and has relocated to New York City as he prepares to mount Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” at the Metropolitan Opera in March. But Sharon carried L.A. with him in 2025 to the University of Chicago, where he delivered the annual Berlin Family Lectures, and in which he considered opera from an anarchistic point of view, inspired by John Cage. He also staged in Chicago Cage’s “Europera 5,” completing a project he had begun in L.A., where, in collaboration with the L.A. Phil,” he had mounted “Europeras 1 & 2” on a Sony Pictures sound stage.
Uncompromising opera administrator of the year
While serving as interim managing director of Long Beach Opera in 2025, board chair Marjorie Beale put her company on the line by boldly devoting the entire season to the open-ended, deep listening music of the late Pauline Oliveros. While Oliveros worked little in opera and never in a remotely traditional manner, Beale felt the spiritual operatic substance of Oliveros’ work was what the company needed and what the world needs. Inspired, unexpected productions by the company’s artistic director and chief creative officer, James Darrah, and conducted by music director Christopher Rountree were staged in operatic byways (parks and the Queen Mary) as ear-opening, mind expanding experiences. It was a sell-out sensation season that may not have paid the bills, requiring some cutting back for next season as the company catches its breath but Beale has shown what it means to stand for something and why Long Beach Opera matters.
Wilding Wild Up
Along with his Long Beach Opera gig, Rountree is founder and music director of Wild Up, the avant-garde chamber orchestra of virtuoso musicians, all of whom happen to be progressive composers as well. For 15 years, Wild Up has been a crucial component in the grander L.A. vision of orchestral, operatic and dance reinvention. This year it found infectious joy in the music of Julius Eastman; it significantly helped the Martha Graham Dance Company remain relevant, and it began new series at the Nimoy in Westwood and Sierra Madre Playhouse.
More Pauline
Claire Chase, who has been one of the most influential instigators of the Pauline Oliveros revival, was this year’s Ojai Festival energizer bunny. Her flutes — from piccolo to bass and all in between — and friends became magic makers in this numinous physical and musical landscape. Oliveros’ deep listening and that of other composers of her environmental ilk, particularly the atmospherically ethereal sound worlds of Annea Lockwood, were made for Ojai.
Mark Morris Dance Group performs the world premiere of “Moon” at the Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater on April 4.
(ximena brunette / xmbphotography)
Saving the Kennedy Center (for a couple of days, anyway)
Choreographer Mark Morris staved off the federal government’s arts wrecking ball by salvaging his latest work, “Moon,” a commission for the Kennedy Center’s Earth to Space festival in April. The institution’s dance team hadn’t yet been fired. And Morris displayed, in this marvelous outer-space dance adventure, that wonder could exist in what had become the most unlikely of places.
Handel Heroine
French harpsichordist and conductor, Emmanuelle Haïm, the latest L.A. Phil artist collaborator, began a three-year Handel festival with a dazzlingly sung and played performance of the oratorio “Triumph of Time and Disillusion.” This study of extravagance and sanctity made Handel seem utterly relevant in his attempt to thwart early 18th century censorship and say something important.
Mehta and MTT
There are no words for what Zubin Mehta and Michael Tilson Thomas have meant for L.A. over the past three-quarters of a century. Native Angeleno and former music director of the San Francisco Symphony, MTT, who suffers from glioblastoma, retired from conducting with an 80th birthday celebration, hosted by the San Francisco Symphony, in a profoundly moving and musically fulfilling exhibition of valedictory resilience. Although Mehta, the L.A. Phil’s 89-year-old conductor emeritus, has canceled concerts that require travel, he took on Bruckner’s massive Eight Symphony with his old band. His movements are limited. He reportedly has difficulty with vision and hearing. Beyond all that, though, an orchestra that knows and loves him brought into existence, especially in the slow movement, an inner Mehta vista that felt like a world unto itself.
Frank Gehry, who died Friday at 96, challenged the notion that buildings needed to behave themselves — creating artful, strange, kinetic combinations of structure, material, form and light, and transforming cities in the process. Here are 10 of his most famous structures that pushed the boundaries of architecture, culture, taste and technology.
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, 1997
Curves and angles mix in this section of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao.
(Javier Bauluz / Associated Press)
While only one piece of a much larger urban transformation, this uproarious structure, perched at the edge of the Basque city’s industrial waterfront, utterly transformed its image, giving birth to the overused phrase “Bilbao Effect.” Its curving, ever-changing titanium facade — with offset panels catching the light and wowing millions of visitors — became a symbol of a new era of baroque, digitally-driven architecture. (Gehry and his team worked with CATIA, a software formerly employed by aircraft designers.) Inside, a dizzying atrium ties together a fluid series of galleries, all sized for contemporary art’s expanding scale. “I didn’t mean to change the city, I just meant to be part of the city,” Gehry told the design magazine Dezeen in 2021. The project would achieve the former, and transform the field of architecture in the process.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, 2003
The Walt Disney Concert Hall is a visual anchor in downtown Los Angeles.
(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Dreamed up by Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, in 1987, the project wouldn’t be completed until 2003. But it was worth the wait. Now the cultural and visual anchor of downtown Los Angeles, Disney’s riot of steel sails reflect rippling waves of music, Gehry’s love of sailing, fish scales and other nautical themes, and the frenetic city around it. Inside, the boat-like, wood-clad hall has an intimate, vineyard-style seating arrangement, with its superb acoustics shaped by Yasuhisa Toyota. Don’t forget the 6,134-pipe organ, which resembles a box of exploding French fries. Lillian Disney, a connoisseur of flowers, would die before the hall was finished, but its hidden rear garden is centered around the “Rose for Lilly” fountain, composed of thousands of broken blue and white Delft china pieces.
Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2014
The “Fondation Louis Vuitton” has 3,600 glass panels that form its 12 sails.
(Frederic Soltan / Corbis via Getty Images)
Commissioned by LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault, the Fondation Louis Vuitton, set in Paris’ Bois de Boulogne, is wrapped in 12 massive, curved glass sails, hovering above a white concrete “iceberg.” The museum’s billowing forms, which help lighten its considerable scale, were realized via head-spinning structural complexity: None of its 3,600 glass panels are the same, while each timber and steel supporting beam is curved uniquely. Inside and out, Gehry orchestrates a meandering gallery of paths and multistory overlooks that frame both art and landscape. While marooned on Paris’ western edge, the spectacular building has nonetheless become a cultural icon in a city where that’s very hard to achieve.
Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1989
Frank Gehry’s Vitra Design Museum helped inspire other inventive buildings on the campus.
(Education Images / Universal Images Group via Getty)
While tame in comparison to his later work, Vitra marked Gehry’s transition from rough-edged, industrial bricolage to sculptural spectacle. Its tumble of white plaster forms — cubes, cylinders, sweeping curves — seem to freeze mid-collision, as if the gallery had been torn apart by seismic forces. (Just a year before, Gehry had been included in MoMA’s “Deconstructivist Architecture” exhibition, but he always rejected that label.) The structure also helped launch a string of impressive experiments on the Vitra campus, including buildings by Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Nicholas Grimshaw, Álvaro Siza, Herzog & de Meuron and more.
8 Spruce (formerly New York by Gehry), New York, 2011
8 Spruce in Manhattan has 76 stories.
(Don Emmert / AFP via Getty Images)
Gehry’s first skyscraper, 8 Spruce, reimagined the Manhattan high-rise as a kind of gleaming, pleated fabric, its shifted stainless steel panels rippling downward, catching daylight in a constantly shifting display. A buff brick base contains a public school and retail frontages, activating the street and helping establish the financial district as a legit residential neighborhood. Inside, apartments are far more rational, organized around generous windows that frame the city. Only 30 of the building’s 76 floors had been constructed when the Great Recession hit. For a time, the developer, Forest City Ratner, considered cutting the building’s height in half. But by 2010, the structure was back on.
Dancing House (Fred and Ginger), Prague, 1996
The Dancing House stands out amid Prague’s 19th century facades.
(Insights / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Designed with Czech architect Vlado Milunić, the building — a major step forward for Gehry, who increasingly dabbled in digital design — pits a leaning glass tower against an upright, solid partner, creating a kinetic duet that instantly earned the nickname “Fred and Ginger.” The complex’s opaque tower is clad in cream-colored concrete panels, stepping rhythmically with protruding windows that drift off-center. Its frenetic steel-ribboned crown, which stands out amid 19th century facades along Prague’s Vltava River, is nicknamed “Medusa.” The glass tower — emerging from a cluster of angled columns — cinches inward at its waist, bulging outward again as it rises, like a figure leaning into a twirl. Traditionalists panned the project when it first opened, but it’s now core to the city’s identity.
Stata Center, Cambridge, Mass., 2004
The Ray and Maria Stata Center on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stands out for its form — and the lawsuit the university filed over leaks and cracks, which was settled amicably.
(Steven Senne / AP)
The Stata Center tilts, twists and fractures, its brick towers — referencing traditional Cambridge architecture — leaning into planes of glass, mirrored steel, aluminum, titanium, corrugated metal and plywood. The village-like building’s spatial looseness was part of a concerted effort to encourage chance encounters and interdisciplinary exchange at the school. The fragmented forecourt echoes the building around it, with skewed paving patterns, angled retaining walls and unpredictable sight lines. In 2007, MIT filed suit against Gehry’s firm and the general contractor Skanska USA, alleging persistent leaks, cracking masonry, poor drainage and sections where ice and snow slid off the building. The lawsuit was “amicably resolved” in 2010, but it represented one of several instances in which Gehry’s ambition would butt up against practical realities.
Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, 1993
The Weisman Art Museum.
(Raymond Boyd / Getty Images)
Perched on a bluff above the Mississippi River at the University of Minnesota, the museum was a trial run for Bilbao and Disney, without the help of advanced digital tools. Its stainless steel facade unfurls toward the river in faceted, reflective forms that contrast with the building’s campus-facing facade, a series of various-sized cubes wrapped in earth-toned brick, matching the rest of campus. Inside, a series of flexible galleries support changing exhibitions. The museum is named for Frederick R. Weisman, a Minneapolis-born entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist who broke sharply with conventional wisdom to support a Gehry-designed building that would loudly announce the arts and become an artwork in its own right.
Jay Pritzker Pavilion, Chicago, 2004
The Jay Pritzker Pavilion stands out in the center of Millennium Park. The main stage can accommodate a full orchestra and 150-person chorus.
(Andia / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The centerpiece of Chicago’s wildly successful Millennium Park, the bandshell’s billowing 120-foot proscenium, supported by a web of aluminum arms, is fronted by dozens of torqued stainless steel ribbons, which exuberantly frame the stage. The ribbons connect to an overhead trellis of crossed still pipes that house lights and speakers, while the stage itself is sheathed in warm Douglas fir, and includes a colorful light projection system (first planned for Disney Hall, but scuttled for budget reasons) that transforms the pavilion’s face. Seating 4,000, the Pritzker envelops a “Great Lawn,” with room for another 7,000.
DZ Bank Building, Berlin, 2000
Curves abound in the DZ Bank Building.
(Henri-Alain Segalen/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
A stone’s throw from the Brandenburg Gate, DZ’s stone facade aligns seamlessly with its blocky neighbors on Pariser Platz, providing little hint of its shocking interior. A curved stainless steel conference hall, clad inside with a riot of warm wood panels, resembles an angry sea creature, its humpbacks, saddles, bulges, tucks and pinches creating one of the most kinetic building forms this author has ever seen. The piece dominates a soaring atrium, capped with a curved, crystalline glass roof. Locals nicknamed the split-personality building the “Whale at the Brandenburg Gate.” It remains one of the architect’s most underrated masterpieces.
The Santa Maria di Missione chapel in Villafranca Piemonte, northern Italy, stands at the end of a long cornfield. Behind it, the mountains rise gently, their outlines caressed by the sun. The colours of autumn frame the 15th-century frescoes that embellish the structure’s interior, painted by Italian artist Aimone Duce, of the Lombard school. The chapel is the municipality’s oldest religious building, serving about 4,000 inhabitants, and stands on the site of a pre-existing building dating back to 1037.
Inside the small chapel, my footsteps echo softly against the walls, breaking the stillness of the surrounding countryside. The sharp scent of plaster mingles with the earthy smell of the fields outside, carried in on the wind along with the sweetness of wheat. Light filters through the narrow windows, catching the vivid hues of a fresco that depicts the seven deadly sins – a theme often revisited in medieval iconography.
My eye is drawn to the back wall, where the Deposition (Christ being taken down from the cross) unfolds above the altar and, higher up, the Annunciation appears in delicate contrast. Together, the frescoes meditate on human nature, its vices, frailty and moral struggle. For this reason, the chapel is regarded as one of the finest examples of the Italian international gothic style.
Santa Maria di Missione is part of an open culture circuit, the Cultura a Porte Aperte, a system created by the Council for Ecclesiastical Cultural Heritage of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta, and the Fondazione CRT. The goal is to make sacred art accessible through a free app. Once it is downloaded, visitors can book and visit the various churches registered in the system via smartphone, opening the door with a simple QR code near the main entrance.
More than 70 churches and chapels have been made accessible through the project, and on entering them visitors can activate a multimedia narrative system: a story available in three languages, that provides historical and artistic information about the structure, accompanied by music and directional lighting.
“I am particularly struck by the more isolated chapels, located in fields or on the edge of a forest,” says Monsignor Derio Olivero, the bishop of Pinerolo, a small town 25 miles (40km) south-west of Turin. “Many are in meadows or among vineyards – a paradise of silence and beauty. For the faithful in the area, the project offers the chance to find a ‘private chapel’ where they can occasionally take refuge. The same is true for non-believers, who can experience it as a place to nurture their spirituality,” he adds.
The historic centre of Pinerolo, a municipality in Turin. Photograph: Framarzo/Alamy
Cultura a Porte Aperte allows visitors to explore the churches independently and freely throughout the year. The organisers have arranged the sites into six itineraries in different regions: Langhe and Roero; Monregalese; Colline Torinesi and Monferrato; Pinerolese and Saluzzese; Canavese and Valle d’Aosta-Via Francigena; Val di Susa-Via Francigena. Olivero says that the intention is to extend the project across Italy, with Lombardy already on board. “We are in contact with Lazio. I think about the impact the project could have when there are 700, or even 1,000 churches.”
He explains that the initiative drives regional tourism, attracting local and international visitors. “As a young priest, I was fascinated by small churches; they are rich in 15th-century frescoes, but sometimes abandoned and were almost always closed. Sometimes I would set off to visit them, and the challenge was to find the key, spending hours searching for it.”
When I reach the small Piedmontese town of Lusernetta, I find the chapel of San Bernardino da Siena. Built between 1450 and 1520, it is dedicated to Saint Bernardino, who in 1425 travelled to the Lucerne valleys to convert the Waldensians – a proto-Protestantism community known for its strict adherence to the Bible. The simple interior features a series of frescoes by an anonymous painter known as the “maestro di Lusernetta”. But the Madonna of Mercy and Child by Jacopino Longo on the left wall of the nave stands out: the Madonna, sitting on her throne, shelters the family of the Counts of Luserna di Rorà – who commissioned the work – under her blue mantle.
Frescoes by Bartolomeo Serra in the chapel of the Santa Lucia delle Vigne, Pinerolo. Photograph: Lavinia Nocelli
These small churches are maintained by parish volunteers. “These are spaces that promote slow tourism, enabling visitors to discover the area, often through word of mouth,” says Luigi Capello, the head of the local parish youth group and coordinator of pastoral activities. “This project allows us to accompany schools, communities and care homes on visits. But we must not forget the importance of human contact. People can visit the churches independently, yet most of those who return ask to meet one of the volunteers – to hear the story in person.”
The streets of the historic centre of Pinerolo, a municipality in Turin, are enriched by the aromas of bakeries and florists. Inside the cafes, people quickly exchange a greeting, grab an espresso, and leave. Just off the main street is the chapel of Santa Lucia delle Vigne, surrounded by vineyards. Inside are frescoes painted in the 15th century by Bartolomeo Serra and his workshop, depicting four episodes from the saint’s life. Six small wooden cubes serve as benches inside: dim light enters through the window, illuminating Saint Lucia’s face, which looks at the viewer from every side of the nave. The silence is broken only by the narrator’s voice describing the painted scenes. “It’s almost like talking directly to the painter,” says Roberto Billia, a volunteer. “When the door opens, like a miracle, the lights come on and the recording starts. It’s magnificent.”
