Joyful Things: I Love L.A. Edition
It's been a tough week for my former home, the City of Angels so let's find a little happy!
I lived in Los Angeles for a total of 25 years and while I experienced my share of earthquakes, wind storms and the occasional fire in that time, I never thought it could get as bad as it was this past week with the fires raging in the Pacific Palisades and other parts of the city. And it still isn’t completely over.
Throughout this week, I’ve been traveling from my home in Bangkok to Tokyo to Hawaii and I’ve been watching from afar knowing I should write something, post something, and at least try to make sense of it all. I also turned another year older this week but it just didn’t seem important to muse about another turn around the sun for me. This week wasn’t about me, for sure.
Instead, I’m turning to my Joyful Things series of posts with an edition devoted to some of my favorite TV, film and songs about the City of Angels. [Some videos may not be available outside the United States.]
From the 2016 movie starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling (who don’t appear in this clip), here’s the wonderful opening, choreographed by Mandy Moore:
I love a good opening title sequence for a TV so imagine my glee when I found Paramount + had a YouTube video with all the various opening credits for the original Beverly Hills 90210. You’re welcome.
Funny that the 1950 film Sunset Boulevard, which features faded Hollywood star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), is still going strong on Broadway with Nicole Scherzinger wowing them in the musical revival that was first a hit on the West End (where I saw it in 2023 and it was AMAZING). Here’s the trailer for the original film with a story that’s still being told.
With references about Santa Monica Boulevard and giving an L.A. vibe in the lyrics, here’s Sheryl Crow’s first big hit, “All I Wanna Do”:
To close, I’ll leave it to Randy Newman and his iconic love song to L.A….
I hope this little escape helped! Do you have an L.A. based song or movie/TV clip? Share it in the comments!
Need more Joyful Things? Enjoy the initial post and the follow-up post for more joy!
Until next time…