The first time Maria Grazia Chiuri came to California she was 22 years old — on a road trip with her husband just after they were married. They drove to San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Grand Canyon. “Many, many kilometers together,” she said at the Andaz Hotel in West Hollywood during an interview ahead of her 2018 Dior cruise show Thursday night in Los Angeles. “The USA is an amazing country if you go around in car, and not only arrive in New York or L.A. or the city. If you have time in the car, it’s unbelievable.”
To see the full run of show, click here.
The local landscape — ocean, desert, mountains — was what Chiuri wanted to highlight when she chose the Santa Monica Mountains at the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve in Calabasas, Calif. — for her first big destination event and experience.
Dior is not the first luxury brand to touch down in L.A. for a show, with Hollywood glamour, celebrity and the red carpet as the default reference, but Chiuri wanted to draw out a different side of the city. “I think the natural element is very strong,” she said. “I think people choose to live here because
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A number of brand signatories of the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh are negotiating with global union federation signatories about a possible extension and potential broadening of the group’s scope.
Superdry brand owner SuperGroup has offered an optimistic outlook for the new fiscal year and booked a jump in full-year sales thanks to currency fluctuations.
Mexico has emphasised the country’s “critical importance” to the US economy as it pitched to President Donald Trump this week to uphold the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) pact.
So, when “Snatched” screenwriter Katie Dippold and her mom were abducted in South America …
“Y’know, I sat on it for a while,” says a playing-along Dippold. “I thought, ‘I don’t know if this is cinematic.’ No, my mother and I did not get kidnapped in a jungle.”
That said, the Upright Citizens Brigade-trained writer of “The Heat” and last year’s “Ghostbusters” reboot, as well as “Parks and Recreation” and “Madtv” on the small screen, drew many of the underlying character issues in her raucous Amy Schumer/Goldie Hawn-starring action comedy from her own New Jersey past.In the film, which was directed in Hawaii by Jonathan Levine (“50/50,” “The Night Before”), Schumer’s Emily Middleton finds herself stuck with two non-refundable tickets to Ecuador when her musician boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her on the eve of their vacation. Retreating to the home of her rarely visited mother Linda (Hawn, in her first movie since 2002’s “The Banger Sisters”), Emily is saddened to find the once fun-loving woman leading a drab and somewhat fear-governed life.
In the film, which was directed in Hawaii by Jonathan Levine (“50/50,” “The Night Before”), Schumer’s Emily Middleton finds herself stuck with two non-refundable tickets to Ecuador when her musician boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her on the eve of their vacation. Retreating to the home of her rarely visited mother Linda (Hawn, in her first movie since 2002’s “The Banger Sisters”), Emily is saddened to find the once fun-loving woman leading a drab and somewhat fear-governed life.
Eager to bring Mom out of her shell, but mostly so her vacation investment won’t go to waste, Emily persuades the reluctant Linda to join her in paradise. Where the pair are promptly kidnapped for ransom, escape into the mountains and, amid much cussing and a few unintended killings, come to a new understanding of each other.
“The reason for the movie, for me, was more wish-fulfillment,” Dippold explains. “My parents got divorced when I was in college. It was a very friendly divorce, but I noticed that my mom, who was always really adventurous and fun and kind of fearless when I was a kid, something had shifted in her. She just became more cautious and cynical and a little bit more negative about things; it was like she was always expecting to be disappointed by someone or something.”
Maybe including her Rutgers graduate daughter, who was consumed with establishing her own life at the time.
“I was in my 20s, and I didn’t have the wisdom — I hadn’t been through therapy yet — to understand what was going on with her,” Dippold admits. “I was so focused on my temp job and my improv shows, I was like ‘Oh, Mom seems sad.’ That was all I could really offer.”
Dippold’s “Snatched” script might compensate a little. She reports her mother was pleased by a gag based on their own family cat, and, of course, was a bit more duly impressed that comedy legend and Oscar-winning actress Hawn was playing a character inspired by her.
“My whole family has loved Goldie Hawn since the beginning of time,” Dippold says of the “Private Benjamin,” “Shampoo,” “First Wives Club,” “Laugh-In” and so much more icon. “I think Mom’s mind is still kind of blown about the whole thing.”
While Dippold stops short of describing Emily as semi-autobiographically based, she was nonetheless super pleased when the red-hot Schumer came onto the project, not only as star, but also executive producer with her sister and writing partner, Kim Caramele. That team did a pass on the script during development, which Dippold describes as a collaborative process.
What certainly seems unmistakably Katie about “Snatched,” though, is how Emily can sometimes be as dangerous as she is uncensored.
“I think I’m naturally kind of a mild-mannered, gentle person,” says the creator of some of Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon’s most formidable roles. “I swear a lot, but my general way is pretty mild-mannered. It makes me sad that I grew up watching a lot of movies where the guys did these amazing, crazy things and I didn’t see a lot of that for women.
“I just wish I’d grown up seeing more of an aggressive type of woman, and I guess it’s a part of me that always wishes I was a little more confident and aggressive in real life,” she adds regarding her creative outlet. “So what I really wanted to try was something I hadn’t seen before, an R-rated mother-daughter movie. That was exciting, so I just pushed myself to go for things harder. I was sure there were going to be moments and scenes that an actress wouldn’t want to do, but Amy was the opposite. She just embraced it and then pushed it further.”
Like Schumer, Dippold is also no stranger to the comedy of painful embarrassment. Back when she was the hot new Hollywood commodity for her hit “Heat” spec script, there was little opportunity to bask in the buzz.
“In 2013, just so you know, I was so stressed out about ‘The Heat’ coming out that I ground my teeth so hard that a tooth died right before the premiere,” she reveals. “It was so painful, then it went away. But there was a little piece of my face, right below my nose, that I always noticed felt tender and weird if I pushed on it. Then just last year I went to a specialist who found that the tooth did die and had caused a massive infection, contained in that one spot of my face.
“So right before ‘Ghostbusters’ came out, I had to have surgery where they went in through the gums to clear it out. It was a whole ordeal, and it was disgusting and horrible. So I haven’t really spent too much time feeling so pleased with myself.”
Silver lining? At least Dippold had that distraction when the all-female “Ghostbusters” reboot came under attack by insecure male internet trolls and didn’t do the amount of business that had been hoped.
“Ironically, the way that I describe myself as a successful person is that I weirdly feel Zen about that experience,” she confesses, laughing. “The thing is, when you get that many comments, and you see that much of that kind of thing, for a neurotic person there’s a certain limit of hurt. And it’s freeing in a way. I’m working on a script right now, and for the first time I’m not thinking about what I should write and what people would want. I feel more focused on what I want to do and write, because it’s very hard to please everyone.”
Dippold wouldn’t say what her next project is about, though.
“I can’t, but honestly, mostly because if I heard disappointment in your voice, I would throw my computer out,” she cracks.
Anyway, she’s happy enough that her mom was moved by “Snatched.” Katie has more big plans for her, too.
“I’m gonna take her to Amsterdam in August,” Dippold says.
That ought to be an adventure. Just stay out of those … Oh, on second thought, hit some of those places. There may be another screenplay in it.
A flute player entertains at a food festival in New Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
A tiger walks in the late afternoon sun at Ranthambore National Park. (Courtesy George Ray)
Women at the morning bathing ritual in Varanasi – Ganges River. (Courtesy George Ray)
Sunrise along the Ganges. (Courtesy George Ray)
Tomb of Humayan from the lawn – New Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
Street scene in Old Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
A woman spools thread at the Carpet Factory in Jaipur. (Courtesy George Ray)
Evening ceremony on the Ganges with the cremation of the dead. (Courtesy George Ray)
Umbrella decorations line the entrance to the auto show at a hotel in Jaipur. (Courtesy George Ray)
Shot of the Taj, late afternoon, from the gardens across the river. (Courtesy George Ray)
A bird cleans the ear of a deer at Ranthambore National Park. (Courtesy George Ray)
Cycle taxi on a side street in Old Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
A woman sells fruit near Connaught Place, New Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
Early morning prayer group at the Ganges river. (Courtesy George Ray)
Two cows coming to blows at an intersection in Varanasi. (Courtesy George Ray)
A Black faced monkey with baby feeds with the group at Ranthambore National Park. (Courtesy George Ray)
Morning prayer ceremony on the banks of the Ganges River. (Courtesy George Ray)
Wiring on a side street in Old Delhi. (Courtesy George Ray)
Shot of the the Taj from the reflecting pool. (Courtesy George Ray)
Symbols painted on the steps of a Ghat in Varanasi on the Ganges. (Courtesy George Ray)
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Before traveling to India, I realized what I knew about the country pretty much boiled down to this: the Taj Mahal. Elephants. Garlic naan.
All the more reason to travel 13½ time zones, mingle amid one-sixth of the world’s population and learn about a belief system, art, religions, languages and traditions built on Eastern thought.
The payoffs in our travels to cities and rural areas were tremendous, though this is a journey perhaps not for everyone.
A lot of areas of India’s cities looked like this: dirt sidewalks; rambling shops in broken-down structures selling mysterious items; rickety buildings; families living in open-air dwellings (or just in the open air); bustling or dead-stop, lane-free roads; litter strewn in most gutters. Add women wearing the brightest palette of saris; men convening in front of storefronts, perhaps doing business, perhaps just chatting, occasionally
getting haircuts from a makeshift outdoor barber. Life courses on a human scale here, available to travelers to either see or experience. Interactions with people shift from “why?” to “wow!” Beyond friendliness and outright curiosity, Indians we met – even in the bleakest of conditions – were open to interaction.
India is a complex country full of contradictions and complications a western tourist can’t begin to understand in a trip. But after nearly three weeks in the north of India, and a few more weeks to think about it at home, here are some takeaways.
See the Taj Mahal but don’t miss its ancestor
If you are going to northern India, the fabled Taj Mahal in Agra is probably at the top of your bucket list. An average of 77,000 people daily visit the tomb, considered one of the world’s seven modern wonders.
And it is probably wise to come sooner rather than later: The buzz among tour guides onsite is that within a couple years, due to security concerns and wear and tear, visitors won’t be allowed up onto the broad marble platform that circles the outside perimeter of the Taj, nor to enter the tomb itself.
Millions of words praising the exquisite structure exist; here are just a few more about what surprised/delighted me:
The tomb and its manicured setting are, indeed, visually breathtaking, but what I hadn’t quite expected were the serenity and grace of a place that millions of photos don’t quite convey. There is not just shock and recognition of entering the gates and being walloped with an “aha” OMG moment, but a peaceful grandeur makes you want to linger a bit, at a distance, drinking it in.
Inside the circular, small internal tomb, the marble and the vaulted ceiling cause visitor voices to merge into not a roar but a steady, collective murmur. It’s a stirring, unique sound, almost like the chanted – and enchanting – echoes of millions over time who have come here.
Equally significant and satisfying as the Taj, I would suggest, is that any time spent in Delhi should include visiting Humayun’s Tomb.
This structure and immaculate grounds are no secret, but not as well known to westerners. A serene compound in crowded Delhi, it predates the Taj Mahal by 66 years and inspired the design of the latter.
Humayun’s Tomb was built by his widow in 1565 to celebrate the dead Mogul emperor (his fall from a height the result, according to many reports, of stumbling around in the dark in an opium fog). In this period, marble was not in use. Instead, red sandstone dominates, and the dome and exterior here are dominated by ochre, with cream-colored stones as framing devices. Also, in the interior, exquisite stone trellis works let light and air enter.
As with the Taj, Humayun’s Tomb sits in a wonderful park setting with a number of smaller, interesting tombs flanking it … if you have a free lunch hour, take a picnic.
You’ll never forget a rickshaw ride through Chandni Chowk. The old-fashioned and occasionally culturally questionable thought of a young man pedaling passengers on a rickshaw ride sounds more like the Far East of the past than South Asia of the present, but this slow-speed passage through the tight warrens of old Delhi, choked with small businesses, gives claustrophobia a good name.
Being maneuvered through the press of humanity going in and out of small businesses – close-up looks at the hundreds of book stalls and then the wedding-sari vendors quarters are astonishing – conveys an immediate sense of what living in close quarters with 1.25 billion people in a single country can feel like.
Take in the wildlife
Absolutely plan to go on a tiger hunt: While the animals usually associated with India are elephants and cows – more about them below – tigers in the wild were a big lure on our trip.
At the end of 2016, an ever-changing population estimate – poaching casts its dark shadow – found 3,890 tigers loose in the world. The Indian government is aggressively expanding protection efforts – the country spends an estimated $30 million a year on the effort – and 70 percent of the world’s tigers are found here, mostly in 49 reserves dotting the countryside.
About 110 miles southeast of Jaipur sits Ranthambore National Park, a 243-square mile savannah with several fresh water sources and many species of hoofed animals that are the tiger’s preferred meal. It’s an easily accessed destination.
Modern tiger hunts are about shooting photos, not animals. Early mornings and midafternoons at Ranthambore see a restricted number of open-air vehicles shuttling tourists into the park to jounce along five dusty trail routes, each stretching a few miles.
The three- to four-hour treks are mostly leisurely. Three separate trips included sightings of an elusive panther, dozing crocodiles and grub-eating sloth bears; water birds, wild boar, entertaining monkeys and various kinds of deer everywhere. But in an instant, and you never knew when, this could be punctuated by a spike of adrenalin with the hoarse shout from a guide: “Tiger!”
Our party hit the jackpot on one excursion: three adult tigers seen, including a female. They were captivating, powerfully built and colorfully designed, with the briefest glint of a yellow-eyed stare. Even seen from a distance through binoculars, they sent an instinctive shudder along my spine.
But the pursuit of our prey was also a thrill. Once a tiger was spotted, the vehicles would swarm like bees, jockeying for the best photo opportunities. Tigers here are accustomed to the cars and ignore them, padding purposefully along while we careened after.
Against the scenic backdrop of old Indian fortresses nearby and 19th century stone gates, the exhilarating experience was a real, amped and far less safe upgrade on the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland.
And good luck NOT seeing other animals in town: The most startling part of seeing animals in India is that you see them not just in the wild, but often as close as the nearest road median.
Driving from Delhi’s international airport to our hotel late on a Sunday night, I gleefully spotted a dressed-to-the-nines, complete with flowery plume, “wedding pony” that was being trotted on a leash behind two teens on a motorcycle, slowly weaving around and through 5 to 10 mph traffic.
A couple mornings later, the wildlife was a bit more exotic, with mangy monkeys, several wild pigs and a few deer milling around companionably near a random bus stop in central Delhi (population about 21.2 million).
On the outskirts of Jaipur’s Pink City, an elephant trudged along a paved highway into town, carrying its mahout – minder – and a huge stack of grain on its flanks. Later, at the Amber Fort in the hills above town, a parade of about 30 pachyderms, painted in a riotous palette of pastels, carried trusting tourists (perhaps too trusting … we saw a spill with the passengers knocked to the ground and no likely insurance agents nearby for filing a claim).
Camels drawing work carts were a surprise, spotted by the dozens in both towns and the arid countryside. In the country, wild peacocks – the national bird of India – provided wake-up calls outside your window, piercing shrieks at dawn.
And, yes, sacred to Hindus, there were the cows, seen almost everywhere in the major towns (except Delhi, where they are moved to the suburbs), lying placidly in front of busy shop fronts, wandering obliviously through the most crowded intersections, nosing through rubbish-filled gutters. After the initial interest in spotting our first in-town bovines, a member of our tour party joked about hoping for a street scene photo without a cow. Hindus of even modest economic success achieve status for being able to afford a “family” cow, and while many of these are tethered for milking, cows past their prime roam around at random.
Next to cows, stray dogs and pigs seem to prosper in India. Certainly, dogs flourish: estimates run to more than 30 million strays in India. Perhaps that’s why, in my 18 days on the ground, I saw only a single feral cat.
Be a wedding crasher
Spy on any wedding: Whenever, wherever you stumble across a wedding procession, or a wedding party, take a moment to gawk. Even by the riotous standards of hot colors on display in India, the excess on display – Indian weddings, most of which are arranged, rather than love matches, and often last six days and take the participants decades to pay off – is hugely rewarding.
Prepare for an unsettling image
The first swastika I saw was on an election poster in Delhi. It had a number of black crosses framing mug shots of a dozen or so jolly and jowly local alderman up for re-election.
Intellectually, I knew that this symbol of Nazi menace – adopted by a party member vote in Germany in the early 1920s – is predated by several thousand years of use in India. The image has long existed as a symbol of good fortune, the word “swastika” deriving from the ancient Sanskrit of “su,” meaning “well,” and “asti,” meaning “being.”
Still, the jarring sensation never quite went away as one encountered them everywhere: etched into bumpers of trucks lumbering along highways; a small one carved into a paving stone at an ancient structure flanking the Taj Mahal; a massive one painted onto the steps fronting a temple on the Ganges River.
During that first sighting in Delhi, the election poster invited, in English, everyone to “join the Swastikus party.”
Thanks, but seen through my western eyes, I’ll pass.
A 48-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of robbing two banks one after the other in Tustin on Tuesday, May 9, police said.
Tustin police said Robert Peter Thomas walked into a Citibank on Irvine Boulevard and Holt Avenue and handed the teller a note demanding money. The teller didn’t give him any money, and he left. Employees called police shortly after 3 p.m. to report the crime, and they found someone matching Thomas’ description near the bank, said Lt. Robert Wright.
Officers stopped the man to investigate if he was the suspect. While they were talking to the man, the department got a call from Bank of the West around the corner on First Street and Newport Avenue reporting it had been robbed earlier.
Witnesses from both banks identified Thomas. Though no money was taken from the Citibank robbery, an undisclosed amount of cash was taken from Bank of the West.
Thomas, whose last known city of residence is San Francisco, was arrested.
