Los Angeles is a unique city. It’s filled with cultures of all types and has been a very popular location for so long that many people have accepted it’s many different ups and downs. Being such a big city it definitely has its charm, but there are factors that serve as detractors as well. A place this big is bound to have a few issues now and again, and LA has had more than it’s fair share of problems in the past. Overall though it is a city of wonders and a place where many people come to make their fortune and become known.
Here are just a few movies that show the different sides of LA culture.
5. LA Story
LA is kind of a quirky town. Art is different, the style of everything is different in a way that people that don’t live there just can’t understand. The social scene is also very different than most other cities, in some cases it can be highly confusing considering that some parts of the city are very fast paced and others tend to go at a much more laid back and relaxed clip than what is deemed normal. It’s a city where you can find nearly every aspect of life represented in a wonderful hodgepodge of culture.
4. Chinatown
There’s a seedier part to the LA as well, and much of it seems to have to do with law enforcement and private detectives, or so this film seems to show. People tend to be a little more paranoid, a little more suspect, and a lot less trustworthy. Even in the 1930’s it seems like the city was based upon a certain level of mistrust that was in itself another layer of the city that laid a foundation for future generations.
3. Boys In the Hood
LA has a very dark and unwelcoming side as well. Where the glitz and glamour doesn’t reach you can see a great deal of poverty and decay that seems to have little to nothing to do with the more well to do aspects of the city. People die at the hands of one another so often in South Central LA that it has during the past several generations become a normal part of every day. Whether it’s gentrification or something else, the problem has yet to be fully solved, and might not be in our generation.
2. Training Day
The LAPD are still among some of the most hated police officers in the entire nation. Despite the cessation of the Rodney King affair they have maintained their overall poor reputation despite the brave men and women that continue to try and make a difference. While cops like Alonzo are not the norm there are enough of them that they tend to make it that much harder to attain the necessary equilibrium that a city needs to thrive in all areas.
1. Collateral
Big cities all seem to suffer this one drawback. People have seen so much that they’ve become desensitized to violence, and as a result don’t always react as most of us might in a similar situation. A man sits on a train making its way through LA, a gunshot wound to his belly. He rolls through several stops without anyone noticing him. Is this a movie, or is it reality?
LA culture is not all glitz and glam, but it’s not all doom and gloom either. It’s a very rich, diverse city that offers a veritable foundation of differences that continues to run the city in the current day.
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