As the film industry geared up to celebrate the 76th Annual Academy Awards, I coincidentally found myself in the Fashion District/Santee Alley area Sunday afternoon... where the place was crawling with more bootleg DVD sellers than I'd ever seen.
As Maria bought some fabric, I walked up and down the streets -- and this time, unlike my last experience downtown (in which vendors quickly covered their wares when I approached), I had no problem getting a close up view of the DVDs.
Perhaps bootleg DVD vendors figured the MPAA goons were too busy worrying about what was going down at Hollywood and Highland, because they showed no fear today. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk and attracting large crowds, the bootleggers opened up their boxes and showcased stacks of copies of "The Passion of the Christ," "Starsky and Hutch," "50 First Dates," "Eurotrip," and several others.
"Passion of the Christ," as you might imagine, appeared to be the hot seller on the streets of Downtown Los Angeles. (Don't worry, Franklin Avenue kept it clean. I'm just not sure I wanna plunk down $5 without inspecting the quality of the DVDs.)
Meanwhile, fake DVDs and mixed reviews aside, the public satisfied its curiosity about Mel Gibson's passion project by lining in droves to see "Passion of the Christ." According to Variety, the pic pulled an extraordinary $76.3 million at the box office this weekend.
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