A suspicious package was found on the train tracks of the Hollywood Metro Station on Friday, a little more than two weeks before A-listers grace the nearby Dolby Theatre for the Academy Awards.
The package was deemed safe by bomb experts on the field at about 6:45 p.m., a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed People magazine.
The spokesman said a black backpack was reported leaning on the train tracks of the Hollywood/Highland station, which lies directly underneath the busy Hollywood landmark. The El Captain Theatre and TCL Chinese Theatre were also evacuated as a result of the bomb scare, the spokesman said. The metro rail subway service was shut down, as well as several major streets including Hollywood Boulevard.
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The street will be closed beginning on February 19, between Highland Avenue and Orange Drive, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Meanwhile, Filmmaker Barry Jenkins says his Oscar-nominated film Moonlight was an opportunity for him to bring on-screen the memories of his childhood. The movie is based on a short play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue by Tarell Alvin McCraney and the 37-year-old filmmaker said it beautifully captures the life of a black kid growing up in the Miami projects.
“Tarell did a great job of capturing what it felt like to be a poor black kid growing up in the Miami projects. I saw it as an opportunity to get some of my own childhood memories out of my head and onto the screen, filtered through Tarell’s wonderful voice. “The root of his experience was also the root of my experience – it was the perfect marriage,” Jenkins said in a statement.
