Known first as the young star with the stunning violet eyes, then the sensual but talented performer with a penchant for marriage, then a tireless crusader in the fight against AIDS, actress Elizabeth Taylor has died. She was 79. Taylor died of congestive heart failure this morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, after six weeks of hospitalization. more ›

Jennifer Jones has reportedly died at age 90 in her Beverly Hills home this morning, according to e-mail alerts from the LA Times and KNX1070. Jones is known for her 1943 Oscar winning performance in "The Song of Bernadette." She also is known for marrying two legends: producer David O. Selznick and Norton Simon, the art collector and industrialist. R.I.P., Jennifer Jones. more ›

Before the winner is announced tomorrow during the Oscar telecast, curious fashionistas and design enthusiasts can head over to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) for "The Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition." On display are the costumes considered and nominated for this year's Academy Awards in the Best Costume Design category. The show features costumes from the films Milk, The Duchess and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Last year's winning designs from Elizabeth: The Golden Age are also on view. If you can't make it this weekend, the free exhibit is ongoing until Mar. 29. more ›

If, like me, you were such a huge fan of Muppets and costumed creatures growing up that you're practically anti-CGI, you should head over to the Silent Movie Theater on March 18th for "Jim Henson's Commercials & Experiments"! The screening starts at 8pm and will feature rare clips, shorts and commercials from Jim Henson's studio archives, including experimental animation and "a 35mm print of Time Piece, an Academy Award nominated 8-minute masterpiece that showcases Henson’s talent for making music out of everyday sounds." more ›

Through the presidential election in November, MTV has “Choose or Lose” citizen journalists in twenty-three states to cover the campaign. Here is the Colorado street team member interviewing Academy Award winner Forest Whitaker on the campaign trail for Barack Obama in Boulder, CO on Monday.
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"No Country For Old Men," "There Will Be Blood," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," and "Atonement" all received nominations for Best Picture this morning, as the Academy Award nominations were announced in Beverly Hills. "No Country" and "There Will Be Blood" are the front runners with eight noms apiece, including a Best Actor nod for perennial Oscar fav Daniel Day-Lewis, and directing nominations for the Coen Bros. and Paul Thomas Anderson. While Javier Bardem was recognized with a Best Supporting nom for his work in "No Country," neither Tommy Lee Jones nor Josh Brolin were nominated for the film (although Jones is in the running for a Best Actor award for his work in "In the Valley of Elah" -- did anybody actually see that?). more ›

Roger Avary, the Academy Award-winning writer of the 1994 cult classic Pulp Fiction, was arrested this weekend on charges of manslaughter. more ›

Despite being thoroughly outed by Vikram Jayanti in his superb documentary, , the Globes do retain some credibility in certain quarters. I don't buy that they are any sort of barometer for Academy Award nominations, but they do give nominees the extra media attention that may tip an Oscar nod their way. That said, here's what I thought about tonight's results and what they may portend. more ›

Stage and screen choreographer Michael Kidd died this past Sunday in Los Angeles at the age of 92, according to the New York Times. From his beginnings in Brooklyn, Kidd moved over to Manhattan to dance and create dances for dance companies including Lincoln Kirstein's Ballet Caravan (1937), Eugene Loring's Dance Players (1941) and Ballet Theater, the predecessor to the American Ballet Theater (1942-47). more ›

Atonement hits theaters this weekend as one of the few, definite contenders for an Academy Award. It bears all the traditional hallmarks of an Oscar-caliber film: lavish period piece (check), excellent source novel (check), epic scope (check), high-powered English cast (check), nude scene from Keira Knightley (double check). Those critics who've already seen it have been generous with praise, so I'm expecting nothing less than a winner. It's virtually certain that The Golden Compass... more ›

On Thursday (10/11) at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, LAist checked out a screening/cineconcert of the documentary The Orchestra - A True Story from Piazza Vittorio, which is scheduled for release on Oct. 23 through Netflix’s Red Envelope Entertainment division for Academy Award consideration. Directed by Agostino Ferrente, the film chronicles the formation of an Italian orchestra to help save the old Apollo Cinema in Rome from its fate as a future bingo parlor.... more ›

The 80th Academy Awards (host: Jon Stewart) aren't until February 24 but starting today you can register for a chance at a bleacher seat overlooking the red carpet. Thousands applied for 300 spots last year along the 500-foot-long red carpet, but you're feeling lucky, right? The chosen voyeurs will be randomly selected next Monday at noon, and notified in March. Submit for up to four tickets per person. http://www.oscars.org/bleachers/ Dangerous Liaisons devotees look for... more ›

You may think he’s a brilliant director, with Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man, and Mulholland Drive among his long list of film and TV projects, not to mention four Academy Award nominations. Or you may think he’s got a few screws loose with his strict adherence to transcendental meditation and the generally bizarre nature of his work. Whatever the case, you can’t deny that he’s interesting. Now you get the chance to decide for yourself... more ›

LOGO, the nation's first (and only) openly gay television network, is set to host the next Democratic presidential debate in Los Angeles on August 9. The moderators will include Joe Solmonese, the president of Human Rights Campaign, and Melissa Etheridge, the Academy Award (for her rendition of An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up") and two-time Grammy Award-winning rock musician and prominent gay rights activist. So what specific topics will be on the... more ›

The biggest international benefit concert since Live8 Live Aid of all time is ON. The 24-hour affair began around 10 p.m. PDT Friday and concludes late Saturday in Jersey. And we must rock because... why? Whelp... Al Gore said so. Yes, the former Veep who let some derelicts pickpocket his presidency before performing an Academy Award-winning PowerPoint presentation in An Inconvenient Truth is taking green global. Why not turn "can rock 'n' roll save... more ›

Academy Award winning filmmaker Jessica Yu best known for her documentaries Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien, In the Realms of the Unreal and Protagonist, is directing her first narrative feature, Ping Pong Playa described simply as "an Asian-American comedy," and she needs extras for a few crucial scenes. Wanna see yourself on the big screen? Wanna learn what being on a movie set is all about? Wanna watch a talented director... more ›

Just when you think we'd be done with our Oscar coverage, we get this in our email box, an open letter from a documentary film nominee who is upset at how Jerry Seinfeld introduced the category. Which we thought was odd since after Jerry was done with his bit we were thinking, "why the heck hasn't Seinfeld been the host of the Oscars?" Our pals Seattlest are also pro-Jerry. Although we're not in the... more ›

As you continue to nurse your week-long Academy Award champagne hangover and try desperately to block all memory of the "sound effects choir" & Celine Dion's massacre of Ennio Morricone's work (just as Elina predicted!), it should come as a relief to you that while there are yet more awards on the horizon, these are of the bookish kind. The LA Times has announced their Book Awards Finalists. more ›

What if... Jennifer Hudson doesn't win? Sometimes the one sure thing turns out not to be the one sure thing. Then who wins? The ten year-old. None of the others are in the running, and I say that thinking that Rinko Kikuchi should win, even though I had tons of problems with Babel. Everyone likes the ten year-old. Don't count out the ten year-old. What if... Eddie Murphy doesn't win? Then the theory that... more ›

Oscar Shorts at the Academy To kick off Oscar Week, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present "Shorts!" a program featuring the 10 Academy Award-nominated films in the Animated and Live Action Short Film categories. The program, hosted by director Taylor Hackford, will feature onstage discussions with the nominated filmmakers. Short Film (Animated) The Danish Poet, Torill Kove, director Lifted, Gary Rydstrom, director The Little Matchgirl, Roger Allers, director; Don Hahn, producer... more ›

Academy Award Nominated Short Films - A compendium of this year's live action and animation shorts. Breach - Based on the true story of Robert Hanssen who spent 15 years spying for the Soviet Union, a breach that is one of the worst intelligence disasters in US history. Chris Cooper plays Hanssen and Ryan Philippe plays the newbie agent sent to keep on an eye on him in this cat-and-mouse drama. The Boy Who Cried... more ›

Why woo your sweetheart with such tediously traditional notions as flowers, teddy bears and edible panties when you could watch Matthew Barney and his inamorata Bjork going at each other with flensing knives on the deck of a Japanese whaling vessel in Drawing Restraint 9? And if that's not enough Barney for you, there's the making-of documentary Matthew Barney: No Restraint. His work has sometimes been described as a "hauntingly dreamlike fantasy and surrealist odyssey," but I think Vern of Aint It Cool has the best take on Matthew Barney. more ›

RSVP: Go to the Creative Screenwriting website and sign up to receive information about future events. You should then receive an email with further instructions about how to sign up for this event. more ›

As we’ve pointed out, it is awards season in Los Angeles in more ways than one. While the Academy Award debating will rage on for weeks, bookish types can ante up their betting losses or collect their winnings now – some awards have already been given. Los Angeles resident Susan Patron has won the 2007 John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature for her young adult novel The Higher Power of Lucky. more ›

One of the most talented, controversial and often brilliant directors of all time (and one of my favorites), Robert Altman, has died. He was 81. In his career, Altman directed some of the best and most popular movies, across many different genres, including M*A*S*H which took place in Korea but was a thinly disguised attack on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, one of the best "revisionist" Westerns of all... more ›

Do you love short films? Or, do you have a short attention span that prevents you from attending films of more traditional length? Are you the kind of person that likes their entertainment in short, managible bits no matter what the form? Whatever your reasons or tastes, you can certaily fullfil your short film quota starting tonight at the Arclight as the 10th Annual Los Angeles Short Film Festival kicks off. According to Festival... more ›

LAist's "20 Under 30" series about interesting Angelenos under 30 continues with Neil Kohan. Unlike most moviegoers, Neil assesses a film's qualities more with his ears than his eyes. Neil works for Greenspan Artist Management, an agency for film composers. Neil works with agency principal, Anita Greenspan, to guide the careers of busy film composers like Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo, The Royal Tenenbaums) and Marco Beltrami (I, Robot, T3, The Omen). Neil describes himself as "a talent agent that doesn't wear a suit and doesn't have a Blackberry, yet I have a picture of myself holding a client's Academy Award." more ›

Federal prosecutors begin their case against the scary-as-shit Aryan Brotherhood prison gang this week in Santa Ana. The lawyers declined to be interviewed by NBC-TV, probably because the gang is known for taking vengeance outside prison walls. Have we mentioned LAist is run from plush offices in the Flynt Building? more ›

There may still be tickets left to hear "Incredibles" director, Brad Bird. speak at "The Animated Performance: Art Meets Technology" lecture tonight Friday, July 29, at 7:30 p.m. in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. $5. more ›

Although he was a legendary ventriloquist and built a career attracting legions of followers of that dwindling art, Winchell's most durable legacy may be his rich voice as Tigger and other animated characters on television and in motion pictures. more ›