There is no life more punishing than that of the young, successful actor. | Photo courtesy of Studio Canal While many fans of Wong Kar-wai were disappointed by My Blueberry Nights, there's no resisting its lush art direction and cinematography. Norah Jones, however, may have been too inspired a choice. To any who think the Apatow stamp is a guarantee of funny, please watch Drillbit Taylor (if you can make it through the whole, dreary......

Carolla scores! | Photo courtesy of the Weinstein Company Most people have probably pegged Adam Carolla as little more than a snarky morning DJ, but The Hammer reveals him to be a talented and occasionally inspired filmmaker. His inclusion of his longtime, almost unintelligible friend Oswaldo into the film was a stroke of pure genius. In Bruges didn't break any new storytelling ground but it was a completely satisfying piece of indie pie. Brendan Gleeson......

Robocop lives again! | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema Michel Gondry is one of the few major directors who still relies on almost entirely visual humor in his films. Be Kind Rewind has numerous instances of pure daffiness and a few nuggets of outright brilliance. Yes, Martin Lawrence still has a flourishing cinematic career. Wonders never cease. For the first couple of episodes, Californication relied a bit too much on David Duchovny banging......

World’s largest metaphor hits iceberg; drugs win drug war; hijackers surprised to find selves in hell. These are just a few examples of the headlines that begin The Onion Movie, the film based on and created by The Onion, the satirical fake news newspaper/website. Having finished filming back in 2003, the movie is just now being released straight to DVD this month. Plotless and scatterbrained, the film is made up of a series of......

Hayden Christensen ponders his career path from a dangerous height. | Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox Considering that Doug Liman has directed some seriously good movies (Go, Swingers, The Bourne Identity), Jumper was a real disappointment. For whatever reason, John Adams never managed to generate the interest that most HBO shows do. The source material for the series was fabulous. The Bucket List may have been a creative dud for all involved but......

Will? Please make Anchorman 2 while you still can! | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinemas I'll say it right off--I am a big Will Ferrell fan. Mostly, that's because of the absolute devotion I accord to Anchorman, but I still try to catch all of his work. While Semi-Pro isn't Bewitched-bad, it's probably a few notches below Blades of Glory. Only one scene is truly laugh-out-loud funny--the card game. I was never a......

No way he's using steroids! | Photo courtesy of Lionsgate I liked Rocky Balboa and Rambo all right, but what I'm really looking forward to is Sylvester Stallone reuniting with Dolly Parton in Rhinestone 2: Rap Wars. This is hard to say as a Woody Allen fan, but Woody should consider giving up on the comedies and focusing strictly on his dramatic films. Cassandra's Dream continues what has been a good streak. The Walker......

My God! Look over there on the sound stage! | Photo courtesy of Disney [Interested in writing about films and the film business for LAist? Email us here.] Having seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Sunday (review coming tomorrow), a film like National Treasure: Book of Secrets looks awfully pedestrian. Its two greatest assets--Helen Mirren and Diane Kruger--are woefully underused and the big treasure reveal at the end is......

Wouldn't have been the same with Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones, would it? | Photo courtesy of Paramount If you're as excited as I am about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (please don't ruin it, George Lucas!), then you've probably already started re-watching Indy's earlier adventures. If you don't have the existing DVD box-set then this new one is definitely worth grabbing. The movies are the same but there are......

Tell me more about this NAMBLA, Allen. | Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company I wasn't completely sold on the idea of having so many different actors portray Bob Dylan in I'm Out There. I certainly respect the audacious choice by director Todd Haynes, but I think I admired the film more than I actually liked it. It's definitely worth a rental, though, if only to see three of our finest actors (Bale, Ledger,......

One of the great performances in recent memory. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage If you somehow missed There Will Be Blood in theaters, pick up the DVD today and watch one of our finest actors give his finest performance. Nothing more really needs to be said. Walk Hard got knocked around at the box office over Christmas, but I really liked it. For any fan of the Apatow brand, it's a no-brainer buy.......

Human Giant unleashed itself upon an unsuspecting public last year via MTV and the bell just rang for Round 2 - are you ready? There's sketch comedy, there's underground sketch comedy, there's in your face on-the-streets sketch comedy, and then there's Human Giant, a team that presents, in each episode, collections of bits that are more like experimental movies than the sketch comedy we've been seeing for the last 15 years. There's plenty of parody......

Prior to his 1993 death, legendary guitarist Albert Collins played a rare second show at Montreaux and yesterday--after a 15 year wait--that show (Collins' last recorded concert) finally came to DVD. Despite his poor health, the Master of the Telecaster plays a loose, fun show as he burns through "Iceman", "Honey Hush", "Lights Are On (But Nobody's Home)", "If You Love Me Like You Say", "Too Many Dirty Dishes", "Put The Shoe On The......

How do you say "circling vultures" in Spanish? | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage I'm still a bit surprised that Into the Wild was so completely overlooked during awards season. Sure it meandered a bit, but the acting and directing were all top-notch. And how on earth was Eddie Vedder's "Hard Sun" skipped over by the Academy in favor of three--three!--songs from Enchantment? This may sound weird, but I liked everything about Mr. Magorium's......

Earlier this month, San Diego-based singer/songwriter Tristan Prettyman (MySpace) and G. Love & Special Sauce (MySpace) performed a two-night stint at the House of Blues in West Hollywood as part of their current tour. The duo collaborated on the song "Beautiful", from G. Love's album Lemonade, which was performed last year on Late Night With Conan O'Brien. Prettyman, who has been referred to as "the female Jack Johnson," also collaborated on the Lindsay Lohan-themed......

The Whitman brothers shop for dangerous pets in an Indian village | Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight I'll lead this review by saying,"If only the DVD of The Darjeeling Limited were as rich and strange as the film, The Darjeeling Limited." The film is one of Wes Anderson's best tales of whimsy and familial dysfunction. Three brothers who've long since grown apart decide to travel across India on a sort of spiritual odyssey that......

Has anyone seen the cobra I just bought? | Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Wes Anderson doesn't have many casual fans. You either love the strange worlds of whimsy he creates or you find it all a bit precious and twee. Count me in the former camp and count The Darjeeling Limited as a return to form for Anderson after the ambitious but foggy The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Next generation 3-D isn't......

So I won't go on about how dry and average the Oscars were last night and how the TV ratings reflect that. I will say, however, that I'd like to find anyone involved with the development and production of the movie Enchanted and incinerate them on a pile of every DVD and CD soundtrack copy of that rancid film. A brief burst of carbon emissions and pollutants now will save us from more such dreck......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Kanye West at the Staples Center, the third show they've added in L.A.! Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never meant to see. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Busted Tees, which introduces three new designs a......

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema If you think you know what Be Kind Rewind is all about, you're probably mistaken. The film's advertising would lead you to believe that it's a raucous comedy about two losers forced to re-make classic films on a zero budget to hilarious effect. While that's certainly a major plot point, it only exists to serve what I think is the film's subtext. Namely, Be Kind Rewind is a......

Sony's Blu-ray high definition video disc won a contentious, expensive, and possibly over-hyped video format war reminiscent of the VHS v. Beta battles of yore. The "battle" for dominance of the next-generation DVD market was determined over past few weeks as major studios and big box retailers sided with Sony's Blu-ray, essentially shutting Toshiba's HD-DVD format out of the market. But who really wins here? The studios and retailers manage to force consumers to go......

This morning at the Marriott Downtown, Los Angles Development and Economic Corporation (LADEC) financial uber-guru Jack Kyser will be presenting the 2008-09 LAEDC Forecast Results, a 71-page document entailing the region's financial future. Highlighting a recession watch, the crumbling housing market, and growth opportunities such as tourism, one loosely dubbed as "Its NOT business as usual!" talks strike and its ill-economic impacts upon the city. From the Hollywood Reporter: The figure includes lost wages from......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Kanye West at the Nokia Theater, tickets went on sale today! Other People's Love Letters, the book where you can see 150 love letters you were never meant to see. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's available now. Busted......

Photo courtesy of Miramax When was the last time an actor executed a more profound career turnaround than Casey Affleck? Gone Baby Gone is his second superb performance of the year. If you don't see it for him, see it for Amy Ryan's breakout, Oscar-nominated turn. The mere presence of the divine Anne Hathaway makes Becoming Jane worth renting. James McAvoy was better in this than in the over-hyped (but still good) Atonement. No......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. The 2009 Toyota Corolla, which encourages you to "Live the Dream for Less Coin." Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's available now. Busted Tees, giving you free shipping when you buy three shirts. If you're interested in advertising on LAist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford didn't exactly set the box-office on fire when it landed in theaters. Something tells me, though, that this superb, meditative neo-Western will enjoy a long life on DVD. Across the Universe is the world's longest music video and a treat for any Beatles fan (and only for Beatles' fans!). Elizabeth - The Golden Age was unexpectedly ripped by critics.......

We would like to take a moment to thank this week's advertisers on LAist. Joe Jackson's Rain, available now on Amazon.com. Nik Bärtsch's Ronin, the new album that's in stores February 5th. Busted Tees, giving you free shipping when you buy three shirts. If you're interested in advertising on LAist or any other site in our network, check out our online mediakit.......

Photo courtesy of travelin librarian via flickr One of my favorite films of 2007 arrives to DVD today, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. I know what some of you are thinking--why would I want to watch a documentary about grown men competing at Donkey Kong? To that question I can only say, "Trust me. You won't be sorry." Like all great films, King of Kong is about much more than its......

Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company Even though they are the two big releases today, I just couldn't bring myself to lead with the awful Saw IV and the even worse The Game Plan. Save yourself some money and buy the truly entertaining The Hunting Party instead. Remember that Jessica Simpson movie that made only a few hundred bucks in theaters a few weeks ago? It's out on DVD, ready to be ignored again.......

Apparently a Scientologist can be defined by a single question: "Would you want others to achieve the knowledge you now have?" The music, the insane laughter over abbreviations I had to look up (and are provided for you below), the conviction of "knowledge" that most of us do not have. Cue lights. Why it's Tom Cruise in a video made especially for the Scientology community! And even better, it was leaked out to the......