Nothing quite goes together like kites and Afghanistan. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage The Kite Runner was one of those movies that I obviously should have seen in theaters. I just could never work up enough enthusiasm to actually go out and do it. It's a no-brainer DVD rental. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't The Mist sort of crappy? Why exactly is it getting the deluxe edition DVD treatment? It took......

One of the most enjoyable aspects of celebrity fashion is what I’ll call the superiority factor. You know, the sneering satisfaction that you or I can take in seeing someone who has all the money and fashion consultants in the world and still looks like they got dressed in a lightless closet stocked with Salvation Army rejects. On Oscar Sunday, your television screen will offer the best opportunity to see which stars haven’t gotten......

Pickle just about anything at the Machine Project tonight. / Photo by ccarlstead via flickr. Sure there are a lot of places closed for President’s Day, but nightlife does exist in LA...even tonight: FILM Roman Polanski’s Chinatown focuses on an intricate water scandal and an even more twisted family backstory. Starring John Huston, Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson as Detective Jake Gittes – the city of Angels plays a major part of this nourish......

I vaguely remember the '80s so the return of American Gladiator to the screen presents me with a nauseating wave of nostalgia that I want to boogie board to the fullest. Then again, I vaguely remember the '70s and the relaunch of the Bionic Woman left a lot to be desired. But hey, we live in America, and with enough boobies and violence, American Gladiator could have the required recipe for success. Friday 8:00pm Flash......

For those of us not stuck on the 15 to Vegas, here's what's going on around town tonight: FILM The So Bad It's Good Film Fest presents the movie that showed how crazy Joan Crawford really was: Mommie Dearest. But it's "Faye Dunaway's over-the-top performance in the lead role has become legendary." There are prizes for the best Joan Crawford costume at the show: dinner for two at Saddle Ranch Chop House and a guest......

Drawing Restraint 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......

LAist went easy on the intellect last night to check out the debut of The Starlet on the WB. Featuring ten hopeful gamines competing to be, obviously, proclaimed a starlet, the reality show tells a classic Hollywood story: naive girl blows into town, hopes to make it big, gets her ego torn up but maybe, just maybe, ends up a star in the end (hopefuly the competitions won't be so true-to-life to include an audition......