Even Hollywood's been breached by the midterm elections! Gloria Allred, apparently bored with muckraking the governor's race, has her sights set on Conviction, the new Hilary Swank film where the actress goes from low-life to lawyer to defend her brother from a murder rap. Go rattle your own saber at Inside Job, the Wall Street corruption doc in limited release at the Landmark. Propositions 20 & 27 aim to change the process of redistricting - what a perfect time for a cinematic primer on Gerrymandering! LAist's own Farley Elliott reviewed Gerrymandering earlier this week. His conclusion? The film "very smartly peeks open the heavy lid of political dullness", but it often "lacks a clear message". This critique cannot be applied to I Want Your Money, whose trailer boasts Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Fox News clips and a cartoon boxing match pitting Obama against Reagan. more ›

While I still prefer the original theatrical version to Milos Forman's 2002 director's cut, it is still a slam-dunk buy on Blu-Ray today. For those who haven't seen any cut of Amadeus I highly encourage you to Netflix | Redbox | Piratebay it today! And, yes, this means you, Aerish! Zombieland wasn't anything great, but damn if it wasn't a fun time. And does it feature the best cameo ever? Everything about House of the Devil screams 80s horror flick so it only makes sense that it is available on VHS. Hilary Swank typically shows peerless judgment when selecting a film role. Uh, not this time! Jennifer Aniston, on the other hand, usually picks bad parts in bad movies. And she's done it yet again! Adam is worth a look if only because you get to spend a couple hours in the presence of the magnificent Rose Byrne. Hugh Dancy was a tad affected, though, don't you think? more ›

In one of the rarest of rare occurrences, a movie in its fifth week of release finally clawed its way to the top of the box office. Paramount pushed Paranormal Activity into over a thousand new theaters and the gamble paid off handsomely as the horror sleeper raked in $22M ($62.4M) to easily win the weekend. Torture porn shit-show Saw VI endured a brutal debut as it pulled in a weak $14.8M (yay!) while last week's champ Where the Wild Things Are stumbled a bit in its second weekend ($14.4M | $53.9M). The formulaic Law Abiding Citizen ($12.7M | $40.3M) and the half-funny Couples Retreat ($11M | $78.2M) rounded out the top 5. more ›

As some of you may know, I am perhaps the world's greatest fan of John C. Reilly. Anything John does (including music), I see (and usually like). Unfortunately, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant may test that theory. Not sure how to say this, but it looks...really, really stupid. Hilary Swank will definitely NOT win an Oscar for Amelia since she's not playing a boy/masculine character. Oh wait, yes she is. Go ahead and give her the Oscar now. I never really watched Astro Boy as a kid and probably won't start now. more ›

I wasn't completely sold on the idea of having so many different actors portray Bob Dylan in makes much more sense. more ›

In a crowded weekend of new movies, it was zeroed in on $100 million ($4.1M/$98.3M). more ›

Transformers would have been perfect as a 20-minute demo reel for ILM. Instead, it's a long, dull live-action cartoon. And I still don't understand all the fuss about Shia LaBeouf. He's good. Not amazing. Good. No one saw A Mighty Heart at the theater, but it's worth a rental. Angelina Jolie the Actress has been replaced by Angelina the Star, but she doesn't get in the way of a gripping, horrifying story. No one... more ›

Sunday night was in a word, magical. Rufus Wainwright transformed the Hollywood Bowl into a beautiful tribute to Judy Garland. At one point he thought he felt a drop of rain, but unlike Judy's 1961 performance at the Bowl, the weather remained cool and cloudburst free. The audience showered Rufus and his guests, his mother Kate McGarrigle, his sister Martha Wainwright, and Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft with love and affection and a few standing... more ›

The BR!CK Awards celebrate young people making our world better and is the first award show if its kind to be televised on national television. Tune in to The CW tonight at 9pm or set your Tivo to see for yourself! The show is only one-hour long and is claiming limited-commercial interruption. Hey man, whatever floats your boat. more ›

I am in shock. Despite a ton of promotion, great reviews and legions of Quentin Tarantino fans, Grindhouse opened in only fourth place. That would be $3.4 million behind the "former ghetto rapper heads to the burbs" comedy Are We Done Yet? and only $1.5 million ahead of the "I'm Hilary Swank, and I've won two Oscars, so I can star in whatever piece of poorly conceived commercial dreck I want to" horror film... more ›

A Word or 73: LA, get ready for your dirty underbelly to be nauseatingly exploited as the sixth season of The Shield gets underway tonight. There's a bit more room on the dial after, thank god, the following shows got the ax last week: The Wedding Bells (Fox) which was truly awful, Six Degrees (ABC) another bad one, 7th Heaven (the CW) which I don't even know about and The Black Donnellys which was... more ›

- No evidence of suicide in USC kicker's death - AP - No evidence of foul play in USC kicker's death - AP - Eco-friendly stretch limos good - LA Times - Taggers bad - LA Daily News - Hilary Swank to get her Hollywood Blvd. star tomorrow - KGET - NY is POed that LA TV and film shoot NY scenes in LA - LAT - Stream the new Arcade Fire tune -... more ›

Welcome to January, the month when studios traditionally take the shitty movies they've held off releasing the rest of the year and dump them onto unsuspecting audiences. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- Synesthesia is the coolest disorder ever! This is a neurological condition in which two or more bodily senses are entangled in "abnormal" ways (i.e. people with synesthesia might see a different color for each letter of the alphabet or smell... more ›

The long drought is over my friends -- regular programming is back, we have new shows and new series coming on every day. My life has some purpose again. My thumb was blistered from almost 2 weeks of endlessly scrolling through channel after channel of repeats and other unwatchable TV - I had almost depleted my tin of Bag Balm. Thank you TV, thank you networks, I may have said some harsh things last week but it was the blackberry brandy talkin', I swear. more ›

9:40 Jake and Heath stumble and laugh over the sappy script written for their Brokeback Mountain intro. They look darling, don't they? more ›

Years ago there was graffiti downtown LA -- on a building that was razed for the Japanese American Museum -- that read WHEN WILL SHE STOP ACTING? We're assuming, when it comes to the Screen Actors' Guild Awards, which are televised to millions, that nobody stops acting. We expect everyone to be glamorous, exhilarated, appropriately humble, and fabulously ON. more ›

We're bouncing back and forth between the NBC and E! red carpet broadcasts. Woah, Dean Cain is carpeteering for NBC and he still looks like Scott Peterson. Dean, it's time to lose the highlights. more ›