Like American Gangster earlier in the fall, Charlie Wilson's War tells a fascinating and (mostly) true story that's so improbable you wonder what's taken it so long to reach the big screen. If you don't already know, Charlie Wilson was a fairly nondescript Congressman from Texas (known more as a hedonist than a legislator) who almost single-handedly provided the money and weapons that the Afghan Mujahideen used to defeat the seemingly invincible Soviet Union.......

Fact: John McClaine would beat the piss out of Jack Bauer. I know what you're gonna' say: "But c'mon Henry, Jack withstood Chinese torture. They've got that water on the forehead trick and shit" Oooh, Big deal. I bet Jack wouldn't trade 15 nights of Chinese torture for a single night in Nakatomi Plaza. If you've even seen the preview for this movie, you may have noticed that John McClaine surfs a goddamn jet......

The New Yorker's Jane Mayer looks inside the mind of Joel Surnow, co-creator and producer of "24," and at the goings on behind-the-scenes of his San Fernando Valley production shop and LApocalypse (relax... it's only TV) incubator. Whatever it takes, yo. Happy Friday!......

Watching one of the best action TV shows, The Unit, on Tuesday night, we got nerdy for a second. As the elite military group known as The Unit (who only answer to the President), attempt to foil a plan of a terrorist's foul play in a Hamburg, Germany subway station, we could not help but notice Hamburg's subway station is just like the Universal Red Line. And as we all know, LA's subway stations......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

Los Angeles based blogger and advice "goddess," Amy Alkon, was featured on last night's Nightline about Blog Slapping. (Nightline) Who are the Chandlers? They are a famous Los Angeles family and you should know something about them. (Morning Edition, NPR) LAist parent company Gothamist, LLC is featured on CNN about NYC 911 callers being able to soon send pictures and video when reporting a crime. The CNN video is unlinkable (ZDNet) Muslims are protesting......

Starting tomorrow, Saturday, January 13th, at 5:00 p.m., TVGasm.com embarks on a marathon of "24" viewing in eager and obsessive anticipation of the season premiere on Sunday. They've got tons of schwag they're going to give away, an Edgar tribute, call-ins, guests, contests, and they're hoping to get Kiefer and anybody else from the show to stop by. I had a chance to pepper co-host Saul Friedman with some LAist-specific questions, namely what "24"......

this year LAist introduced "Ask the MACist" and now we give you... Ask the PCist! by Andrew Solmssen - send your questions to pcist at bitboy dot com Hey PCist, I love to do new and wonderful things with my PC, but I want to pay zip, nada, zero, zilch and bupkis for the privilege. What are some great free tools that will make my heart sing and my wallet happy? There's some amazing......

We confess. We're not watching 24 this season. The first three seasons, we'd get all caught up in the story and then, invariably, we'd miss a week or two and then be utterly lost in the story. 24 episodes in a row of a series without a break is quite a commitment. Our commitment-phobia now has us in trouble, though, because DCist has a question. We're pretty sure there's no part of Los Angeles......