It's a beautiful day in L.A., so why not go out and play? March is Women's History Month, and Downtown Culver City will be celebrating tonight with free champagne for the ladies and numerous other specials. If music better suits your fancy, head to Westlake for Yellow Ostrich's 11pm show or to the Walt Disney Concert Hall for some percussion mastery. Tonight also offers two great film events: a screening of "Taxi Driver" and the start of the International Family Film Festival. Read on for the details. more ›

Summer's almost over, but between political anxiety, family obligations & working my ass off, I feel like it never even started. The Feel Good Film Festival, running Thursday - Sunday at the Egyptian, couldn't have come at a better time. Celebrating "films with happy endings, that make audiences laugh, and that capture the beauty of our world", the line-up includes stand-up comics, unlikely cupids, claymation penguins, puppets waxing on philosophy (and candy!), the original surfer girl, and the premiere of Herpes Boy, adapted from the truly viral web comedy series. more ›

Very likely I'm in the minority opinion on this subject, but I think it's high time that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio stopped working together. From my perspective, it's been diminishing returns since The Aviator. Shutter Island left me cold. Seven seasons in and Curb Your Enthusiasm has last none of its cruel charm for me. This most recent season was the best since the year the entire show was a meta-gloss for The Producers. I'll say it: I enjoy John Travolta when he plays a bad-ass. I know it goes against his occasionally, er, fey personality but the guy is just dynamite when he's beating people up. Thank God, Caddyshack is finally on blu-ray. Here's why. They should have bitten the bullet and hired Dirk Benedict for the new A-Team movie. more ›

If you're anything like me, your Fridays are packed with dead bodies. No? Make some time this week to rectify that situation. The Warner Grand's deadly double of The Giant Gila Monster & The Giant Spider Invasion features radiation, rock & roll, and most importantly, a raffle for a dead body at intermission. Once you've won, high-tail it to the Nuart, where the midnight premiere of controversial coming-of-age-zombie-rape-melodrama Deadgirl will teach you what to do and what not to do with your new friend. If you still have questions, leads Noah Segan, Shiloh Fernandez & writer Trent Haaga will be on hand and happy to help! more ›

Orson Welles has seen more devastation & studio interference than any other filmmaker. Major works like The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil & Lady from Shanghai were all slashed to ribbons and will never be seen as the writer/director/actor intended. Still, they retain their innovative style, fierce bite & raw power over 60 years on. Running through Saturday, the Aero's Orson Welles retrospective features valiant restorations of these works, as well as rare screenings of UCLA's exhaustive, full restoration of Macbeth and Welles' classic (and surprisingly, untouched) Citizen Kane. more ›

Though the stumble by opened to a less-than-expected $7.8M. more ›

I'm hoping you got a bunch of DVDs to tide you over during this dead week as well as until the writer's strike ends. It looks like TCM is running an "aviation in movies" marathon tonight and IFC's featuring Harvey Keitel. For further marathon action, check out BRAVO which is showing all of Project Runway's fourth season (starts at 6:00pm). more ›

Artist: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan + Gaudi Album: Dub Qawwali Label: Six Degrees Records Release Date: August 7th, 2007 I count myself incredibly fortunate to have seen Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan perform while he was still alive, this was back in 1990, at a little hamlet called Santa Barbara, a year or so after Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ came out, which featured Khan on the soundtrack. The essence of one... more ›

Recommended 13 Tzameti - French movie with an Eastern European sensibility about a young handyman who decides to follow instructions intended for the owner of the house he's repairing. He ends up in a remote house, where he is forced to take part in a brutal game of Russian Roulette in which only one of the 13 participants will survive. Bicycle Thieves - Criterion has released a DVD of Vittorio De Sica's 1947 classic... 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 ›

Within the next few days we will announce the rules and format of the first-ever LAist Oscar Contest, where all of our readers will have a chance to participate and win a prize. more ›