Wall-E prior to the apocalypse that destroyed humanity. | Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Wall-E continued Pixar's long streak of box-office success this weekend as it hauled in $62.5M to top the vile action flick Wanted ($51.1M). The race wasn't expected to be nearly so close, but Wanted somehow managed to blast past early estimates and do huge business in a rare hit for Angelina Jolie. Hold-overs staked out the rest of the top 10:......

But where the hell is Fisher Stevens? | Photo courtesy of Disney Sooner or later Pixar has to release a dud, right? They can't just keep releasing great film after great film can they? Won't the odds eventually catch up to them? Maybe not. The early critical reception for Wall-E has been nothing short of ecstatic. If you thought the first ten, dialogue-free minutes of There Will Be Blood were pure cinematic brilliance, wait till......

Driving Miss Daisy 2: The Revenge | Photo courtesy of Universal The Los Angeles Film Festival officially kicks off tonight with the premiere of the awful-looking Angelina Jolie action flick, Wanted. It's something about assassins, tattoos, curving bullets and explosions--you know, standard indie fare. Starting tomorrow, the festival begins in earnest with films and events rolling at 18 locations all around Los Angeles. Most, however, are relegated to Westwood and the surrounding neighborhoods. While......

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......

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? In other news, yeah the writer's strike is over, and SNL is finally heading back into production with it's first show scheduled for Feb.......

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......

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.......

In its first weekend of wide release, The Bucket List charged to the top of the box office. Its tally of $19.54 million ($20.9M) just edged Ice Cube's First Sunday which debuted with an even $19M. There was some talk that upstart Juno might win the weekend crown, but it had to settle for a still healthy $14M ($71.2M). It now seems certain to reach $100M while holiday stalwarts National Treasure: Book of Secrets......

The list is a little long this week since I'm including the Christmas Day openers. Having already raved about There Will Be Blood yesterday, I'll lead off with what some are calling the best horror film of the year, The Orphanage. For any horror fan who's tired of torture porn and bad Japanese re-makes, this is the movie for you. Grim and spare, it's a horror film for adults and Spain's foreign-language entrant for......

To no one's surprise 30 Days of Night topped the box office this weekend, though its 16 million dollar take hardly qualifies it as a hit. Year-over-year, it is the fifth down weekend in a row and relief doesn't appear to be in sight for a few more weeks when American Gangster and Bee Movie should pull some asses into seats. Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? held up fairly well in its......

Hope you caught the season finale of Mad Men - it was excellent, especially the final pitch to Kodak (the finale will repeat tonight at 10:00pm on AMC). Am still bummed over the death of Deborah Kerr, of the King and I and From Here to Eternity fame (yeah, that was her rolling around in the surf with Burt Lancaster), she will be very much missed. We also lost the last remaining member of the......

For what seems like the 300th time this year, Hollywood is giving us a movie based on a graphic novel. That movie is 30 Days of Night and stars the lethally inexpressive Josh Hartnett as a small-town sheriff charged with the task of protecting Barrow, Alaska from a rampaging horde of hungry (or is thirsty?) vampires. All I can say is, "at least it's rated R". I'll probably sit this one out and wait......

Ten years ago Long Beach native Morgan J. Freeman was minding his own business in film school back east. Doing what everyone else in his class did, he submitted his thesis film "Hurricane Streets" to Sundance for competition. Not only was it accepted - alongside the "real" movies - but it won three awards at the festivall: Morgan won best director, the cinematographer won for best cinematography, and the film got the audience award......

Surf's Up was actually better than Happy Feet but, as my grandpa used to always tell me, the second Penguin-themed animated movie never does as well as the first. 28 Weeks Later may lack the novelty of 28 Days Later, but it's just as tense and terrifying. The fate of Robert Carlyle is truly awful. Amazingly, even Steve Carrell can be unfunny sometimes. YHWH is truly powerful. John Dahl never gets the rich praise......

I walked into Feast of Love with high expectations. Despite his reputation in some corners as a lightweight (probably only because he hosted Talk Soup all those years ago), I think Greg Kinnear is a profoundly underrated actor. His recent work, especially in Auto Focus, The Matador and Little Miss Sunshine has been wonderfully understated. That he would be joined by a bevy of equally solid, unflashy actors--Morgan Freeman, Jane Alexander, Radha Mitchell, Selma......

In yet another blow to the human race, Dwayne Johnson's The Game Plan was this weekend's box-office champ, taking in a richly undeserved 22.6 million dollars in its debut. You know what that means--an even worse sequel (assuming that's possible) is virtually certain to be made. Let's hope it goes straight to DVD and doesn't rob theater space from better, less life-affirming movies. In second place, also in its first weekend, was Peter Berg's......

8:00pm Prison Break FOX - This is a show for teenage boys: enjoy the season premiere kids. 9:00pm Most Honorable Son PBS/KCET - Bio of the first Japanese-American war hero. 9:00pm K-Ville FOX - Series premiere. I much prefer Anthony Anderson as a villain (Antwon Mitchell from "The Shield") rather than a cop. It's a cop series, but set it New Orleans, post-Katrina, but the question is whether or not it will truly leverage......

Though my allegiance has switched over to the Landmark, many film lovers in Los Angeles regard the Arclight as the best multiplex in town. It programs studio pictures right alongside esoteric indies, it offers great concessions, its screenings are commercial-free and it schedules cool events with celebrated films and filmmakers. This Wednesday, tickets go on sale for one of those very events. In fact, this one may be the coolest in awhile. To celebrate......

Get this, there's another sequel coming out today. You're surprised, I know, I was too. Alas, in a summer of recycled story lines, the comedy genre takes center stage today with "Evan Almighty. With "The Office" on hiatus, I'm itching for some Steve Carell. He arrives, riding an ark, in time for your weekend. Evan Almighty - It's the most expensive comedy ever (there are reports that Universal has been recruiting churches to try......

The New York Times seems to think so. We can confirm that among the 800 or so who paid $2,300 a head to rub elbows with Barack Obama for a minute or two at the Beverly Hilton were: Jennifer Aniston, Burt Bacharach, Mario van Peebles, Stephen Spielberg, Arianna Huffington, Ben Stiller, Morgan Freeman, Zach Braff, Eddie Murphy, Ron Howard, Taye Diggs, Norman Lear, JJ Abrams, Paul Reiser, Christine Lahti, Jackson Browne, and Natalie Maines.......

- Chandler family may buy back LA Times - AP - That kid to took the salad dressing jar into the mens room and topped it off with his own special sauce, allegedly? That's his mug shot - Smoking Gun - E!'s Giuliana DePandi to marry game show contestant (which, yes, is an upgrade from Jerry O'Connell) - E! Online - Asian lawyer from Nor Cal wins Survivor - Palm Beach Post - Even......

9:40 Jake and Heath stumble and laugh over the sappy script written for their Brokeback Mountain intro. They look darling, don't they? 9:45 Reese Witherspoon is gasping for breath as she accepts the best actress award for Walk the Line. She says June Carter Cash deserved to be brought out of the shadow and into the light. She thanks Joauqin: Wihtout your John, there was no June. Yep, that Reese Witherspoon is hitting all......

Hooray! The Oscar Nominations are here! 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. In the meantime, it is the opinion of this writer that "Million Dollar Baby" should take home Best Picture, because no movie was half as good this year. This LAist also hope Martin Scorsese finally......

Music and film are two events that this town does better than most, and tonight is full of them. The early '90s are back to visit tonight in the form of both types of media, so get out there and relive some memories or better yet, make some new ones. It's a blast from the past at The Roxy, as Jordan Knight—yes, that Jordan Knight—takes the stage, preceeded by J-Me, Tina Landon and Nick......