Emile Hirsch surveys a giant green screen...DEAD AHEAD! | Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Anyone else as not excited as I am about Speed Racer? I mean, I watched the cartoon when I was kid, but it was no Gaiking or Starblazers. Even as a nine year-old I recognized the premise as a little stupid (chimps and helicopters?), and the visual design of the movie by the Wachowski Brothers seems move seizure-inducing than sumptuous.......

Heartless personality Jonathan Nail interrogates helpless patrons during opening weekend of Iron Man. | Video courtesy of Just Us Films No one doubted that Iron Man would easily top the box office this weekend, but the scale of its success is virtually unprecedented. The latest entry from Marvel's deep stable of superheroes blasted early estimates of $60-70M by raking in a mammoth $104.3M since Thursday night's late showings. It was the second-largest, non-sequel debut......

Repulsors fire! | Photo courtesy of Paramount What else can I say about Iron Man that I didn't say in my rave yesterday? According to the great Nikki Finke, it looks like it's going to be a monster hit so I guess I don't need to encourage you to go see it. I'll actually be seeing it again this weekend because I failed to stay through the entire end credit roll and see the......

Is there anyone on the planet who doesn't love Robert Downey Jr. as an actor? | Photo courtesy of Paramount I won't keep you in suspense a moment longer: Iron Man is a rousing start to the summer movie season. It succeeds not only as a visually dazzling popcorn movie, but as a human drama about a man forced to finally consider his former and future place in the world. Great credit must be......

My love, there's only you in my life. The only thing that's pride. | Photo courtesy of Universal In a bit of a surprise, the surrogate pregnancy comedy Baby Mama ($18.2M) easily outdistanced the stoner comedy Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay ($14.5M) in the weekend box-office race. A huge influx of female ticket buyers (68% of the audience) buoyed Baby Mama while many of Harold & Kumar's target audience forgot that the......

This time with more drugs, bigger laughs, bigger nudity! | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema I think it will be hard for Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay to replicate the success of the original Harold & Kumar adventure. Sure, Guantanamo Bay will almost certainly make more money, but I can't imagine it capturing the innocent magic that was White Castle. Think about it--the Neil Patrick Harris joke can really only work......

How did they convince Downey to actually fly this high? What a brave actor. | Photo courtesy of Paramount If you absolutely can't wait until 12:01 am on May 2nd to see what's looking to be the summer's first big blockbuster, the Aero Theater in Santa Monica is holding a charity screening of Iron Man on May 1st at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $20 and proceeds go the Aero Building Fund Donation. If seeing......

Let's go over the ground rules. Rule number 1: No touching of the hair or face... AND THAT'S IT! | Photo courtesy of Lionsgate As expected (due to its wussy PG-13 rating and higher theater count) The Forbidden Kingdom ($20.8M) knocked off the R-rated Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($17.3M) in the opening weekend for both films. Last week's dreary winner Prom Night endured the typical precipitous drop (-56%) but still managed to hold onto third......

Photo by delara-photos via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr DID U C OPRAH 2DAY? OMG SO GR8! OOPS G2G, PPL R B-TING SUM GUY UP TTYL! Pasadena ain't your ashtray. So tonight their city council meets to vote on a massive smoking ban that will prohibit puffers to indulge in their habit in almost any public place. Hey, what's the latest on the upcoming SAG/AFTRA contract talks? Deadline Hollywood Daily has an......

Photo submitted by benrodian to the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr He may be young and may not have billboards of himself around Hollywood like Angelyne, but the twenty-something Chad Luckette does have a van and trailer displaying his name, which seems to be found in Silver Lake Sunset Junction area more than often. Who is he? "[Chad is] an aspiring actor you can also find his resume and headshots as well as......

Sony thrilled they didn't stick with financially riskier, historically accurate all-Asian cast | Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Though the stumble by Leatherheads was the big weekend box office story, I think it's equally significant that little 21--a movie with relatively modest expectations--led the pack for the second week in a row. It's take of $15.1M ($46.5M) easily outpaced Leatherheads which debuted to a weak estimate of $13.4M and may ultimately finish third behind......

What's so amazing about this picture is that John Krasinski is only 5'7" | Photo courtesy of Universal I'll be in the minority when I attend Leatherheads this weekend because I'm not going to see George Clooney. As an increasingly obsessive fan of The Office (I record the repeats on TNT), I'm paying to see my man John Krasinski finally--let's hope--be in a good movie. After mega-stinkers like License to Wed and The Holiday......

Non-Asian Jim Sturgess portrays Asian character | Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Even though the book on which it was based was infinitely better than the resulting movie, the quasi-racist 21 still managed to dominate the weekend box office in its debut. It pulled in a healthy $23.7M, easily outdistancing the resilient Horton Hears a Who ($17.4M/$117.2M). The pathetic Superhero Movie underperformed at $9.5M in its first weekend, followed by Tyler Perry's Meet the......

Horton hears some serious dough | Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox With a huge release hitting theaters virtually every Friday, it's rare that a movie tops the box office over successive weekends and yet that's exactly what Horton Hears a Who managed over the Easter holiday. It took in a healthy $25.1M ($86.4M), easily outdistancing Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns which brought in a reliably solid $20M in its debut. Fellow newcomer Shutter......

The East Valley is finally getting its art house/indie movie theatre starting tomorrow -- at least the digging and construction part, that is. And unlike the two other Laemmle Theatres in the Valley, the new attraction in the NoHo Arts District will be more transit friendly with the confluence of the Metro Red and Orange lines nearby. The movie theater is the final phase of the NoHo Commons project, which includes the already-built HOWS Market,......

I'd rather have a Windy City Heat 2 but the The Hammer will have to suffice. | Photo courtesy of Hammer the Movie I've been a devoted fan of Adam Carolla since his early days on Loveline so don't expect any objectivity in my coverage of The Hammer. I've been waiting to see this movie since it played at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival and tomorrow it finally hits theaters. Even non-fans of the......

Frames form the next alleged LA based movie, Cloverfield type thriller Here we go again with the Cloverfield type buzz, but this time, some speculate that this movie is of a Los Angeles setting for the plot. Defamer points out that this latest YouTube viral sensation released Saturday (video embedded below) could easily be suspected as Cloverfield 2 or M. Night Shyamalan's forthcoming Philadelphia disaster flick, The Happening. Yet, after some sleuthing, they searched......

Could Kara Thrace be the last of the final five? | Photo courtesy of the Sci-Fi Channel As a true devotee, I feel it's my duty to spread the word about the criminally overlooked Battlestar Galactica. You may be thinking that a science-fiction show is not for you, but give it a few episodes and you will be hooked. Under much of the cultural radar, Katee Sackhoff is delivering one of the fiercest, most heartbreaking......

Fat elephant struggles to save bacteria colony | Photo courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox To no one's surprise, Horton Hears a Who swamped the box office this weekend with a year's best $45.1M. It easily out-distanced 10,000 B.C. which managed to bring in an additional $16.4M ($61.2M) in its second weekend. Newcomer Never Back Down surprised to the high side with a take of $8.6M followed by hold-overs College Road Trip ($7.8M/$24.2M), Vantage Point......

Jaws. Star Wars. Indiana Jones. ET. Jurassic Park. Harry Potter. These are some timeless tales that captivated our youth (and for some people, their lives). The memories should be flooding back now, reminding you of the good ol’ days, when big blockbuster movies were held together not just by special effects, but with memorable characters, plots (!), and most of all, the music. The minor second motif from Jaws will always run through your mind......

Actor struggles to look afraid in face of bad SFX | Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Despite a critical reception that could charitably be called awful, 10,000 B.C. rolled to the top of the box office this weekend, taking in $35.7M. Fellow newcomer (and fellow terrible movie) College Road Trip finished a distant second with $14M, almost twice that of the resilient Vantage Point ($7.5M/$51.6M). Semi-Pro sunk in its second weekend ($5.9M/$24.8M) but still......

As reports and tweets comes out of of SXSW in Austin, TX where BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy reportedly held a disastrous interview with 23-year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, news of the popular social networking site with more of a national and local business twist hit the wires: Paramount will offer movie clips via a Facebook application, a first for the movie industry....

You can almost feel the grit coming off this picture | Photo courtesy of Lionsgate Entertainment I've always thought it was a shame that Jason Statham got stuck in the ghetto of glossy, empty action flicks. You'd never guess it by watching The Transporter 2 or Crank but Statham can be a legitimately good actor. I'm glad to see him in The Bank Job, a re-telling of the 1971 Baker Street bank robbery. Director......

Part of an ongoing series. On Sunday evening, local band Midnight Movies (MySpace) performed on Part Time Punks (MySpace) at The Echo (MySpace), opening for Spectrum. Also on the bill was Chicago's Grimble Grumble (MySpace). Midnight Movies also sold at the show advance copies of their new Nights EP (which streets on iTunes next Tuesday), which includes two versions of the title track "Nights In White Satin" as well as "Should Have Known," "Stormy......

Still the champ but diminished | Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema It's usually good news for a movie when it wins the weekend box-office race. When the movie severely underperforms expectations, however, that win feels like more of a Pyrrhic victory. Such was the case with Semi-Pro this weekend as it only brought in about half of what was expected--a lowly $15.3M. Last week's champ, Vantage Point, held up well and took second......

It’s midnight, and while I write a monotonous series of buzzes and feedback loops razes through my living room. The cats are wide-eyed and alarmed. These are not the normal noises of everyday life. They are the aural explorations of Spectrum, one of the most prolific projects of Sonic Boom, cofounder of Spacemen 3. When Spacemen 3 split up, it seemed fans diverged as well. Many followed Jason Pierce (aka J. Spaceman), who went on......

To have a continuous bike path along the LA River, it must pass next to Universal Studios. The maroon line marks the disputed path. Back in an October 2006 interview with the mysterious LA City Nerd, we asked a question of hope: when can we realistically bike commute via the LA River Trail from the Valley to Downtown LA? The nerd was not optimistic saying that "the LA River trail may never connect completely......

Anton Yelchin and Kat Dennings moon over each other in the shithouse | Photo courtesy of MGM Charlie Bartlett is the hardest type of film to review because even though it misses, it doesn't miss by terribly much. After watching it and thinking about it for awhile, I kept returning to an Australian movie I saw last summer, Introducing the Dwights. Like Charlie Bartlett it was a film built on a curio of a......

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Hollywood's latest exercise in Rashômon-style storytelling is Vantage Point. As most of you no doubt realize because you've seen the trailer a quarter of a million times, Vantage Point deals with the attempted assassination of the President from a multitude of perspectives. As the movie's tagline says, "8 Strangers. 8 Points of View. 1 Truth." Critics have been flaming it with Variety's Justin Chang providing some choice barbs. I......

Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema If you think you know what Be Kind Rewind is all about, you're probably mistaken. The film's advertising would lead you to believe that it's a raucous comedy about two losers forced to re-make classic films on a zero budget to hilarious effect. While that's certainly a major plot point, it only exists to serve what I think is the film's subtext. Namely, Be Kind Rewind is a......