I decided to hold this review (and the Pixar Short Films DVD) for as long as I could because I wanted it to be fresh in everyone's minds as they prepared for the start of the Christmas shopping season this Friday. Whether you are looking for something for a girlfriend or a nephew or even a grandparent, Ratatouille belongs in your basket. It is another in the increasingly long string of delightful movies that......

Every Friday, LAist is taking you on a trip down to Orange County to uncover the unique dining experiences that await adventurous eaters willing to explore beyond the county line. Saying the name ‘Park Avenue’ evokes images of wealth, of tony living, of elegance and class (or of crappy Buicks if you’re into cars). Kinda like Rodeo Drive. It’s the antithesis of the working class, the regular everyday lifestyle that most of us experience.......

For the fifth year in a row, Liquid Kitty on Pico has won Citysearch's title of Best Martini in LA. Liquid Kitty harkens back to LA's dark, Chandleresque side, with dim lights and strong drinks. It reminds me of both the rat pack martini bar Olive, and a little bit of Yee Mee Loo's, an historic Chinatown bar. The Hollywood speakeasy feel is enhanced by the lack of any kind of sign out front with......

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......

After a summer hiatus, the in-your-face punk rock action of the Derby Dolls are back. Tonight is a different brand of the Derby and of the Doll, as they will be playing at the Industry Hills Expo Center for a night of two games (including a mini-bout), bands and Hell's Belles Custom Classic Car Show. While the temporary one-time location is screwy for some, the advantage is the 2500 people the space can hold,......

So Barry Bonds hit his big dinger last night, and we hate him for it. But we're allowed to, we live in LA. The Commissioner of Baseball, however, is not allowed to hate Barry Bonds. At least not publicly. Why? Because the Commish is supposed to be fair and without allegiance. All he is supposed to care about is Baseball's Best Interest. But clearly Bud Selig only has one interest: money. The former used......

One reason that "mainstream media" should continue to fear blogs is because the best ones are truly independent. LAist is "owned" by a couple of people in New York who are busy running their own damn website. Plus, they believe that when you empower people and give them the freedom to grow, they will yield fruit faster and more beautiful than you ever expected. The people of the Interwebs have found a star in......

Rilo Kiley's new video for 'The Moneymaker', their new single off of their upcoming album, Under the Blacklight....

Pixar's Ratatouille was tops at the box office this weekend, raking in a healthy 47.2 million dollars. While that number was well below previous Pixar films like Cars (60 milllion) and The Incredibles (70 million), it was more than enough to take down Bruce Willis and Live Free or Die Hard which pulled in 33.1 million. Both movies enjoyed across-the-board good reviews and should show decent legs in the coming weeks. Last week's clunker......

A CG rat, a couple documentaries, John McClane and a Swiss genius...should make for an interesting weekend in the theaters. Be sure to also check LAist's LA Film Festival coverage for some other gems playing around town this weekend. Ratatouille - As far as I'm concerned, Pixar has yet to put out a bad film. Some of my friends argue that "Cars" was a glorified NASCAR commercial and "The Incredibles" lacked originality (just like......

Saturday night the Long Beach Art Theater was host to the premiere of the documentary, "One More for All my True Friends", the story of Orange County punk band Channel 3. The film was produced by Erik Carreon of Homeschool Productions. Channel 3 opened the bill at the very first gig I ever attended. Perennial openers, Channel 3's logo is prominent on many classic flyers. Other than that, there is not much that was......

Singer/dancer/menswear icon Andre 3000 of Outkast will play singer/dancer/comedian Sammy Davis Jr. in a new biopic about the entertainer's romance with screen siren Kim Novak. Back in the mid-50s when quaint terms like "anti-miscegenation" were used to sugarcoat racist laws, Davis was an up-and-coming singer with a couple of albums under his belt, while Novak was a rising actress grinding her way through Columbia Studios' starlet machine. He had yet to join the Rat......

Believe it or not, Ocean's Thirteen actually out-Grindhouses Grindhouse. Not in violence or cursing or explosives per se, (it does have a PG-13 rating), but in hearkening back to the good ol' days when movies were fun, dagnabit, Clooney and co. have Tarantino beat. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Thirteen is the most kinetic and most fun of the Ocean series, and there are far worse ways you could spend two hours......

So this is what it feels like to collapse across a finish line. Normally I collapse well before the yellow tape. Prematurely, the doctors like to call it. But here I am, on the plus side of a 6-2 Stanley Cup clinching victory by the Anaheim Ducks. It was quite a ride. There was a certain amount of gratification "covering" the Stanley Cup Finals for LAist. I use the term "covering" in the most Chatsworth......

Are you old enough to be nostalgic for "Car Toons" comics? Or young enough to wonder what the deal is with Rat Fink? Tonight's art opening for original Big Daddy Roth artwork at La Luz De Jesus is a can't miss event for children of all ages. Big Daddy Roth's characters fathered a movement Howie Pyro refers to as lowbrow/pop surrealism. Roth mentored and inspired artists such as Robert Williams and Ed Newton, not......

Let's face it, the last two Beastie Boys records were hugely disappointing. After a nice run starting with Licensed to Ill, thru Paul's Boutique and thru Ill Communication the Beasties had more hits than Sadaharu Oh. Hello Nasty was eh and To The Five Burroughs was something that we never thought was possible: a Beastie Boys cd that we barely played. Maybe it was because the drunken b-boy skateboarder bit was played out once......

The Good News: Nancy Grace will no longer be on Court TV, at least not until she finally gets to sit in the defendant's seat herself. The Bad News: The diminutive Southern blond rabble-rouser will continue her work as a nightly nuisance on the one-time news channel known as CNN Headline News. In her career as a talking head taking on all kinds of imagined and otherwise biased and inaccurately portrayed wrongdoers, Nancy Grace has......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

LAist will cut to the chase and do in less than a minute what American Idol took 30 minutes to do tonight: Rocker chick Gina Glocksen is out and Sanjaya Malakar just took another step toward the finals. If you need a few more details than that, then read on... The nine finalists were split into three groups: >> Group 1: Blake Lewis, Chris Richardson and Sanjaya Malakar >> Group 2: Haley Scarnato, Gina......

A plastics chemical called melamine - not rat poison - was found on wheat gluten in recently recalled pet food, according to the FDA's latest report. Now that rat poison has been eliminated as the cause of over 2,400 pet deaths, more foods must be tested for melamine. The FDA has promised the public they will announce the addition of any foods to the recall list if it is warranted. Concern is growing among pet......

Rat poison was found on the imported wheat in the recalled pet foods and is the likely culprit of reported animal deaths & illnesses, according to the Department of Agriculture and the EPA. ABC News reports: A source close to the investigation tells ABC News that the rodenticide, which the source says is illegal to use in the United States, was on wheat that was imported from China and used by Menu Foods in......

As we mentioned earlier, two rare violins stolen from a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic were recovered by French authorities last week. The prime suspect in the case raised suspicions, when he offered the instruments for sale to antique dealers for far under their value. However, before purchasing the violins, the dealers went through the internet looking for a more nefarious reason behind the sketchy deal. They found the LAPD’s website which has......

Last night's 365 Days/365 Plays at the Bootleg Theatre was one of those nights full of intoxicated magnetism. About a hundred or so people pack rat-ed into the theatre lobby to begin the first play... in the dark. To say the least, it was thrilling, as the whole night was. Tonight's 10:30 p.m. performance of 365 will be their last for this week's set of plays. Like Bootleg, another troupe to keep tabs with......

By day, Terence McFarland is known throughout the LA theatre community as the Executive Director of the LA Stage Alliance, a reputable non-profit service organization dedicated to building awareness, appreciation, and support for the performing arts in Greater LA. After leaving the fashion industry in New York City to attend CalArts for a master's degree, he quickly found his role as a leader helping solve problems within the experimental art school's bureacracy of BS. It......

Valentines Day left you feeling dirty? Cleanse yourself with these heartwarming tracks from the cyberspa. I'd like to thank God, my parents, Rick Ruben and The Hype Machine for making this possible. Happy Mondays - The Boys Are Back In Town (Sound of the Suburb) Fuzzy sonics… Mountain Goats - The Boys Are Back In Town (Sound of the Suburb) Just as you’d imagine… Wilco - Cars Can’t Escape (The Music Slut) Clearly, Jeff......

Midnight Star, Heatwave, Bloodstone, El Chicano, Evelyn "Champagne" King @ The Forum The Roots, Jill Scott, Lupe Fiasco, Akon @ Gibson Amphitheatre The Ettes, Rocket, The Affair @ The Scene Bob Weir & Rat Dog @ Ventura Theatre Los Lobos @ The Canyon The Mentors @ The Knitting Factory Cindy Lee Berryhill, John Doe @ Largo The Groovie Ghoulies @ Alex's Bar Mirah, Anna Oxygen & Sir DSS, The Sharp Ease @ The Troubadour......

If you’ve never ventured to the Farmer’s Market at The Grove to try out Pampas Brazilian Churrascaria, then tonight is the night. Oh what, you were actually going to make your girlfriend watch Monk at your rat-hole apartment for the fifth Friday night in a row? On the real, Pampas has some top-quality grilled meats, including this writer’s favorites, the sirloin cap (alcatra) and the grilled lamb. The eatery is open and outdoor since......

- Red Sox pay $51 million just for the right to negotiate with a Japanese pitcher - ESPN - Every James Bond Movie Trailer Ever - cinematical - The Portraits of 42 American Presidents on a single strand of hair - world art miracle (via) - A hotel room that looks like a cartoon - Kunst - Fox News internal memo proves that, well, they're Fox News - Huffington Post - As Jack Abramoff......

Okay, we know we're a little late on the Lost recap from last week's season premiere, but hopefully you'll forgive us. For those of you who haven't gotten a chance to sit down and let yourself be consumed by the island madness and mystery, just know that we're slowly (very, very slowly) learning more about The Others and why they're so goddamn creepy. Lost is a show that will never please everyone at once,......