Four years ago, Quentin Tarantino began a proud tradition of guest programming the New Beverly. Fellow film geeks have followed in his wake, including Edgar Wright (twice!), Eli Roth, Diablo Cody, Joe Dante (another two-timer) & even Peter Bogdanovich, and now the king's returned to his cinematic castle. QT's opening his private vaults for some of the grimiest, craziest, rarest exploitation to hit the silver screen - and luckily for us, they're staying open for a full month of March Madness! more ›

No, really - did some memo go around saying all film festivals had to be scheduled within the same two-week period? The Polish Film Festival continues, flanked by the South-East European Film Festival & the last stands of the Los Angeles Jews & the Pacific Asian subcontinent. But with all the talk of Iran lately, the Noor ("light" in Arabic) Film Festival may prove the most noteworthy. While stark, realistic Iranian New Wave films by the likes of Abbas Kiarostami & Mohsen Makhmalbaf have nabbed accolades at Western film festivals for decades, less "artsy" films like the historical epic Flags of Kaveh's Castle & crime thriller In The Dark reveal a different side of the country. This theme of revelation & East-West conflict motivates much of the festival, coming to a most human (and most absurd) head with Donkey In Lahore, undoubtedly the first and only documentary to follow a Gothic Australian puppeteer, his teenaged Pakistani fiance & her traditional Muslim family.
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Clearly these kids do not understand disco. Nevertheless, silver, swoopy-haired Barry Gibb (sounding oddly like Darryl Hammond’s Sean Connery impression) mentored and coached the hatchlings into eight counts of nostalgia butchering. Much like colorized movies, this was a bad idea. Melinda started us off with the very dirty, “Love You Inside And Out” oblivious to the connotation. For her second number she chose the timeless, the epic, the boooooooooooooring “How Can You Mend A... more ›

A Word or ~43: Welcome to the weekend my little ones. Other than the local teams the NBA is lighting up the dial all over the place tonight. During your busy weekend don't forget that "The L Word" and "The Apprentice: LA" are coming back on Sunday. Tonight - Friday - January 5th, 2007 Clippers @ Wizards (the CW, 5:30 p.m.) Blue Jackets @ Ducks (PRIME, 7:00 p.m.) Nuggets @ Lakers (Fox Sports, 7:30p.m.)... more ›

We've all been stuck in this predicament: you have relatives or friends visiting from out of town, and they want to do some sightseeing. You beg and plead with them, "Trust me! Hollywood is skuz central!" and "You've seen the handprints at Mann's Chinese on TV. Isn't that good enough?" and "No, I will not spend five hours with you searching out Don Knotts' star." But they drag you up to Hollywood Boulevard, and you do your best to keep your spirits up. "Yeah, R2-D2's footprints. Hilarious." And they're still not satisfied. Seeing Sean Connery's appendages immortalized in cement only whets their appetite for the real thing. "This is Hollywood," they say. "I want to see some !" more ›