is a tiny, unexpected gem. more ›

"No Country For Old Men," "There Will Be Blood," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," and "Atonement" all received nominations for Best Picture this morning, as the Academy Award nominations were announced in Beverly Hills. "No Country" and "There Will Be Blood" are the front runners with eight noms apiece, including a Best Actor nod for perennial Oscar fav Daniel Day-Lewis, and directing nominations for the Coen Bros. and Paul Thomas Anderson. While Javier Bardem was recognized with a Best Supporting nom for his work in "No Country," neither Tommy Lee Jones nor Josh Brolin were nominated for the film (although Jones is in the running for a Best Actor award for his work in "In the Valley of Elah" -- did anybody actually see that?). more ›

"Atonement" leads the pack of nominees for the 2008 Golden Globe Awards with seven nods, including top actor nominations for both leads, Keira Knightly and James McAvoy. "American Gangster," "No Country for Old Men," and "Sweeney Todd" also garnered nominations; you can read a partial list of the nominees here at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association website. Hayden Panettiere, Dane Cook, Ryan Reynolds and Quentin Tarantino read the list at the Beverly Hilton at... more ›

Sue Grafton signs T is for Trespass 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble, 3rd Street Promenade more ›

Mathieu Schreyer, the KCRW host of "On the Corner" was born in France. Maybe that explains why he didn't include Radiohead on his top ten list like most of his cohorts did. more ›

In a shocking upset, Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married easily topped the box-office with a much higher than expected $21.5 million haul. Ordinarily, I'm on the side of the underdog, but Perry's movies are so aggresively mediocre that I'm not looking forward to the glut of his product that is now certain to follow. Then again, Why Did I Get Married is hardly worse than The Game Plan which finished second in... more ›

It's a strong weekend for new releases. After a long break, Jim Gray is back in the director's chair with We Own the Night. Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix star as brothers on opposite sides of the law. Reviews have been 50/50, but critics were equally blase about Gray's last flick, The Yards, which I loved. Cate Blanchett is back as Queen Elizabeth in Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Reviews have been weaker than those... more ›

A few hours from now, "Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens debates political theorist Andrew Arato of the New School for Social Research on the war in Iraq and its impact on the present and future of America" at REDCAT (8:30 p.m.) more ›

We ran from our very last SXSW event - the It Takes a Nation of Millions to Make this Panel panel - and straight to the airport to return to Los Angeles. Mena Suvari was on the plane and we wanted badly to chat her up but didn't; we got caught up in traffic on the 101 (no shock) because of a Sherman Oaks lockdown while the police searched for a bank robbery suspect (again, no shock) and, now, we see there is a week of rain in our future. Wait, are we sure LAist hasn't turned into Seattlest? more ›