"the recliner has been drinking," by kpe II via LAist Featured Photos Pool on Flickr. Are you smarter than the governor of California? State Sen. Dean Florez has proposed a bill calling on Gov. Schwarzenegger to take the high school exit exam to show him how important education funds are. The state is mired in a$8 billion debt and some have called for cuts to educating as a way to get California out of......

One of the great performances in recent memory. | Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage If you somehow missed There Will Be Blood in theaters, pick up the DVD today and watch one of our finest actors give his finest performance. Nothing more really needs to be said. Walk Hard got knocked around at the box office over Christmas, but I really liked it. For any fan of the Apatow brand, it's a no-brainer buy.......

Yes, we know that rainy days and Mondays can get you down. And doubly so today. But you can turn that mood around by stepping out tonight to one of these great events. Just watch for puddles. TALK Jill Leovy probably writes the Los Angeles Times best blog (excepting LAist’s own Adam Rose, natch). She chronicles almost every murder in LA to give a human element to what would be another crime blotter. Tonight Leovy’s......

the parody video Tom Cruise WANTS you to see! on FunnyOrDie.com Jerry O'Connell is hilarious in this sendup of Tom Cruise's recently unearthed Scientology video. I like the insane laughter the best. O'Connell really has that down. He must kill at cocktail parties. Hahahaa!!! Hahahaa!!! Hahahaa!!! Hahahaa!!!......

Apparently a Scientologist can be defined by a single question: "Would you want others to achieve the knowledge you now have?" The music, the insane laughter over abbreviations I had to look up (and are provided for you below), the conviction of "knowledge" that most of us do not have. Cue lights. Why it's Tom Cruise in a video made especially for the Scientology community! And even better, it was leaked out to the......

At this point my whole week is focused on getting to AMC's Breaking Bad which debuts this upcoming Sunday. AMC scored a couple Golden Globes with Mad Men, let's see if they can repeat the success. On face value Breaking Bad is more interesting than anything the Big Four have planned for us. Late night is troubling me lately since NBC and Comedy Central aren't posting their guests into the news feeds or their websites......

Oh L.A. and your crazy kooky vagrants! Please meet Crazy Doll Lady (as we are calling her), pictured in the photo above. She and her scary puppet friends hang out around Sunset and Vine every day, and wait outside the Hollywood Public Library every morning for food handouts. Say hi to her if you see her...or drive by real real fast like I do! Even if the Globes are cancelled, Academy Awards organizers are......

The deed is done. The first large production company, United Artists (UA), has made a deal with the WGA and is going to get back to work, according to the AP (via LA Times). UA's parent company, MGM, is not included on the deal. "United Artists has lived up to its name. UA and the Writers Guild came together and negotiated seriously. The end result is that we have a deal that will put......

Taken today in Venice at Lincoln and Venice Blvds., the above picture shows a billboard that has kicked the bucket. Did it finish its "bucket list" too? Three people were shot and injured today in Lincoln Heights near Daly and Mozart streets at 1:22 p.m. *UPDATE, 7:43 p.m.: LAPD is confirming to LAist that one died at the scene, making this the fourth murder for 2008. More police dog news from San Diego, this......

Legend holds that after seeing Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Tom Cruise jumped to his feet and loudly declaimed, "That rocks!". Some movies take a little longer to process. After watching No Country for Old Men I remember considering the movie for a few days before finally deciding that it was, indeed, a great film with a perfect ending. Likewise, it's only now--a week after seeing it--that I'm ready to write about There......

Watch out for 'dem coyotes in 'der Valley hills, y'all. The Daily News is reporting a man driving on Dona Pepita Place spared a coyotes life by driving into a home instead of plowing over the animal when it jumped out in front of his car late last night. The car drove through the backyard wall, missing the pool by a few feet. The driver was not injured. We see coyotes on city streets......

Who has been the most potent force in filmmaking over the last twenty years? Steven Spielberg? Tom Hanks? Tom Cruise? Joel Silver? How about John Lasseter? His Pixar films have enjoyed unparalleled critical and commercial success since the debut of Toy Story in 1995. Tonight at the Egyptian you can see the whole story of Pixar unfold when the American Cinematheque screens The Pixar Story. Featuring never-before-seen material from the Pixar library, archival animation......

With one very notable exception, it's a fairly dull weekend in the movie world. That exception, of course, is the sterling No Country for Old Men. After several misfires (Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers, The Man Who Wasn't There), the Coen Brothers are back with their best film since The Big Lebowski. Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones all give superb performances in this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name.......

This is why we do all of our Christmas shopping online: first the FBI reported possible terrorist threats to Chicago and Los Angeles malls this holiday season, then took it back. Hey kids! You too can grow up to be a pervert with a social conscience! Dov Charney just signed on for a deal with American Apparel's partner company that could net him millions per year. A Small World it's not: Disneyland is remodeling......

Somehow "The Tonight Show" scored a trifecta of controversy tonight as they were able to book the most punk rock of punk rock bands, the most conservative member of Congress, and the wackiest Scientologist all to appear on its air in the same hour. Tonight the Sex Pistols, Ron Paul, and Tom Cruise will all be in Burbank to tape the late night chat show. Strangely, whatever wire service the LA Daily News used......

Anti-war protesters have been gathering in Downtown Los Angeles this afternoon; the CHP has blocked off two ramps on the 101 because of the protest. Huge meat recall: Topps Meat Company is recalling over 20 million pounds of hamburger patties that may be infected with e.coli: more than a dozen people have gotten sick. The man who threatened Tom Cruise with extortion for stolen wedding pictures was found dead in his home, an apparent......

A recent 911 call about George Clooney's motorcycle crash in New Jersey has been made public. The operator seems quite confused - TMZ Uh Oh - do we have another celeb heading to rehab? Pamela Anderon's friends are concerned about her hard partying ways, drinking and doing damage to her liver when she already has Hep C (Thanks Tommy) - NY Post Bridget Moynihan poses for OK magazine with new baby boy, John, fathered by......

Peter Facinelli is known for a lot of things: his various roles (Touch the Top of the World, Six Feet Under, Babel, the Scorpion King, etc.); looking somewhat like Tom Cruise; being married to Jennie Garth (the lucky fellow) - but what we didn't know was that he worked hard to lose a hardcore Queens accent and that he actively courts paranoia. LAist had the chance to talk to Facinelli last week to ask him......

Following in the footsteps of Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Nicole Richie, Bill Murray could face a drunk driving charge after he drove a golf cart along a downtwon street in Stockholm, Sweden and refused a breath test - Yahoo News Rapper Foxy Brown has been sentenced to jail, Rikers Island to be more specific, after violating her probation. She is currently three months preggers - TMZ Lindsay Lohan can relax a little more in......

Ten years from now we may look back at 300 as the movie that heralded the final shift away from the star-driven, mega-budget blockbuster paradigm. In an increasingly risk-managed world, why not spend 60 million dollars on a whole movie instead of 25 million on Tom Cruise or one of the Wills? Hot Fuzz signals the definite arrival of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg that was so strongly hinted at in Shaun of the......

Two extortionists have been arrested for trying to blackmail Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. David Hans Schmidt got his hands on some photos of the blessed wedding of the oh-so-happy couple. Schmidt wanted one million bucks for the return of the pics. But when he contacted Holmes and Cruise, they didn't reach for their checkbook -- they contacted the FBI. The Smoking Gun explains that Schmidt specializes in peddling sex tapes and nude photos of......

Lindsay Lohan everyone's favorite drunken, road-raging, coke-head, Hollywood-washup starlet bet's $50K that she will sleep with David Beckham by December when Posh hits the Spice Girls Tour. Sure Linds, why not? Of course it might be hard to sneak him into a jail cell, considering her recent DUI arrest is a sure sign that is where she will be headed. Look Lindsay, you cock-eyed slag. Just because Becks and Posh are nutty enough to......

- According to the LA Times, people who live next to trains and subways do not use them. - Eek! "From July 1 of 2006 to June 30 of this year, only 3.21 inches of rain fell in downtown Los Angeles — the lowest precipitation level since records started being kept in the 1880s." - After 80 mph driving and weaving on the Hollywood Freeway in March, actress Vivica A. Fox (Kill Bill, Independence Day)......

Yesterday marked David Beckham’s last day as a respectable European footballer before he makes his move to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Given the high caliber of the European soccer teams as compared to the naïve American Major League Soccer (MLS), this last game is surely the beginning of the end for the legendary Beckham. He is now doomed to a life of over-done, over-rated, Hollywood middle-brow trashiness. The poor man has already begun to......

Despite his recent slash amazing drunken video release, David Hasselhoff was granted sole custoday of his two teenage daughters - CBC Skating with Celebrities star Kristy Swanson pulls a Tanya Harding and was arrested for assaulting her boyfriend (and former skating partner's) ex- wife - People Angelina Jolie and the kids take a fathers day shopping trip - She also speaks about potentially repairing her estranged relationship with her own father Jon Voight - Just......

Two segments of a DIY animated show about magical unicorns, one of whom is named Tom Cruise and had a pink mini-mohawk.......

We're big fans of Bill Maher and his weekly Real Time on HBO. The hour-long show features a panel of distinguished guests discussing politics and pop matters of the day with Bill, but the highlight of each show is the "New Rules" segment, in which Maher introduces a set of hilarious new rules. (Also, highly recommended is the book, or audiobook of the same name.) The "New Rules" above are from Friday's episode --......

STARDOLL.com is the new best thing I have ever seen. Having only scratched the surface of this sugary pop paperdoll fest, I speak on little authority as to the full functionality of the site. What I do know, however, is all you really need to know -- you get to play dress-up with your favorite icons, and onto some of their faces you can also apply makeup. The end. Been a while since you've......

In what could turn out to be a long, expensive, and revealing lawsuit, Tommy Lasorda, the great former manager of the LA Dodgers, swears that he will sue if the tell-all autobiography "Secrets of a Hollywood Super Madam" is released on Thursday. Hollywood madam Jody "Babydol" Gibson was popped eight years ago for pimping out high-priced hookers, porn stars, and Playboy models throughout 16 states. She was given three years but served less than......

It's been widely reported this weekend that Tom Cruise is the "Jesus Christ of Scientology." Indeed, church leader David Miscavige told a UK paper: "Tom has been told he's Scientology's Christ-like figure.... Like Christ, he's been criticised for his views. But future generations will realise he was right." Without getting ideological, not only do we doubt that Jesus ever got down in his tighty-whities to Bob Seger, we're pretty sure that Tom Cruise left the......