The Brief

Paul Feig is known to center women in films like Bridesmaids, The Heat, A Simple Favor and the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot.

Following that trend, his newest psychological thriller, The Housemaid, stars Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried as co-leads. Sweeney’s character is hired as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy couple in a mansion. She soon finds out that the couple has dark secrets. The movie is an adaptation of Freida McFadden’s novel of the same name.

LAist host Julia Paskin talked with Feig about his latest film and keeping women at the forefront in his movies.

Balancing comedy and thriller in ‘The Housemaid’

The Housemaid is a mystery laden with humor. He says to strike that tonal balance, you have to take the genre seriously.

Paul Feig:  There's some heavy things in this movie. It's pretty dark. But for me, the fun comes from the retribution. You build an audience up. It's a very interesting movie because it has a big twist right in the middle.

And so we kind of set you up in the first hour of the movie and then we pay you off in the second hour. And it's really a brilliantly written book. Freida McFadden did an amazing job just with the structure of it 'cause you really get seduced into this story, and then the rug gets pulled out from under you.

On centering women in his films

Julia Paskin: It used to be so unusual to tell stories that are centered on women characters.  You work with these really funny women.  How do you have these relationships when it seemed like some of your counterparts that are also men in comedy were not forging those same relationships?

Paul Feig:  I guess it's what your sense of humor is and what you're comfortable around. And I was an only child. I was really close to my mom and my nextdoor neighbors were this family of eight kids and six were girls, and they were all kinda my best friends ...  and it was that coupled with seeing how, especially in comedy, women were really treated as props in comedy to be foils to the guys who were funny. And I just didn't like that.

Feig’s tips on dealing with online trolls

In 2016, Paul Feig directed a reboot of the Ghostbusters series starring an all-female-led cast, including Melissa McCarthy and Leslie Jones. After Feig announced the movie and cast on his Twitter page, users criticized the all-female casting choice, calling it a “gimmick.” At one point, the trailer for the film was the most down-voted movie trailer on YouTube.

Feig reflected on his announcement of the movie on Twitter and subsequent backlash to the direction of the movie.

Paul Feig:  The first 24 hours was just pure excitement from all my fans. I went to bed that night, like, ‘This is the greatest thing,’ and got up in the morning …  and then just my feed turned into just absolute hatred and death threats.

Julia Paskin: What do you do in a situation like that? I'm just starting to kind of get a small taste as a broadcaster.

Paul Feig:  You ignore and you mute. You [weren’t] able to mute back then. You had to block somebody. And if you blocked them, it was a badge of honor and they would put the block symbol up and say, ‘Look, he's avoiding us or whatever’ ...

So just mute and don’t respond no matter how terrible it is.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Watch the full interview below.

My favorite holiday movie (oh, who are we kidding, maybe my favorite movie, period) is When Harry Met Sally… and with so much darkness already in the world this week, the shocking murder of director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele left me with a lot of grief and a lot to be thankful for. Fire up The Princess Bride and have a good cry.

If you’re also feeling a little down, there’s plenty of music to lift your spirits, including Dave Koz at the Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts, Agent Orange at the Whisky and Too $hort at the Canyon Agoura Hills on Friday. Saturday, War is at the YouTube Theater, the Vandals are at House Of Blues Anaheim, the Pharcyde play the Novo, Alice Smith is at the Peppermint Club and the Allman Betts Family Revival is at Orpheum Theatre, featuring Robert Randolph, Dweezil Zappa and more. Sunday, check out early aughts girl group Danity Kane at the El Rey. Licorice Pizza has all your show recommendations, as usual.

Elsewhere on LAist.com, mark your calendar for the 2028 Olympics ticket draw, read up on the hidden history of “White Christmas” and, if you’ve been procrastinating, find those last-minute gift ideas here.

Events

A Drunk Christmas Carol

Through Sunday, December 21
The Last Call 
6025 Reseda Blvd., Tarzana
COST: $21.74; MORE INFO

OK, OK, just one more Christmas Carol and then we’ll be done until next year, promise. Cookie Cutter Theatre Company has a new take on the story with an interactive comedy, A Drunk Christmas Carol at The Last Call in Tarzana. Cast members take shots, retell the story and are kept on track by other cast members — and the audience. No bah-humbugs here!

Guadalupe Maravilla: A Performance

Friday, December 19, 8 p.m.
REDCAT at Disney Hall 
631 W. 2nd Street, Downtown L.A.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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It’s dance, it’s moving sculpture, it’s music, it’s performance art. Acclaimed artist Guadalupe Maravilla’s new work premieres at REDCAT and explores survival and resilience through a collaboration with local artists using instruments handmade by Maravilla. The hour-long event coincides with the closing day of Maravilla’s solo exhibit at REDCAT and explores the artist’s personal history fleeing El Salvador as a child and his later experience with colon cancer. Shana Nys Dambrot at 13 Things LA says, “The performance resists narrative exposition, allowing the story to register through form, repetition, and gently percussive sensory accumulation.”

Ellington’s Nutcracker & Tchaikovsky’s Winter Daydreams

Through Sunday, December 21
L.A. Phil
Walt Disney Concert Hall 
111 S. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A. 
COST: FROM $24.50; MORE INFO

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Farah Sosa

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The perfect holiday concert is here. A mashup of jazz and classical, Duke Ellington’s 1960 take on Tchaikovsky’s Christmas classic, The Nutcracker, will be conducted by Thomas Wilkins, followed by Tchaikovsky’s own Winter Daydreams. Plus, ELLINGTON30 gets you a discount on tickets.

EFL: Swansea vs. Wrexham

Friday, December 19, 12 p.m. 
Cosm 
1252 District Drive, Inglewood
COST: MORE INFO

Ollie Rathbone of Wrexham celebrates scoring his team's second goal.

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Joe Prior

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Kick off a little early and get your holidays started with an immersive live stream of the Swansea vs. Wrexham match at Cosm. Feel like you’re all the way across the pond without hopping a plane and follow all the action as Ryan Reynolds’ and Rob McElhenney’s Welsh team takes on Swansea.

Missing Persons 

Saturday, December 20, 8 p.m.
Stage Red 
8463 Sierra Ave., Fontana
COST: FROM $24.85; MORE INFO

I’ve taken many a long walk through Los Angeles singing — and happily bucking conventional wisdom in my head — the Missing Persons anthem “Walking in L.A.” Who says nobody walks in L.A.? Not me. Head out to Fontana for a special reunion show with the MTV-era band.

Holiday Comedy Night

Friday, December 19, 8 p.m. 
The Rockefeller
1707 S. Catalina Ave., Redondo Beach 
COST: $28.52; MORE INFO

Comedians and writers from The Late Show, Netflix’s Black AF, HBO and more join for an evening of holiday-themed comedy by the beach in Redondo.

Baby’s Got Bacchus 

Sunday, December 21, 6 p.m.
Nico’s 
3111 Glendale Blvd., Glendale
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Baby Battista

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Eventbrite

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Poetry on a winter Sunday evening sounds so cozy. And to the person who named this clever night of creativity “Baby’s Got Bacchus,” well, you get an official best things to do tip of the hat. Nico’s in Glendale will pair wines with poems. It's hosted by Schwarzenegger Institute Poet-in-Residence Mason Granger, and will feature special guest performances.

30th anniversary screening of Kids 

Sunday, December 21, 7 p.m.
The Regent 
448 S. Main, Downtown L.A.
COST: $19.50; MORE INFO

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Miramax Films

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Sure, you could choose a more holiday-themed or family-friendly movie for the Saturday before Christmas (It’s a Wonderful Life is on at the Egyptian if you MUST), but why not go edgy and head to Cinegogue’s 30th anniversary screening of Larry Clark’s groundbreaking 1995 film Kids? It doesn’t have Jimmy Stewart, but it does have a very young Chloe Sevigny and a lot of heavy drug use and sex.

PopUp Bagels

Opening Friday, December 19
11710 San Vicente Blvd., Brentwood 
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy PopUp Bagels

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New York’s latest bagel trend, the award-winning PopUp Bagels, comes to the West Side starting this week. Truffle schmear, anyone?

Mochitsuki demonstration 

Various dates
Yama Sushi Marketplace
Little Tokyo
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Yama Sushi Marketplace is hosting a free mochitsuki demonstration (mochi pounding) at their three L.A. locations through the first week of the new year. In this Japanese New Year tradition, rice is pounded into mochi, symbolizing good fortune, long life and good health for the year ahead. Renowned Little Tokyo confectionery store Fugetsu-Do will provide mochi to guests following the demonstration — plus, there will be Taiko drumming.

The dates are:

• Saturday, December 20 (11 a.m. to 12 p.m.): San Gabriel Valley911 W Las Tunas Dr, San Gabriel, CA 91776
• Saturday, December 27 (11 a.m. to 12 p.m.): West L.A.11709 National Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90064
• Saturday, January 3 (11 a.m. to 12 p.m.): K-Town3178 W Olympic Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90006

The cost of living continued to climb in November — though a little less than two months ago — as seven in 10 Americans say they're barely able to pay their bills.

Consumer prices in November were up 2.7% from a year ago, according to a report Thursday from the Labor Department. That's a smaller annual increase than for the 12 months ending in September, when inflation was clocked at 3%.

Prices rose 0.2% between September and November.

The Labor Department did not provide an October comparison because the government shutdown kept workers from conducting their usual price checks that month.

Omair Sharif of Inflation Insights suggests the absence of rental data for October may have skewed the November inflation figure lower.

Americans worry about affordability

The data comes as growing concerns about affordability remain a drag on the President Donald Trump's approval rating. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll finds just 36% of Americans approve of Trump's economic stewardship. That's the president's lowest rating on the economy in six years of polling, matching former President Biden's low score in 2022.

High prices are outweighing other economic concerns, with 71% of those surveyed saying their income just matches or falls short of their monthly expenses.

The latest inflation data showed that the rising cost of rent and electricity over the last year was only partially offset by falling prices for some food items, such as eggs.

On average, workers' wages are still climbing faster than prices. But wage gains have slowed in recent months. With a softening job market, workers no longer have the bargaining power to demand much higher pay.

"If you do that right now, they're going to show you the door," Federal Reserve Governor Chris Waller said Wednesday, at Yale University's CEO Summit.

Wealthy families aren't much troubled by rising prices, and continue to spend freely, Waller said. But low- and middle-income families face a genuine "affordability problem."

"Either the wages have to start going back up," Waller said. "Or we have to think about trying to get inflation to come down, so prices at least stop going up."

Diverging views on the outlook for inflation

Waller, who's a candidate to be the next leader of the Fed once chairman Jerome Powell's term expires in May, said he's confident that inflation will moderate next year. But not all Fed policymakers are so sanguine.

Inflation has been running above the central bank's 2% target for more than four years.

Raphael Bostic, the outgoing president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, warns the longer that inflation remains elevated, the greater the risk that people start to expect rapid price hikes to continue.

"I get paid to worry," Bostic told the Gwinnett County Chamber of Commerce Wednesday. "I don't want anyone to think I'm cavalier about our credibility" when it comes to fighting inflation.

Last week, the Fed voted to lower its benchmark interest rate for the third time since September, in hopes of propping up the job market. But members of the rate-setting committee signaled they'll be cautious about additional rate cuts.

In the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, 45% of respondents said high prices are their biggest economic worry, while only 10% said they're most concerned about job security.
Copyright 2025 NPR

In describing the massive undertaking it was to compose the score for the latest Avatar installment, Avatar: Fire and Ash, film composer Simon Franglen has some statistics he likes to share.

One is that almost every minute of the three-hour, 17-minute film was scored — three hours and four minutes to be exact. Printed out, that amount of music totaled more than 1,900 pages and had to be transported in two large road cases.

Another favorite stat of Franglen’s is that the epic score, which needed to match the epic scale of the film, required the work of 210 musicians, singers and engineers in Los Angeles.

Bucking the trend of recording overseas

Franglen is from the U.K., but L.A. has been his home for years. Meaning no disrespect to Britain, Franglen still says, “I would rather be here than anywhere else.”

That pride in his adopted home base has extended to his scoring work for Avatar, which Franglen says he and the film’s producers (director James Cameron and Jon Landau, who passed away in 2024) wanted recorded in Los Angeles, despite the fact that a lot of film scoring is increasingly moving abroad.

Franglen scored the second Avatar film, Avatar: The Way of Water, as well, and worked with Cameron previously, along with his mentor, composer James Horner, on the first Avatar and Titanic.

He also has worked as a session musician and producer with artists like Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand, Miley Cyrus and Celine Dion — he won a Grammy for Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic.

But even with his membership in the small club of Grammy winners, Franglen is more likely to bring up that he’s been a member of the American Federation of Musicians Local 47, the local professional musicians union, for more than three decades.

Recording the Avatar: Fire and Ash theme in Los Angeles was important to everyone on the production, Franglen says, as was bucking recent trends of scaling back film scores or using more electronic scoring than live orchestras.

“The Hollywood film score is something that we've all grown up with,” Franglen says. And it was important to him and the producers to keep the recording of the score in L.A. (the first and second Avatar scores were recorded here, as well) “because we are very much a part of not just the music community but the film community of L.A., which has been having a tough time recently, as we all know.”

“ I'm very proud of being able to keep the work here,” Franglen says. “And I think the quality of the work is shown in the score itself, which I'm exceedingly proud of.”

Avatar: Fire and Ash’s end-credits song, “Dream As One,” sung by Miley Cyrus and which Franglen co-wrote with Cyrus, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, recently was nominated for a Golden Globe. And the score for Avatar: The Way of Water earned Franglen a 2023 World Soundtrack Award.

How work for musicians in LA has declined and the ripple effects

When Franglen first came to L.A. as a session musician, he says there were seven full-time orchestras working every day. When he was working on pop records, Franglen says, the top guitarists would need to be booked three months in advance because they were so busy.

Today, Franglen says, there’s less and less work because of productions moving overseas.

The latest annual report from Film LA, the official film office for the LA region, found the number of scripted projects filmed in L.A. declined 14 percent from 2023 to 2024.

And while California expanded its Film & TV Tax Credit Program this year to help encourage productions to stay here, its effects aren’t yet known.

“The problem is [...] if you're going to film in Europe, then maybe you don't record the score in L.A.,” Franglen says. “ And eventually what happens is that if I want to hire the finest guitarist in the world, I know that he'll be available. I can probably ask him, ‘Would you be available this week or next?’ And he will say yes.”

While that can be wonderful in many ways, Franglen says, it also means less opportunities overall, including for musicians with less experience who might get a chance at a bigger gig if all the top musicians were as busy as they used to be.

“I'm seeing a lot of the faces that I know from when I was a session musician in my orchestra," Franglen says. "That's great. I'm very, very pleased to see them. But it also means that the turnover has not been as extensive as what one would've expected, and that turnover is important.”

More new players coming in, Franglen says, helps ensure that recording work for movies like Avatar — and smaller scale films too — can stay in Los Angeles for years to come.

This year, as South Gate librarian Stephanie Lien reviewed new picture books for the LA County Library’s shelves, she found a story that reflected her own childhood.

Little Bird Laila is the story of a young girl with a big job — translating between the English in her everyday life and the Chinese her parents speak.

“ I know every kid who may be like a first-generation immigrant who has parents who don't speak English that well — they've done the same thing,” Lien said. “I know I did it as a kid.”

In California, an estimated 1.8 million children are part of a family where at least one parent has difficulty speaking English. The experience of kids translating for their family members is called "language brokering.” It can feel burdensome but also build empathy.

“ You get annoyed,” Lien said. “But … [I realized] they need help, just like I do.”

And it turns out, this wasn’t the only SoCal-created picture book on the subject this year. Manhattan Beach author Maritere Rodriguez Bellas and local publisher Lil’ Libros created the bilingual Tío Ricky Doesn't Speak English. (Thanks to MiJa Books co-founder Stephanie Moran Reed for the heads up!)

"Little Bird Laila" and "Tío Ricky Doesn't Speak English"

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Erin Hauer and Ross Brenneman

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LAist

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LAist sat down with both authors to understand how they brought these stories to life and what they hope families find between the pages.

These excerpts are from separate interviews with Maritere Rodriguez Bellas and Kelly Yang.

Author Kelly Yang.

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Jessica Sample

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Author Maritere Rodriguez Bellas.

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LAist: What compelled you to become an author?

Bellas:  Over three decades ago, when I was raising my kids, there was really very little information or education about bilingual parenting.

I grew up with Spanish and English, and then I went to school and I learned a third language, French. While doing that, I met people from all kinds of cultures, and I realized what a gift it was to be able to communicate in all these languages and learn about all these cultures.

Yang: I have been writing for many, many years — pretty much since I was a little kid — but wasn't really sure if I could do it as a profession. I would go to the library, and I would look at the back of books, and I didn't really see anyone who looked like me, so I didn't really know if this was a possibility for someone like me. I loved telling stories. I come from an immigrant background, and my parents and I moved here [from Tianjin, China] when I was 6 years old. Stories were really big in our family, as a way to keep ourselves motivated and paint a brighter future for our lives.

Where did the idea of your book come from? 

Yang: [Little Bird Laila]  mirrors my own childhood experience. To this day, I am the one dealing with pretty much all of the property tax filings — anything that has to do with English, even though my parents actually do speak English. But this is just kind of an inherited job that I'm unfortunately tenured for now.

 As a kid, it was very aggravating. I didn't want to have to do all these other things. When we grow up with parents who really need our help, we don't really have a choice.

I learned that there were things that were pretty powerful about it too. Everyone kind of depended on me. I also got to translate things in my own favor. So for example, when I would go to teacher-parent conferences — and obviously I had a lot of grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes when I was a kid — I would just tell my mom, ‘Kelly is doing an amazing job.’

I learned that there were, you know, two sides of the coin. Yes, there's a lot of work. It can be a big pain, but there were also benefits too.

Bellas:  In 2017, I was asked to write my first children's book.   I did not intend my career to end up as a children's book author, but I wrote that book, and while I was writing it, I kept thinking, ‘This is the book that my kids didn't have when they were growing up.’

I truly believe having raised multicultural kids, the more we expose children to different cultures and different languages, the better adults they're going to be in their future — compassionate, empathetic, respectful. And those are the virtues that I wanna ... show and I want parents to go after when they're raising their little pequeñitos.

Fast forward to 2022, when Bellas reached out to local bilingual book publisher Patty Rodriguez (Lil’ Libros) with a few ideas for children’s books. 

Bellas:  One of the ideas was a boy that had to translate for his grandmother, and she called me on the phone right away, and she’s like, ‘This spoke to me because that was me.’

The little boy in Tío Ricky Doesn't Speak English is Puerto Rican, and throughout the story, there are little hints at his identity. For example, he plays dominoes with his uncle and there’s a bag of plantain chips on the table. Why were those details important to include? 

Bellas:  I wanted my Puerto Rican culture to be highlighted. It's important to me. My kids didn't have that. They spent every summer for, I don't know, 12 years in a row in Ponce, Puerto Rico. So they grew up with the flavors and the smells and the noise and all that from our culture. But they didn't have it once we were back home. I couldn't read them a book where they could actually see themselves.

I also want to share with children from all cultures. I want them to learn about my little island wherever they are.

At one point in Little Bird Laila, the girl realizes she can teach her parents English, even though she hasn’t quite perfected the language herself. Why did you include this uncertainty? 

Yang: I just wanna be real to the authentic experience of someone who is still learning. And there is a lot of self-doubt, right? You're a learner, but you're still able to teach other people even though you are a learner. And I wanted to honor that — that people felt that they could, that they had permission, that they could do it. Because I definitely wasn't perfect at speaking or writing or reading or any of it, but ... there were things I could still give.

What do you hope families take away from your book? 

Yang: The central theme for all my books is to hope that people feel seen and that they find the humor and the heart in the story because there's a lot of funny moments and there's a lot of deeply emotional moments too. We really need to cherish those moments. Whatever we can do to spend time together as a family, right?

It's OK to open up and share that we don't have all the answers or we don't know all of the skills. There are tons of things I tell my kids like, I don't know. I don't know how to navigate that app. Right? Or whatever it is. There's lots of things I don't know, and it's OK to share that, and it's OK to be vulnerable together, and it's OK to learn together.

Bellas: The idea was always that the child, when he or she reads the book, would think, ‘Oh, it's really not a chore to translate. It's really an act of kindness and love and I'm proud to be bilingual.’