The Brief

A highly anticipated — and controversial — new program, championed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, will begin in Los Angeles County on Dec. 1. It’s called CARE Court and will allow family members to ask a judge to step in with a treatment plan for loved ones living with severe and untreated mental illness.

The basics of CARE Court: People living with a serious and untreated mental illness, like schizophrenia, could be referred for a court-ordered, voluntary care plan that could last up to two years. The petition could be filed by people including county behavioral health workers, first responders or family members.

“I would have had my petition by the first day,” Mike Estrada said from his home in Berkeley.

A feeling that the process is ‘a constant slap in the face’ 

For years, Estrada struggled to get help for his mother, Josie Estrada, who lived with schizoaffective disorder. The experience exasperated him so much that in 2020 he produced a one-hour documentary on her story, Benevolent Neglect.

The film is sprinkled with grainy family footage and stills of Josie’s life in California’s Central Valley. Estrada points out that his mother was “adored by the family.”

The documentary also includes videos shot on Estrada’s cellphone during some of Josie’s more difficult moments.

“In 2007, my mom began experiencing hallucinations. During acute episodes, she’d hear people inside the house,” Estrada tells the camera.

Estrada said the voices would tell his mother not to take her psychiatric medications. For more than a year, Josie lived out of her car after her erratic behavior got her evicted from her apartment. Time and time again, Estrada would plead with first responders to hospitalize her.

Often the people who were supposed to help would be hamstrung by a lack of psychiatric beds and what Estrada sees as overly strict criteria for hospitalizing someone against their will.

“As a family it’s just a constant slap in the face. Constant disrespect. In the meantime, our loved one is suffering, deteriorating before our eyes,” Estrada said.

His mother died in 2019, but he’s hopeful CARE Court will give families like his more leverage to get help.

Gov. Gavin Newsom speaking in March 2022 with local mental health service providers and officials about CARE Court.

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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Officials report an ‘unprecedented demand’ 

There are concerns, however, about whether the county’s behavioral health care system will have enough staff to meet the need.

In June, L.A. County supervisors voted to expedite hiring for CARE Court.

“In order to meet a variety of our expectations, including CARE Court — we’re focused on setting up the court infrastructure — the point is the judge will have to have a place to send that individual,” Supervisor Holly Mitchell said during the board meeting.

“I think the supervisors were right to be concerned about what kind of infrastructure is in place,” Dr. Lisa Wong, director of the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, told LAist.

“We’ve been having this unprecedented demand for mental health services in our system, so we know that the system is stretched. And we know that with CARE Court, we’re going to be working with some really high acuity individuals,” Wong added.

Wong said hiring has improved this year, but it’s still a major stress point as the county works to bring thousands more behavioral health beds online. And, Wong points out, the initial petition is just the beginning.

“What happens when that person has to go into treatment and how do we keep them engaged?” she said.

Defense attorneys' role

Some of that help will come from the new Independent Defense Counsel Office, which is separate from but administered by the Public Defender’s Office.

A new panel of about 50 specially selected attorneys will work with an estimated 1,900 respondents within the first six months of CARE Court.

“It will not only be there to represent the client’s legal interests and protect their civil liberties, but also to serve as a facilitator and an encourager and a supporter throughout the treatment program,” said Marco Saenz, Independent Defense Counsel program director.

He said those lawyers might encourage respondents to follow through with treatment, but they’ll also work to hold the behavioral health system accountable in providing services.

But the success of CARE Court will ultimately hinge on the participant

“Under the statute, the respondent can walk away at any time,” Saenz told LAist. “It’s completely voluntary. How that will work, we will see.”

Coercion or voluntary? 

CARE Court may be voluntary, but civil liberties groups continue to warn about stripping of individual rights.

If the care plan fails, the person could be hospitalized or referred to a conservatorship. That could mean forced treatment down the line.

Some 40 groups including JusticeLA, Disability Rights California and ACLU California Action signed a letter in 2022 opposing CARE Court. It reads, in part, that the plan is: “a system of coerced, court-ordered treatment that strips people with mental health disabilities of their right to make their own decisions about their lives.”

Mike Estrada would have been OK with conservatorship for his mother.

“I wanted her to have some chance of building her life back. And there was no way it was going to happen without her being stabilized,” Estrada said.

Mike and Josie Estrada.

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Courtest Mike Estrada

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There are also continued concerns about whether the public guardians’ offices throughout the state will be able to handle the potential increased conservatorship caseload. Public guardians' offices are responsible for guiding care for people who are deemed unable to do so themselves because of a serious mental illness.

“Everybody keeps saying, ‘We need facilities, we need facilities, there’s no room at the inn.’ And that’s true. If you talk to my members throughout the state, they are struggling to find placements,” said Tom Scott, executive director of the California State Association of Public Administrators, Public Guardians, Public Conservators.

What's next

As CARE Court continues to roll out across the state, Estrada wants families like his to be allowed input in the process. And he wants to see counties held accountable for making it work.

Some counties, including San Diego, San Francisco and Orange County have a head start on L.A., because their CARE Court efforts launched in October.

According to California Health and Human Services, as of early November, there were a total of 80 CARE Court petitions statewide.

Saenz said the case volume in some places outside of L.A. County has been lower than what was anticipated.

But as a nearly 30-year veteran public defender who has represented “innumerous” clients living with mental illness, Saenz said he’s holding out hope that CARE Court will be able to help a population that is not generally reached.

“It’s another tool in our toolbox, and to the extent that we’re participants in it ... we’re going to be there to be supportive in any way we can,” Saenz said.

“But time will tell.”

As summer marches on, expect the heat to stick around.

With these high temps, many of us are searching for a sweet frozen treat to cool off and maybe indulge a little.

I recently sat in for an AirTalk segment with fill-in host Josie Huang, where we both shared some of our local favorites to get ice cream and other frozen treats and heard from listeners who shared theirs.

Take a look and see if your go-to places are here.

Pasadena

A scoop from Kinrose Creamery, dusted with spice and topped with a dried flower.

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Robert Haleblian

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Courtesy Kinrose Creamery

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Kinrose Creamery is one of my personal picks. Owners Maria Oveysi and Moe Kamal make Persian and Egyptian ice cream. Signature flavors include saffron pistachio rose, kanafeh, walnut baklava topped with pashmak (Iranian cotton candy) and sour cherry.

Locations:

• 140 Mills Pl., Pasadena (Old Town Pasadena)
• 16915 Ventura Blvd., Encino

Downtown L.A.

Sad Girl Creamery's Strawberry Animal Cookie Sundae layers strawberry tres leches ice cream with strawberry jam, rainbow sprinkles, frosted animal cookies and housemade vanilla bean whipped cream.

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Courtesy Sad Girl Creamery

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Sad Girl Creamery is another one of my picks. Run by SueEllen Mancini, the pop-up ice cream stand is at Smorgasburg every Sunday, hawking Mancini’s nostalgic Latino ice cream novelties. Flavors include her riff on the iconic Choco Taco, along with a Gansito Sundae made with Mexican vanilla ice cream, strawberry-raspberry-hibiscus jam and yellow cake. Mancini always has something worth stopping by for.

Location: ROW DTLA, 777 S. Alameda St., Los Angeles

Leimert Park

Listener Camille emailed to recommend All Chill, a shop specializing in small-batch and artisanal ice cream, with a built-in hip-hop museum (yup!). The shop ties the flavors to the neighborhood's cultural identity. Fan favorites include bean pie and, as a non-dairy option, cognac and currant.

Location: 3415 W. 43rd Place, Los Angeles

Arcadia

626 Ice Cream is another of my picks. Founded in 2020 by Amber Tan and Waldo Yan after both lost hospitality jobs in the pandemic, the duo took over the longtime Ace Frozen Yogurt space. With a completely reimagined space and menu, flavors include black sesame, roasted green tea, Yakult, lychee strawberry, mango calamansi, and malted chocolate.

Location: 160 E. Duarte Rd., Ste. E, Arcadia

Atwater Village

Wanderlust's Tokyo Rainbow Sherbet blends ramune soda, tart yuzu and creamy strawberry Calpis, inspired by Tokyo summers and childhood conbini treats.

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Courtesy Wanderlust Creamery

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Listener Ann-Marie from Whittier emailed to say Wanderlust Creamery is like a “travelogue featuring flavors from all over the world, and the quality is top-notch. When you walk outside and eat a cone, it doesn't instantly start melting like so many other places' ice cream." Signature flavors include sticky rice mango, Japanese Neapolitan, and Vietnamese Rocky Road.

Locations: Atwater Village, Costa Mesa, Venice, Irvine, Sawtelle, Pasadena, Tarzana, Topanga Social

Altadena

Camille's email also flagged Bulgarini. Owner Leo Bulgarini, a Rome native and trained sommelier, places sourcing as his gelato shop’s reigning ethos — think Bronte pistachios from Sicily, Vestri chocolate from Florence, and Hawaiian macadamia for his various creations. And if you're interested in making a whole meal around your visit, the shop also serves a small pasta menu and tasting dinners a few nights a week.

Location: 749 E. Altadena Drive, Altadena

Highland Park

Owner Tai Kim may have quietly started the artisanal ice cream revolution when he opened the first Scoops over 20 years ago. The original has since closed, but two more locations have opened since — one in Highland Park, where Kim still makes the ice cream for all Scoops locations, and one in Chinatown. As listener Marty from Mt. Washington put it in an email, Scoops "make[s] different flavors all the time, very unusual flavors, and they make non-dairy options too" — case in point, the shop's signature Grape-Nuts–infused brown bread (my personal favorite) and its basil coconut.

Locations:

• 5105 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park) 
• 727 N. Broadway, Ste. 125, Los Angeles (Chinatown)

Melrose

AWAN is another of my picks. 100% vegan, gluten-free, Indonesian-inspired. Started as a West Hollywood walk-up window; now has brick-and-mortars in Larchmont and Venice. Signature flavors include Balinese vanilla, chocolate Oreo, soursop mango ripple, and blue yuzu.

Locations:

• 5630 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles (Melrose)
• 866 Huntley Dr., West Hollywood
• 540 Rose Ave, Venice
  

Alhambra

"Definitely Fosselman's in Alhambra. Chocolate-covered strawberry is the best," listener Vicki from San Gabriel emailed to say. Josie backed her up, noting the shop still has that 1950s fountain-soda-shop vibe.

Location: 1824 W. Main St., Alhambra

Koreatown / Mid-City / Culver City / West L.A.

"Mateo's Ice Cream and Paletas," listener Loretta emailed. Founded in 2000, Mateo's specializes in Latin American-style ice cream and paletas — think mango chile, black sapote, and horchata, alongside more classic flavors.

Locations: 

• 1250 S. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles (Koreatown) 
• 4234 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles (Mid-City) 
• 4929 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City 
• 11551 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles (West L.A.)

Tarzana

"I just had the roasted strawberry and also pistachio baklava. Delicious," listener Caroline from Woodland Hills emailed about Magpies Softserve. Founded by chefs Warren and Rose Schwartz, Magpies also has locations in Silver Lake and Highland Park.

Locations:

• 2660 Griffith Park Blvd., Los Angeles (Silver Lake) 
• 5049 York Blvd., Los Angeles (Highland Park) 
• 18971 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana

Culver City / West 3rd Street

"Lately I've fallen in love with Ginger's Divine Ice Cream," listener Jerome from Laurel Canyon emailed. The shop started in Culver City before adding a Mid-City/West 3rd Street location near the Beverly Center.

Locations:

• 12550 Washington Blvd., Culver City
• 8430 W. 3rd St., Los Angeles

Anaheim

Tocumbo didn't come up on air, but it's worth including. The shop takes its name from the small municipality in Michoacán that's considered the epicenter of Mexican ice cream and paletas — there's even a giant popsicle monument there. Siblings Jennifer Clausen-Quiroz and Ricky Quiroz started Tocumbo to continue that tradition, using recipes sourced directly from Michoacán. Standouts include ice cream sundaes made with Gansitos (chocolate-dipped snack cakes filled with cream and jam) and a wide selection of paletas, including chamoy, and a chocolate ice cream made with chocolate imported from Zacatecas.

Location: 956 S. Euclid St., Anaheim

Laguna Beach

"Gelato Paradiso in Laguna Beach is the cutest little shop right on the PCH and the flavors are always rotating. My favorite lately has been their take on the Biscoff – Biscotti-flavored ice cream. It is divine," said Fahim Khan, an LAist producer.

Location: 448 S. Coast Hwy, Ste. A, Laguna Beach

Multiple locations

• Handel's is Josie’s  family standby — a homemade ice-cream chain that's been scooping since 1945, with dozens of locations across SoCal. Her family always gets the four-mini-scoop sampler (mint chocolate chip, cookies and cream, rocky road, and mango) when they can't agree on just one flavor. 

• "I'm a Salt & Straw diehard. The quality is unmatched," said Lindsay Wright, LAist senior producer, citing the Portland-born chain's rotating, offbeat flavors as the draw.

Betye Saar’s long art career was the subject of media profiles and art shows in the years and months leading up to a milestone birthday this week. She died Sunday, July 26, four days before she would have turned 100.

Betye Saar in her studio in Los Angeles on January 22, 2026.

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David Sprague

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Courtesy Roberts Projects

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Saar had deep roots in Southern California. She was born, raised and educated in the Los Angeles area. She was firmly rooted in the region and in various Black communities, but her art was not provincial.

Saar took on the global, national and regional issues that affected Black Americans in her drawings, paintings and assemblages. She redefined, broke apart and juxtaposed issues related to stereotypes and racism, as well as mysticism and spirituality.

She exhibited widely in the U.S., and her pieces are in the permanent collections of many museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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The next few weeks provide a unique opportunity for people who live in or are visiting L.A. to see a wide spectrum of Saar’s work — from the fashion, jewelry and costume designs she created early in her art career to the final commissioned piece she made a few years before her death.

It’s a work that takes on the concepts of memory and transition.

A piece in the museum Betye Saar grew up going to

Saar grew up in Pasadena, and when she was young, she frequented The Huntington in nearby San Marino. In 2023 the museum unveiled one of Saar's pieces, titled "Drifting Toward Twilight," on display through Nov. 30, 2027.

To create the work, Saar used found objects, metal cages and animal horns, and placed them inside a wooden canoe. The vessel rests on a bed of branches and twigs she collected from the grounds of The Huntington. The piece is displayed in a room where the walls have been painted in three shades of blue and where the lights subtly change, illuminating seven shapes representing the stages of the moon.

The piece Drifting Toward Twilight was Betye Saar's last commissioned piece before she died. It's on display at the Huntington until the fall of 2027.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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“She's basically drawing up a scene for us in our minds, so that as we engage with the installation," said Lauren Cross, the Huntington’s associate curator of American decorative arts. "We are in the canoe on a journey with her, traveling along, and experiencing the work with her.”

Cross said Saar was working with the idea of transitions, including spiritual transition related to death.

A 16-minute video created for this exhibit, based on Betye Saar’s life as an artist, plays in a room next to the gallery.

A mother and an artist

The exhibit that’s likely to give the deepest view of Saar’s art is on view for a few more weeks.

A piece made in 1969 by Betye Saar on view at Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.

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Robert Wedemeyer

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Courtesy of the artist andRoberts Projects, LosAngeles

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"Let's Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar" is at Roberts Projects until Aug. 22. It features more than 200 objects, including costume designs, photographs, drawings, garments, jewelry, artworks and historic materials from the 1950s to the 1970s as Saar was becoming a nationally recognized artist.

The show demonstrates how deeply Saar created for stage productions in L.A. such as for the Inner City Cultural Center, a multicultural performing arts group started after the 1965 Watts Rebellion.

The decorative art she created would have defined a remarkable career, but then around the late 1960s she moved on to assemblages, works made with found objects. These works took on lifelong areas of interests such as spirituality and racism.

The piece Souvenir of Friendship (1977) by Betye Saar is on view at Hauser & Wirth in downtown L.A. until August 16.

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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles

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One of the most poignant pieces, titled "I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break," from 1998, is on display at LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries. Saar uses a vintage ironing board, wood clothespins, a flat iron and a white bedsheet to comment on women’s work, slavery’s dehumanization and the enduring racism that seems to infuse much of U.S. society.

Detail from the piece I’ll Bend But I Will Not Break on view at LACMA.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez/LAist

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“Betye is very much alive in her work,"said Carol S. Eliel,  senior curator emerita of modern art at LACMA. "There's so much of her personality, her fierceness … she had an iron spine. She was a very gentle, lovely, beautiful person, but you could not steamroll her and I think the work reflects that.

Betye Saar in North African dress in 1968 in a photo that's on display at Roberts Projects.

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Carol A. Beers

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Courtesy of the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles.

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“It makes me happy that someone who had such a long and rich and productive career will live on through these amazing works,” she said.

The LACMA piece is part of the museum's permanent collection. Much of the other work by Saar in L.A. will come down in the next month and a half.

Here’s a guide to help you plan a Betye Saar L.A. art tour.

Duplex projects will be allowed to move forward once again in two Southern California cities affected by last year’s fires. The change of course is the result of a court showdown between advocates for denser housing and local elected officials who wanted to ban more units from cropping up in burn zones.

The cities of Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to settle with the plaintiffs who brought forward a lawsuit that challenges local jurisdictions’ suspension of Senate Bill 9 in high fire risk zones, according to documents obtained by LAist.

Sonja Trauss, executive director of YIMBY Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the result will help residents get more out of their properties.

“I want them to know that they can build,” Trauss said.

How we got here

SB 9 allows single-family homeowners across the state to build duplexes and split their lots. It became state law in 2021. SB 9 applicants can use the law to create up to four units where a single-family home once stood, in some cases. The law takes away the ability of local governments to block these projects.

However, after the 2025 fires, some homeowners affected by the fires erupted with anger over the prospect of their burned-down neighborhoods being rebuilt with denser housing. They argued more homes — and the additional residents that come with them — would clog evacuations and hurt neighborhood character.

In July 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an order giving local leaders the power to block the law in very high fire hazard areas within the Palisades and Eaton fire burn zones.

Elected officials in L.A. city, the county of L.A., Pasadena and Malibu followed suit and adopted policies to stop processing SB 9 applications in those areas.

Advocates for increased housing development, including YIMBY Law, sued the governments, alleging they didn’t have the authority to suspend laws passed by the legislature.

Trauss told LAist housing advocates believe the order is being misused for political purposes.

“ It chips away at the policy,” she said. “Especially in the Palisades, everybody could watch the political back-and-forth that caused that to happen.”

The backlash on social media to SB 9 projects in the Palisades was led by former reality TV star Spencer Pratt, who lost his home in the fire and later mounted an unsuccessful campaign for L.A. mayor.

What the settlement means

According to the settlement documents, Malibu and Pasadena have agreed to repeal the local ordinances that blocked SB 9 projects by the end of September. The settlements still require City Council action to undo those bans.

The cities are also supposed to process any pending SB 9 applications that were submitted, paused or rejected.

Another plaintiff in the lawsuit — Andrew Slocum, CEO of Green Development Company — said he thinks Newsom never should have signed the executive order in the first place.

Slocum said he hopes to see recovering homeowners have more options when rebuilding their properties. Last year, he told LAist he was working with homeowners on SB 9 projects.

The settlement “allows for the people to hopefully be able to come back and resubmit that application,” Slocum said, “because most people who are doing SB 9 are the homeowners themselves.”

The Pasadena City Council took the first step toward repeal on July 20, according to city spokesperson Lisa Derderian. She said they’ll start processing SB 9 applications once the vote is finalized.

“The City reached a conditional settlement with YIMBY in recognition of the uncertainty inherent in litigation and the significant passage of time since the Eaton Fire in January 2025,” she said in a statement.

LAist contacted officials in the city of Malibu for comment but has not heard back.

What’s next

The county and city of L.A. are still fighting the lawsuit. They control land use in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, home to the lion’s share of properties affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires.

State officials also continue to defend the restrictions. Newsom’s office stands behind the executive order and plans to defend it in court, according to a state official.

Trauss said the parties met for  a trial setting conference a few days ago.

“ I want the folks in the county and in the city of L.A. who could build … to have hope,” she said.

The lawsuit is playing out while state legislators are moving forward with a new bill, SB 1090, which would expand the ban on SB 9 to all of Altadena.

One Hollywood icon is prepping for a comeback. The Cinerama Dome – one of the most famous movie theaters in the world – has been closed since the COVID pandemic. But it's now got a new lease on life, thanks to SONY Pictures and Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

The studio announced it will lease, restore and reopen the famous theater in 2028; Alamo Drafthouse plans to program and operate it and 14 other screens at the adjoining multiplex.

"Hot damn! We're bringing the Dome back, baby," SONY Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman said in a statement. "We believe in moviegoing down to our soul, and no venue on Earth stands more for that than the one-of-a-kind Dome."

"There's a lot of passion behind this theater," says Michael O'Leary, who heads Cinema United, the global association of movie theater owners. He says while the Cinerama Dome's closing was a symbol of the pandemic, its recovery is proof the pandemic is behind us and movie theater-going is back.

"It's really exciting," agrees Escott Norton, former executive director and current board member of the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation. "There's been a lot of people waiting with baited breath to see when the dome is going to reopen. People think of this as the ultimate Hollywood experience."

As an LA native and former film production designer, Norton has great memories of going to the Cinerama Dome. He says it was always an immersive experience to watch movies inside the geodesic-shaped auditorium designed to show wide screen movies.

"When I saw Close Encounters on this giant screen curved around me, it knocked my socks off," he says, adding he was also blown away watching Apocalypse Now at the Dome. "The movie opens up with this wide screen of just a quiet jungle, birds tweeting and then it explodes. Being surrounded by that on the curved screen, it still gives me tingles thinking about it."

The Cinerama Dome in October 2021.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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The Cinerama Dome was built in 1963 by William Forman – the founder of Pacific Theaters, who had popularized drive-in cinemas. Forman commissioned a French architect who had studied under R. Buckminster Fuller, a designer of other geodesic structures. The theater was originally made to showcase Cinerama, a format developed in the 1950s that was part of the widescreen craze designed to lure viewers away from television and back to cinemas.

Forman was able to get the theater constructed in 16 weeks … just in time for the world premiere of a madcap comedy called, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The movie ran four hours long, with an intermission. Filmmakers had originally planned to use the Cinerama format, but abandoned it, shooting in Ultra Panavision 70 millimeter instead.

Still, it featured a who's who of comedy at the time – including Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Milton Berle, and Buddy Hackett. Buster Keaton even makes a ten second cameo. "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World played at the Cinerama Dome, the brand new theater, for two years without stopping," recalled Karen Sharpe, the widow of the movie's director, Stanley Kramer. The former TV actress and producer spoke at a rally to preserve the Cinerama Dome last year, and talked about the star-studded premiere.

"It was a real happening," she remembered. "Bobby Kennedy came, Adlai Stevenson came and President and Mrs. Kennedy accepted the invitation to attend the opening. A few days before, they called to say 'So sorry, we have to [decline] the invitation because President and Mrs. Kennedy have to go to Dallas.' And we know what happened in Dallas."

Over the decades, the theater became a mecca for cinephiles. The dome was sometimes costumed like the movies it screened. Once, a replica Godzilla appeared to burst through the egg-like roof. Another time it was painted green with ears to resemble Shrek's head. Figures depicting the Pink Panther, Spider Man and the Minions have perched or crawled atop the Dome.

And fans were treated to countless premieres and special events, like when filmmaker Quentin Tarantino personally welcomed audiences to his 2019 feature Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. For the film, he included exterior shots of the Dome.

Two years later, after the Cinerama Dome's operators went bankrupt during the pandemic, Tarantino talked about how it was one of his favorite LA landmarks.

"I don't know if I could 100% afford it, but I would love to own the Cinerama Dome," he said on The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM. "That would be fantastic."

Tarantino already owns two other historic LA cinemas. But other preservationists and activists have been working to revive the dormant theater. Many of them credit the efforts of Benjamin Steinberg, a 27-year-old filmmaker and actor who appeared on Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

"The Cinerama Dome is the most famous movie theater in the world," Steinberg said, standing outside the boarded-up theater. "It seemed like it was going to be a demolition by neglect. So I was, like, something has to be done."

Steinberg created a campaign to save the Cinerama Dome. He organized a few street rallies, and wrote an online petition that amassed more than 30,000 signatures.

Ben Steinberg projected images onto the dome as part of a campaign to save the theater.

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Ben Steinberg

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Then in March, Steinberg went even further to get the attention of the Forman family, which still owns the property: he projected images of the owners' faces onto the outside of the Dome, asking them to reopen the theater.

"We actually projected it for two hours and then they called the police on us," Steinberg explains. "We didn't get arrested; The police just said that the ownership considered it an escalation and harassment. I never wanted to anger the owner, so we stopped immediately."

Steinberg's stunt created a lot of buzz, and may have moved the needle, says theater preservationist Norton. His group had been consulting with architects on restoration plans in hopes that someone would save the day.

"We were all working behind the scenes. But Ben Steinberg really got on board on social media to save the dome," says Norton. "I'm very happy he did. You know, you sort of have to rattle the chains sometimes."

Meanwhile, Sony has promised to preserve the Cinerama Dome's history while ensuring its future.
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