Topline:
The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards are out. It's a lot of films, and we are here to help! You can see the full list of nominees here, and read our takeaways here.
What movies are nominated? Sinners leads the way with a record-breaking 16 nominations, while Leonardo DiCaprio-led One Battle After Another has a hefty 13 nods. Both are also nominated for best picture.
Read on ... to see where you can watch the nominated movies and learn more about many of them.
The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards are out. It's a lot of films, and we are here to help! You can see the full list of nominees here, and read our takeaways here.
Below, you can find details and coverage of the 14 films nominated in six major categories: best picture, best actor and actress, best supporting actor and actress, and best director. Dive in!
The gist: Ryan Coogler's movie stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint. And opening night does not go as planned when a bloodthirsty menace appears outside. (Vampires — we're talking about vampires.)
16 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, original score, original song, best picture, production design, sound, visual effects, original screenplay
Where to see it: Stream it on HBO Max and Prime Video. Rent or buy it on Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 'Sinners' gives Michael B. Jordan two roles of a lifetime
📖 Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan are symbiotic. 'Sinners' is the latest proof
📖 In 'Sinners,' the blues is a portal between this world and the next
🎧 In 'Sinners,' there will be blood, booze, and the blues
Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Michael B. Jordan expands his cinematic universe
The gist: Paul Thomas Anderson's action thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a washed up ex-revolutionary whose past comes to haunt him. DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro and Teyana Taylor are all nominated for their performances.
13 nominations: actor in a leading role, actor in a supporting role, another actor in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, casting, cinematography, directing, film editing, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
Where to see it: In theaters. Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Prescient and political, 'One Battle After Another' is one of the year's best films
📖 'One Battle After Another' wants a revolution
🎧 'One Battle After Another' is revolutionary — and revelatory
Stories and interviews
🎧 Chase Infiniti reflects on her breakthrough role
The gist: Guillermo del Toro's take on the Mary Shelley classic. Jacob Elordi plays the creature and Oscar Isaac is the scientist.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, cinematography, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, original score, best picture, production design, sound, adapted screenplay
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 Frankenstein is the monster (movie) Guillermo del Toro was born to bring to life
🎧 Only Guillermo del Toro could've made this 'Frankenstein'
Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Guillermo del Toro says his future was set the first time he saw 'Frankenstein'
The gist: Timothée Chalamet plays a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s.
9 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, cinematography, costume design, directing, film editing, best picture, production design, original screenplay
Where to see it: In theaters.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Timothée Chalamet brings a lot to the table in 'Marty Supreme'
🎧 In 'Marty Supreme,' Timothée Chalamet is good at being supremely annoying
Stories and interviews
📖🎧 The real ping pong champion — and hustler — who inspired 'Marty Supreme'
The gist: Stellan Skarsgård is a filmmaker attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters, proving that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. Skarsgård, Renate Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are all nominated for their performances.
9 nominations: actor in a supporting role, actress in a leading role, actress in a supporting role, actress in a supporting role, directing, film editing, best international feature film, best picture, original screenplay
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 'Sentimental Value' is a family drama that lets everyone off the hook too easily
🎧 Finding 'Sentimental Value' in a broken family
Stories and interviews
🎧 Stellan Skarsgård talks about his starring role in the new movie, 'Sentimental Value'
The gist: A young English couple meets, falls in love, has children and suffers an unspeakable tragedy. One of them happens to be William Shakespeare, who goes on to write Hamlet. Jessie Buckley plays his wife.
8 nominations: actress in a leading role, casting, costume design, directing, original score, best picture, production design, adapted screenplay
Where to see it: In theaters.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Forget 'Shakespeare in Love' — 'Hamnet' explores Shakespeare in grief
📖 The real 'Hamnet' died centuries ago, but this novel is timeless
🎧 'Hamnet' is a Shakespearean tearjerker that pulls no punches
The gist: Yorgos Lanthimos' flick stars Emma Stone as a high-powered CEO who is kidnapped by conspiracy theorists and accused of being an alien.
4 nominations: actress in a leading role, original score, best picture, adapted screenplay
Where to see it: Stream it on Peacock. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 'Bugonia' may or may not be about aliens; it's definitely about alienation
📖🎧 Yorgos Lanthimos is messing with us again. His movie 'Bugonia' will keep you guessing
🎧 Conspiracies aren't even the weirdest thing in 'Bugonia'
Stories and interviews
📖🎧 Conspiracy theorists fuel 'Bugonia' climate horror
📖🎧 Would you shave your head for free movie tickets? 'Bugonia' wants to make a buzz
The gist: Brad Pitt plays a veteran F1 driver who clashes with a young hotshot, played by Damson Idris.
4 nominations: film editing, best picture, sound, visual effects
Where to see it: Stream it on Apple TV. Buy it on Prime Video and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Brad Pitt plays a veteran racer who won't slow down in 'F1'
🎧 Is there vroom in your summer for 'F1 The Movie'?
The gist: Set in 1977, Wagner Moura plays a former researcher caught in the political turmoil of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
4 nominations: actor in a leading role, casting, best international feature film, best picture
Where to see it: In theaters.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 Let 'The Secret Agent' fill you in on what it's like to live under a dictatorship
🎧 Actor Wagner Moura talks about his role in the new Brazilian film, 'The Secret Agent'
The gist: Joel Edgerton plays a logger and railroad worker in the rapidly-changing America of the early 20th century.
4 nominations: cinematography, original song, best picture, adapted screenplay
Where to see it: Stream it on Netflix.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
🎧 The new film 'Train Dreams' is almost unbearably beautiful
🎧 'Train Dreams' evokes frontier life, fate and death
Stories and interviews
🎧 Director and co-writer Clint Bentley talks about his film, 'Train Dreams'
The gist: Directed by Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke plays lyricist Lorenz Hart on the worst night of his life — the opening of Oklahoma! on Broadway — after his long-term collaborator Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) has forged a new partnership with Oscar Hammerstein II.
2 nominations: actor in a leading role, original screenplay
Where to see it: Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖🎧 A once-in-a-'Blue Moon' Broadway breakup
🎧 'Blue Moon' will bewitch, bother and bewilder you
Stories and interviews
📖🎧 'Blue Moon' pushed Ethan Hawke to his limit: 'That's a thrilling spot to be in'
📖🎧 Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater find the heartbreak in 'Blue Moon'
The gist: Rose Byrne plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work.
1 nomination: actress in a leading role
Where to see it: Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
🎧 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You' shows off Rose Byrne's dramatic chops
Stories and interviews
🎧Mary Bronstein discusses motherhood in her movie 'If I Had Legs I'd Kick You'
The gist: Kate Hudson plays a down-on-her luck musician who teams up with Hugh Jackman to form a Neil Diamond tribute band.
1 nomination: actress in a leading role
Where to see it: In theaters. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
🎧 Filmmaker Craig Brewer channels his inner Neil Diamond in 'Song Sung Blue'
The gist: Seventeen children leave their homes and vanish into the suburban night in this horror film.
1 nomination: actress in a supporting role
Where to see it: Stream it on HBO Max. Rent or buy it on Prime Video, Apple TV and more.
Dive deeper:
What our critics thought
📖 17 children vanish into the night — 'Weapons' is terrific and terrifying
📖🎧 'Weapons' exposes the dark underbelly of American suburbia
🎧 In 'Weapons', the kids aren't at all right, not in the slightest, nope
Topline:
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids. Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
Why it matters: A suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
How have regulations helped? The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
Read on ... to learn more about the ways the government can protect workers.
It's long been understood that working outside in hot weather can be dangerous: Even ancient Egyptians worried about dehydration for workers building the pyramids.
Now, a growing body of research is quantifying that danger — and suggesting ways to better protect workers.
The risks extend beyond obvious concerns like dehydration and heatstroke.
"Heat makes people slower to react and worse at making decisions," says Adam Dean, a labor economist at George Washington University. "That means farmworkers driving a tractor or a construction worker operating equipment are more likely to have a fatal accident on a hot day."
But a suite of new analyses has found that regulations that provide basic safeguards like water, shade and rest for workers in hot conditions can help lower the numbers of heat-driven injuries, workers' compensation claims and even deaths.
The studies all use different datasets and methods but come to a similar conclusion, says Barrak Alahmad, an environmental health scientist at Harvard University and an expert on occupational health risks.
"States with heat standards have lower risk of heat injuries, of heat fatalities and other outcomes compared to states that don't have these heat standards," Alahmad says.
The most recent study, published in December in the journal Health Affairs, looked at California's rule protecting outdoor workers from heat, the oldest such rule in the country. Researchers found the regulations led to at least a 33% drop in heat-related deaths among workers after 2010 — an estimate of several dozen lives saved each year.
The outcome "delivers a clear message," says Dean, the study's lead author. "Heat standards, if they're adopted and effectively enforced, can significantly reduce worker deaths."
The new wave of studies comes as the federal government is considering creating new national rules to protect workers from excessive heat. Several states and local jurisdictions are also considering new standards.
The federal rules, first proposed under Biden, are now under review by the Trump administration. Their future is uncertain.
While the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has recognized for decades that heat poses risks to workers, there is active debate among worker advocates and business groups about how best to provide protections: via stringent, highly specific regulations, or with broader guidelines that allow employers to take the lead in crafting efforts specific to their own industries.
The new studies could help inform any new rules, says Jordan Barab, who was deputy assistant secretary of labor at OSHA under the Obama administration. Though the basic measures to protect workers have been well-known for decades, it's invaluable, he says, to "show that when a state actually implements these requirements that they actually have saved lives."
Federal regulators first noted that heat could put American workers at risk in the 1970s and '80s. But for years, OSHA prioritized regulating other workplace hazards. Heat issues were managed under the agency's more generalized rules, such as the "general duty clause," which required employers to maintain workplaces "free from recognized hazards."
But some states, like California, decided to go further. In 2005, after the highly publicized deaths of several farmworkers due to heat exposure, California passed the nation's first state-level regulations to protect outdoor workers from excessive heat. Requirements kicked off when temperatures exceeded 85 degrees Fahrenheit (the threshold has since been lowered further).
The rules set out to provide some simple protections: access to water, shade and rest on hot days.
For many years, California was the only state with such heat rules, setting up a natural experiment: Would heat-related worker deaths fall in California, compared to neighboring states with similar weather conditions but no such protections?
The new study suggests that, at first, the rules didn't make much of a difference. During the first few years, researchers did not find a decrease in heat-related death rates in California compared to neighboring states.
"When California first adopted a standard in 2005, it was ineffective," Dean says.
But that would soon change.
In 2010, the state strengthened the rule and deaths began to drop, the study found — eventually falling by more than 30%, with even more dramatic reductions in recent years.
The changes to the rule, Dean says, were critical. Though the initial rules required employers to provide water and shade, in practice, inspectors sometimes found problems — like undrinkable water.
So, the state clarified. Water had to be drinkable and free. And there needed to be enough shade for all workers during breaks. California also ramped up workplace inspections and launched an educational campaign to train the state's many outdoor workers about their rights.
"A critical lesson is that merely passing a heat standard is not enough," Dean says. "It was only after the state launched a statewide enforcement campaign that we started to see deaths decrease relative to the surrounding states."
The rules could have been even more effective with more consistent enforcement, says Garrett Brown, who until 2014 worked for Cal/OSHA, the state agency tasked with enforcing the rule. Even though the number of inspections increased, he says, limited staffing caused ongoing enforcement challenges.
It could have been "even more health protective for workers if there was an even more robust enforcement program," Brown says.
The California study joins two other analyses with similar findings published in the past year.
Together, they provide important insights that could help in the design of future rules, says Alahmad. He led an analysis of heat-influenced worker injuries, published earlier this year, which found that states with heat rules had lower injury rates than those without.
Another recent study found workers' compensation claims were lower in states with heat standards compared to those without.
The next step for researchers is to suss out the most important parts of those regulations, Alahmad says: "What elements are actually most effective?"
That will be key information for regulators across the country. More than a dozen states and cities proposed new heat protection rules in 2025.
Edited by Rachel Waldholz
Topline:
Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
Why now: Whammy hosts their first quarterly VHS swap meet of the year this weekend. Peruse VHS classics and rarities at this event in Echo Park.
The backstory: Whammy owner Erik Varho never stopped collecting VHS tapes. With an abundance of tapes in his possession he started selling them online in 2020, and in 2022 he opened a storefront to cater to the needs of all VHS enthusiasts.
Physical media has been making a comeback. Whammy Analog Media, an Echo Park storefront specializing in VHS tapes, has been providing a place for enthusiasts and newcomers to embrace the antiquated format.
Whammy founder Erik Varho always wanted to open his own store — he just didn’t have a clue as what it would be. A die-hard videotape lover, Varho never stopped collecting them, even after major releases ceased printing in 2006.
In 2020, fresh out of work and with VHS tapes lining the walls of his studio apartment, he started selling his tapes via Instagram.
“I was pleasantly surprised that people were actually out there buying them,” Varho said.
With the success of his online sales, Varho was able to open a brick-and-mortar store in 2022. Varho intended it to just be a retail store, but the space, he thought, was perfect for an indoor screen.
“I just kind of dove headfirst into the microcinema aspect of it,” Varho said.
Whammy’s been hosting events celebrating that grainy quality of the Video Home System — or VHS — ever since.
One regular event is the Whammy VHS Swap Meet. The quarterly meet-up brings together video vendors from across Southern California to showcase their wares.
Bad Taste specializes in lowbrow horror and cult films, while Cinefile Liquidations sells vintage posters, records and other film ephemera.
“It's just kind of a place for people to display their craziest, weirdest, rarest finds and just have a place to talk about them and hang out,” Varho said.
Those rare finds include Image of the Beast from 1981, the third installment in a Christian apocalyptic thriller series about the rise of the antichrist and an evil A.I.
Whammy recently projected the film as part of its “Stuck on VHS” series, which showcases works that were only released direct to video.
Besides an entire store, Varho also owns a storage unit filled to the brim with VHS tapes. Those who RSVP to Sunday's swap meet get a free mystery VHS tape upon entry.
He says the most frequent question he gets is if they sell VCRs. They do, but they run out pretty quickly.
Varho takes it as a good sign and says lately customers have been skewing younger and younger.
"People who didn't even grow up with VHS who are just interested in exploring movies in that way. It's a fun time to be into VHS for sure,” Varho said.
Sunday's event includes a screening of a mystery VHS.
“I can’t reveal what we’re playing, but it’s always stuff that is going to be attention-grabbing and usually pretty silly,” Varho said.
Whammy! VHS Swap Meet
Location: 2514 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles (in the back)
When: Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
Free admission, RSVP here
Topline:
A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest.
How it works: The annual competition invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain.
About the winner: Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as influential bandleader Paul Whiteman's winking face looks on.
One of the most unusual of the creative treasures to enter the public domain this month is King of Jazz. The plotless, experimental 1930 musical film shot in early Technicolor centers on influential bandleader Paul Whiteman, nicknamed "The King of Jazz."
In one memorable scene, the portly, mustachioed Whiteman opens a small bag and winks at the camera as miniature musicians file out one after another like a colony of ants and take their places on an ornate, table-top bandstand.
A new video based on clips from King of Jazz has won this year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest — an annual competition that invites filmmakers from around the world to reimagine often long-forgotten literary classics, films, cartoons, music, and visual art that are now in the public domain. This means creators can use these materials freely, without copyright restrictions. In 2026, works created in 1930 entered the public domain.
Titled Rhapsody, Reimagined, the roughly two-minute video captures the King of Jazz's surreal quality: Cookie-cutter rows of musicians, showgirls, office workers and random furniture cascade across the screen as Whiteman's winking face looks on.
"I wanted to transform the figures and bodies into more dream-like shapes through collage and looping and repetition," said Seattle-based filmmaker Andrea Hale, who created the piece in collaboration with composer Greg Hardgrave. For video artists, Hale said discovering what's new in the public domain each January is a thrill. "We're always looking for things to draw from," Hale said. "Opening that up to a bigger spread of materials is amazing. That's the dream."
The Internet Archive, the San Francisco-based nonprofit library behind the contest, digitizes and provides public access to a massive repository of content, including many materials used by contest participants. "These materials have often just been in film canisters for decades," said digital librarian Brewster Kahle, who founded the Internet Archive in 1996.
This year's submissions range from a reworking of the 1930 film The Blue Angel starring Betty Boop — another public domain entrant this year — instead of Marlene Dietrich, to an AI-generated take on the 1930 Nancy Drew book The Mystery at Lilac Inn.
Kahle said the Internet Archive received nearly 280 entries this time around, the highest number since the competition launched six years ago. "Things are not just musty, old archival documentation of the past," Kahle said. "People are bringing them to life in new and different ways, without fear of being sued."
Lawsuits have become a growing concern for artists and copyright holders, especially with the rise of generative AI. Recent years have seen a surge in online video takedowns and copyright infringement disputes.
Media companies are trying to address the problem through deals with tech firms, such as Disney and OpenAI's plan, announced late last year, to introduce a service allowing users to create short videos based on copyrighted characters, including Cinderella and Darth Vader.
"On the one hand, these licensing agreements seem quite a clean solution to thorny legal questions," said Jennifer Jenkins, director of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School. "But what's exciting about the public domain is that material, after a long, robust 95-year copyright term, is just simply free for anyone — without a team of lawyers, without a licensing agreement, without having to work for Disney or OpenAI — to just put online," Jenkins said.
Jenkins also pointed out an interesting twist for people who create new works using materials from the public domain. "You actually get a copyright in your remix," she said. "Just like Disney has copyrights in all of its remakes of wonderful public domain works like Snow White or Cinderella." (The Brothers Grimm popularized these two characters in their 19th century collection Grimm's Fairy Tales. But their roots are much deeper, going back to European folklore collections of the 1600s and beyond.)
However, this only applies to works created by humans — U.S. copyright law currently doesn't recognize works authored by AI. And Jenkins further cautioned that creators only get a copyright in their new creative contributions to the remix, and not the underlying material.
This year's Public Domain Film Remix Contest winner Andrea Hale said she's using a Creative Commons license for Rhapsody, Reimagined. This means the filmmaker retains the copyright to her work but grants permissions that allow other people to freely use, share, and build upon it. "I'm keeping with the spirit of the public domain," Hale said.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Every January 25 — on Sunday this year — is Burns Night, a global celebration of the life and legacy of the Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns.
Why it matters: His name might not be familiar, but every New Year’s Eve — or Hogmanay, as it is called in Burns's native home Scotland — millions of people sing Auld Lang Syne, a poem he wrote in 1788.
Why now: Several events are happening in Los Angeles, too. We're here to tell you about them. Whiskys? Bagpipes? Poetry, anyone?
The name of Robert Burns might not be familiar, but every New Year’s Eve — or Hogmanay, as it is called in his native home Scotland — millions of people sing Auld Lang Syne, a poem that he wrote in 1788.
Every Jan. 25 — on Sunday this year — is Burns Night, a global celebration of the life and legacy of the Scottish poet and lyricist.
Several events are happening in Los Angeles, too, which I can attest are rather zany affairs — if only because of the sheer number of tartan kilts in sight, the haunting, piercing but tuneful drone of bagpipes, which can only bring to mind a windswept mountain top, and a generous dash of whiskys (plural). More on that later.
Some 30,000 square miles in size and home to around 5.5 million people today, Scotland was officially united with England in 1707 when their two parliaments became one and created Great Britain.
However, as you may have seen in movies like Braveheart, Rob Roy, and even Trainspotting, a streak of fierce independence has run through Scotland for centuries, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that, just because the countries are joined geographically, that English and Scottish people are more or less the same.
Besides historical rebels, beautiful countryside and world-class golf courses, Scotland has always punched well above its weight: penicillin, television, the telephone, artificial refrigeration, and the raincoat — “the mac” — were all invented by Scots. Naturalist John Muir, the Father of the National Parks,” was born in Dunbar, and Nessie is perhaps the most legendary of all cryptids.
But it’s Robert Burns — often known as Rabbie — whose name and work has lasted centuries as Scotland’s National Poet.
In 1796, Burns died at just 37 — on the same day his son Maxwell was born — and he had worked almost exclusively on traditional Scottish songs during the latter stages of his life, which ensured that several hundred folk songs, like Auld Lang Syne, were not lost to history.
Burns Night is a tradition that was begun by some of his friends in 1801. Scottish people and any other admirers and friends of Scotland will gather together for poetry readings, music, dancing, and of course a meal of haggis. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s rather an odd-looking meal, and rather an acquired taste.
A bagpiper will lead the haggis, the traditional centerpiece, into the dining room, where a poem written by Burns called Address to a Haggis is read aloud before the haggis is dramatically cut into pieces for everyone to share.
The poem in question describes the delicacy as having “buttocks like a distant hill,” among other writerly flourishes. Read for yourself here.
When I was a child, I was told that haggises were small, furry creatures that lived in the Scottish Highlands and were too clever to be caught, hence you rarely saw them on the dinner plate. Buttock size was not mentioned.
That’s not true of course, and this might be why: haggis is made from minced sheep’s heart, liver and lungs mixed with oatmeal, suet, onions and spices then traditionally boiled inside the sheep’s stomach. It’s savory and earthy, somewhat rich and a little gamey. Maybe not something you eat slice after slice, perhaps.
Over dinner and helpings of haggis, raucous toasts are celebrated with “drams” or small glasses of whisky — surely Scotland’s most famous export — and there are recitations of some of Burns’s other poems, like A Red, Red Rose, Ae Fond Kiss, or Tam o’Shanter.
The latter was the name of a drunken farmer who taunts the devil and is chased by witches in a poem written by Burns in 1791. He wears a tam o’shanter, a flat woolen cap with a pom-pom in the center.
Angelenos might recognize that as the name of the restaurant and pub in Los Feliz.
I went to my first Burns Night in L.A. last year, and I must say, that despite being an Englishman I was heartily welcomed, and I did enjoy my taste of the famous dish — though the bagpipes, also an acquired taste for this “sassenach” are yet to be something on my regular playlist.
Festooned with Scottish flags, souvenirs and regalia, “the Tam” is one of the venues that will be hosting its 41st Burns Nights on Jan. 27 and 28, with two seatings each night.
Also, the St. Andrew’s Society — named in honor of the Scottish patron saint - will host their sold-out Burns Night on January 24 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. It’s their 96th event, and singing for his supper as the winner of their annual Robert Burns Award is Dundee-born actor Brian Cox, who played the ruthless Logan Roy in HBO’s Succession (and was in Braveheart).
Alternatively, the St. Andrews University Alumni network here in L.A. is also celebrating a day early, on Jan. 24, 6 - 9 p.m. at MacLeod’s Brewery in Van Nuys.
It’s the very first Burns Night celebration organized by Sammy Ginsberg, a self-described, home-grown “Valley Girl” who left L.A. in 2012 to study at St. Andrews, a venerable institution founded in 1413. It’s where Prince William met his wife-to-be, Kate Middleton.
Ginsberg fell hard and fast in love with Scotland, describing her first visit as “magical.”
As an aspiring writer and poet, Ginsberg was especially inspired by the reverence for literature that she found.
“Scotland is a rich place filled with imagination that truly loves writers and I think we can learn a lot from them,” Ginsberg said, adding that was one reason why she co-started the Los Feliz Writers Festival.
Alongside the neeps, tatties and haggis there will be haggis pizza — surely a new culinary innovation — as well as Scottish beer and music from bagpiper John McLelan Allan, who has appeared in many movies, TV shows and has worked with performers such as Korn, The Chieftains, and Michael Flatley.
Though Ginsberg developed a taste for fish and chips when she was in Scotland. “That was my stress food when I was in the library on a deadline crunch,” she said.
She admits that it took a few more attempts before she became a fan of haggis.
Nearly 680,000 people with a Scottish or Ulster-Scots background call Southern California home, according to the 2020 census, so “slàinte” to all of you, and try to get hold of a bottle of Irn-Bru — an electric orange-colored soda from Scotland — as it’s said to be the best cure for a hangover.
“It really gets you going again!” Ginsberg said.
