Best Things To Do This Week In Los Angeles And SoCal: May 8 - 11

Learn how to hula for AAPI Heritage Month. Listen to Keke Palmer talk about her new movie and visual album. Watch classic noirish thrillers and melodramas in 35mm.

Events

Monday, May 8; 7 p.m.

Crowded House
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
Hey now, hey now, the ’80s pop rock band is currently on the North American leg of the Dreamers Are Waiting Tour. Led by original members Neil Finn and Nick Seymour, the band plays its older repertoire and new tunes.
COST: Tickets start at $45; MORE INFO

Monday, May 8; 7:30 p.m.

Tom Kitt & Friends 
The Bourbon Room
6356 Hollywood Blvd., 2nd Floor, Hollywood
Tony-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Pulitzer Prize Award-winning composer Tom Kitt performs a second night of songs and stories from his Broadway, Off-Broadway, and upcoming musicals including Next to Normal, Almost Famous, If/Then, Flying Over Sunset, Freaky Friday. He’ll be joined by some famous friends, including Carmen Cusack, Ana Gasteyer, Elizabeth Gillies, Emma Hunton, Chris Mann, Idina Menzel, Henry Platt and Abby Quinn. (Guests are subject to change.) The club has a two-item minimum.
COST: $40; MORE INFO

Tuesdays through May 30; 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday Night Dance: Hula
Segerstrom Center for the Arts
600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
To celebrate AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Heritage Month, the Segerstrom Center offers evenings of hula lessons and performances. Led by Toni Kemehana Pasion, an Inland Empire-based dancer, educator, and community organizer who specializes in Indigenous Hawaiian and Philippine dance practices, the nights are designed for all ages and abilities.
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Tuesday, May 9; 8 p.m.

It’s Funny Now
The Crow 
2525 Michigan Ave., #Unit F4, Santa Monica 
Frank Traynor presents comedians and storytellers who tell true stories that they don't wish on anyone else. The lineup includes Fielding Edlow, Margot Leitman, Chambers Stevens, Federico Pellejero and Sean Ewert.
COST: $15; MORE INFO

Wednesday, May 10 - Thursday, May 11

Imitation of Life / Mildred Pierce
New Beverly Cinema
7165 Beverly Blvd., Fairfax
Watch a double feature of these two classics in 35mm. Up first is the 1959 film directed by Douglas Sirk about two widowed mothers and their troubled daughters as they try to find happiness through racial injustice. The film stars Lana Turner, John Gavin, Sandra Dee and Mahalia Jackson. It’s followed by Joan Crawford in the film noir melodrama Mildred Pierce, directed by Michael Curtiz.
COST: $13; MORE INFO

Wednesday, May 10; 7:30 p.m.

Reel To Reel: Big Boss Featuring Keke Palmer in Conversation
The Grammy Museum
800 W. Olympic Blvd., downtown L.A.
Join the actress and singer at the museum as she shares her new film Big Boss — about her experiences in the music industry — followed by a conversation with the artist about the making of the film and visual album, which is out on Friday, May 12.
COST: $30; MORE INFO

Wednesday, May 10 – Saturday, May 13

PEN America: World Voices Festival
Various locations
The literary festival is the premier celebration of international literature in the U.S. Taking place in both New York City and Los Angeles, listen to more than 80 writers from 25 countries participate in 30 cross-cultural exchanges, debates, conversations, and events. Programming in L.A. includes the Farhang Foundation panel, Woman, Life, Freedom: The Role Of Art In The Struggle For Human Rights, on Wednesday at the Skirball Cultural Center; and Earthly Delights: History, Race And Environmental Consciousness with Leah Thomas, Camille T. Dungy at the California African American Museum on Wednesday.
COST: Many events are FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Thursday, May 11; 7:30 p.m.

The Man Behind the Monsters
Hollywood Heritage Museum
2100 N. Highland Ave., Hollywood
Learn about the mostly forgotten legacy of influential film producer Carl Laemmle Jr. At age 21 he was put in charge of Universal Studios and during his reign from 1929 to 1936, he was personally responsible for launching The Universal Monsters. Julian David Stone, author of the new novel, "It’s Alive!" — which tracks Laemmle’s work to get the 1931 version of Frankenstein made — shares a presentation on the movie mogul’s career. A panel discussion follows with some of Laemmle’s family members.
COST: $10 - $20; MORE INFO

ALOUD at the Central Library welcomes David Ambroz, best-selling author of A Place Called Home, who discusses homelessness with Mayor Karen Bass.

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ALOUD

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Courtesy of the Library Foundation of Los Angeles

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Thursday, May 11; 7 p.m.

Surviving Homelessness & Foster Care
Mark Taper Auditorium, Central Library
630 W. 5th St., downtown L.A. 
The ALOUD series presents a conversation between David Ambroz, best-selling author of A Place Called Home, and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass. Ambroz shares how he survived on the streets of New York City and later through violence in foster care. He lays out his ideas, “informed through lived experience and policy expertise, to fix foster care, address homelessness, and build a more humane and compassionate nation.”
COST: FREE with RSVP; MORE INFO

Thursday, May 11; 7:30 p.m.

Pop Cultured
The Lyric Hyperion Theater
2106 Hyperion Ave., Silver Lake
The pop culture-comedy game show returns with three comedians competing in improvised games vying to become the Pop Cultured champion. Hosted and judged by comedian Jimmy Pardo, this week’s contestants are Jodie Sweetin, Dan Telfer and Olivia DeLaurentis.
COST: $15, streaming option available; MORE INFO

Thursday, May 11; 6:30 p.m.

The American Way 
Holocaust Museum LA
100 The Grove Dr., Fairfax
This real-life adventure, written by Bonnie Siegler and Helene Stapinski, traces the story of Jules Schulback (Siegler’s grandfather), who escapes from Nazi Germany with the sponsorship of DC Comics’ publisher and by pretending he is Clark Gable’s agent. Once settled in New York City, he happens to shoot the only known remaining film footage of Marilyn with her dress blowing up over a subway grate. The story brings together old Hollywood history with the birth of the comic book and the Holocaust. Siegler and Stapinski chat with Melissa Rivers about the book and real-life superheroes at the museum.
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Viewing Pick

The Wages of Fear (Le salaire de la peur)
Before he directed Les Diaboliques (Diabolique), French filmmaker Henri-Georges Cluzout directed The Wages of Fear (1953), a taut adventure thriller where the main characters agree to drive two trucks full of explosive nitro-glycerin through the South American jungle for a lot of cash. But without chemical stabilizers, the slightest bump, turbulence, or obstacle could make the truck go “boom.” Cluzout was one of Hitchcock’s contemporaries, and their works are often compared, so here’s your chance to see for yourself as the Secret Movie Club screens The Wages of Fear on Thursday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. in downtown L.A.

Chef Evan Funke’s namesake restaurant, Funke, opened on Friday in Beverly Hills.

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Eric Wolfinger

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Courtesy of Funke

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Dine and Drink Deals

Here are a few dine and drink options to indulge in this week.

• There are a few tickets left for the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center’s (JACCC) Rising Chef Series. The pop-up dinner series, which celebrates AAPI Heritage Month, convenes emerging chefs to create dishes while honoring culture and the spirit of innovation. The immersive dinners include a five-course pre-fixe menu inspired by each chef’s cultural heritage, alongside signature House of Suntory cocktail pairings. This week’s chef is Jasper Lynn. Tickets are $180.
• On Wednesday, May 10 at 5 p.m., Los Feliz’s Messhall hosts a mezcal dinner featuring Mal Bien Mezcal with a Mexican-inspired, four-course tasting menu from Chef Charbel Adaimy. The menu includes cabra ahumada (smoked goat) paired with a Tepextate from Miahuatlan, Oaxaca. Tickets are $85 per person and can be purchased via OpenTable.  
• The Lucky Yu pop-up opened last week in the old Blue Plate Oysterette location,  serving Baja, California-inspired Japanese bar cuisine. There are still Blue Plate classics on the menu with new twists: think clam chowder with dashi and miso; key lime pie with yuzu and black sesame. The raw bar still offers fresh oysters with cucumber-kosho mignonette alongside Peruvian scallops and whole Maine lobsters.
• Eric Greenspan’s New School American Cheese collaborates with Dino’s Famous Chicken (Pico location only) for a new menu item that drops on Monday, May 8 and will only be available through May 14. 
• Chef Evan Funke’s namesake restaurant, Funke, opened in Beverly Hills last week, offering handmade pastas in a super-swanky atmosphere. Not sure what’s on the menu (as it’s not yet posted on the site) but Eater LA writes: “At the heart of Funke’s menu is pasta. In addition to the dishes that have become synonymous with the chef over the years, like tagliatelle Bolognese, cacio e pepe, and all’amatriciana, are newcomers like the Piemontese classic agnolotti dal plin.”