Elina Shatkin

A tip of the hat to New Jersey's WFMU, perhaps the East Coast's leading non-commercial radio station, for this joyous exploitation of technology: using Google Earth to capture satellite images of famous locations from equally famous movies. Thanks to Google Earth we can see the bank that Al Pacino tried to rob and the street where he screamed "Attica!" in Dog Day Afternoon, the original "Camp Crystal Lake" from Friday the 13th, the park from...

Bonjour Tristesse As part of its ongoing Saul Bass mini-tribute, the Skirball Center will screen Bonjour Tristesse, a drama directed by Otto Preminger that stars David Niven as a suave playboy-turned-father and Jean Seberg as his pixie-ish daughter. Their dissolute existence of tromping across Europe from nightclub to cocktail party to casino is upended when Niven falls for the hopelessly upright Deborah Kerr. I also highly recommend the mildly smutty book by Françoise Sagan on...

Here's a little something to help wash out the taint of Celine Dion's "tribute" to Ennio Morricone at last night's Oscars. Sure, Celine has a great set of pipes. No one will argue that. But her singing? Puke! She might as well have been singing the latest bit of background fodder from American Idol for how much you could tell that it was an Ennio Morricone tune. But that's who Celine Dion is. That's what...

The New Beverly has announced the schedule for 2007 the Los Angeles Grindhouse Festival Grindhouse festival, which is this year programmed by Quentin Tarantino and runs from March 4 - May 1. Many of the prints come from Tarantino's vast and awesome private collection, reputed to be among the best in the world for such films. As we reported last week, Los Angeles' best revival house will screen themed, handpicked double features on weekdays...

I don't know whether this is the real Silvio Berlusconi or Italian comedian and provocateur Sabina Guzzanti, but either way... this is how a world leader should act....

On Saturday night while cruising The Grove before a 9:55 p.m. screening of Reno 911!: Miami who did I happen to spot but Reno 911 cast members Cedric Yarbrough and Carlos Alazraqui hanging out in the theater lobby. I know you can't tell from this photo, but they're actually snorting caviar out of supermodels' asses. Like the elusive Loch Ness monster the event could only be documented with blurry, impossible-to-prove images, but I did...

Most vanilla Oscars ever. Ellen DeGeneres wasn't a bad host. But she wasn't a good one. Her mildly funny jokes and conversational good nature made it feel like we were watching a daytime talk show host wallowing in the oversized britches of a big-time awards ceremony. Oh wait, we were. Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres, for proving that queers can be as bland and conventional as breeders. Jerry Seinfeld's presentation of the feature documentary award was...

Or at least he's trying to kill the story of Jesus' resurrection. An upcoming 90-minute documentary directed by Jewish Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and produced by Titanic director James Cameron makes the startling assertion that Jesus was never resurrected -- a cornerstone of Christian faith -- and that his burial cave was discovered in the Jerusalem suburb of Talpiyot some 27 years ago. One more thing, Jesus fathered a son with Mary Magdelene. Cameron...

Being a high-stakes online journalist is brutal, brain-taxing, soul-bruising work. But every now and then you get the little bit of recognition (read: free stuff) that makes it all worthwhile. On Friday I had the chance to attend the Haven/Elle magazine pre-Oscars "gifting suite" along with LAist's own Lisa B.* We made our way to the hills of Beverly Hills and after fighting our way through a forest of monstrous Cadillac Escalades -- what...