Guest Contributor

Photo courtesy of Apparition On this icy weekend, nobody's more explosive than Black Dynamite! The blaxploitation tribute lights up Long Beach this Friday, with exclusive giveaways & Adrian Younge, the Dynamite composer who brings more funk than the junk in your trunk! Want even more bang for your buck? The New Beverly has a neo-grindhouse triple-threat of Black Dynamite, Planet Terror & Death Proof sure to make your Sunday sizzle. Or go to LACMA...

Santa Claus Conquers the Cardboard Planet. | Courtesy of Niceness via Flickr Weekend plans still up in the air? If 20,000 feet isn't enough elevation for you, boldly go to the Aero for screenings of JJ Abrams' Star Trek, fanboy tribute Free Enterprise, and a Trek triple: Wrath of Khan, The Search for Spock & The Voyage Home. TrekMovie.com has organized panels reuniting the cast & crew of Free Enterprise, and welcomes writer/director Nicholas...

You keep your turkey, I've got BEEFCAKE | Photo courtesy of Props, Inc. This Thanksgiving, classics abound, while the family's in town. The Alex Theatre brings the slapstick with its 12th annual Three Stooges event featuring four Curly titles & 100% pure Shemp, in eye-poking 3D! If that's not rare enough, feast your eyes on the special guests & Stooges memorabilia raffled off at intermission. Nyuck nyuck. The American Cinematheque celebrates 70 years of...

Since its inception in 1999, the members of the Lodestone Theatre Ensemble "have always done the shows we wanted the way we wanted,” asserts company co-founder Philip W. Chung. “We were all young back then, and none of us had any experience running a theater company. Maybe if we knew better, we wouldn’t have done it that way. But we’ve maintained our identity the whole time and we never deviated from our initial mission: to stretch the definition of Asian-American theater."

I said Caribbean Pirates, not Pirates of the...forget it. | Photo courtesy of Joe Penniston via Flickr A fun bit of trivia for film snobs & martial arts fans: Jackie Chan's Supercop was originally released on laserdisc by the prestigious Criterion Collection. The Nuart pays tribute to this cinematic masterwork with a midnight screening on Friday. The New Beverly features fellow Criterion alum, Krysztof Kieslowski, with two out of Three Colors, and the Aero...

Up in the Air is a comedy-drama directed by Jason Reitman (Thank You for Smoking and Juno.) It is an adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. According to Reitman, “The movie is about the examination of a philosophy -- what if you decided to live hub to hub, with nothing, with nobody?” Well, what if the “you” was George Clooney? In that case, you would be dressed as...

WWJD? Mope. | Photo courtesy of Warner Brothers Pictures Italia How do you make alt-porn even alt-ier? The Echo Park Film Center knows, with Honey Bunny v2, a video-remix of 2008's Honey Bunny. Re-imagineer Margie Schnibbe is on hand for every moan & groan, and for all the would-be Jeremih's out there, it's her birthday. If you prefer your alt-film on the straight and narrow, EPFC also hosts Los Angeles As A Character, a...

There was a time, not long ago, when the early hours of Sunday night meant only one thing: Mo'Nique. Yes, when that supremely confident "big girl" hosted Showtime at The Apollo, a good time was had by all. You could be sure that the audience would be left in stitches, and by the end of the show, anyone who wanted could come on stage to do the Electric Slide with her. Oh sure, I could...

TMZ's exclusive footage of Count Chocula in Rehab | Photo courtesy of -- wait, it's public domain! This is it! The weekend horror hounds have been waiting for all month - everyone & Bates' mother has a Halloween Event, all guaranteed to be a scream! Go old school with Noise-feratu, Downtown Independent & Summer Fun Time Society's live performance of ghoulish grandaddy Nosferatu, featuring hardcore bands Kill Kill Kill, 0rgan Music, 8-bit blooper WMX,...

The Taste of Soul 2009 was hot, hot, hot. And that’s even before you start talking about feasting on the hot links and Cajun-spiced fare. The festival of food and music that turns Crenshaw Boulevard into a state fair kind of ambience happened during last Saturday's steamy afternoon.