FilmWeek

Every day people walk by something that is a direct result of Richard Pimentel's efforts: wheel chair ramps, parking spaces for the disabled, handicapped bathroom stalls, etc. Pimentel is a deaf Vietnam veteran who pioneered training people in how to work with the disabled, which eventually led to what is known today as the Americans with Disabilities Act. A new film, Music Within, covers Pimentel's difficult battle for acceptance and equal rights for the disabled community. The film documents his own experience going to jail for being out in public with his best friend Art Honneyman, who was wheelchair-bound, violating "Ugly Laws," ordinances that were in effect as late as the 1990's that punished the disabled community. Those laws have since been recanted thanks to Pimentel's efforts. Larry talks with Pimentel and the film's director, Steven Sawalich.

Larry and critics Andy Klein of CityBeat and Jean Oppenheimer of Village Voice Media discuss the week's new releases including the feature films Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Sleuth, We Own the Night, Lars and the Real Girl, Berkeley, The Final Season, Summer '04, and the documentaries For the Bible Tells Me So, Lake of Fire, and Terror's Advocate.

Larry talks with director Tony Kaye about his new documentary film, Lake of Fire, that takes on the controversial topic of abortion. The film was 15 years in the making.

Many of us can rattle off a list of jobs that are integral to movie making. A new exhibit at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honors an essential, but rarely publicized, member of the filmmaking team: the illustrator. "The Art of the Motion Picture Illustrator" features over one hundred storyboards, sketches, and watercolor renderings by three artists for films including Bambi, The Birds, The Ten Commandments, and Dick Tracy. Larry talks with Ellen Harrington, the Director of Exhibitions at the Academy, about the illustrators and their work in dozens of films from the late 1940s through the early 1990s.

Larry discusses the 2007 All Roads Film Project and its line-up for this year's festival with Francene Blythe and Greg McGruder of the Project. The festival will take place at the Egyptian Theatre from September 27th - 30th.

Larry talks with Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor and Henry Sheehan of henrysheehan.com about the Toronto International Film Festival, and he talks with Charles Solomon, animation critic for amazon.com about the Anime Bento Festival beginning next week.

Between 1968 and 1972 nine American spacecraft traveled to the Moon and 12 men walked upon its surface. They remain the only human beings to have stood on another world. Larry talks with director David Sington about his new documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon, which brings together surviving crew members from every Apollo mission that flew to the Moon to tell their story in their own words.

Larry talks with NBC film critic Jeffrey Lyons about some of the most notable and interesting Fall films.

In 1997 reporter, J.R. Moehringer wrote a feature for the Los Angeles Times Magazine about Bob Satterfield, a former professional boxer Moehringer discovered living on the streets of Santa Ana. Ten years later that article became the basis of the new feature film, Resurrecting the Champ. Ted talks about the story and its journey from page to screen with Moehringer and the film's director, Rod Lurie.

Larry talks to youth culture experts and a television critic about the Disney Channel's smash "tween" hit franchise, High School Musical. The sequel, High School Musical 2 premieres tonight on the Disney Channel. Joining Larry to talk about this word-of-mouth phenomenon are Marisa Meltzer, co-author of the book How Sassy Changed My Life, Los Angeles Times television critic Mary McNamara and Tina Wells, CEO of Buzz Marketing Group.