Billy Wilder

The Fascinating Tale of a Literary One-Hit Wonder

In musical terms, author Charles Jackson was a one-hit wonder, the literary equivalent of Right Said Fred or Sir Mix-a-Lot. Put under the microscope, however, one-hit wonders can make a better story than superstars — huge early success followed by unending failure is potentially more dramatic ... More >>

Kirk Douglas Honors Burt Lancaster, and a New Media Film Fest: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

See also: *More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage Friday, June 7 The seventh annual Greek Film Festival at the Writers Guild Theater runs through June 9. Friday's lineup includes the U.S. premiere of They Glow in the Dark at 3 p.m. This documentary finds two gay ex-lovers reconnecting after 20 years to m ... More >>

Czech and Mexican Film Fests: Your Weekly To-Do List

See also: *More L.A. Weekly Film Coverage Friday, May 10 The second annual touring Czech That Film Festival makes a pit stop at Los Angeles, bringing seven films over five days between today and June 3. Starting off the festival is writer-director Zdenek Jiráský with his first feature, Flower B ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Garry Marshall Directing a Play About the Making of Double Indemnity

Lost Moon Radio did another bang-up job hosting the 34th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards Monday night. (See the full list of L.A. Weekly Theater Award winners here.) Thanks to Lauren Ludwig, Trish Hadley and the LMR troupe for their talent, and thanks for all the kind missives from people who had ... More >>

UCLA's Festival of Preservation Unearths Gems From Thom Andersen and Jimmy Cagney, Among Others

Eddie Muller's Film Noir Night

Sex and the City Meets Some Like It Hot: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Friday, Feb. 15 Five days after Chinese New Year comes the first Asians on Film Festival at J.E.T. Studios, showcasing the work of up-and-coming Asian filmmakers. The red carpet begins at 6 p.m., and the winner of the Best Comedy prize, Starting From Scratch from writer-director-actor James Huang, ... More >>

From Vampires to V-Day: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Friday, Feb. 8 Barbra Streisand's award-winning directorial debut, Yentl, returns to the big screen at the Egyptian Theatre at 7:30 p.m. The musical that originated "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel" by composer Michel Legrand and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman follows one ... More >>

A Movie About Reddit, and More: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Thursday, Jan. 10 The Egyptian Theatre holds its 8th Annual Focus on Female Directors at 7:30 p.m., showcasing short films from a wide range of talents, including Academy Award nominee Julie Delpy and the new-to-directing trio of Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos and Jessie Ennis. One of the most intriguing ... More >>

From Punks to Mobsters: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Our weekly list of special-event movies to see: Thursday, January 3 A Vincente Minnelli double feature courtesy of the Aero: The Band Wagon and Meet Me in ... More >>

Mitchell Leisen, the Forgotten Rom-com Specialist, Gets a Series at UCLA

Zombies and Mummies: 
Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Our weekly list of special event movies to see includes some evidence of Halloween creeping in: Thursday, Oct. 18 Andrew Shea's thriller of a documentary, Portrait of Wally, traces the legal journey of the titular 1912 painting by Austrian artist Egon Schiele of then-17-year-old Valerie "Wally" Ne ... More >>

From China to Pompeii: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Our weekly list of special event movies to see this week: Friday, Oct. 12 Dying to take that long-overdue visit to the Getty Villa? The museum's outdoor film series, presented in conjunction with its exhibition "The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection," might just be the great ... More >>

Ghosts, Laughs and Ducks: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Our list of the best special event films to see in L.A. this week ranges from an Ibsen adaptation to a classic hockey comedy. Friday, Oct. 5 Wide-eyed little ones and nostalgic adults are invited to the eighth annual Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival, presented Oct. 5-7 by LACMA. ... More >>

Spike Jonze's Personal Documentarian and Matthew Lillard as a Director: Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Our weekly list of special event movies to check out this week: Friday, Sept. 7 Filmmaker Lance Bangs has documented everything from the making of Spike Jonze's films Being John Malkovich and Where the Wild Things Are to Brad and Jen's wedding. For the past 20 years, he has also worked with bands ... More >>

Your Weekly Movie To-Do List

Disco Films at UCLA

Punked in Spain

Alex Cox returns to his disaster film Straight to Hell

Sabrina

Audrey Hepburn at LACMA

Funny Face (and Teeth and Neck)

UCLA Retrospective: Women Exploitation Auteurs

A Tribute to High Priestesses of Grindhouse Shlock

HOW HOT IS YOUR ROD?

Los Angeles Film Fest: Hot Rods and Fast Times

Get your motor running with LAFF's auto stimulus package

LAFF: The Films That Got Away

Festival sidebar spotlights lost and found films

Lonely Songs and Still Lives at UCLA’s Celebration of Iranian Cinema

Far away, so close

Los Angeles Film Festival Guide 2008

Cinespia Returns to Hollywood Cemetery

By Guelda Voien Global climate change put the brakes on that celebrated preamble to summer in Los Angeles - the inaugural screening at Hollywood Forever cemetery - on Saturday as only the most loyal moviegoers made it out for the lost Billy Wilder film Ace in the Hole. Generally, young Angelenos a ... More >>

Visualizing the Sacred: Islam on Film

Monthlong UCLA series looks at the lives of Muslims worldwide

Still Lives

New Chinese Cinema at UCLA and REDCAT

Lust, Yawn, Caution

There is a famous story about actor-director Erich von Stroheim that goes something like this: Cast as Rommel in Billy Wilder's 1943 Five Graves to Cairo, Stroheim was given a prop Leica camera as part of the character's wardrobe and proceeded to demand that the camera have film in it. When Wilder a ... More >>

LAFF 2007, From A to Y

Prisons, Punks and Don Quixote

Our critics’ guide to the very best of LAFF

Movies & More

New Crowned Hope

the Films That Got Away

No Laffing Matter

Los Angeles Film Festival finally comes of age

Too Disturbing for Kansans!

What to do in Los Angeles this week

A Centennial Tribute to Otto Preminger

BLD It and They Will Come

Breakfast, lunch and dinner at L.A.’s most useful restaurant

The Impossible Dream

A map to the most buried of cinematic treasures

A Beer-slugging, Flag-waving, Double-Wilder Week of Fun

Playing Favorites

Queer and/or peculiar films that have mattered

Charmed Life

Billy Wilder, 1906–2002

The Coffee Table

Homage to Catatonia

A history of drugs and the movies

All the World’s a Farm

Chicken Run and other delights from abroad

Genius of the System

Writer-director Billy Wilder

The Coffee Table

True Wit

A new bio gets behind the Billy Wilder legend

Killers, Kisses and Kismet

A darker shade of noir