British Broadcasting Corporation

The Tangled Web We Watch: A Web Series Featuring Josh Gad's Borat-Like Creation

Two Plays on Politics and Frivolity in Europe

Reviews of Neva, About Chekhov's Widow, and Yes, Prime Minister, a British Satire

The Best TV Writer Panel Ever?

When the invitation went out from the Writers Guild of America, It seemed too good to be true. Norman Lear, Carl Reiner, James L. Books, Steven Bochco, and more, all on the same panel? And yet last night at the WGA Theater in Beverly Hills, to celebrate the organization's 101 Best Written TV Series ... More >>

Dangerous Levels of Lead Found in Imported Rice

Researchers have found unacceptably high levels of lead in rice imported into the U.S., particularly from China and Taiwan, BBC News reports. Some samples exceeded the "provisional total tolerable intake" (PTTI) set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) by a factor of 120.

10 Comedy Events We're Looking Forward to This Fall

The leaves are turning, the pumpkin lattes are over-caffeinating and the comedy calendar is packing in shows and releases like snot-nosed children onto the back of a hayride wagon. Here are a few of the upcoming highlights.

Q & A With Kerry Caldwell, Assistant Brewer at Belmont Brewing Company: Updating Classics, Bragging Rights How To Be A Lady Brewer

In the late 1990s, Long Beach's Belmont Brewing Company was at the top of its game. With a longtime homebrewer named David Blackwell at the helm, beers from BBC -- which is the oldest operating brewpub in Southern California -- began picking up awards at local and international contests. Soon, its S ... More >>

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: St. Louis Blues

KCRW Broadcast #157 for Saturday, March 24, 2012 See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Memphis on My Mind Fanatics! It's Blues time in St. Louis Missouri! While you listen to our show, that's where I will be. I thought it appropriate that we spend a bit of time with some very pure and direct sounds ... More >>

James Cameron's Dive Down Mariana Trench Is an 'Ego-Driven Publicity Stunt,' Says Submarine Company

In the great race between director James Cameron and British billionaire Richard Branson to the deepest point on the ocean floor, Cameron will get there first. This, according to Bruce Jones, CEO of Triton Submarines (and subject of this excellent Broward-Palm Beach New Times cover story). Jones' F ... More >>

Scientists Say They're Close to Lab-Grown Hamburger

Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with which they say they will be able to produce the first lab-grown "hamburger" by the end of the year, BBC News reports. Their goal is to find a more efficient (and cruelty-free) way to produce meat than rearing animals. At ... More >>

L.A. Observed Preview

Thom Andersen and others present experimental nonfiction films about Los Angeles

Fanatics! Henry Rollins' KCRW Show Tomorrow Night: Recovering From A Stooges Coma

​See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Is Raw Power the American answer to Exile on Main St.? KCRW Broadcast #144 for Saturday, December 10 Fanatics! What a show! It's the mother of all shows. It's gigantic and fantastic! It is extraordinary and wonderful in every way. It hits all the marks a ... More >>

BBC Commentator Blasts L.A.'s "Money-Hating" Hippies

Look at this fucking (hot) hippie ​"In Elysian Park, hippie tribes gather 20,000 strong ..." And so begins this hilarious BBC commentary on a love-in in L.A. that features the Steve Miller Band when they were The Miller Blues Band. "The money-hating flower children are paradoxically, produc ... More >>

Hungry? With FabApps, Just Hit Print

BBC​Imagine you're in charge of hors d'oeuvres for the upcoming holiday potluck, and whipping up 100-some canapés just doesn't fit into your New Year's Eve schedule. Sure, buying is an option, but in the near future, there may be another one: printing. According to a recent article from BBC ... More >>

The Globe Trottin' Mr. Rollins: Henry Rollins Visits a Dead North Korean Leader, Ponders the Relationship Between State Communism and Scientology, and Finally Finds Time to Chill Out in Mongolia (also, HR's Musings on Jimi Hendrix!)

Maura LanahanOur eminent columnist, Mr. Henry Rollins!​[The one and only Henry Rollins will be contributing a weekly column and far-reaching reportage to the music section of the LA Weekly. Look for your weekly Henry Rollins fix right here on West Coast Sound every Friday and make sure to tune ... More >>

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector: Having Lost That Lovin' Feeling

Vikram Jayanti on his new film

Chef Murders Wife With Griddle Pan, Hides Body In Freezer For 3 Years

CastIronPotsandPans.co.ukA griddle pan​Want to be one of the biggest pricks on the face of the planet? Just follow these simple steps. First, cheat on your wife. Next, when she confronts you about it, get into a huge argument and beat her to death with a griddle pan. After that, tell all your ... More >>

Lady Bass: Q&A With BBC Radio 1's Mary Anne Hobbs

EXCLUSIVE Interview: BBC Star DJ Mary Anne Hobbs Throws "Volcano Refugee Party" in LA

Shaun BloodworthBBC's Mary Ann Hobbs: LA is "the most exciting electronic scene on the planet"​Further confirmation that it is a great time to be alive and digging beats in Los Angeles: BBC's star DJ Mary Ann Hobbs (aka "the first lady of bass") will be broadcasting the next two installments o ... More >>

Phoenix Frontman Scores Sweetie Sofia Coppola's New 'Ferraris and Los Angeles' Flick

The Freewheelin' Thomas & Sofia​Phoenix's frontman Thomas Mars is domestic-partnered to OG hipster director Sofia Coppola. Sofia is about to release a new movie, Somewhere, where she most certainly downscaled the period-piece ambitions of Marie Antoinette. Mars, riding high on a wave of critic ... More >>

Listen: Brand New Madvillain Track Leaked On BBC

DOOM, plotting.​This city may not have a lot of love for the Long Island rapper known as Metal Fingerz DOOM at the moment. The notorious hip-hop villain pulled another bait-and-switch in late November, sending his goons to lip-sync in his stead for an advertised appearance at the Grand Star in ... More >>

Movie Reviews: The Box, A Christmas Carol, The Men Who Stare at Goats

Also, The Fourth Kind, The Yes Men Fix the World and more

New Giant Meat-Eating Plant Found in Philippines: Rodents Beware!

via WikipediaGot rats? Yum yum!​ A new giant meat-eating plant has been discovered on a mountain in the Philippines (where the people eat fertilized duck embryos and the plants eat rodents). It is big enough to catch and eat rats. It is one freaky ass plant. The technical term is Nepenthes pit ... More >>

Three Wolf Moon Tee Shirt: A Challenger Arises--The Ten Crazy Kitten Shirt

Here we are, Day 14 of the Three Wolf Moon Shirt News Cycle and, yes, the dorkiest most magical-est white-trashiest tee shirt ever to go viral is still the unlikeliest number one-selling shirt on Amazon with over 800 reviews and counting. For the backstory, go here to the Associated Press or here ... More >>

State of Play: Dead Bodies, Buried Ledes

Movie is adrenaline for a dying industry: ours

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Film Composer Dies Maurice Jarre, whose haunting melodies for such films as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago captured the whimsy and grandeur of modern cinema, has died of cancer in Los Angeles. He was 84. BBC via L.A. Observed.Westside Lab Busted A West L.A. meth lab was discovered on a reside ... More >>

Top 10 New TV Shows From 2008: Hillary & Barack, Gavin & Stacey, Bernard & Doris

The way we watched

Houston Press' Top 10 Reissues of 2008

By Chris Gray It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again. BILLY JOEL The Stranger (Columbia/Legacy) As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionall ... More >>

The Decency Chronicles

Filth and parental control, 1960s-style

PBS's Cranford: It Takes an Eccentric Village

Gossip and gross-out humor blend with Masterpiece's high acting

The Eel World

For the past decade, E has created parallel universes. Turns out there's a reason why

Banksy in Bethlehem

BBC has a video report posted on Youtube about Banksy pieces showing up in Bethlehem. There's even a brief phone interview with the artist and a couple of decent images of his works on the walls that divide the city. However, BBC won't let the video be embedded, so you'll have to visit the site ... More >>

Who Cares Whodunit?

Five Days asks why

Dark Continentals

Hollywood’s Africa fetish continues with Beyond the Gates

Freaks and Freaks

Your Own Private Cable Channel

Essential DVDs for a personalized TV Land

Lisa D'Amato Likes Balls, Jason Bentley "Not Sure" About Elephants

I wasn't at Banksy's Barely Legal opening party last night, but I did bump in to OBEY artist Shepard Fairey later on at La Cita downtown, and he told me all about it. He said that it was 'amazing' (not an unexpected response from Fairey, who believes Banksy to be one of the most important ... More >>

Freedom of Information

Copyright and its discontents

''Do Not Hesitate''

Chefs Under Fire

Is Hell’s Kitchen’s Gordon Ramsay merely the Simon Cowell of haute cuisine?

The Shock of Recognition

Britain’s wicked comedy oddballs, from the Beyond the Fringe crowd to thoroughly absurd Catherine Tate

Box Populi

TV’s top stories

Revising History

The real Jessica Lynch story

The Television War

Students Against Old Ladies

And Man vs. Beast

Atrocity Exhibitions

Bloody Sunday and The Grey Zone

Klinghoffer Reborn

John Adams at the Beeb at the Barb

As Afghanistan Turns

The soap opera everyone tunes in

The Accidental Man

An interview with Stephen Frears

Bonkers for 'Bleaky Blighty'

A letter from Cornwall

Sir Edward and the Sow’s Ear