Eddie Murphy

Gibson Amphitheatre To Shut Down

Gibson Amphitheatre, the mainstay mid-size concert venue at Universal City, will close its doors in September, according to its operator Live Nation Entertainment. As announced in December 2011, the 6,200-capacity amphitheatre is expected to be demolished to make way for The Wizarding World of Har ... More >>

How to Spot Hollywood's Nonthreatening Black Man (NTBM)

The Great Action Director Walter Hill Attempts a Comeback (and Brings Along Sylvester Stallone)

Why This Songs Sucks: The Worst Rap Tracks of 2012

Welcome to another installment of the worst rap songs of the year, brought to you by Why This Song Sucks. See also: Why This Song Sucks: The Worst Rap Tracks of 2011 They are all here this year: The all-the-way aged king, the suddenly mortal demigod, the former darling, the current darling, the m ... More >>

10 Questions for W. Kamau Bell, Star of His New Show Totally Biased on FX, Exec Produced by Chris Rock

The Unseen Side of Mister Rogers

If you were a child anytime in the last 40 years, or the parent of one, at some point you've had a moment with Mister Rogers. Perhaps many. And in those moments, through the lens of TV, he looked you straight in the eyes, and in his soft-spoken manner told you, in one set of words or another, that h ... More >>

6 Sexy Ways to Get Freaky With Food on Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is here and if you're like most couples, you or your lover are scrambling for a dinner reservation somewhere -- anywhere-- about now. If you get one, the odds of it being great are slim though. Restaurants are at their busiest, there are fixed menus that limit food options, multipl ... More >>

Dawn Hudson, Academy CEO, Thrashed by Anonymous Old White Men in LA Times Roast

Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesHudson takes on the haters.​Half a year into her stint as CEO of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Dawn Hudson got a cutting performance review from the Los Angeles Times last weekend. The Times piece is not, at face value, an editorial evaluation of Hu ... More >>

10 Movies We're Excited About in 2012

Sacha Baron Cohen is The Dictator​We know -- you're excited about The Dark Knight Rises. And The Avengers. And Hunger Games. So are we. We're also excited about a lot of other movies whose marketing campaigns have not inundated us with white noise (yet). Allow us to suggest a few more films to ... More >>

Incarcerate This at the Ice House: Social Justice Can Be Hilarious

D. VerdinComics telling the truth, Ruth: (l. to r.) Kenji, Martin Rizo, Flaco Martinez, Reggie Brown and Jimmy Ouyang​ As the wholesome racial equality message emanated from the new movie The Help over the weekend, a group of stand-ups acutely debunked such propaganda Saturday at Pasadena's Ic ... More >>

Werner Herzog Takes Pity on Confused Hipster at Hollywood Cemetery Screening Q&A

cinemastrikesback.comWerner Herzog has seen worse.​The Saturday-night screening of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery was attended by special guest Werner Herzog, to the delight of a few hundred wine-drunk hipsters on picnic blankets. (Toto was there too, in spiri ... More >>

Top 10 Hottest Music Videos Featuring Supermodels (In Honor of Evan Voytas Somehow Getting Kate Moss for His Latest)

Top 10 Music Videos Featuring Models (Featuring Evan Voytas' Kate Moss Cameo)

eBay Haters Not Impressed With Meg Whitman's Corporate Experience

whiteafrican via FlickrMeg Whitman runs on her eBay record: A good thing?​Some employees who worked for Meg Whitman during her tenure as the chief of eBay don't remember her so fondly. One, an eBay publicist, once claimed that Whitman shoved her in a fit of anger. More recently, other eBay w ... More >>

Movie Reviews: After the Cup, Shrek Forever After, Prince of Persia

Also, Sex and the City 2, Survival of the Dead and more

Movie Reviews: Here and There, The Philosopher Kings, The Oath

Also, The Living Wake, Holy Rollers, Shrek Forever After

Top Chef Contestant Brian Hill's Comfort Truck Rolls Out

Elina ShatkinChef Brian Hill poses in front of his Comfort Truck.​ When Mary J. Blige dubs your homemade tortilla chips "crack chips," (because they're so addictive they're like... well, you get it), you don't think twice about putting them on the menu. Chef Brian Hill's Comfort Truck (Twitte ... More >>

Top 10 Dance Albums: Club-land Crossover

In 2009, the mainstream flocked to dance-floor grooves

Hollywood's Labor Pains or, Why the Numbers Still Matter

​Although the official start of Fall is still a couple of weeks away, Hollywood's Autumnal Equinox is already upon us, as the books are closed on the 2009 summer movie season and the curtain goes up on the Toronto International Film Festival, the still-humid summer air starting to hum with the fir ... More >>

Paramount's Black Friday

Lesher out, Weston out, Goodman In

Jerry Lewis Retrospective at Cinefamily

Turns out the French were right all along about an American comic genius

Role Models: Big Daddies

A boys-to-men movie not made by Judd Apatow

Garrett Morris

Mr. Saturday Night

Tropic Thunder: Jungle Feverish

If only Ben Stiller and company were as hot and naughty as the P.C. protesters complain

The 10 Best Hip-Hop Albums of the Half Year

Yes, I'm aware that this is a month late. I never said punctuality was my strong suit. (That would be rambling, stoned gibberish. ) Look for the best 10 non-rap albums sometime next week. 10 (tie). Nico the Beast-No Beast So Fierce Genre purists and anyone weaned on that mid-90s school of sav ... More >>

Wale Realizes the Full Potential of the Mixtape

Last November, Zeus wrote a post dissecting the differences between albums and mixtapes for the benefit of crits and fans who had been mistakenly conflating Pusha-T rhyming over old G-Unit beats for high art. It happens. The post may have been a tad heavy-handed, but its point was salient. More of ... More >>

N.W.A: A Hard Act to Follow

Hip-hop and hype from the streets of Compton (reprint of May 5, 1989, Weekly cover story)

Brett Ratner, The Popcorn King

Rush Hour 3's director has been called a fauxteur, a womanizer and, worse, over budget. Why you should take him seriously anyway

No More Monday Nights at Morton's

Remembering a Hollywood legend

The Blockbusters Cometh

It could be a Promised Movieland this summer, unless...

Cool Katt Williams

It’s not so hard out there for this pimp

The Scars of Oscars

Envy and spite will determine Academy Award winners

Brad Grey's Performance Less Than Golden

Mogul earns scorn, not envy at Globes

How Shit Be

Freestyle riffs & ruminations on black music and pop culture at the dawn of 2007

Paws for Effect

What to do in L.A. this week

Emo Philips in the Shredder

Battle of the Network Stars

It’s East Coast 30 Rock against the West Coast heavyweights of Studio 60

Old Black Magic

The retro pleasures of Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, plus The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl

Beauty and Madness

How I learned to love L.A.’s Fashion Week

Surf’s Way Up

Riding Giants puts the history of big-wave riding on the big screen

Optimal Precocity

The decidedly grown-up pleasures of Shrek 2

Home-District Movies

Jackie Goldberg’s cameo role in pay-for-play probe

Arnold, Pellicano and Politics

Where will The Pelican’s droppings land next?

Second Wind

A new generation of filmmakers translates Bill Murray

Aargh!

Pirates of the Caribbean is big, loud, empty

Under the Influence

Spellbound in Shallow Hal and A Matter of Taste

Gays & Dolls

Laughing out loud in the new century

Actionauseam

Homeboys From Outer Space and Other Transgressions

TV in black and white

Summer of Spike

On Lee's First "White" Film, the Elusive "Black" Audience and Other Gray Areas

Negritude Adjustment

The finer points of Shangism