Ernst Lubitsch

LACMA Film: Remembering Ian Birnie

Film at LACMA is Dead. Long Live LACMA Film?

Not a portrait of Michael Govan, but a still from Edward Scissorhands, from LACMA's upcoming Tim Burton series.​ BY RICHARD NATALE Two years ago, Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan proposed suspending the then-41-year-old weekend film program because it was losing money ... More >>

Another Fine Mess: From Chaplin to Bromance

A history of cinematic LOLs in Saul Austerlitz's latest

Ernst Lubitsch: Sweet Smell of Excess

Escape the New Depression doldrums with LACMA's tribute to the past master of classy Hollywood comedy

Stage Raw: Bohemian Cowboy

BOHEMIAN COWBOY is this week's Pick of the Week Crossing the Center Line A father heads into the desert, never to return By Steven Leigh MorrisThe original title of Raymond King Shurtz's one-man show was The Gospel of Irony ― which would have been a particularly ironic title, had it stuck, s ... More >>

Stage Raw: Film

FILM is this week's Pick of the Week. Photo by Darrett Sanders Failing Better The Absurdists' convention Local playwright Patrick McGowan's new play, Film, has no right to be as good as it is. The central character is the late theater director Alan Schneider (Bill Robens) -- known for stagi ... More >>

Rated "G" For Globalization

As earlier noted, the 2009 Berlin Film Festival opened with a Hollywood movie (The International), directed by Germany's own Tom Tykwer and filmed in a half-dozen countries around the world, then continued with a French movie (In the Electric Mist) made in the U.S.A. with dialogue spoken in regional ... More >>

Berlin Film Festival: Rated "G" For Globalization

As earlier noted, the 2009 Berlin Film Festival opened with a Hollywood movie (The International), directed by Germany's own Tom Tykwer and filmed in a half-dozen countries around the world, then continued with a French movie (In the Electric Mist) made in the U.S.A. with dialogue spoken in regional ... More >>

Stage Raw: Phil Newby

PHIL NEWBY A memorial service was held at Sacred Fools Theatre on Sunday for that company's young and beloved actor who was found in his apartment last week. More on Phil to come in the print edition one week week from Thursday. At your fingertips: This week's Theater Feature on Jim Leonard' ... More >>

Stage Raw: Monsters and Prodigies

Reviewed this week: Pippin at the Mark Taper Forum; Jack Chandlers' new comedy-mystery, Murder on the Bounding Main, at Sierra Madre Playhouse; a dance-rock fusion, Vibrating Sun, at Unknown Theatre; Los Angeles Theatre Ensemble's staging fof Macbeth; Echo One-Act Festival at Stage 52; Furious Th ... More >>

Stage Raw: Unpronouncable

THEATER AWARDS UPDATE Here is the complete list of NOMINEES for the 30th annual L.A. Weekly Theater Awards, being held Monday, March 30 at the El Rey. Admission for nominees is free; nominee RSVPs are now being accepted at (310) 574-7208. Tickets for guests and members of the public go on sale ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Biggest Thank You Ever Given

The Biggest Thank You Ever Given I'm thunderstruck and deeply moved by the outpouring and quality of your appreciations to me in your emails and in the comments to Friday's posting on the elimination of the L.A. Weekly's Theater Editor position. What a privilege: to read all that, to have served ... More >>

Stage Raw: Arts Freeze

ARTS FREEZE FOR THE HOLIDAYS In a cost-cutting measure, the Los Angeles Unified School District has frozen district funds until the state legislature returns to Sacramento in January to sort out the State budget gridlock. Arts for L.A. has been quick to point out that the freeze includes existin ... More >>

Stage Raw: New Troupes on the Block

NEW TROUPES ON THE BLOCK Under the umbrella of Cornerstone Theatre Company, a new company called Teatro Jornalero Sin Fronteras (Day Laborer Theater Without Borders) launches at the Hollywood Community Job Center, 5669 De Longpre Avenue; December 20 at noon. The 15-member troupe will voice the s ... More >>

Stage Raw: Babes in Toyland

BABES IN TOYLAND is this week's Theater Pick. Writes Tom Provenzano: "While visions of nutcrackers and victorian misers dance through the yuletide entertainment listings, this production offers a delightful alternative. Forty kids, age 9 to 19 romp, through Alice Hammerstein-Mathias and William M ... More >>

Stage Raw: Your Source for Free and Discount Theater Tickets

FREE AND DISCOUNT THEATER TICKETS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW Plays411 is offering FREE & Discount Tickets: You only pay $3.50 Service Fee, or Half-off where indicated. Advance Reservations only: Go to: plays411.com, then select the show, use Promo Code: "LETMEIN" (unless otherwise instructed ... More >>

Stage Raw: Leslie Jordan's Trip Down the Pink Carpet

This Week's Theater Pick Leslie Jordan's Autobiographical Trip Down the Pink Carpet If a zest for life is infectious, there's probably no more delightful a carrier than Leslie Jordan. A diminutive stage, film, Emmy Award-winning TV actor, and fugitive from the Bible Belt, Jordan regales us ... More >>

Stage Raw: Ivanov

IVANOV Ivanov Photo Credit: Thomas Aurin Berlin's Volksbühne presents its U.S. premiere of Chekhov's Ivanov at UCLA's Freud Playhouse tonight and Satruday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m. Click here for more information. FOURPLAY @ BOSTON COURT The Pasadena theater hosts readings of four new ... More >>

Stage Raw: Cocks of the Walk

COCKS OF THE WALK The same people who brought us Naked Boys Singing are at it again -- this time showing considerable more restraint with a musical revue subtly named Hangin' Out -- described as "a celebration of the human body . . . exploring different aspects of nudity in song and dance." Now ... More >>

Stage Raw: The Little Dog Laughed

>NEW REVIEW THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED As Gertrude Stein once put it (but not about this play), "It's almost about something, and then it's just not." Douglas Carter Beane's comedy brings with it the New York cast that put the play on the map, and secured Julie White a Tony for her role as a Holly ... More >>

Stage Raw: Lodestone Says Goodnight and Good Luck

Check back here Monday after noon for the upcoming weekend's NEW THEATER REVIEWS of The Little Dog Laughed, Douglas Carter Beane's comedy about being oneself in Hollywood and elsewhere, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre; Deborah Pryor's mystical Appalachian one-act The Love Talker at Son of Semele Ens ... More >>

Stage Raw: Critic-O-Meter

CRITIC-O-METER In case you're wondering what Rob Kendt has been up to in New York City, since leaving his post as editor of Back Stage West, first look no further than his byline - now Rob Weinert-Kendt. That's what a wedding can do. He's also been having bowls of matzoh ball soup at the Polish ... More >>

Stage Raw: One Sucker's Lament

Woyzeck Photo by Andrew Rothenberg >NEW REVIEW THEATER PICK WOYZECK 19th Century German playwright Georg Büchner's an unfinished horror story of the common man crushed by military and medical machines, has been fodder for myriad adaptations throughout the last century, and there's no sign of ... More >>

Fata Morgana

New Theater Reviews: The School of Night, The Joy Luck Club

Thystes' Feast, and more

Fata Morgana

The Two Faces of Cannes: Gilles Jacob

Eye of the storm

Paul Thomas

The auteur of sex

World Market

Something for everyone at City of Lights, City of Angels festival

Lubitsch in Berlin

The Colors! The Colors!

Playing “Visual Music” at MOCA

Brother From Another Planet

Tom Hanks in Spielberg’s The Terminal

Time Lost and Found

LACMA revisit La Belle Époche

Genius of the System

Writer-director Billy Wilder

True Wit

A new bio gets behind the Billy Wilder legend

Graceful Monsters

James Whale -- Renaissance man

Return to Sender

Hanks and Ryan sleepless again in You've Got Mail

Idiots Delight

The Farrellys' There's Something About Mary