Halle Berry

Why Emily Maya Mills Could Be the Next Carol Burnett

"By any chance, are there a couple of boxes out there on stage?" Such was comedienne Emily Maya Mills's query to a fellow performer in the dressing room at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre. Mills needed a nook or two to stash a slew of props -- in the Lady Gaga number range -- for her 35-minut ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including an Unusual Look at Motherhood

This week, our critics enjoyed composer and musical director Gregory Nabours' 90-minute musical The Trouble With Words (Coeurage Theatre Company at the Unknown Theatre) as well as a quartet of one-acts at the Lillian under the collective title Unscreened. This week's Pick goes to Dorothy Fortenberry ... More >>

The Five Most Iconic Key Club Shows in Its History

We broke some sad news last week: the Key Club will close its doors this Friday. Since opening in 1967 as Gazzarri's, it has been a staple of the Sunset Strip for decades, under various names and ownership. The venue has seen many popular styles of music come and go, but has, Zelig-like, been at the ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground

Nods this week for Laguna Playhouse's production of Neil Simon's Chapter Two and Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground at Zombie Joe's Underground in North Hollywood. For the latest new reviews and comprehensive stage listings, see below. Tanna Frederick and Robert Standley star in N. Richard Nash's T ... More >>

Theater to See in L.A. This Week, Including a Solo Show About Pioneering Actress Hattie McDaniel

Our critic Lovell Estell was entranced by Vickilyn Reynolds' performance in a show based on the life of Hattie McDaniel, Hattie -- What I Need You To Know. For all the latest New Theater Reviews, and comprehensive stage listings, see below.This week's Stage Feature takes a look a three shows th ... More >>

Hattie ... What I Need You to Know

Cloud Atlas Review: The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer bring their adaptation of David Mitchell's novel to Toronto

One man's ambitious, iconoclastic, like-nothing-ever-before-seen passion project is another man's Battlefield Earth, and so it goes that for some of us who saw the film's world premiere in Toronto last night, Cloud Atlas -- written and directed by Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski from David Mi ... More >>

Ratchet Up: Street Hero YG Eschews Gangsta Rap in Favor of Party Music

Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill Sweeps The Razzies

If the Academy Awards are a back-slapping bore, the Razzies are a bitch-slapping fun fest. Traditionally held on the eve of the Oscars, the annual awards show for the first time took place Sunday night on April Fool's Day at Magicopolis in Santa Monica, the perfect opportunity to lay into the movie ... More >>

Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something": Why This Song Sucks

[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.] Song: Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something" History: "Wanna Be Startin' Something" is the fourth single from Michael Jackson's album Thriller (said Th ... More >>

Academy Award Winners Haven't Included Latino Actors, Nonwhite Actresses in 10 Years

Updated at the bottom: The Oscars broke the 10-year spell. Only days after the voters behind the Academy Awards were revealed as extremely white (94 percent), male (77 percent) and old (median age, 62), the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center issued a report indicating that Oscar winners seem to r ... More >>

10 Creepiest Items Found in the Madonna Stalker's Storage Unit

Best "Storage Wars" ever. A storage unit belonging to Robert Dewey Hoskins, the crazy dude arrested for stalking both Madonna and Halle Berry (and recently re-arrested after escaping from a Norwalk mental hospital), was emptied out this week because he was so far behind on rent. CBS LA reporters a ... More >>

Tupac's "Dear Mama": Why This Song Sucks

[Editor's note: Why This Song Sucks determines why particular tracks blow using science. It appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday.] See also: Our Tupac Week coverage from earlier this year. Song: Tupac's "Dear Mama" Background: "Dear Mama" is Tupac's most beloved song. It is considered to ... More >>

10 Movie Womanizers, From Shame to Shampoo

The movies are full of bed-hopping men -- think of Humphrey Bogart's serial flirtations in The Big Sleep (1946), and Richard Roundtree laying his way uptown and down in Shaft (1971). But in Steve McQueen's Shame, womanizing is not just an outgrowth of the plot -- it is the plot. And it's just the la ... More >>

Mirabelle Restaurant: 40th Anniversary Gala This Week

Mirabelle​Mirabelle Restaurant is going all out to celebrate its 40th year in business on the Sunset Strip with live music, a red carpet and celebrities. But this won't be a party just for the sake of partying: Owner George Germanides is teaming with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and donating all ... More >>

Eddie Murphy's 10 Comedy Bits To Avoid as Oscar Host

Flicker/wereswanEddie Murphy's head is about to get bigger as the upcoming Oscar host.​ What a wild idea: Eddie Murphy as Oscar host. On the bright side, it's a relief from James Franco and Anne Hathaway, whose chemistry last February rivaled that of a sasquatch and Kathie Lee Gifford. For t ... More >>

Sex Toy Sales to Rival Smartphone Buys in The Next 10 Years: Stars Like Cameron Diaz Popularize This Booming Lady Business

Cameron Diaz talks about this stuff. For real.​Ring ring. Who is it? It's your libido calling. It wants a new toy. And not an iPhone 4, either. A British study making the rounds this week claims that sex-toy sales will rival smartphone purchases in the next 10 years. Of course, your pocket ro ... More >>

Slow Soul: The Rise of Neoclassical Soul

Can R. Kelly’s latest be called “throwback” when all of R&B seems to be playing Back to the Future?

The Pot Shop Boys

Returning with a new album, Cypress Hill discusses legalization, where you can get the best strains, and how great it feels to work for a stoner boss

Mega-Telethon Broadcasting From L.A., Elsewhere

CNNAnderson Cooper.​A Friday telethon to raise money for the victims of last week's earthquake in Haiti will be broadcast from Los Angeles, New York, London and Haiti, organizers announced Thursday. It will be everywhere: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, BET, The CW, HBO, MTV, VH1, CMT, PBS, TNT, Show ... More >>

Hollywood: Local Incentives Trump Creativity

​The trend of local tax incentives luring filmmakers to shoot everywhere from Toronto to Tuscany is nothing new. And it's costing the Los Angeles film industry hundreds of millions of dollars a year. What is new is that producers are increasingly willing to rewrite scripts in order to fit a cost-e ... More >>

Propaganda, War

​The Toronto International Film Festival doesn't exactly have a reputation for being a lightning rod for political controversy, but it became one in the early days of this year's edition thanks to a new festival sidebar, City to City, designed to explore "the evolving urban experience by immersing ... More >>

Fall Film: Quantum of Solace

James Bond, neither shaken nor stirred

Best Fitness Guru: Harley Pasternak

LAFF 2008: Whiskey Wanted

What to make of a film festival that made its name on indie fare now opening and closing with big-budget summer blockbusters from Universal? In fairness, the folks behind the Los Angeles Film Festival have thought that one out, noting that both WANTED and HELLBOY II are directed by critically acclai ... More >>

Movie Reviews: 30 Days of Night, Canvas, Futbaal

Also Golda's Balcony, The Price of Sugar, Things We Lost in the Fire and more

Snip, Snip

Headed toward a split ending with your hairdresser? A cheater’s guide to some of L.A.’s most seductive salons

Film Reviews: Disturbia, Perfect Stranger and More

Also Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Thetaers, The Ritchie Boys and this week's pick, Red Road

Mischa Barton's Bender

Her dogs were fine. The radiator of her mother's SUV; not so good.

Across an Alternate Universe

A Beatles cover-music movie needs straitjackets for all involved

Bond and Gagged

Why Daniel Craig had a far better weekend than either Michael Richards or Phillippe’s flack

Betting On Bond

Casino Royale gambles with Daniel Craig

Killah on the Road

Ghostface returns to the streets — and his own inner weirdo — on Fish Scale

Where the Balls Are

Bowling with L.A.’s alley cats

Live in LA

Will Chris Rock Be Oscar Dyn-O-Mite?

If Rock bombs he’ll have only himself (and maybe conservatives) to blame

All Shook Up?

Are William Morris’ changes off the Richter scale or just tiny temblors?

George of the Jungle

When Big Gets Bigger

X2 is everything it’s cracked up to be — and less!

When Moore Is Not Enough

The Oscars give peace a glance

Secret Agent Men

The Quiet American and the explosive Mr. Bond

Letters

The Good Enough Thriller

Carl Franklin does what he can with High Crimes

And the Oscar Goes To . . .

The dogs. Sort of

It Ain’t Cool

Worlds of Wonder

The Lord of the Rings and Monster's Ball; plus, The Majestic

Deliverance

Director Marc Forster breaks out

Babes in Babylon

Justice

Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, Dorothy Dandridge and lawman Bill Tilghman

Pitted Against The Lizard

Beatty talks Bulworth, Baptists, boo and the bullshit of the bottom-line