Have you ever wanted to own a piece of TV and movie magic history? Well, then look no further than Los Angeles where a massive auction is set to take place for some of the most iconic things ever used in films over the last half century. Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp in “Edward Scissorhands.” … Read more
Juan Soto can add actor to his résumé. MLB’s highest-paid player was seen filming a cameo in the Mets dugout on Friday for an upcoming baseball romantic comedy called “The Catch,” starring Emma Stone and Chris Pine. Stone was at Citi Field for the shot, which captured Soto exiting the dugout in a scene for … Read more
While Hollywood films seem to be rebounding at the box office — with recent projections hinting that this could be the first domestic $10 billion year since 2019 — production in Los Angeles is still sagging. FilmLA released its new second quarter report on Thursday, revealing there was a 13% drop in film and TV … Read more
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Avengers appear set to return to Hall H as Marvel Studios uses Comic-Con International to build hype for the December release of “Avengers: Doomsday” — and chart a path forward as audience interest in superhero films has waned. That panel on Saturday is the most-anticipated hour of the nation’s biggest pop culture … Read more
Los Angeles ticket scalpers are seeing more than a mythical journey in their future with Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” They’re seeing dollar signs. Multiple IMAX 70MM tickets were seen by The California Post on resale marketplaces well above the normal price for theater tickets. Most of the listings were for the only AMC theater in … Read more
A Luke Skywalker lightsaber and severed hand prop from The Empire Strikes Back has sold for $3.75m. The prop, which has never been offered for public sale, has established a new world auction record for a screen-used Star Wars prop. The lot headlined the Hollywood & Entertainment Signature Auction by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions. It featured … Read more
Americans want shorter films— the ideal movie length is just 88 minutes, according to new research. That’s the finding of a new survey of 2,000 people from Talker Research, which indicates Americans want less time in movie theaters overall. While the average ideal movie length came in at just under the hour-and-a-half mark, only ten … Read more
movie review TOY STORY 5 Running time: 102 minutes. PG (some thematic elements, rude humor). In theaters. Long before Chat GPT was a household name, Hollywood had been making AI the villain for decades — from HAL 9000 to Skynet to Agent Smith. Yet the most emotionally involving spin on the terrors of tech in … Read more
movie review OFFICE ROMANCE Running time: 94 minutes. Rated R (graphic nudity, sexual material, language throughout). On Netflix. As Jennifer Lopez makes her entrance in Netflix’s “Office Romance,” the seventies song “I Believe In Miracles” by Hot Chocolate (“Where ya from? You sexy thing!”) plays. And, suddenly and wincingly, we’re back in 2000, when that retro tune … Read more
Dracula is rising from the dead again. Long-lost footage from a classic 1958 Dracula film with Christopher Lee was found in a warehouse decades after it was cut because early audiences found it so terrifying that they fainted. The three-minutes worth of footage, which has never been seen in the US, was found in a … Read more
movie review BACKROOMS Running time: 105 minutes. Rated R (some violent content, language, bloody images). In theaters. Hollywood trembles in fear of the havoc the internet has wrought and will continue to wreak on its core business. Execs wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmare that blockbusters have been replaced by 30-second TikTok … Read more
In the summer, studios and exhibitors usually look to bread-and-butter blockbusters to boost business. This year, those sizzling titles include a new “Spider-Man” and Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey.” So, Hollywood wasn’t exactly obsessing over Focus Features’ springtime “Obsession,” a little indie released May 15 that was made for just $750,000 — less than a one-bedroom … Read more
Callin’ out around the world — are you ready for a brand new beat? Summer’s here and the time is right for sitting quietly in a dark theater. I mean it! Hollywood is having its biggest sweaty season since at least 2019, with a much-anticipated release opening almost every single week for the next two … Read more
You’ve seen it in car chases, drag races and apocalyptic movie scenes, but the Los Angeles River isn’t a movie set. It’s one of the city’s most important pieces of infrastructure — and one of its biggest environmental questions. The 51-mile river cuts across Los Angeles in a form that feels uniquely LA: half urban, … Read more
movie review THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU Running time: 132 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sci-fi violence and action). In theaters May 22. “The Mandalorian and Grogu” boldly goes where no “Star Wars” movie has gone before. Like rival “Star Trek,” it’s a movie spun off from a TV series. The previously unheard of small screen to big … Read more
Some like it hot — especially those who like springtime in the California desert. And in typical Golden State style, Southern California is celebrating its golden girl Marilyn Monroe later this month on what would have been her 100th birthday. On Saturday, May 30, Palm Springs will host Marilyn 100 at Downtown Park around the … Read more
movie review THE SHEEP DETECTIVES Running time: 109 minutes. Rated PG (thematic material, some violent content and brief language). In theaters. A word of advice on the new movie “Sheep Detectives”: Give it a bleat. Sorry, a beat. The family film begins rather treacly, with a shepherd named George played by Hugh Jackman waxing poetic … Read more
movie review MICHAEL Running time: 127 minutes. Rated PG-13 (some thematic material, language, and smoking). In theaters. This is it? How flabbergasting to see “Michael,” the new biopic about Michael Jackson, the best-selling solo artist of all time, crash and burn into such a cheap and embarrassing bore. Say what you will about Michael Jackson … Read more
How to Be Cultured Menu Film The origins of avant-garde cinema date to the silent era, when artists in the 1920s like Man Ray, Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dalí began to explore film as a kind of abstract form. In the 1930s and ’40s in America, Harry Smith, Mary Ellen Bute and Maya … Read more
How to Be Cultured Menu 1. Greatest onscreen performance? “Marlon Brando in ‘On the Waterfront’ (1954). He’s so calm, and he speaks the way he’d speak in real life, kind of mumbling. Paul Newman, too, in ‘Cool Hand Luke’ (1967). These men were almost father figures for me. I observed them in the absence of … Read more