CBS came under fire last spring after unveiling a fall schedule that featured six new shows all starring white men — a sharp contrast from the other broadcast networks launching series with people of color in leading roles. While maintaining at the time that the 2016-2017 CBS lineup was “more...
Is Cashmere Cat the most pop-curious experimental producer going today, or the weirdest guy still able to get the Weeknd and Selena Gomez on the phone? The 29-year-old Norwegian producer, born Magnus Høiberg, is a liminal figure in pop music right now. A former youth DJ prodigy, he’s produced singles...
The Ford Theatres, the 97-year-old outdoor amphitheatre nestled in the Hollywood Hills, has finally completed its $72.2-million renovation, and the facility is promising a spirit of collaboration. In a statement about its upcoming 2017 summer season, the Ford recently announced a new series, “Ignite...
For the last several years, Amazon and Netflix have been engaged in a pitched Hollywood battle, rolling out high-end content in the fight for streaming supremacy. Now that conflict is about to take a more literal turn. The studios are releasing two new war films that embody their deep but differing...
Wallace Shawn’s “The Designated Mourner,” set in an unnamed totalitarian state, is being revived at REDCAT at a time when American democracy and the rule of law are under siege. The dystopia, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t seem quite as distant as it did when the play had its premiere in London in 1996....
He said, she said. Then he said more, and then she said more. They both kept saying things. But no matter how much they said, it was impossible to determine what had actually happened between the two freshmen in the Princeton University dorm room when they were very drunk. Was it consensual sex...
Before her first novel sold in 1975, before she won her MacArthur grant, sci-fi writer Octavia Butler fought years of rejection by writing inspirational notes to herself.
A “Saturday Night Live” host got things rolling a day early, a pink slip got a lot of attention, a classic show found a new home, a celebrity email went viral and a red carpet got called on account of weather. Here’s all that news and more from this week in entertainment. Roll camera? As Sean Spicer,...
A conversation with Ellie Kemper, the Emmy-nominated star of "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt."
The Los Angeles comedy scene is a vibrant and varied universe. Improv, stand-up, alternative, experimental, storytelling, live podcasting and other comedic strains play out in a number of clubs from the well trod to the emerging. There are names you’ve never heard of and those you grew up with....
New on DVD “Lovesong” (Strand DVD, $27.99; also available on VOD) In films like “In Between Days,” “Treeless Mountain” and “For Ellen,” director So Yong Kim has established herself as a skilled poet of the everyday, finding beauty and drama in travel, jobs, relationships, parenthood … life, essentially....
Alan Yang chats about the second season of his and Aziz Ansari's show, 'Master of None.'
Glen Campbell, “Adios” (Universal Music). Now in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s disease, the longtime Angeleno says farewell in the title track to his final album. Penned by seminal Los Angeles songwriter Jimmy Webb, whose “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” Campbell propelled...
There are a couple of things you need to know going into the second season of Netflix’s award-winning comedy-drama “Master of None,” which began streaming Friday. Number one: The first two episodes take place in Italy. Maybe creators Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang like good food and wine and talked...
Inside L.A.’s newest museum. A first look at designs for Obama’s presidential library. And the death and life of Chris Burden. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, with all your culture news needs: Marciano sneak peek El Lay, you’ve got another museum ’bout to land in...
SERIES Vantastic In the premiere of this new unscripted series, new parents fall in love with a rusty VW Westfalia van and take it to Vintage Surfari Wagons for a complete overhaul. Noon Travel Channel BBQ Rig Race Four teams of top pit masters compete in a series of cook-offs that take them...
Joining an eastward march that is steadily remapping the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, the 7-year-old Berggruen Institute announced Friday that it has purchased a 1924 building in the MacArthur Park district near downtown and hired the Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano to renovate it. The...
The young Franz Schubert has a friend in Gustavo Dudamel. Last week, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began a cycle of Schubert’s symphonies with the opening concert dedicated to the youths dying in protest marches in Dudamel’s native Venezuela. Among the dead was a teenage violist around the age that...
A Shakespearean history play for a history that hasn't happened yet, Mike Bartlett's 2014 blank verse drama "King Charles III" makes its way Sunday night to the PBS showcase "Masterpiece." As he did onstage in London and New York, Tim Pigott-Smith (who died suddenly a little more than a month ago)...
Forget fantasies of a Led Zeppelin reunion or any other dream classic rock scenario as a 2017 follow-up to last year’s Desert Trip rock superstar blowout in Indio. Paul Tollett, head of promoter Goldenvoice who dreamed up the mega-show that brought Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney,...
DJ Khaled has been added to the already stacked lineup of this year’s BET Experience. The producer-DJ joins a roster that includes Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Kid Cudi, Bryson Tiller, ASAP Rocky and Jhené Aiko as headliners. Migos, ScHoolboy Q, Gucci Mane, Desiigner, Jidenna, Young Thug, Rae Sremmurd,...
Movie recommendations from critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and other reviewers. Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story Director Daniel Raim’s captivating doc on storyboard artist Harold Michelson and researcher Lillian Michelson not only chronicles their mutual adoration and respect, but...
SUNDAY “Once Upon a Time” there was a fantasy drama that ended its sixth season with a two-hour finale. 8 p.m. ABC One lovely lady will be leaving Las Vegas with the title of “2017 Miss USA.” Julianne Hough is the host, and supermodel Ashley Graham covers the action backstage. 8 p.m. Fox The...
When film researcher Lillian Michelson was at DreamWorks Animation, she’d bring her husband, famed storyboard artist and Oscar-nominated production designer Harold Michelson, to work with her. “He had to retire because he had many things wrong with him,” said Michelson. “I wouldn’t leave him alone....
As Tennessee Williams' classic marks its 70th birthday, a timeline of pivotal "Streetcar" performances. "Stella!"
Scottish Ballet’s interpretation of Tennessee William’s 1947 play “A Streetcar Named Desire” begins with a single stark image: the fallen Southern belle Blanche Dubois, in a snow-white dress, fluttering beneath a naked light bulb. It’s no coincidence that Williams titled early drafts of the Pulitzer...
An unusual exhibition at the Los Angeles gallery gathers art by artists, both trained and not, that examines the spiritual and the supernatural.
Phyllis Diller is at the Smithsonian. No, that is not a joke. Earlier this year, in conjunction with Women’s History Month, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History solicited volunteers to help transcribe the late stand-up comedian’s voluminous joke file, which had been donated to...
SERIES Undercover Boss Country music’s Darius Rucker goes undercover to run an open-mic night and work as a roadie in Austin, Texas, in a special celebrity edition of this reality series. 8 p.m. CBS The Originals Matt Davis makes a guest appearance as Alaric, his character from the recently ended...
The stillness of suburban life is deafening in Perth, Australia, circa 1987 — even more so as teenaged Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) finds herself duped, drugged and chained to the bed of a serial-killing couple in “Hounds of Love,” Australian writer-director Ben Young’s harrowing debut thriller. On...
Jay Z and Live Nation will continue their long-standing partnership, with the superstar signing a new 10-year deal touring deal, the two announced Thursday. The agreement, reportedly worth $200 million, will see Live Nation continue to produce and promote the mogul’s live events. In 2008, the two...
Antonio “L.A.” Reid has exited his post as chairman of Epic Records, according to multiple reports that surfaced Thursday afternoon. Since joining the ranks at the Sony Music label in 2011, the record man and Grammy Award-winning producer has steered Meghan Trainor, Fifth Harmony, Future, Travis...
“Wrestling Jerusalem,” Aaron Davidman’s 2016 solo performance piece grappling with the ages-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, makes the pilgrimage from stage to screen emerging more as an intellectual discourse than a fully engaging cinematic experience. Attempting to get to the heart of the deeply...
On Sunday The Times goes deep into the boutique record labels that have helped propel a chip-to-vinyl movement: pressing video game scores — many of them vintage — onto multicolored LPs and packaging them in exquisite sleeves. It’s all part of a thriving market for obscure sounds that also includes...
For those unlucky enough to experience it, sleep paralysis is already its own horror movie — a state in which, upon waking or falling asleep, one finds herself unable to speak or move as her brain becomes terrifyingly aware that something is horribly wrong. Earnestly acted but uninspiringly directed...
Breathless. Stunned. Hyperventilating. The television news media used words normally associated with romance novels or QVC sales pitches in reacting to news that President Trump had abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday. Even for a news media that’s grown accustomed to covering unprecedented...
With “Urban Light,” Chris Burden’s photo-hotspot installation of antique streetlamps at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the artist became indelibly linked with his city. Another piece at LACMA, the gleefully intense kinetic sculpture “Metropolis II,” deepened the love connection. But as Timothy...
A mournful history with a positive look ahead, Robert H. Lieberman’s documentary “Angkor Awakens: A Portrait of Cambodia” tells the tale of a country going through what amounts to an extended post-traumatic stress disorder. For four years between 1975 and ’79, through the Khmer Rouge genocide engineered...
“My name is Roger Stone and I’m an agent provocateur,” proclaims the proudly infamous Trump confidant in his introduction to the endlessly fascinating, bracingly up-to-the-minute Netflix documentary bearing his name. Those offering their own appraisals in “Get Me Roger Stone,” including the president,...
The effortlessly engaging “Folk Hero & Funny Guy” begins with the two title characters — a charismatic musician and a struggling stand-up comedian — recalling the same adventure from completely different perspectives. Was it a disaster or a “breakthrough” or a little bit of both? The answers that...
There are some first-rate performances in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,” most of them delivered by computer-generated animals. Eagles swoop down from the sky to fend off hostile armed guards. Venomous snakes swell to Kraken-esque dimensions. Giant elephants stomp into battle and knock down...
“The Wall," a story of two American soldiers facing off against an unseen Iraqi adversary, is a men-at-war story more interesting than you might imagine. But not interesting enough. Bringing to mind Steven Spielberg's debut feature "Duel" and similar hidden antagonist fare, "The Wall" benefits...
You’ve likely seen this story before: a do-gooder helps a troubled teen by nurturing her talent. However, “Urban Hymn” is so carefully and lovingly made by director Michael Caton-Jones and his leads that it’s hard to begrudge the British drama its familiar premise, especially as you squint at the...
Guy de Maupassant’s first novel, about a 19th century French noblewoman named Jeanne Le Perthuis des Vauds, was published under the title “Une Vie,” which translates simply as “A Life.” Stéphane Brizé’s piercingly sad and wise film adaptation bears the slightly embellished English-language title...