Somehow, it’s not quite the same as running into George Clooney. As native Angelenos know, casually bumping into movie stars is a likely possibility. A chance meeting can occur while waiting for a table at L.A. Live, standing in the luggage queue at LAX or even just walking the streets of Beverly Hills. And when [...]

A good song is like a good book — both are able to transport you to a totally awesome world of wonder and impossibility … at least for a few minutes. The best songs are the ones in which you can actually feel the energy, the mystery or the fun of what the artist is [...]

It’s 1993. Many current USC undergraduates aren’t even born yet. Michael Jordan is on fire. Cheers airs its last episode. Unforgiven wins the Oscar for best picture. And perhaps most important, current Real Housewives of Atlanta star Kenya Moore wins Miss USA. But something else happened in 1993. Something that might have felt small at [...]

There are dramatically fewer female writers than male writers working in the television industry, according to a new study released by the Writers Guild of America, West, which examined employment patterns for writers from the 2011-12 television season. In a world that seems to have progressed in the matter of gender equality, not only is [...]

It was another robust weekend at the box office as four films managed to earn more than $18 million each, with the Evil Dead remake hauling in $25.7 million —which is more than the rest of the franchise combined. Though Evil Dead didn’t turn out to be the most terrifying film ever (as it declared [...]

They are easily downloadable, cheap — if not free — and highly portable for those settling in on a long plane ride. And though no one’s quite sure when they first arrived, e-books have confounded the publishing world since they first reached mainstream success in 2007, when Amazon unveiled its Kindle e-reader. For bibliophiles, the [...]

Even though bands create their images based on a certain sound or by conquering a particular genre, it’s always good to shake things up a bit. Experimenting with different music styles is always a risky endeavor, though, since no one — neither the band nor the audience — truly knows how the experiment will turn [...]

Everyone was waiting for it, counting down the days until April 7 arrived. Holding their breaths, biting their nails, hearts pounding in anticipation. The Mad Men season six premiere. It seemed like you couldn’t sign on to a news feed or walk into a coffee shop without hearing someone moaning and crying over how badly [...]

Have we reached a point where television is more influential to popular culture than film?   That’s what Vanity Fair seems to argue, at least. The lifestyle magazine made a point to say that television, rather than film, “enriches the iconography and collective lore of pop culture,” as culture critic James Wolcott was quoted as [...]

The box office rose to nice enough levels over the Easter weekend, with G.I. Joe: Retaliation commandeering a $51 million-plus total for its four-day opening weekend. Though that’s slightly less than the take of its predecessor, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, that film opened in the middle of the summer. The real story is [...]