L.A. Times - Entertainment News

A whitewash for 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' and 'The Last Airbender'
'American Idol's' Christian connection
Professional writers team with veterans to help them tell their stories
Celebrities bringing weight issues into the spotlight
Indie Focus: Films so bad, they're hits
Ephron sisters weave clothes into the fabric of women's lives
The Sunday Conversation: Simon Tolkien
At Cannes Film Festival, their mega-yachts have come in
James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera's 'Ring' master
New on DVD: 'The Road'

A whitewash for 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' and 'The Last Airbender'

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Two of the season's most expensive films spark controversy by casting white actors in ethnic parts, a practice seen before in Hollywood.

Two of the season's most expensive films spark controversy by casting white actors in ethnic parts, a practice seen before in Hollywood.

'American Idol's' Christian connection

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Mega-churches across the country's heartland have served as the training grounds for many of the Fox show's contestants, with parishioners doing their part with prayers and text votes.

Mega-churches across the country's heartland have served as the training grounds for many of the Fox show's contestants, with parishioners doing their part with prayers and text votes.

Professional writers team with veterans to help them tell their stories

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Writers Guild program teaches writing to men and women who are back from combat zones.

Celebrities bringing weight issues into the spotlight

Posted: 24 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Celebrities are no longer running away from their struggles with the scale.

On the A&E show " Kirstie Alley's Big Life," the star sits in bed, working on her laptop and talking to her kids about her weight. "Does it upset you that I'm fat?" she asks them. "No," they both reply, the end of the word going up slightly the way it does in uncomfortable situations.

Indie Focus: Films so bad, they're hits

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

The new documentary 'Best Worst Movie' chronicles the unlikely phenomenon of stinker as cult favorite. It follows the trajectory of 'Troll 2.'

In a recent New Yorker cartoon, a couple exit a movie theater and the man says to the woman: "I can't decide if that was bad in a good way, good in a good way, good in a bad way, or bad in a bad way." It's a fitting question for fans of an unlikely sub-genre that's recently risen to prominence: the "so bad it's good" movie, a cinematic strain that's drawing ever-growing groups of people to see films both old and relatively new that are, by any conventional standard, of very dubious virtue.

Ephron sisters weave clothes into the fabric of women's lives

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

'Love, Loss, and What I Wore' is playing at Geffen Playhouse's Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater.

Lo these many years later, Delia Ephron still pines for her first love.

The Sunday Conversation: Simon Tolkien

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

The grandson of 'The Lord of the Rings' author J.R.R. Tolkien writes his second murder mystery, 'The Inheritance.'

Simon Tolkien's new thriller, "The Inheritance," draws on the author's own as a former British criminal barrister and grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien. The murder mystery, his second, is set in 1950s Oxford and turns on the desperate pursuit of a jewel-encrusted relic of the original cross. Tolkien, 51, moved to Santa Barbara a year ago with his American-born wife, Tracy, and their two children.

At Cannes Film Festival, their mega-yachts have come in

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Films aren't the only thing being showcased. The ultra rich like to show off their yachts. A mere $5-million vessel is déclassé.

Nicholas Edmiston, yacht broker to billionaires, ambled down Jetee Albert Edouard in the Old Port here, the premier pier at one of the premier events for the yachting set each spring, the Cannes Film Festival. To the genial, roly-poly Englishman with thinning red hair, the boats stationed near the street — mere putters that go for $3 million to $5 million — are something of a tacky affront. Most are festooned with signs for European film companies and promotional banners ("Mazars: accountants to the media sector").

James Conlon, Los Angeles Opera's 'Ring' master

Posted: 23 May 2010 12:00 AM PDT

It's an endurance test to keep up with the troupe's 60-year-old music director.

It's an endurance test to keep up with the troupe's 60-year-old music director.