So Cal Arts & Entertainment

Want to see a new Hungarian film? I do. It's called “Curtiz” and it's about the complicated life of Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz during WWII and the making of "Casablanca." It’s screening next week at the 20th annual Newport Beach Film Festival, running...

Film festival season is officially underway. Hot on the heels of the long-running film noir festival, Noir City (closing tonight), the tenth annual TCM Classic Film Festival virtually engulfs Hollywood April 11-14. Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and director Rob Reiner will...

Timing is everything, and the time is now for plays and films about women of substance and worth. Anna Ziegler’s “Photograph 51” (through today at South Coast Repertory) is just such a play, about a scientist named Rosalind Franklin, who played a major albeit little...

Combine Bombay and Hollywood and you get Bollywood—the incredibly prolific Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai that produces nearly 2,000 feature films a year. The cinema’s hottest byproduct may be Bollywood Dance—a mash-up of styles including belly-dancing,...

If you’re as passionate about live theatre as I am, I urge you to catch August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running” at the Matrix Theatre in Los Angeles—whether the trains are running or not. Yes, it’s black history month, but this installment in the playwright’s Pulitzer...

I like to write about shows people can see. This post is the exception, although you might take a chance and show up at Fullerton’s STAGEStheatre this weekend, hoping for no-shows. Their production of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Nile” (through Feb. 10) is such a...

Klezmer, that uplifting genre of rhythm known variously as Jewish jazz, Jewish party music and Jewish soul music, is rarely heard live in Orange County. That alone is reason enough to mark “In the Fiddler’s House” (Thursday night at Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert...

One thing is certain when it comes to Culture Clash—no one is safe. No nationality, ethnicity or religion, no political point of view or sexual preference gets a free pass from the group. A few people are always going to be offended, no matter what. Only one person...

  Johnny Carson, despite his legacy, was a Johnny Come Lately. Before Johnny, before David Letterman, before Jay Leno, there was Ernie Kovacs. The crazy, cigar-chomping Hungarian with the bushy eyebrows and the mustache, an obvious inspiration for all three, did...

Yes, Virginia, he can still somersault into his hat. There are many reasons to catch South Coast Repertory’s 39th anniversary production of “A Christmas Carol” (before it closes Dec. 24), but surely Hal Landon Jr.’s trademark shtick with the topper is one that keeps...