“Palindromes” Directed by Todd Solondz Wellspring Media A palindrome is a word whose spelling is the same backward as it is forward. Aviva, the name of the 13-year-old protagonist, is not only a palindrome in this literal sense but also in the fact that she is portrayed by eight different actors, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, throughout “Palindromes.” But writer and director Todd Solondz uses the plethora of different characters to add more than a little color to his film; the interchanging of Aviva between two women, four teenage girls, a 12-year-old boy, and a 6-year-old girl highlights how audience judgments and biases alter the perception of a character who, like a palindrome, is ultimately unchanging. Read more...

The Latin American Student Association, in an effort to expose and share the different aspects of Latin American culture, will have a free outdoor festival this Saturday from 10 a.m. Read more...

They say that nothing reveals a person’s true self more than the people with whom they surround themselves. That’s why American heroes such as Hugh Hefner get to hang out with beautiful, half-naked blondes all day long and people like Britney Spears get married to people like Kevin Federline. Read more...

Between new technological gadgets, increasing job demands, and balancing work and family, Americans today are more stressed out than ever before. Our anxious culture is hardly a creativity-friendly environment. Read more...

Several weeks ago, Ethiopian painter Qes Adamu Tesfaw flew on an airplane for the very first time in his life at the age of 75. It would have been great, except that the flight from Ethiopia to Germany and then on to LAX was 27 hours long, and Tesfaw had a fear of flying. Read more...

MIA “Arular” XL/Beggars US Pop music hasn’t seen an artist quite like MIA before. Part of it is the storybook child-of-globalization biography that has publicists everywhere drooling: Maya Arulpragasam, born to members of the Sri Lankan rebel group Tamil Tigers, forced to flee to London as a refugee, an art school graduate with a professed love for everything from her local grime scene and New York hip-hop to Brazilian baile funk and Puerto Rican Reggaeton. Read more...

“The Best in Youth” Directed by Marco Tullio Giordana Miramax Films You may think you are just too busy to watch a six-hour Italian movie with subtitles. Read more...