“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” Starring Daniel Radcliffe Directed by Chris Columbus 2.5 Paws As a phoenix is crying on his lacerated arm, Harry Potter tells us, “Of course, phoenix tears have healing powers.” This is one of the many lazy coincidences that the new Harry Potter film uses to save our hero just in time. Read more...

Film “Lilo and Stitch” screens at the Ackerman Grand Ballroom for $2 through Campus Events tonight at 7 and 9:30 p.m. This Saturday at the James Bridges Theater you can expect a little slice from above with screenings of “All That Heaven Allows” directed by Douglas Sirk and “Leave Her to Heaven” by John Stahl beginning at 7:30 p.m. Read more...

What happens when you take improv experts from UCLA and elsewhere, put them in baseball jerseys, separate them into teams, and warn them that if they curse or use obscenities they will have a paper bag put over their heads? Read more...

UCLA students got a peek inside Hollywood Wednesday evening. They weren’t watching a film screening or premiere ““ they were in Melnitz Hall getting behind-the-scenes insight into how movies and television shows are made from seven women who are involved with making them. Read more...

Los Angeles can be a tough diamond to cut. “The music scene has seemed kind of opaque so far,” said Hrishikesh Hirway of Connecticut band The One AM Radio. Read more...

Twisting the expectations of genre, the Mark Taper Forum’s new production of the musical “Big River ““ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” aims, at least in part, to fall on deaf ears. Read more...

In the short video “Upside Down,” an older woman makes makloubeh, a traditional Palestinian food dish. The last shot shows the completed product: separate and distinct layers of chicken, rice and vegetables piled on each other, but combined to form something bigger than its individual parts.  Similarly, the widely-varying world of Arab video shorts piles up into a more complete vision of Arab society. Read more...