Jungle

On the surface Ben Stiller?s new comedy ?Tropic Thunder? is an equal opportunity offender. Stiller has spent years working on a script that is a riff on Hollywood?s heart of darkness and takes pot shots at the movie industry?s treatment of race, mental disabilities, and the military. There?s nothing new in the ghoulishly greedy studio head, the tyrannical but terrified director, the actors so lost in narcissism that illusion is more immediate than reality. But Stiller?s savage take on the layers of deceit that produce an accidental blockbuster is chilling in its damnation of the system that supports him. That Stiller has recruited a stellar cast to portray his thespian misfits speaks to the clout he wields in Hollywood.

Tired of the summer movie blockbusters featuring super heroes with more on their mind than romance? ...don?t despair. Although romantic movies have become an endangered species, through the magic of interlibrary loan, love can be yours and it won?t cost a thing. Classic love stories, period pieces and exotic locales are available free on video and DVD through the L.A. County Library system. All you have to do is order them online at http://catalog.colapl.org and they?ll be delivered to the library nearest you. You don?

By Chris Sutton The second graders at Paradise Canyon Elementary School agreed there was not a better way to spend a rainy Monday at school than to listen to stories and songs. For an hour, the students were mesmerized one moment and laughing the next as they listened to storyteller Leslie Perry and musician Robert S. Hilton from the Pasadena Symphony. Perry has been telling and acting out his stories for the last 30 years, saying, "I tell stories to try and keep them alive."

There was no thought of homework or tests on the Palm Crest Elementary campus on Friday. The annual Back to School picnic focused on playing, eating and having a good time. Some students played kickball while others shot hoops. There was plenty of time for the jungle gym, swing set and just catching up with old friends over what they did doing the summer. Families picnicked on Thai food, sno-cones and Tommy?s hamburgers. The night was also a time for the school?s PTA to promote fundraiser Pins for Palm Crest, it?

While most of his friends were spending their summers on the beach, Amir Mojarradi, a senior at La Cañada High, did something just a bit more exotic: He trekked the Amazonian jungle. Last year, Mojarradi won a Los Angeles County science fair for his project dealing with efficiently creating electromagnetic generators to save copper and other resources. This experiment earned him a free expedition with the Earthwatch Institute, valued at just under $4,000. The Institute, a nonprofit organization that gives people ways to experience science with field research teams all over the world, gave Mojarradi choices between expeditions to Europe, Africa and South America.

Take a bug's eye-view and discover a world unlike any other, a world that has been hidden from the human eye. "Bugs! in 3-D" is currently showing at the California Science Center IMAX Theater in Exposition Park. Experience breathtaking photography shown on the enormous seven-story IMAX screen. Highlighting the extraordinary world of insects, "Bugs!" focuses on the life cycles of a praying mantis and a butterfly from their birth to their inevitable encounter in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia where predator meets its prey.

The long awaited remake of "King Kong" is finally released. Peter Jackson, finally out of middle Earth, directed a movie that can only be described in two words: sad, but awesome. On an island surrounded by that familiar Kong mist that modern society has yet to discover, there is a great wall. Nobody knows who built it but it is meant to keep people out or something massive in. Aspiring filmmaker/producer Carl Denham (Jack Black) sees this as an opportunity to make an amazing movie and drags his crew into the heart of the island, despite warnings all around.

Author and syndicated radio talk show host Dennis Prager is one of the better conversationalists you'd ever meet, but he pulls no punches for political correctness' sake. "Ask me anything," he invites during an afternoon meal at Ichiban Japanese Restaurant in La Cañada Flintridge — a favorite dining spot of his since moving here in 2007— handling chopsticks almost as deftly as he articulates deeply conservative politics and confident moral beliefs, relishing food and idea alike.

  "Curious George" the movie based on beloved children books written by Margaret Rey, was quite a surprise. Many people might think this movie to be as childish and simple as the books were. But this film is great. The Man in the Yellow Hat (voiced by Will Ferrell), now named Ted, works at a museum that is going bankrupt. He has an idea to go to Africa and find a lost idol in the form of a 40 foot ruby monkey. When Ted gets to the spot where the idol is said to be hidden he finds a three inch tall ruby monkey.

Tired of the summer movie blockbusters featuring super heroes with more on their mind than romance? ...don?t despair. Although romantic movies have become an endangered species, through the magic of interlibrary loan, love can be yours and it won?t cost a thing. Classic love stories, period pieces and exotic locales are available free on video and DVD through the L.A. County Library system. All you have to do is order them online at http://catalog.colapl.org and they?ll be delivered to the library nearest you. You don?

On the surface Ben Stiller?s new comedy ?Tropic Thunder? is an equal opportunity offender. Stiller has spent years working on a script that is a riff on Hollywood?s heart of darkness and takes pot shots at the movie industry?s treatment of race, mental disabilities, and the military. There?s nothing new in the ghoulishly greedy studio head, the tyrannical but terrified director, the actors so lost in narcissism that illusion is more immediate than reality. But Stiller?s savage take on the layers of deceit that produce an accidental blockbuster is chilling in its damnation of the system that supports him. That Stiller has recruited a stellar cast to portray his thespian misfits speaks to the clout he wields in Hollywood.