As those familiar pointy white tents were being pitched all over campus this week in preparation for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, I couldn’t help but get to thinking about how we deal with literature here at the dB Magazine. Read more...

For a composing musician, genre can be a sensitive subject. Take ethnomusicology graduate student Martha Mavroidi, whose Balkan jazz ensemble will perform tonight at the Fowler Museum. Read more...

If there’s one thing that Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” saga has taught us (other than that squishing someone’s eyeball between your toes is a little creepy), it’s that with the right music a good film can become a great one. Read more...

For most 10-year-olds, riding bikes and long division are the most important things in the world. But for fifth-grader Dakota Fanning, reading scripts and memorizing lines is what occupies her time. Read more...

“13 Going on 30″ Directed by Gary Winick Columbia Pictures There’s a thin line between cute and annoying. At best, “13 Going on 30″ totters in between the two. Read more...

For cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, there exists a sort of “pay it forward” mentality in regards to the film industry. Because his teacher taught him in Hungary, he has promised to educate the next generation of filmmakers in return. Read more...

It seemed that success was never hard to come by for composer Henry Mancini. Before his death in 1994, he left his mark on countless classic films, contributing to the Hollywood pantheon everything from the tenor sax riff of “The Pink Panther” theme song to “Moon River” from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Yet with all his successes in the film scoring industry, composer Henry Mancini was aware of its highly competitive, cutthroat nature. Read more...