Aside from the occasional “Bowling for Columbine,” documentaries often don’t get media attention. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with the UCLA Film and Television Archive, is combatting this with its annual series on outstanding contemporary documentaries. Read more...

Sure, you can spend your Friday night getting drunk at a fraternity and hooking up with some random person, but wouldn’t you rather sing cheesy pop in front of strangers? Read more...

While Orwell’s farm friends may have believed “Two legs bad, four legs good,” Homer Avila is proving that one leg is good enough in his performance in “Dance and Disability.” Avila, who lost one leg to cancer a few years ago, uses his other leg to keep afoot his determination to dance. Read more...

Idiosyncratic special guests Beck and two-thirds of the Flaming Lips were delightful treats among the smorgasbord of talented musical artists performing at KCRW’s A Sounds Eclectic Evening on Saturday at the Universal Amphitheater. Read more...

There was a time when Janell Escalera hated mariachi music. It’s hard to believe that the second-year ethnomusicology student and mariachi performer ever felt this way because Escalera now devotes her life to the art form. Read more...

The $20 tickets for the Egyptian Theater on Saturday night were worth it. These pricey tickets were for the sneak preview of Nicolas Cage’s latest project, “Adaptation,” the centerpiece of the American Cinematheque’s Real Wild Child tribute to the Oscar winning Cage last weekend. Read more...

Music has a way of blurring color lines and breaking cultural barriers, especially in the simmering melting pot of UCLA. Yiddishkayt L.A. and UCLA Hillel will apply this concept in a two-part event that explores Latino-Jewish relations and L.A. Read more...