Things to do in Los Angeles on Saturday

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings to LEVEL in Downtown L.A. Known for excellent film choices and a steady supply of snacks and booze, Rooftop Cinema Club is your snazzy, comfortable and less stressful alternative to other outdoor movie screenings. You don’t even need to bring your own camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair (with optional blankets for purchase to up the coziness). And instead of listening to the movie over loudspeakers, you’ll get a set of wireless headphones so you never have to miss a word. Find the full schedule on their site, or in our outdoor movie calendar.

The Hammer Museum’s excellent, ongoing series of biennial exhibitions ups the ante with each edition of its spotlight on emerging and under-recognized L.A. artists. This October’s exhibition—the seventh such show—brings together works from 28 artists, spanning film, painting, theater, photography, sculpture and video, that engage with the city of Los Angeles. Highlights include Kelly Wall’s penny press and wishing well, plus racks of postcards of L.A. skies fabricated out of glass; Patrick Martinez’s East L.A.–inspired cinder block wall, adorned with Mayan murals and neon trim (as well as another neon sign that reads “Agua is LIFE, NO ICE”); and re-creations and photo documentation of the late Alonzo Davis’s freeway murals from the 1984 Olympics. Before you even step inside, you’ll notice Alake Shilling’s Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A., which, yes, is a giant inflatable bear driving a car that’s careening toward the Glendon Avenue corner of the Westwood museum.

There’s nothing Christmassy nor even wintry about this hour-long Palos Verdes trail, yet its nine stellar installations are the most cosmically mesmerizing of the budding after-dark botanical garden shows that’ve come to blanket L.A. toward the end of the year. Astra Lumina, which debuted in 2022, returns to South Coast Botanic Garden with the same array of celestial-inspired displays. Last year’s edition was basically identical to its debut. But if you loved your first trip to Astra Lumina or haven’t been at all, we still think this is a worthwhile (albeit somewhat expensive) event—perhaps better suited for a date night than a large family affair. While some other year-end light shows seem less focused on moment-to-moment encounters and more on the photogenic snaps you’ll walk away with, Astra Lumina feels truly experiential. You’ll venture through scenes that interpret the arrival and departure of stars in an earthly garden: Archways pulsate with light and mist, perforated lanterns spell out a stargazing journey, shooting stars chase up and down a cylindrical frame, shimmery bulbs blanket a forest floor and tranquil lanterns float among the trees. There’s plenty of wonderfully atmospheric fog along much of the trail, including in a shower of lasers so thick that you’ll swear you can touch them. (It’s also worth mentioning how lovely it is to experience a celebration of the night sky in one of the few locations in L.A. where it’s actually dark enough to see plenty of...

From the same folks behind the nightmarish Creep (which is taking the year off), JFI Productions’ The Willows is an immersive play—part dinner theater and part haunted house—in which you are one of 25 guests at an intimate family gathering at the historic Beckett Mansion near West Adams. The intimate, two-hour performance trades more in atmosphere than jump scares, but its surreal circumstances and sense of unease and anticipation will more than scratch that Halloween itch. This one is a favorite of Halloween aficionados and A-listers, and I can see why. The experience truly made me feel like I was in a horror movie—not a slasher, but an unsettling family drama that draws you in and sticks with you. The acting was excellent all around—the actors stayed in character impeccably and are also skilled enough to improvise during impromptu conversations with guests. When I left, I half wanted to stay in touch with all of them.  You enter the experience in groups of five, and each group is taken on its own journey, meeting up with the others for drinks and dinner. So while there are some narrative beats that everyone experiences, you could ostensibly attend several times and have a different experience each time. And participation is practically a requirement.  Tickets are expensive—$250 per person—but, as evidenced by the fact that all of October’s performances sold out right away, audiences clearly find the high price tag worth it. At the time of writing, there are a handful...

West Hollywood’s chic restaurant and rooftop bar, E.P. & L.P., is serving much more than handcrafted cocktails and modern American bites. The spot also hosts Melrose Rooftop Theatre, an outdoor screening series that runs much of the year on the rooftop space attached to its open-air bar, L.P. (During the spring and summer, you’ll find a roller rink there instead.) Its all-VIP seating setup means everyone gets their own bean bag to watch a mix of cult classics and newly released films, with the audio piped in to provided sets of wireless headphones. Opt for the dinner-and-a-movie package and you’ll get a pre-show starter, main and dessert—or you can skip it and just opt for a cocktail during the movie.

Its past installments have found attendees stealthing their way through a Victorian home and embarking on a Blade Runner-esque bounty hunt. And now this celebrated immersive horror theater event is returning for spooky season at a new location: a century-old Historic-Cultural Monument in DTLA. Delusion, an interactive seasonal event that combines elements of immersive theater with a more story-based approach to a walk-through haunted house, will take over the Variety Arts Theater from September 18 through Halloween till November 9. This year’s theme, “Harrowing of Hell,” puts you in the role of a supernatural cult member who must pass a Dante’s Inferno–inspired set of challenges. Hollywood director and action coordinator Jon Braver, who hatched Delusion in 2011, has again teamed up with the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride producers Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group for a “choose your path” staging in which your choices will impact the story progression. Braver also teases a “new creature you will never, ever forget” in this year’s experience. Tickets don’t come cheap (they start at $113), but for true Halloween devotees, it might be worth it: Delusion regularly ranks among the best haunted houses in the city. There’s also a VIP tier for $40 more that lets you take a peek behind the scenes with a backstage tour and access a reserved lounge.

Japan House Los Angeles is bringing an exhibition of shokuhin sampuru—hyper-realistic food replicas that have crossed over from marketing tool to art form (think Is It Cake? but cultural)—to Los Angeles for the first time. See mouthwatering faux food representing each of Japan’s 47 prefectures, from coffee house parfaits to izakaya skewers, as well as Chinese and Western cuisine, and try your own hand at food presentation by filling a bentō box yourself.  

The Skirball’s latest pop culture exhibition takes a deep dive into the six-decade career of legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby. You might know him as the co-creator of Captain America, Black Panther, the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and some of the Marvel universe’s most cosmic characters. But did you know he was also a first-generation Jewish American born to immigrant parents, World War II veteran and family man who split his time between New York and Los Angeles? The exhibition only occupies a few small galleries, but it’s stuffed with information about Kirby’s life, as well as pristine prints of issues plus his original comic illustrations—many on view for the first time. It’s not just a Marvel showcase, either: You’ll find some of the work Kirby did for DC, plus personal collages, a drawing he gave to Paul and Linda McCartney, and a fantastic reproduction of a costume he designed for a UC Santa Cruz production of Julius Caesar. Though not explicitly framed this way, the exhibition also presents a clear-as-day retort to any contemporary fans who decry comic book stories today as too “political”: Marvel has been political from the very start. Kirby’s cover for the first issue of Captain America features Cap punching Hitler—a full year before America would break its isolationist policies and enter WWII. The fifth issue follows Captain America in a battle against the German American Bund, a domestic Nazi organization that staged an infamous...

Not to be confused with the old L.A. Food & Wine Festival, the L.A. Wine & Food Festival is a Tastemade-sponsored, weekend-long affair at Santa Monica’s Barkar Hangar with a decent lineup of restaurants and chefs. Highlights include Ludo Lefebvre (Petit Trois), Jazz Singsanong (Jitalda), Stephanie Izard (Girl & the Goat, Top Chef) and Brooke Williamson (Playa Provisions, the Food Network). Day passes are on the pricey side, but they come with unlimited food and drinks, and food festival superfans can also opt for a three-day pass, which comes in at $319 (a 30 percent discount).

Billing itself as “Orange County’s biggest party since 1977,” the Old World Oktoberfest promises enough beers, brats and bands to make you feel like you’re in Munich—albeit with better ocean views. Every Wednesday through Sunday between September 7 and November 9, this re-created Bavarian village will offer a sausage-filled menu, oompah and German bands, a biergarten, dancing and more. While Old World’s Oktoberfest is 21-plus with a cover charge on Friday and Saturday evenings, it’s open to families and revelers of all ages on Saturday afternoons and other nights. (Entry is free on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights, as well as Saturday afternoons, just book ahead online.)