Things to do in Los Angeles this Sunday

Review by Dave Calhoun The sort of high-wire, playfully enjoyable riff on movies that only Quentin Tarantino could get away with, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a massively fun shaggy-dog story that blends fact and fiction, inserting made-up characters at the heart of real, horrible events (Charles Manson horrible) and then daring history to do its worst. Sitting at the mature, Jackie Brown end of Tarantino’s work, the film is also a love letter to Los Angeles and the film industry, bringing his tongue-in-cheek storytelling together with exquisite craft and killer lead performances from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. And yet, it’s still very much a Tarantino film, trading in genuine emotion one minute, unapolegetically silly the next. Tarantino starts with Hollywood in the era of the Manson murders—specifically, the slaying of starlet Sharon Tate and her friends in August 1969—and retells the story on his own terms, first over a few days in February 1969 and then, six months later, over the weekend of the killings. That means we’re spending nearly the whole movie wondering how this director is going to deal with the actual historical tragedy. For the answer to that, you’ll just have to sweat it out. Let’s just say this: Tarantino somehow manages to carve good taste out of bad. Nonfictional characters pop up throughout: the doomed Tate (Margot Robbie), Nixon-era celebrities Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) and Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), the Manson gang (one of whom is played by

The masters of alfresco rooftop movie viewing have returned for another season of screenings in Hollywood and 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 blanket or camping chair—Rooftop Cinema Club provides you with your very own comfy lawn chair, as well as blankets on request for the ultimate cozy experience. 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.

Review by Dave Calhoun The sort of high-wire, playfully enjoyable riff on movies that only Quentin Tarantino could get away with, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a massively fun shaggy-dog story that blends fact and fiction, inserting made-up characters at the heart of real, horrible events (Charles Manson horrible) and then daring history to do its worst. Sitting at the mature, Jackie Brown end of Tarantino’s work, the film is also a love letter to Los Angeles and the film industry, bringing his tongue-in-cheek storytelling together with exquisite craft and killer lead performances from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. And yet, it’s still very much a Tarantino film, trading in genuine emotion one minute, unapolegetically silly the next. Tarantino starts with Hollywood in the era of the Manson murders—specifically, the slaying of starlet Sharon Tate and her friends in August 1969—and retells the story on his own terms, first over a few days in February 1969 and then, six months later, over the weekend of the killings. That means we’re spending nearly the whole movie wondering how this director is going to deal with the actual historical tragedy. For the answer to that, you’ll just have to sweat it out. Let’s just say this: Tarantino somehow manages to carve good taste out of bad. Nonfictional characters pop up throughout: the doomed Tate (Margot Robbie), Nixon-era celebrities Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) and Bruce Lee (Mike Moh), the Manson gang (one of whom is played by

Shockingly modern and the most politically enlightened (and enlightening) comedy of the 1930s, Leo McCarey’s winning quasi-Western is a model of Hollywood broad strokes coalescing into a sophisticated whole. It starts with a bunch of ugly Americans hee-hawing their way through 1908 Paris—they’re yokels on a trip abroad. Across town, refined Ruggles (Laughton), a manservant, has just learned that he has been “lost” by his ashamed British employer in a game of poker. Now in the custody of ornery nouveau riche Egbert Floud (Charlie Ruggles, a gem) and his putting-on-airs wife, Effie (Boland), the butler is bound for America, a place he imagines as overrun by shirtless Indians surrounding the wagons. Going through the changes, Laughton is magnificently fluid: fey and fearful at first, then (via a drunken escapade) playful and quietly subversive as his new community mistakes him for a highborn English colonel while Effie fumes. The best is yet to come, though, as the warm town of Red Gap and its ingrained Lincolnite independence charm the foreigner, inspiring Ruggles to dream of opening—you simply can’t improve on this—a bar and grill. With the egalitarian warmth of Jean Renoir (himself a huge fan of the film), director McCarey spoofs stereotypes while investing them with knowing asides. The only characters singled out for scorn are those who would reinforce class divisions; delightfully, one of them literally gets his ass kicked. Follow Joshua Rothkopf on Twitter: @joshrothkopf

The virtue of courage is high up on the list of Disney princess must-haves (just below kindness, beauty and a strapping prince in tight pants). So three cheers for Dreamgirls director Bill Condon and star Emma Watson for having the courage to make a live-action musical adaptation of Disney's adored Beauty and the Beast with 2017 gender politics and a diverse cast. Not only is this new Belle the studio's most feminist princess to date, the update boasts the first (and second) interracial kiss to ever appear in a Disney movie, as well as the first openly gay character. And it's all done with a lovely feeling of integrity. Today's Beauty and the Beast is a lavish pull-out-all-the-stops musical. Watson brings sincerity to the role of Belle, the only bookworm in an 18th-century French village. (Her singing isn’t bad either). Luke Evans is hilarious as her sexist meathead suitor, Gaston, whose charming come-ons include: "Do you know what happens to spinsters in the village when their fathers die? They beg for scraps." Josh Gad (who voiced Olaf the snowman in Frozen) is Gaston's adoring sidekick Le Fou. The pair’s one-sided bromance is a highlight. Belle’s inventor dad (Kevin Kline) is on his way to market when he takes a wrong turn and finds himself locked in the gothic castle belonging to the Beast (Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, hiding behind a furry face and a CGI-supplanted physique). Of course, the Beast is actually a dashing prince, transformed by a kind witch as punishmen

Turns out, Pixar’s sentient toys can still make us cry: Nearly 25 years after their cinematic debut, the sweetly selfless plastic pals return in a fourth Toy Story, one charged by the animated series’ thematic essence of finding purpose in being useful to others. It’s a hopeful, immensely human chapter that echoes the franchise’s complex notions of loyalty, displacement and self-worth, doing so with humor and warmth. Working from a script by Andrew Stanton and Stephany Folsom (as well as six other story contributors, including ousted ex-Pixar chief John Lasseter), director Josh Cooley successfully balances all of these elements—a noteworthy achievement considering the large cowboy boots he had to fill after the epic yet nuanced Toy Story 3, one of Pixar’s more perfect achievements. The reliable company of old friends certainly helps: Now happily living with a new kid, Bonnie (voiced by Madeleine McGraw), Tom Hanks’s pull-string pardner Woody, Tim Allen’s devoted Buzz Lightyear, Joan Cusack’s feisty Jesse and the rest of the gang are back. New to the clan is Forky (Veep’s Tony Hale, adding nervy personality and genuine weirdness), an existentially confused spork with low self-esteem that the ever-imaginative Bonnie creates as a kindergarten craft project. Convinced of his status as trash (an unusually raw class dilemma for a Pixar movie), Forky get a crash course on his toyness from Woody, himself thrown by a life crisis resembling that of a retiree. Bonnie has moved on to o