It’s the first Friday afternoon of winter quarter, the first clear day in Southern California of 2005, and several theater students are buzzing around Macgowan Hall. Read more...

FILM&TV: “The Breaking Point” Based on Hemingway’s famous novel “To Have and Have Not”, Michael Curtiz’s drama about a debt-ridden boat captain sticks to the original text closer than Howard Hawks’ better-known version starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Read more...

TIME magazine reported this week that the secret to living a long life is all based on one thing: optimism. That’s right, think positive thoughts and you can cure cancer, ward off heart disease and even prevent arthritis. Read more...

The Main Drag “Simmer In Your Hotseat” Endless Recordings Somewhere under Chuck Klosterman’s desk, the gods of indie rock are making like bunny rabbits and cranking out stunning debut albums. Read more...

Imagine the chance to speak with Francis Ford Coppola, one of the godfathers of filmmaking, about his directorial choices. Imagine sitting in a small room with Baz Luhrmann as he reveals what it was like to work with Nicole Kidman, or with Jason Alexander as he discusses what he went through to create the character of George on “Seinfeld.” Opportunities like this are often just that ““ products of the imagination. Read more...

Receiving a 2005 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award isn’t something most people would be modest about ““ but Kenny Burrell, director of the Jazz Studies Program at UCLA, certainly is. Read more...

List-making season is nearing its end, with just about every music publication having weighed in now with its year-end best-of picks. (The major exception being the Pazz & Jop critic’s poll by the Village Voice, which never seems able to tabulate its votes until spring.) But despite this flood of information, it’s difficult to get an actual idea of which albums were heralded by critics as the Class of ’04. Read more...