When the pumpkin pie is gone and the post-meal coffee has been drunk, it’s an awkward point in any Thanksgiving meal. Eventually the question will come, assuming everyone at your table hasn’t fallen asleep from eating too much turkey: Now what? Read more...

Jay-Z “The Black Album” Roc-A-Fella Say it ain’t so, Hov. If the hype is to be believed, “The Black Album” will be Jay-Z’s last ““ his final claim at hip-hop’s best-ever crown before he hangs up the mic and calls it quits. Read more...

While already successful, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” has some ironing to be done ““ with or without “fashion savant” Carson Kressley’s help. In fact, as the series began its second season Tuesday on Bravo, Jai Rodriguez, the “culture vulture” of the show’s “Fab Five” (the five gay men who make over a different straight man each episode) acknowledges that sometimes he still doesn’t have a clear view of what to do with the straight men. Read more...

Directing episodes of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” may seem like a difficult job, but for UCLA professor Becky Smith, it came naturally. “Just coincidentally, I’ve directed a lot of the recent gay programming,” said Smith, who chairs the UCLA School of Theater, Film, Television and Digital Media’s undergraduate film program and also teaches graduate courses in film production. Read more...

In English professor Mona Simpson’s novel, “Anywhere But Here,” 12-year-old Ann is forced to awkwardly adjust to her new Los Angeles surroundings. Unlike her novel’s protagonist, Simpson has had no trouble making UCLA her home. Read more...

If there’s one potential misconception UCLA alumnus Jean Chung wants to shake off, it’s that “Forgotten Terror,” the art exhibit she helped organize, treads on old ground. Read more...

Of the 11 political documentaries being screened by the UCLA Film and Television Archive in the two-week series “This is Not Your TV,” one clear highlight is acclaimed filmmaker Errol Morris’ new work “Fog of War: Eleven Lessons of Robert S. Read more...