The school year is beginning in the Los Angeles area, with LAUSD back this week and Pasadena Unified School District starting Monday. My 10-year-old daughter just got her new backpack and shoes and is aflutter about her return for her final year of elementary school. But she’s sad about one thing in particular: Last year her school had to choose to keep PE or art. It voted for art. She loved both, and didn’t think the choice was fair. I asked her to write about it and said I’d share her thoughts with readers.
For context, late last school year PUSD laid off more than 150 full-time-equivalent certificated positions. According to United Teachers of Pasadena President Jonathan Gardner, that number included almost 25 art, music, dance, orchestra and choir teachers. It also included librarians, coordinators for special education and counselors, and, of course, plenty of irreplaceable regular teachers. It’s a bitter pill for educators and parents to swallow, especially when the country is spending billions on an ill-advised war in Iran that was never approved by Congress and many people in the city are struggling to afford groceries and healthcare.
My daughter, Henri Boo Biller, gets into that a bit in her essay:
“Because the district couldn’t pay for certain activities and classes anymore, subjects like art, music and PE have ended. Some people have protested about these layoffs and budget cuts, but the children are especially sad.
Kids love and adore some of these teachers that have been teaching them how to draw or play a sport or musical instrument. Taking away these activities is ending certain opportunities for kids. For example, kids love to run and play just as much as they love to draw and sculpt. Taking away one of the two wouldn’t mean that the kid doesn’t still want to do it!
One of the subjects they’ve been taking away in some schools is music. This is a problem because some kids can’t afford instruments or lessons from an expensive instructor. That’s why music is so important, to let kids learn an instrument without having to pay big bucks for it. Taking away that is taking away a giant opportunity. The instruments the kids are learning, such as trumpet, trombone, flute, guitar, saxophone, cello and violin are expensive instruments that are hard to find, or at least hard to find in good condition.”
I’ll interject here. This is true. My family benefits from a school-loaned saxophone for my daughter.
In her essay, my kiddo interviewed her neighbor and best friend who lives across the street, asking her what she thought should be done about these budget cuts. Her answer broke my heart.
Q. What do you think we can do about these changes? A. Have more fundraising events throughout the year. As well as school sales, bake sales and lemonade stands.
My daughter continues, “As [my friend] mentioned, we could hold more school sales like bake sales and lemonade stands. But we could also think about why this is happening. The money that is usually going to schools across the country is instead being used by the government to buy more weapons for the war in Iran [editor’s note: we have discussed that one thing being funded doesn’t necessarily take away from another, and that it is really a matter of what we prioritize as a society] … and because of this PUSD and other districts are having to take away certain programs. Some of these programs are even their main selling point! Programs like art, music and PE are being shut down, ending certain opportunities for children. We can try to get some of that money back, like the interview stated, or protest to show the world we mean business. Thank you for your time. Next week I will come back with an equally intriguing topic. Have a nice rest of your week! I’m Henri B. Biller, signing out.”
As her mother, I vote for protest! We do mean business, right?
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt sending my love to the teachers of the city. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Battleship Potemkin Sergei Eisenstein’s epic 1925 silent film screens with the world premiere of a live music score for string quartet and vocal quintet composed and conducted by George Sarah. Sarah also performs on synths/electronics, joined by soprano Jenna Hansen, mezzo soprano Anna Caplan, tenors George Sterne and Sean McDermott, Kaija Hansen on violin/viola, Katie Kim on violin and cellists Carolyn Regula and Paul Hyun. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org
SUNDAY
Jas Ahluwalia and Kamaljeet Ahluwalia of Absolute Focus.
(Sierra Madre Playhouse; courtesy of the artist)
Absolute Focus + Chris Votek The husband-and-wife duo of Santoor virtuoso Kamaljeet Ahluwalia and tabla master Jas Ahluwalia are joined by cellist Votek for an afternoon of traditional Hindustani raga. 4 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org
Pacific Chorale’s Choral Festival The annual event brings hundreds of community members together with the voices of the Chorale for Maurice Duruflé’s “Requiem.” Robert Istad conducts the Pacific Chorale’s Festival Chorus. 5 p.m. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificchorale.org
TUESDAY
Gershwin, Bernstein & More Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony Orchestra make their Bowl debut with music from “West Side Story,” “An American in Paris” and Dvořák’s “From the New World.” 8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave., Hollywood. hollywoodbowl.com
WEDNESDAY
An Enemy of the People Director Bart DeLorenzo has reimagined Henrik Ibsen’s classic play to highlight its contemporary resonance in a society in decline. The cast includes Lauren Campedelli, DeJuan Christopher, Dennis Dun, Clay Hollander, Jason McBeth, Cara Mitsuko and Jay Paulson. Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Aug. 21; opening night, 8 p.m. Aug. 22; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and Wed. Sept. 16; 3 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 27. Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
Herbie Hancock performs at the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)
Herbie Hancock Celebrates Miles Davis The Grammy-winning keyboardist has recruited a stellar lineup including two of Miles Davis’ former bassists — Ron Carter and Marcus Miller — trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, former Davis saxophonist Kenny Garrett, bassist Christian McBride and conductor-arranger Vince Mendoza, to honor Davis through his music. 8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
THURSDAY
Presented in VistaVision A tribute to the cinematography technique created by Paramount Pictures in 1954. Its popularity waned in the 1960s but contemporary filmmakers such as Brady Corbet, Yorgos Lanthimos and Paul Thomas Anderson have embraced the format. The series begins with John Ford’s “The Searchers” (1956) in 70mm on Thursday, and includes “North by Northwest” (1959), also in 70mm, and “One Battle After Another” (2025), the first film shot in VistaVision to win the Academy Award for best picture. 7:30 p.m. Thursday; the series continues through Aug. 31. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
Gustavo Dudamel conducts his final concert in Disney Hall as L.A. Phil music director on June 7.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl As Gustavo Dudamel departs L.A. for New York, he goes out with a bang of four nights with four different programs: Beethoven Ninth with the L.A. Phil and YOLA on Thursday; Gustavo’s Fiesta, with Los Tigres del Norte, singer-songwriter Lila Downs, Mariachi Reyna de Los Ángeles, singer Sílvia Pérez Cruz, La Sonora Dinamita and Los Panchos, joining with the L.A. Phil for a night of Latin music on Aug. 21; Foo Fighters with the L.A. Phil and YOLA on Aug. 22; and last, but not least, “A Concert for Venezuela: A Benefit to Support Earthquake Relief” on Aug. 23. 8 p.m. Thursday-Aug. 22; 7 p.m. Aug. 23. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
— Kevin Crust
Retrospective
L.A. Times arts coverage from the past …
Lynda Benglis. “MI,” 1984. Glass, sandcast, powdered; ceramic oxides, metal inclusions 13 1/2 x 17 x 16 in. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser.
(Museum Associates / LACMA; Lynda Benglis / VAGA, New York)
Shattering expectations
Aug. 6, 2006
It was 1986 and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser were 10 years into their passion for collecting glass art. Their home was lined with the kinds of works they loved.
That was when Stephanie Barron, a curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, called to suggest that they look at an unusual piece at Margo Leavin Gallery in West Hollywood. Titled “MI,” it was a thick twist of sand-cast glass with a roughened texture reminiscent of glass unearthed from ancient sites. Even more unusual, the artist was Lynda Benglis, better known for avant-garde sculpture and performance and video work.
It was as if glass, as an artistic medium, had reached a critical juncture. “A whole group of artists who were not part of the glass movement but who worked in glass suddenly appeared,” Greenberg says.
He and Steinhauser viewed “MI” with puzzlement at first, then respect and finally appreciation. “This was part of our learning experience,” he said. “It expanded our horizons.” The couple helped LACMA purchase the piece. READ MORE
— Scarlett Cheng
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Anthony Hopkins at Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles on Aug. 1.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Anthony Hopkins’ first love was music, and, at 88, he’s returned to it. Later this month, the two-time Academy Award-winning actor will release his debut album, “Life Is a Dream,” on Decca Classics, featuring London’s Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.
Dudamel will play his final show at the Hollywood Bowl later this month as the music and artistic director of the L.A. Phil, and although the city has had years to get used to the idea of losing him, it still stings. In a tender, thoughtful column filled with insider information, Times classical music critic Mark Swed looks back at Dudamel’s arrival in L.A. more than 20 years ago to track how the Venezuelan wunderkind went from “rising star to star to savior.”
Swed also broke the news that German composer and conductor Matthias Pintscher will be Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s new music director, replacing Jaime Martín beginning in the 2027-28 season. “Pintscher, who is 55, says he is not ready to make any grand statements about LACO other than being eager to explore West Coast music and that he loves combining old with everything else,” Swed wrote.
Michael Shaeffer as King Aerys II Targaryen in the “Game of Thrones: The Mad King,” which opened Saturday at Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
(Johan Persson)
The wildly popular “Game of Thrones” franchise, which began in book form and spawned one of HBO’s most successful series of all time, is branching out to the stage. A 3.5-hour play, “Game of Thrones: The Mad King,” opened last weekend at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Author George R. R. Martin was in attendance to celebrate, and audiences seemed delighted by the expansion of the fantasy world-building effort, with many fan questions answered.
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art this week announced its flagship restaurant: Skywalker Grill, inspired by founder George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch in Marin County. The restaurant is located on the top floor of the museum with sweeping views of the city. It will be open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch with hours that last long after the museum closes. Think American cuisine with California-sourced ingredients, including a signature Skywalker Ranch Wagyu burger.
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Self Help Graphics & Art announced the launch of a $6-million capital campaign for the completion of its permanent home at 1300 E. 1st St. in Boyle Heights. The fund is intended for the final phase of a major renovation that will turn the space into a destination arts and culture center. The goal is to complete the project by the end of the year.
For all their vaunted power, superheroes are at the mercy of the people who write them, draw them, play them on the screen, and by extension the producers and executives who decide what should go where and for how much. Sort of powerless, really.
Sometimes this combination of forces works out well for the hero, and sometimes not so much. The Green Lantern, a secondary figure in the DC Comics pantheon, had the ill luck to be trapped in a 2011 Ryan Reynolds film even its director didn’t like. Fifteen years later, he has had the very good fortune to be played by Kyle Chandler, and additionally to star in a television series — “Lanterns,” premiering Sunday on HBO — rather than a theatrical feature, with its investment in noisy set pieces and earth-shaking battles royale.
I’ve often championed the supposedly humbler medium as the best place to tell these stories, with the time to investigate character, in all its shadings and ambiguities, and a haven for concepts too quirky or niche or … conceptual for conservative big-budget theatrical IP exploitation. And here again, I have been proved right.
Creators Damon Lindelof (“Lost,” “Watchmen” and, best of all, “Mrs. Davis”), comic book writer Tom King and Chris Mundy, who wrote for “Criminal Minds,” “Ozark” and “Bloodline” (in which Chandler starred), have expressly looked to television for inspiration — specifically to “True Detective” (on which Mundy worked), with its uncomfortable partnerships, and “Slow Horses” (for its disreputable hero, I guess), with “Slow Horses” director James Hawes helming the first two episodes. (I detect a hint of “Fargo” as well, for its Midwestern plainscape, dark comedy and bigger-than-life yet somehow ordinary characters.)
“I’m a regular person, like you,” Hal Jordan (Chandler) says in a 1996 TV interview that opens the series; indeed, he’s only super powerful by reason of the gear that comes with the job, a human “beat cop” working as part of the Green Lantern Corps, an extraterrestrial galactic peacekeeping organization — the special ring and the lantern-shaped gizmo that charges it. It gives him the ability to fly and to manifest objects at will, most often a protective green bubble, but also a bottle opener and a $10 bill. (There’s a uniform, but for the most part, he leaves it in the closet.)
Watching that interview is young John Stewart (then a Lantern-obsessed child). We’ll meet him again in 2016, played by Aaron Pierre (“The Underground Railroad”), when most of the action takes place, as a former Marine sniper and art student — human talents that will prove useful — assigned to Hal as a “trainee,” ostensibly to provide backup if something happens to him. Hal, after two seemingly successful decades in the job, is unused to the company and suspicious of the arrangement. (“The big blue bosses may think you’re hot s— but you’re just a f—ing substitute teacher.”) He sets John tests that might kill him, if he is not actually trying to kill him. But he’s also the more genial of the two.
Through an agent whose identity the producers are counting as a spoiler — I’m sure I don’t know why — Hal receives a message that there’s hail in Rushville, Neb. (i.e., aliens!), at which point he jets off from the taco stand where he’s happily been signing autographs and posing for selfies, leaving John to fly there on his own, in the usual way, while the Stooges’ “No Fun” plays on the soundtrack.
They arrive, separately, in the aftermath of a high school football game that has left dead bodies on the field. (Hal suspects some sort of alien rumble.) Here we meet Kelly Macdonald, suppressing her Scottish accent as tough but tender Sheriff Kerry, asserting her jurisdictional rights. Hal finds her “something incredible.” (John: “I think she hates your guts.” Hal: “Yeah, but it’s the way she hates them.”) Kerry is married to lawyer Billy Macon (Jason Ritter), whose father, William (Garret Dillahunt), is a local bigwig, with a cowboy militia and a wife, Zoe (Poorna Jagannathan), who possibly not coincidentally meets John in a bar.
At 60, Chandler is arguably more attractive than ever, with the sort of seasoning that served James Garner so well as Jim Rockford, TV’s greatest detective. Five seasons of “Friday Night Lights” have cemented him in the popular consciousness as a preternaturally decent guy, which allows us to excuse Hal’s less creditable moments, or at least to see things through his eyes. Pierre, 32, who competes in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, has the body of a superhero; he plays John wound tight, humorless, grimly ambitious — he grew up letting his father shoot apples off his head to prove his fearlessness, the primary requirement for a Green Lantern — though the character warms up across the course of the season (which also takes place in 2026). The actors are at their best in their scenes together, which the writers make happen even when it seems impossible. (Spoilers, or I’d explain.)
Combining detective work and science fiction is nothing new — see “Sugar,” currently; “The X-Files,” classically. (And there’s an interrogation scene I’m pretty sure nods knowingly to “Blade Runner.”) “Lanterns” isn’t totally free of cliches, which is practically impossible for sci-fi and crime stories anyway, so many have been told over the years, and to some degree that’s just what we come for. But the series is fresh enough in its details and execution, and strong enough in its writing, and so well performed, that it feels quite original.
I watched “Lanterns” without any particular knowledge of the character, who has been around since 1940, and in this particular version since 1959. (I did a little reading afterward.) Happily, the show is not up to its cowl in DC cross-references and crossovers. There are fleeting mentions of Gotham and Metropolis (where Superman works) and Nathan Fillion reprises his bad-hair Green Lantern from the 2025 “Superman” movie (a long story), but “Lanterns” comes equipped with everything you need to know. Bringing in extra mythology wouldn’t make the confusing parts any less confusing, and would just confuse the parts that aren’t confusing at all. Most every character, whichever side they’re on — and it’s not always easy to tell, given that the aliens look exactly like the humans — comes with layers.
Did I ever fully understand what these factions were after, or even what exactly the factions were? Nope. Did it matter? Nope.
A period drama with a famous cast has been added to BBC iPlayer and fans are gripped
The Boys in the Boat is on BBC iPlayer(Image: BBC screengrab)
A “remarkable” period drama based on a best-selling book is available to stream now and fans have said it’s a “must watch”.
The Boys in the Boat, which stars Joel Edgerton and Callum Turner, is based on the popular 2013 book by Daniel James Brown and follows the University of Washington rowing team as they set their sights on competing in the Olympics.
Set during the Great Depression, it follows Joe Rantz (played by Callum), a struggling student who joins the rowing team simply to earn enough money to stay in college. He and a group of other young men face financial trouble and hardship but rise through the ranks with their rowing skills, with Joel as their coach Al. Their journey eventually takes them all the way to the 1936 Berlin Olympics.
Directed and co-produced by George Clooney, the movie made a splash when it was first unveiled in 2023 and it is winning over a new audience after it was added to the BBC iPlayer, where it is streaming now.
One fan wrote on Reddit that the movie was “remarkable”, while others called it “outstanding”.
Several noted how emotional it made them, with one posting on Letterboxd that it “had me crying” when they tuned in.
“I got goosebumps, my heart was racing, I cried,” said someone else, as another described it as “an emotional rollercoaster”.
Another person said that it left them “sobbing”, and someone else wrote online: “Made me laugh, it made me cry a little, it inspired me.”
One fan said they were “choked up several times” watching as Joe and the rest of the team strove to make their dream of Olympic glory come true.
Discussing a part of the film in Frontpage magazine, one person said: “I swear to deity, I started crying right then; I would go on to cry multiple times throughout the film.”
“I absolutely loved it (and had a tear in my eye),” said another.
The Boys in the Boat also stars Peter Guinness, Jack Mulhern, Thomas Elms and Luke Slattery. Actress Hadley Robinson stars as Joyce Simdars, Joe’s love interest, in the film.
