FILM
Cult Classics Cinema presents Idlewild starring Outkast 7 PM, August 23: Classic Cinema, curated by DJ Rosegawd in Los Angeles, is a cinematic and musical journey celebrating classic Black movies and the soundtracks that brought them to life. This series honors a time when music played a key role in creating the vibe and world of each film. After watching the movie of the month, guests can dive into the soundtrack experience and mingle with fellow movie and music lovers for a night of culture and nostalgia. Idlewild is a Prohibition-era musical drama set in a small Georgia town, following two lifelong friend a poetry-loving piano player (André Benjamin) and a reckless nightclub manager (Big Boi)—as they navigate love, crime, and their conflicting dreams while running the local speakeasy. The Miracle Theater, 226 S Market St, Inglewood.
Donnie Darko – The Director’s Cut – August 17-24: A troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after he narrowly escapes a bizarre accident. Gardena Cinema, 14948 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena.
Ponyo in 35mm – August 17,19, 21: Ponyo focuses on the friendship between 5-year-old Sosuke and a magical goldfish named Brunhilde, the young daughter of a sorcerer father and a sea-goddess mother. After wandering away from her father’s four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde washes ashore and is discovered by the curious Sosuke. Now renamed Ponyo, she forms a… quick bond with Sosuke that fuels her yearning to be a real girl, and together they shoulder the cost of what that might take. The vibrant and colorful hand-drawn animations are a delight for audiences of all ages, as Hayao Miyazaki builds a world filled with magical goldfish, spellcasters, and sea goddesses in this tale of how friendships can blossom anywhere—even in the ocean’s depths. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 6067 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles.
Sweet 16mm – Those Awkward Years – 7 PM, August 20: Vidiots firing up our 16mm projector for a night of the best of puberty’s pitfalls and adolescence at its most awkward with a program of long-forgotten and laughably outdated short films from the 1940s through the 1980s about humanity’s cringiest life stage with menstrucation’s finest, endearing Mormon comedy shorts, mid-century slut-shaming primers, and more! Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
Volver on 35mm – 7:30 PM, August 20: Join Vidiots for one of Pedro Almodóvar’s best dark comedies in all its colorful mastery in glorious 35mm film! From Academy Award-winner Pedro Almodóvar comes Volver, a darkly comedic and compassionate tribute to women and their resilience in the face of life’s most outrageous tribulations. A luminous Penélope Cruz leads an ensemble of gifted actresses, including Carmen Maura, star of Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Raimunda (Cruz) and her sister Sole lost their parents in a tragic fire years ago…or did they? Superstitious villagers claim that the girls’ departed mother, Irene (Maura), has been seen wandering around their Aunt Paula’s home. When Irene appears to Sole, she explains that she has returned to set right her daughters’ troubled lives and reveal shocking secrets that will impact everyone! Raimunda has “female troubles” of her own, least of which is a corpse in the freezer! Winner of numerous film festival and critics’ awards, Volver is a hilarious tale of love, loss, and forgiveness. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
Mysterious Skin – 4:30 PM, August 21: Indie legend Gregg Araki’s most sensitive and thoughtful film to date,and a profound and compassionate view into the lasting effects of childhood trauma. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
Dangerous Liaisons – 7 PM, August 21: Get ready for all the opulence, the intrigue, the seduction, and the betrayal of Stephen Frears’ lush and salacious period piece. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
The Evil Dead on 35mm – 9:45 PM, August 21: Sam Raimi’s all-time horror classic is a smorgasbord of gory violence, guttural laughs, wildly inventive demons, and top-notch practical effects all helmed by the boundlessly charismatic Bruce Campbell. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople – 4 PM, August 22: Vidiots remembers the life and legacy of the incredible Sam Neill with an especially heartwarming screening of Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
Mystic Pizza – 7 PM, August 22: A warm and genuine romantic comedy that never leaves you hungry, Mystic Pizza is still cinematic comfort food for your soul! Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez – 10 PM, August 22: An auteur emerges from America’s underclass: from migrant farmworker to revolutionary artist, Luis Valdez changed American culture. Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
The Great Muppet Caper – 12 PM, August 23: Jewel heists, intrigue, an all-star cast, and the eternal love story of a frog and a pig – this Muppetty installment has got it all! Vidiots, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd., Los Angeles.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with Modular Sound Bath – 6:30 PM, August 23: With a plan to exact revenge on a mythical shark that killed his partner, Oceanographer Steve Zissou rallies a crew that includes his estranged wife, a journalist, and a man who may or may not be his son. Gardena Cinema, 14948 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena.
Cult Classics Cinema presents Idlewild starring Outkast 7 PM, August 23: Classic Cinema, curated by DJ Rosegawd in Los Angeles, is a cinematic and musical journey celebrating classic Black movies and the soundtracks that brought them to life. This series honors a time when music played a key role in creating the vibe and world of each film. After watching the movie of the month, guests can dive into the soundtrack experience and mingle with fellow movie and music lovers for a night of culture and nostalgia. Idlewild is a Prohibition-era musical drama set in a small Georgia town, following two lifelong friend a poetry-loving piano player (André Benjamin) and a reckless nightclub manager (Big Boi)—as they navigate love, crime, and their conflicting dreams while running the local speakeasy. The Miracle Theater, 226 S Market St, Inglewood.
COMEDY
All Out!: An LGBTQ+forward Open Mic – 6:30 PM, August 18: All Out! is UCB’s brand new LGBTQ+ focussed monthly stand-up open mic here to cultivate a safe, supportive space for queer-identifying comics (and allies!) to take risks, build community and have fun! Come through every 3rd Tuesday to see some of L.A.’s funniest comics-on-the-rise as they try out new material, fine-tune their tight five and let those pride flags fly. Upright Citizens Brigade Annex 1925 N Bronson Ave., Los Angeles.
Roll For Democracy: Estuardo For LA! – 6 PM, August 20: Dynasty Typewriter is back for another night of Dungeons, Dragons, and Democracy! Join us for a game of D&D while we meet our candidate for LA City Council in District 9, Estuardo Mazariegos!, Our DM is once again Brennan Lee Mulligan, with a band of D&D players that includes Erika Ishii, Adam Conover, Lily Dum and more to be announced! Dynasty Typewriter, 2511 W. Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.
Menudo’s Feliz Hour – 5:30 PM, August 22: LA’s longest running Latine improv team — MENUDO — hosts an all-star show featuring a rotating cast of the hottest Latine improvisers in town. Feliz Hour is more than a comedy show… es una celebración de la cultura! New forms and themes every month performed in English, Spanish, and Spanglish. Venga pues! Boricuas, colombianos, chicanos, venezolanos, salvadoreños — all are welcome. (Even gringos!) Hosted by Menudo: Anna Salinas, Carlos Orlando, Claudio Saavedra, Eli Gonzalez, Heather Alarcón Higginbotham, July Diaz, Adri Diaz. Sounds by BIGWILLYGETSILLY (Will Martinez). Dynasty Typewriter, 2511 W. Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.
Drunk Theatre – 8:30 PM, August 22: A comedian takes 5 shots of whiskey in a row and tries to perform an improvised play with a sober cast. What could go wrong?! Drunk Theatre is the entirely improvised, unpredictable, and crazy comedy show that’ll kick your weekend into overdrive. Come see what iHeartRadio, CBS, LA Times, DoLA, SF Weekly, SF Chronicle, SFGate, Thrillist, TimeOut, and WeLikeLA have all been talking about. Limited seating and space is available, so grab your tickets now before it sells out! Featuring: Sahil Desai, Ittai Geiger, Cassie Grilley, Bri Cala, Rodd Naimi, Nate Deakers, Maria Gnoza, Bri Rodebaugh, Oleg Trofimov & 5 Shots of Whiskey! Dynasty Typewriter, 2511 W. Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles.
Friends & Strangers – 7:30 PM, August 22:
Each show, comedy duo SHARKS – Alison Tafel (BoJack Horseman, The Tonight Show) and Amanda Barnes (Smosh, Crossing Swords) will perform with a group of CLOSE IMPROV FRIENDS (people they have performed with for years!) and COMPLETE IMPROV STRANGERS (people they do not know but are excited to meet). It’s a night laughter and fun, as well as a chance to meet and mix with folk in the vast LA comedy community. One thing is for certain, at the end of the night – everyone goes home with a friendship bracelet. Outside In, 5317 York Blvd., Los Angeles.
Drop! – 9 PM, August 22: DROP is the ultimate hip-hop improv showdown, where freestyle meets fire and comedy meets competition. Each night, a dozen emcees battle it out across themed rounds—spitting verses about love, loss, lunch, and lava lamps—vying for points, pride, and the crowd’s roar. Part game show, part cypher, part fever dream, DROP blends the energy of 8 Mile, the playfulness of Wild ’N Out, and the theatricality of The Voice—but unscripted, unfiltered, and unforgettable. Only one can claim the crown. The rest… get dropped. Outside In, 5317 York Blvd., Los Angeles.
Free Donut Tuesdays w/ Maria Bamford – 9 AM, Tuesdays: Wake up early and have a laugh and a donut with Maria Bamford. All new material! No one will be turned away for lack of funds. All proceeds go to support Outside In Theatre. Outside In, 5317 York Blvd., Los Angeles.
MUSIC
Magnus & Friends Residency – August 17-18: Magnus Ferrell makes his presence known with a vibrant and vivacious voice and vintage swagger. The 22-year-old Los Angeles-born singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist brings substance and spirit back to pop music. Exuding confidence and charisma, he emerges as a rare force of nature who could enrapture either an underground jazz club or the main stage of your favorite festival Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
Kirby – 7 PM, 9:30 PM, August 20: Memphis born and Mississippi raised, Kirby’s upbringing was steeped in the rich musical traditions of the South. Growing up surrounded by the sounds of gospel, blues, and R&B, she developed her voice singing in a small church on top of a hill in Eudora, Mississippi. With a career spanning songwriting, recording, performing, and collaborating with some of the biggest names in music, Kirby continues to rise as one of the most soulful voices of the South. Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
WildChild & Friends of the Multiverse – 5 PM, 9 PM, August 22: Oxnardian Jack Brown, also known as WildChild of the 90’s group Lootpack started as a dancer and transitioned to rapping & emceeing with fellow members Madlib & DJ Romes forming the group Lootpack as part of the Alkaholiks “Likwit Crew”. Blue Note Los Angeles, 6372 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.
BOOKS
Chang-rae Lee with Lee Isaac Chung, “A Tender Age” – 7 PM, August 17: A spellbinding exploration of American masculinity and family dynamics as seen through the confused eyes of a prepubescent child of immigrants, A Tender Age joins the rich tradition of the American bildungsroman. The natural descendent of characters like Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caufield, Korean-American Jeon-Gi is torn between competing ideas of himself. At home, his working-class parents dote on him. Outside, he is part of a roving pack of kids with dominion over a derelict baseball field, weedy parking lot, and rusty jungle gym. Getting into and out of trouble is all-consuming. But the summer he turns eleven, he becomes embroiled in a staggering series of events reverberating far beyond himself and his family. Skylight Books, 1818 N Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.
Elaine Hsieh Chou with Greg Mania, “Where Are You Really From” – 7 PM, August 21: A mail order bride from Taiwan is packed up in a cardboard box and sent via express shipping to California, where her much older husband awaits her. Two teenage girls meticulously plan how to kill and cook their downstairs neighbor. An American au pair moves to Paris to find herself, only to find her actual French doppelgänger. A father reunites with his estranged daughter in unusual circumstances: as a background actor on the set of her film. A writer’s affair with a married artist tests the line between fact and fiction, self-victimization and the victimization of others. Skylight Books, 1818 N Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.
THEATRE
Washingstein – 7:30 PM , August 21: Returning to Outside In after last year’s celebrated debut shows at “The Incubator,” WASHINGSTEIN meshes Gothic Horror with Current Events in an improvised story over multiple episodes. Tragic love, mad science, and political buffoonery… during America’s “growing pains” of the 1820s! Outside In, 5317 York Blvd., Los Angeles.
2026 LA Writers’ Workshop Reading Series – through September 27: Since 2005, CTG has invited a cohort of local playwrights to spend a year researching and writing new works with feedback from the artistic staff and their fellow writers. The program is designed to foster important voices, inspire playwrights to create their best work, encourage bold writing, and build relationships among local playwrights, CTG, and the Los Angeles theatre community. CTG’s growing list of LA Writers’ Workshop alumni is currently comprised of more than 100 playwrights. Various locations.
COMMUNITY
Resistance! Black August Celebration at The Beehive – 5:30 PM – 9 PM, August 19: This can’t-miss event is a unique opportunity for Black workers from all backgrounds, community activists, worker centers, union leaders, philanthropists, legislators, and other allies to gather, hear about our California Worker Outreach Project (CWOP 5.0) #EchoBlackVoices campaign, and be part of the movement to build Black Worker Power. Hosted by Emmy Award-winning producers Richie Reseda and JJ88, the evening will feature free food, drinks, music, community, storytelling, and conversations about Black economic justice! The Beehive, 961 East 61st St., Los Angeles.
KYCC 25th Annual Benefit Concert – 7 PM, August 20: Experience an extraordinary evening as KYCC celebrates its 25th Annual Benefit Concert. In partnership with the Korean American Music Foundation, the program features Baek Ji-young, La Santa Cecilia and Arlissa accompanied by a 70-piece orchestra in a one-of-a-kind performance. The Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.
Skate Hunnies Party on Wheels at the Academy Museum – through September 3: The Academy Museum is rolling with Skate Hunnies to host a party on wheels, taking you around the Wilshire-Fairfax neighborhood. We’ll finish with a music-filled night of dance-skating on the Academy Museum Walt Disney Family Piazza. Bring your own skates for this free, guaranteed fun event. Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles.
Gay Ass Trivia at Precinct – 7 PM, Thursdays: Queen Sheeba hosts this weekly trivia night with prizes including bar tabs, shots, and bar apparel. Maximum team sizes of six people. No cover! Precinct, 357 S Broadway, Los Angeles.
May the Balls be with You: Drag Queen Bingo 7 PM, Tuesdays and Wednesdays: Legendary Bingo is LA’s most popular Drag Queen Bingo & charity event! Come play at Hamburger Mary’s every Tuesday and Wednesday! Hamburger Mary’s, 8288 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
MUSEUMS AND ART
Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind – through October 11: Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind traces more than seven decades of Yoko Ono’s groundbreaking career, from her early text-based works in the 1950s and ’60s to recent large-scale installations informed by her ongoing campaigns for world peace. Organized in collaboration with Tate Modern, London, the exhibition—Ono’s first solo museum exhibition in Southern California—explores her radical approach to art, language, and participation, challenging conventional ideas about the roles of artist and audience. The Broad, 221 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.
Community: Selections from the Texas African American Photography Archive – through September 5: Throughout the twentieth century, nearly every small town in the United States boasted a local studio photographer. These skilled image makers were dedicated to recording the people and events of their communities. Much of this vernacular visual culture has been dispersed or destroyed. Kinship & Community takes a look at a rare slice of that history, focusing on the work of Black photographers working in urban neighborhoods and rural villages across eastern Texas from 1944 to 1984. Presented at Art + Practice, 3401 W. 43rd Place, Los Angeles.
A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West – through September 13: One of the world’s most famous Black poets, Langston Hughes (1902–1967) is often associated with the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance in New York. But starting in the 1930s, though the upheavals of the Great Depression, World War II, and McCarthyism in America, Hughes spent significant time in the West where he maintained deep connections and produced important work, including lectures, film scripts, plays, and his first book of short stories. Through recorded interviews, lyrical texts, archival photographs, and historic posters and prints, A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West reveals little-known aspects of Hughes’s work as a champion for justice and the special relationships he cultivated during his many sojourns in California, Nevada, and Mexico. California African American Museum, 600 State Dr, Los Angeles.
Willie Birch: Stories to Tell – through October 21: The first-ever career retrospective of renowned artist Willie Birch, this exhibition brings together groundbreaking works from 1968 to the present that chronicle his unique vision of Black American life and the interconnected nature of global art forms. Born and raised in New Orleans and trained in Europe, Baltimore, and New York, Birch often speaks about “retentions,” a term he uses to describe evidence of one culture’s narratives and traditions within another. Throughout his career, Birch has explored particularly how African traditions have been retained in music, art, and culture in America as part of the Black experience and beyond. California African American Museum, 600 State Dr, Los Angeles.
Free and Queer: Black Californian Roots of Gay Liberation – through February 28, 2027: Free and Queer: Black Californian Roots of Gay Liberation presents California as a pioneering site of sustained, Black-led struggles for LGBTQ equality, civil rights, and recognition. The exhibition recovers histories largely excluded from existing narratives and exposes powerful ways that print culture, artistic practice, and performance styles shaped, advanced, and interpreted Black queer social movements alongside political and legal activism. California African American Museum, 600 State Dr, Los Angeles.
Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon – through February 28, 2027: Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon celebrates Marilyn Monroe—born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926—as a visionary actor and image-maker, examining how she created and shaped her public image in the context of the classical Hollywood studio system. Presenting hundreds of original objects, including posters, portraits, photographs, production documents, letters,… and rarely seen personal materials—many on display for the first time—the exhibition offers unique insight into her agency in becoming a Hollywood icon. The exhibition also features an extensive array of Monroe’s screen-worn costumes, ranging from a dress featured in Love Happy (1949) to items from her final and unfinished film, Something’s Got to Give (1962). Major highlights include two costumes by Orry-Kelly from Some Like it Hot (1959), as well as the rarely exhibited famous pink dress by William Travilla from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles.
