Latest in Santa Monica

A happy surprise on Friday — gleaned from a soggy copy of the Santa Monica Mirror left in the curbside box — was news that we almost have a spanking new science fiction museum in these parts. Called SCI-FI WORLD: The Experience, it occupies the old Sears…

Ruth Seymour, the longtime leader of Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW died Friday, station president Jennifer Ferro confirmed to Deadline. She was 88. Seymour was at the from station 1977 to 2010. In that time she transformed it from a quality radio outlet run out of a junior high…

UPDATED with resolution: A man carrying a backpack and apparently claiming to have a bomb climbed to the center of the Santa Monica Pier Ferris wheel today, prompting the closure and evacuation of the entire pier before the man was taken into custody. Officers were dispatched about 2:40 p.m. to the…

Madame Sylvia Wu, whose Chinese restaurant in Santa Monica served generations of Southern Californians and many celebrities, died Sept. 29, her family confirmed. She was 106. In her later years, Wu stayed in the West side’s mind with cookbooks, television shows, and charity work, particularly at the…

On Tuesday, we had a friend over for dinner on the patio. Conversation bounced around the usual bumpers: Politics, crime, ex-spouse, lawyers, kids, the neighbors. Yet not a word was spoken about the Oscar nominations, announced just that morning. Which is weird, because this particular guest only two years ago was a…

I wish all these unhinged movies would quit coming true. Escape From New York. Escape From L.A. Being There. I Am Legend. You name it. Somebody shoots a whacko/dystopian/dysfunctional fantasy. Eventually, we all end up living it. At the moment, I'm living Brazil—bureaucratic dysfunction. My wife and I bought out a…

On Wednesday morning, film industry operatives will rally at AMC's Century City 15 multiplex to cheer the return of movie theaters that had been closed by the pandemic. "The Big Screen Is Back," they'll declare. Glad to hear it. That's great, as far as it goes. But those movers and shakers should probably charter a…

One of the more unexpected shifts in media habits during the pandemic, at least for me, has been a new interest in those little bird-box book libraries that inhabit front lawns in the quieter neighborhoods here. I regularly pass a dozen of them on a circuit of five or six miles around Santa Monica and Brentwood…

As Deadline's Tom Tapp reported last week, Los Angeles County isn't quite ready to join other parts of California and the nation at large in allowing movie theaters to reopen, even with restrictions. So the coronavirus-beset movie capital remains closed to indoor movies. Which isn't entirely bad. It buys some time, at…

The city and county of Los Angeles has canceled the curfews both had been in place over the past several nights amid the protests over George Floyd’s death. Other local cities that had imposed lockdowns since the weekend, including Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills and Burbank, also have canceled their…

4TH UPDATE, 6:45 PM: L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti announced at his news conference on Wednesday night that, barring a setback, the curfews in L.A. would be discontinued after tonight. Earlier in the day, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva characterized Tuesday night as vastly more peaceful than previous nights…

UPDATE, 1:20 PM: After L.A. County announced another night of curfew in the region earlier today, it was only a matter of time until the City of Angels itself made public its own lockdown measures in response to unrest following widespread protests over the killing of George Floyd. Like last night, L.A. will go under…