For more than a century, Hollywood has been more than a word on a hillside. It has been shorthand for an industry, a workforce, a way of making movies and, perhaps most importantly, a place. Now that identity is being tested in a very public way. Paramount Skydance chief David Ellison has told senior executives that he is prepared to begin moving Paramount out of California—and potentially Warner Bros. as well if their proposed merger goes through—unless state officials enter settlement talks over the antitrust lawsuit challenging the deal. Variety reported that Ellison set October 1 as the point at which that process could begin, while the Los Angeles Times described the threat as part of Paramount’s effort to pressure California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other states to resolve the case. Against that backdrop, an uncomfortable question suddenly feels much less theoretical: what happens if Hollywood remains the symbolic capital of the movies? At the same time, fewer films are made here—and one of its most historic studios decides it no longer needs to call Hollywood home?

The weekend of September 18 brings an unusually varied group of new theatrical releases, ranging from zombies and stop-motion sheep to Depression-era gold smuggling and a very dark classroom comedy. Horror fans have the biggest opening in Zach Cregger’s new Resident Evil, while families get another beautifully handmade adventure from Aardman. Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe headline The Weight; Saoirse Ronan takes a sharp turn into black comedy with Bad Apples.

Long before Benedict Canyon became one of Los Angeles's most exclusive residential enclaves, its steep hillsides and twisting ravines belonged to a very different Southern California. There were no secluded celebrity estates, no procession of automobiles winding through the canyon, and certainly no paved Benedict Canyon Drive connecting Beverly Hills with the San Fernando Valley. There were oak and chaparral-covered hills, wildlife, streams, scattered homesteads—and a pioneer named Edson Abijah Benedict, whose family settled there in 1868 and gave the canyon the name it still carries more than a century and a half later.

There are those who attempt to escape the shadow of a well-known family name and others who welcome it. Jaafar Jackson has followed a different route. He has striven to honor one of the most well-known figures in modern history at the same time as demonstrating to the world that he is a separate individual.

Bob Mackie, the famous costume designer known for his use of feathers, beads, rhinestones and bold illusion gowns, which played a major role in shaping American show business over more than fifty years, died on September 14, 2026, in Palm Springs, California; he was 87 years old. The news of his death was made public through his official social media account, the account stating that Mackie had lived his life in pursuit of the dream he had had since childhood to become a fashion and costume designer. At this time, no cause of death has been given and no funeral arrangements have been announced.

It's rather fitting that Coyote vs. Acme should have nearly vanished forever. One must remember that Wile E. Coyote has for over seventy years been crushed by boulders, blown up by dynamite, launched into the desert sky and dropped from cliffs, only to shake himself free and try once more. Similarly, the film based on him suffered the same fate. Warner Bros. put it on hold, the public objected, other studios showed an interest, but the deals fell through and for a while it seemed as though it was going to become one of those famous unreleased films about which people would talk about but never get to see. In the end, Coyote vs. Acme did have its premiere in the theatres on August 28, 2026, and the final product is far better than its difficult history had any right to suggest.

A roaring Los Angeles story: When Southern California became the movie capital of the world, Hollywood Boulevard wasn’t the only attraction filling up with enthusiasts from around the globe. Several miles east of the bright lights lay another entertainment phenomenon unique to the region: a working farm filled with African lions. Gay’s Lion Farm offered visitors a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gaze upon dozens of full-grown lions roaming fenced enclosures, roar kingdoms like kings above the distant cityscape, and witness the spectacle of their trainers feeding these ferocious animals nearly a ton of raw meat every single day.

Julia Boynton Green was born into an old American family that valued education and independence. She was born on May 25, 1861, in Byron, New York. Her family history included Nathanael Greene, a general of the Continental Army known for his intelligence and leadership during the American Revolutionary War’s Southern Campaign. Like her famous relative, Julia Boynton Green led a remarkable life full of quiet accomplishment.

On Thursday, January 21, 1988, Cybill Shepherd stood on Hollywood Boulevard at one of the highest points of her television fame and watched her name become part of the pavement. Her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, placed at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, honored her work in television and, more immediately, the remarkable career revival created by ABC’s Moonlighting. I was there.

Hollywood has always been a place of monuments, both real and imagined. Some are cast in bronze, stone, and concrete. Others remain sketches, proposals and dreams. One of the most intriguing of the latter was an ambitious plan during the 1980s to erect an enormous memorial to James Dean inside Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery—today Hollywood Forever.

Few critics have ever achieved what Jonathan Gold did: he altered the way the city saw itself. Although he wrote about food, he also dealt with neighborhoods, immigration, culture, class, memory, and the people who are responsible for making Los Angeles what it is. When he died in 2018, Gold had become one of the city's most distinctive voices and the first restaurant critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for criticism.

First National Pictures was not set up as a movie studio but as a form of rebellion. In the 1910s Adolph Zukor managed to make Paramount one of the most powerful players in the motion-picture industry. Among the tactics he used was 'block booking.' This meant that cinema owners who wanted to show a popular film starring someone like Mary Pickford also had to agree to show a set of less desirable films. The exhibitors became more and more resentful about being told which films they had to show, but since stars such as Pickford attracted large audiences, refusing Zukor could have been a bad business move. In the end, some theatre owners decided that they had had enough.