Alex

You don't have to be a parent to understand that there's probably no greater tragedy than the death of a child. That's why "Alex: The Life of a Child" (at 9 tonight on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42) is such a heartbreaking two hours, an ABC movie so painful you may have difficulty sitting through it.

If Sir Alex Ferguson had stuck with his original plan, today we might be praising his pasta and Chinese noodles rather than his decision to start Robin van Persie over Wayne Rooney. Or if he had chosen to pursue his interest in U.S. history, particularly the Civil War and the JFK assassination, he might have become a master teacher of men rather than a master motivator of them. But then again, if Ferguson hadn't passed on those two options to become the most successful coach in British soccer history, we wouldn't be calling him sir. After all few chefs, and even fewer U.S. history buffs, get knighted by the queen.

Your sweetheart turns you down for somebody 3,000 miles away. Nothing personal. It's them, not you. But things don't work out -- family issues -- so your crush moves back home, where you're waiting, thinking you have a chance. Only your crush turns you down, again, and starts dating your neighbor. That's why today's UCLA-USC showdown is awkward for Trojans forward Alex Stepheson. UCLA recruited him "real tough," he says, out of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake High in 2006, but Stepheson chose North Carolina.

ST. LOUIS - Jonathan Quick's stellar goaltending was the reason the Kings made it to overtime in the opener of their first-round playoff series against the St. Louis Blues. He coolly turned away 40 shots while his teammates were outmuscled and outhustled, yielding only a first-period power-play goal to Alex Steen off a rebound. When the Kings tied the game with 31.6 seconds left in the third period on a goal by Justin Williams after they'd replaced Quick with an extra skater, it seemed Quick's excellence would be duly rewarded.

2312 A Novel Kim Stanley Robinson Orbit: 576 pp., $25.99 As the author of the "Mars" trilogy, among other novels, Kim Stanley Robinson has established a superlative reputation for science fictional extrapolation. In his vibrant, often moving new novel, "2312," Robinson's extrapolation is hard-wired to a truly affecting personal love story. By the year of the book's title, humankind has (just barely) survived global warming, in part because of terra-forming technologies that have made possible the colonization of Mars, Mercury and Venus.

Alex and Ivan Rodriguez share much more than their last name. Long before they were multimillionaires and new teammates on the Texas Rangers, they began a friendship while sitting together to sign autographs at a charity event one afternoon. Over the years, they kept up the way baseball players do, through box scores and highlight film, and stayed in touch the way friends do, through phone calls and time together when their paths crossed.

A well-to-do young couple confronts the seven-year itch in "Last Night," a drama so pointed it feels more like a thesis than a story. Writer-director Massy Tadjedin's look at marital angst is not without its well-observed moments, and Keira Knightley, as the questioning wife, and Eva Mendes, as the other woman, lend flesh-and-blood vulnerability to their roles. But with true insights in short supply, the on-the-nose material fails to seduce. Knightley plays Joanna, a British writer who lives in monochromatic Manhattan chic with her Aussie husband, Michael (Sam Worthington)

In "The Loneliest Planet," the faces and bodies of the adventurous couple at the center of the film's journey do most of the talking, and pretty eloquently I might add. So driven is filmmaker Julia Loktev to immerse us in the couple's existential experience that dialogue is nearly nonexistent and stars Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg are often little more than specks on the horizon. It's as if Strasberg's Method acting techniques - that focused approach to "become" someone else, all baggage explored and absorbed by the actor - has been adopted by the director.

Joel told me a lot during the four days he was visiting Alex in the ICU. Alex was the love of his life. Alex hadn't seen his parents, now traveling in from the Midwest, in 11 years. Joel (all names have been changed) had been sober since he and Alex moved in together. But that, like everything else, ended on July 4, the day of Alex's accident. Joel was histrionic and brittle. He was also raging drunk.

The silence of their home in Brea was crushing after their son's death. Gilbert and Irene Reyes moved about inertly, hearing only echoes. They took their turns in Alex's room. They buried their noses in his shirts, looked through his checkbook, clasped the "Toy Story" doll he'd bought for his baby son, Drew. Their only fragment of joy came on weekends, when they picked up Drew from his mother. The 21-month-old teetered around their living room on his bowlegs, shrieking in amusement, brimming with things to say and no way to say them.

Marc Jacobs isn't one to shy away from fashion risks. The often iconoclastic superstar designer - who has become synonymous with a certain young, casually cool New York state of mind - helped usher in the controversial "heroin chic" look in the '90s and favors a combo of kilts and combat boots for his daily work uniform. But for Jacobs' debut film role in the indie drama "Disconnect," which arrived in theaters in limited release last Friday, the style maven was forced to step outside his comfort zone - in terms of both fashion and raw physicality.

Usually, it would be best to ignore conspiracy-mongers such as Alex Jones and not reward him and his angry gaggle of paranoiac followers with any sort of attention. But, in a week when thoughts of the dead and maimed victims of the Boston Marathon bombings weigh heavy on the hearts and minds of most Americans, it is worth pointing out what a worthless waste of skin and bones Jones and his minions happen to be.  Nearly as soon as I heard about the bombings on Monday, I was certain that somewhere in the nutty right-wing blogosphere someone was already concocting a storyline that would blame the crime on President Obama and the federal government.

SACRAMENTO - An influential state senator has a plan to allow electronic billboard ads that are currently banned by state law - including pitches for beer and gambling - next to a proposed NFL stadium in Los Angeles. The proposal, approved by a legislative committee, has outraged activists who oppose the proliferation of electronic billboards. They say lawmakers intend the measure as special treatment for Philip Anschutz, the Denver billionaire who wants to build the stadium in downtown Los Angeles.

State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) announced Thursday that he will run for California secretary of state in 2014, joining what looks to be shaping up as a crowded field that includes other current and former lawmakers. Padilla, 40, was elected to the state Senate in 2006 and must leave the upper house because of term limits next year. "The strength of our democracy depends on the active involvement of all of our citizens," Padilla said in a statement. "Last November, more than 10 million Californians did not vote.

Movie directors can come across as all sorts of personalities - arrogant, collegial, mercurial, dictatorial. Filmmaker Henry-Alex Rubin arrived on the set of "Disconnect" , his first narrative feature, striking an unusual pose: clueless. "I have no idea how to direct a movie," said Rubin, 39, a prize-winning commercial director who made (with Dana Adam Shapiro) the Oscar-nominated 2005 documentary "Murderball," which chronicled the grueling sport of wheelchair rugby. "I know how to make commercials and direct documentaries.

Terrible things are documented in the newspaper every day. A child kidnapped and assaulted. A family drowned. A 9-year-old girl forced to hike through the desert for help after surviving a car crash that killed her father. We read those stories and we feel for the victims, but for the most part they're just names in another, unimaginable universe we're just glad isn't our own. And then one day, you recognize a name. Alex Renteria. That was the man who was driving with his daughter near Acton last week when their car veered off the road and rolled several times before landing at the bottom of a canyon.

Sinister, sexual, overwrought and fraught with symbolism, the California Youth Theatre's teen musical "Girf" is still a bit of a kick, a febrile fantasy set to music, definitely not for the very young. "Girf" was developed by teen-agers and young adults in a 1986 Youth Theatre workshop to address issues pertinent to that age group--peer pressure, drug abuse, suicide and family stress.

With its stock characters and low-expectation high jinks, the German import "What a Man" could have been fabricated on the Hollywood rom-com assembly line. The directing debut of screen star Matthias Schweighöfer, who also co-scripted and plays the lead, fits all too neatly into a familiar mold: In romantic crisis, a milquetoast does a bunch of stupid things on the way to finding true love and locating his spine. The formulaic aspect wouldn't be a problem, though, if the material (co-written by Doron Wisotzky)

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez will make more money this season than the entire Houston Astros roster combined, and he'll probably miss at least half of the regular season while recovering from hip surgery, according to the Associated Press. Rodriguez is under contract to receive $29 million. The Astros budget is about $25 million. The highest-paid player on the Astros, first baseman Carlos Pena, is slated to earn $7.25 million this season. "When we get on the baseball field with whomever the opponent is, they are not sitting there saying: 'Well, their players make more money than us so therefore you're deemed a winner and we're deemed a loser,'" Astros manager Bo Porter said.

Alex Smith is now a physical away from becoming the starting quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, with the San Francisco 49ers officially announcing the trade of their former No. 1 overall pick on Tuesday. Just seeing his name in same sentence as the phrase "starting quarterback" -- and with the word "former" nowhere to be seen -- must come as a relief to Smith, who lost the 49ers' top spot to Colin Kaepernick more than midway through last season despite leading the team to the NFC championship the previous year and to a 6-2-1 record before getting hurt in 2012.