Beverly Hills Hotel

Mark Whitacre is, according to one biographer, the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower ever. The former Archer Daniels Midland divisional president helped expose his company's involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy that, as actor Matt Damon puts it, "robbed everyone in America and around the world, jacking up the price of everything in their kitchen cupboard." So when Damon and director Steven Soderbergh finally got to make "The Informant!" -- based on Kurt Eichenwald's chronicle of the case -- they naturally went for, well, laughs.

Before the Persian Gulf War exploded in the early 1990s, Cherien Dabis and her family were popular, well-respected members of their adopted Ohio town. Her father, a physician, and mother were Palestinian immigrants from the West Bank and Jordan who'd moved to the United States shortly before Dabis' birth. Dabis says she grew up wanting "so badly" to be an all-American girl. But when the war began, her family went from being treated as friends and neighbors to being turned into pariahs and outcasts.

To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, who had an office in Century City, here we go again. In March, this column waved goodbye to the Robinsons-May in Beverly Hills. Up for the count this month is another monument in our dwindling legacy of under-appreciated midcentury modern. It is the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza hotel at 2025 Avenue of the Stars. Long before Southern California was a land of houses, it was an eden of hotels. The Raymond, the Green, the Mission Inn, the Beverly Hills Hotel and the Ambassador were designed as homes away from home.

A giant silver teapot covered in glittering silver Bisazza tile sets the whimsical tone for the Bazaar at the new SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. Oh, my. What to make of this extravagantly weird and wonderful playroom that seems to take up the entire ground floor of the hotel?

In "PINEAPPLE EXPRESS," he plays a visibly unwashed hippie pot dealer on the run from mobsters: a THC-addled naif with a crinkly smile, a curtain of lank, dark hair and a heart of gold. But don't get the wrong impression about James Franco just because of his spot-on performance in the most anticipated stoner action-comedy of the year. He's no dope, even though he smokes plenty on-screen. To wit: Dude can almost carbon-date his experiences making certain movies by recalling what literature he was reading at the time.

BEST ACTRESS nominee 1. Sienna Miller had date Rhys Ifans -- and his coat -- to keep her warm at Film Independent's Spirit Awards Feb. 23, while winner 2. Ellen Page, with "Juno" costar J.K. Simmons, came prepared in her own suit jacket. But less-dressed attendees, including presenter Kate Beckinsale, shivered at the Santa Monica beachside ceremony, where umbrella-wielding escorts magically appeared to transport indie filmmakers from the blue carpet to a huge white tent as rain started to fall.

If there is one thing actor Frankie Muniz likes as much as driving a professional race car, it's dealing in real estate. At 22, he already has bought and sold several houses. When he was 19, he wound up with two houses in the same Westside neighborhood because he couldn't wait to sell one home before buying another with a fingerprint-recognition front door -- a feature that sounds like something straight out of his "Agent Cody Banks" spy films.

IT'S billed as the "After Shopping Paradise," a "self-indulgence" that combines foot reflexology and "a truly spectacular pedicure to revive your feet and your spirits." What is it really? A $200 pedicure. It takes place at La Prairie Spa at the Beverly Hills Hotel. You slip into a terry robe and slippers and sip a cup of Introspection tea, then an attendant leads you into a candle-lighted massage room. Once you've disrobed (for a foot treatment?