Charismatic

The first thing you notice are the alert, green eyes. Then the perfectly cleft chin, the almost cruelly sensual mouth, the hair that falls artfully back into place no matter how many times he musses it up for a photographer. "Last one!" the cameraman promises Édgar Ramírez, who's been patiently posing on a Mid-Wilshire office balcony for 20 minutes. Is this the face of a revolutionary, a terrorist, a wanton assassin, a brutal soldier of fortune? The face that launched 1,000 ammunition rounds in movies such as Tony Scott's "Domino," Paul Greengrass' "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Che," by Steven Soderbergh?

"Soch Lo" (Think About It) marks a promising if uneven debut from actor-writer-director Sartaj Singh Pannu. As a filmmaker, he whips up moments of raw emotional impact and makes expressive use of stark desert vistas and verdant unspoiled countryside, but he can't always restrain his narrative from veering into sheer improbability. Pannu stars as Baba, a man who's been left for dead in the desert but is rescued by a group of passersby. Although he's suffering from amnesia, he recalls being savagely attacked on the beach while on his honeymoon with his exquisite, shy well-born bride Riva (Iris Maity)

"Unnatural History" is the first scripted all-live-action series from Cartoon Network, which, like many other cable networks no longer quite lives up to its name. The channel has already tested these waters with cartoon-related live-action specials (a "Scooby-Doo" movie, a couple of "Ben 10" films) and the cartoon-human sitcom "Out of Jimmy's Head," and last year floated a slate of original and imported kid-themed reality shows. But this is them putting their whole leg in and shaking it all about.

The houselights stayed dim at the start of Monday night's concert at Davies Symphony Hall for longer than usual, as if to milk the moment for all it was worth. Only a few extra seconds elapsed before Gustavo Dudamel strode on stage to join the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But the sense of anticipation in the concert hall seemed to make those ticking seconds feel like an eternity. Just as he has bewitched Los Angeles audiences since becoming music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic last fall, so the charismatic 28-year-old conductor has quickly brought Bay Area audiences under his spell.

Perhaps it's fitting that music critics often characterized the fervid baritone of soul music icon Teddy Pendergrass, who died from colon cancer on Wednesday at 59, as having the metaphoric power of an earthquake -- rumbling, potent, vital. Two days ago, a catastrophic earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti, leaving in its wake incomprehensible tragedy mingled with everyday stories of heroic acts of courage. Pendergrass, whose mainstream commercial career declined in the aftermath of a 1982 spinal cord injury resulting from an automobile accident, spent the last two decades living out his own version of resilience in the face of tragedy.

Cris Arreola's a big underdog now, just like Cassius Clay was to Sonny Liston all those years ago. No one is yet forecasting unbeaten Arreola (27-0, 24 knockouts) as the next Muhammad Ali, but in a heavyweight division and sport looking for greater public interest, the 28-year-old from Riverside is trying to become the first heavyweight champion of Mexican ancestry. "The only guy the general population usually knows in boxing is the heavyweight champion, or a celebrity fighter like Oscar De La Hoya or Sugar Ray Leonard," said HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant.

Corazon C. Aquino, the unassuming housewife who toppled a dictator and restored democracy to the Philippines as its 11th president, has died. She was 76. Sen. Benigno Aquino III said his mother died of heart failure at 3:18 a.m. Saturday, Manila time (12:18 p.m. Friday, PDT). The elegant democracy icon, who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2008, was admitted to a hospital intensive care unit in late June after she stopped eating.

He came with goodwill and pretty sentences, but the question kept echoing: Were they enough? President Obama's much-anticipated speech Thursday to the Muslim world sought to dissolve the mistrust between Islam and the West by highlighting his personal appeal as he called for an end to intolerance and violence and a move toward a shared future. It was a carefully textured blend of history, the president's experience with Islam and the need to quell religious extremism.

Smokin' Joe is on the phone and upside my head, joking, singing and jawing once again about the fight of the decade, of the century, some would say of all time: the so-called "Thrilla in Manila." Justifiable or not, hyperbole was the order of the day on Oct.

Despising America has long been a Middle East pastime, but then the country that brought war to Iraq and orange-suited prisoners to Guantanamo Bay elected a Facebook-friendly president who speaks in poems. What's a mullah to do? With the speed of a Twitter missive, the cultural game has shifted. Barack Obama's rise to the White House comes when the Arabs are intensely suspicious of U.S. intentions, and when Islam, through satellite TV and the Internet, is inundated with Western culture.