Directors

Despite appearances to the contrary, John Krasinski, the rangy costar of NBC's "The Office," does not fit into the category of actors who really want to direct. Even if the movie passion project he wrote and directed, "Brief Interviews With Hideous Men," is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival tonight. "I never wanted to be a writer, never wanted to direct anything," Krasinski, 29, said in West Hollywood last week. "People talk about being a triple threat.

It was a challenge that Barbra Streisand wasn't sure she could handle. Though she made her directorial debut with 1983's "Yentl" -- the musical drama about a young Jewish woman who disguises herself as a man -- she was initially wary of taking on filmmaker duties for the cinematic adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer's short story.

In Hollywood, lives are shortened all the time by envy and jealousy, but only screenwriters die of encouragement. People are happy to tell writers how much they adore their scripts, but actually getting them made is a whole other story. You can win an Oscar and still put in years of struggle trying to get your next project going. But here's one exception: Robert Mark Kamen.

A federal judge Wednesday abruptly fired the man he had appointed to fix the multimillion-dollar problems of medical care in the state's prisons, after determining the effort was moving too slowly and in too confrontational a manner. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson revoked the power he had given Robert Sillen and handed it to J. Clark Kelso, a lawyer with experience turning around government institutions in crisis.

An audit released Thursday found no indication that Los Angeles airports director Gina Marie Lindsey improperly influenced the awarding of two major contracts related to the modernization of LAX. The Los Angeles city controller's office concluded that airport staff followed correct procedures during the selection of DMJM Aviation Inc. of Florida and Denver-based Fentress Architects. The findings were similar to those of the City Council, which reviewed the contracts earlier this month.

I haven't seen all the films in the American Cinematheque's "Focus on Female Directors: Five to Watch" program of documentary, dramatic and animated shorts screening tonight at 7:30 at the Aero Theatre on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, but if the ones I haven't seen are as good as the two I have, this should be a heck of an evening. Photographer Lauren Greenfield's "Kids & Money" is a piercing examination of the relationship between the two in the wealthier parts of L.A.

There are those who will see "Revolutionary Road," the long-awaited reteaming of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, as some deeply troubling coda to their famed cine-love in the top-grossing movie of all time, "Titanic." In that film, the duo played two dreamers whose lives are dashed by a gargantuan iceberg. In "Revolutionary Road," they repeat as dreamers, of the 1950s variety, only this time their future is sabotaged by conformity, fear and the acrid taste of self-loathing.

Much has already been made of "The Wrestler" as a comeback vehicle for its star, actor Mickey Rourke. But for director Darren Aronofsky, the film also represents a form of creative rebirth. Having first come to the attention of audiences with his visually audacious films -- 1998's "Pi" and 2000's "Requiem for a Dream" -- Aronofsky seemed poised for a broader crossover with 2006's "The Fountain," an ambitious time-travel story about love and loss.

Corey Madden, producing director of Center Theatre Group's youth program and a former associate artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum, will leave the company in June, CTG announced Tuesday. During her 22-year tenure at CTG, Madden was involved with the Taper's mainstage productions and new play development programs. As head of the Performing for Los Angeles Youth (P.L.A.

AS an exercise in pre-Oscar schmoozing, the event was not so unusual: the heaping sushi platters, the sweaty crush of deal-makers and their glammed-up significant others, the occasional bona-fide celebrity pretending to be inconspicuous (Hello, Ian McShane). But as an exercise in inter-studio cooperation, the party this month at the Sofitel was no garden-variety fiesta.