Eric

'Looking for Eric' MPAA rating: Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 57 minutes Playing: At Laemmle's Sunset 5, West Hollywood, and Monica 4-Plex, Santa Monica

Eric Schmidt, the billionaire executive chairman of Google, has bought the Veronique and Gregory Peck estate on L.A.'s Westside for $22 million. Set on 1.3 acres, the 1930s French chateau sits at the end of a long driveway and is surrounded by a flat lawn, mature trees and lush gardens. The neighbors include heiress Petra Ecclestone, White House interior designer Michael Smith and the Playboy Mansion. Designed for grand-scale entertaining, the 9,182 square feet of living space features the original marble-walled foyer, vaulted ceilings, formal dining and living rooms, an office, a bar, four fireplaces, seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

Game Over? Close, but not quite. Disgraced former icon Eric Gagne, who electrified Dodger Stadium during a three-year stretch in which he saved a record 84 consecutive games, has agreed to a minor league contract with the Dodgers that includes an invitation to major league camp, according to baseball sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal is not yet official. Gagne is expected to be part of the group of pitchers and catchers who will report to spring training in Phoenix on Saturday.

Screenwriter Eric Bercovici knew he was not the first choice to adapt "Shogun," the blockbuster 1975 novel by James Clavell about an English seaman marooned in 17th century Japan. Bercovici, who worked on the Paramount lot, read the novel anyway. "I knew right away how to adapt it," he said in a 1981 Los Angeles Times interview. "But damned if I would tell them. " Other writers fell by the wayside, and he was called to meet with Clavell, who had creative control over a proposed TV miniseries based on the book.

Despite being almost universally acknowledged as a master of film, the French director Eric Rohmer, who came to prominence as a member of the so-called New Wave of the late '50s and early '60s (although he was about 10 years older than many of its most famous members, Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut among them) arguably stands as one of the most misunderstood of great directors. Rohmer, who died Monday in Paris at age 89, came to international prominence with the films he made under the rubric "Six Moral Tales" between 1962 and 1972.

Eric Rohmer, a former film critic who became one of France's most respected filmmakers and was internationally known for movies such as "My Night at Maud's" and "Claire's Knee," died Monday in Paris. He was 89. Rohmer's death was announced by his producer, Margaret Menegoz. Relatives said he was hospitalized a week ago but offered no further explanation, according to Agence France-Presse. French President Nicolas Sarkozy called the writer-director a "great auteur who will continue to speak to us and inspire us for years to come."

The Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) should consider renaming itself "Money Thrown Away." ERIC W. ROSE Thousand Oaks

In this time of dizzying change, I take great comfort in the dependable--like erIc (sic) Dickerson. I know I can always depend on erIc to: --Put erIc's needs ahead of his team's. --Be a divisive influence in the clubhouse. --Fumble in a critical situation. --Watch the championship game from the comfort of his own home. JOHN GERMAN Los Angeles

Here's the major take-away from the raunchy new comedy "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" — it's not a good idea. Even with booze to blur the vision and the thinking, there are still some things best left undone where friends are concerned. Uh, right. In fact, and I'm pretty sure this has been documented by serious scientific research, for most folks, getting naked and having group sex with friends is close to the top of the better-not-go-there list. However, that scientifically salient fact does make this movie about regular folks contemplating some outside-the-box behavior more amusing than you might expect, but probably not by much.

Eric: We love you, but we would love you a lot more if you could only hang onto the football. FRANK B. DRAPER Belmont Shore

WASHINGTON - Eric H. Holder Jr. sounds like a man who suddenly found a second wind. During his first four years as America's top law enforcement officer, Holder's tenure at the Justice Department seemed so unfocused and controversy-prone that even Democrats began to question what the nation's first African American attorney general had accomplished, and whether he had the passion to stick it out. But since President Obama's reelection, the...

SOCHI, Russia - Germany has won eight medals at these Games but six of them have been gold, the most of any country. One of those on Wednesday was in the obscure sport of nordic combined, a mix of ski jumping and cross-country skiing. This time the jumping competition was off the normal hill and the cross-country covered 10 kilometers. Eric Frenzel, the easy World Cup leader, won the competition by four seconds over Akito Watabe of Japan. Magnus Krog of Norway overcame a bad performance on the hill to win the bronze.

SACRAMENTO - Citing skyrocketing thefts of smartphones and tablets, officials proposed Thursday that California become the first state to require the devices to be sold with "kill switches" that render them inoperable when stolen. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and other lawmakers said they plan to introduce such legislation with the support of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck. L.A. had a 12% increase in mobile-device thefts in 2012, the most recent figures available.

Despite persistent polarization in Washington, a bipartisan consensus is emerging around the proposition that too many Americans are incarcerated for too long. Democrats tend to emphasize the injustice of excessive sentences that disproportionately affect racial minorities. Republicans are more likely to stress the cost of over-incarceration. But the common ground is real and significant. Last week, by a vote of 13 to 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Smarter Sentencing Act, sponsored by Sens.

New York and Los Angeles have a lot in common. Each city suffers from income polarization, a shrinking middle class and a vast low-wage service sector. Each is heavily Democratic and is home to an effective labor-liberal political alliance. Each elected a progressive Democrat as its mayor. So why are the agendas of the two cities' mayors shaping up so differently? Part of the reason is the elections that brought them to power. The issues that loomed largest in the two cities' mayoral contests could scarcely have been more different.

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department said Wednesday that it has launched a criminal investigation into the recent cybertheft of more than 110 million Target customers' data, including the credit card numbers of 40 million Americans. "We are committed to working to find not only the perpetrators of these sorts of data breaches, but also any individuals and groups who exploit that data via credit card fraud," Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Michelle is certain that Eric, her husband of 10 years, is going to leave her. "He says he loves me," the 35-year-old civil engineer says, "but I know he doesn't mean it. And it's all because I'm too fat." Michelle never dreamed that anyone would fall in love with an ugly, overweight girl like her. "My mother convinced me of that. And she would hit me or scream at me whenever I didn't do something right."

Karin Sanchez speaks of the addiction of her son "Eric" (she requests that his given name not be used) with a restrained, powerful somberness deepened by the death of her husband from a heart attack two weeks earlier. The couple had been married 34 years, and if there was one thing they wanted, it was to provide a warm, stable home for their two sons and one daughter--something neither had had themselves. Born into a poor family in Germany, Karin Sanchez was 4 when her parents divorced.

The passing of a Hollywood executive is often greeted with pleasant industry remembrances and kind emails. But the death of Tom Sherak at the age of 68 set off a round of intensely warm reactions not just from fellow Hollywood players but also from personalities as wide-ranging as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti. Their depth of feeling and the breadth of people expressing them underscore a legacy that goes well beyond movies. Sherak, who died Tuesday at his home in Calabasas after a fierce battle with prostate cancer, served as a long-running executive at 20th Century Fox and then Revolution Studios, as an advisor to Marvel Studios and as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Los Angeles city Fire Commission on Tuesday named a lawyer from the office of Mayor Eric Garcetti as the Fire Department's new internal watchdog. The independent assessor position was created by voters in 2009 to audit the handling of misconduct complaints against LAFD employees. It was prompted by a wave of discrimination and harassment allegations that cost taxpayers nearly $20 million in legal payouts over several years. In a unanimous vote after emerging from a closed-door session, the commission appointed Sue Stengel.