Lola

'Lola Versus' MPAA rating: R for language, sexuality and drug use Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes Playing: In select theaters

The Self-Realization Fellowship , a Los Angeles-based organization that follows a spiritual path rooted in both Hinduism and Christianity, has elected a new leader, the fourth since it was established in 1920. The fellowship announced Tuesday that Sri Mrinalini Mata, who became a Self-Realization nun at the age of 15, was elected president last week by its eight-member board of directors. She succeeds Sri Daya Mata, the group's longtime leader, who died in November. The selection of Mrinalini Mata, 79, means that the fellowship will continue to be led by a woman, and by a direct disciple of its founder, Paramahansa Yogananda, an Indian yogi who is credited with helping to popularize yoga and meditation in the West.

With craft cocktail bars sprouting like fungi in a locally sourced mushroom martini made with artisanal bitters, sometimes you find yourself longing for a simpler cocktail. Perhaps, like Carrie Bradshaw in "Sex and the City," you crave a rosy-red cosmopolitan. Or maybe you pine for a white sugar-rimmed lemon drop, like the kind you quaffed in college before passing out in the bushes by the campus bar. When did cocktails become so serious, you find yourself wondering as you watch Tom Cruise juggle bottles of booze in the 1988 film "Cocktail.

No self-respecting swank hipster hangout can go without a signature martini. Of the 52 martinis poured at Lola's in West Hollywood, here's its most popular: No. 48, the Adam's Apple. * Equal parts Kettle One vodka and "apple pucker," or apple liqueur. * Topped with slice of Granny Smith apple from Worldwide Produce. * Fluorescent green color. * Martini glass from Libby Glass in Toledo, Ohio. * Glass is 7 inches tall; mouth is 8 inches wide. * Debuted July, 1997. * Named for a Lola's bartender.

Jacques Demy's 1961 "Lola," running today through Wednesday at Laemmle's Monica Showcase, was the 30-year-old director's first film--and in some ways, he never let go of this movie or its characters. Anouk Aimee's adorable dancer Lola returns in the 1969 "Model Shop" and her rejected young lover, Roland (Marc Michel), pops up in the 1964 "Umbrellas of Cherbourg."

Max Ophuls' 1955 "Lola Montes" was a box office flop, butchered by its producers, then restored as much as possible by producer Pierre Braunberger in 1968. And, now, 40 years later, his daughter Laurence has overseen a superb state-of-the-art restoration. Ophuls' last film and first in color is the most baroque of his sumptuous period pictures -- and to many critics, his greatest.

Lola Dell Elkins, a longtime Glendale resident who served as a volunteer worker in Assemblyman Pat Nolan's (R-Glendale) campaign office until she was 99, has died at a Tujunga convalescent hospital. She was 102. Mrs. Elkins died Saturday of heart failure, said her granddaughter, Christy Alferi of Tujunga. Born Lola Dell Hibben in Sheridan, Ill., her family moved to Glendale in 1907 when she was a teen-ager.

Ruling out foul play, federal investigators were looking at a fractured rail as the possible cause of the Connecticut train crash that left dozens of commuters injured and is expected to disrupt travel in and out of New York City for weeks to come. Earl Weener, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in a media briefing that investigators had discovered that a section of the eastbound track was fractured at the rail joint. A portion of that track will be sent to a lab for analysis, Weener said.

"Run Lola Run" is the message, but flame-haired Lola hardly needs the encouragement. Tireless, unstoppable, fueled by the energy of desperation, Lola flies through the streets of Berlin, dodging cars, parting columns of nuns, always moving, moving, moving. Not only does Lola run, she takes this hyperkinetic pop culture firecracker of a film with her.

Singer Barry Manilow is searching for the perfect Lola and Tony. He is looking for a cast for "Barry Manilow Presents Copacabana," an original stage production derived from his 1978 hit song, "Copacabana." It's a story of two young singers falling in love as they try to make it big, and the evil Rico who comes between them. Manilow held open auditions in New York today and Monday. He plans to move his hunt to the West Coast later in the week.