Odds

The Department of Homeland Security began releasing immigrants from detention centers across the country this week, in anticipation of looming budget cuts. Contrary to what some Republicans in Congress have said, those released are not criminals but rather low-risk detainees, such as asylum-seekers, foreign nationals who overstayed visas and undocumented immigrants arrested for minor offenses who were granted bail but were unable to post the money. In other words, immigrants who pose no risk to public safety but are still facing deportation trials.

Don't look for "The Sweeney" to win any awards. It's not going to, not even close. But that doesn't stop it from being a briskly involving British crime entertainment of the old school. You've seen the type, and more than once, but the genre still has enough juice to take us for a ride. A tale of crafty criminals battling it out against tough cops, "The Sweeney" benefits greatly from Ray Winstone 's performance as Jack Regan, one of London's most cantankerous law enforcement professionals.

Are you feeling certain, like most, that Daniel Day-Lewis is going to win the lead actor Oscar on Sunday for his title turn in "Lincoln"? If you want to put some money behind that belief, you can, but, given his sure-shot status, you'd better be prepared to wager a bundle to make a pittance. Many Las Vegas sports books post odds on the Oscar races, from best picture to animated short. It's all in good fun as U.S. casinos prohibit wagering on entertainment events that have known outcomes, even if it's by only a handful of accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The Lakers are a sizable longshot to win the 2013 NBA Championship, at least according to the oddsmakers at Bovada . Currently in 10th place in the Western Conference at 25-29, the Lakers are 25-1 odds to win the title, according to Bovada.  The sports betting firm has the Lakers ninth overall. The Miami Heat are the favorites, with odds of 3-2. The Clippers are fourth with 15-2 odds to win it all. The Oklahoma City Thunder are 3-2 favorites to emerge out of the Western Conference and 13-4 odds to finish on top overall.

Alec Baldwin and his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, have a paparazzi problem again, one that on Monday had him running to the store - literally - and her pulling out of teaching yoga classes for a week. Baldwin on Sunday reportedly had an incident with a New York Post reporter and photographer that ended with the actor and photographer both going to the police to file harassment claims against each other. Baldwin's publicist Matthew Hiltzik said in a statement to CNN and other outlets Monday that the photog's claims of racist and otherwise disparaging comments, detailed in a Post story , were "absolutely false," specifically noting that the claim of racist remarks was "one of the most outrageous things I've heard in my life.'" The Post had initially approached Baldwin to ask about a lawsuit filed against Hilaria by a former participant in one of her yoga classes.

We compete for prizes ... for promotions ... for parking spaces. We compete to see who's fastest ... who's strongest ... who can eat the most hot dogs in 10 minutes. "Competition makes the world go 'round," write Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in their book, "Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing," to be published Tuesday. Still, many of us are ambivalent about it. We may praise the competitiveness of some (say, certain popular athletes), disparage the competitiveness of others (say, certain obnoxious colleagues)

Emanuel Pleitez is loping down a South Los Angeles side street of bungalows, propelling his 6-foot, 3-inch frame toward a registered voter his campaign advance team has discovered is home. Aides, including one carrying a camera to document his long shot run for mayor, try to keep up. Once he finds the voter waiting in the front yard, he greets him exuberantly in Spanish, answers some questions, hands him a flier and moves on. Pleitez is a 30-year-old former tech executive in a hurry, who seems to believe no vote-harvesting opportunity can be passed by. He chats up Latina mothers selling snacks outside an elementary campus.

Llyn Foulkes is a crank. That's a good thing, because we need cranks. I might not want to sit next to one on the subway or listen to one give a floor-speech in Congress. But popular culture and institutional art have a way of smoothing out or even debasing life's often painful rawness. Works of art offer contemplative distance, which can make zealous eccentricity especially riveting. Take "The Corporate Kiss" (2001), a bracing bit of strangeness that is on view in the sprawling, 50-year retrospective exhibition of Foulkes' art newly opened at the UCLA Hammer Museum.

In "Girls Against Boys" two young women go on a killing spree, seeking revenge against the men who have wronged one of them. After Shae (Danielle Panabaker) is in quick succession dumped by her married lover and sexually assaulted by a young man she meets at a bar, she is drawn by her fellow nightclub bartender Lu (Nicole LaLiberte) into a psychotic spiral. Lu coughs up a series of conflicting motivations of her own, until she finally admits she's doing it simply "because I can. " PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments Written and directed by Austin Chick, "Girls Against Boys" is some odd male fantasy of what female revenge might be like, sexy and enigmatically charged rather than haunting or scary or even just weird.

The record voting turnout for this year's Oscar nominees, as reported by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is guaranteed to spill over into at least one category when final ballots go out next month. As of this year, academy members will now receive screeners of the five movies nominated for documentary, meaning they will no longer have to schlep to special theatrical screenings. Might this help the popular "Searching for Sugar Man" take the Oscar in a race typically dominated by issue-oriented movies?