Shirley Maclaine

Ten years ago, she and her mother were having dinner at home in Malibu when dessert turned into an audition. "I told her, 'Life is so mysterious,' " said Sachi Parker, daughter of Shirley MacLaine. "And she said, 'Oh, sweetheart, just say that one more time with feeling and cut the fruitcake.' And I did, and she says, 'I knew it. I knew it. You can act.' " So Parker, after years as a stewardess and waitress, took up the family profession.

"Bernie," a quirky tragi-comedy starring Jack Black as a meticulous mortician, a faithful Methodist, a good neighbor and an improbable murderer, is a true-life Texas tale so perfectly told it seems more like eavesdropping than moviegoing. This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993's "Dazed and Confused," that makes the movie something of a milestone. Always an articulate voice for closely observed stories of ordinary lives and random encounters, the filmmaker has truly come home in"Bernie.

"Bernie," a quirky tragi-comedy starring Jack Black as a meticulous mortician, a faithful Methodist, a good neighbor and an improbable murderer, is a true-life Texas tale so perfectly told it seems more like eavesdropping than moviegoing. This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993's "Dazed and Confused," that makes the movie something of a milestone. Always an articulate voice for closely observed stories of ordinary lives and random encounters, the filmmaker has truly come home in"Bernie.

For nearly a decade, Sandra Acosta and Noe Ramirez made a monthly pilgrimage to the Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Melrose Avenue in search of life wisdom. Enveloped in the aroma of incense and the gentle strains of meditative music, the Long Beach couple would explore books on martial arts, women's spirituality, Native American philosophy, Zen Buddhism and whatever else piqued their curiosity. But their visit Friday would be their last. The bookstore will close its doors at 5:30 p.m. Saturday after four decades of serving as a world-renowned spiritual mecca for seekers of all persuasions — including Gov. Jerry Brown, Beatle Ringo Starr and actress Shirley MacLaine, whose memoir chronicled how her metaphysical journey began at the Bodhi Tree in 1983.

Richard Linklater is trying hard to be Zen about his most recent experience in the unforgiving world of independent film. The director of "Slacker" and "Before Sunrise" — now 50 and long removed from the time, in the mid-1990s, when he was hailed as the filmmaking voice of a generation — has just completed his 16th picture. A low-budget dark comedy called "Bernie" starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine, the movie was a steep climb even by his standards of scrappy filmmaking.

"Postcards From the Edge"!? We should be so lucky. You can write something on a postcard. This is more like fortune cookies; pithy, expert zingers from the mother-daughter battlefield, Hollywood division: a star of '50s musicals (Shirley MacLaine) and her movie actress-daughter (Meryl Streep) struggling back from a drug habit that lifelong insecurity has built. As Carrie Fisher has adapted her successful, somewhat autobiographical 1987 novel about the physical and psychological rehabilitation of a spirited, wisecracking, just-turning-30 actress, she has taken one of the book's more minor preoccupations, the mother-daughter stuff, and made it the movie's whole shooting match.

Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo are discussing ways of coping with the loss of a loved one -- the four-legged kind. Elizondo still gets choked up when he talks about his late cats, especially Ninja, a pure black Burmese he and his wife once owned. "There was a long period of tangible loss," he tells MacLaine. "I wouldn't for days vacuum her fur. . . . I couldn't let her go that way." The Oscar-winning MacLaine ("Terms of Endearment") is besotted with Terry, her rat terrier who was the subject of her book "Out on a Leash" and is featured prominently on her website.

Jack Nicholson calls her the Question Machine. Shirley MacLaine calls herself that too. Pondering, probing, darting from town to town, stage to sound stage, she seems in perpetual motion.

How nice it must be to afford the time to spiritualize while having all the material comforts of life. Shirley MacLaine would see things a little differently if her stomach was empty. What more can I say when she says, "We are not physical beings, we are not mental beings"? If she believes that strongly in reincarnation, then she should stop eating and start living off her soul. Benny Wasserman La Palma

EVENTS Huck Finn's Jubilee The folksy Father's Day weekend event provides an escape into a timeless summer, when families pack the camper with kids, banjos and fishing poles. Entertainment includes Mark Twain Live, a Route 66 car show and the California State Arm Wrestling Championships. Mojave Narrows Regional Park, 18000 Yates Road, Victorville. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Fri.-Sat., 7 a.m.-8 p.m. Sun. Daily admission: Adults, $20; children, $5. Weekend festival pass (includes camping)

MOVIES More than 200 features, documentaries, shorts and music videos will screen during Film Independent's 17th annual Los Angeles Film Festival. The 10-day event opens with the world premiere of Richard Linklater's "Bernie," starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughey. L.A. Live. 800 W. Olympic Blvd. (screenings at various venues, check website for full schedule). Tickets $5-13; passes $100-$3,000. Thurs.-June 26. (866) 345-6337. http://www.lafilmfest.com.

Richard Linklater is trying hard to be Zen about his most recent experience in the unforgiving world of independent film. The director of "Slacker" and "Before Sunrise" — now 50 and long removed from the time, in the mid-1990s, when he was hailed as the filmmaking voice of a generation — has just completed his 16th picture. A low-budget dark comedy called "Bernie" starring Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine, the movie was a steep climb even by his standards of scrappy filmmaking.

Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo are discussing ways of coping with the loss of a loved one -- the four-legged kind. Elizondo still gets choked up when he talks about his late cats, especially Ninja, a pure black Burmese he and his wife once owned. "There was a long period of tangible loss," he tells MacLaine. "I wouldn't for days vacuum her fur. . . . I couldn't let her go that way." The Oscar-winning MacLaine ("Terms of Endearment") is besotted with Terry, her rat terrier who was the subject of her book "Out on a Leash" and is featured prominently on her website.

For 40 years, the Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Melrose Avenue has served as the metaphysical mecca of Los Angeles. Inside, seekers of varied spiritual persuasions gather for exploration, contemplation and personal transformation amid soothing music, the aroma of pungent incense and the tinkling of wind chimes under the benevolent gaze of dozens of sages whose pictures hang on the wall as blessings. The store's 35,000 books traverse a dizzying array of disciplines, from Christianity and Buddhism to energy healing and nutrition.

Something almost magical happens whenever actress Penélope Cruz and filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar work together, and so it is with "Broken Embraces," a deliciously twisted tale of love, death and a badly edited film. The writer-director is up to his old tricks, creating an onion of an experience -- a movie within a movie within a movie, irony in each layer, poignancy that stings and whimsy that bites. Cruz has turned in a performance that is just as complex -- a character within a character and so on, all residing within the mysterious and beautiful Lena.

Between the sophisticated dance numbers, Hugh Jackman's neatly handled persona and the unconventional trophy handoffs, there was plenty going on out on the stage. But behind the curtain, there was a whole other performance going on. Here are a few of the memorable moments from behind stage right. Best of friends: Robert De Niro's eyes looked wet with emotion as he embraced Sean Penn after the "Milk" star's win. Penn was trembling, and when he was asked to speak to a backstage camera crew, he declined with a weak but genuine smile.

There may come a time when "Lifetime movie" as a shorthand for sentimental, feisty-gal-sobfest is stricken from the lexicon. But that day is not today. Instead, today we consider "Coco Chanel," an original movie event premiering tonight that has such high production value and so little artistic value that a viewer may find herself at times whimpering in disbelief. Three seemingly endless hours long, "Coco Chanel" still manages to omit the most celebrated decades (and a scandalous affair with a German officer during World War II)