Takers

'Takers' MPAA rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, a sexual situation/partial nudity and some language Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes Playing: In general release

The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas would appear to have lived up to its reputation for the second time in as many months: On Saturday, a woman collapsed at the restaurant known for gleefully serving up artery-clogging entrees. Owner Jon Basso said Monday that he wishes the customer a swift and full recovery. But, he added, the woman got exactly what she asked for: a brush with death. "We attract an avant-garde clientele -- thrill seekers, risk takers," he told the Los Angeles Times, adding that his restaurant is a "bad for you but fun" restaurant that "attracts people who don't really take good care of their health.

"Takers," the new heist movie starring blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and T.I. (who's scary bad and just plain scary), would be a good snooze if it weren't for all the noisy gunfire and explosions and the violins — which always signal a "special" shootout that will unfold in that ballet-of-death style that's supposed to be arty but just feels tedious here. Did I mention the dialogue? Well, really the armored car driver put it best when he said, "We're in trouble here…" No joke.

Brusque with a 2-day-old stubble and a cigarette dangling from his lip, Zhao Xin is the last guy you'd want waiting on you at the Apple store Genius Bar. But if you need to get your hands on a genuine iPhone immediately, Zhao is your man. Skimpy supplies of the Apple Inc. smartphone gave rise to scalpers like Zhao who prowl the perimeter of the company's flagship store here touting their wares to anyone within earshot. By hoarding and smuggling in the devices, they satisfied an unmet demand and charged a premium.

Time waits for no man. And Hollywood's patience is even shorter. Studios will hurry movies into production to make a release date. Producers will recast lead roles in a heartbeat if an actor is unavailable for a moment. And don't even think about putting a talent agent on hold — they won't be on the line five seconds later. So when filmmaker John Luessenhop told Screen Gems five years ago that his 4-year-old son was gravely ill and that he needed to drop everything to care for him, Luessenhop could reasonably assume that the studio would find a new director for "Takers.

Two new genre pictures open this weekend with solid box office prospects, but they face the return to theaters of one of the most popular movies of all time. Hollywood executives who are usually confident predicting how movies will perform on opening weekend admit they're at something of a loss in projecting how "Avatar: Special Edition" will do this weekend against horror flick "The Last Exorcism" and heist film "Takers. " The re-release of "Avatar," which grossed $750 million in the U.S. and Canada during its initial run last winter, includes nine minutes of new footage and will play only on screens that can show it in digital 3-D, including Imax.

For a mere $3,950, L. B. Smith will sell you a bare-bones bunker to protect against nuclear holocaust. He's had no takers, and one critic warns the shelter might "fold up like a banana" if bombs start falling. Smith, 35, argues his little ball-shaped chamber is "plenty strong. . . . It's not the best design, obviously, but it is economical and it'll work." "A nuclear war is probably going to start at 3 a.m. when everybody's asleep," Smith said recently.

This might sound a little silly. But I always sort of liked it that the ushers and ticket takers at Dodger Stadium looked as if, at any moment, they might pull out a harmonica and play, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." This is probably too sentimental. But I always thought it was neat that the ushers and tickets takers at Dodger Stadium looked as if they could have been dropped from a box of Cracker Jack. The boater straw hats. The starched white shirts. The crisp blue blazers.

When box office returns started coming in Friday afternoon, the heist film "Takers" looked like the clear winner. But as the sun faded on the West Coast, the horror movie "The Last Exorcism" leaped into the lead, ultimately grossing $9.5 million for the day, compared with $7.5 million for "Takers. " The reason? "Takers," with stars including Chris Brown, T.I. and Zoe Saldana, generated disproportionately high interest among African Americans and had strong performances in East Coast cities such as Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., with large black populations.

Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the club of leading male political figures who are known to have cheated on their spouses. Other members have included presidents (John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example), members or former members of Congress (among them, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich and John Ensign), and governors (including Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford). So why do we keep electing such people? And why, in many cases, do we continue to see the philanderers as heroes?

The style stakes are heating up this red carpet season, and at the SAG Awards on Sunday night, it was the risks that paid off. The sea of sameness we saw at the Golden Globes gave way to major individualized fashion statements. Emma Stone's dress -- by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen -- was a total knockout because of its "exploding lace" bustier, as the fashion house describes it; and the fresh, mid-calf length, all the better to showcase a killer pair of peep-toe shoes.

In a standoff with federal forest officials, Caltrans is proposing to abandon a popular, cliff-hanging highway in the San Gabriel Mountains because it is too expensive to maintain. The proposal to walk away from California Highway 39, enjoyed by an estimated 3 million people a year, comes as the state struggles to close a $9.2-billion budget shortfall. To avoid closure, the California Department of Transportation is trying to persuade the U.S. Forest Service or Los Angeles County to take over the roadway, which runs 27 miles from the city of Azusa nearly to the crest of the San Gabriels.

Roger Corman has seen a lot of things in Hollywood. He's produced and directed horror movies and biker flicks, distributed foreign films by Fellini and Truffaut and nurtured the early directing careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Jonathan Demme, among others. But until now, he had never seen Jack Nicholson cry. That came with his first viewing of "Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel," a new documentary looking at the astonishing career of the veteran independent filmmaker known as "the king of the Bs. " Late in the film, Nicholson pauses during an interview with real tears of affection and gratitude for Corman, among the very first to see something special in the young actor, who would go on to win three Academy Awards.

In an audacious move that could shake up the way Hollywood does business, Universal Pictures plans to make its upcoming Eddie Murphy action-comedy film available through video on demand only three weeks after it premieres in theaters. Even more brazen, though, is the price to watch "Tower Heist" at home in two test markets: $59.99, a cost many consumers will surely balk at in the current economic slump. Universal's plan for the picture, which launches Nov. 4, will mark the first time a major studio movie will be available to watch in homes while it is still playing in thousands of theaters.

It's not often that people plead with a president to raise their taxes. But at a town hall event in Silicon Valley, President Obama found an audience in sync with his argument that the wealthy should pay higher taxes so there is enough money to nurture a struggling economy without slashing other programs. Looking out at the crowd Monday, Obama called on a retired Google employee, Doug Edwards, who said, "My question is, would you please raise my taxes?" The audience applauded.

It was a new, foodie-type twist to the old inner-city gun buyback program. Hunger Action L.A., an advocacy group that helps to feed the poor and promotes healthful eating, called on Koreatown residents to surrender their high-calorie soft drinks on Saturday and get a bag of fresh fruits and vegetables in return. The "soda exchange," which was held as part of an annual food fair at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, wasn't exactly a raging success, however. Only two residents from the area around Normandie Avenue and Olympic Boulevard took their sodas to the fair.

The June air in the Northern Neck of Virginia was humid and electric, almost delirious. Big blue dragonflies bobbed over the tall grass, and cicadas sputtered in the forest. A thundercloud was waking up in the distance, and a restless breeze set the entire landscape in motion. I had first come here in March investigating the origins of my family name. The place then had no color, no life. My mood was equally bleak as I pored over court archives and had terse meetings with Mozingos who didn't know or care about the name.

"Would you mind taking your shoes off before you come inside?" a willowy brunette asked T.I. at the door of Brett Ratner's mansion. "Yeah, no problem, no problem," said the rapper-turned-actor as he bent down to pull off his immaculately white sneakers. It was only 1 o'clock in the afternoon last Friday, and T.I. — born Clifford Harris — was full-on doing the Hollywood rounds. That morning, he'd met with Academy-Award winning producer Brian Grazer. Now, the 29-year-old and his entourage (manager, publicist, security guard, driver, reporter)

Last week, Arnold Schwarzenegger joined the club of leading male political figures who are known to have cheated on their spouses. Other members have included presidents (John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Franklin D. Roosevelt, for example), members or former members of Congress (among them, John Edwards, Newt Gingrich and John Ensign), and governors (including Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford). So why do we keep electing such people? And why, in many cases, do we continue to see the philanderers as heroes?

Chinese adolescence is known as a time of scant whimsy: Students rise at dawn, disappear into school until dinnertime and toil into the late night over homework in preparation for university entrance exams that can make or break their future. So it came as little surprise when international education assessors announced last month that students in Shanghai had outperformed the rest of the industrialized world in standardized exams in math, reading and science. But even as some parents in the West wrung their hands, fretting over an education gap, Chinese commentators reacted to the results with a bout of soul-searching and even an undertone of embarrassment rarely seen in a country that generally delights in its victories on the international stage.