Vision

Often film sequels are slam dunks at the box office, a seamless continuation from where a previous hit left off. But as the new installment of the 15-year-old franchise "Men in Black" proves, getting to the big screen isn't always a cakewalk. One of the most troubled productions in recent Hollywood memory, Sony Pictures' latest movie in the Will Smith-Tommy Lee Jones sci-fi-comedy franchise encountered multiple script rewrites, a discontented star and a three-month production shutdown as writers and studio executives scrambled to fix a project that nearly fell apart . By the time it was over, the studio had run up a tab of nearly $250 million - making "Men in Black 3" one of the most expensive releases of the summer.

Culture Monster will occasionally visit museum exhibits dealing with history, anthropology, science or sociology. The show : "Visions of Empire: The Quest for a Railroad Across America, 1840-1880" at theHuntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens. The goods : The Huntington archives supply 98% of the exhibits, from the resolutions of eight Eastern states to build it, to a railway worker's letter home to his mother and the ledgers workers signed (one with Chinese characters)

'Vision' No MPAA rating: In German with English subtitles Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes Playing: Laemmle's Royal Theatre, West Los Angeles; Laemmle's Playhouse 7, Pasadena; and Laemmle's Town Center 5, Encino

While the legislature in Minnesota continued to work on a solution to keep the Vikings, AEG on Tuesday unveiled its latest vision for an NFL stadium in downtown Los Angeles. Two weeks remain in the public-comment period of AEG's environmental impact report on the concept, and the company hopes to have its approvals in place by late summer, with the goal of luring a football team back to L.A. next spring. AEG's is one of two competing stadium proposals, with the other in City of Industry.

Children who play more outdoors are smarter, leaner and stronger than kids more inclined toward indoor activities, and a new study finds they have another advantage: They're less likely to suffer from nearsightedness, in which objects in the distance appear blurry. The study , presented Monday at the American Academy of Ophthamology's  yearly meeting, culled the findings of eight studies that explored the relationship between outdoor time and myopia in more than 10,000 children.

'Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus' No MPAA rating Running time: 1 hour, 19 minutes Playing: At Laemmle's NoHo7, North Hollywood

The burly construction workers ignore the lanky man as he dips beneath steel beams, plods through muddy puddles and inches his way past the spinning barrel of a cement mixer. In his neat jeans, button-down shirt and leather brogues, he clearly is not one of them. But then, who is he? Michael Arad has taken on a lot of roles since 2004, when he beat out 5,200 others vying to design the memorial to victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the site of the fallen World Trade Center.

Getting enough vitamin D may help prevent women from losing their vision in old age. That's the quick and easy conclusion from a new study, just perhaps not one that will require you to change your diet. In a study of 1,313 women ages 50 to 79, researchers from the University of Buffalo in New York found that women with adequate levels of vitamin D were at 48% decreased odds for developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) compared with women with insufficient levels of the vitamin.

On a cul-de-sac overlooking the second hole of La Costa's North Course, a late-1970s International-style home has been extensively remodeled with an eye for detail and a seven-figure outlay. From the outside, the flat roof, cubic shapes, pure white exterior and series of tinted black-framed clerestory windows give the home a suspended-in-time appearance. Donald Cromley designed the home for Bernard and Freeda Green in 1978. Their daughter, Susan, was a student of Cromley's at the time and is also listed as an architect on the Carlsbad house.

LORAIN, Ohio - Eager to show conservative Republicans that he's ready to take the fight to President Obama, Mitt Romney campaigned Thursday at a dusty drywall factory shuttered when George W. Bush was president - making the case that Obama's economic policies have failed to revive the nation's economy. It was the second day of the Romney campaign's effort to "bracket" Obama with "pre-buttal" and rebuttal remarks in the early days of their general election battle. On Wednesday, Romney delivered a speech overlooking the stadium in North Carolina where Obama will deliver his Democratic convention address in August.

Before touring live versions of RadioLab, his gripping radio shows of scientific discovery and biography concocted with co-host Jad Abumrad, Peabody-winning reporter Robert Krulwich made just one brief stage appearance, decades ago, when he was recruited off the Manhattan streets to play a frozen, chair-bound Prince in an 11 1/2 -hour Robert Wilson opera. (He quickly fell to the floor and slept through the production.) Abumrad, a 2011 MacArthur Grant-winning producer-composer, describes a more active fetal crouch when he "hid in his Minneapolis dressing room" last year during the duo's first theatrical outing, a low-key mini-tour called "Symmetries" featuring PowerPoint slides, a live cellist and the bulk of the show issuing forth from Abumrad's computer (except for the time it sat uncharged and dead in Seattle when they walked onstage)

Five of six candidates running for Los Angeles County district attorney squared off Wednesday at a forum hosted by The Times, with several outlining visions for the office that go beyond imprisoning hardened criminals to include reform of the justice system. The candidates' forum - the first attended by City Atty. Carmen Trutanich, who leads the pack in fundraising - saw barbs traded over government transparency, prosecutor morale and whether California should end capital punishment.

Have you started your International Jazz Day shopping yet? A global collaboration among the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Herbie Hancock and the Thelonious Monk Institute, the first International Jazz Day is scheduled for Monday. Envisioned as a day of education and performance, the celebration actually begins Friday with a concert in Paris that features jazz luminaries such as Hancock, Hugh Masekela and Terri Lyne Carrington. The day itself aims to deliver 24 hours of jazz around the world, including in Los Angeles with a jazz session at Herb Alpert's club Vibrato in Bel-Air on Monday night featuring a variety of local artists, including Anthony Wilson, Bob Sheppard and Peter Erskine.

James Lee Byars' work always has an air of elegant mystery about it. The artist, who died in 1997, was influenced by Zen spiritual practices from Japan, where he spent some time in the early ' 60s. He was also something of a provocateur, alternately dramatic and self-effacing in his irreverent performances and installations. The three works on view at Overduin and Kite are an intriguing sampling of his wide-ranging oeuvre. The show opens with a surreal suite of stone "books" -- blocks of white marble carved into geometric shapes -- encased in vitrines.

LORAIN, Ohio - Eager to show conservative Republicans that he's ready to take the fight to President Obama, Mitt Romney campaigned Thursday at a dusty drywall factory shuttered when George W. Bush was president - making the case that Obama's economic policies have failed to revive the nation's economy. It was the second day of the Romney campaign's effort to "bracket" Obama with "pre-buttal" and rebuttal remarks in the early days of their general election battle. On Wednesday, Romney delivered a speech overlooking the stadium in North Carolina where Obama will deliver his Democratic convention address in August.

The Catalina Island Conservancy has accomplished the rare feat of encouraging tourism and, at the same time, preserving wildlands on the most visited of the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of Southern California. The conservancy, endowed 40 years ago, handles a million visitors a year while protecting animals and plants and bringing back from the brink of extinction a unique island fox. Now it is considering ambitious proposals that would enhance the tourist experience, partly to generate increased revenue for preservation but, more important, to pique people's interest in becoming ongoing members of the conservancy.

Margarethe von Trotta, who helped lead the New German Cinema movement and has been considered one of the world's premiere feminist filmmakers ever since directing (with then-husband Volker Schlöndorff) 1975's "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum," sheds light ? literally and figuratively ? on another exceptional woman, 12th century Benedictine nun Hildegard von Bingen, in the superbly rendered and deeply absorbing religious drama "Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen. " Reuniting once again with luminous German actress Barbara Sukowa (seen in the director's "Rosa Luxemburg" and "Rosenstrasse," among others)

I spend my time reading one of my 30 (at last count) cookbooks. As I read, I can visualize making and eating all the savory, mouthwatering dishes. This satisfies my gourmet appetite without worrying about weight gain and having to deal with preparation, cleanup and cost. It also provides me with a dream that I will some day try out a recipe and actually cook something. --ELSIE ANZALONE, Lakewood

Renae Williams Niles is a name that stirs little recognition, but she is the most powerful person in dance in Los Angeles. It is her job, as director of programming, to select the companies and repertory for each season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center. But that description sells short her impact and influences in this city's dance life. Niles is highly regarded for her business acumen and knowledge of the art. Her unpretentiousness and sunny disposition have also won her fans.

EVENTS Inspired by the pollution-fighting Ciclovías of Bogota, Colombia, from some 30 years ago, L.A.'s fourth annual CicLAvia creates a new vision of our city, one where bicycles fill major thoroughfares in and around downtown instead of cars. This year is the biggest event yet, with 10 miles of streets closed to only bike and pedestrian traffic. It's difficult to decide which is the best part, the exercise from spending a day cycling without fear of traffic, the sense of community from seeing how different a city looks when viewed up close or some intoxicating combination of both that makes this vision seem like it could be more than just an annual reality.