Sage Vaughn's new exhibition "Natives Sons" opens tonight at the Bertrand Gruner & Partner Gallery downtown. The show will feature new paintings with images of nature intersecting with urban landscapes. Sage Vaughn loves Halloween. Each year he heads out to find images that inspire his work. Several paintings feature haunting images of children in costumes. He is also currently collaborating with his wife Sweet P (Project Runway) on Ghost in the Garden which will open......

Do you remember a lot of car commercials at the last Academy Awards? There's always lots of car commercials, right? But they've been GM commercials for the last 11 years but now Hyundai is taking them over for 2009 (and perhaps beyond). That's $13+ million in ads for the night and supposedly Hyundai has eyes for Super Bowl slots as well. 8:00pm America's Next Top Model The CW - Tyra surprises the models with a......

"Maude" in tights? According to The Hollywood Reporter, our good friend Norman Lear, creator of the aforementioned "Maude" (which is a damn good show, please bring it back TVLand!), "All in the Family", "The Jeffersons" and "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," has teamed up with HBO for a series set in the world of 1970s pro wrestling. The show will be a drama (what a shame) entitled "Everybody Hurts" (funny!). Whatever the format, Lear is the......

ABC won the viewership battle of opening night of the season, although the "beginning" of the season gets more ambiguous every year. What put them over the top was "Dancing With the Stars" which featured a pretty awesome Cloris Leachman who can kick some ass at 82. Evidently she wants to "blow" Bob Saget according to the Comedy Central roast of him a few weeks ago so perhaps she's staying spry in hopes of that.......

So yesterday we mentioned that Amazon-owned IMDB is getting video clips and today Amazon tells us that they're launching a video-on-demand service providing access to over 500 TV shows and associated cast interviews and other content. This is an ad-free offering so one won't have to deal with the ad interruptions that one gets on NBC.com and other such sites. Some featured TV shows will have episodes available PRE air-date so Amazon users will be......

Photo of Santino Rice and Jeffrey Sebelia via Santino's MySpace page It's time for a Bravo design show mash-up. Tonight on Top Design the interior decorators get a visit from some of our favorite LA Project Runway designers. The episode challenges them to work with the fashion designers to create a store window. Watch tonight to see if the contestants can successfully create the right look for Santino Rice, Sweet P, Jeffrey Sebelia, Andrae......

Les Moonves says that Katie Couric is not going anywhere. He intends to keep her in the anchor chair despite the Nielsen ratings and any other calls of common sense because he "is proud of her." Lots of premieres tonight but the show to watch is Letterman who will have Barack Obama as a guest. 9:00pm Til Death FOX - Season Premiere 9:00pm Project Runway Bravo - The designers team up to create a garment......

You just can't keep an undead cable network down: TechCrunch has reported that The WB has been resurrected as TheWB.com, which launched today. The site will act as a source for all the TV shows that originated on The WB and has a number of interesting features. While one might argue with TechCrunch's assertion that TheWB.com is now a competitor to Hulu.com, they really do have a pretty awesome search engine that will hunt down......

NPR's Monday Morning Edition broadcast had quite a profile on Bonnie Hammer, head of the USA network. Listen to it and it'll become pretty obvious how they come up with such predictable milquetoast programming - that's the secret to their success, American's just eat that crap up. Sick of the Olympics yet or just the parts that NBC limits you to watching? Evidently for most Americans, not yet: 83% of US households have watched......

According to The Hollywood Reporter, ABC is going to be releasing some pilots very soon, well not too soon as I don't imagine that they will attempt to compete with the Olympics and NBC. The only things that jumped out at me was the name of Portia de Rossi who will be in another sitcom, an untitled Victor Fresco ("My Name Is Earl", "Andy Richter", etc.) project, as well as a "large-cast Shakespearean drama" titled......

Shark Week continues and as LAist has already reported, "American Idol" man-bimbo Ryan Seacrest was bitten by a shark (non-fatally unfortunately). What other dubious celebrities could we send to appropriately infested waters? Word has it that since NBC's summer offerings have not done so well, NBC co-chairman of Entertainment (sounds like a position on a Caribbean cruise ship), Ben Silverman, might be out of a job this fall. Evidently the summer lineup, heavy with cheap......

After receiving an Emmy nomination for its first Star Wars episode (which was released to DVD yesterday), Seth Green's "Robot Chicken" is going full steam ahead on "Star Wars Episode II" - while I don't know if they can top their first time out, the players lined up to do voices this time include: Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Seth MacFarlane, Conan O'Brien, and Andy Richter. Oops, I somehow missed last night's Season Two premiere......

Chikezie Eze was voted off "American Idol" last night, "taking with him 50 percent of this year's Idolette Top-10 personality pool," Lisa de Morales sniped in her Washington Post TV column. For the second week in a row, Chikezie chose to sing a ballad -- “If Only For One Night” by Luther Vandross -- after judges warned him last week that song choice is of the upmost importance at this stage in the contest. Last......

Young fans watch the Project Runway finale with Season 3 winner Jeffery Sebelia Anyone following the phenomenon that is Project Runway now knows that Christian Siriano won Season 4. The judges loved his dramatic collection, feathers and all. Though my favorite Rami Kashou did not win, he will always be a style icon in LA and around the world. Last night as fans of the show gather around TV’s throughout the country to see......

[The Junkie's been sick for a few days but we're back] LAist has some great coverage of the Project Runway finale tonight on BRAVO @ 10:00pm so I'm not even going to touch that. If you can't stand the fashion tension, you can always switch over to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors Meeting broadcast on KLCS and your tension will be released utterly. If you follow the link you can see, there's plenty......

Tonight the Project Runway finale will tell us who will take the top spot on Season 4. Christian Siriano, Jillian Lewis, Rami Kashou survived weeks of grueling design challenges. Christian describes his collection as dark, romantic and gothic. Jillian Lewis’ found inspiration in 15th century armor. LAist wants to know if Rami Kashou’s modern take on Joan of Arc’s fighting gear will earn him the win. While we wait for tonight’s episode, let’s take......

On Monday the NY Times reported that ABC and Cox Communications are collaborating on a video-on-demand service with disabled fast-forward, meaning, yeah, that you can't skip the commercials. This isn't that new an idea as Time Warner Cable has been doing the equivalent with two features called "Start Over" and "Look Back" (after using them IMHO they stink). This is another example of old media protectionist attitudes that think the strategy is to avoid being......

Idol-heads and Runway-heads have a lot to celebrate tonight and I'll be damned, look at how busy the schedule is in the 10:00-11:00pm time frame. Since I don't think any of the options are fantastic is it better to have a little or a lot of mediocrity to choose from? In other news, yeah the writer's strike is over, and SNL is finally heading back into production with it's first show scheduled for Feb.......

The WGA is engaging in talks but that doesn't mean that the Oscars still aren't in danger. For an idea of what the economic impact of a canceled Oscars will be check out the diagram to the right from the 01/28/2008 issue of Business Week. Obviously the entire dollar amount is not exclusive to Los Angeles but a significant portion of it is localized ($26.5 million on limos, security, and gifts??). After reading some comments......

OK so now Oprah wants her own network and she's going to get it. Remember that she is one of the four founders of the Oxygen Network, you know, that paragon of programming that now includes: The Bad Girls Club, Snapped, and the Oxygen Original movie Husband for Hire. Now she's distancing herself from that loathsome swamp of bad TV because of her new altruistic endeavor, the modestly named OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network) which......

Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks. Have you ever wondered why the very people that have tons of cash to drop at swanky stores can be such fashion trainwrecks? Often celebrities have the nerve to flaunt both their big paychecks and free designer clothes. Lucky for us, it's always fun to watch. That's where you'll find Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan of the super-popular Go Fug Yourself. Every day they skewer the super famous and......

Hey check it, yours truly was invited to contribute some commentary to this ABCNEWS.com article (I'm on page 2). Thanks for your support! So the Golden Globes got canceled and now maybe the Academy Awards will get canceled and this is conflicting me. On the one hand I will have a whole bunch more free time (hours upon hours) to watch my Tivo'd episodes of Grape Ape but I will have so much less lousy......

So tonight it's Leno vs. Letterman, Conan vs. Ferguson - potentially unfair matches since Letterman and Ferguson have reached an agreement with the writers' union and NBC hasn't. This will mean a further addition to my sleep deficit as I will be sitting up and flipping between these networks until 1:30am [no, I don't have some swank double-satellite-dish-to-Tivo setup like some of you, if you're interested in helping out, I can give you an address......

I'm hoping you got a bunch of DVDs to tide you over during this dead week as well as until the writer's strike ends. It looks like TCM is running an "aviation in movies" marathon tonight and IFC's featuring Harvey Keitel. For further marathon action, check out BRAVO which is showing all of Project Runway's fourth season (starts at 6:00pm). 4:15pm Five Easy Pieces IFC - (1970) If you've got the day off like me,......

I have said it before and I'll say it again, the best designers on Project Runway this season are from Los Angeles. In my holiday wish, I see Rami Kashou, Sweet P, and Kit Pistol in the final three and visions of their collections on the runway in the finale. Christina Scarbo A.K.A. Kit Pistol created her alias during her time studying and working in Italy. You can find her designs at Jack Henry Couture......

Relatively speechless tonight because there's so little on TV and yesterday was pretty lame as well. The final schmaltzy segment of Tin Man aired to much disappointment, and Nip/Tuck started out great but fizzled about halfway through the episode. Tonight though, Tyler Perry actually returns to the show he created and that's a big deal so check TBS at 9:00pm. [Please note how I'm specifically not mentioning the Julia Roberts special on AMC as she......

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sweet P has designed club wear, sleepwear, and retro inspired pieces. She sites John Galliano, Marni, Chloe, Phillip Lim, and Balenciaga as favorite designers. Combined with her childhood love of Sonny and Cher and passion for surfing and motorcycles, she represents the fun side of Southern California culture. Her first Sweet P collection will be available in February 2008. On Project Runway week one, Sweet P wowed the......

FASHION: Inside Project Runway hits Beverly Hills tonight. Get a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the production, the catfights and, oh yeah, the fashion. Heidi Klum will be there, and organizers promise a few surprise guests. (The main auditorium is sold out, but a few tickets remain for the overflow theatre.) 7 pm // The Paley Center for Media // 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills // $7 for closed-circuit viewing room. OPERA:The LA Opera brings......

LAist watched the Season 4 premiere of Project Runway with Santino Rice and chatted with Rami Kashou about dressing celebrities. Next Tuesday Heidi Klum will bring the glow of the beautiful Project Runway world to The Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills. Will the uber German supermodel say her famous catch phrase 'in fashion one day you are in and the next day you are out'? Will she wear a dress designed by......

In Los Angeles, LAist most definitely celebrated Thanksgiving like no other. After all, one has to keep up all the energy to keep on walking the line at the Writers Strike and fighting the unfortunate return of the wildfires in Malibu, which single handedly destroyed over fifty homes within the first 24 hours. National outlets may be covering the fires, but CNN also found it is easier to buy a gun than fruit and......