Entertainment
'Goonies' unite: Ke Huy Quan's childhood co-stars turn out for his Hollywood handprint fest
For some fans of “The Goonies,” star Ke Huy Quan’s hand and footprint ceremony at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Monday was a “Data” remember.
The Oscar winner — who starred as gadget whiz Richard “Data” Wang in “The Goonies” — on Monday placed his prints in the renowned cement slabs, joining the ranks of Hollywood names memorialized at the landmark “The Forecourt of the Stars.” For Quan, the ceremony fulfilled a “crazy dream.”
“Dreams are weird, aren’t they? They have a way of planting themselves quietly and surviving on hope, even when reality tries to uproot them,” he said. “And then one day they bloom in ways we never expected.”
The ceremony for the “Love Hurts” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” actor was a trip down memory lane that featured appearances by several special guests — including those from Quan’s early acting years. “Goonies” stars Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Kerri Green, Corey Feldman and screenwriter Chris Columbus turned out in Hollywood to help celebrate Quan’s milestone, which coincides with the 40th anniversary of their 1985 adventure classic.
“You’re here and you’re doing something that I thought stopped in the ‘40s,” Brolin joked to Quan during his speech on Monday, according to footage shared by Maximo TV.
Brolin continued:”Obviously they brought it back for somebody super special, and that’s you. I hold you in a very dear place in my heart.”
In his speech, “Dune” star Brolin shared a letter from “Goonies” co-writer and directing legend Steven Spielberg, who he said couldn’t make the ceremony because he was on vacation. “‘Ke, as always, I’m proud of you for your meteoric rise as a child and then your second meteoric rise as a grown-up,’” Brolin read.
The letter continued: “Ke, you will always have my love, you will always have my respect and you will always be part of my movie family and my personal family in real life.”
In “The Goonies,” one of his earliest acting credits, a 13-year-old Quan portrayed the crafty Data who helps his friends locate a hidden pirate treasure and save their neighborhood from foreclosure. Quan, before his Hollywood comeback in recent years, was also known for his work as Short Round in Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and various roles in “Encino Man,” TV series “Head of the Class” and “Nothing Is Easy,” among other credits.
He faced several dry periods during his career and returned to the big screen after nearly 20 years with “Finding ‘Ohana” and directors Daniels’ — Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheiner — “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” For Quan, the latter proved life-changing.
In 2023, Quan won his first career Oscar and several acting opportunities followed. He starred in Disney+’s “American Born Chinese” and Marvel series “Loki,” and is the leading man in this month’s action comedy “Love Hurts.”
During his speech, Quan recalled striving for his own Hollywood imprints after seeing Spielberg and George Lucas get theirs in 1984. Finally reveling in his own Chinese Theatre celebration, Quan said Monday was a “surreal full-circle moment.”
“Thank you so much for bringing me back,” he told filmmaker duo Daniels. Quan, who held back tears during his speech, also thanked his family who has “shown me what it means to never give up.”
“This moment isn’t just about leaving my markings in that,” he said, “it’s about honoring the people who have always believed in me when I couldn’t always believe in myself.”
“Love Hurts,” which also stars Oscar winner Ariana DeBose, Daniel Wu, Sean Astin (also Quan’s “Goonies co-star) and Marshawn Lynch, premiered at the Chinese Theatre on Monday evening. The film from director Jonathan Eusebio hits theaters Friday.
Entertainment
House committee report questions distribution of FireAid’s $100 million for L.A. wildfire relief
The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday released a report after its own investigation into FireAid, the charity founded by Clippers executives that raised $100 million for wildfire relief efforts in Los Angeles last January.
The investigation — led by Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) under committee chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — began in August when Kiley “sent a letter to FireAid requesting a detailed breakdown of all non-profits that received money from FireAid.” Kiley expressed concern that the money had gone toward local nonprofits rather than as more direct aid to affected residents.
FireAid promptly released a comprehensive document detailing its fundraising and grant dispersals. After reaching out to every named nonprofit in the document, The Times reported that the groups who successfully applied for grants were quickly given money to spend in their areas of expertise, as outlined in FireAid’s public mission statements. A review conducted by an outside law firm confirmed the same.
The new Republican-led committee report is skeptical of the nonprofit work done under FireAid’s auspices — but cites relatively few examples of groups deviating from FireAid’s stated goals.
Representatives for FireAid did not immediately respond to request for comment on the report.
Out of hundreds of nonprofits given millions in FireAid funds, “In total, the Committee found six organizations that allocated FireAid grants towards labor, salaries, or other related costs,” the report said.
The committee singled out several local nonprofits, focused on relief and development for minorities and marginalized groups, for criticism. It named several long-established organizations like the NAACP Pasadena, My Tribe Rise, Black Music Action Coalition, CA Native Vote Project and Community Organized Relief Efforts (CORE), whose activities related to fire relief they found “unclear,” without providing specific claims of misusing FireAid funds.
The report — while heavily citing Fox News, Breitbart and New York Post stories — claims that “FireAid prioritized and awarded grants to illegal aliens.” Yet its lone example for this is a grant that went to CORE, citing its mission for aiding crisis response within “underserved communities,” one of which is “undocumented migrants” facing “high risk of housing instability, economic hardship, exploitation, and homelessness.”
The report said that $500,000 was used by the California Charter Schools Assn., Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, LA Disaster Relief Navigator, Community Clinic Assn. of Los Angeles County and LA Conservation Corps “towards labor, salaries, or other related costs,” which the committee said went against FireAid’s stated goals.
Yet the examples they cite as suspicious include NLSLA using its FireAid grant to pay salaries to attorneys providing free legal aid to fire victims, the Community Clinic of Los Angeles “expanding training in mental health and trauma care” through grants to smaller local health centers, and the L.A. Regional Food bank allocating its funds to “mobilize resources to fight hunger.”
The report singled out one group, Altadena Talks Foundation, from Team Rubicon relief worker Toni Raines. Altadena Talks Foundation received a $100,00 grant from FireAid, yet the report said Altadena Talks’ work on a local news podcast, among other efforts, “remains unclear” as it relates to fire relief.
The report’s claims that “instead of helping fire victims, donations made to FireAid helped to fund causes and projects completely unrelated to fire recovery, including voter participation for Native Americans, illegal aliens, podcast shows, and fungus planting” sound incendiary. Yet the evidence it cites generally shows a range of established local nonprofits addressing community-specific concerns in a fast-moving disaster, with some small amounts of money possibly going toward salaries or overhead, or groups whose missions the committee viewed skeptically.
FireAid still plans to distribute an additional round of $25 million in grants this year.
Movie Reviews
Movie Review: A Home Invasion turns into a “Relentless” Grudge Match
I’d call the title “Relentless” truth in advertising, althought “Pitiless,” “Endless” and “Senseless” work just as well.
This new thriller from the sarcastically surnamed writer-director Tom Botchii (real name Tom Botchii Skowronski of “Artik” fame) begins in uninteresting mystery, strains to become a revenge thriller “about something” and never gets out of its own way.
So bloody that everything else — logic, reason, rationale and “Who do we root for?” quandary is throughly botched — its 93 minutes pass by like bleeding out from screwdriver puncture wounds — excruciatingly.
But hey, they shot it in Lewiston, Idaho, so good on them for not filming overfilmed Greater LA, even if the locations are as generically North American as one could imagine.

Career bit player and Lewiston native Jeffrey Decker stars as a homeless man we meet in his car, bearded, shivering and listening over and over again to a voice mail from his significant other.
He has no enthusiasm for the sign-spinning work he does to feed himself and gas up his ’80s Chevy. But if woman, man or child among us ever relishes anything as much as this character loves his cigarettes — long, theatrical, stair-at-the-stars drags of ecstacy — we can count ourselves blessed.
There’s this Asian techie (Shuhei Kinoshita) pounding away at his laptop, doing something we assume is sketchy just by the “ACCESS DENIED” screens he keeps bumping into and the frantic calls he takes suggesting urgency of some sort or other.
That man-bunned stranger, seen in smoky silhoutte through the opaque window on his door, ringing the bell of his designer McMansion makes him wary. And not just because the guy’s smoking and seems to be making up his “How we can help cut your energy bill” pitch on the fly.
Next thing our techie knows, shotgun blasts are knocking out the lock (Not the, uh GLASS) and a crazed, dirty beardo homeless guy has stormed in, firing away at him as he flees and cries “STOP! Why are you doing this?”
Jun, as the credits name him, fights for his PC and his life. He wins one and loses the other. But tracking his laptop and homeless thug “Teddy” with his phone turns out to be a mistake.
He’s caught, beaten and bloodied some more. And that’s how Jun learns the beef this crazed, wronged man has with him — identity theft, financial fraud, etc.
Threats and torture over access to that laptop ensue, along with one man listing the wrongs he’s been done as he puts his hostage through all this.
Wait’ll you get a load of what the writer-director thinks is the card our hostage would play.
The dialogue isn’t much, and the logic — fleeing a fight you’ve just won with a killer rather than finishing him off or calling the cops, etc. — doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny.
The set-piece fights, which involve Kinoshita screaming and charging his tormentor and the tormentor played by Decker stalking him with wounded, bloody-minded resolve are visceral enough to come off. Decker and Kinoshita are better than the screenplay.
A throw-down at a gas-station climaxes with a brutal brawl on the hood of a bystander’s car going through an automatic car wash. Amusingly, the car-wash owners feel the need to do an Idaho do-si-do video (“Roggers (sic) Car Wash”) that plays in front of the car being washed and behind all the mayhem the antagonists and the bystander/car owner go through. Not bad.
The rest? Not good.
Perhaps the good folks at Rogers Motors and Car Wash read the script and opted to get their name misspelled. Smart move.

Rating: R, graphic violence, smoking, profanity
Cast: Jeffrey Decker, Shuhei Kinoshita
Credits:Scripted and directed by Tom Botchii.. A Saban Entertainment release.
Running time: 1:34
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Entertainment
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas breaks out in ‘Sentimental Value.’ But she isn’t interested in fame
One of the most moving scenes in Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” happens near the end. During an intense moment between sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), who have both had to reckon with the unexpected return of their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), Agnes suddenly tells Nora, “I love you.” In a family in which such direct, vulnerable declarations are rare, Agnes’ comment is both a shock and a catharsis.
The line wasn’t scripted or even discussed. Lilleaas was nervous about spontaneously saying it while filming. But it just came out.
“[In] Norwegian culture, we don’t talk so much about what we’re feeling,” explains Lilleaas, who lives in Oslo but is sitting in the Chateau Marmont lounge on a rainy afternoon in mid-November. If the script had contained that “I love you” line, she says, “It would’ve been like, ‘What? I would never say that. That’s too much.’ But because it came out of a genuine feeling in the moment — I don’t know how to describe it, but it was what I felt like I would want to say, and what I would want my own sister to know.”
Since its Cannes premiere, “Sentimental Value” has been lauded for such scenes, which underline the subtle force of this intelligent tearjerker about a frayed family trying to repair itself. And the film’s breakthrough performance belongs to the 36-year-old Lilleaas, who has worked steadily in Norway but not often garnered international attention.
Touted as a possible supporting actress Oscar nominee, Lilleaas in person is reserved but thoughtful, someone who prefers observing the people around her rather than being in the spotlight. Fitting, then, that in “Sentimental Value” she plays the quiet, levelheaded sister serving as the mediator between impulsive Nora and egotistical Gustav. Lilleaas has become quite adept at doing a lot while seemingly doing very little.
“In acting school, some of the best characters I did were mute,” she notes. “They couldn’t express language, but they were very expressive. It was freeing to not have a voice. Agnes, she’s present a lot of the time but doesn’t necessarily have that many lines. To me, that’s freedom — the [dialogue] very often comes in the way of that.”
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas in “Sentimental Value.”
(Kasper Tuxen)
Lilleaas hadn’t met Trier before her audition, but they instantly bonded over the challenges of raising young kids. And she sparked to the script’s examination of parents and children. Unlike restless Nora, Agnes is married with a son, able to view her deeply flawed dad from the vantage point of both a daughter and mother. Lilleaas shares her character’s sympathy for the inability of different generations to connect.
“A lot of parents and children’s relationships stop at a point,” she says. “It doesn’t evolve like a romantic relationship, [where] the mindset is to grow together. With families, it’s ‘You’re the child, I’m the parent.’ But you have to grow together and accept each other. And that’s difficult.”
Spend time with Lilleaas and you’ll notice she discusses acting in terms of human behavior rather than technique. In fact, she initially studied psychology. “I’ve always been interested in the [experience] of being alive,” she says. “Tremendous grief is very painful, but you can only experience that if you have great love. I’ve tried the more psychological approach of studying people, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Acting is the perfect medium for me to explore life.”
Other out-of-towners might be disappointed to arrive in sunny Southern California only to be greeted by storm clouds, but Lilleaas is sanguine about the situation. “I could have been at the beach, but it’s fine,” she says, amused, looking out the nearby windows. “I can go to the movies — it’s perfect movie weather.”
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. (Evelyn Freja / For The Times)
Her measured response to both her Hollywood ascension and a rainy forecast speak to her generally unfussed demeanor. During our conversation, Lilleaas’ candor and lack of vanity are striking. How often does a rising star talk about being happy when a filmmaker gives her fewer lines? Or fantasize about a life after acting?
“Some days I’ll be like, ‘I want to give it up. I want to have a small farm,’” she admits. “We lived on a farm and had horses and chickens when I grew up. I miss that. But at the same time, I need to be in an urban environment.”
She gives the matter more thought, sussing out her conflicted feelings. “Maybe as I grow older and have children, I feel this need to go back to something that’s familiar and safe,” she suggests. “I think that’s why I’m searching for small farms [online] — that’s, like, a dream thing. I need some dreams that they’re not reality — it’s a way to escape.”
Lilleaas may have decided against becoming a psychologist, but she’s always interrogating her motivations. This desire for a farm is her latest self-exploration, clarifying for her that she loves her profession but not the superficial trappings that accompany it.
“Ten years ago, this would maybe have been a dream, what’s happening now,” she says, gesturing at her swanky surroundings. “But you realize what you want to focus on and give value. I don’t necessarily want to give this that much value. I appreciate it and everything, but I don’t want to put my heart in it, because I know that it goes up and down and it’s not constant. I put my heart in this movie. Everything that comes after that? My heart can’t be in that.”
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