fave

Holler praise for your fave player.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” has a double-digit lead over Chloé Zhao’s festival fave “Hamnet,” which is tightly bunched with Ryan Coogler’s very original blockbuster “Sinners” and Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite.”

Fave L.A. haunts: “I’m originally from Chicago and I first fell in love with Los Angeles through Francesca Lia Block novels, where everything is magic and draped in curtains of bougainvillea,” the author says.

Fave L.A. hangout spots: “I love the bookstores: Reparations Club, Chevalier’s, Skylight. And I also love Silver Lake Library. It closed in July for several months of renovations and won’t be open until 2026 and I am, no exaggeration, devastated,” she says.

Fave hangout spots: “I love anywhere that feels like I’m time traveling so a classic margarita at Casa Vega, the eggplant parmigiana at Dan Tana’s, a show in the close-up gallery of the Magic Castle or a martini at Musso & Frank’s always deliver,” says Berman, who also loves to browse the Rose Bowl Flea Market for midcentury treasures and vintage band T-shirts.