Anyone who has visited one of Madame Tussauds’ museums would know just how amazingly lifelike the exhibits are. And for those who just can’t get enough of their Hollywood stars, Madame Tussauds has something especially for them – the newest museum in its already vast line up.

This time, the museum is dedicated to the stars – the human kind, not the twinkly kind you see up in the night sky. The newest addition to Madame Tussauds’ museum is located right next to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, near the Kodak Theatre. If you follow the Walk of Fame, you will go by the new museum, which opened on the 1st of this month.

There are 115 celebrities immortalized in wax, and guess what? This is no stuffy museum where visitors have to stay behind the red ropes! Those who go inside Madame Tussauds can literally rub shoulders with the wax figures.

To add to the whole experience, the stars do not come as stand alone figures. Some of them actually have props, which they are most known for. Tom Hanks, for example, sits on a bench as Forrest Gump did. You can even put on some the available habits around Whoopi Goldberg’s figure to join her in Sister Act. Needless to say, the possibilities for fun are endless in this museum.

Tickets are sold online and at the door. Online, you can buy Priority Access or Flexi Tickets, both for a 10 percent discount. What are you waiting for? It’s the perfect trip to end the summer.

Hollywood relies mainly on one thing for revenue: making movies. While there are many other streams of revenue in this town, movies are what really rake the dough in. That is why when something threatens movies and the revenue they are bringing in, Hollywood execs are quick to go up in arms.

The latest threat comes in a unique shape – that of a big red box. Dubbed Redbox, this “threat” is a self-serve DVD rental kiosk which is placed in strategic locations all over Hollywood. The price of a rental is a mere $1, making it such a convenience for anyone who wants to watch a movie. Being self-serve, the Redbox kiosks are open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There is no danger of having the movie rental store close on you or anything like that.

While people might be happy about this development, Hollywood execs are not. In fact, they are taking rather drastic measures in order to stop this threat from becoming a full blown problem. The management of 20th Century Fox, for example, has already issued a directive that their wholesalers are not allowed to sell DVDs to Redbox until a month (30 days) after the initial release. Obviously, this step is meant to help increase the DVD sales before Redbox can release their own for rental.

I know that the movie companies are out there to make money but in these hard times, average people like me really really appreciate services like Redbox. Heck, that’s better than downloading movies illegally, right?