The beginning of last Saturday’s chamber jazz concert by Dave Holland and Jim Hall, titans of the bass and guitar, respectively, started out bumpy, and the opening number, the Benny Goodman blues riff “Six Flats Unfurnished,” seemed like it might be a sadly accurate description of their playing.
Okay, so it’s not exactly a national holiday, but in my book, it’s a day of celebration anyway: February 27, Spay Day U.S.A. Bring on the noisemakers and champagne.
Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, and Zooey Deschanel star a film written by Jeff Stockwell and David Paterson and directed by Gabor Csupo.
Consider the high-concept studio pitch: A child escapes from traumatizing experiences into a rich fantasy world of monsters. The child then defeats the monsters, simultaneously clearing up pesky problems back home.
Dolly Parton’s show at the Chumash Casino was the most paradoxical performance I have ever seen. That said, her show was fantastic, a joyous piece of entertainment at once stagy and soulful, scripted and spontaneous.
For many brides and grooms, the first wedding dance is a terrifying prospect: They’ve just survived the most nerve-wracking-if most joyous-experience of their lives, gulped down a glass or two of champagne, and endured the blinding pop of the photographer’s flash, and now they have to get up in front of big brothers, work colleagues, and old friends, and : dance?
Tim Fite’s Over the Counter Culture: Brooklyn’s resident sample-master/folky-rapper delivers this send-up of the entire blinged-out hip-hop industry with this satirical yet needed and timely album.
Reproductions of Julia Pinkham’s “Dragon Breath” have been floating around town on postcards, advertising her show, Sense and Energy, now at Artamo through March 11. Even in such a small format, the work inspires disbelief.
Anyone who’s ever had to drop a few hundred bucks on a sea foam-colored tulle and taffeta monstrosity in the name of friendship-aka the test of friendship that is being a bridesmaid-will think she’s entered an alternate universe once inside Santa Barbara Bridal (15 W. Figueroa St., 730-7300).
From Veterans Day to Valentine’s, Oscar prognostication is a bustling cottage industry indulging our primal need to gush, fawn, snipe, snub, and ultimately choke on droves of Oscar-related drool and drivel in a season longer than the NBA and loftier than a Kobe buzzer-beater.
Despite its moments of philosophical depth and outre humor, Theatre UCSB’s new production of MUD was difficult to approach. Maria Irene Fornes has won multiple awards for her writing, and her craft is evident in this piece-every word is chosen with care and precision.
