There are worse things they could do

“Grease: You’re the One That I Want” Sunday 8pm, NBC The producers of “Dancing With the Stars” and the folks behind this summer’s Broadway Grease revival unite for this talent competition, in which America chooses the new Sandy and Danny from a legion of musical theater nerds. I’m a little wary. The hosts are “Access […]

Let’s get digital

He is equally at home quoting Judas Priest and Andres Segovia. As for the name, which people confuse with the folk singer from Iowa, he says, “Well, it is my damn name too.” Greg Brown grew up in New Jersey, and moved to south Florida as a kid.

1st Friday – January 5

Abundant Life Gallery “Random Musings,” prints by Diana Bendixen, 6-9pm. Art Upstairs Recent additions to the “Historic Downtown Mall” series of paintings by Lois Kannensohn, 6-9pm. BozArt Gallery “Au fil de mon Pinceau,” recent oil and pastel paintings of pears by Anne de Latour Hopper, 6-9pm. Cafe Cubano Work by Jenny Johnson, 6-9pm. Fellini’s #9 “Oil […]

The long and winding road

First Night Virginia celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and along with great regular acts like Abbey Road, Jay and Morwenna and Uncle Henry’s Favorites, this will be the first year that First Night sponsors a parade through Downtown. Craig Green’s Common Ground Chorus is modeled on Ubuntu: a belief that singing in harmony celebrates […]

Capsule reviews of films playing in town

Apocalypto (R, 138 minutes) For the follow-up to his worldwide smash, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson has chosen this dark adventure drama set in the fading days of the Mayan empire. The story centers around Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young man chosen for human sacrifice who flees the kingdom to avoid his […]

All I want

The presents are all wrapped and under the tree. You still have time to go out and hear some music. At the Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar, Sarah White

‘Twas the week before Christmas

“Home for the Holidays” Friday 8pm, CBS Even in death Dave Thomas is making the world a better place. I’m not talking about Wendy’s’ Jalapeno Cheddar Double Melt or the Vanilla Frosty (although, now that I think about it, those count too). This special is sponsored by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which Thomas—an […]

Capsule reviews of films playing in town

Apocalypto (R, 138 minutes) For the follow-up to his worldwide smash, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson has chosen this dark adventure drama set in the fading days of the Mayan empire. The story centers around Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood), a young man chosen for human sacrifice who flees the kingdom to avoid his […]

Station to station

If you’re a gamer—or, more pointedly, one the friends and family members who’ll be buying gifts for one in the next three weeks—you might be pardoned for feeling like one of the hapless burglars in Home Alone whose face just met the business end of MacCaulay Culkin’s swinging paint can trap.

Box your ears

It used to be that when Christmas holidays approached, many in the music industry celebrated the success of the CD box set. It was the gift that said both, “I tried to be more thoughtful than a gift certificate,” and “I knew you would never spend 60 bucks on yourself, so Merry Christmas.” In the […]