Movie and Entertainment News

ARIES (March 20-April 18): Mercury in Cancer for the next two weeks gives you a crash course in sensitivity training. It won’t be easy but you’re up to it. TAURUS (April 19-May 19): Just because someone comes recommended by a friend of a friend doesn’t mean...

Music / A real head trip

SFGate: Entertainment

People often accuse Duran Duran of going through nearly as many lineup changes as hairstyles in the past 30 years. We wanted scientific proof. So using our minimal MacPaint skills and the better part of what we're sure was an otherwise really nice weekend, we...

Bad Reporter

SFGate: Entertainment

Comic strip. The Lies behind the Truth, and the truth behind the Lies that are behind that Truth.

Young fans chime in, update barbershop quartets

SFGate: Entertainment

- Mention barbershop quartets and you're bound to conjure images of men in striped vests and bowlers belting in unison about their high school sweethearts who are invariably named Adelaide or Rose. Old stereotypes die hard, but even the most stubborn of them...

Letters to Datebook

SFGate: Entertainment

Let's bring 'Streets' back to TV Editor - Isn't there any possibility of resurrecting "The Streets of San Francisco" and playing it on TV again? It's more than 30 years ago, thousands of people have never seen it, it isn't costly because it already exists, it...

The strategy of abundance

SFGate: Entertainment

With legislators locked in disputes over the state budget, a California Historical Society shindig on Wednesday night honored California historian Kevin Starr on the publication of his "Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance 1950-1963." Abundance?...

Essence Music Festival to honor Michael Jackson

SFGate: Entertainment

The celebration of black music and culture at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans will provide comfort to artists and fans alike after a tough week following Michael Jackson's death. Singer Lionel Richie, festival headliner and a longtime friend of the...

Jay Leno wins right to Web name for new show

SFGate: Entertainment

Television host Jay Leno has won control of a Web address using the name of his new show. The U.N.'s World Intellectual Property Organization says current owner Guadalupe Zambrano of Katy, Texas, will have to transfer the domain name - thejaylenoshow.com - to...

Brad Paisley gets serious in new CD

SFGate: Entertainment

As much as he enjoys singing about the double lives of computer geeks ("Online") and amorous country boys ("Ticks"), Brad Paisley says there's too much going on in the world to be too lighthearted on his new album, "American Saturday Night." "I think this...

Alice Shaw on a path of self-discovery

SFGate: Entertainment

"Conceptual art" suggests a bloodless, humorless exercise, and much of it comes across that way. But not when Alice Shaw practices it. Shaw seldom overworks an idea, never exaggerates her originality nor strives for depth when slyness and lightness will do....

Jackson fans bond at Grammy Museum exhibition

SFGate: Entertainment

Jeanne LaCroix gazed with a wistful smile at the images unspooling across two giant screens in downtown Los Angeles' Grammy Museum: a teenage Michael Jackson surrounded by his brothers as they announced the name of a winner at the 1974 Grammy Awards...

Date Lines: News from the Bay Area arts scene

SFGate: Entertainment

Merger of the arts Berkeley's Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, a performance and classroom space for many organizations for three decades, has merged with one of its primary tenants, Berkeley Playhouse. The 2-year-old Playhouse, founded by Artistic Director...

Lineup for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival

SFGate: Entertainment

A curious contingent of British acts that includes Marianne Faithfull, Billy Bragg, Nick Lowe, Robyn Hitchcock and World Party will help the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9 festival once again live up to its forward-thinking moniker. They will be among more than...

Restoration of Michelangelo's Vatican frescoes

SFGate: Entertainment

The restoration of Michelangelo's frescoes in the Vatican's Pauline Chapel may have produced a special prize - a previously unknown self-portrait of the artist. Chief Vatican restorer Maurizio De Luca said Thursday that the face of a man on horseback in the...

Fourth of July events

SFGate: Entertainment

Still looking for a way to celebrate Independence Day? Whether you like parades, picnics or pyrotechnics, there are plenty of fun events from which to choose. Alba School 4th of July Celebration & BBQ The 114th event featuring the San Lorenzo Valley Orchestra...

Oy Vey! See Chagall, learn swing and kibbitz

SFGate: Entertainment

Chagall has some new competition when it comes to charming audiences at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. The showstoppers Thursday night weren't the artist's famous works, but Manischewitz gelatin shots that - for better or worse - had visitors buzzing about...

TV review: Agatha Christie's Miss Marple

SFGate: Entertainment

RATING: (POLITE APPLAUSE)Miss Marple, Series IV: "Masterpiece Mystery!" episodes. "A Pocket Full of Rye" 9 p.m. Sunday; "Murder is Easy" 9 p.m. July 12; "They Do It With Mirrors" 9 p.m. July 19; "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" 9 p.m. July 26. KQED RATING: (...

ART / Shot by Richard Avedon / Portrait subjects remember a very focused artisan behind the lens. His retrospective is at SFMOMA.

SFGate: Entertainment

If Richard Avedon took your picture, it meant that you were too famous to ignore or too ignorant to know he was famous. Avedon liked both kinds so we tracked down both kinds to see what they remember 28 or 33 years later. The portraits here are featured in "...

TV review: 'McCloskey: Leading From the Front'

SFGate: Entertainment

RATING: (WILD APPLAUSE)McCloskey: Leading From the Front: A "Truly CA" documentary. Narrated by Paul Newman, produced and directed by Robert Coughlan. 6 p.m. Sunday on KQED, with encore broadcasts. Even those who agree with former Rep. Pete McCloskey on every...

Music review: 'La Traviata' second cast

SFGate: Entertainment

The final days of the San Francisco Opera's summer season have brought with them a lively new cast for the company's iffy production of Verdi's "La Traviata," headed by soprano Elizabeth Futral as the doomed courtesan Violetta Valéry and offering strong...