A&E
Concert Review: Ira Glass
The Smith Center, April 27
April 29th, 2013
Ira Glass’s NPR radio program, This American Life, is tightly produced, approachable and meaningful, and Glass has been generating it week after week since 1995. On stage, Glass is just as brilliant: a blend of stand-up comedian, storyteller, professor and motivational pitchman. Read more »
Music
Jazz Roots: The American Songbook
The Smith Center, April 26
April 29th, 2013
In a scattered homage to a loosely defined idea in the latest installment of the Jazz Roots program, three world-class artists backed by UNLV’s jazz ensemble performed a selection from the generally agreed-upon canon of jazz-heavy popular music that defined the mid-20th century. Some novelty pieces, only tangentially connected to that theme, were also performed. Read more »
Music
Concert Review: Prince
The Joint, April 26
April 29th, 2013
“Thank u 4 a funky time,” Prince! Taking the stage with a classic high-collar Prince jacket and curly hair looking like he channeled Jimi Hendrix, The Purple One launched into “Let’s Go Crazy” with a packed house shouting an enthusiastic, “Oh no, let’s go!” along with him. Read more »
Remembering Kenny Kerr, Trailblazing Female Impersonator
April 29th, 2013
The way Kenny Kerr was—especially when he was Barbra Streisand—was emblematic of the campy-but-entertaining heart of Las Vegas. Our town’s father of female impersonators, Kerr died Sunday at age 60, leaving a legacy as the man who permanently planted the flag for that art form in this city. Read more »
Movies
'The Big Wedding' is a Big Bore
Like real weddings, you sit through the event for the sake of the actors involved
April 26th, 2013
The diversions in the ensemble comedy The Big Wedding (that title flat enough for you?) are strictly actor-related, which is usually the case at the movies. For example, the way Diane Keaton selects an asparagus spear at a country club buffet while delivering some dutiful expositional something or other. Or the rumpled panache with which Robert De Niro, playing the Keaton character’s ex-husband, adapts to a different sort of role than he’s used to playing: that of the unreliable horndog trying to get by on charm. Read more »
Movies
'Pain & Gain' is Jacked Up
This is director Michael Bay’s brain on steroids
April 26th, 2013
In America, you’re either a “doer” or a “don’t-er.” So says the hostile motivational speaker played by Ken Jeong, one of several supporting sleazebags tipping around the edges of director Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain. Read more »
Let's Go Crazy
As Prince gets ready to rock The Joint, take a look back at The Purple One through the years
April 25th, 2013
What can one possibly say about Prince at this point in time? The artist formerly known as The Artist—scheduled to play four shows over a two-day stand at The Joint, April 26-27 ($55-$95)—has reportedly been pouring himself into his live performances of late, reportedly playing two-hour sets loaded with classics and covers. Read more »
Bookini
Heart Joins Hilarity in New Sedaris Collection
April 24th, 2013
I know David Sedaris is a funny writer, and you should know it too. Since the publication of Barrel Fever (Little, Brown & Co., 1994), he’s kept readers and live audiences howling at his comic misadventures and wry observations. Remember Sedaris’ stint as a department store elf at Christmas? How about his essays on life in France, where he and his partner, Hugh, lived before relocating to England? Sedaris is the real deal. He’s not just concerned with being witty and tickling funny bones; he has a way of sharing the truth that’s as artful as any fiction writer. Sedaris creates an honest connection with his readers—a genuine bond. Read more »
Reading
In Memoir, Astor Heiress Details Impoverished Mansion Upbringing
April 24th, 2013
There is almost nothing about Alexandra Aldrich, a direct descendant of John Jacob Astor, our nation’s first multimillionaire, that gives away her aristocratic roots. She is shy and unassuming. She drives an old Subaru and wears ankle-length skirts that would be less at home in a four-star restaurant than they are in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights, New York, where she now lives. In a world of Paris Hiltons, Aldrich is not your typical heiress. Then again, your typical heiress doesn’t grow up dirt-poor in a storied, nearly two-century-old mansion. Read more »
