E3 2017 – Exciting, Extravagant, Excruciating Next Year (for the Wallet)

By Charly SHELTON E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, has come and gone and this year had many of the biggest names in games lined up to show off their wares: “Destiny 2,” “Call of Duty: WWII,” “Far Cry 5,” “Assassins Creed Origins,” “Super Mario Odyssey,” “Sonic Mania,” “Metal Gear Survive” and more. There were also […]

Symphony of a Great City » Nestor CASTIGLIONE

The road to at least one notorious locale is paved with good intentions, though on occasion that path forks its way elsewhere as LA Opera’s recent performance of “Thumbprint” bore dubious witness to. An approximately 90-minute work by Kamala Sankaram with a libretto by Susan Yankowitz, the work depicts the real-life horrors suffered by Mukhtār […]

Voodoo Doughnut Casts a Spell on CityWalk

Voodoo Doughnut Casts a Spell on CityWalk

By Charly SHELTON A few weeks ago, back in early March, a confectionery icon held a soft opening to little pomp or circumstance at Universal CityWalk. Though a huge trend in Portland, Denver and Austin, this is the first location to hit the Golden State. The wait times were long, the doughnuts were sweet and […]

CV Weekly at E3

E3 – the Electronic Entertainment Expo – is here and the new and upcoming releases look great. Whether it’s big name releases like Far Cry 5 and Destiny 2, or new gaming avenues in virtual reality and wearable technology like the Phase Space VR system or the Whirlwind environmental effects generator, E3 can suit any […]

Student Work by Ravel Centerpiece at Next Glendale Noon Concert

By Néstor CASTIGLIONE Discounting his various works that remain unpublished, existing only as stillborn sketches or destroyed altogether, Maurice Ravel’s compositional output comes out to just under 60 works, about one work for every year of his life. He was a fastidious composer, ever attentive to any single note that strayed from his vision of […]

Checking Out ‘Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout’

Checking Out ‘Guardians of the Galaxy – Mission: Breakout’

By Charly SHELTON The Guardians are trapped! The Collector has captured them and they are on display in his museum. Rocket Raccoon has escaped but he needs our help to get past the scanners and free the rest of his team by disabling the gravity generators on the museum ship. And, of course, being that […]

Salastina Society Keeps It “Locally Sourced” in Season Finale

By Néstor CASTIGLIONE After a wide-ranging season that saw the chamber group exploring works from Beethoven to Weill, with a sojourn to the New England school along the way, the Salastina Society closes its season with a program of music devoted to the music of Los Angeles-born composers. The Saturday, June 10 program will consist […]

Noontime Mozart and Beethoven at Edendale

By Néstor CASTIGLIONE The popular image of Mozart is that of the precocious boy genius who composed astoundingly mature and original music at an age that most other children are barely learning to cope with basic arithmetic. The truth is a little more complicated than that. Mozart was no doubt a wunderkind: gifted with a […]

Scene in L.A. – June

The Hollywood Fringe Festival is on this month on the Southern California theatre scene:            OPENING           “Blackbird” Inspired in part by the crimes of sex offender Toby Studebaker (though in no way a literal dramatization of actual events) the play depicts a young woman meeting a middle-aged man 15 years after being sexually […]

The ‘Baywatch’ Reboot Doesn’t Disappoint

The ‘Baywatch’ Reboot Doesn’t Disappoint

By Charly SHELTON Long before the slow motion guys took to YouTube, and before the iPhone had a 240 frames per second slow motion camera, and even before the Mythbusters broke things at super slow motion to analyze the fracture of a skull, there was one name in slow motion photography that we all knew. […]