The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mandolin Orchestra to Play with Master Marshall

The Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, at 107 the oldest mandolin orchestra in the country, performs Sunday with master mandolinist and Grammy winner Mike Marshall. The ensemble will perform Marshall's Concerto No. 1 for Mandolin, Mando-Cello and Mandolin Orchestra, which Marshall has plans to record in the new year. The orchestra, under the direction of Paul Ruppa and Linda Binder, also will play a repertoire of ragtime selections, including fox trots, waltzes, tangos and marches.

Review; 'Devil' Is a Rotten Pleasure; Lumet Explores Decaying Family

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a bleak family tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions disguised as modern urban crime noir. Eighty-three-year-old director Sidney Lumet has capped a 50-year film career, which started with "12 Angry Men" in 1957, with a morally complex and vigorously executed work that compares favorably to his 1970s classics "Dog Day Afternoon," "Serpico" and "Network."

Review; Contradiction and Lust 'in the Time of Cholera'

How do you mend a broken heart? In the film of Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "Love in the Time of Cholera," you sleep around.

Drummer to Inaugurate Woody Herman Clinic

Steve Houghton earned his name and his jazz chops when he was just a thundering young drummer of 20. That was when he joined Woody Herman's Young Thundering Herd and beat the living heck out of his skins - to great acclaim. Since then, Houghton has made dozens of recordings on his own and as a session musician. He now teaches percussion and jazz at Indiana University. Houghton also runs clinics and master classes all over the world.

The Arts Briefing

MUSIC Leon Williams a 'Solo Voices' performer

Movies; 'Beowulf' Wins in 3-D

The epic poem "Beowulf" was preserved by the emerging technology of its day - the printed word. Before that, it was passed from one generation to the next orally. All of which makes the high-tech version in theaters today just the latest iteration of a thing that has endured by adapting to a changing world.

Celebrity Noise; It Requires a Leap of Faith to Deal with These Stars

Why is that, when certain people reach a certain age, they are visited by an urgent need to leap from a plane? I don't get it. George Bush (the elder) did it again over the weekend.

Review; Documentary Lends Ear to Kernels of Truth

If it's true that we are what we eat, most Americans are ears of bright yellow corn. As in high-yield, genetically-modified corn that has nibbled its way into America's diet, and is found in just about everything folks toss into their shopping carts.

Review; 'Sleuth' Needs to Get a New Clue

"Sleuth" is a tedious bit of shenanigans and sleight of hand lifelessly realized by director Kenneth Branagh. It is a stylishly, silly remake of a 1972 film, both of which are based on the stage play by Anthony Shaffer, who wrote the screenplay for the first film.

Concert Update New Shows & Music News

JUST ANNOUNCED Le Mystre des Voix Bulgares: 8 p.m. Jan. 18, Pabst Theater, 144 E. Wells St. $29.50, on sale noon today at (414) 286-3663 and www.pabsttheater.org.

Plus or Minus One; These Days, We Take Many Routes On Our Job Path

My friend Paula is one of the smartest women I know. She graduated from University of Michigan with a psychology degree, but was such a great writer that she landed a summer internship at a major metropolitan newspaper right out of college. From that point on, Paula found herself on the Great-at- Something Track.