NEW YORK (AP) — The Sundance Film Festival, coming at the start of a new movie calendar, is an annual rite of renewal. New movies. New filmmakers. New voices. And that feels especially welcome this year.

A new year means another Sundance Film Festival. Once again the streets of Park City (and to a lesser extent Salt Lake City) will be lined with celebrities hawking their newest independent films.

Let me be right up front, I absolutely loved more than 10 films from 2019. The lament is that we only have so much room to feature a few films in the newspaper. I could honestly write a list of 50 or more films that I felt were exceptional in on way or another. Films that moved me or made me…

Classical music in the United States has long been associated with social class and race—accessible mostly to those of wealth and influence. In nearly 250 years, the culture has not changed much. According to a 2018 article from NBC News, less than 2% of musicians in professional orchestras …

The problem with a property like “Star Wars” is that you must keep everyone happy all the time. Many fans were displeased with the direction “The Last Jedi” took, so “Rise of Skywalker” appears to be a capitalist course correction in order to protect the property against its most ardent “fan…

Like all successful videogame franchises, it’s the connection to the characters and their growth that keeps new players coming back for more. “Jumanji: The Next Level” taps into that aspect by providing the same characters but offering up a completely different situation that throws the know…

A “reimagined” version of Michael McLean’s “The Forgotten Carols” is coming to Logan this Saturday as a part of an 11-city tour.

Just looking at a hot air balloon makes me nauseous and gives me uncontrollable anxiety, so watching “The Aeronauts” was a unique experience.

Film festival sets lineup with Taylor Swift, ‘Tesla,’ ‘Downhill’

Local author finds charity in new children’s book

Rian Johnson’s whodunit is an entertaining, thoroughly enjoyable entry into a genre riddled with trope traps.

“Midway,” the true story of one of World War II’s most decisive naval battles, features many of Roland Emmerich’s directorial strengths, but also a variety of his worst tendencies.

As both a performer and director, Lindsey Kelstrom noticed a frustrating trend in many local theatrical productions.

NEW YORK (AP) — Damon Lindelof didn’t take lightly the challenge of adapting the most acclaimed graphic novel of all time.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Inspired by the climate activism of a Swedish teenager, Jane Fonda says she’s returning to civil disobedience nearly a half-century after she was last arrested at a protest.

Ang Lee can use cutting-edge technology to make some beautiful films. Scenes from “The Life of Pi” are still etched in my brain. There’s also the case, as with “Gemini Man,” that all that technology can’t bridge the mind-cracking gap that is the Uncanny Valley. Lee can shoot it in as many fr…

The Villalobos Brothers, a band founded by three native Mexican brothers and professional violin virtuosos, have been addressing the conflicts between their homeland and the U.S. in a very unusual way. By blending the sounds of their classical training and the folk music they were raised aro…

Eerie stories told in what some say are haunted structures await participants in this year’s Historic Downtown Logan Ghost Tour, staged on nine nights between now and Halloween.

James Gray’s new science fiction film is poetic and beautiful. It is both grounded in reality and emotion while simultaneously taking us on a thrill ride through our own solar system. It’s one of the most creative and inspired movies you’ll see all year.

He thought he would major in chemistry. It took just one semester to realize his error — there is no magic in science when music is in your soul.

Bridger Folk Music Society has booked the widely acclaimed Tony Furtado Trio for a Friday, Sept. 20, concert in Logan.

Cache Valley author Amanda Luzzader was named Utah’s 2019-2020 Writer of the Year by the League of Utah Writers during the organization’s annual gathering, the Quills Conference.

‘Goldfinch’ filmed masterfully but it fails in character, story development

I guess you could say my “Herald Journey” is coming to an end.

Even though the College of Eastern Utah — now USU Eastern — was quite close to her parents' home, Utah Supreme Court Justice Paige Petersen believes getting a higher education in Price was “the first step to so much growing and learning” in her adult and professional life.

The “Has Fallen” series (I can’t believe I just typed those series of words) is now a trilogy. First Olympus fell, then London, and now an angel. They’ve all been quite mediocre action outings and “Angel Has Fallen” is no different.

When Allie Harris was a girl growing up in Tremonton, she’d see daddy longlegs in her house and wonder why there weren’t any “Mama LongLegs.”

Logan’s Merlin Olsen Central Park was alive with activity this past Tuesday night, with football practice, kids on scooters and kickball.

There’s a fine art to making an approachable, raunchy comedy, especially if your subjects are 12-year-olds. “Superbad” was one thing — those were high schoolers. In “Good Boys,” we’re dealing with “tweens,” kids going through their most awkward stages of life. It’s a hoot.

“Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” may not be directed by Guillermo del Toro — he’s listed as a having a hand in the screenplay and producing — but his unique influence is felt all over the place. So many horror movies, especially PG-13-rated ones, feel stale. This one feels a little freshe…

When she was just a 1 year old, Hyrum native Tandie Nielsen Bankhead’s mother died suddenly of a blood clot to the brain.

Mátyás (my cousin), Gábor (my kinda-lover), and I (Anna) were being hunted by Buda-Pest guards for helping the Pratheria (magical folk). We had been split up trying to keep safe and do our part to help in the brewing war, and had recently been accidentally reunited after running into each ot…

The official title is “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.” We’ve now entered the phase of modern cinema where popular franchises “present” other movies in hopes that they become franchises, seemingly creating an endless feedback loop of them that never cease (it also has two ampe…

If you don’t think that a 90-minute farce with a tiny cast can be as entertaining as a full-scale musical comedy, then you obviously haven’t seen the Lyric Repertory Company’s current production of “Murder for Two.”

In the midst of a summer theatre season full of surprises, "The Great Society" takes the cake.

One of the cardinal rules of our current political correctness craze is that fat jokes aren’t funny, right?

If you loved “The Barber of Seville” when it was performed during the 2018 Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre season — and who didn’t? — you should make a beeline for the current production of “The Marriage of Figaro.” It’s another great comic opera with the same hilarious characters,…

On Pioneer Day evening inside the Logan Tabernacle, a older gentleman sporting a gray beard wearing glasses and 19th century menswear delighted community members with a warm handshake and affectionate smile, making small talk.

“Master Class” is another wild card in the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre’s 2019 season. Like the previous “Bravo, Caruso!,” this drama is an homage to one of the 20th century’s operatic superstars, the late Maria Callas.

The Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre launched its 2019 main-stage offerings with a rousting production of “Newsies,” an old-fashioned, crowd-pleasing musical.

If you’re shopping for family-friendly, child-oriented summer entertainment, look no further than the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre’s ongoing production of the musical fantasy “Mary Poppins.”

When performing one of the greatest works in the whole canon of American musical theater, the quality bar is naturally set sky-high. The Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre’s ongoing production of the classic “West Side Story” easily vaults that bar and continues into the heavens.

If a ghoulish-looking being named Count Orlok believes you have a “lovely neck,” you might be in trouble.

In a surprisingly gutsy move, the Lyric Repertory Company is playing the high-voltage drama card again in its 2019 season.

“Spider-Man: Far From Home” attempts to wrap up the “Endgame” storyline, while simultaneously blazing a new path for the Marvel Comic Universe, or MCU. And yet, what this newest installment in the storied, but fractured, “Spider-Man” franchise does is tedious, well-worn and adds no new creat…

Amid all the things in his garage crammed with stuff that shows his affinity for old-time cars, there’s a plaque hanging on the wall that former Cache Valley doctor F. Robert Bryner likes to point to.

Given gifted performers and inspired direction, an intimate small-cast play can still have a big dramatic impact. Local audiences were treated to a perfect example of that theatrical lesson when the Utah Festival Opera & Musical Theatre recently debuted the drama “Bravo, Caruso!”

The ongoing production of “Mamma Mia!” by the Lyric Repertory Company is pure mindless fluff, exactly as this juke box musical featuring 1970’s hits by the Swedish pop group Abba was meant to be. It’s also rollicking good fun.

Incoming Utah State University freshman Abigail Edwards knows the feeling of having the spotlight on her when she’s performing in front of an audience, whether its in an auditorium at Green Canyon High School or the in the Big Apple.

For Craig Mecham, trying to get a good night’s sleep isn’t just routine, it’s part of the process of songwriting.

The “Toy Story” franchise has an uncanny ability to peel back the layers of humanity to find out what really makes us tick. Sure, they’re toys, but what they go through, the problems they encounter and the emotions they deal with are all deeply human.

Any good theater production can make you laugh or cry. But only a truly great show has the power to frighten you.

Listless and unimaginative are the adjectives that come to mind when trying to best describe “Men in Black International.” For a well-known blockbuster franchise starring two charismatic leads, this installment falls dreadfully, and somewhat surprisingly, flat.

LOGAN, Utah — Cache Valley native Jocelyn Wellings remembers going to the Summerfest Arts Faire as a little girl and making her own art at the “creation station” or hanging out and watching live music next to her father, who worked the sound.

The first “Secret Life of Pets” movie was marketed with silly clips of what animals do when humans aren’t around. They were charming little short films. The first film should’ve been more like that and less like a full movie-length narrative that we’re used to. The second film almost achieve…

Usually, superhero movies tend to become bogged down in scenes or dialogue that strictly exists for exposition purposes. So much of these movies are spent explaining character origins, motivations and why the bad guys are doing what they’re doing. “Dark Phoenix,” the latest in the “X-Men” fr…

Part of the genius of Gareth Edward’s 2014 “Godzilla” reboot was realizing that the humans were simply inconsequential bystanders, the equivalent of a swarm of ants about to be crushed by a giant boot. “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” doesn’t understand this and it’s worse for it.

These Disney live-action remakes are more effective when they don’t tell the exact same story that the animated version told. “Beauty and the Beast” was essentially the same thing, whereas “Maleficent” told us a familiar story but from a different point of view. The new “Aladdin” is more lik…

The “John Wick” franchise is the perfect counterpart to superhero fever. The series is now on its third movie, so it’s well known. But it creates a setting in which the action is a more intimate affair. John Wick is simply trying to save himself. He doesn’t care about saving the world. And y…