The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will be on the road to the Basilica of St. Josaphat under the baton of Francesco Lecce-Chong. The concert will feature the MSO Chorus for an extravaganza of sacred music, starting with Arvo Pärt's chamber...

Marion Cotillard was �speechless,� she insisted, while hugging her Best Actress Oscar (La Vie en Rose) and giving thank you after thank you. I was even more speechless. The French star of a subtitled film about Edith Piaf (�I didn�t even know who Edith Piaf was,� one dumb-as-dirt radio commentator announced this morning) wins for Best Actress in a country that only four years ago was eating free...

Predicting Oscar winners is like forecasting the weather. Reasonable minds assume you've done a good job by being right half the time. It's a hard business with all those variables, those shifting winds of insider gossip and cold fronts of media speculation. Who could have predicted that Crash would take down the favored Brokeback Mountain two years ago? I think I did on Wisconsin Public Radi...

This year the uncertainty surrounding the Oscars is greater than the usual guesswork over which film will win Best Picture or who will be crowned Best Actor or Actress. It�s not entirely clear how the Oscars will play out on Feb. 24, given the lingering writers strike and the aversion of other Hollywood union members to cross the picket line. Looking at the Best Picture nominations, one t...

Finally, this Friday will bring to Milwaukee the opening of There Will Be Blood. The most critically acclaimed film of 2007 is described as a sprawling epic of family, faith, power and oil, set on the incendiary frontier of California's turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. It stars Oscar winner Daniel Day Lewis (My Left Foot, Gangs of New York), emerging star Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine, L.I....