This will be the last post on the Culture Vulture blog - but not the end of commentary on pop culture in Utah.

Three years ago this month, I took over the Tribune's Culture Vulture column from my friend and colleague Brandon Griggs. In addition to the weekly column, I started a daily blog to look at popular culture from a Utah perspective.

As of today, my two blogs - The Movie Cricket and Culture Vulture - will be consolidated into one mega-blog, called The Cricket, which will continue looking at pop culture, with some other features to be added as I go.

Click on over to The Cricket, here.

• Iron & Wine, the stage name of folkie Samuel Beam, performs tonight at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Opening act: The Head and the Heart. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $30, at SmithsTix and 24Tix.

• The Who Likes Short Shorts? Film Festival, highlighting local filmmaking, happens tonight at the Post Theatre, 294...

HGTVs 2012 "Dream Home" will be a 45-minute commute from Salt Lake City.

And some lucky person will win the whole thing.

The cable channel has chosen to build a 4,000-square-foot modern western ranch house at the River Meadows Ranch development, north of Heber City and Midway in Wasatch County, for the annual sweepstakes.

The location of the still-to-be-built "Dream Home" was announced today on the HGTV website. It's the 16th year for the channel's giveaway. The...

The Tracy Aviary is showing off its newly opened Owl Forest exhibit, home to some of North America's coolest birds.

The new exhibit (which opened over Memorial Day weekend) boasts six species of owls - such as the short-eared owl (pictured) - in a habitat of 112 native conifers. It's a beautiful exhibit, and will be a cool shady refuge when the summer sun gets too hot.

The exhibit is part of the aviary's major upgrade and renovation, paid for by a $19.6 million bond that Salt Lake County voters approved in 2008.

The aviary is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, at the southwest corner of Liberty Park (near the corner of...

• British indie-folk group Noah and the Whale (pictured) perform at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $17, at SmithsTix and 24Tix.

• Slim, formerly a member of the R&B group 112, performs at The Hotel & Club Elevate, 155 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City. Tickets are $20, at t...

Movie distributors always try to find little ways to make their movies stick in critics' minds - but the gimmick employed by the makers of the Mormon migration drama "17 Miracles" is a headscratcher.

Before the press screening on Tuesday night, a woman handed me a press kit and a small bundle in a muslin cloth. Inside, I was told, was a small bag of flour - symbolic of the small rations that the pioneers were allowed to eat each day on the trail from Nebraska to Utah.

Three thoughts come to mind about this gift:

1. It's not uncommon for someone to offer donuts before a screening - but usually the donuts are cooked first.

• L.A. rock band The Airborne Toxic Event plays In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $18, at SmithsTix and 24Tix.

• Singer-songwriter David Bazan and his band play Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening act: Cotton Jones....

Artist Eric Fischer has created something quite cool and informative: Maps of major cities, showing where people - both locals and tourists - have taken pictures and posted them on Flickr.

Fischer's map of Salt Lake City shows the biggest concentration of tourist photos around Temple Square (naturally). Other hotspots include the State Capitol and the City Library. Locals are concentrated on those areas, as well as Main Street, the City-County Building, Memory Grove and Liberty Park.

The blue points are spots ph...

So, does anybody know why Albert Brooks was in Salt Lake City over the weekend?

The actor/comedian/author posted on Twitter that he was visiting the Beehive State, but didn't say anything about why he was in town.

On Saturday, Brooks posted: "Quiet day in Salt Lake. America is a beautiful country if you hate the right people."

On Sunday, he announced that he was leaving: "Heading home from Salt Lake. Mormons are very nice. But not as funny as the ones on Broadway."

Br...

• English indie-rockers Arctic Monkeys play at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $20, at SmithsTix and 24Tix.

• The "Keep a Breast" benefit show - benefitting the Keep a Breast Foundeation, a nonprofit aimed at eradicating breast cancer by educating young people about the disease - happens at Kilb...

It's the cool moment that will never happen - The Sundance Kid on the MTV Movie Awards.

In an interview with Newsweek, comic-actor Jason Sudeikis ("Saturday Night Live," "Hall Pass") talked about the "get" he couldn't get for his hosting gig at Sunday's MTV Movie Awards.

"We were filming an opening parody and asked Robert Redford to be in it," Sudeikis said. "He said he couldn’t but was flattered to be asked. I was like, 'Wow! Robert Redford was flattered. I’m flattered he’s flattered.'"

Sudeikis told Newsweek about the advice he received from past MTV Movie Awards e...

After years of being on the outside looking in, The Yard will officially be part of the Sundance Film Festival.

At an open house in Park City last week, as reported in The Park Record, Sundance's operations director Sarah Pearce announced that The Yard - a spacious building on Kearns Blvd. - will be an official festival venue in 2012.

In past years, The Yard has been a popular location for corporate "gifting suites" - where celebs and other hangers-on (a k a "swag hags") could get free clothes, gadgets and other stuff. The parking lot at The Yard has been used as a park-and-ride lot for festivalgoers.

Pearce...

• The Utah Symphony performs Stravinsky's infamous "The Rite of Spring," tonight and Saturday at Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Thierry Fischer conducts, and guest sporano Janice Chandler Eteme sings. Concerts start at 8 p.m. both nights. Tickets available at ArtTix.

• Salt Lake City band The Devil Whale, releasing its new album "Teeth," performs tonight at The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 Ea...

Next week, Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" will show its recent auditions at Salt Lake City's Capitol Theatre.

But one Utah dancer couldn't wait for the show to come to her town.

On last night's season premiere, Amber Williams of Brigham City, Utah, wowed the judges at the San Francisco auditions. Here's a description of Williams' appearance, in a recap from HitFix's Liane Bonin Starr:

Amber Williams of Brigham City, Utah wants to dance her tusher off. Really, she said tusher...

You may remember a few weeks ago, when I and many other Salt Lake City foodies went chasing after the mobile restaurants that came through town as part of the Food Network's "Great Food Truck Race."

One of the tools that made seeking those trucks easier was Twitter, where fans and local trucks (who were assisting the show's contestants) were posting updates and locations.

But Twitter may have an unforeseen side effect on the show: As a spoiler.

An article by The Orange County Register's Nancy Luna describes how fans' posts on Twitter have sometimes given away details about which...

• Documentary filmmaker Steve James - the man who made "Hoop Dreams," "Stevie" and "The Interrupters" (pictured) - talks about his films, at City Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City. Interviewing James onstage is Doug Fabrizio of KUER's "Radio West." The event starts at 7. Free.

• Jared Mees & The Grown Children headline an ampersand-heavy bill at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening acts: T...

The paint near the front entrance is still wet, and the back parking lot still hasn't been paved, but Utah's newest multiplex will be screening movies today.

The Cinemark Draper is scheduled to open today, with 14 screens in digital clarity. (The Cinemark website still isn't listing showtimes for today, but the site insists the theater is opening today.)

The theater is touted as a "NextGen" theater, which means new digital projection and massive floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall screens in every theater. One of the 14 screens boasts Cinemark's "Extreme Digital" technology.

The Draper theater is the c...

• Local bands Just Three Words, Mess of Me and Bobby and the Tiger perform at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Show starts at 6. Tickets are $6, at 24Tix.

• Radio Moscow plays The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Opening acts:

Here's the bad news regarding the just-announced engagement of celebrity Kim Kardashian: Single ladies of Utah, you had your chance.

The famous-for-being-famous Kardashian is engaged to New Jersey Nets forward Kris Humphries, People magazine reported online and in an upcoming cover story. (Oh, and he got her a 20.5-carat Lorraine Schwartz diamond engagement ring, too.)

Humphries was drafted in 2004 by the Utah Jazz, and labored two seasons under Jerry Sloan before being traded in the summer of 2006 to the Toronto Raptors. He p...

Disney has a new rule for movie titles: Ix-nay on the Ars-may.

Comingsoon.net reports that Disney has ordered a title change for "John Carter of Mars," the filmed-in-Utah sci-fi adventure that the studio will release next spring.

The new title: "John Carter."

Why? New York magazine's Vulture blog speculates that Disney is avoiding the word "Mars" after the disastrous flop that was "Mars Needs Moms" this spring.

The movie is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' pulp novels, one of which was titled "J...

• Rock megagroup U2 - finally! - performs at Rice-Eccles Stadium, 451 S. 1400 East, University of Utah campus, Salt Lake City. Opening act: The Fray. Show starts at 7. Tickets, from $30 and up, available at SmithsTix. (Taking TRAX to get to the stadium is advised.)

• Rock instrumentalists This Will Destroy You plays Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake Ci...

The show will go on even if the tattoo won't come off, ruled a judge in a case involving this week's release of "The Hangover Part II."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a judge refused to block Thursday's release of the raunchy comedy sequel, after a lawsuit filed by a tattoo artist who claims the movie violated his copyright by giving a character a distinctive bit of facial ink.

In the movie, pals Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zack Galifianakis) again go on a wild bachelor party -- this time for Stu, marrying a Thai-American girl (Jamie Chung) -- ...

"The Book of Mormon" - the raunchy but well-reviewed Broadway musical by "South Park's" Trey Parker and Matt Stone - was a big winner at the Drama Desk Awards, a major precursor for the Tony Awards next month.

The musical took five Drama Desk Awards, tying with the revival of the Cole Porter musical "Anything Goes," in a ceremony Monday, The Hollywood Reporter writes.

"The Book of Mormon" won for best musical, best direction of a musical (for Parker and Casey Nicholas), music (for Parker, Stone and co-crea...

Young Dubliners, the legendary Celtic bar rockers, will be the headline act on the first night of the Utah Arts Festival on June 23.

Here are the other headliners the festival has announced for the four-day event, running June 23-26 at Library Square in downtown Salt Lake City:

Thursday, June 23

• Kinetix • Denver-based rock band. (Thursday, June 23, 8:30 p.m. Amphitheater Stage; followed by Young Dubliners at 9:45 p.m.)

Friday, June 24

• Ronn...

• Hard rock/emo band Jamie's Elsewhere plays Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening act: Too Late the Hero. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $10, at the door.

• Funk/soul collective Orgone plays The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening act: Marinade. Show starts at 8. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 on the night of the show, at the State Room

What has long been a running joke on X96's "Radio From Hell" is now going national.

Friday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow did an extended take on former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman as he made his first almost-running-for-president trip to New Hampshire (a trip covered quite well by the Tribune's Robert Gehrke, by the way). The segment included an interview with former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson - who spoke quite complimentary of "my friend," Huntsman.

Maddow also played a bit of animatio...

One cool thing about the Living Traditions Festival is that it appeals to all five senses.

The annual celebration of Utah residents' different ethnic heritages - which runs today through Sunday outside the City/County Building at 450 S. State St. - provides music to hear, dances to see and a variety of food to smell and taste.

In the craft booths, though, it's all in the touch. Watch these fast hands - photographed by me Friday morning, as the festival opened up a sneak preview for area schoolchildren - in the accompanying slide show. (Click on any thumbnail at left to start.)

• The Living Traditions Festival - Salt Lake City's annual celebration of ethnic food, dance and crafts - runs tonight through Sunday at Washington Square around the Salt Lake City/County Building, 450 S. State Street. The event runs 5 to 10 p.m. tonight, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday, and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday. Free.

• Experimental rock band Man Man plays tonight at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Opening act: Shilpa Ray. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $15, at

This might be the perfect tribute to the great film editor Sally Menke, who died unexpectedly last September: A fellowship to support an up-and-coming editor.

The Sundance Institute, working with Menke's family, has established the Sally Menke Memorial Fellowship - and today announced that Julia Bloch would be its first recipient.

Bloch is getting ready to edit her first feature film, director Tom Gilroy's "The Cold Lands." Previously she worked as associate editor on Terrence Malick's Cannes Film Festival entry "The Tree of Life" and assistant editor on "Notorious B.I.G." She was also on the in-house editing staff of Denmark's Zentropa...

• New Orleans rapper Curren$y headlines a hip-hop show at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Trademark, Young Roddy, Fiend, Corner Boy P, Dopethought. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $20.50, at the door.

• Funk/jazz trio Soulive (pictured) performs at The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening act:

In the battle between high-tech marketing and Mother Nature, Mother Nature won a round Wednesday afternoon.

Utah's Megaplex Theatres set up a fun promotional event to hype this Friday's release of "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" - by setting up a giveaway, the location of which would be hinted at in clues via Facebook and Twitter.

At the first of two locations - outside Spring Mobile Ballpark - only about 20 people showed up, huddling under a canopy to receive freebies from Michael Reagan (of KSL radio's "The ...

Is this what they mean by "shared sacrifice"?

Apparently no idea*, no matter how off the wall, is off limits to congressional Republicans in the drive to balance the federal budget.

Consider what Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Florida, suggests: Selling off parts of Utah.

"I'm not an economist, but I have maintained a household," Ross (pictured) told Reuters this week. The federal government owns 70 per cent of Utah, for example. There are federal buildings. If you need cash, let's start liquidating."

This proposal joins others - like

• Alt-rock bands Bayside and Silverstein lead the Take Action Tour, which plays The Complex, 536 W. 100 South, Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Polar Bear Club, The Swellers, Texas in July. Show starts at 5:30. Tickets are $20, at the door (a portion of the proceeds supports Sex, Etc., a teen sex-ed magazine and website).

The National Endowment of the Arts is giving the Sundance Institute a big boost: A $150,000 grant.

Sundance was one of 1,145 not-for-profit arts groups recommended for some $88 million in the second round of the NEA's fiscal 2011 grants, the agency announced today. It's the largest grant going to a single Utah-connected arts group.

The grant will support Sundance's labs for directors, screenwriters and composers, as well as the Institute's Creative Producing Fellowship and Summit, its screenplay reading series, "as well as sustain the year-round continuum of both c...

The news this week that Rick Welts (pictured), president and CEO of the NBA's Phoenix Suns, has come out of the closet was greeted the way stories like this are handled in the 21st century: With a shrug, a moment of "oh, that's interesting," and the back-of-the-brain acknowledgement that we're one step closer to a day when the news of any prominent person's sexual orientation will no longer be newsworthy.

But Welts' acknowledgement again raise the question: Will an NBA player ever reveal himself as gay?

John Amaechi, a former Utah Jazz player who went public about being gay after he retired from the...

• A screening of the documentary "Welcome to Shelbyville," which examines the changing face of the immigrant community in a Tennessee town, plays at the City Library Auditorium, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City. A Q-and-A with director Kim Snyder follows the screening. Film starts at 7. Free.

• Billing itself as "the best robot rock band," Captured! By Robots plays The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 9. Tickets are $10, at 24Tix.

All those trees and data bits expended trying to explain Charlie Sheen, and here Roseanne Barr comes along to sum up the imploding TV star in just a couple of sentences.

"Charlie Sheen was the world’s most famous john, and a sitcom was written around him," Barr writes in an article for New York magazine. "That just says it all. Doing tons of drugs, smacking prostitutes around, holding a knife up to the head of your wife — sure, that sounds like a dream come true for so many guys out there, but that doesn’t make it right!"

But Barr - a Salt Lake City native who's coming back in June to be grand marshal...

The Sundance Film Festival isn't just a big party, it's a big moneymaker for the state of Utah.

The 2011 edition of the annual Park City extravaganza generated $70.8 million in economic impact for the state of Utah, according to a new economic and demographic study conducted by the University of Utah’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the David Eccles School of Business.

The festival supported more than 1,600 jobs, generated $27 million in media exposure, and brought in nearly $6 million in tax revenue, the study found.

In the last 10 years, the Sundance Institute touted today, the festival has brought in about half a billion dollars in economic activity....

• British ska band Bad Manners performs at The Woodshed, 60 E. 800 South, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 8. Tickets are $14, at 24Tix.

• The Fresh Brew Tour, featuring hip-hop acts Devin the Dude, makes a stop at The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 9. Tickets are $14, at 24Tix.

The most-anticipated debut at the Cannes Film Festival - reclusive director Terrence Malick's long-gestating (and partly filmed in Utah) "The Tree of Life" - has arrived.

The verdict from the first screening, early this morning: Decidedly mixed.

According to Entertainment Weekly's Anthony Breznican, there were loud boos from the Cannes audience at the movie's end. But, Breznican reports, "the many supporters of the movie pushed back with counter-applause, but it was a shocking way for the movie to debut."

MSN Movies writer James Rocchi

"The Book of Mormon" - the Broadway musical, anyway - is heading west in 2012.

The Tony-nominated musical about LDS missionaries hitting a culture clash in Uganda will start a national tour in December 2012 in Denver, Rolling Stone reports.

That's the home state of the play's creators, "South Park" guys Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

No word on any other stops on the tour. Rolling Stone's Matthew Perpetua suggests the Denver stop will be a litmus test to see how the musical's controversial humor will ...

• Singer-songwriter Ron Pope performs tonight at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Ari Herstand, Zach Berkman. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $15, at 24Tix.

• Real Salt Lake plays host to the Houston Dynamo in Major League Soccer action, Saturday at Rio Tinto Stadium, 9300 S. State St., Sandy. Game s...

Look for some changes to Donny and Marie Osmond's stage show at the Flamingo in Las Vegas.

According to Robin Leach's gossip blog in Las Vegas Weekly, the duo will be shaking up their show starting on Tuesday.

Changes include: A new opening number, mixing “It Takes Two” and “Vegas Love,” a song from their new album; Marie's "Glee"-inspired mashup of "Walk This Way" and "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'"; a countryfied number with a crystal-covered electric guitar and boots; Donny's new version of "Yo-Yo" (a song he and his brothers sang 40 yea...

• Singer-songwriter Michelle Branch performs at the Alder Amphitheater at Salt Lake Community College, 4532 S. 1950 West, Taylorsville. Show starts at 7:30. Tickets are $17, at the door.

• Two indie bands, The Janks and The Shivers, share the bill at The Depot, 400 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 8. Tickets are $10, at SmithsTix.

A bit after 7:10 p.m. Saturday, Rio Tinto Stadium should turn deep red.

In tribute to Real Salt Lake's star midfielder Javier Morales, who suffered a gruesome ankle injury in last Saturday's game against Chivas USA, the team is making available for download red signs bearing Morales' number 11.

The instructions that come with the sign read:

"Please hold this sign up during the 11th minute (when the clock reaches minute 10) during tonight’s match.
The goal is to salute Javier Morales as he recovers from s...

Will Donny and Marie Osmond see the Broadway musical "The Book of Mormon"? Even for free?

Not likely.

Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad, the Tony-nominated actors who play LDS missionaries in the not-for-kiddies musical by "South Park's" Trey Parker and Matt Stone, have extended an "open invitation" to the singing Osmonds to come see the show any time they're in New York.

But Rob Shuter, who writes the gossip column Naughty But Nice for Popeater.com, quotes a friend of Donny and Marie who says "it's never going to happen."

The friend of the world's most famous Mormons tells Shuter, "...

• L.A. alt-rock band The Daylights plays the Avalon Theater, 3605 S. State St., South Salt Lake City. Opening act: Andrew Ripp. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $10, at the door.

• Indie pop-punk band Vivian Girls performs at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening act: No Joy. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $10, at

Brett Smith loves camping. And he loves the Utah Blaze, Salt Lake City's Arena Football League team.

So what happens when the Blaze are playing while Smith is on a camping trip?

Recently, Smith told the website BoxScoreNews.com, Smith and some friends were camping at Yuba Lake - but they couldn't pick up the Blaze's game against the Arizona Rattlers on the radio.

Smith got out his smartphone, linked to the website AFL Live to stream the game - but the screen was too small for his fellow campers to watch. He connected the phone to his laptop, which allowed everyone to watch the comp...

See, Utah, you might not think you have a certain reputation outside the state, but you do.

Take, for example, this comment from actor-comedian Nick Swardson, in an interview with the movie website CinemaBlend, about his role in the upcoming movie "30 Minutes or Less."

Swardson and Danny McBride (that's them in the photo above - Swardson's on the right) play the movie's villains, two redneck idiots who devise a plan to make money: Force somebody else (specifically, a pizza delivery guy played by Jesse Eisenberg) to rob a bank for them, or face dire c...

• Denver indie-pop band Houses plays Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $8, at 24Tix.

• Singer-songwriter Joe Purdy plays The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening act: The Milk Carton Kids. Show starts at 8. Tickets are $15 in advance, $18 on the night of the show, at the State Room