The Cricket is taking his annual post-Sundance vacation.

Come back here on Tuesday, Feb. 21, for the start of The Cricket's annual Oscar predictions.

• A metalcore evening headlined by The Ghost Inside and Sleeping With Sirens happens tonight at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!, Dream On Dreamer. Show starts at 6. Tickets are $16, at the door.

• Say Hi to Skyline performs tonight at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 Wes...

Could The Lone Ranger be riding into Utah?

That's the indication from the website On Location Vacations, which tracks movie shoots for people who want to see where their favorite movie stars might be working.

The site reports that "The Lone Ranger," director Gore Verbinski's adaptation of the Western classic, will be shooting soon in New Mexico -- but also shooting some this summer near Moab, Utah. (The site points to the production's casting company's Facebook pag...

On his return from the Sundance Film Festival, the usually healthy Cricket experienced a whopping attack of the flu.

Turns out he's not alone. Apparently, a lot of people attending Sundance got hit with a bug of one form or another.

The New York Times' Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes, writing in the paper's "Carpetbagger" blog, report anecdotal evidence from festivalgoers "buzzing about a severe intestinal complaint that has laid low a number of them."

The Times' writers count at least six publicists as coming down with illness -- three of them severely en...

Provo artist Jon McNaughton -- the guy who two years ago painted Jesus Christ holding the Constitution, with single moms and journalists on the side of the devil -- is back with a new canvas, one that targets President Barack Obama.

The new painting, "The Forgotten Man," depicts Obama stepping on the Constitution -- while George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan comfort a despondent Everyman. On Obama's side, gloating, are Democrats Bill Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt (standing up, by the way) and Jimmy Carter, along with (for some reason) George W. Bush.

On McNaughton's

Hollywood knows what you're doing on Sunday -- staying home and watching the Super Bowl -- so the studios aren't throwing out any big movies to fight against it.

"The Woman in Black" marks the beginning of Daniel Radcliffe's post-"Harry Potter" career, as he plays a Victorian-era lawyer assigned to sort out the will of a widow woman in a creaky country mansion. The movie is robustly old-fashioned in its scares, though it loses some brainpower as it goes.

"Chronicle" is ...

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Celebrities from The Decemberists to Michael Bloomberg are showing support for Planned Parenthood -- and backing away from the breast-cancer advocacy group Susan G. Komen for the Cure -- after Komen's higher-ups bowed to right-wing pressure and cut funding to Planned Parenthood's breast-cancer screening programs. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Willow Smith won't be whipping her hair back and forth anymore -- because she got it shaved off. [

• British band The Wanted performs at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $15.50, at Smith's Tix and 24Tix.

• Southern-fried rockers Alabama Shakes performs at The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening act: The Trappers. Show sta...

Journalists are usually disparaged, ignored or insulted by politicians. But arrested?

That's what happened at a congressional hearing Wednesday to Josh Fox, the documentary filmmaker who received an Oscar nomination and a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival for his brilliant movie "Gasland."

According to Poliitco, Fox had brought a camera crew to cover a House Energy and Environment Subcommittee hearing about hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," the technique of pumping water and chemicals into the ground to free up natural-gas deposits. It's a procedure that, as Fox detailed in "Gasland," h...

The Disney empire is again bringing Christmas in springtime to Salt Lake City.

Filming starts here in two weeks on "Mistletones," an ABC Family movie set to air during the network's annual "25 Days of Christmas" programming.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Tia Mowry will star as Holly, a singer who auditions for the Christmas-caroling group her mother founded 40 years ago, the Mistletones. When she loses the spot to the best friend of the group's leader (Tori Spelling), Holly forms her own group that faces off against the Mistletones in a singing competition.<...

Here's what's going on today in pop culture:

• Punxsutawney Phil, the "official" groundhog of Groundhog Day, has allegedly seen his shadow today -- meaning six more weeks of Bill Murray references. [Time]

• The home of the Oscars might be changing its name, as Eastman Kodak has asked to have its name removed from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Angelo Dundee, the legendary trainer who guided Muhammad Ali through his cha...

It's not uncommon for an entertainer to say a story in the National Enquirer is untrue.

It's rarer for an entertainer to do so in the middle of The Salt Lake Tribune's offices.

The Enquirer story claims that Marie Osmond's recent re-marriage to her first husband, Stephen Craig, is on the rocks. The headline reads" "Marie: 'I Divorced You Once and I Can Do It Again!'"

Not so, says Marie's older brother, Merrill Osmond, who was visiting the Tribune newsroom with two of his sons today to talk about

• Indie rockers Los Campensinos! perform at In the Venue, 219 S. 600 West, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $15, at Smith's Tix and 24Tix.

• The Utah Jazz take on the Los Angeles Clippers at EnergySolutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Game starts at 7. Tickets ...

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Don Cornelius, the creator of the TV dance show "Soul Train," was found dead this morning in his California home, reportedly from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 75. [Washington Post]

• After only one season, Simon Cowell is taking a blowtorch to his singing competition "The X Factor," dumping host Steve Jones and judges Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger. [

There's a new teaser ad of the made-in-Utah blockbuster "John Carter" online -- with a twist.

The teaser (shown here on Cinema Blend) directs viewers to watch for a "John Carter" commercial during the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.

And to make it sweeter, Disney is launching a contest that will send the winner to next year's Super Bowl -- but you have to watch for a secret code during the "John Carter" ad, and then go to a special website.

'John Carter" opens March 9 nationwide.

• Mitchell Davis, a k a pop musician and Internet sensation LiveLavaLive, performs at The Complex, 536 W. 100 South, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $22, at Smith's Tix.

• Get your zydeco on with Rosie Ledet & the Zydeco Playboys, at The State Room, 638 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening act: Daniel Ellsworth & The Great Lakes. Show starts at 8. Tick...

If you think it's all glamour, all the time, at the Sundance Film Festival, read the observations of photographer Jim Urquhart.

Urquhart, a former staffer at The Salt Lake Tribune, worked this year for Reuters to cover the red-carpet lines at Sundance. Working Sundance, Urquhart wrote in a Reuters blog, "is more like a triathlon in terms of photo work. The days can be long, you have to use different photographic skill sets and there’s a bit of competition for pictures."

It's a lot of hard work and long hours, going from movie premiere to movie premiere. There's also a lot o...

Here's what's happening in pop culture:

• Want to own Ryan Gosling's scorpion jacket from "Drive"? It's available on eBay, with proceeds going to the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. [eBay]

• A four-year deal between Universal Pictures and toymaker Hasbro has come undone, leaving plans for movies based on "Monopoly," "Ouija" and "Candy Land" in the lurch. The "Battleship" movie, though, is still happening, and will be out in May. [

• "Best of Fest" screenings from the just-completed Sundance Film Festival happen today at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Showtimes are 3:30 (for the documentary "Chasing Ice"), 6:30 (the drama "Beasts of the Southern Wild") and 9:30 p.m. (the comedy-drama "The Surrogate"). Tickets were distributed weeks ago, but waitlist tickets may still be available.

• The Utah Jazz take on the Portland Trailblazers at EnergySolutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake Ci...

Dimitra Arliss, an actress whose best-known movie moment had her trying to kill Robert Redford, has died at the age of 79.

Arliss died Thursday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital near Los Angeles, from complications from a stroke, the AP reported.

Arliss had credits in such films as "Xanadu" and "Firefox," but her signature moment in movies was as Loretta Salino, the woman who beds Redford's Johnny Hooker in the 1973 classic "The Sting" -- only to be revealed to be an assassin a...

The "Brewvies Rule" -- in which mixing booze and boobs is forbidden in a movie theater -- was being strictly enforced at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

The New York Post reported that patrons attending the thriller "Black Rock" at the Egyptian Theatre -- one of the few Sundance venues that serves beer -- had to drink their suds in the lobby, and couldn't bring them into the theater.

The reason is Utah's liquor laws that prohibit alcohol being served anywhere nudity is on display. The law was intended to cover strip clubs -- but has been interpreted by the Department of Alcohol...

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• "The Help" took top honors at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, with wins for lead female actor Viola Davis, supporting female actor Octavia Spencer, and ensemble cast. [AP, via The Salt Lake Tribune]

• Michel Hazanavicius wins the Directors Guild of America's top prize for "The Artist," cementing the silent movie's front-runner status for the Oscars. [USA Today]

• But t...

• It's your last chance to take in the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, today through Sunday in Park City and at venues in Salt Lake City, Ogden and the Sundance resort. Go to the festival website for info.

• Rockin' violinist Emilie Autumn plays tonight as The Complex, 536 W. 100 South, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 8. Tickets are $20, at 24Tix.

• Singer-songwriter

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Matthew Broderick is bringing Ferris Bueller back, for a Super Bowl ad for an unnamed company. [Entertainment Weekly]

• After President Obama sang a few bars of Al Green's “Let's Stay Together,” the song jumped up 490 percent in sales online. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Robert Hegyes – an actor best known for playing Juan Epstein, one of the “Swe...

• Folk-rock singer-songwriter Adam Arcuragi performs at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening act: The Lupine Chorale Society. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $10, at 24Tix.

• Electronica/hip-hop artist Flying Lotus plays The Urban Lounge, 241 E. 500 South, Salt Lake City. Opening act: Steezo-Tactical Assault. Show starts at 9. Tickets are $20, at

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Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Oscar voters will get to submit ballots online next year – which could mean the ceremony will happen earlier in the year. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Uggie, the Jack Russell terrier who charmed moviegoers in “The Artist,” will retire from movies, according to...

• The Utah Jazz play host to the Toronto Raptors at EnergySolutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Game starts at 7. Tickets available at Smith's Tix.

• Comedian Brian Regan continues his long run at Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets available at ArtTix.

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Only five percent of the top 250 grossing films last year were directed by women, a new study finds. (One of them is “Kung Fu Panda 2.”) [Los Angeles Times]

• Legendary Greek director Theo Angelopoulos was killed when he was hit by a motorcycle near the set of his next movie. He was 76. [

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• The Oscar nominees are out – let the “Hugo”-vs.-“The Artist” smackdown begin. [The Salt Lake Tribune]

• The lead actors in “The Book of Mormon” on Broadway are staying with the show at least through February 2013. [Entertainment Weekly]

• “Citizen Kane” will screen at Hearst...

Here's what's happening today in pop culture (away from the Sundance Film Festival):

• “Underworld: Awakening” took the box-office title this weekend, with $25.4 million; “Red Tails” scored an impressive $19.1 million for second place. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Model and “Project Runway” host Heidi Klum and singer Seal are separating, after being married since 2005. [The Huffington Post]

• Utah Opera's production of “Rigoletto” continues at the Capitol Theatre, 50 W. 200 South, Salt Lake City. Performance begins at 7:30 p.m. (The show repeats Wednesday and Friday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.) Tickets available at ArtTix.

• Doomtree, a Minnesota rap collective, performs at The Urban Lounge, 241 S. 500 East, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 9. Tickets are $15, at

• Blue-collar band Blackhounds perform a farewell show, tonight at Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Mason Jones & Spooky Moon, Dirty Blonde, Matt Nanes. Show starts at 7. Tickets are $8, at 24Tix.

• The Utah Jazz play host to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Saturday at EnergySolutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Game starts at 7 p.m. Tickets available at

Finally, “The Artist” has arrived in Utah. Let out a shout – because the movie won't.

Writer-director Michel Hazanavicius' delightful valentine to Hollywood' distant past – filmed in black-and-white, and silent, too – is funny, sweet and utterly charming. Jean Dujardin is brilliant as a silent-movie star whose career is fading with the advent of talkies, while Berenice Bejo shines as an ingenue whose star is rising. Hazanavicius rediscovers the classic techniques of the silent era, reintroducing them to a world that has forgott...

Here's what's happening in pop culture:

• With support in Congress falling, MPAA head Chris Dodd (a former senator) wants Hollywood to meet with Silicon Valley to salvage the Stop Online Piracy Act. [Washington Post, The Hollywood Reporter]

• Oh, now Katharine Heigl wants back on “Grey's Anatomy.” Looks like someone has figured out ...

• Local metalcore band DeadGates performs at Kilby Court, 741 S. State St., Salt Lake City. Opening acts: My Final Estate, Cherish the King, Scarlet Risk, Dismemberment of Me. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $10, at 24Tix.

• The Canadian public-ra...

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Oh, by the way, the biggest freakin' cultural event in Utah starts today: The Sundance Film Festival. Here's the Cricket's interview with Robert Redford. [The Salt Lake Tribune]

• The battle over SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act - isn't over, but the techies who want the bill killed scored a victory with a series of online "blackouts" Wednesday. [The Huffi...

• Local hardcore/punk band If We Start This Fire plays Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court (330 West), Salt Lake City. Opening acts: Summer in Alaska, Da Rapticons, Stories of Ambition, Blinded by Truth. Show starts at 6:30. Tickets are $10, at 24Tix.

When it came to make "John Carter," the sci-fi blockbuster based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' novels about warring tribes on Mars, director Andrew Stanton said he lucked out when it came to choosing Utah for locations.

In an interview with Postmedia News (printed in the Vancouver Sun), Stanton said southern Utah's bleak red-rock landscapes were perfect for Mars.

Getting permission to use them turned out to be easier than filmmakers thought. Here's an excerpt from the story:

The cult status of the Burroughs Mars books helped the filmmakers overcome any resistance from Utah's Bureau of Land Management, when it came to filming in protected are...

The youngest of the original Osmond brothers is discouraging his kids from taking up the family business.

Jimmy Osmond told the British paper The Express that he has tried to keep his kids -- Sophia, 17; Zachary, 14; Arthur, 11; and Isabella, 9 -- from getting into showbiz.

“They do want to but I told them no. They’re talented little things and they used to be in some of my shows,” Osmond, 48, said in an interview. “I just want them to get an education. I never went to proper school. I went to college but I never graduated and it’s something I regret.”

Here's what's happening today in pop culture:

• Wikipedia and other major websites are dark today, and others are showing symbolic protests, to point out what web folks consider draconian restrictions on the Internet in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) now being discussed in Congress. [Huffington Post]

• Fans of celebrity cook Paula Deen are sympathetic after she announced she has type 2 diabetes. Critics -- like TV chef Anthony Bourdain -- are incensed that she's kn...

Utah's low-snow winter has taken a casualty: Ogden's Winterfest 2012.

The annual event, set for Jan. 27-28, has been canceled, organizers announced today.

“Unfortunately, it is with deep regret that we announce the cancelation of this year’s Winterfest celebration," event coordinator Kevin Ireland said in a statement. "We want to express our appreciation to all of the organizations and supporters involved, and we look forward to next year’s festivities."

Organizers cited the small accumulation of snow in December and early January - and a 10-day forecast that anticipates rain.

• Disney-friendly pop band Allstar Weekend performs at The Complex, 638 W. 100 South, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 6. Tickets are $18, at the door.

• The Utah Jazz host the Los Angeles Clippers at EnergySolutions Arena, 301 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Game starts at 7. Tickets available at Smith's Tix.

• Singer/songwriter/guitarist duo McKail and

Before he goes off on his mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, singer David Archuleta is getting a little acting experience overseas.

The pint-sized performer from Murray, Utah, is in Manila, filming a miniseries, "Nandito Ako," for Filipino television.

It's the first time he's appeared on TV as a character other than himself. (He has appeared on "iCarly" and "Hannah Montaha," making him the Switzerland in the great kiddie cable TV war.)

Archuleta tweeted this message on Monday: "And it's a wrap for the 1st day of filming! Man, what a learning experience it's been alread...

Here's what's happening in pop culture:

• The Brits like "The Artist," too -- as it leads the BAFTA nominations with 12. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" received 11. [The Hollywood Reporter]

• Elton John's husband, David Furnish, is mad at Madonna after her song "Masterpiece" beat Elton's song from "Gnomeo & Juliet" at the Golden Globes. [Daily Mail]

• A movie version of Neil LaBute's "Some Girl(s)" is in the works, w...

• Pottery artist William James begins a gallery show, “Life Aquatic,” today at Art at the Main Gallery, in the Atrium of the City Library, 210 E. 400 South, Salt Lake City. The exhibit runs through Feb. 11.

• Pianist Jason Hardick presents a program featuring Beethoven’s middle-period piano sonatas, at Abravanel Hall, 123 W. South Temple, Salt Lake City. Show starts at 7. Tickets available at ArtTix.

• The Utah Grizzlies face the Idaho Steelheads in minor-league hockey action, at Maverik Center, 3200 S. Dec...

Here’s what’s happening in pop culture:

• Last night’s Golden Globes sets up a two-movie race between “The Artist” and “The Descendants,” and a head-to-head matchup between Marilyn Monroe and Margaret Thatcher. [AP, via The Salt Lake Tribune]

• The thriller “Contraband” took in $24.1 million this weekend to take the box-office derby. [Box Office Mojo]

• ABC cancels the reviled cross-dressing sitcom “Work It” after two episodes. [

• Comedian and podcast king Marc Maron performs tonight and Saturday at Wiseguys Trolley Square, 505 S. 600 East, Salt Lake City. Shows start at 7 and 9 p.m. both nights. Tickets are $20, at the Wiseguys website.

• "The Color of Your Socks: A Year with Pipilotta Rust," a documentary about the Swiss video artist, screens tonight at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, 20 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City. Screening starts at 7. ...

After decades on the road, the Osmond brothers are getting ready for their last concert tour in the United Kingdom.

“My older brothers have been working together for 54 years and that’s a very long time, never having stopped, doing at least 100 shows a year since the beginning," Jimmy Osmond, youngest of the singing Utah siblings, told the British newspaper The Star. “Merrill, who is the lead singer, is going a different direction so we looked at each other and said ‘Let’s do another tour but let’s make this one the last and make it different’.”

The Osmonds...

The week's best movie is a timeless classic - and almost old enough to buy alcohol.

First released in 1991, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" remains a brilliant, funny and emotionally rich movie. The "tale as old as time," of the yearning Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara) learning to love and be loved by a melancholy beast (voiced by Robby Benson), has great characters, strong animation and some of the best musical numbers ever put to film. (Admit it, you're humming "Be Our Guest" right now, aren't you?) This week's re-release, in digital 3-D, is a great chance to be bowled over by its charms all over again. (The movie is accompan...

Here's what's happening in pop culture:

• "The Artist" -- which will get to Salt Lake City next week, I promise -- wins four Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Also winning: George Clooney, Viola Davis, Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer. [The Washington Post]

• After doing better than Jon Huntsman in a South Carolina poll, TV "pundit" Stephen Colbert is contemplating his own ru...