Big Bang Fireworks

Remember when bands cared about albums as an art form? Instead of slapping together a dozen tracks because, hey, they'll just end up on everyone's iPod shuffle anyway, musicians considered how their songs might congeal as a whole or form some sort of dram

Elvis Costello's frequent collaborator T-Bone Burnett produced Secret, Profane & Sugarcane, an Americana-inflected album working with country and folk traditions for images of sawdust floors set to mandolin and fiddle. Costello intended one s

The lights went out this spring on Patty Burger, a short-lived fast food place on a busy corner of Milwaukee's East Side. But the sluggish economy didn't stop all wheels from turning. The storefront was filled June 3 with Sobelman's Tall Grass Grill (1952

You wouldn’t expect to find T-bone and sirloin dinners at a place with stool seating and a location next to a shop hawking cell phones and cigarettes. But one of the city’s most evocatively named eateries, ZaZa Steak & Lemonade (4919 W. Capito

The enduring fantasy of older men is that a gorgeous young woman will fall in love with them, find them sexually arousing and long to imbibe their wisdom while sitting at their feet. That fantasy is the spring driving Woody Allen's often-hilarious f

Away We Go, a droll comedy-cum-drama by director Sam Mendes (American Beauty), perceptively explores the lives of more-or-less ordinary 30-somethings lost in a world without much meaning. Verona (Maya Rudolph) and Bu