Though it’s difficult to consider a product as ubiquitous as beer an endangered resource, in their new documentary, 99 Bottles, a group of Milwaukee filmmakers argue that these are hard times for microbreweries, since ingredient shortages, stricter laws and numerous fees cut into the profits of small brewmasters. The Times Cinema screens the film, which compiles interviews with two dozen mostly local brewers, through Sunday, and each screening...

One of the greatest achievements of E.B. White's 1952 novel Charlotte's Web is that it avoids talking down to children. Alongside the humor and hope inherent in a barn spider's selfless friendship with a runty pig, the tale illuminates the graver realities of nature and survival. First Stage's production of Charlotte's Web, which is staged tonight at 7 p.m. in the Marcus Center, doesn't fully eclipse these graver themes but focuses more on the tale's lyrical life/death cycle, investing...

Perhaps its quality control that accounts for Bob Dylan’s late-career critical resurgence. Since his 1997 comeback Time Out of Mind, Dylan has judiciously only released two studio albums, 2001’s Love and Theft and 2006’s Modern Times, both of which were sly, memorable and better for the wait. That’s not to say Dylan has left his diehards starving for new material, though. He recently released the eighth installment of his “Bootleg Series,” Tell Tale Signs. Compiled from mostly excellent unreleased material from the last decade and...

Rural Wisconsin was and still is a difficult location for a poet to launch a career, and mid-20th century Objectivist Lorine Niedecker suffered because of her remote location. Niedecker published her first book in 1946, then withered a 15 year drought during which she was barely published at all. By the time the 1960s poetry establishment took interest in Niedecker’s thoughtful, deeply personal poems, she was near the end of her life. Filmmaker Cathy Cook pays belated homage to this reclusive Wisconsin poet in her new film Immortal Cupboard: In Search...

Though it’s difficult to consider a product as ubiquitous as beer an endangered resource, in their new documentary, 99 Bottles, a group of Milwaukee filmmakers argue that these are hard times for microbreweries, since ingredient shortages, stricter laws and numerous fees cut into the profits of small brewmasters. The Times Cinema screens the film, which compiles interviews with two dozen mostly local brewers, through Sunday, and each...

The jammy, dubby, sample-laden reggae-punk of Slightly Stoopid caught the ear of Sublime’s Bradley Nowell, who signed the band while they were still in high school. Since Nowell’s death, the California band has helped fill the continued niche for Sublime-styled grooves, finding particular success on the road. They play the Rave tonight at 8 p.m. with openers Outlaw Nation.

One of the heaviest of the major emo bands, Sense Fail top a 7 p.m. bill at the Rave tonight. The band is touring behind its latest angry-mope fest, Life is Not a Waiting Room, a bleak album that tells the true story of singer Buddy Nielsen’s nasty breakup and his subsequent decent into depression and alcoholism. Nielsen’s spirits were lifted, however, by a terminally ill fan who put his woes into perspective.

By now the cycle is pretty well cemented: Kings of Leon release an album, which is then greeted with cold reviews and hot sales. Lather, rinse, repeat. The Southern rock group’s latest record, Only By the Night, is their most polarizing record yet, attracting lavish praise from established print media and particularly savage derision from online contrarians. The disc is selling like Depression-priced hotcakes thanks to its haunting lead single, “Sex On Fire,” a career-best that reverberates in the mind for hours after each listen, making...

Few indie-rock bands groove with the boombast of Gang Gang Dance, a group whose pulsating, worldly beats and whooshing, bassy synthesizers attack with the ferocity of a drive-by shooting. They’re a meaner, bolder band than just about any other in their scene—it’s impossible to mention any of their New York art-scene peers spitting reggaton raps with the same cock-grabbing confidence. Like the headliners, opener Marnie Stern has been decreed an artist worth watching by just about every Internet tastemaker worth...

Hurricane Katrina and the botched government response to its destruction has inspired no shortage of angry documentaries, but Trouble The Water, the documentary that screens for free tonight at 7 p.m. in the UWM Union Theatre, distinguishes itself from its peers with its horrifying footage of the actual hurricane. Much of the footage was shot by a regular New Orleans resident.