Director Yung Chang quietly explores potent themes of consumerism in his personable, critically acclaimed documentary, Up The Yangtze. The film, which for free screens tonight and through Thursday at 7 p.m. in the UWM Union Theater, follows the impact that building the Three Gorges dam has on two young Chinese...

Ryan Gosling delivered a career performance in the 2006 independent drama Half Nelson as Dan Dunne, a charming young high-school teacher and basketball coach whose burgeoning friendship with one of his students, played by Shareeka Epps, is complicated by his not-so-hidden drug addiction. Though she has family troubles of her own, the student becomes a nurturing, almost parental figure for hear teacher. Tonight’s...

Overwhelmed by the consumer culture around her, Mississippi artist Kate Bingaman started Obsessive Consumption, a series of artwork and a corresponding Web site (ObsessiveConsumption.com) documenting her own consumerist tendencies. For two years, she created pieces of art based on her daily purchases, and to this day continues to draw all her credit card statements. Often Bingaman’s work is giddy...

The Milwaukee Book Festival, which runs through Oct. 14, welcomes yet another author tonight: Junot Diaz, a Dominican American novelist whose latest book is The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao, a wry story about an obese science-fiction nerd who must recognize his Star Trek-lionizing life in New Jersey with his Dominican Republic upbringing. Diaz reads from the book tonight at 7 p.m. in the UWM Union Ballroom.

Sacramento hard-rockers Telsa have been touring off and on since 1984, and after all these years, their hair is for the most part as long and unruly as it was in their heyday. Though it’s unlikely the band will repeat the success of their 1989 power-ballad “Love Song,” the group is set to release its seventh studio album this week, Forever More, and they’re giving it the full tour promotional push, stopping tonight at the Rave...

Even if he’d stopped recording after the 1970s, Peter Hammill would have been heralded as one of the most important figures in prog-rock for his work as the primary singer-songwriter in Van der Graaf Generator, the British ensemble whose ambitious, ever-shifting albums presaged most major trends in prog-rock, and later even hinted at early punk-rock. After Van der Graaf Generator’s 1978 break-up, though, Hammill went on to cement his reputation with literally dozens of solo albums, each with a different instrumental set-up—some were...

Alanis Morissette launched her rock career with Jagged Little Pill, one of the best selling debut albums of all time, so it’s no surprise that she’s had a difficult time topping that introduction. Subsequent albums have been released to ambivalence (and, increasingly, outright disinterest) from critics who are still more interested in learning who “You Oughta Know” was really about than hearing Morissette’s thoughts on spirituality. Morissette’s latest, however, returns the ever-burdened singer to the subject matter that made her a...

Keeping with Cirque du Soleil’s vision of cramming as many amazing acts of human agility onto a stage as can possibly fit at one time, Saltimbanco is the company’s oldest touring revue and a good overview of the company’s blend of ballet, juggling, acrobatics and general feats of strength. Though, like all of Cirque du Soleil’s early creations, there’s no tangible plot here, the show revolves around several reoccurring characters...

First Stage's adaptation of Lois Lowry's Gossamer begins with a waif-like girl engaged in a battle of wills with her unyielding mentor, her unquenchable curiosity gently butting against her elder's limited reserve of patience. It's an appropriate beginning for a play that is essentially all about the battle of wills between the spirited ingeniousness of youth and the wisdom of old age, the forces of light and darkness, and between a young...

Dogs take over Brady today as part of the 7th Annual Brady Street Pet Parade, a four-hour event from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event features a costume contest, raffle prizes and an animal blessing at St. Rita’s Church, as well as the main attraction: a march down the popular shopping street at 1:30 p.m. Brady Street’s...