Upcoming events: Todd Rundgren in concert; Habitat seeking volunteers
The Monroe News
The following events and opportunities are among those happening in the Monroe County region.
If you have a community or entertainment event to report to The Monroe News, please email it to events@monroenews.com; or mail or drop off to The Monroe News, 20 W. First St., Monroe, Mich. 48161. All event and meeting notices must arrive to the newsroom at least one week before the event or reservation deadline.
Todd Rundgren to host virtual multicity tour
Recording artist, producer, songwriter and tech pioneer Todd Rundren has started The Clearly Human Tour, a national tour of 25 performances in virtual format, but each geo-fenced and tailored to a different city.
Are you real? At this very moment, there is a small but probably growing contingent of people who think that you are not. But don’t take it personally. It’s not your fault. And those who believe this are a bit ambiguous as to whether they, too, aren’t real. What they do believe is that reality as they, you, and I perceive it is a simulation, generated by some external force that itself inhabits the “real” reality (presuming that, of course, is not also a simulation). To modify Shakespeare, and to use an analogy these so-called simulation theorists are tellingly fond of: All the world’s a video game, and all of us merely players. Or, rather, played — many of these true believers think that we lack actual agency as well, that we’re merely the playthings of higher beings. This simulation theory is the subject of A Glitch in the Matrix, a new documentary by Rodney Ascher (Room 237, The Nightmare). It purports to examine the “mi
What’s new to VOD and streaming this weekend
Including reviews of Judas And The Black Messiah, Cowboys, The Map Of Tiny Perfect Things and Saint Maud By Norman Wilner
N
OW critics pick what’s new to streaming and VOD for the weekend of February 12. Plus: Everything new to VOD and streaming platforms.
Judas And The Black Messiah
(Shaka- King)
In less skilful hands, Judas And The Black Messiah could play like hollow Oscar bait, a tragedy of Black lives manipulated by cynical white authority in a less enlightened time. Instead, director/co-writer King’s powerhouse drama about the complicity of FBI informant William O’Neal in the 1969 murder of Black Panthers community organizer Fred Hampton keeps subtly drawing parallels to the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement, showing us how little has changed in the ensuing half-century. The film has a nervous, contemporary feel, every scene carrying an immediacy that threatens to punch through the period setting. And t
Here s what s playing â FEB. 12-18 â at in-person and virtual cinemas in the Berkshires and environs. Where films have been reviewed, the capsules include the name of film critic and the day the full review was posted on berkshireeagle.com. All reviews are by Associated Press critics.
ACASA, MY HOME
For two decades, the Enache family â nine kids and their parentsâ lived in a shack in the wilderness of Bucharest Delta: an abandoned water reservoir, one of the biggest urban natural reservations in the world, with lakes and hundreds of species of animals and rare plants. When the authorities decide to claim back this rare urban ecosystem, the Enache family is evicted and told to resettle in the city â a reality they know nothing about. Kids that used to spend their days in nature have to learn about city life, go to school instead of swimming in the lake, and swap their fishing rods for mobile phones. Their identity has been questioned and transformed, along w
Amazon Studios’ new movie
Bliss seems like a story designed to start arguments. Coincidentally released the same weekend as Rodney Ascher’s
A Glitch In the Matrix, a documentary about people who authentically believe the world is some form of artificial simulation,
Bliss explores the fictional side of that same idea. It opens with an ordinary businessman, Greg Wittle (played by Owen Wilson) struggling at his job, because he has visions of a much more beautiful and compelling one. Shortly after a severe problem at work, he meets a woman named Isabel (Salma Hayek) who tells him he’s one of the few real people in a largely illusory world. She introduces him to the power he has over the world around him, and draws him into a more chaotic and carefree life.