Tag archives: Netflix

A Hand for Hannu
By Richard Mineards   |   July 12, 2022

How fitting that Hannu Lintu, a graduate of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, should be conducting the Finnish composer’s The Oceanides with the Academy Festival Orchestra at the Granada, part of the Music Academy’s 75th anniversary summer festival celebrations. Lintu, 54, chief conductor of the Finnish National Opera and Ballet, was in extraordinary form for […]

Netflix’s The Andy Warhol Diaries Provides Inspiration for a Foodie’s Diary
By Claudia Schou   |   June 21, 2022

Saturday Dear Diary, This pandemic was so inconvenient, and awful, just awful. I’ve never felt so lonely and depressed in my entire life. Thank you for helping me get through the pandemic! I’ve kept sane with tantalizing home cooked meals and entertaining TV series like Pam and Tommy. Last night I finished the last episode […]

Toasting a Visionary: Dozens Celebrate Kostis Protopapas’ 50th Birthday
By Richard Mineards   |   May 20, 2021

It was all Greek to many when Kostis Protopapas, general director of Opera Santa Barbara, celebrated his half-century with a delightful evening of music and song at the University Club. Kostis, who was born in Athens and moved to the U.S. in 1993 on an Onassis scholarship to study piano at The Boston Conservatory and […]

A Spring Sing
By Richard Mineards   |   April 29, 2021

Opera Santa Barbara hosted an evening of high note with its fifth annual Sings For You! at the University Club, with soprano Alaysha Fox from the Young Artists Program of the Los Angeles Opera and Nicholas Roehler at the piano. With an eclectic program of works from Wagner, Verdi, Strauss, Cole Porter, Rodgers, and Hart, […]

Talkin’ Tunes and Times Through TEDxSB
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 31, 2020

TEDxSantaBarbara founder and executive producer Mark Sylvester realized early on as COVID-19 crept into our consciousness that he’d probably have to cancel his annual convention that each fall brings together as many as 10 speakers with local spins on the TED trio of topics (technology, entertainment, and design). That’s when the disappointment set in.  “It […]

Focus on Film: Frank Talk on a Gambit
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 3, 2020

If you haven’t yet checked out The Queen’s Gambit, deservedly one of the top-ranked shows on Netflix and one of the best original series in the streaming service’s catalog, now would be a good time to get started on the seven-episode series about a chess prodigy turned accomplished if tortured young woman. That’s because Scott […]

Bringing Movies Back to the Big Screen
By Steven Libowitz   |   June 18, 2020

COVID-19 has certainly crushed a lot of dreams since forcing a shutdown back in March. But it’s also had a silver lining or two: After having closed its doors, supposedly forever, just a little more than a year ago, the Westwind Drive-In movie theater reopened a couple of weeks back, and immediately became a desired […]

Screaming While Streaming
By Ernie Witham   |   December 8, 2019

I pressed the microphone icon on the Apple TV remote and said with emphasis: “Siri. Turn. Off. Voiceover.” Siri responded in text on the screen: “Voiceover is already off.” I chuckled. “I can still hear it Siri. Listen.” I pressed play and the detective series Bosch came on. There was a bit of clever dialog […]

Get Cozy with Kanopy
By Kim Crail   |   November 14, 2019

The days are getting shorter. This time change has cleaned our clocks. Hibernation feels are finally here. The Montecito Library can help you out with those cozy, quiet nights in. Kanopy is a new on-demand video streaming service available to you for free with your library card. You can stream it like Netflix or Amazon […]

More TV Or Not More TV: That is the Question
By Ernie Witham   |   June 20, 2019

We don’t watch much TV, so we have a bare-bones cable package. We get the basic networks, some Spanish-speaking soap operas that involve a lot of yelling and scantily-clad women, and about 16 shopping channels all with excited people that probably “just barely” failed their screen tests for action shows, but who now dramatically sell […]