When I graduated from high school, New Kids On The Block were the rage and Madonna was queen of the pop charts. Paula Abdul was an American idol and Indiana Jones and Batman were tops in the theaters.

Bo Burnham is a YouTube favorite, an iTunes smash and a comedy club regular. Not bad for a 17-year-old math geek.

Willie Nelson and Wynton Marsalis? On the same record? Well, why not? In a time when Ludacris and Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee are getting together to save the environment, an album culled from two live shows featuring legends in their respective fields – Nelson in country, Marsalis in jazz – isn’t so far out there.

In the wide wake of “WALL-E,” the best Pixar film since “The Incredibles,” “Short Circuit” is the movie most mentioned as its touchstone. Both have lonely robots with a thirst for knowledge and companionship that defy directives to forge destinies. Thankfully, only one has Steve Guttenberg.

In honor of Independence Day, there are some truths I hold to be self-evident in the entertainment world where a pursuit of happiness takes a slight precedence over life and liberty.

Will Smith's "Hancock" suffers from trying to be too many movies at once.

The Wheaton Symphony Orchestra returns for its annual concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 12, at Cantigny Park, 1S151 Winfield Road, Wheaton. The outdoor program will be “The American Musical,” a chronological survey of musicals from early in the 20th century to the present day.

The Midsummer Theatre Troupe will present William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night” at various outdoor locations during July.

Till recently, Brendan Fraser was not the world’s biggest fan of 3-D movies. Even as a kid, he couldn’t put up with the red/blue glasses that made you dizzy while objects sort of jumped off the screen and waved in your face.

“Ralph’s World,” a zany family concert featuring Ralph Covert, is offered in two July performances at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle.

Abigail Breslin turned 12 in April, yet she’s a veteran actor. The TV commercials started at age 3, and now she has a starring role — and her name above the title! — in the new film “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl."

Elgin OPERA announces The Festival of Singers coming to the newest Villa Verone Ristorante Italiano just opened in downtown Elgin.

Jazz vocalists and recording artists Janice Borla, Jay Clayton and Judy Niemack are among the nationally and internationally recognized performers highlighting the 20th anniversary “Hot Jazz-6 Cool Nites” concert series from July 18 to 24 at North Central College in Naperville.

In "Hancock,'' Will Smith is a drunken, abrasive superhero with worse PR than NFL bad boy Adam  "Pacman''  Jones.

Warner Bros. just re-released all the Dirty Harry films on DVD, so I sat down and watched the original.