The top 10 movies of 2019: Going around the world, exposing class divisions and personal struggles

A family of grifters meeting the perfect marks.. A hitman who became a witness to history.. A rock star in free fall, and a karaoke hostess at the end of her rope. Two women falling in love with each other, and two girls on the verge of becoming women. A plot to save the world, and a plan to walk on the moon. Two Chinese-American women — one uncovering the pain of a government policy, the other helping keep a family secret.

The movies of 2019 — in particular, the 11 that made my top 10 list (math is for squares) — showed a range of ideas, topics, nationalities, genres and styles. Read my list here at sltrib.com.

Utah composer Kurt Bestor, ahead of his Christmas shows, talks about music, tradition and 'giving back'

For people in Utah, Kurt Bestor is as much a part of Christmas as Temple Square lights and traffic jams getting to Temple Square lights. The composer and musician, 61, has been performing his holiday concerts in Salt Lake City for 32 Decembers — the last three, including this year, at the Eccles Theater.

In an interview with yours truly, Bestor talks about how the holiday tradition started, how he resists being pigeonholed as “Mr. Christmas,” and how he works to give back by performing at hospitals and for veterans groups.

Read it here, at sltrib.com.

Joe McQueen, Ogden's ambassador of jazz for generations, dies at 100

Joe McQueen died Saturday at the age of 100.

McQueen was a touring jazzman who in 1945 came to Ogden for a two-week gig, and never left. He was so popular at Ogden’s black nightclubs that the white kids from Weber State University came to hear him play — and when the white club owners wanted to hire him, he refused unless the clubs would let black patrons come in and enjoy the show, too.

His reputation spread, so that when jazz greats were on the train between Chicago and San Francisco, they would stop in Ogden just to play with him. In later years, he became an inspiration to new generations of musicians.

Read about McQueen here, at sltrib.com.

Eccles Theater's new holiday 'tree' takes snowboard shapes and sends them airborne

A newer “tradition” in downtown Salt Lake City — being all of two Christmases old — is the holiday tree in the Eccles Theatre lobby at 131 S. Main St.

This year, designers Rob and Shelley Beishline took inspiration from Utah’s winter sports, to create a tree made from 75 snowboard shapes. Weight restrictions prevented them from using recycled snowboards; an aluminum-laminated plastic sheeting was cut into the desired shape. The spiral structure holding them is based on a mathematical rule, and the graphics were inspired by homemade wrapping paper.

Read about the tree, at sltrib.com.

Ogden leaders hope The Monarch will be the hub of a thriving arts district

Ninety years ago, the building on Ogden’s 25th Street was one of Utah’s first covered parking structures. Now, The Monarch is a two-story arts space — event area upstairs, 40 artists’ studios and retail spaces below.

It’s also a project many in Ogden are pinning their hopes on, as a centerpiece of a revitalized arts district in what has been a sparse and empty downtown area. It’s part of the new Nine Rails district, which aims to connect the Ogden Amphitheatre, Peery’s Egyptian Theatre, the city’s library and other venues.

Read about those plans here, at sltrib.com: https://www.sltrib.com/artsliving/2019/12/01/once-sparse-empty-heart/

Utah political figures talk about what it's like to be lampooned by Salt Lake Tribune editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley

One of the best things about working at The Salt Lake Tribune is that we’re in the same room with Pat Bagley, easily the most talented and sharpest editorial cartoonists in America.

Bagley celebrated 40 years with the paper recently — there’s an event happening Thursday, Nov. 14, though tickets have all been distributed — and to mark the occasion, I interviewed some of his past targets. I talked to several current and former (mostly former) officeholders about looking down the business end of Pat’s pen. (Many more declined to talk, or didn’t answer my calls and emails at all.) Their comments are in this article, in sltrib.com.

Utah's piano-playing sibling act, The 5 Browns, talk about holiday favorites as they release a Christmas album

The 5 Browns, the Utah-raised sibling piano stars, released their first Christmas album this month — a nice mix of traditional and classical works, all arranged for maximum effect on five pianos. (The cuts from “The Nutcracker Suite” are quite beautiful.)

In this interview, in sltrib.com, the five siblings talk about their favorite Christmas songs, how they pick who gets to solo, and whether early November is too soon to play Christmas music.

What makes a painting a masterpiece? Three works at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on loan from the Smithsonian, open the question.

Alma Thomas’ “Red Sunset, Old Pond Concerto” (1972), on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts now until Oct. 4, 2020. (Image courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.)

Thomas Moran’s “Mist in Kanab Canyon, Utah” (1892), on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be on display at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts now until Oct. 4, 2020. (Image courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum.)

It’s fun to listen to two museum directors nerd out over paintings.

That’s what happened when I interviewed Stephanie Stebich, director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and Gretchen Dietrich, executive director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, on Friday. The occasion is the arrival of three works on loan to UMFA from the Smithsonian, from now through Oct. 4, 2020.

The loan is part of a program involving five Western art museums and SAAM, backed by a $2 million grant by Art Bridges and the Terra Foundation for American Art. (UMFA also has a fourth painting, by Diego Rivera, on a separate loan from Art Bridges, a foundation created by Alice Walton, an heir to the Walmart fortune.)

The paintings, all landscapes in their way, spark a conversation about what makes a painting a masterpiece. Read about that conversation, with Stebich and Dietrich, in my article from sltrib.com.

Salt Lake City gets its largest piece of public art, "Pages of Salt," seven stories high and costing $2.2 million.

Salt Lake City officials welcomed the city’s biggest piece of public art — and, at a cost of $2.2 million, its most expensive.

“Pages of Salt,” a seven-story installation of stainless steel rods and teflon sheets, has been installed on the north wall of the Walker Center parking garage, overlooking the McCarthey Plaza along Regent Street in downtown Salt Lake City. The 336 teflon panels are designed to evoke the newspapers that used to be printed on that street (when the presses for The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News were there), and to ripple in the wind like the waters of the Great Salt Lake.

Here’s my story about the city’s welcoming party for the new artwork, on sltrib.com.

There are snakes, rats and trout living near us in Utah — and now they're living in the Natural History Museum of Utah's new exhibit

Nature isn’t a far-away thing, the folks at the Natural History Museum of Utah say, but something as close as your backyard, neighborhood park or city street.

The museum’s new exhibit, “Nature All Around Us,” teaches about the wild critters and plants that live in close proximity to humans every day. Museum staff have been working for three years developing the exhibit, the biggest in-house presentation they’ve ever done outside the permanent exhibits.

The exhibit features interactive presentations, specimens from the museum’s collection, and 18 cases that hold real, live animals, including a gopher snake, a brown tarantula, snails, brown rats, and rainbow and brown trout. (Obviously, not together.)

Read more about the exhibit, which opens Saturday, Oct. 19, here at sltrib.com.