Week of Feb. 21, 2024
From the editor’s desk
Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm is back “for a 12th and, allegedly, final season,” reports Bob Grimm,” our resident movie/TV guy. “Honestly, David could keep doing this until he’s 100 years old, and I think we’d all be fine with that.” New episodes are airing on HBO and streaming on Max.
Also high on Bob’s watchlist this week: Mr. and Mrs. Smith, a new riff on the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film. This new Amazon Prime series scores high marks for consistent laughs, giving Donald Glover a chance to go a little grittier and more dramatic, and being wonderfully bingeable.
The COVID pandemic lit a fire under Kate Boyle MacDonald and her husband, Craig MacDonald, owners of Boyle MacDonald Wines in Murphys, Calif. They took a gamble on Reno, and now they’re also the owners of Nevada Sunset Winery on Reno’s East Fourth Street.
If doom metal were to crawl from the muck to find itself sprawled beneath the high desert sky … it might sound something like Reno band Kanawha’s newest album, Broken Branches, writes music scribe Matt Bieker. Here’s more about the band’s years-long transition from “stoner/doom” to what vocalist Mark Earnest called “semi-unclassifiable, ’90s hybrid, loud-guitars, in-your-face stuff.”
Upside Down Land, the new immersive art installation in the back rooms and backyard of the Potentialist Workshop in downtown Reno, is jam-packed with the hallmarks of psychedelic art—infinity mirrors, impossible creatures in day-glo colors, and dollhouse dioramas too weird to have come from Mattel—but it’s clean enough for kids.
No relationship is perfect, and the late ’90s coldhearted comedy The Smell of the Kill, onstage at Restless Artists Theatre in Sparks through Feb. 26, takes this idea to its furthest reaches. Here’s the full review from Jessica Santina.
Business owners “certainly don’t look in the mirror nearly enough with true objectivity,” writes our business columnist Matt Westfield. “It’s really scary to see the truth.” This month, Matt leads you through why—and how—to conquer the fear and do it anyway.
Take care,
—Kris Vagner, managing editor
From the RN&R
A chance encounter: These NoCal winemakers never expected to buy a Reno winery, but one thing led to another
By Steve Noel
February 21, 2024
“We didn’t realize until COVID happened that life could literally change overnight,” said Kate Boyle MacDonald. “And so we said, ‘What are we waiting for? Let’s just go for it and see if we can make this happen.’”
Escaping the doom: Kanawha’s new album ‘Broken Branches’ marks a turning point
By Matt Bieker
February 20, 2024
Kanawha’s lineup has changed since the band formed in 2016. The current iteration had a near-instant onstage chemistry, born from years of stage experience and camaraderie.
The end of the crank: The (supposedly) last season of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ is off to a fine start
By Bob Grimm
February 19, 2024
Larry David is back, a few years older—and much, much angrier, especially if you tell him the Wordle answer before he gets a chance to play.
Murderous marriage: Donald Glover’s ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ series has more grit and depth than the film
By Bob Grimm
February 19, 2024
While Mr. and Mrs. Smith has consistent laughs, it gives Donald Glover a chance to go a little heavier on the dramatic side.
Immersed in wonder: The Potentialist Workshop’s ‘Upside Down Land’ is packed with psychedelic imagery but clean enough for kids
By Kris Vagner
February 18, 2024
Upside Down Land, the new installation in the back rooms and backyard of the Potentialist Workshop in downtown Reno, is jam-packed with the hallmarks of psychedelic art—infinity mirrors, impossible creatures in day-glo colors, and dollhouse dioramas too weird to have come from Mattel.
A dish best served Cold: Restless Artists Theatre presents ‘The Smell of the Kill’
By Jessica Santina
February 16, 2024
You never know what goes on between a couple behind closed doors. You can peek behind those doors this weekend and next at Restless Artists Theatre.
How to assess your value components: Looking in the mirror can be intimidating, but we need to do it anyway
By Matt Westfield
February 15, 2024
Business owners need to create customer “value.” It’s pretty simple, but if we don’t do it repeatedly and consistently, week in and week out, we’re out of business.
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