Commissioned by the LA Jazz Society, Jonah Levine embarks on a journey of creativity as he writes and composes a jazz suite representing Los Angeles with his collective of diverse musicians. Working together, the Jonah Levine Collective collaborates and rehearses his musical compositions days prior to their final performance at the Moss Theater.

Summer Dean makes music rooted in Telecaster twang, southern storytelling, and the rugged resilience of the American West, it’s the sound of a lifelong Texan whose songs evoke her tough, independent spirit. Her full-length debut album Bad Romantic struts out of the speakers, but also finds moments of tenderness and vulnerability.

A glimpse into the lives of an eccentric New York family, CHARM CIRCLE follows filmmaker Nira Burstein as she attempts to bridge the fractured relationships between herself and her family. Emotional and accomplished, especially in the way it weaves together decades-old home videos and contemporary footage, the film crafts a powerful family portrait that questions the value of the bonds that tie us together. Burstein’s brave, wryly amusing first feature is as loving as it is unpredictable. With moments of humor, music and creativity, Charm Circle finds compassion in places most challenging.

FAVORITE DAUGHTER is an intimate portrait of my grandmother Sylvia Weinstock and my mother Janet Isa, sheltering in place together in a lower Manhattan apartment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sylvia was living alone for the first time in her life when after her partner of 69 years, my grandpa, Ben, passed away. Then her youngest daughter, Janet, moved in. This short documentary is both raw and charming, melancholy and funny—a portrait of two women with vastly different experiences coming together and supporting one another through the uncertainty of spending the next chapters of their lives “alone,” without a partner.

"""Dark Thoughts, one of the few pop-punk bands it’s OK for hardcore folks to like."" Dark Thoughts: Must Be Nice 12” (Stupid Bag) Dark Thoughts’ 3rd LP is out, and I think it’s their best one yet. If you heard the first two, this one is a little different, with less of a stylized, Ramones-influenced sound. There are very few bells and whistles (except for the literal bells on the climactic closing track), and an apparently simple formula: take some smart and heartfelt lyrics, find a 3 or 4-chord progression that goes along with their tone, and bash it out as power chords with Ramones-style drums playing at an appropriate tempo (mid-paced to super fast, depending on the tone). For most bands, that would be a fast track to a bunch of generic and boring songs, but for Dark Thoughts the minimal ornamentation highlights how great these songs are. The lyrics give me all the feels (as the kids were saying in the not-too-distant past), and every track has the fist-pumping, energetic and anthemic sound that makes Dark Thoughts one of the few pop-punk bands it’s OK for hardcore folks to like. The overall tone and vibe is similar to what I consider the peak period of Screeching Weasel, i.e. their run of LPs from My Brain Hurts through How to Make Enemies and Irritate People, but if you whittled those records down to the faster, darker tracks like “Hanging Around,” “The Science of Myth,” “Every Night,” etc. Like most of the individual tracks, the LP is short, but it's such a thrilling listen that I often play it a few times in a row, something I rarely do with other records. I’ve been playing Must Be Nice since the digital version first went online back in December, and it shows no signs of leaving the “current listening” pile any time soon. - Daniel Lupton, Sorry State Records"