Go Memphis

Grounded by Johnny Depp's relatively restrained and sometimes humorous star turn as the eloquently plain-spoken and charismatic gangster, John Dillinger, "Public Enemies" is both mesmerizing and disappointing.

Longtime Memphis moviemaker John Michael McCarthy leaves town Tuesday for an almost three-week tour of Australia that will include the premiere Friday of his latest feature, "Cigarette Girl," at the prestigious Revelation Perth International Film Festival.

You'd never guess it from my happy-go-lucky persona, so beloved by readers, but I'm a fan of dark and pessimistic world views, especially when expressed in the incongruous context of a so-called comedy by characters with little apparent reason for their assertions of superiority. So even though "Whatever Works" is stagey, unconvincing and somewhat stale in its knee-jerk existentialism, it's also frequently very funny.

Andrew Bryant has something to fall back on now. This spring the Mississippi singer-songwriter earned his degree in history from Ole Miss. With a wife and new child, Bryant is hoping the degree will lead to a teaching job, a more stable source of income than the life of a traveling troubadour and indie recording artist. But Bryant has no plans on giving up on music, just moving things around to accommodate it

Fourth of July festivities, including fireworks, parades, speeches and concerts, are being held around the area. Downtown Memphis' Red, White and Blues Celebration begins at 5 p.m. Friday in Beale Street's W.C. Handy Park, with music provided by local rapper Muck Sticky and others. At 9:30 p.m., fireworks will erupt over Tom Lee Park. On Saturday in Germantown, Municipal Park will be the center of activities beginning at 5 p.m., with fireworks at 9:10 p.m. Here's a list of Independence Day events:

Opening Sunday at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, the exhibition "Bold, Cautious, True: Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era" explores the theme of American identity by juxtaposing a variety of art from the period -- portraits, landscapes and genre pictures, scenes of the battlefield -- with lines from some of Whitman's most thoughtful or popular poems, particularly those that deal with the death of Abraham Lincoln. The exhibition will be displayed at the Dixon through Oct. 2, after which it will travel to the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, N.Y.

Food writer Jennifer Biggs and deputy metro editor Peggy Burch dine out often, and sometimes together. When they do, they talk about the food, the service and the atmosphere, dialogues we'll share in reviews of favorite old Memphis restaurants as well as restaurants just making their debuts. This week, they visit Wang's Mandarin House on Park Avenue near Ridgeway.

Richard Johnston's one-man band is an institution on Beale Street. People gather in front of him while he plays guitar, drums and sings -- all at the time same. They dance and talk to him. The audience gets larger during the evening. By playing the drum with bare feet, Johnston achieves the sounds of the kick and bass drums and tambourine. Saturday night, the one-man band will become a group of performers, but they'll still play on the street in front of The New Daisy.

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Jordan Buchanan is sous chef at Cafe Society.

Still showing in theaters is Pixar's "Up!" Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner) is a widower and would-be explorer who's as blocky as the old house he refuses to abandon. When he and a chubby boy scout land on a lost plateau in South America, director Pete Docter's story takes on something of the craziness of the classic Donald Duck adventures created by comic-book artist Carl Barks in the 1940s and '50s.

As singer, songwriter and bassist for New Jersey combo The Black Hollies, Justin Angelo Morey is a seriously styled musician. Since first emerging in 2004, Morey and company have been affectionately mining the music of the '60s Nuggets scene, with a period-perfect look, sound and feel. The band kicks off the second leg of its summer tour in Memphis at the Buccaneer next week with locals Bulletproof Vests.

The members of the Ft. Worth, Texas, pop-rock band Green River Ordinance have been spending a good bit of time in the Memphis area lately. They recorded most of their major-label debut, Out Of My Hands, here last summer at producer Paul Ebersold’s Seven Four Seven Studios. They returned earlier this year for a set at the Beale Street Music Festival. And next week, they share the stage with Collective Soul and Gavin DeGraw at Snowden Grove Amphitheater’s Summer Nights $10 concert series.

These days country singer Darryl Worley is never far from his wife, Kimberley, and their 15-month-old daughter, Savannah. Even when he heads out on one of his frequent tour swings, like the one that brings him to Gold Strike Casino this on a Fourth of July bill with Phil Vassar, you can find the Worley girls in songs like "Best of Both Worlds" and "Everyday Life," both off of Worley's new disc, appropriately titled Sounds Like Life.

It's the rare chocolate treat that tempts me: Instead, I'll take a creme brulee or a scoop of vanilla ice cream when I succumb to dessert. But the brownie at Fino's is going on my crave list. My daughter and I ducked in for a quick lunch, but we were victimized by a stroke of effective marketing when we glanced the brownie in the pastry case.

Let us thank the producers of "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" for remembering that adults sit beside the youngest viewers. The film interweaves vigorous, inventive slapstick, captivating voice talent and a script that depends more on tongue-in-cheek humor than perfunctory pop culture gags. Kids who are just graduating from Pull-Ups should have a blast, and ditto for their babysitters.

Among the Independence Day celebrations this weekend, at least one event will honor the red, white and blues. "The Soul of America '09" party on Saturday at the Downtown venue Stop 345 (345 Madison) brings together a lineup of some of the city's best blues and R&B performers, past and present. The event was organized by local Web developer and music enthusiast Ross Gohlke as a showcase for some of his favorite local artists

As powerful narrative, the work of Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence speaks directly to the African-American experience. As powerful art, it speaks in equally direct tones to the human experience. In one of the most visually exhilarating exhibits to arrive at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in some time, "The Prints of Jacob Lawrence, 1963-2000," chronicles most of the etchings, woodcuts, silk screens and lithographs by this important 20th century artist.

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