Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.

BY XAVIER JOHNSON For millennials and Zoomers, Miley Cyrus has been a constant presence in the pop mainstream for most of their lives. Twenty years in, she’s also become a rare child star turned solo artist who has undergone complete shifts in sound more than once and earned respect from …

BY TYLER HENSON Two of the best movies of the year are currently playing in theaters. Stop motion wonder Wildwood offers an emotionally powerful and visually resplendent fantasy adventure, and the innovative documentary You Can See Everything takes viewers on an absolutely engrossing journey into the kaleidoscopic world of Elizabeth …

BY XAVIER JOHNSON Rick Wakeman has explored Mars before, in 1971 playing piano on David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?,” and in 2020 making the trip himself with the instrumental album The Red Planet. Now, with Return to the Red Planet, he heads back, saying there was still much left to …

BY XAVIER JOHNSON What is it like after the lights come back on and the party is over? How does it feel to come home at 2:00 a.m. and catch yourself in the mirror? These questions are central to modern pop’s current movement. Today’s pop stars are in direct conversation …

BY HELEN LAME’ The Golden State Valkyries, fresh off a sweep of the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, used their stifling defense after trailing most of the game to score a 68-64 win over the Atlanta Dream in the first game of the WNBA Finals Saturday afternoon at Chase Center. …

BY XAVIER JOHNSON At 80 years old and 50 albums deep, Neil Young continues to sound inspired and sharp, but he’s also so, so tired. On Second Song, that weariness turns out to be the point. The last time we reviewed Young’s music was 2022’s World Record, an outing with …

About 138,400 adults in Contra Costa County say their mental health was not good on at least 14 of the past 30 days, according to the newest county estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s 15.3% of the county’s adults, up from 11.5% in the CDC’s estimates …

BY TYLER HENSON Two movies about uncanny creatures opened this weekend. Other Mommy features a family battling a supernatural entity invading their home while The Social Reckoning has journalists going up against the powers of Mark Zuckerberg. The fantasy scares of Other Mommy drew some audience attention, while few turned …

BY TYLER HENSON Digger (129mins) Trailers for Digger would have us believe this film is a rollicking, larger than life comedy starring Tom Cruise, decked out in old age prosthetics and swaggering broadly with a Texas accent as the world collapses around him in environmental disaster. That is only partly …

BY TYLER HENSON It would normally be cause for surprise when a Tom Cruise movie opens as low as Digger, but Digger is no ordinary Tom Cruise movie. It’s been obvious for a while that this movie was going to be a tough sell. Now that this critic has seen …