Nathan Weinbender

The 89th annual Academy Awards give two local film critics one more chance to square off.

The Cirque du Soleil show “Ovo,” which lands at the Spokane Arena next week, presents a simple story of love in a colony of bugs. It’s also full of spectacle, flashy costumes and unexpected theatrics, with high-jumping crickets, acrobatic fleas, juggling fireflies and contortionist, wire-walking spiders.

Date night plans? Settle in for a Northwest-filmed romance.

In helming his first show on the Civic’s main stage, Lenny Bart isn’t pulling any punches. The theater’s artistic director is taking on “A Little Night Music,” a Tony-winning show from the revered Stephen Sondheim, and he’s filled his cast with actors who have headlined countless local productions. It should make for quite a debut.

The Spokane Symphony performs as many timeless classics as it does 21st century curios, and this weekend’s Classics concert further bridges the divide between contemporary and classical. The upcoming program features two of P.I. Tchaikovsky’s Shakespearean tone poems from the late 1800s alongside a prominent cello concerto that’s only a couple years old.

Even if you’re not a big sports fan, it’s hard not to get wrapped up in a good sports movie.

Near the end of Christopher Durang’s play “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” one of its titular characters, named after a famous creation of Anton Chekhov, unspools a lengthy monologue about the good ol’ days. Things were a lot better half a century ago, Vanya admits. Humans were more connected. Technology hadn’t become a mass distraction. Popular culture was admittedly simplistic, but it was more wholesome. “The ’50s were idiotic,” Vanya says, “but I miss them.”

As with previous screenings of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” and Charlie Chaplin’s “City Lights,” the Spokane Symphony will be providing a live musical accompaniment for the 1925 silent film “The Phantom of the Opera.” The event, part of the ongoing Spokane International Film Festival, will feature pianist Rick Friend, who also composed the score.