Music: It’s the last weekend before Christmas, and if you haven’t had enough of the usual seasonal ear-tide, here’s your chance for a little bit more semi-sacred Gemütlichkeit before it’s on to the homefront. Tonight, Seraphic Fire comes to St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton for its annual reading of Messiah, George Frideric Handel’s hit from 1742 that is as much a part of our cultural consciousness here in the West as Shakespeare or the Mona Lisa. The Miami concert choir will be presenting the Christmas portion of this Easter-themed oratorio tonight at 7:30, then repeat it Saturday night in Coral Gables and Sunday afternoon in Fort Lauderdale (that performance, at All Saints Episcopal, is sold out). Call 305-285-9060 for tickets or more information.
If something more strictly religious is your preference, St. Paul’s Episcopal in Delray Beach is presenting its own quirky take on the traditional Anglican Festival of Lessons and Carols on Sunday; usually a feast of British music, this presentation will feature American music for the service of Bible readings and songs. That’s at 3 p.m. Sunday at the church, with free admission (it’s a service, after all, as well as a concert). Call 278-6003 or visit www.stpaulsdelray.org.
Finally, if you’d rather have a mix of classical and good old-fashioned carol singing, maybe your best bet is to stop by the Pink Church, aka the First Presbyterian Church of Pompano Beach, on Sunday afternoon. Lynn University’s Jon Robertson will be leading the church’s choir and the Lynn Conservatory Chamber Orchestra in Uns ist ein Kind geboren, a cantata that has been attributed to J.S. Bach (as BWV 142), but which scholars now think is by his Leipzig predecessor, Johann Kuhnau (to my ears, anyway, it sounds a little too four-square to be Bach). Whoever wrote it, it’s a lovely meditation on Christmas themes. That will be followed by a carol sing for the audience as well as selections by the handbell choir. The festivities begin at 4 p.m. Sunday; tickets are $10. Call 954-941-2308, ext. 112, or visit www.pinkpres.org for more information.
Film: For fans of Ethan and Joel Coen, all they have to know is that the Oscar-winning directing duo has a new movie for the holiday season. In fact, Inside Llewyn Davis is one of their best, as quirky and cynical as we have come to expect from the creators of Fargo, No Country for Old Men and Blood Simple. Their latest takes up back to Greenwich Village in the early ’60s, when the title folk music troubadour-songwriter (a brooding Oscar Isaac) is having troubles of his own making trying to attain and retain a modicum of fame. Instead the fictional loser keeps alienating friends and professional contacts and slipping into oblivion. Leave it to the Coens to devote a whole movie to recording Davis’s failure. The cast includes Carey Mulligan as Llewyn’s ex-lover, Justin Timberlake as her singing partner and Coens fixture John Goodman as a tubby jazz musician. The film made my 10 best list and, I suspect, will pull in a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Opening at area theaters this weekend.
Theater: OK, procrastinators, this is the final weekend to see The Book of Mormon at the Broward Center. Tickets are scarce and they are not going to be inexpensive — unless you can settle for the nose bleed territory, you’ll probably pay $159 a head — but what you get for that is one of the funniest shows ever on Broadway and certainly one of the most irreverent and profane. In their first foray on Broadway, South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone show that they know and have an abiding affection for the traditions of the musical theater, even if they turn them on their ear with a tale of two naïve, white Church of Latter Day Saints missionaries in over their heads bringing their beliefs to the natives of Uganda. And the national tour is first-rate, led by Mark Evans and Christopher John O’Neill, who are likely to turn you into a true believer. Through Sunday. Call (954) 462-0222, and offer your first born.