Assorted rambling from the world of entertainment:
* Halloween revelers won't have to limit themselves to a single party on Saturday.
Both downtown Youngstown and downtown Warren have bar crawls planned to celebrate the spooky holiday.
Youngstown's Bar Crawl starts with check-in between 4 and 6 p.m. Saturday at Penguin City Brewing Co., 460 E. Federal St.
During check-in, participants can be photographed in costume by the official Crawl with Us photographer. Those photos will be uploaded to the Youngstown photo album (www.crawlwith.us/youngstown/halloween), and the photo with the most likes by Nov. 4 will receive four tickets to next year's event and be entered into the National Halloween Costume Contest Album with winners in other cities for a chance at a $1,000 grand prize.
At Penguin City, crawlers will pick up their bottle opener lanyards needed for admission to the participating venues.
Other venues on the crawl include Avalon Downtown, Gringo's, Imbibe Martini Bar, Noble Creature Cask House and Ryes Craft Beer & Whiskey.
Ryes also will be the site of the after-party from 10 p.m. to midnight.
Tickets are $25 if purchased by Friday through EventBrite and $30 on Saturday and include the lanyard, admission to all locations and food and drink specials at partner venues, a Crawl with Us stadium cup, two drink or shot vouchers and a custom Halloween badge.
In Warren, a Halloween Bar Loop will provide a free shuttle from 7 p.m. to midnight Saturday to ferry participants to The Underground Lounge, Sons of Italy 2850, Urban Tap, Club Michael, Modern Methods Brewing Company, West & Main, Bushwick and the Horseshoe Bar.
The bus also will make stops at the downtown parking deck until midnight.
Drink specials, live entertainment and prizes are planned at various locations.
* Halloween is a time for scary movies, and Netflix has a good one.
"Woman of the Hour" is loosely based on the true story of Cheryl Bradshaw, a contestant on "The Dating Game" in 1978 who picked as her date Rodney Alcala, who a year later was arrested after raping a teen runaway and later was convicted of seven murders (and suspected of many, many more).
Anna Kendrick plays Bradshaw, who got creeped out by Alcala after the show and never went on her date with him. The Oscar nominee also makes an impressive debut as the film's director.
Ian McDonald's script takes plenty of liberties with the facts but hews to the greater truths of the story, and McDonald and Kendrick present a world where Bradshaw -- and all women -- must navigate through a sea of predators, enablers and doubters.
Alcala had a record as a convicted sex offender at the time he appeared on "The Dating Game," and it's horrifying that any show built around sending strangers on a date / vacation apparently did nothing in the way of vetting its contestants.
Then again, the movie makes clear how Alcala never could have continued without the carelessness, callousness and cluelessness of various male authority figures in a position to address the concerns of the women who encountered him.
Kendrick gives the movie a strong point of view, and there are some nice visual touches as well, such as using the same shots and camera angles during Alcala's arrest at the end of the film that she used to show Alcala's attacks on his victims in the beginning.
Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at [email protected]