Assorted ramblings from the world of entertainment:

• Disney on Ice is partnering with Project Making Kids Count to help area foster children in need.

Book donations will be collected from 10 a.m. to noon Friday at Barnes and Noble Booksellers, 381 Boardman Poland Road, Boardman. The books will be included in comfort kits being assembled by Making Kids Count for foster children in time for Christmas.

For each book donated, families can receive a voucher good for one ticket to see Disney on Ice’s “Dream Big” when it comes to the Covelli Centre in Youngstown from Dec. 26 to 29. There is a maximum of two vouchers per family, and 200 vouchers will be available on Friday.

Vouchers can be redeemed at the Covelli Centre box office.

The book donation program replaces the toy drive that has been conducted in conjunction with previous Disney on Ice appearances at the arena.

• The summer music festival schedule in Ohio is coming together.

The Elevation Group, promoters of LaureLive, announced before Thanksgiving that the new name for the festival is WonderStruck in Cleveland, and the new site will be Lakeland Community College College in Kirtland.

One feature the new location will have that the Laurel School didn’t is on-site parking. For LaureLive concertgoers had to park off site and be bused to the grounds.

Tickets are on sale now for the June 6 and 7 event at www.wonderstruckfest.com, but the lineup won’t be announced until mid-January.

Elevation also is responsible for WonderBus, which had its inaugural festival in Columbus in 2019. The 2020 edition is scheduled Aug. 29 and 30 at The Lawn at CAS, and that festival won’t be moving anytime soon — an agreement is in place through 2026.

The WonderBus lineup won’t be available until mid-February, but those willing to gamble can get discounted weekend passes through Friday at www.wonderbusfest.com.

The one fest that does have its lineup in place is the Sonic Temple Art + Music Festival from May 15 to 17 at Columbus’ MAPFRE Stadium. As previously announced, Metallica will be the headliner on May 15 and 17, playing different sets each night. Slipknot will be the May 16 headliner, and other acts on the bill include Deftones, Brings me the Horizon, Evanescence, Staind, Sublime with Rome, Rancid, Dropkick Murphys, Royal Blood, The Pretty Reckless and Alter Bridge.

Tickets are on sale now at www.sonictemplefestival.com. And the last time Metallica headlined a festival at MAPFRE Stadium, back when Rock on the Range was there, tickets sold out months in advance.

• I got up early Saturday morning, put on a pot of coffee and watched Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” before the Ohio State-Michigan game.

The movie lived up to the hype and is an engrossing elegy. It feels like a summation, not only of the characters’ lives, but of Scorsese’s career. It’s hard not to think of moments from “Mean Streets” to “GoodFellas” while watching the film.

There are many, many 2019 releases I haven’t seen, but if the two front runners for Best Picture are “The Irishman” and Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” “The Irishman” is the far better film. I would have preferred to see it in a theater, but the pause button came in handy with the coffee.

Netflix has been on an impressive run lately. “My Name Is Dolemite,” starring Eddie Murphy, was thoroughly entertaining. “Marriage Story,” which won awards this week at the Gotham Awards and from the National Board of Review, arrives Friday.

One worthy Netflix program that hasn’t gotten as much buzz as those films is “The New One,” the latest one-man show by comedian Mike Birbiglia.

I was lucky enough to see Birbiglia in 2017 at Pickwick & Frolic in Cleveland when he was working out the material that became this show, which ran for three months on Broadway. Seeing how that work-in-progress blossomed was fascinating. And as much as I enjoyed sitting about 10 feet from Birbiglia in a comedy club, the fully realized piece I watched last week was better.

And with a running time of 85 minutes, “The New One” feels like a sprint compared to “The Irishman” marathon.

Andy Gray is the entertainment editor of Ticket. Write to him at agray@tribtoday.com