Sarah Silverman – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Battle of the Sexes

Stone and Carell serve up a winner in still timely ’70s tennis drama

Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) play to the crowd at a press conference preceding the Battle of the Sexes.

Opening nearly 44 years to the day after the famous tennis match it’s named after, Battle of the Sexes chronicles the much publicized and widely watched (90 million viewers tuned in worldwide) 1973 match between then 29-year-old women’s champion Billie Jean King and former men’s champion 55-year-old Bobby Riggs. Billed as the ultimate Battle of the Sexes, the match became much more than just an exhibition game; it took on a life of its own, and, after King’s resounding defeat of Riggs, it became a touchstone for the growing women’s equality movement of the early 1970s. Husband and wife directing team Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (127 Hours; Slumdog Millionaire) wonderfully capture the zeitgeist of the period down to the smallest details, and have assembled a stellar cast to bring this often infuriating but always engaging true story to life.
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Film Review: The Book of Henry

Several different movies, crashing together; in other words, it’s a multi-car pile-up

The Book of Henry is not a Wes Anderson movie.

What if veteran comic book writer Gregg Hurwitz wrote a superhero origin story about a single mom, combined it with a treacly family drama about a cancer-stricken kid, and crossed that with a darkly comedic satire about cinematic depictions of gifted children? Well, you don’t have to guess what if, because this movie is playing in movie theaters now, although I’m guessing not for long. It may, however, play forever in the rotation of classic film fiascos.

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Film Review: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Raps and riffs its way to gold, but far from platinum.

10+ years ago, “Lazy Sunday” took the internet by storm and injected the Berkeley-based comedy musical trio, The Lonely Island, into the mainstream. Since then, they’ve been responsible for countless popular SNL Digital Shorts and a handful of award-winning comedy albums. Now, their first feature-length film, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, hits theaters and brings along their superb blend of awesomely crude but catchy pop music, satirical humor, and over-the-top random ridiculousness. Popstar is great at poking fun at the pop music industry, and delivers some really raunchy humor and fantastically clever music, yet fails more often than not to produce worthy punchlines or climaxes to major scenes.

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Spinning Platters’ Best Of 2014: Individual Staff Lists

One of the many great records that Spinning Platters Writers enjoyed in 2014

2014 was a good year for music — you just had to lose yourself in something unsafe. – Staff Writer Jonathan Pirro.

A lot of people seemed mighty nonplussed by 2014’s recorded music output. Sure, there was a lot of somewhat generic, unimpressive stuff. However, if you did some real hunting, you’ll find that there was some incredibly impressive stuff out there. Here are Spinning Platter’s Staff’s individual lists of favorite records of 2014, starting with my own list:

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 4/7/11 – 4/13/11

Tsunami.jpg.scaled.500 — Sorry, Tsunami aren't getting back together to raise money to help earthquake victims. But opportunity to raise money & have fun doing it still exists. Just read on!

This week kicks off week one of Fauxchella, the awesome assortment of bands that are also playing Coachella, only we get full length sets, with air conditioning and sound checks. Another reason the Bay Area is better than Southern California. Enjoy the shows!

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