Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
American cinema and television thoroughly covers the events leading up to someone’s arrest, trial and conviction or exoneration. But what happens after prison, when the convicted must return to their community, and face an entirely different kind of trial? Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #3 — “Home” Review”
Oh, that Superbad, that super, super, somewhat bad 2007 film that spawned, or launched, or squirted out a thousand imitators. Well, maybe ten or so, but it sure feels like a thousand. Supercool, the subject of this review, and an entry in the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, is a tag-along that desperately, and I mean desperately, wants to get into the big kids’ party. It’s the lonely, undersexed, over-analyzed teen with a gawky face, messy hair, and a loopy gait who spends all night looking for the party, only to find it’s been broken up by the cops. Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #2 — “Supercool” Review”
The writer, director, actor, and veteran Samuel Fuller is said to have remarked that the only way to make a truly realistic war film is to fill a theater full of patrons, then have soldiers shoot at them from behind the screen. No matter how realistic, a war film is still a film.
Continue reading “Film Feature: SFFILM 2021 Festival Spotlight #1 — Strawberry Mansion Review”
The news that we’ve been expecting for quite some time has finally dropped… Sadly, it looks like it’s not quite feasible for Outside Lands to happen in August this year. The good news? We get to party together in Golden Gate Park for HALLOWEEN!!! Yes, Outside Lands 2021 has been moved to October 29-31. Does this mean that we may get a replay of Tame Impala’s Halloween 2013 show when they performed as The Spice Girls? Dear God, I really hope so.
More good news: in addition to the already stacked lineup with Lizzo, The Strokes, Tyler, The Creator, Hinds, Vampire Weekend, Kehlani, and more, we’ve got a bunch of new names! We have the first black performer ever to win an electronic music Grammy, Kaytranada. We also have Glass Animals, Lord Huron, Flo Milli, and 24kGoldn all coming to the park for a massive Halloween bash. And, of course, there is still more to come! We haven’t even thought about The Barbary, Heneiken Dome, or Gastromagic stages yet!
Tickets are available NOW! Including payment plans, if you can’t do it all at once. If you can’t make the new date, you can request a refund until April 17th. But, really, why would you not want to spend Halloween at Outside Lands?
True story: my friend met her husband on a Sundance shuttle bus. They struck up a conversation, kept in touch after the Festival ended, and, 15 years and three kids later, the rest is history. Maybe lightning struck again for some lucky couple this year, but I’m guessing probably not. As much as Sundance staff strived to make the 2021 virtual Fest feel like those of past years, Zoom “waiting rooms” and video Q and A’s just couldn’t replicate the feeling of being bundled up at 7:30am in a waitlist line, passing the time and distracting yourself from the cold by idly asking your neighbor, “What have you seen so far that you’ve liked?” The cheery, disembodied “Hi from Boston!” chats that flashed on screen in this year’s pre-screening digital lobbies just couldn’t offer the same sort of in-person connection that can only be found by bonding over waitlist numbers 99 and 100 and mushy theater concession tuna wraps. That said, however, the quality of the films shown at this year’s Festival, which concluded last week, still measured up to Sundance’s best. Below we take a look at four documentaries and four features that are worth seeing.
Continue reading “Film Feature: Best of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival”
The “Inside Lands” schedule is up and live!!! And, as I hoped, that legendary Gorillaz set, including one of maybe five times Damon and Del played “Clint Eastwood” together, is part of the mix for a late night Friday set! They also added some Gatromagic fun for the 10pm hour, and sets by LP and Elton John have been thrown in, too! This is starting at 4pm on Friday at twitch.tv.
The full schedule can be found here.
They are even selling merch, which is kind of awesome. Especially since they are doing this for free, and are missing out on 2020.
And, don’t forget to buy tickets for 2021. I know I’m chomping at the bit to get “Outside” again, and I don’t even care how bad that pun is.
We all spent that last two weeks looking at our Facebook memories of photos from 12 years of Outside Lands, noticing how perfect the weather was two weekends ago, and being sad, and then angry, and then sad again that we weren’t going to get to commune together in Golden Gate Park for music, comedy, food, and community this year. (Especially since Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is also off the table)
I know it’s not the same, but August 28th – 29th, starting at 4pm each day, twitch.tv is broadcasting a whole new special event called “Inside Lands.” We are getting archival performances, and although we don’t know exactly what we are going to see, but I hope to got we get to relive the portion of Gorillaz EPIC 2017 set with that bone chilling, inhuman scream that Maseo belted out at the beginning of “Feel Good Inc.” We will also be getting new, exclusive performances, including sets from Outside Lands 2021 acts Sharon Van Etten, Hinds, Brittany Howard, Beach House and more. It’s not the same as being in the park, but I hope this gets you close. May I recommend having some delicious take out from a local restaurant on hand, and maybe even see if your favorite local bar is doing craft cocktails to go so the experience is complete? If you want, you can even have your roommate spill beer on your blanket to make it feel right. (Kidding)
The event is hosted by Lyrics Born, and can be streamed here at twitch.tv/outsidelands. While you are there, be sure to pick up tickets for Outside Lands 2021 with Lizzo, Tame Impala, The Strokes, Tyler, The Creator, Kehlani and more! And, of course, keep practicing social distancing, wear a mask, wash your hands, and let’s crush this disease to make sure we can party next year.
To quote Lyrics Born: “Don’t worry about the president. He can’t stop the show.” Here’s the line-up: Continue reading “BREAKING: The Line-Up for Inside Lands 2020 Has Been Announced”
This morning, I woke up and started getting ready for my day, and it dawned on me: I was supposed to be gathering sunscreen, a couple of empty bottles, a few layers of clothes, a blanket, snacks, and such for my day in Golden Gate Park. Instead, I’m sitting at home, feeling about peak darkness over the state of the world, and just feeling, well, blue.
I know good news isn’t has good as it could be, but the good folks at Outside Lands did give us a lovely surprise today! They have teamed up with Twitch.tv to bring us a weekend of streamed archival performances, interviews, and fan testimonials to help us get through the lack of getting together to enjoy music outdoors this year. Go to https://www.twitch.tv/sfoutsidelands to stream this starting at 4pm August 28th & 29th. More details to come soon at https://www.sfoutsidelands.com/insidelands/!
Also, don’t forget to buy tickets to Outside Lands 2021, with the amazing lineup of Lizzo, The Strokes, Tame Impala, Tyler, The Creator, Kehlani, Hinds, and many, many more!
Like all of you out there in the world, I’ve been constantly checking Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, anywhere I can think of hoping to find any clue as to what was happening with Outside Lands this year. I was hopeful that measures like masks and social distancing would lead to true containment of COVID-19, and by late Summer the disease would be but a memory of a tough time we all lived through, but through strong leadership, a sense of global unity, and clear, concise directives, we succeeded in ending transmission of this wretched virus.
I should’ve known better. Continue reading “Outside Lands 2021 Line Up HAS BEEN UNLEASHED”
That headline is a mouthful, isn’t it? It’s been difficult processing all of my feelings about everything that has happened this year… From Australian burning to the destruction of Nashville to COVID-19, this year has been a rough one, but it’s been particularly bad for the music business. Yet, in the last few weeks, coming off the heels of the tragic deaths of Breonna Taylor and Charles Floyd, there has been an outpouring if activity coming from musicians, all donating to worthy causes that will fight the infrastructure that has led to so many innocent people of color dying at the hands of the people they pay to serve and protect them.
All I am asking of you is to do something you probably want to do anyways: buy merch from your favorite artists. Many of these artists are leveraging that June 5th is “Bandcamp Day,” where Bandcamp waives their fees, so artists get everything. Here are just a handful of campaigns happening now from some Spinning Platters favorites:
Continue reading “Ways You Can Support Artists AND Help Fight Police Brutality and Systemic Racism”
