Christian Phillips (Joe), Nick Mandracchia (Frank), and Susan Trishel Monson (Sue) harbor family secrets old and new. Photo courtesy of John Carter, 2018.
It’s the play that put Arthur Miller on the map; though not one of his more famous plays, such as The Crucible or Death of a Salesman, it’s in a similar vein nevertheless. Miller explores the human condition — a very male-centric one, but along with it, he questions the patriarchy and the capitalist structures that cloak the American dream. All My Sons knocks you out, delivering punch after punch of pure family drama.Continue reading “Theater Review: Danville Village Theatre Knocks Out Arthur Miller’s All My Sons“
January 22, 2018. Slayer announced their “farewell” tour. After over 35 years of yelling “Die By the Sword”, singer and bass player Tom Araya wants to scream no more. As much as the fans would want Slayer to keep performing forever, Tom and the only other original member, guitar player Kerry King, deserve to go out on top and begin collecting their 401k. Gary Holt, the 2nd guitar player, will always have his primary band Exodus, and certainly bands will be lining up for drummer Paul Bostaph’s services once he becomes available again. In the meanwhile, though, according to a press release issued the morning after The. Final. U.S. Slayer. Show., this “farewell” tour still has another year to go!
It’s been a good bit of time since I’ve made it out to a show at one of my favorite venues in Los Angeles: Echoplex. While the lightning has never been the greatest for photography, the atmosphere and sound mixes have always made up for it and I’ve consistently had the most fun at pretty much every show I’ve seen behind their doors. Though, I’ll definitely admit that it’s sometimes hard to decipher their door times from show starting times and in this case I misread and ended up arriving FAR earlier than I ever have, but that’s just me griping. Even being in line about an hour and a half before opening couldn’t wreck my spirits. I was about to thrust myself into the noisiest room in Los Angeles. I was about to see Boris and the Melvins.
What fun it is to have heroes who live perfect romantic lives in our imaginations. How satisfying is it to cherry-pick snippets of their lives, served to us on podcasts or through fawning interview pieces, which invite us to a front row seat to learn of their creative process, or the inspirations that led them to their best works, works which come to us like a pristine seashell discovered on a summertime beach.
We willfully crowd-out hazy moments of doubt, when we wonder about what it must have been like to live with, or love, or even just share extended lengths of time with our heroes. It’s too easy to drift lazily back to the film, or the novel, or the album, and back to our mental fanboy scrapbook.
Juliet, Naked, the implausible but devastatingly charming new film from Jesse Peretz, efficiently manages to show us the artist as both outwardly alluring and inwardly shattered, and sketches a portrait that convinces us to have sympathy for how the creative life can leave so much wreckage, and so many casualties, and yet produce compelling beauty and truth.Continue reading “Film Review: Juliet, Naked“
Joan (Glenn Close) reacts as her husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) receives some good news.
What sacrifices are acceptable for the sake of art? For marriage? Swedish director Björn Runge explores these questions in his new film The Wife, which, if nothing else, may become the film most remembered for netting six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close her first Oscar. Close’s performance is the best reason to see the picture, which manages to thoughtfully present serious themes while teetering on the edge of melodrama.
Racing, clawing, screaming, drumming, dreaming their way through an impoverished childhood are three young boys at the center of Jeremiah Zagar’s heartfelt but lacking film We the Animals.
Based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Justin Torres, Zagar’s film locates its heart, its head, and its attitude squarely with Jonah, played by Evan Rosado. As the youngest of three boys, Jonah prefers drawing to fighting, and dreaming to adolescent scheming. In upstate New York, where Jonah and his brothers play out their childhoods, dangerous overpasses become impromptu playgrounds, and wild runs through the woods can take up whole afternoons. TV, video games, even radios are nowhere to be found. These are semi-feral boys left to their own devices for long periods of time.
Ate a lot of food. Got a lot of steps. But it was mostly Janet Jackson.
All photos by Dakin Hardwick unless otherwise noted
Outside Lands reached its 11th birthday this year. I’ve been to ten of those eleven installments. This year, the folks booking the festival decided it was time to take some risks… They added an extra stage for acoustic sets and magic, called “Cocktail Magic.” They added a whole pot awareness area (not that folks at a music festival need to be *more* aware of weed). Continue reading “Outside Lands 2018: 27 Instant Gig Reviews”
Kimberly S. Fairbanks brings to life a collection of 15 women in a one-woman show. Photo courtesy of Alison Bodden, 2018.
“Can you name three African-American women who lived before 1865?”
Playwright and director Valerie Joyce set out on a mission to answer that question. A span of 250 years, and yet, complete silence. Not atypical, as women of color’s voices have had a long history of being diminished; none of us are shocked that, beside a few big names like Harriet Tubman, we come up blank. And if we can recall, we most definitely do not hear their stories spoken in their own words.Continue reading “Theater Review: Eugene O’Neill Foundation’s Powerful One-Woman Show I Will Speak for Myself“
Lee’s tonally uneven picture diminishes impact of relevant, astonishing true story
Colorado Springs detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) infiltrates the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.
Released just two days before the one year anniversary of the deadly Charlottesville, VA white nationalist rally and this Sunday’s “Unite the Right” white nationalist DC march, and coming on the heels of the recent Proud Boys/Patriot Prayer “Western chauvinist” gatherings in Portland and Berkeley, director Spike Lee’s polemical new film BlacKkKlansman is both relevant and disheartening in the way it reveals how little has changed in the 40+ years since the based-on-a-true story takes place. That the film’s message remains topical and necessary is indisputable; that it’s executed so poorly, then, is a disappointment.
Rae Livingston and David Owen both help book the Barbary at Outside Lands, and have for several years now. This, is course, means they have a lot to talk about. So we split the interview in two, because we here at Spinning Platters understand that your time is precious. In this one, we talk about the bookings that they are most excited about this year, as well as some favorite memories of passed years.
If you missed part one, it’s right here! And if you still haven’t purchased tickets yet, what are you waiting for? You can find those right here!
