It’s Pride Weekend in San Francisco this week, and it’s fun to see all the bright-eyed people in the city who are attending their first Pride celebration.
Speaking of going to new things, let’s talk about this week’s concerts. Here’s what we’ve got coming up this week in the Bay Area: tanned people, clan people, French people, bad people, and cool people. Should be a pretty cool week.
So, let’s preview. We’re previewing now. Let’s preview and do the preview where we preview. Preview!
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.
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), center, tries to run down past glory, with Storm Jackson (Armie Hammer), left, and Cruz Ramirez, right (Cristela Alonzo).
Oh how quickly the young become old, the strong become weak, and the fresh, young, star becomes the stale, old, has-been. In the age of computer-generated animated features, oh how long ten years can be.
Sadly, Cars 3 proves this old axiom, as it leans heavily on the achievements of the first two films, and mostly settles on telling a very basic story in a fairly predictable way. Cars “purists” (wherever they are) will no doubt be satisfied, but the rest of us will leave the theater nostalgic for the spectacular achievements of Pixar’s earlier efforts.
It’s hard to keep ya head up when you have ambitions az a ridah
Demetrius Shipp, Jr. as Tupac Shakur, with Kat Graham as Jada Pinkett. Yes, they really were best friends!
The full name of the film is All Eyez On Me: The Untold Story of Tupac Shakur. It’s an ambitious premise for a film about one of the single most well documented figures of the last 30 years. There may have been superstar rappers before 2pac, but 2pac was the first superstar rapper since the dawn of the 24 hour news cycle. All of the highs and lows of his career were narrated by Kurt Loder on MTV News. So, really, how much of his story is actually “untold”? How will director Benny Boom find a new story to tell about one of the most talked about figures in modern history?
Cage diving with sharks is fun… until the rope breaks and the cage plummets.
Spinning Platters recently hosted its first music trivia event at SOMA StrEat Food Park, but if you missed it, have no fear – others are on the horizon. And to (ahem) tide you over, here’s a brief little summer movie quiz: match the tagline with its corresponding shark attack movie:
TAGLINESMOVIES
1.) Don’t go in the water a.) Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
2.) Pray that you drown first b.) The Shallows (2016)
3.) Stay out of the water c.) Jaws (1975)
4.) Shark happens! d.) The Reef (2010)
5.) Who will save you? e.) 47 Meters Down (2017)
6.) Not just another day at the beach f.) Open Water (2003)
Answers are at the bottom of the review*, but, in the meantime, let’s take a look at letter “e”, the newest shark movie on our list. In the pantheon of shark movies, British horror director Johannes Roberts’s 47 Meters Down ranks somewhere above Sharknado 2 and last year’s Blake Lively-Talks-to-A-Seagull picture (AKA The Shallows), but well below the 1975 standard bearer Jaws and the chilling Sundance indie hit Open Water. Continue reading “Film Review: 47 Meters Down“
Do you know what today is? It’s June 13, yes – and that means today is the anniversary of the day that Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition caught sight of the Great Falls of the Missouri River for the first time. Bet that made for a pretty good day.
Speaking of finding things, let’s talk about this week’s concerts. Here’s what we’ve got coming up this week in the Bay Area: low people, electric people, minimal people, and a trivia night hosted by the people in Spinning Platters. It’s looking pretty good out there!
So, let’s preview. Preview time. Preview time is go. Previews are starting now and we are going to start the previews now. Previews go!
“We will not back down, we must refuse to stay silent!”
Probably one of the best things to happen from Donald Trump becoming the—and I shudder as I type this—President is the anticipation of all the amazing politically-charged punk rock that will invariably come back into the public consciousness. This is not to say that it wasn’t always there—it was and always will be—but humanity is a fickle species and without something to kick its ass into gear occasionally, it relegates the plaintive cries of the marginalized into the background. That’s where punk rock comes in to kick everyone in the face and scream “LISTEN UP!”
If Day One was about old school and hardcore and Day Two was about politics, then Day Three was about unadulterated partying and England. Admittedly, I am not much of an “oi/streetpunk” fan. It’s not that I am opposed to it, mind you, it’s just that very few of the bands in the genre have impressed their importance onto me. So it was with some trepidation that I embarked to the site of the final day of the festival, with every intention of keeping my mind open and enjoying some hearty music from across the pond.
It’s a tale full of idiots, told with sound and fury, signifying nothing
There’s a scene in The Mummy, Universal Pictures’s latest movie with this much-used title, where zombie Knights Templar are swimming furiously at Tom Cruise. If this sounds like the kind of movie you would like, you might like this one. You would, however, not be me. This scene, like most of what occurs in this film, is utter nonsense.
Philip (Sam Claflin) is unsure what to make of his Cousin Rachel (Rachel Weisz) when she comes to stay.
If you find yourself left edgy and itchy when the film you’re watching doesn’t wrap up nice and neat and tidy, then you’d do well to avoid My Cousin Rachel, a period drama that raises more questions than it answers, and leaves its viewers in a state of ambiguity. Of course if you find such a state more intriguing than frustrating, then you’ll definitely want to add this picture to your summer viewing list. In fact, you’ll want to give it the number one spot. Continue reading “Film Review: My Cousin Rachel“
