Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
2017 seems to be the year of the music festival. With new festivals like Desert Daze and Burger Boogaloo gaining traction, the stalwarts have upped the ante on their lineups, boasting unique and eclectic selections of damn fine music. FYF Fest has come a long way from its meager Echo Park beginnings and from July 21st to 23rd it will once again take over Exposition Park in Los Angeles this year and damn if they haven’t booked one hell of a lineup.
A few years back, I wrote a “live blog” of Transformers 4: I Can’t Remember the Subtitle, the first in the Michael Bay x Hasbro series of films to star Mark Wahlberg. It was a pretty silly movie, but looked amazing in IMAX 3-D, as many scenes were shot natively with IMAX 3-D cameras. This time around, nearly every shot in the final film comes from IMAX 3-D cameras, so of course I had to head out to the theater to provide another Transformers live blog!
Continue reading “Film Review: Transformers: The Last Knight“
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!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2017-06-21 — 2017-06-25”
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.
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.
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?
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:
TAGLINES MOVIES
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!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2017-06-13 — 2017-06-18”
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.
Continue reading “Festival Review: Punk Rock Bowling — Day 3 (Las Vegas, NV)”