Here’s another wonderful 7 days of rock!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/13/13-11/19/13”
Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/13/13-11/19/13
Film Review: Thor: The Dark World
All brawn and little brain, but still…all brawn, glorious BRAWN!
Kenneth Branagh, who directed the first Thor movie, stepped down from the director’s chair and left it to Alan Taylor, who has quite the resume — including credits directing episodes of Game of Thrones, Mad Men, and The Sopranos. Thor: The Dark World is therefore very well directed; the action scenes are easy to follow and filled to the brim with marvelous visuals. There’s nothing technically problematic about Thor: The Dark World, either. All the pieces fall into place to create a very fun superhero tale. But what’s missing is that extra uniqueness that made Thor a surprising success. Chris Hemsworth as Thor was definitely part of that box office attraction, but, in my opinion, Branagh’s handling of Shakespearean themes (familial betrayals and royal tensions) helped Thor really separate itself from the rest of the superhero fare. Thor: The Dark World lacks that maturity. Instead, this film relies on explosive adventure and playful Whedon-esque humor to carry the full load. It succeeds at the blockbuster surface level, but it fails to carry over its predecessor’s dramatic character arcs (except for Loki – -as always… damn, Tom Hiddleston is good.)
Show Review: Au Revoir Simone, Genius, CALLmeKAT at Slim’s 10/23/13
There’s always that one show you always kick yourself for missing. In the span of our lifetimes, some end up more important than others. Yes I still kick myself for missing that second night of Portishead at The Warfield back in 1998. Oh, I’ll catch them next time they come around I said. No big deal I said. 10 years and another Portishead show later, I vowed not to make the same mistake.
In 2009, Still Light, Still Night was one of my top 5 records of the year. They played Bimbo’s and what did I do? Lazy Raffi took over for some reason that night, and I laid still. Oh, I would see them next time. What idiot misses three girls playing three keyboards! Four years later I wasn’t going to miss that opportunity again.
Continue reading “Show Review: Au Revoir Simone, Genius, CALLmeKAT at Slim’s 10/23/13”
Show Review: Hitchcock Week — Greatest Hits
Last night closed the book on Hitchcock Week with the San Francisco Symphony. The talented orchestra players, conducted by Joshua Gersen, performed selections from Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, Strangers on a Train, Vertigo, Dial M for Murder, and North by Northwest. Part of the night belonged to the complex scores, at times sweepingly romantic, other times suspenseful and bombastic. The other half belonged to the charming host, Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, North by Northwest). At 89 years old, she still carries a youthful exuberance that would make you question whether she was a day over thirty. Aside from a few film intro slip ups, she held her own, constantly throwing out sharp pokes at herself, hilarious flirtations at Gersen, and telling fascinating anecdotes about her work with Hitchcock.
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Review: Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque at The Fillmore
I was a bit disappointed with the Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque show that took place this past Friday at The Fillmore. Don’t you hate that feeling of eagerly anticipating something, only to be let down? Perhaps my expectations were set too high when I read this preview piece of the 46-show tour in Inked Magazine? Maybe I’ve already been spoiled by shows including performances in Los Angeles’ world-famous Forty Deuce or Las Vegas’ Zumanity (the former focusing a lot more on acrobatics)? Or, I could’ve just been a little bit shellshocked from the beer that ended up in my wig and all over everyone else in the first few rows when someone in front carelessly left a full one on the stage.
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Film Review: Diana
Diana loves Hasnat, and we don’t care
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Diana just wants to lie around with her hunky heart surgeon b.f. in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Diana.
German director Oliver Hirschbiegel has made a puzzling contribution to the oeuvre of films about Diana, the late Princess of Wales. His new film, simply titled Diana, is very narrowly focused. Set during the last two years of Diana’s life, the picture highlights Diana’s (Naomi Watts) relationship with a London-based Pakistani heart surgeon, Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Hirschbiegel directed 2004’s critically acclaimed Downfall, so this misstep is both surprising and disappointing. The picture plays like a made-for-TV movie (appropriate perhaps for Lifetime), and does nothing to make the viewer remember Diana with any fondness or respect. Continue reading “Film Review: Diana”
Film Review: Blue is the Warmest Color
On screen drama outshines off screen soap opera
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Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) and Emma (Lea Seydoux) begin their new relationship with a kiss in Blue is the Warmest Color.
Much has been made in the press already about Blue is the Warmest Color, the three-hour French film that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The film gained notice immediately when, in an unprecedented move, the festival’s highest award was bestowed not just on the film’s writer/director, Abdellatif Kechiche, but also its two lead actresses, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. Since that time, the film has made headlines for its plot – a lesbian romance between two young women (one of whom is a high school student when the film begins) containing a lengthy and explicit sex scene between the two, as well as for its off-screen melodrama. That drama has included a very public war of words between the actresses and their director, and a promise by several New York City theaters to admit teenagers of all ages, despite the film’s NC-17 rating, a decision that has irked several conservative organizations. Continue reading “Film Review: Blue is the Warmest Color”
Film Review: 12 Years a Slave
Hard to endure, hard to fathom, but essential.
12 Years a Slave feels like it could very well be the most accurate cinematic depiction of the atrocities of slavery. We don’t just see the physical brutality, we also feel the isolation, the helplessness, and each slave’s necessary abandonment of individuality in order to survive. The geographical solitude in which two different worlds are formed, the one inhabited by the slaves and the one inhabited by the landowners and overseers, is one of the story’s focal points and how it affects the mentality of each character. For all of these reasons, 12 Years a Slave, based on the book of the true story by Solomon Northup, succeeds where no other film about slavery has. In other films of this nature, the “hero” rises up against the odds. The protagonist rises up by gradually becoming an outspoken leader, or by finding the only sympathetic ear that winds up being a ticket to freedom. Those stories may be inspiring, and well told, but they are often sugar-coated, to put it bluntly. When viewing 12 Years a Slave, we, the audience, don’t get special treatment. We are forced into a very dark place in our nation’s history, and we are asked to face the harrowing truth head on.
Film Review: Free Birds
“Free Birds” is a surprising, scattered, Thanksgiving treat.
Yes, this is a movie about turkeys. It’s not a spin-off adaptation of the mobile game, Angry Birds. Free Birds is not the strongest title, it lacks punch. Free Birds also hasn’t benefited from a strong and focused marketing campaign. The reason for this — Free Birds is wacky and crosses multiple genres, and even includes some very surprising plot twists. Yet, its filled with original humor and employs an extremely playful attitude with perfectly timed editing to create a funny and thoroughly entertaining family film.
Show Review: Hitchcock Week — Psycho
It’s Hitchcock Week with the San Francisco Symphony and Wednesday night kicked things off with Psycho (1960), Hitchcock’s masterpiece thriller. Why is the SF Symphony playing Psycho? And for what reason are they having a week devoted to Hitchcock, at all? For starters, Hitchcock films feature some of the most memorable scores in film history. Just like John Williams’s scores have enhanced the sense of adventure in countless films directed by Steven Spielberg, the scores in Alfred Hitchcock films have greatly enhanced the chilling suspense, the horrifying thrill, and the bloody payoffs of his stories. These are a few particularly momentous nights at the symphony because the scores have been removed from the film’s print and, instead, filled in by a live orchestra (in Psycho’s case, just the string section…it seemed).