Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
starring: Julianne Hough, Josh Duhamel, David Lyons, Cobie Smulders
screenplay: Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens
directed by: Lasse Hallström
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving threatening behavior, and for violence and sexuality.
We’ve got a really fun week for shows! Not only do you have some fine Valentine’s Day options, but you also still have two more days to enter our Hives Prize Pack contest before they play in San Jose with Pink!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 2/14/13-2/20/13”
The year was 1998. The State, MTV’s highly influential sketch comedy show had just gotten the axe. Three cast members: Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, and David Wain were asked to if they had a play they could do for a theater festival in New York. They were given a week to write, cast, and rehearse it. The name came first: SEX aka Weiners and Boobs. Because if you are going to title something, that’s about as good as a title can get. Fast forward 15 years, and the good people of Sketchfest managed to put together nearly all of the original cast for an encore performance of this fine piece of theater.
On paper, Beautiful Creatures may look like just another film adaptation of a bestselling YA series about a supernatural romance. Alden Ehrenreich stars as Ethan, a restless high schooler in podunk Gatlin, South Carolina, who yearns to break free from the oppressive small-mindedness and cultural atrophy of his hometown. Ethan is charming enough to seem like a standard-issue popular guy, but in private his tastes lean toward the cerebral (he is a voracious reader of banned books) and he dreams of the day he’ll leave Gatlin for good. Ethan’s thirst for something different is what attracts him to new girl Lena (Alice Englert), the quiet and witchy-looking descendent of one of Gatlin’s most notorious families. Lena is immediately targeted as a dangerous freak by the town’s many gossipy Bible-thumpers, and while Ethan rushes to defend her from their attacks, it turns out that Lena does present a very real threat: she comes from a family of Casters (read: Southern witches), and on her rapidly-approaching 16th birthday, she will be “claimed” for either good or evil – with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Garfunkel & Oates have played Sketchfest twice before. In 2011, they were part of Chris Hardwick’s (No Relation) Music Night as one of several acts performing. In 2012, they opened for the great Reggie Watts at Mezzanine. Tonight, however, we got to experience them play their own headlining set. It meant that every single person in the crowd was their just for G & O. And, considering this show sold out several weeks in advance, it only proved that the good folks of San Francisco were quite thirsty to see these wonderful woman play a full set.
Can you think of any way to spend a Saturday afternoon that’s more fun than in a crowded Castro Theatre with everyone’s favorite stoner and funny man Doug Benson making snide and silly comments over some of pop culture’s most fun (and fun to trash) films? I couldn’t either. Announce that, among films like Anaconda, Catwoman, and The Notebook, he planned to also poke fun at the hilariously and fabulously terrible Twilight, and I was putting my shoes on. Throw in that he was bringing in big comedy guns Greg Behrendt, Patton Oswalt, Michael Ian Black, and Zach Galifianakis, and I’m the first one to arrive. (Well, not really…it’s really hard to find parking in the Castro. I actually missed the introduction and had to sit on the floor. But I digress.) Continue reading “Sketchfest Review: The Doug Benson Movie Interruptions: Twilight at the Castro Theatre, 2/9/2013”
This would be my fourth time seeing fun. within the last twelve months. The first time was in the parking lot of a record store in Austin, TX. That show only featured the core of the band: vocalist Nate Reuss, keyboardist Andrew Dost and guitar player Jack Antonoff. It was 2 o clock in the afternoon in the baking hot sun, and the crowd was simply mad for them. I knew from that moment that this band had the right balance of sincerity and showmanship to make it big. It was a rare moment when I wanted to get to see a band play the big rooms. Shortly after this show, “We Are Young” became a monsterous hit, and their full band, electric club tour that was booked at tiny clubs turned into the hottest ticket in town. Tonight, a short 11 months after that first time in the record store parking lot, I got to see this band do the “full big room” show. And, by golly, the succeeded at it.
Continue reading “Show Review: fun., Andrew McMahon at The Fox Theater — Oakland, 2/7/13”
starring: Melissa McCarthy, Jason Bateman, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau, T.I., Genesis Rodriguez, John Cho, Robert Patrick, Eric Stonestreet
screenplay: Craig Mazin
directed by: Seth Gordon
MPAA: Rated R for sexual content and language
We’ve got a pretty excellent week of shows coming up. However, you really shouldn’t miss our first ever Spinning Platters film night at The New Parkway in Oakland this Friday and Saturday night at 11:55 PM. We will be screening the Stop Making Sense, which is simply the greatest rock n roll film ever. Head over to our Facebook page to win tickets! Or you can buy tickets here, because it may sell out.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 2/7/13-2/13/13”
The formula of reverb-drenched-rock, guitar-drum-vocal, two-man band has proven itself, time and again, to be a successful combination. Acts like the Black Keys and the White Stripes proved that it could be done, and tore their way up the charts while they did so. It is, nevertheless, challenging, blending a careful balance of lo-fi and limited composition with gripping vocals, intricately crafted licks, and thundering percussion, maintaining a smart pop sensibility the entire time. To avoid being pigeonholed, however, as another blues-rock soldier on his quest to the top, it’s important to bend the rules of the genre, throw in some curveballs, and introduce some unique elements to one’s sound, such as the close, soulful cousins that are bluegrass and western folk music. San Francisco duo Two Gallants have done just that, constructing a sonic experience that bears this variety of genres, and yet still stands unique and full of raw passion, which they brought to the Fillmore on Saturday night for their end-of-the-tour hometown show.