Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
starring: Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray
written by: Lee Daniels and Pete Dexter
directed by: Lee Daniels
MPAA: Rated R for strong sexual content, violence and language
(This post is actually from 2009. Our esteemed Editor In Chief, Gordon Elgart, wrote it. But he’s lame and not coming out this year. So I, Dakin Hardwick, have made a few tweaks for this year’s festival guide. Not many, however, because when you put on the best music festival in California, you don’t need to make too many changes every year.)
This weekend’s Treasure Island Music Festival has quickly become my favorite musical event of the year. There are no conflicting set times, so you can see everyone on the bill. The size of the festival is fairly small, so it’s easy to get around. The setting in the middle of San Francisco Bay is absolutely stunning. And something about all of these combine to keep the people going in a relaxed, pleasant mood that makes being there all the more enjoyable. Set times are up, but, seriously, you should just expect to be there from morning til night, because it would be foolish not to.
Now, you might think going to this festival is as easy as hopping in your car and going to the festival to enjoy some music, but you’d be wrong. Read on, and I’ll teach you how to avoid rookie mistakes.
Continue reading “The Insiders’ Guide to the Treasure Island Music Festival (Updated for 2012)”
Oh, man. Rocktober continues! This weekend in the Bay Area is completely crazy. Fleet week, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, a 49ers game, the Giants and A’s in the playoffs, Oracle Open World, Castro Street Fair … and all the shows and concerts I’m about to suggest that you do otherwise. This is the absolute best time of year to live here, so enjoy it all!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 10/4/12-10/10/12”
starring: Anna Kendrick, Brittany Snow, Anna Camp, Rebel Wilson, Skylar Astin, Adam DeVine, John Michael Higgins, Elizabeth Banks, John Benjamin Hickey
written by: Kay Cannon
directed by: Jason Moore
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual material, language and drug references
Please don’t read this post until you’ve already seen Rian Johnson’s excellent film, Looper. I’m about to spoil the heck out of it. There are some lingering questions about this movie (most of them crazy theories) that I want to discuss with someone, so I’m asking you, the Internet, to discuss it with me. If you click to read more, I’m going to assume you’ve seen it. Click below to reveal spoilers. Continue reading “Click to Reveal Spoilers: Questions About What Happened in Rian Johnson’s “Looper””
Looper, the ingenious new sci-fi drama from writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick), has one hell of a setup. The year is 2044, and time travel hasn’t been invented yet — but it will be. And when it is, it immediately becomes illegal. But in the bombed-out dystopian American future of Johnson’s imagining, time travel’s illegality just means powerful crime syndicates are the only ones with access to it. Due to implanted tracking devices, disposing of bodies in the future is impossible. So the mobsters dispatch their targets back to 2044, bound and hooded, where they are immediately shot and killed by assassins known as “loopers,” who then incinerate the remains. But a new crime boss known as The Rainmaker has risen to power, and he is determined to “close the loops” by finding the future versions of the assassins from 2044, sending them back in time and having them killed — by the younger versions of themselves. Got that? The loopers are understandably perturbed by this, and a moment’s hesitation can lead to the older version of themselves escaping and creating quite a time-space conundrum. Such is the case with Joe, played in 2044 by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and in the future by Bruce Willis.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interviews: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rian Johnson on “Looper””
I think we can all agree that this is a weird week. Heavy on legends, but plenty of places where you can experiment, sonically. Please, have fun with it!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 9/27/12-10/04/12”
When The Whole Love was released late last year, I believe that anyone that heard it knew that it was a record that was screaming for a tour. Of course, when it came out, instead of doing a big road show, they opted to play midsize theaters, locking out only the folks with the fastest internet connections or the pockets deep enough to purchase from a scalper. It took almost a year for these guys to finally book a full fledged tour, playing these songs the way they should be played- outdoors, in front of thousands of people. I guess they needed to really get to know these songs before playing them on the big stages. The wait paid off.
Continue reading “Show Review: Wilco with Cibo Matto at The Greek Theater — UC Berkeley, 9/21/12”
Chickfactor turned 20 this year, and several shows in California and London have been set up to commemorate 10 years each as a printed magazine and a webzine. This is the Chickfactor that Belle and Sebastian wrote the song about, so it is only fair that member Stevie Jackson headlined a show at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. Continue reading “Show Review: Stevie Jackson, The Softies, Kim Baxter, Allen Clapp and Kurt Heasley at Rickshaw Stop, 9/22/2012”
End of Watch is unlike any cop movie we’ve seen before. Its distinguishing traits range from its texture — the film is shot and edited to resemble a pulse-poundingly visceral “found footage” documentary — to its thoroughly realized characterizations of LAPD officers Brian (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike (Michael Peña), thrill-chasing partners and best friends who have a tendency to run toward the action while others run away from it. The film plays out like a feature-length episode of COPS as written by Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet; its substance comes from the palpable bond between Brian and Mike, which plays out in a series of remarkably authentic-feeling conversations we watch them have as they drive around on patrol, waiting for that next call, never knowing if they’ll be getting a cat out of a tree or walking into gunfire. This naturalistic and wholly believable quality comes both from the direction and script of David Ayer (Harsh Times) and the committed performances of Gyllenhaal and Peña, with whom Ayer rehearsed for several months before shooting the film to get their chemistry just right. Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez are heartfelt and dynamic as the officers’ better halves.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Interview: Michael Peña and Natalie Martinez on “End of Watch””