Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Today is a pretty bonkers new release day, with new records from Sabrina Carpenter, The Beaches, and The Hives that were all queued up for my eardrums. And then I landed on something completely different- this deliciously dark, prog-psych-free jazz brain swim of a track from Brazil’s Oruã. The song is “México Suite.” I love it.
“México Suite” is off Oruã’s upcoming release, Slacker, coming out October 24th on the legendary K Records.
Comedies are making a noisy return to theaters this year! With One of Them Days, The Naked Gun, and Freakier Friday successfully attracting audiences, and Spinal Tap II and Good Fortune waiting in the wings, 2025 could be a turning point for the comedy genre’s decade-long theatrical absence. The Roses aims to continue the trend. The Roses comes from director Jay Roach (Austin Powers; Meet the Parents) and is based on the novel The War of the Roses by Warren Adler and the subsequent 1989 film adaptation starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. In a plea for wider audience approval, The Roses has declawed the source material in favor of a softer, mostly harmless black comedy. If not for the winning duo at its center, The Roses would wilt under the strains of its vignette-styled antics, but fortunately has the chemistry and enough laughs to withstand its structural shortcomings. Continue reading “Film Review: “The Roses””
Project Pabst in Portland, Oregon, has a long and nuanced history that most music festivals don’t share. Launched as a Fall festival in 2014, Pabst Brewing Company hoped for it to be a “love letter to Portland”. In 2015, the time of year was moved to July and has remained a Summer festival ever since. In 2016, they changed locations from Zidell Yards, just a short jaunt down the road from their current home at Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Throughout the years, they have experimented with putting on evening shows at different clubs and bars around town and have reinvented themselves after a chosen hiatus and some forced years off. In 2017, they had their last show until an attempted comeback in 2020 that was halted by COVID, only to return last year finally. Continue reading “Project Pabst 2025 Journal”
In a brief scene in the new film Relay, its star, Riz Ahmed, gets a chance to use the sign language skills he picked up in his 2020 Oscar-nominated performance in Sound of Metal. That’s a cool throwback for Ahmed fans, and, given his exceptional talent (see also Encounter, Nightcrawler, and HBO’s series The Night Of), he no doubt has many. But his fans may be disappointed in Relay, a serviceable corporate espionage thriller in which Ahmed’s performance is the only bright spot. Continue reading “Film Review: “Relay””
SIGRID IS BACK! Norway’s finest import has returned with a funky, infectious single, and it’s the thing that’s keeping me moving today. And that vocal fry?!?! “Fort Knox” is the second single from Sigrid’s third full-length record, There’s Always More That I Can Say, coming your way on October 3rd. Preorders and such here!
Photos by Gordon Elgart
E*MO*TION by Carly Rae Jepsen is an extremely rare record. It’s simply perfect. It landed at #2 on our list of greatest records of the 2010s, and if we re-evaluated that list, it likely would be #1 five years removed from the last decade. When Jepsen announced that she was going to do one show in 2025, and it would be playing that seminal record in full, I decided it was best to make sure I was there.
The “Galapagos Affair” is a fascinating and troubling true story. Multiple eyewitness accounts have been published, as well as a documentary and non-fiction books, about the incident. Director Ron Howard, no stranger to the “based on a true story” aspect of filmmaking (Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, Frost/Nixon, Thirteen Lives, among others), depicts the “Galapagos Affair” in his new film, Eden, a thriller set among paradise-seeking settlers on the island of Floreana in the 1930s. Eden is a star-studden affair, a sexually-charged collision of characters unfolding in a harsh natural environment, but the crucial “why” behind the proceedings is never explored, resulting in the film’s inability to be anything more than a diverting thriller. Continue reading “Film Review: “Eden””
Here’s a couple movie tidbits to know before your next trivia night: 1) the highest grossing animated film of all time is Ne Zha 2; and 2) the highest grossing non-English language film of all time is, you guessed it, Ne Zha 2. With a global haul of over $2.1 billion and counting, this box office record-buster is a Chinese animated sequel to a 2019 animated movie about a popular Chinese mythological figure and humanity’s deity/demon protector, Nezha. The Ne Zha films are directed by Jiaozi and developed and produced through his production company, Chengdu Coco Cartoon. Now, after setting international box office records and following a short stint in a few North American theaters in February, Ne Zha 2 takes aim at American audiences with an English-dubbed version in theaters. Despite its complex plot and intimidating mythological context, its stunning visuals and epic scale more than earn its theatrical experience. Continue reading “Film Review: “Ne Zha 2””
I *love* Ivy. The faux French Pop project from married couple Dominique Durand and the late, great Adam Schleisinger was almost certainly a thing of the past when COVID stole the life of one of America’s greatest songwriters in 2020. However, while working on remaster / reissues of Ivy’s fantastic catalog, Durand started listening to various demos from over the years, called up bandmate Andy Chase and, bam! We have a new Ivy album! And much like a ghost giving you a warm hug, these are all songs worked on by Schleisinger. Even though COVID is still frustrating our lives, its impact has reduced in the last year, and hopefully will continue to wane. That being said, “Heartbreak” sounds as fresh and inviting as anything off their classic record Apartment Life, and I’m eager for more music and to hopefully see them live again.
“Heartbreak” comes from Ivy’s upcoming record, Traces Of You, in stores and at your friendly neighborhood DSP on September 5th!
It’s tough to avoid comparing a remake to the original, especially if the original is a five-star masterpiece. Such is the case for Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, which is based on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 procedural crime drama, High and Low (which is based on a 1959 book, King’s Ransom by Ed McBain). Kurosawa’s High and Low explores stark class divisions within post-war Japan, challenging the characters with life-threatening moral dilemmas and utilizing a detailed police procedural plotline to expose these divisions, literally and metaphorically. Lee moves the 1960s Japan setting to a present-day New York City, shifts the protagonist’s business empire from a shoe company to a music label, and abandons High and Low’s slow burn pace for a thriller, all of which deliver a mixed bag of results. Continue reading “Film Review: “Highest 2 Lowest””
