Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
It’s the first “weekly show list” of the year, and this is another wonderful and eclectic week for fans of music in the bay area!
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 1/5/12-1/11/12”
Carrie Brownstein might be the hardest working person in show business. Not only has she, within about a year, assembled one of the most explosive and critically acclaimed new bands in rock music, she is the star of the highest rated program on IFC, the sketch comedy series “Portlandia.” Now she’s managed to squeeze some time out of her busy schedule to piece together a Portlandia stage show, alongside her costar on the program, Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen. All of this getting done, of course, before they unleash a new season of Portlandia. And then, her band Wild Flag will be launching a big Spring tour; and then, she will probably write two or three books, make a movie, and cure cancer all before June.
Continue reading “Show Review: Portlandia the Tour with Thao & Mirah at Mezzanine, 12/30/11”
While other magazines, blogs and newspapers release their Best Albums of the Year super early, obviously before they’ve even heard some of the albums on their list, we wait until the last possible minute, sharing dozens of nominations with each other while participating in an overly complicated voting process that leads to a Top 10 that looks completely different from anyone else’s. It’s rewarding and fun, and we always find room for small albums that usually get ignored. One person’s favorite gets a real chance to get heard in our system as it becomes the favorite of many. So know, dear reader, that the albums you’re about to see listed have passed a multi-level test of quality. And now, I end my introduction by asking you to click the more tag and see our Official List of the Top 10 Albums of 2011.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Presents The Official List of the Top 10 Albums of 2011”
Welcome to our list of the best films of 2011! I’m Jason LeRoy, the film editor of this fine website, and I’ll be your guide to the most excellent cinema this year had to offer. I have to say, this is a pretty exciting moment for me. While I’ve been writing about film in one form or another since 1995, 2011 is the first year I’ve managed to see just about everything. It is with no small amount of consideration (or afternoons and evenings spent slumped over in theaters around town) that I’ve compiled this list. So look after the jump for my top 10 films of the year, some honorable mentions, and a handful of staff-pick rebuttals for Best Film of 2011. And especially since this year was uncommonly lacking in unifying critical favorites, please leave your own picks in the comments below.
Continue reading “The Spinning Platters Guide to the Best Films of 2011”
For some silly reason, we’ve all decided that we need to spend the change over of the year in “party” mode. We count down til midnight, then pick somebody to make out with when the clock strikes 12. Well, I’m a firm believer in any excuse to go to a show, as well as any excuse to make out with somebody, so here’s a list of the best six shows to spend your New Year’s Eve with.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Picks Six: Ways To Spend New Year’s Eve In The Bay Area”
Comedian Greg Behrendt does a bit about the “grown up rock show.” A show where everyone is over 25, the band only plays hits, and the show is over in time for you to get home and watch Law & Order. No openers, no new material. It seems that the trend that’s been brewing for the last 5 years or so of playing a classic album front to back was inspired by this concept. The Matthew Sweet show at Yoshi’s, featuring Girlfriend in it’s entirety, definitely felt like this. There were few people in the crowd under the age of 30. Everyone showed up on time, a show that started at 8 PM on the nose, and ended shortly after 9:30. And it was beautiful.
Continue reading “Show Review: Matthew Sweet at Yoshi’s — SF, 12/27/11”
When you’re an internationally-successful musical act that bends and shapes a genre as complex and intricate as psytrance, how do you keep your work from becoming stagnant, in this ever-shifting world of electronic music with its seemingly endless count of subgenres? You’ve got a lot of competition in the field as 2011 draws to a close. There are the arena-filling behemoths like Tiësto and deadmau5, whose light and projection show rivals that of a second-world country’s first celebration of independence. There are the up-and-coming acts, who manage to pack a dancefloor with just a simple mixer and/or MIDI pad and a laptop chock full of cutting edge software and samples. To break the mold of the constant onslaught of knob twiddlers and fader pushers, it becomes necessary to add a human element and violently active energy to your stage show. It therefore should come as no surprise that Israeli psytrance heavyweights Infected Mushroom decided to move out from behind the keyboards and up to the front of the stage a few years back, and their November appearance at the Fillmore proved that their dynamite performance energy hasn’t dwindled in the slightest — if anything, it’s gotten even wilder than before.
War Horse
starring: Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, David Kross, David Thewlis
written by: Lee Hall and Richard Curtis
directed by: Steven Spielberg
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of war violence.
The Adventures of Tintin
starring: Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
written by: Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright, and Joe Cornish
directed by: Steven Spielberg
MPAA: Rated PG for adventure action violence, some drunkenness and brief smoking.
Continue reading “Film Reviews: “War Horse” / “The Adventures of Tintin””
starring: Matt Damon, Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Elle Fanning, Patrick Fugit, Colin Ford, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, John Michael Higgins, J.B. Smoove
written by: Cameron Crowe and Aline Brosh McKenna
directed by: Cameron Crowe
MPAA: Rated PG for language and some thematic elements.
Yes, this is kind of a slow show week. Why? Because it’s Christmas week. Even venues need to take to occasional holiday. But, you know what, the biggest badass in America is coming to town! So, yeah, Merry Christmas.
Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 12/22/11-12/28/11”