Henry Selick is a true innovator. He’s one of the very few people to bring the joys of stop motion animation to the masses, and managing to have great success with the form. Spinning Platters had a rare chance to have a chat with him ahead of the SF Symphony presenting the film with live score later this month.
Thao Nguyen is a hometown hero. She’s continuously pushing the boundaries of folk music, and making the acoustic guitar an instrument you can dance to. Her 2013 record We The Common is a beautiful and thought provoking piece of work. She’s headlining the 20th St Block Party this weekend alongside Nick Waterhouse, Dominant Legs and many more. This is a totally free event, so there is no excuse not to come.
Polaris was a fake band that comprised of real musicians in the 90’s kids show, The Adventures Of Pete & Pete. Now, 19 years after the show’s cancellation, we have the first vinyl pressing of the shows’ soundtrack, and they are also doing their first full scale US tour! They will be coming to The Chapel on April 24th. Tickets are available here!
We had a chance to ask 10 questions to Muggy Polaris (Mark Mulcahy), Harris Polaris (Scott Boutier), and Jersey Polaris (Dave McCaffrey). Here’s what these guys had to say!
Tony Lucca will always have a special place in my heart…and my career. I say that because it was just about this time four years ago that I wrote my first review for Spinning Platters. I had met editor Gordon Elgart not long prior and discussed writing for him, but it was completely spur of the moment when I invited him to join me to see Mr. Lucca at the Cafe du Nord and cover the show. He asked, instead, that I do it myself. I admit, having never written anything of the sort, I was intimidated. But I did it, and I suppose the rest is the proverbial history? Anyway, I digress. Suffice all this to say that I was happy to catch him last Thursday evening at Yoshi’s Oakland. Even better, he had recently added my beloved Keaton Simons to his band, and offered me a little pre-show time for a chat. Continue reading “An Evening with Tony Lucca at Yoshi’s Oakland, 01/29/2015”
Clare O’Kane used to be one of the funniest women in San Francisco. I say “used to,” because she recently left us to live in Los Angeles. We recently had a chance to talk to her about making the transition from SF comic to LA comic, ahead of her stretch of homecoming shows during Sketchfest. Here’s a link to the many gigs she’s doing, including a session of Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction with the great Laraine Newman!
W Kamau Bell is one of the most brilliant and controversial names in comedy. He recently moved back to the Bay Area, after a stint in New York hosting the dearly departed Totally Biased with W Kamau Bell. To celebrate his return, he did a “secret residency” at Cinecave in Lost Weekend Video. He’s playing Uptown Showdown: Are We Getting Dumber vs Are We Getting Smarter with Maria Bamford, Dave Hill, TJ Miller, Aparna Nancherla, Greg Poops and Jared Logan on January 31st. Tickets are available here!
George Chen is one of the founders of Cinecave, one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets. It’s a comedy club in the basement of Lost Weekend Video. It’s also one of the best rooms for comedy in this town. Cinecave is teaming up with Sketchfest for several shows during the festival, as well as shows every Friday and Saturday night! Chen is also one of the funniest comics in his own right, and you can catch him throughout the festival. His schedule is here.
After Coherence screened to a packed house at the 57th San Francisco International Film Festival, the film’s writer/director James Ward Byrkit (Rango, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy), sat down with me to discuss the mind-bending thriller, its origins, its unique production, and more…
Where and when did you originally come up with the premise for Coherence?
Well, we came up with the premise in my living room, where the movie is shot. A couple years ago we were trying to think about what a good low budget, or no budget, movie would be. And, since we didn’t have any resources, I had to think of what we actually had. We had a camera. We had some actors who were pretty good, and we had a living room. So we had to find out how to make a living room feel like more than just a living room. And, that led to a whole Twilight Zone type story [laughs].
Coming off the work you’ve done — storyboarding for Pirates of the Caribbean and working on the story for Rango, how did this shift your way of thinking?
Good comedy is hard to find. I mean, it’s easy to find , but with thousands of voices permeating the ether, it’s hard to see the stars within the galaxies. How does anybody, especially comedy nerds, expect to stay up to date when there’s so many choices and unanswered questions: Do I want to have a good time? Do I want to be challenged? Who will champion the comedy I want to hear, excuse me, need to hear? Well, Aparna Nancherla and Eliza Skinner, of course.
One is acerbically imaginative, the other keenly effervescent, both are delightfully different with incredible style and substance. The duo worked on the gone-too-soon “Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell” (aka the “OMG, Kamau has a show! OMG, they canceled it! Whyyyyyyyy!?” Show), together they’ve toured with the regal Janine Brito, and both are performing THIS SATURDAY—two shows—at our favorite indie comedy haunt, Lost Weekend Video(aka the Cynic Cave). It’s a highly-recommended happening of extremely special circumstance!
Jason Bateman makes his feature film directorial debut with the hysterically foul-mouthed Bad Words, in which he also stars as Guy Trilby, a forty-something disgruntled middle-school drop out who exploits a loophole in the rules guiding a national spelling bee in order to participate in the contest — but why? There’s more than meets the eye in this black comedy, and I sat down with Mr. Bateman to discuss how Bad Words came to be…along with some other fun stuff while witnessing firsthand his trademark dry humor:
