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Jet Set Arts
Concerts: The Long Beach Blues Festival
The Long Beach Blues Festival took place at the beautiful Rainbow Lagoon Park over Labor Day weekend. The weather was hot, and so was the music. The festival was a major fund-raiser for publicly supported radio station KKJZ, located at California State University in Long Beach and known as "America's Jazz and Blues Station." Celebrating their 30th anniversary, the festival had a world-class lineup of artists on September 5 and 6. Read More »
Movies: Inglourious Basterds
“Inglourious Basterds” is a crazy, violent, rollicking ride into the mind of Quentin Tarantino, as he re-imagines the way World War Two played out. Anchored by Brad Pitt’s witty, tough-guy performance as a fanatic American Nazi killer and juxtaposed against a suitably smarmy and deeply evil take on a ruthless Nazi colonel by Christophe Waltz, the movie starts slow, but builds up steam to an incredibly satisfying ending. Read More »
Movies: In the Loop
So, ya wanna get “In the Loop,” at least in terms of mostly smart comedy? Then run – don’t walk – to the movie of the same name. Otherwise, you might miss some of the wondrous one-liners in the finest political satire since “Wag the Dog” punctured the pompous well more than a decade ago. Read More »
DVD: Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season
“Flight of the Conchords” follows the goofy tale of two real guys who are shepherds in New Zealand, who decide they want to take their music on the road, so they head out to the Big Apple. The quirky TV series from the land of the Kiwis features the real-life singers playing fictional versions of themselves (and hopefully exaggerated), but it does translate to American audiences. Read More »
Movie: Paper Heart
“Paper Heart” is simply too small a film to ever to be great, but an imaginative premise and quirky actress/creator could turn it into a late-summer box-office surprise. Charlyne Yi, a comic performance artist who briefly appeared in “Knocked Up,” plays herself as someone trying to document the presence of true love since she doesn’t believe it really exists. Read More »
CD: Elvis Presley: From Elvis In Memphis: Legacy Edition
Invigorated by a 1968 TV special and the notion of returning to a Memphis studio for the first time since leaving Sun Records for RCA in 1955, Elvis Presley decided to pull out all the stops for his first non-soundtrack album in six years. The songs were well selected (“Suspicious Minds,” “Only the Strong Survive,” “Gentle on My Mind,” “True Love Travels On a Gravel Road,” “Kentucky Rain”), the production stripped-down, and the musicians Memphis-funky. Read More »
CD: Portugal. The Man: The Satanic Satanist
Portugal. The Man’s bizarrely titled fourth album kicks off with a groove so fat and swampy, you’ll swear it was recorded in Memphis, circa 1967. “The Satanic Satanist” opens with the anti-war anthem “People Say” that builds on that funky riff to become a full-fledged barnburner. “What a lovely day, yeah we won the war,” sings vocalist John Baldwin Gourley. “May have lost a million men but we’ve got a million more.” The rest of the album doesn’t quite live up to that awesome opener but it comes pretty damned close. Read More »
Movie: Ponyo
If “Ponyo” isn’t the best animated film of the year, it certainly becomes the sweetest in the wise old hands of legendary Hayao Miyazaki. An Oscar winner for the infinitely darker “Spirited Away,” Miyazaki released his lovely little “Ponyo” a year ago in his native Japan where it became a huge hit. Read More »
DVD: The Alzheimer's Project
Ugh! I can’t think of anything more painful than watching nine hours of a documentary about Alzheimer’s disease, but believe it or not, the new DVD called “The Alzheimer’s Project” an amazing, informative, and entertaining must-see documentary. The tag line says “it will change the way America things about Alzheimer’s” and that is true, just by what I said in the first sentence. Read More »
Movie of the Week: District 9
Forget the “Transformers” sequel or “G.I. Joe,” the latest action-packed sci-fi thriller to hit cinema screens is the shocking and superb drama “District 9.” With its incredibly powerful story paired with some staggeringly realistic and gory special effects, producer Peter Jackson has gleefully come full circle in this return to his beloved splatter turf. Read More »
