A look at the weekend of November 15-18 in San Diego
If you missed the San Diego Film Festival and Coronado Film Festival last week, you have another one. It’s the 25th annual SAN DIEGO ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL. It’s a chance to catch a film festival that isn’t as expensive as flying to Paris for Cannes, or as cold as Sundance in Utah. You’ll get to see lots of movies and mingle with the cast and crew of some of the films.
There are TWO MOVIES OPENING this weekend in most of the theaters around town – a new Dwayne Johnson movie called RED ONE. Weird casting having J.K. Simmons playing Santa. Chris Evans and Lucy Liu are also in it, but early reviews have been bad.
And one of the best movies I’ve seen this year is a film Jesse Eisenberg has written and directed. He stars in it with Kieran Culkin. It’s called A REAL PAIN and it was a real joy to watch.
If you prefer watching actors on stage, catch a 27 year tradition – the Old Globe’s production of DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS. Now, if you’re someone that gets mad at your neighbors for putting their Christmas lights up before it’s even been Thanksgiving, I’m guessing you’ll put this off until December.
From the stage to the hardwood – if you haven’t heard, the SAN DIEGO CLIPPERS are back in town. Now, it’s not the former NBA team, they’re still in L.A. but their G League team now plays their home games at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside. They’ve got a game on Sunday. I’m hoping to go and relive my childhood memories in the ‘80s watching Bill Walton, Swen Nater, Terry Cummings, Tom Chambers, and Kobe Bryant’s dad – Joe “Jellybean” Bryant. Now that Lebron James’ son has been sent down to the G League, look for him coming to town.
Now, Ted Garcia is a fan of “yacht rock” but for those on the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s PUNK IN THE PARK at Snapdragon Stadium. They’re going to have a number of punk and alternative bands, headlined by THE OFFSPRING and PENNYWISE. I’m most excited that San Diego local ska band BUCK-O-NINE is on the bill. That’s November 16th. That same night there’s a punk tribute band at the BELLY UP TAVERN – they’ve got the most perfect name for a tribute band. They’re the Red NOT Chili Peppers.
If AMERICANA is more to your music styling tastes – another local, SARA PETITE, who just had a great show last week with John Hiatt, has assembled a lot of local musicians for an “Americana Roundup” paying tribute to the San Diego band THE BEAT FARMERS. That’s at the Ken Club on Friday night.
If you’d rather calm your nerves and not get all riled up by all the rock ‘n roll, November 15 is the TROUT OPENER, which isn’t a Phish tribute band. Lake Jennings in Lakeside will be stocked with 2,500 pounds of trout. Who’s hungry?
Now for a more detailed review on why A REAL PAIN was one of my favorite movies of the year, here you go:
Jesse Eisenberg plays that neurotic Jewish character he’s played before. He invites his cousin (Keirnan Culkin) on a trip to see their recently deceased grandmother’s home in Poland. Since she survived the Holocaust, they also go on a tour of a concentration camp. Now, that might sound like a real downer, and yes, there are plenty of sad moments. But it’s also an oddball comedy/road trip picture. One that’s going to bring Culkin an Oscar nomination.
We learn these two cousins were a lot closer growing up, and you slowly find things out about these characters that I wouldn’t begin to spoil. You do learn early on that David is married with a young son, and Benji lives in his mom’s basement, doesn’t work, and smokes a lot of pot.
There are some interesting characters we meet on their tour (I didn’t recognize Jennifer Grey as the depressed, recently divorced Marcia).
Eisenberg does a terrific job blending humor with sadness, and scenes where characters aren’t over-the-top. They all feel like real people. The empathy we feel for them is well-earned.
He apparently based this on his real grandparents in Poland, and it was a nice touch to use Polish composer Frederic Chopin’s brilliant piano compositions to score the movie.
It may sound like a familiar formula, but it will be the best 90 minutes you can spend at a movie.
4 stars out of 5.