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CoaChes vs. CanCer
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[ upcoming ]
may 25 Crawfish Festival at Henderson Pavilion (EiLasVegas.com) June 1 Neon Bazaar Downtown pop-up market (NeonBazaarLV.com)
Photos by Josh Metz
May 23-29, 2013
College basketball coaches from across the country made their way to town May 19-21 for the annual Coaches vs. Cancer Las Vegas event. Co-hosted by UNLV men’s basketball coach Dave Rice and former Rebels coach Lon Kruger (now at Oklahoma), the festivities kicked off with a private Sunday-night reception for about 400 attendees at the MGM Producer’s Pool. A two-day golf tournament followed at Shadow Creek Golf Course and Southern Highlands Golf Club, where Rice and Kruger were joined by such coaching colleagues as Dana Altman (Oregon), Roy Williams (North Carolina) and Larry Eustachy (Colorado State), as well as ESPN broadcaster Fran Fraschilla. Since its first year in Las Vegas in 2007, the local chapter of Coaches vs. Cancer has raised more than $1 million (including more than $270,000 this year) for the American Cancer Society, which celebrated its 100th anniversary on May 22.
May 23-29, 2013
Cool fashion, hot parties, family thrills, swim lessons, home remedies, fabulous weekends and muCh more!
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Beach. As you experience the sweet sensation of your toes in the sand, take a moment to realize you’re fnally living out that sexy scene from Top Gun. After a few serves (and a couple of shots), not even those cuties at the cabana will be able to coax you off the court. This welcomed addition to daylife really is the best way to be a baller. At the Tropicana, BagatelleLasVegas.com. BREAST IN SHOW Tucked behind the verdant landscaping that marks the entrance to Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden & Dolphin Habitat is that most rare, exotic and lovely of creatures:
topless women. Yes, Bare Pool Lounge, that longstanding stalwart of unfettered inhibitions, returns to champion its bikini-busting ways. This year, the pool is taking a stand against its chlorine-rager counterparts and focusing on a more relaxing experience. Making its bow this season is the Bare Brunch, a post-Saturday-night retox affair where the beats are conversationlevel and the Bloody Marys are fowing from its six cabanas to its raised VIP area with infnity pool. Which all goes perfectly with the pool’s European-style sunbathing. Because who wants to worry about the drop when there’s such delight-
ful scenery to take in? At The Mirage, BarePoolLV.com. MOST ANTICIPATED NEW POOL Light Group is fring with both barrels over Memorial Day weekend, frst with its anticipated Light nightclub at Mandalay Bay, and then with the companion (and oh-so-appropriately named) Daylight Beach Club, also at Mandalay. Stretching over 50,000 square feet, Daylight is going to be a beast, accommodating 5,000 aquatic party animals milling around its giant pool with 23 cabanas and 70 daybeds. The DJ lineup will feature some of the heavy hitters who are setting
29 Scenes of Vegas summer, clockwise from top left: Tao Beach, Marquee Dayclub, Bagatelle Beach volleyball and Rehab.
up residencies in the sister nightclub, such as Sebastian Ingrosso, Axwell, Alesso, Nicky Romero and Skrillex. About the only thing missing are the predators casually swimming overhead at the neighboring Shark Reef. They’ll have to pay a cover just like anyone else. DaylightVegas.com.
May 23-29, 2013
LAPS AREN’T JUST FOR SWIMMING Girls glistening in the sun are awesome. And strippers are awesome. So why did it take so long to put them together? To be fair, there was a Sapphire Pool at the Rio in 2009, but now the gentleman’s club has brought the action to its own (literal) backyard with the construction of the 21,000-square-foot Sapphire Pool & Dayclub. Food by Kerry Simon should be enough to lure anyone to a new facility, but Sapphire also features entertainers on duty. In other words, strippers hanging out, willing to chat with you while you work on your buzz, tan or buzzed tanning. The girls, topless as they are, are constrained to wearing pasties, but that only gives you something to look forward to once you’re back inside the club. 3025 Industrial Rd., SapphirePoolLV.com.
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BEST GETAWAY DIP Just 10 minutes south of the Strip proper (assuming you don’t miss the exit and have to make a U-turn in Jean), M Resort is far enough away to constitute calling it a “getaway,” yet close enough to actually get around to doing it. Locals enjoy 30 percent room discounts, making it hard not to justify a little staycation. Your frst order of business? The pool. A tiny adults-only enclave off the main pool complex, DayDream Pool Club opens May 25 for weekend parties soundtracked by DJs Hollywood and Hope. Just squint and you’re in Palm Springs! DayDreamLV.com. HIDDEN GEM Just a skotch calmer than its frattish brethren elsewhere on the Strip—and thanks in large part to its popularity with a more low-key Euro crowd—Azure Luxury Pool could easily get up, hop on a plane and plant itself next to a resort anywhere in the Mediterranean. But why, when it enjoys east-west exposure and
almost unobstructed views of the Strip, the mountains and, well, the other patrons? Oh, the beach balls still bounce, the bikinis are still tiny (not to mention some of the men’s shorts) and the Bellinis are still boozy. Azure offers the best of the Med mixed with the best of Sin City—just with a slight French accent. At the Palazzo, Palazzo.com/Azure. BEST POOL-CLUB DINING At full capacity, Tao Beach is a heaving, coconut-scented scrum of bronzed bodies pressed together like trees in a rain forest canopy competing for prime sun exposure and
proximity to a water source. (Somewhere beneath them, there is a pool—somewhere.) But try as he might, man cannot live on day-drinking alone. While Tao Beach has always offered a great menu of small plates, large plates and desserts (mochi!), the new Sunday Brunch already has us adding the outrageously delicious Fortune Cookie Waffes ($18) to our Christmas list. Dishes, including the crispy Tao Temple Salad ($12) and splurge-y Kobe steak and eggs ($88), come from Tao Restaurant’s own kitchen (as opposed to a co-opted nearby prep kitchen). There’s no need to hide your Buddha belly;
after diving into the Kung Pao Chicken Wings ($15) and complimentary glass of Chandon Rosé sparkling wine—everyone else will have one, too. At the Venetian, TaoBeach.com. BEST PLACE TO KEEP YOUR COOL Alternating between serene oasis and young Hollywood clubhouse, Venus European Pool Club is as much a place to cool off as it is to heat things up. Mediterranean cyprus, palm and olive trees provide shade, as do umbrellas, cabanas and the air-conditioned main bar. But the staff takes chilling-out to a new level with
Evian face spritzes and frozen towel presentations. Even as you doff your top to take advantage of the European sunbathing, you can still say, “Brrr—that’s hot.” At Caesars Palace, AngelMG.com. MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY It’s a fact of life: Daylife happens even when the pools are closed. Saturdays between October and March, Lavo Brunch makes you forget that it’s the offseason, drawing its dining-room curtains for a Champagne brunch that’s both breakfast bonanza and day-party extravaganza. While
BEST OFFSEASON PARTY Like a raucous kid’s birthday on steroids—and with copious amounts of booze—Ghostbar Dayclub (GBDC) proves that piñatas and party hats are always a recipe for a good time.
May 23-29, 2013
With more neon than the 1980s combined, and throwing caution to the wind with branded umbrellas opened indoors (superstition be damned!), GBDC fills the pesky gap between nightlife and after-hours when the dayclubs are closed for winter. The daytime soirée routinely busts out the beer bongs and “Shots, Shots, Shots!” Then there are the costumes that make it Halloween all winter when staff—as well as guests— don everything from superhero outfits to sexy sports themes. You wish your college frat parties were this cool. In the Palms, Palms.com.
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Clockwise from top left: Bare Pool Lounge, Sapphire Pool & Dayclub, Ditch Fridays at the Palms and Venus European Pool Club.
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you’re digging into lemon ricotta waffes or Lavo’s famed spaghetti with giant Kobe meatballs, drink in the live performers, banging DJs, patrons dancing on tables and magnums popping left and right. All of which ends early enough to collect yourself, shake it off and get back out to a Saturday night in Las Vegas. In the Palazzo, LavoLV.com.
Street Style
11 cool looks for summer, captured on the fly
chevalier, 22, soccer player Scotch & Soda shirt and shorts.
compiled By claire wigglesworth photographed By zack williams
kris, 29, stylist Topman T-shirt, Topshop pants, Adidas shoes.
dalia, 24, graphic designer Scotch & Soda jeans, H&M top, Balenciaga purse.
May 23-29, 2013
John, 23, retail assistant Zanerobe dropcrotch pants, Black Hearts T-shirt, Adidas shoes.
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dannie, 25, market trader 123+78 leggings, Jerry Hall top.
nightlife
Daylife
Making a Splash
Introducing the new (and renewed) party pools of 2013 By Jen Chase
[new]
Daylight Beach Club
May 23-29, 2013
Mandalay Bay
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Music is a given at today’s dayclub, and although we learn as kiddos that water and electricity are most certainly not friends, Daylight Beach Club will prove that one wrong real fast. The Light Group calls its newest creation a “revolutionary open-air entertainment and nightlife destination” that will enhance daylife with its technology and music. Debuting May 25, Daylight will do that, in part, with a key focal point: a 1,500-square-foot stage (amid 50,000 square feet of fexible outdoor space) artistically rendered in metal and mesh and framed by six LED screens. The Light Group calls it a “true Las Vegas interpretation of one of the most powerful stages in Ibiza.” A roster of resident DJs from the Light
nightclub in Mandalay Bay will also cycle through. Of course, Daylight won’t just mean music. There is water at this party (the 4,400-squarefoot pool sits smack on the Strip; no need to trek through a hotel or casino) and plenty of daybeds (70), cabanas (23) and bungalows (2) for your reserving pleasure. For some it’ll be the epitome of a Mediterranean party; for others, a Mediterranean escape. Both seem fab. Must Do: Eclipse is Daylight’s nocturnal beach party, launching May 22 with musical performances slated for Wednesdays throughout the summer from 10 p.m.-3 a.m. and on the Sundays of holiday weekends. [Renewed]
Rehab
Hard Rock Hotel and Casino
Las Vegas changed forever in April 2004, when the Hard Rock
Hotel capitalized on two things: the city’s obscene stretch of hot weekends, and a tourist’s dream of cramming as much partying as possible into their trip, even if it was only a day long. With Rehab, the Strip got its frst taste of daylife by moving the party poolside. Ten summers later, Rehab’s reign as Las Vegas’s wildest pool party for 7,000 prevails, thanks to a 5-acre swath of real sand, palm trees and eight water features (all of which achieve that oasisin-the-desert feel); high-octane concerts by major players; and a shake-it-like-it’s-your-last-dayon-earth attitude every week. Ever-seeking evolution, this year, the Hard Rock Hotel has added DJ Robbie Rivera’s marathon Juicy Beach Saturdays to the Beachlife party lineup that bookends Rehab Sundays and makes a four-day weekend that only the party-est people crave. Summer Camp Fridays re-cre-
ate the campy fun you enjoyed as a high schooler (scantily clad poolside games, water-balloon fghts and the like). The Nectar Saturdays music festival presents an eclectic mix of world beats; and Relax Mondays offers poolside detox with chill music and atmosphere. Must Do: Check in to the Hard Rock and stay all weekend. With its roster of daylife and nightlife events, seriously, why leave? [Renewed]
Wet Republic MGM Grand
This year, the MGM Grand marketing team employed an aw-shucks phrase to grab patrons’ attention. “Welcome Home” makes loyalists feel all warm inside while paying homage to the A-lister DJs who played MGM early in their career and returned for a blockbuster summer. But
one thing’s for certain about MGM’s long-loved Wet Republic: Its multimillion-dollar, offseason facelift turned it into no home we’ve ever known. The 53,000-square-foot club refreshed its South Beach feel with deep-navy cushions in every party cabana and VIP bungalow, and on every furniture-like daybed and chaise; but the real reveal involved what could be Wet Republic’s draw for years to come. Within its unique 2,500-square-foot open-air lounge (an unspeakable bonus for getting out of the sun) is Wet Republic’s bar, with a stunning green marble top that’s 35 feet longer than last year. Sure, the bungalows with their private dipping pools, gaming gadgetry and cocktail-serving goodness are alluring. But when you’re boiling and you don’t want to wait for a drink, a bar that’s now more than a quarter the length of a football feld will truly make
Rendering courtesy of the Light Group
Dayclubbing—it’s harD work. The research. The outft planning. The deciding which of your peeps you trust enough to spend a sun-flled, judgment-free day in your cabana while you’re suited in something your shy side swears might land you in the clink. See? Stressful. Until a decade ago, the idea that dayclubbing would become a very active verb in Las Vegas was a glimmer in a savvy marketer’s eye. Today, nearly two dozen pool parties have made daylife tourism as inviting as its nighttime cousin for giving us more hours to enjoy bottle service, pampered seating and Champagne showers. With the pull of the pool so strong, and with so much competition (vast or intimate? electrifying or chill? access to a strip club or not?), the ante’s been upped by the Strip’s established party puddles and newbie venues hoping to be this season’s next best thing. Here’s the best of what’s new, newish and renewed.
nightlife
parties
a Hip-Hop Guide to MeMorial day Weekend By Sam Glaser OK, we get it: Las Vegas is growing in its electronic dance music relevance. But is hip-hop dead, as Nas explicitly mentions? Nah, kid, rap’s alive and kickin’. Memorial Day weekend signals the arrival of summer—so here’s what’s good for the cliques, my dudes and my chicks.
palMs pool The palms
[ Upcoming ]
May 24 Wiz Khalifa performs May 25 Big Sean performs May 26 Chris Brown hosts
May 23-29, 2013
Sat 25: In Seven Nights (see Page 41) we note performances by Pharrell at Pure and Big Sean at Palms Pool. Add J. Cole to the mix at Haze. He celebrates his birthday and will soon be releasing his Born Sinner album, subliminally promoting Las Vegas. (In Aria, 10:30 p.m., HazeLasVegas. com.) Next up: Snoop Lion, the artist formerly known as Snoop Dogg, who brings his Reincarnated sound for a performance at 1 Oak (In The Mirage, 10:30 p.m., 1OakLasVegas.com.) Bussa Buss! The lyrically talented and always energetic Busta Rhymes gets the party going at Gallery. (In Planet Hollywood, 10 p.m., GalleryLV.com.)
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Sun 26: G.O.O.D. Music signee and purported ton-pusher, Pusha T, brings his raspy flow and deep street cred for a live performance at The Bank. (In Bellagio, 10:30 p.m., TheBankLasVegas.com.) Just Blaze has been working on some electro tunes and spending time with ATrak. Will his set at Daylight lean house or hip-hop? We’re hoping for an experimental crossover set. (At Mandalay Bay, 11 a.m., DaylightVegas.com.) 1 Oak keeps it crackin’ for all the “Wild Ones” with a performance by Flo Rida. (In The Mirage, 10:30 p.m., 1OakLasVegas.com.)
Photography by Teddy Fujimoto and Bobby Jameidar
Fri 24: Get it started with a performance by the still-and-always Illmatic Nasty Nas at Tao. (In the Venetian, 10 p.m., TaoLasVegas.com.) Take it back even further at Moon, because “Summertime” wouldn’t be the same without DJ Jazzy Jeff. (In the Palms 10 p.m., 9GroupVegas.com.) If you’re feelin’ more new school, ride to 1 Oak to catch Atlanta’s rising star, Future, and see how many drinks you can hold at the “Same Damn Time.” (In The Mirage, 10:30 p.m., 1OakLasVegas.com.) Or roll to The Bank with Wale. He’ll be the dude “Chillin” with all the “Pretty Girls.” (In Bellagio, 10:30 p.m., TheBankLasVegas.com.) Also likely bumpin’ some hiphop: Chicago trap duo Flosstradamus spin at Body English with the Kings of the Mic tour. (In the Hard Rock, 10:30 p.m., HardRockHotel.com.) Call in sick and Ditch Fridays at Palms Pool for a show by Pittsburgh’s Wiz Khalifa. (At the Palms, noon., Palms.com.)
nightlife
parties
Wet republic MGM Grand [ Upcoming ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Teddy Fujimoto and Toby Acuna
May 23-29, 2013
May 24 R3hab and Tommy Trash spin May 26 Calvin Harris and Fergie DJ spin May 27 Deadmau5 Unhooked
nightlife
parties
Xs Nightswim Encore
[ Upcoming ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Danny Mahoney
May 23-29, 2013
May 26 David Guetta spins June 2 Afrojack spins June 9 Knife Party
nightlife
parties
tao
The Venetian [ Upcoming ]
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See more photos from this gallery at SpyOnVegas.com
Photography by Powers Imagery
May 23-29, 2013
May 23 ATB spins May 24 Nas performs May 26 Kaskade spins
DINING
Brunch at Jasmine.
Brunch a Bunch
This weekend, you’re dining and day-drinking— the summer demands it By Camille Cannon
This one is a do for all divas. PRIDE has added booze and breakfast to turn the popular Family Bingo into Pajama Brunch Bingo. In addition to gameplaying and fabulous drag performances, the monthly merriment includes a buffet ($24), Champagne bottle service ($15) and bottomless mimosas ($6). In the Grand Ballroom at Circus Circus, 11 a.m. July 21, LasVegasPride.org. Every weekend at Bar+Bistro, chef Beni Velázquez serves up hangover cures such as his cangrejo benedict mofongo ($15) and brioche fan French toast ($10). For further treatment, stop in on Sunday for Blue Grass Brunch, featuring live music from Las Vegas’s own Out of the Desert. In the Arts Factory, 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, BarBistroAF.com. How about a little breakfast in your (day)bed? Tao Beach now offers brunch service at poolside tables or private cabanas. And the fortune cookie waffes ($18) are simply not to be missed. At the Venetian, 10 a.m. Sundays, TaoBeach.com.
Get a little pick-me-up at Park on Fremont’s a la carte Orange Juice Blues brunch, featuring bottomless mimosas or bellinis made with fresh peach purée ($20) or mason-jar Bloody Marys. The Cap ‘N Crunch-fried chicken and waffe sandwich is a sweet and savory taste of nostalgia ($10). 506 Fremont St., 11:30 a.m. Sundays, ParkonFremont.com. Put on your Sunday-best bikini bottoms for the recently launched brunch at Bare Pool Lounge. At the Europeanstyle pool lounge, you won’t miss the tan lines or spill stains, but you will love the mini lobster tacos ($19) and refreshing frozen cocktails ($16). At The Mirage, 11 a.m. Sundays, BarePoolLV.com. If your midday hunger knows no bounds, swing by Border Grill for unlimited small plates and spicy favorites such as Yucatan eggs benedict and Peruvian shrimp and grits. Wash it down with bottomless mimosas ($8). At Mandalay Bay, 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, $35 per person, BorderGrill.com. Watch your food prepared in front of you at Jasmine’s Fountains Brunch. Line up at a live-action cooking station for the luscious lobster and potato cake eggs benedict, or make your own organic brown egg omelet. Yes, you’ll have a view of the famous water fountains, too! In Bellagio, 11 a.m. Sundays, $58 per person, Bellagio.com. For more brunchful opportunities, see the complete list at VegasSeven.com/Dining.
May 23-29, 2013
Keeping it classy with caviar, the French-inspired Marché Bacchus offers a choice between domestic sturgeon or Russian osetra to accompany traditional accouterments such as crème fraîche, chives, hard-boiled egg and toast. For $20 you can have endless glasses of Ruinart Brut Blanc de Blancs, or Charles Ellner Brut Champagne. 2620 Regatta Dr., 11 a.m. Sundays, MarcheBacchus.com.
Retreat to La Cave Wine & Food Hideaway for a butler-style brunch and unlimited bar options that can’t be beat. For $20, indulge in all of the sparkling wine, mimosas, Bloody Marys, mojitos or caipirinhas you can hide away. In Wynn, 10:30 a.m. Sundays, $48 per person, WynnLasVegas.com.
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RetuRNING foR a second season, Bubbles & Brunch brings fun, sun and monkey bread to the poolside Overlook Grill. DJs spin while you sip Champagne and dine in or outdoors on delicious dishes such as pan-steamed pork gyoza and blue crab claw benedict. In the Cosmopolitan, 11 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, $40 per person, CosmopolitanLasVegas.com.
Gastro Fare. Nurtured Ales. Jukebox Gold.
A&E
movies
May 23-29, 2013
Summer Sizzlers (clockwise from top left): Grown Ups 2 (reuniting David Spade, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and Kevin James), After Earth (with father-son duo Will and Jaden Smith) and The Wolverine (starring Hugh Jackman).
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probably Adam Sandler—decided that the original 2010 Sandlerpenned, Razzie-nominated schlub-buddy comedy had more of a story to tell. So we get Grown Ups 2 (July 12). Red 2 (July 19) sounds like a Pantone chip but is actually the sequel to the comic book action-comedy franchise starring Bruce Willis, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. Smurfs 2 (July 31), Kick-Ass 2 (Aug. 16) and Despicable Me 2 (July 3) all appeal to children depending on their ages and levels of general misanthropy. And 2 Guns (Aug. 2) isn’t actually a sequel at all. But with that generic title, who can tell? Incidentally, 2 Guns features Mark Wahlberg, which throws off my entire rubric. So does the latest X-Men blockbuster hopeful The Wolverine (July 26), which eschews its 2, instead choosing to distinguish itself from 2009’s Wolverine by cleverly placing the word “the” in front of it. Clearly these are very different flms. Other series getting new installments include Richard Linklater’s romantic trilogy about Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy’s time-constrained lovers (Before Midnight, May 24), and a little comic called Superman, which reboots this year as Man of Steel (June 14), produced by The Dark Knight’s Christopher Nolan (yay!) but directed by Sucker Punch’s
Zack Snyder (um...). Joss Whedon puts his signature spin of geek whimsy on Shakespeare in a contemporarily set Much Ado About Nothing (June 7). The Lone Ranger comes to the big screen for the frst time on July 3, starring Armie Hammer and Johnny Depp in a (literally) Disneyfed take on the classic radio play. Then there are the movies that might not be part of a franchise per se but are defnitely impressions of their predecessors: For adults, Only God Forgives (July 19) reunites Ryan Gosling with his Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn in an insanely violent crime thriller. For kids, Pixar’s Planes (Aug. 9) has all the engine-revving fun of Cars, but with wings! ThE ENd of ThE World AS WE KNoW IT What is it about summer that makes everyone want to speed up Earth’s demise? Wasn’t that depressing The New York Times piece about carbon dioxide enough? Apparently not, because there are at least seven movies about our imminent extinction coming soon to a theater near you. First up is M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth (May 31), starring Will and Jaden Smith in a bit of method acting as a futuristic, photogenic father-son pair who
journey back to our forsaken planet. In World War Z (June 21), Brad Pitt is a U.N. worker—Angie must be so proud!—who tries to stop a zombie outbreak from destroying humanity, while in White House Down (June 28), Channing Tatum plays a rejected Secret Service agent who has to save President Jaime Foxx from a terrorist takeover of the nation’s most famous address. Meanwhile, in sci-f, Guillermo del Toro sends giant robots to thwart a massive alien invasion in Pacifc Rim (July 12), and
Matt Damon fghts to get off of a dead-end Earth and onto the outer-orbit neighborhood du jour in the year 2154 in Elysium (Aug. 9), directed by District 9’s Neill Blomkamp. On the lighter side of widespread extinction, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jonah Hill and their Frat Pack brethren send up their own personas in the self-referential annihilation comedy This is the End (June 12). And Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) battle apocalyptic condi-
tions while on a pub crawl in The World’s End (Aug. 23). Finally, while I realize it’s not a flm about humanity’s downfall, the boy-band concert doc One Direction: This Is Us (Aug. 30)—oddly directed by Supersize Me’s Morgan Spurlock—certainly fts with the theme. fAcETImE WITh ThE WEIrdoS ANd clASS cloWNS Sandwiched in between the blockbusters and battle royals, you can always count on a few
May 23-29, 2013
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cool, weird or just plain earnest flms to elevate the IQ average of the summer’s movie stock. The most likely breakout this year is The Way, Way Back (July 5), a big hit at Sundance which reteams Little Miss Sunshine’s Toni Colette and Steve Carrell in quirky dramedy from the Oscar-winning writing duo of The Descendants. Another indie riding the buzz out of the festival circuit is the high school love story The Spectacular Now (Aug. 2), based on the young adult novel by Tim Tharp and starring Shailene Woodley (also a Descendants alum). Speaking of young adult lit, tween titan Judy Blume gets her frst big-screen adaptation with Tiger Eyes (June 7), directed by her son Lawrence Blume. (Side note: How can this be? They’re making Grown Ups 2, and there’s no room for Superfudge?) Teens behaving badly abound in Sofa Coppola’s The Bling Ring (June 14), a fctionalized account of the real-life celebrity robberies by a gang of high schoolers that made headlines back in 2009. For more adult neuroses, Woody Allen brings us Blue Jasmine (July 26), the prolifc director’s latest ensemble comedy, starring Cate Blanchett and Alec Baldwin (the plot remains undisclosed, except to say that it deals with a New York housewife’s acute life crisis—is there any other kind?). It’s Allen’s 36th movie in a row since Annie Hall; he hasn’t skipped a year since 1976, back when Linda Lovelace, the subject of the Boogie Nights-esque biopic Lovelace (June 28), was still in pictures (see what I did there?). In other offbeat female roles, erstwhile child star Gaby Hoffman embodies a manic pixie dream hippie who catches Michael Cera’s eye in Crystal Fairy (July 12), and Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy team up for the please-God-let-it-be-awesome-andnot-really-embarrassing The Heat (June 28). It’s a cliché farce of a setup, following a mismatched pair of police partners, which is potentially embarrassing for everyone involved—see also: that one with Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah, the viewing of which I have repressed enough not to remember the name— but it’s also directed by Bridesmaids’ Paul Feig, making it potentially awesome. So there’s hope. Maybe not for mankind, but for the female buddy-cop movie. Which is the next best thing, really.
A&E
music
Get wet with Theophilus London, Damien Marley and Matt & Kim.
BIkInI kIll
Your rock ’n’ roll poolside concert primer
May 23-29, 2013
By Jarret Keene
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i love the smell of chlorine in the evening, along with the sound of amplifed guitars and pounding drums. Which means it must be summer in Las Vegas, where the best concerts occur near bodies of water. Here’s a cool list of musical options in the coming months. Boulevard Pool at the Cosmopolitan corners the indie-rock market by pouring the sonic equivalent of a bottomless, punked-up piña colada. Mandalay Bay Beach and Paradise Beach at the Hard Rock offer rad events, too. Other oases to keep an eye on for live music as the season grows hotter: the pool at South Point, M Resort’s DayDream Day Pool (with DJs spinning on weekends), and the pool at Red Rock Resort: MAy 30: Real-life couple Matt & Kim (Boulevard Pool) are best known for a streaking-in-Times Square video for their 2009 single “Lessons Learned.” But their albums, including last year’s Lightning, are acclaimed, fltering Top 40 pop through DIY-punk arrangements and production. Matt & Kim make appealing music with raw and bleeding edges. JuNE 8: Roots rockers Grace Potter & the Nocturnals (Mandalay Bay Beach) will save your soul and blow your mind, thanks to Potter’s Joplin-esque pipes and an arsenal of gritty yet tuneful songs that inspire quasi-religious fervor in the listener. Their most recent album, The Lion
The Beast The Beat, is a scorcher. Also that night, if you prefer something Caribbean-favored, Reggae-rock band trio Pepper (Paradise Beach) will spice things up with their altrockin’ ska-revivalism. They’re an island-steeped update on The Police. JuNE 19: Big-eyed Hollywood actress Zooey Deschanel continues her fruitful and well-received collaboration with indie icon M. Ward for a tour that touches down in Las Vegas. She & Him (Boulevard Pool) are supporting a just-released third album. Appropriately titled Volume 3, the disc is tinged with retrocountry, SoCal folk-rock and classic pop. Twee, but certainly terrifc. JuNE 27: On an even calmer note, soft-rock six-string shredder Anthony James Baker bebops into Aliante Casino + Hotel in North Las Vegas. Note: All summer, Aliante hosts “Poolside Jazz Under the Stars” every last Thursday of the month. Most artists are on the smooth-jazz side—R&B guitarist Nils (May 30), Barbadosborn saxman Elan Trotman (July 25) and the group Dotsero (Aug. 29). JuNE 28: The Jamaican-born dancehall-raging, Grammy-winning sons of Bob himself—Damien and Stephen Marley (Paradise Beach)— will get your body moving and your spirit moved. Once Damien hits you with “Welcome to Jamrock,” it’s all over but the groovin’. His brother Stephen is no slouch either, having won last year’s Grammy award for Best Reggae Album (Revelation Pt. 1: The Root of Life.) Yah mon! July 4: Chillwave synth-popper Twin Shadow (Boulevard Pool), a.k.a. George Lewis Jr., casts an incredible ’80s-inspired, darkly romantic, roller rink-jamming pall over the contemporary musical
landscape. If you want to experience aural freworks—the kind that blends Thompson Twins and Psychedelic Furs with John Carpenter and Duran Duran, then this one’s for you. July 19: Get your fannel-fying with The LP Tour, featuring all the great bands you used to play in the ’90s—Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Soul Asylum, the Wailers and Matthew Sweet (Mandalay Bay Beach). This is a “curated” event, with each act playing its best-known album, front to back. That means Sweet will be kicking out all the jams in Girlfriend, which is the Best Summertime Rock Album Ever. July 25 AND 27: The nearly back-to-back lineup of Brooklyn alt-rapper Theophilus london and power-pop geniuses Weezer (both at Boulevard Pool) already has me in a tizzy. London delivers raprock with a fashback-funk touch that knows no rivals. As for Weezer? C’mon, who doesn’t like to sip beer poolside with “Beverly Hills” blasting? I’ll tell you who: terrorists. AuG. 1: Neo-psychedelic ensemble—or are they some kind of traveling hippie cult-commune of musicians? Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (Boulevard Pool) will ruin your chlorine high with the scent of patchouli and songs that sound written by, well, some kind of traveling hippie cult-commune of musicians. Prepare to bask in their vast, cosmic clamor. AuG. 8: Texas blues-rock singerguitarist Gary Clark Jr. (Boulevard Pool) will barbecue your senses with his shattering voice and incendiary playing. He hasn’t been dubbed “the New Hendrix” for nothing: His shit will put hair on your chest, so bring Nair for when he launches into the fuzzed-out riff of “You Saved Me.”
Punk Rock Bowling is back again, and the musical lineup looks superb. There’s plenty of classic testosterone-fueled punk on hand (Agnostic Front, The Damned, D.R.I.), sure. But there’s also more diverse, quirkier fare this time around. Case in point: new-wave pop radicals Devo, and a group comprising former members of hardcore icons Black Flag called, well, Flag. (They play the music of Black Flag, but shouldn’t be confused with the “official” Black Flag, see?) Sadly, unless you already bought tickets, you can’t see these groups. But here are two smaller, even more varied club shows to which you can still buy admission via PunkRockBowling.com. Motor City-based female-fronted garage-soul cover band the Detroit Cobras sink their fangs into LVCS at 10:30 p.m. May 25. Powered by the uncompromising, cigarette-wrecked, whiskeycracked voice of singer Rachel Nagy, the Cobras can be counted on to spit out a full set of songs by the best—Leadbelly, Bettye Lavette, Little Willie John—in a way that serves to underscore what makes these songs so great in the first place: true grit, real heart. Nagy and Co. haven’t released an album since 2007’s Tied and True. But they wield an infinite arsenal of tunes, so catching the Cobras live is vital. Also on the bill: Throw Rag, the Muffs and the Tinglerz. Rockabilly-country queen Wanda Jackson recorded a series of devastating rockers (“Fujiyama Mama,” “Mean, Mean Man”) during the ’50s while touring with the likes of Elvis Presley. She will hijack your senses at 10:30 p.m. May 26 in Backstage Bar & Billiards. No less than White Striper Jack White re-introduced Jackson to a new generation of fans by producing her 2011 covers disc The Party Ain’t Over. Last year, Steve Earle’s son, Justin Townes Earle, produced Unfinished Business, another equally acclaimed covers collection. Jackson is 75, yet remains a dazzling performer. She’ll play her early works, too. Water Tower and Steve Soto share the bill. Once PRB wraps up, there’s one more show I order you to attend: Menacing alt-country chamber-music ensemble Murder by Death (9 p.m. May 29 at Beauty Bar). This Indiana indie band incorporates haunting cello passages quite effectively into what critics have characterized as a Johnny Cash-meets-Nick Cave approach to songwriting. Murder by Death’s most recent CD is last year’s Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon, a collection of stirring Southern Gothic rock that includes “Lost River.” Sung by deep baritoneblessed frontman Adam Turla, it’s told from a ghost’s perspective, a lover speaking across death’s chasm: Though my days are over/You know where I’ll be/Swim that lost river to me. It’s not all doom-and-gloom, though. “Straight at the Sun” is a soaring, straight-up rocker. Vegas’ best band, Deadhand, opens. Your Vegas band releasing a CD soon? Email Jarret_Keene@Yahoo.com.
Illustration by Marvin Lucas
Bowling for Bands
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concerts
tHe PHoto atLas Beauty Bar, May 17
Plagued by problems, The Photo Atlas overcame even the worst Spinal Tap moments. This Denverbased dance-punk quintet battled with power issues from the start. As amplifier lights dimmed during their first song, drummer Joshua Taylor played on. Power was restored, and they finished without missing a beat. Vocalist Alan Andrews Jr. said, “We lost total power and played through it. I’m proud of everyone here. It’s great to be in Vegas.” Things went well until the band performed their latest single, “Memory Like a Sinking Ship,” and an overzealous fog machine spewed so much smoke that the musicians disappeared behind a wall of white haze. At the end of the song, Andrews emerged from the fog, coughing and said, “This fog machine is destroying my life right now, anyone else?” Guitarists Bill Threlkeld III and Luis Gorostiaga rocked out with a pair of Fender Telecasters and a ferocious attack that added to the driving punk and dance-beat rhythms as the band wrapped up the set without any further issues. Andrews invited everyone to come close and dance with them for their last song, “Red Orange Yellow,” and the crowd obliged. The Photo Atlas stormed on through a rough gig. ★★★✩✩ – Jack Hallows
Lisa HiLton trio
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Lisa Hilton is at her best when she is guiding us down the back roads of our own emotional geography. Sure, she can riff heavy on traditional jazz, swinging with Gregg August on bass and Jaimeo Brown on drums on Nat King Cole-inspired “Jack & Jill,” but when the trio dove into “Emergency” and “Getaway,” from her most recent album, we caught a glimpse of our familiar selves in a different light. Most of her songs were pop-tune length but deceptively dense, arranged to pack imagery on top of commentary. “Stop & Go” and “Lost & Found,” spoke to experiences both familiar and mundane, honoring them with careful dissonance, tempo shifts and structured momentary silences. In other works, such as “Waterfall,” “Evening Song” and “Stepping into Paradise,” Hilton was a meteorologist of the soul, playing the length of the 88 like a rain-dancing shaman, generating—with both heavy palm and light fingers—storms that soaked all the way through. Hilton took us to Gershwin’s city in “Subway” and to our bedrooms in “Seduction,” but sidestepped sentimentality, then graciously gestured us out with the plaintive and lyrical “Slow Down” and “Huckleberry Moon.” In doing so, she proved her case, “music is our first language ... our original social network.” ★★★★✩ – Kurt Rice
The Photo Atlas photo by Linda Evans; Hilton photo by Glenn Brogan
May 23-29, 2013
The Smith Center, May 17
A&E
PoP Culture
Liberace and his Rhinestone Rappers On the eve of a Soderbergh biopic, looking back to the OG of ghetto glitter By Jason Scavone
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When MaCkleMore raPs, Yo, that’s $50 for a T-shirt, of his Guccisporting contemporaries in newfound cultural touchstone “Thrift Shop,” he just sounds so damn sad. And why not? We’ve had nearly a decade of Rick Ross’ transparent King Midas hype. Ross’ might be the most brazen and cartoonish, but big-money/big-power fantasies have been a thing as long as there’s been hip-hop. Just check those ’80s pics of Slick Rick in full regal getup, with rings on every fnger and an ermine cape around his shoulders and … oh my God ermine, really? Screw the Maybachs, Rick Ross. Call me when you’re wearing something that only the Queen wears. These boom-bust cycles of excess and humility replay ad infnitum in the pop-music landscape (lest we forget the Great Guns N’ Roses-Nirvana Wars of ’91, the veterans of which still bear the physical and psychological scars), so it’s no surprise that we’re in the middle of it once again. But what you might not have noticed is that if you could point to a jump-off, it happened here with the same swagger and the same socio-economic axes to grind, with Liberace— whose Steven Soderberghdirected biopic, Behind the
Candelabra, comes out May 26 on HBO. This is a man, let’s not forget, who in 1947 was rolling with a gold-leaf piano (10 years even before Elvis busted out the gold lamé suit). Meaning Liberace was doing his thing about 15 times closer to when we shoved it down Hitler’s throat than when the Sugarhill Gang was twisting up Chic riffs and rhyming, I got a color TV so I can see/The Knicks play basketball. (Fine, status symbols worked differently in 1979.) “Lee” was never shy about his materialism. After his shows, he used to riff that he “had such a marvelous time I’m ashamed to take the money, but I will.” And when The Daily Mirror carved him up with a thinly veiled outing he replied, “What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank.” Did Liberace drop the 1959 equivalent of “U mad bro?” Because that is a thing that totally happened. And just like anyone else who grew up with holes in his zapatos, he was celebrating the minute he was having dough. Liberace was a kid during the Depression. He also came up as a gay man in the ’40s and ’50s, which makes it impossible to ignore the “Fuck you, look at me” subtext underneath all that hyper-con-
spicuous consumption that’s also humming right along underneath all that diamondsand-blow rap. That identity politics-rooted context, by the by, is necessary to make the whole thing work. Otherwise you end up with Kid Rock. No one wants that. Kid Rock doesn’t even want that. If Lee had his “Oh God, they’re starting to see through the glitz” Macklemore mo-
ment, it was when strippeddown, animalistic rock ‘n’ roll achieved cultural dominance in the early ’60s. It threatened to reduce Liberace to an afterthought. Yet when he went to England and discovered the button-covered fashionista movement the Pearly Kings (who, incidentally, would have another moment in the American pop-culture sun as the infuence for the style of the
White Stripes’ Icky Thump cover) he came back as rhinestonefashy as ever. And here we are, back where we started 50-plus years ago, with CeeLo Green running a faming piano down the Strip for his grand entrance to Loberace. CeeLo, whose own Goodie Mob once rapped, I went to the Goodwill with the $10 bill/Got that London Fog out the back. It’s still the same damn grind.
Photo Illustration by Jesse Sutherland
May 23-29, 2013
Liberace, John Gotti, at the same damn time/At the same damn time, it’s the same damn grind – Rapper Rick Ross, “Same Damn Time”
stage
Retitled 80s sHow impRoves but sHould adjust mockeRy quotient
STRIP POSTSCRIPT: Tasked with creating an ice cream favor for NBC’s All-Star Celebrity Apprentice (which he lost to Trace Adkins), Penn Jillette whipped up “vanilla and chocolate magic swirtle,” now sold at Walgreens and Duane Reade. Mister Magic hopes you’ll make gallons of it disappear, only to reappear on your hips and ass. … Mandalay Bay’s Shark Reef added two Komodo dragons to one already residing there, displaying them individually as “they may prove deadly to one another if kept in the same exhibit.” Similar to headliners sharing the same showroom. … Finally, ABC canceled How to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life), co-starring MGM Grand comedy-club owner/ headliner Brad Garrett. Surely, there’s another sitcom in Garrett’s future, rather than Living Off Stand-Up Comedy (For the Rest of His Life). What songs would you select for an ’80s musical? Don’t worry, be happy, email suggestions to Steve.Bornfeld@VegasSeven.com.
May 23-29, 2013
members are pulled onstage to wriggle and warble to “Addicted to Love,” “Video Killed the Radio Star,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” etc.—and the new cast is a likable bunch. Remember, also, that The 80s Show isn’t rivaling the champ of ’80s tonguein-cheekiness, the Venetian’s Rock of Ages, compared to which it’s Diet ’80s. (Although it could learn satiric principles from Rock, which grounds its two romantic leads in semi-normalcy, allowing the loony supporting characters to stand out more, rather than letting the entire show foat into Cartoon Land.) However, here’s a sincere salute to Michaels, a stubborn-as-hell showman who, as an empire-builder on his own, modest level, is determined to turn Sirc into Cirque.
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Hand me my dictionary … Let’s see … “Determined.” Adjective. See “Sirc Michaels.” True, that’s a proper noun, but let’s quibble not: You gotta love this dude, the producer/director of Planet Hollywood’s take on Evil Dead: The Musical, the frst community theater-born production to hit the Strip, who refuses to quit his quest to become a mini-V Theater-impresario. Exhibit B: his blink-whoops-it’sgone follow-up, The Awesome 80s Prom. Now Exhibit C: The 80s Show, a revamp of audience-interactive Legwarmers: An 80s Musical, which shuttered for repairs several weeks ago. Reviewed here last fall, it was a sloppy piece of shtick set to that era’s pop hits that attempted to lampoon John Hughes movies and other coming-of-age ficks of the era, including The Breakfast Club, Say Anything and Pretty in Pink. Yes, it’s better now, owing to a tightened structure, reshuffed cast, refocused story and improved choreography. Yet it’s still a low-rent goof—in itself, a legitimate stripe of Strip entertainment. So is the outrageously fun Evil Dead. Nagging problem: Such a camp-to-the-nth-degree tone succeeds for Evil Dead, a parody based on a campy movie series that skewered other campy horror flms— and not so much for Hughes-style flms with a certain sincerity and sweetness at their core. Armed with hardcore mockery, The 80s Show aspires to be affection in disguise, but it often feels like the Hughes oeuvre is being bullied and hammered. Subtlety isn’t really an arrow in Michaels’ quiver, so other broad genres—dumb action movies, silly sci-f flms and over-the-top weepies would be better suited for this kind of balls-out comic assault. Still, there are highly entertaining moments—especially when audience
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Movies
After his success playing Mr. Chow, Ken Jeong is no longer a Hollywood outsider looking in.
Third Time’s the Charm
The Hangover’s hilarious Ken Jeong opens up about the Tao of Chow
May 23-29, 2013
By Una LaMarche
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Not MaNy people can say that jumping naked out of the trunk of a car changed their life forever. Even fewer people can claim that they jumped naked out of the trunk of a car onto Bradley Cooper’s face. And yet for Ken Jeong, whose breakout role in The Hangover series (the anticipated third and fnal installment of which hits theaters May 24) as the famboyant, drug-addled gangster Leslie Chow has earned him a not-so-cult following as the funniest character actor in Hollywood—both
of these things are true. “The Hangover changed my life from black-and-white to technicolor,” Jeong says, quickly adding that he’s borrowing part of a Keith Richards quote. (The 43-year-old Jeong is nothing if not gracious and unfailingly polite, the polar opposite of his sociopathic on-screen alter egos like Chow and the absurdist, megalomaniacal Señor Ben Chang from NBC’s Community.) And he’s not just spouting hyperbole; his life really has done a complete 180. In fact, a few years prior to
being cast in the Vegas-based bachelor-party-on-a-bad-trip comedy franchise, Jeong was a general practitioner at the Kaiser Permanente medical center in Woodland Hills, California. As in, an actual doctor. Jeong says that he had the acting bug since appearing in a male beauty pageant in high school, where he received a standing ovation for a performance of Lionel Richie’s “Three Times a Lady,” but he had to follow through with medical school before he felt confdent enough to pursue his passion. During his residency in New Orleans, Jeong won a stand-up competition judged by Budd Friedman, founder of L.A.’s legendary Improv comedy club, who convinced Jeong to move to Hollywood. In between treating patients, Jeong landed small roles on TV shows such as Two and a Half Men and The Offce, where his day job earned him the nickname “Dr. Ken” among his fellow actors. Ironically, he didn’t actually stop practicing medicine until he won a breakthrough
part in Judd Apatow’s Knocked Up, playing an OB/GYN. Then came The Hangover, which catapulted Jeong onto the pop-culture map and which he still hails as the greatest experience he has ever had on a set. During flming for the frst movie, Jeong’s wife, Tran, was battling breast cancer, so embodying the exhibitionist Mr. Chow became a form of therapy. “Morphing into Chow taught me not to be so afraid,” Jeong says. “It saved me personally, mentally and emotionally.” Chow’s infamous nude entrance was actually the actor’s own idea. “And I’m the guy who doesn’t take my shirt off at the beach,” Jeong laughs. His bravery was rewarded: The Hangover became a huge hit, and a year later Tran was cancer-free. “Some actors get known for a role and shy away from it,” Jeong says, “but that’s not the case for me. Mr. Chow is my favorite character that I ever played.” Fans who agree will be happy
to know that Chow’s role in The Hangover Part III is greatly expanded, allowing Jeong to steal even more scenes as the cocaine- and capuchin monkey-loving villain. “I get kind of choked up thinking about it,” Jeong admits. “I owe this all to [director] Todd Phillips. He gave me a career.” The admiration goes both ways. “Ken really got put through the paces on this movie, and we will forever be indebted to him,” Phillips says. “The guy was a doctor fve years ago, and now here he is dangling from a rope and doing things he could never have imagined doing. But he’s a trouper.” Perhaps it’s a sort of poetic justice that the unfnished Harmon Tower’s planned outpost of L.A.’s iconic Chinese restaurant never panned out, because for now, at least, it seems the Strip only has room for one Mr. Chow. “What could be better than having him back in Vegas?” Jeong asks. “It’s gonna be great!”
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movies
Fleet-Footed J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot is fast and fun By Michael Phillips
Tribune Media Services it’s lame and sort of geeky to compare franchise apples to oranges. Oh, well. Star Trek Into Darkness does everything Iron Man 3 tries to do, in the realm of global terrorism imagery reprocessed for popcorn kicks, but with a little more style, a dash more brio and invention. Yes, the flm culminates in a vicious fstfght that goes on slightly longer than forever. Yes, it’s brazenly dependent on our collective (and justifed) fond memories of the best of the frstround Star Trek movies, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. We won’t say how, exactly, but it is. But the new flm works. It’s rousing. The human element, and the Vulcan element, to say nothing of various other species, are present, accounted for and taken seriously enough to matter. Director J.J. Abrams’ flm arrives four years after his successful 2009 Star Trek reboot. The opening is straight out of Raiders of the Lost Ark: Bam, we’re on the ground of a Class M planet, with Capt. James T. Kirk, once again played by Chris Pine, on the run from the locals while the digital volcano
in the background threatens trouble. Life on Earth in the 23rd century involves much of the same peril as life outside the multiplex in the early 21st. An act of terrorism sets into motion a tale that leads to an attack on Starfeet, apparently from within; a test of leadership for Kirk; the introduction of a formidable adversary (Benedict Cumberbatch as the terror-monger with the plummy English vowel sounds); and a series of crises one might describe as “relentless” and “scarcely unceasing,” if they weren’t generally effective. Abrams has a knack for the cliffhanger; most action movies offer a series of insane life-anddeath scrapes, and in that regard Star Trek Into Darkness resembles most action movies. Yet Abrams varies the game. The various “10 seconds to destruction!” scenarios generate real suspense. An
Bones (Karl Urban) and Kirk (Chris Pine) boldly go Into Darkness.
ultrafast space fight, with Kirk zipping through the nothingness trying to avoid getting clocked by space debris, was designed with the gamer in mind—but the scene is tasty on its own, as is the sequence in which our heroes must crash-land with split-millisecond timing onto a runway. Zachary Quinto, as Spock, turns into the rock-’em-sock’em Vulcan in Abrams’ latest. I think it’s a mistake; or rather, I think the fnal 20 minutes or so grind on past their usefulness.
But it’s not enough to kill the fun, which is often exhilarating. Karl Urban’s Bones McCoy; Zoe Saldana as Uhura; Anton Yelchin as Chekov: The 2009 gang’s all here, plus Alice Eve as a special guest passenger on the redesigned Enterprise (heavy on the reds). The ship looks like a trillion bucks. Abrams favors the extreme eyebrow-to-chin close-up in simple two-person dialogue scenes, yet his camera has an unfashionable mobility in its favor,
May 23-29, 2013
short reviews
VEGAS SEVEN
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The Great Gatsby (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s attempt at this great American novel means one thing: It’s party time! Employing 3-D (simply because he could), Luhrmann goes all operatic spectacle in this adaptation, all glitz and glamour and poolside parties, without much attention paid to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s deeply psychological look at facades and desires and pasts. Sure there’s Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and they’re fine. But the film fails to capture almost all of what made the book what it is today.
Peeples (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
In this comedy, Craig Robinson plays Wade, an entertainer for kids who somehow wound up with the stunning U.N. lawyer Grace (Kerry Washington). Wade decides to follow Grace to the Hamptons and surprise her and her folks with a proposal. The moment he meets her father, “The Judge” (David Alan Grier), Wade realizes the folly of his plan. The Judge is a handful and there are a slew of overachieving misfit siblings. Family drama and hilarity ensue. Producer Tyler Perry should take a few notes for the next time he directs.
Iron Man 3 (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is back, keeping the Disney/Marvel behemoth franchise alive and well. The climactic alien melee in last year’s all-star reunion The Avengers has left Stark nerve-racked and an insomniac workaholic. A new global terrorist known as The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) has oozed onto the scene, destroying Stark’s house, slaughtering innocent civilians, etc. Stark flees to rural Tennessee, where he befriends a bullied 8-year-old (Ty Simpkins) who becomes his tagalong and sometime savior.
which makes the entire thing breathe easily. I liked the 2009 outing; I liked this one more. Postscript: Cumberbatch’s way with ... a precise ... yet unexpected ... pause rivals that of Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter series. There is no higher compliment in the pause department. Those pauses, when experienced in the Imax screen format, really are pips. Star Trek: Into Darkness (PG-13) ★★★★✩
[ by tribune media services ]
The Big Wedding (R) ★★✩✩✩
This ensemble wedding comedy is enjoyable for its actors and little else. Don (Robert De Niro) is living with a caterer (Susan Sarandon) and was previously married to Ellie (Diane Keaton). Their adopted son, Alejandro (Ben Barnes), has two siblings (Katherine Heigl, Topher Grace). A big wedding ensues that brings about all sorts of slapstick interactions, pretending and the like. The actors here are pros and deliver some small moments, but all in all, it’s meh.
movies
Jurassic Park 3-D (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Pain & Gain (R) ★✩✩✩✩
Oblivion (PG-13) ★★✩✩✩
42 (PG-13) ★★★✩✩
Evil Dead (R) ★★✩✩✩
The Place Beyond the Pines (R)
This remake of Sam Raimi’s 1983 cult classic offers plenty of reasons to jump and turn away. Mia (Jane Levy) has quit drugs, and her withdrawal confuses her senses. Her brother and her friends have brought her to the cabin in the woods to cure her. But is she seeing visions of demonic possession, or is this simply the cold turkey playing tricks on her mind? There’s a demon that jumps from human to human, and more splashing of bodily fluids than one knows what to do with. All in all, it’s OK, and likely a franchise ... again.
This carefully tended portrait of Jackie Robinson, the man who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier, settles for too little. Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) endures long odds and racism to join the Brooklyn Dodgers. Harrison Ford is fun as the general manager who brought him up. The film treads too carefully, a story that protects and enshrines Robinson. It feels like a production watched over by his survivors. Boseman is highly capable, but the filmmakers failed to ask much of him.
★★★★✩
Luke (Ryan Gosling) is a motorcycle stunt performer with a carnival. Coming through small-town New York, he learns he has fathered a son with a waitress (Eva Mendes). He turns to bank robbery while trying to establish a relationship with his son. Then, the story switches to the police officer (Bradley Cooper) who is plagued by becoming known as the hero who pursued the “moto-bandit.” It’s a fine film with really solid actors playing well-written, authentic characters.
May 23-29, 2013
In the latest Tom Cruise star vehicle, Jack Harper is a Mr. Fix-It in the year 2077, living and working high above what’s left of Earth after a devastating war with invading aliens. Most of the population has been relocated to a Saturn moon, except for the “scavs” led by Morgan Freeman. Jack knows something’s up when his boss, Sally (Melissa Leo), orders him to stay away from a crash-landing site. Of course he goes and rescues the lone survivor who just happens to be the woman from his dreams. It’s interesting, but slow.
Michael Bay never ceases to amaze. This groaner follows Danny Lugo (Mark Wahlberg), bodybuilder and gym manager. Lugo and his hapless colleagues (Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie) target a Colombian gym client (Tony Shalhoub) for kidnapping and extortion. He’s tortured, then crushed by a vehicle and left for dead. But he doesn’t die. Others do, later, but not him. Bay is largely terrible as a filmmaker, and comedy is not in his wheelhouse.
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This Spielberg classic is back, with its lunging raptors and roaring T. rexes now in 3-D. The result is great, since the film has always been so much more powerful on the big screen than on TV. When tycoon John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) creates an isolated theme park where he has back-engineered dinosaurs to life, a group of visiting scientists gets caught running for their lives when the attractions escape their cages. It really is a fun movie, and the dinos were made for 3-D.
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