There’s lots of entertainment this warm, summer weekend; from boy bands and folk, Cuban and oldies. A few sporting events, too.
FRIDAY –
The PADRES and Dodgers keep going back and forth fighting for first place, so this sell-out series at Petco Park will be exciting. It starts tonight and will have games all weekend long.
If you loved loved the Barbie movie, there’s BARBIE THE MOVIE: IN CONCERT at the Rady Shell DOWNTOWN. No Margot Robbie, but a live orchestra will be performing the score and songs. No word on if Oppenheimer is going to get on board with live music and explosions nearby.
SATURDAY –
It’s not just baseball in town, but the SAN DIEGO FC vs Portland Timbers at Snapdragon Stadium. San Diego’s been having a better season than Portland, so let’s hope for an easy win.
The BUENA VISTA ORCHESTRA (with some members of the Buena Vista Social Club), will be bringing the brass to the Magnolia in EL CAJON.
A few fun tributes.
Who isn’t an ELVIS fan? Scot Bruce: An Elvis tribute will be happening at El Camino Memorial Park in SORRENTO VALLEY. It’s free, and all ages are welcome.
A former touring member of the “Mamas & Papas” is local resident Laurie Beebe Lewis, and she’ll be doing her MAMAS & PAPAS EXPERIENCE, that includes other ‘60s tunes, with local DJ legend SHOTGUN TOM KELLEY on hand, as well as Bart Mendoza, and Dave Mason, at the Grand Ritz Theater in ESCONDIDO.
Cash After Dark is playing Johnny Cash at Sycuan Casino.
Also in the North County, there’s a James Taylor tribute in San Marcos.
Jerry’s Middle Finger (who I think I saw on the I-5 freeway this morning), is doing a Jerry Garcia tribute at the Music Box Downtown.
Bluegrass/folk band TRAMPLED BY TURTLES are with SHAKEY GRAVES at the Sound in DEL MAR. They also play Sunday night.
SUNDAY –
The PADRES wrap up their series with the Dodgers, hopefully a few games ahead in the standings.
If soccer is your thing, SAN DIEGO WAVE FC play Racing Louisville FC. The Wave are in second place in the standings, a big distance ahead of Louisville.
Amy Winehouse never went to rehab, and so now we never get to see her again. But you can enjoy THE WINEHOUSE EXPERIENCE doing their tribute at the Music Box DOWNTOWN.
The boy band BIG TIME RUSH will have the girls screaming at North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre in CHULA VISTA.
Former boy band BOYZ II MEN will be at the Rady Shell DOWNTOWN.
And English actor, singer, and songwriter – who’s not a boy despite the name – YUNGBLUD will be at the Observatory in NORTH PARK. He impressed me by singing “Changes” at that last Ozzy Osbourne tribute concert.
STREAMING…
UPLOAD is back for its fourth and final season on Amazon Prime starting August 25.
THE TWISTED TALE OF AMANDA KNOX is an 8-part limited series premiering on HULU.
John Cena is back in Season 2 of PEACEMAKER on HBO Max.
AT THE MOVIES…
The studios decided not to screen HONEY DON’T for us, so I’ll see it this weekend and review it next time. Unfortunately, they did screen this –
HIGHEST 2 LOWEST - I hate Spike Lee. I’ve met him a few times and he was always a jerk; but that doesn’t make me biased when reviewing his movies. When his film “BlacKKKlansman” was nominated for an Oscar, he stormed out when it lost to “Green Book” (Green Book was a great film, Blackkklansman was an okay movie that was highly overrated). I’ve liked a handful of Lee’s films, but 75% of them have disappointed me. I brought a friend of mine that’s a huge fan and grew up in the Bronx (so he is biased towards anything New York; in fact, his brother played basketball at Long Island University and that team was featured in this film). Before the movie, I was telling him how often Lee screws up with the scores of his films. He agreed. And this movie was the worst with that. My friend said, “There were times characters were talking, and that piano just kept going and going. It felt like I was watching a Hallmark movie.” This is a remake [“High and Low” from 1963], and the premise is great. Denzel Washington is a music mogul who is on the verge of buying the record label he works for. His son gets kidnapped, but the kidnappers have messed up and actually gotten his best friend’s (Jeffrey Wright) kid. This is when the first of many things bothered me. Washington goes from being ready to pay the ransom to saying something like “Oh well, they got the wrong kid. I’m not paying the $17 million now.” He’s so cavalier about it, and you wonder why he wouldn’t at least go through the motions, so his buddy isn’t mad at him for that attitude. My wife piped in, “What an interesting moral dilemma.” It was, but characters kept doing more and more things you don’t buy them doing. Especially the kidnapper, who…just as my complaint in “The Spanish Prisoner” (Steve Martin in a David Mamet movie) – you’d need lots and lots of people to help you pull off your scam. Even little things in this movie I didn’t buy. For example, Washington shows up to work and a woman with an acoustic guitar is singing a song for him, hoping to get signed. No. Security doesn’t throw her out of the building? The audience is just supposed to think – wow, everywhere he goes, he’s being put upon to sign new artists. Another little thing – the teenage basketball player. He has a poster of Ali vs Foreman on the wall, and one of Kamala Harris. Really? A teenager today that’s a great basketball player, wouldn’t have current Knicks players? No, this is Spike Lee putting things on the wall that HE wants to see. And Washington has Basquiat art on the wall. That’s fine, but why not Ernie Barnes, who did a lot of interesting music related paintings? (Look him up – he’s got an amazing story and was so much more talented than Basquiat). I think similar themes were done better in “Hustle & Flow” (Terrence Howard) and “Begin Again” (Mark Ruffalo). Although the score was awful, didn’t fit the movie, and was overused – the songs by James Brown and A$AP Rocky were great. I have to give it 2 stars out of 5, since I was never really bored watching it, despite its many flaws.