Break out your decoder rings; the flawed but intriguing Us's political subtleness is hidden by its straightforward terror. Among other things, Jordan Peele's follow up to Get Out breaks a long drought. Santa Cruz, with its deep cold bay and hoodooed mountains, ought to be California's Transylvania. Instead, it's remembered for The Lost Boys, which is just The Goonies wearing plastic vampire fangs. There hasn't been a good movie made there since Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988). Now the curse is lifted, even if much of Us is shot in a lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. » Read More

The script by Wyatt and his wife Erica Beeney doesn't center around the usual young adult-lit style hero, with one brave warrior giving hope. Rather, the rebels are odd types: nurses, teachers, whores and street criminals, prepared not be taken alive. The aliens monitor all broadband, so the resistance uses analog technology: reel to reel tapes, carrier pigeons, typewriters, and secret messages hidden in cigarette papers. We're lured into the story through a we-are-the-dead set of lovers, like Winston and Julia in 1984. In the nighttown slums of Pilsner, a Chicago suburb, sex worker "Jane Doe" (Vera Farmiga) has luxuries, a record player and a vase of fresh cut flowers. Her trick is the secret policeman William Mulligan (John Goodman). » Read More

The sequins on Rosetta's purple dress sparkled more intensely every time the actress playing her began to sing. That may have been a trick of the light, but Michelle E. Jordan inhabited the character with verve the minute she opened her eyes. In the opening scene of Marie and Rosetta, Marie Knight (Marissa Rudd) is applying rouge to Rosetta's cheeks. They're in a funeral parlor getting ready to rehearse their first performance together. The two women will also be staying there for the night, coffins and all, because they're on tour in the South, where white hotel owners won't allow African American guests. Rosetta has just hired Marie after hearing her perform backing vocals for her contemporary, Mahalia Jackson. » Read More

There is some excess, sure--interactions are melodramatic, the accents are ridiculous--but it's all part of the fun. As David, Adam Cotugno is hopeful and cherubic, serving as a straight man foil to the rest of the miscreant cast. Nick Mandracchia as Cheech is shrewd but comical, pouncing on David's innocence in a believable but entertaining duel of wits. Carla Befera as Helen Sinclair is perfectly boozy and fierce. However, the standout role is Olive, played by Jocelyn Pickett. She upstages almost everyone else by default. Through song and monologue, she is bombastic without being overbearing, raucous without being lewd, coalescing in a hilarious performance that carries the show in loud, parade-like package. » Read More

For those who grew up in a world where the police regularly chased skateboarders out of public squares, Cirque du Soleil's action sports-embracing Volta is a kind of bittersweet vindication. The mainstream acceptance of all forms of extreme athleticism is nothing new. Gleaming the Cube hit movie theaters in 1989. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater debuted on the Playstation in 1999. And in October, Apple released a commercial for its latest iPhone X model that featured a gaggle of free runners cartwheeling down flights of stairs and vaulting over cars. Next summer, skateboarding is set to drop into the 2020 Olympic Games. » Read More

For most of his life, Joe Sib has made his own way. The Santa Cruz native--who grew up in the Olive Springs Road outlands of Soquel before moving to San Jose in his teens--had a major-label contract with his pop-punk band Wax by his early 20s. In the mid-'90s, he co-founded SideOneDummy Records, the indie label that launched the careers of bands as diverse as Flogging Molly, the Gaslight Anthem and Gogol Bordello. In 2009, he toured a one-man show called California Calling, based on his memories of the 1980s South Bay punk-skate scene that produced Steve Caballero, Corey O'Brien and many others. Not long after, he started touring as a stand-up comedian. » Read More

Thanks to Cinequest, the gritty underbellies of Cincinnati and Tucson took over downtown San Jose, in the forms of Emilio Estevez and Brian Jabas Smith, whose films depicted the margins of society without exploitation or judgment. First of all, a trailer opened up every Cinequest film this year, with a wise man declaring that everyone who journeys through the festival will expect the unexpected. At least for me, this is already a prime characteristic of Cinequest: The unexpected experience that emerges without any possible planning. Weird connections, either professional, artistic or just plain crazy always seem to occur. Serendipitous moments of synchronicity appear on both micro and macro levels, even in a stretch of less than 24 hours. » Read More

You're in a relationship, not a coma. That said, your worries are understandable. There's been a belief that crushing on somebody other than one's partner is the gateway to cheating. Obviously, crushy thoughts about, say, a co-worker can lead to a hookup (or more) in a way that matter-of-fact thoughts do not. However, it turns out that researchers failed to make the distinction between having a crush (an attraction to a person other than one's partner) and having a high degree of what's called "attention to alternatives" (basically, eyeballs ever on the prowl for "attractive alternatives" to one's current partner). » Read More

In the animated kids' film Over the Hedge, 10 talking animals come upon a massive, towering hedge they've never seen. The friendly group consists of a skunk, red squirrel, box turtle, two opossums and five porcupines. The hedge perplexes and mystifies them. It makes them nervous. There's nothing comparable to it in their previous experience. One of the porcupines says she would be less afraid of it if she just knew what it was called, whereupon the red squirrel suggests that from now on they refer to it as "Steve." After that, they all feel better. I recommend that you borrow their strategy in the coming weeks. If a Big Unknown arrives in your vicinity, dub it "Steve" or "Betty." » Read More