Oliver Stone's over-emphatic style can be alienating, particularly when he's over-explaining things that don't need explaining, while glossing over the more interesting details. Whether it was fair or not, W. had juice. Snowden is more of a generic hero's struggle that ends upbeat, with the title whistleblower (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) receiving hugs and applause. Edward Snowden was an employee of the CIA and the NSA (one good anti-joke here: it stands for "No Such Agency"). At these organizations, and later as a private contractor serving them, Snowden discovered that the government's data collection program was far more universal than the Obama administration claimed. Snowden finally went public with documents explaining how the massive » Read More

Oversized without being big-hearted, The Magnificent Seven has an acceptably interesting gun battle finale. But it removes the element of desperation from the story of the hired defenders of a small Western frontier town. In the latest iteration of this story, they're reduced to a band of fun-loving, wise-cracking mercenaries, just here to have a good time. The hamlet of Rose Creek is ravaged by the Sacramento land baron Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard, thwarted, glum and just plain weird). Chisholm (Denzel Washington) a warrant officer-read: bounty hunter-is recruited by a frontier lady Emma (Haley Bennett) to round up a gang of gunmen. The warriors include Byung-Hun Lee in the James Coburn part as a knife-man, and the First Nation actor Martin » Read More

Cue the synths, smoke machines and the magic chandelier. Broadway San Jose opens its 2016-17 season with the newest touring production of The Phantom of the Opera. Scaled for the Center for Performing Arts, it still incorporates all the beloved features of the hugely popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. As this Phantom opens, the stage is covered by a giant smoky scrim, behind which an auction of old theater props is taking place. The auctioneer is selling off various items ... when he comes to Lot 666, an old, rusted chandelier. As he explains its connection to the strange events surrounding the phantom of the opera, the chandelier flickers to life, illuminated by the "new" electricity. The hulking candelabra quakes and sparks fly, as the » Read More

The stars! They're just like us. And just as Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally satiate our need to see a fully functional-if mundanely so-Hollywood relationship, Craig Robinson is a lot like most of us in another way: Dude watches a lot of streaming media. "I've been watching a lot of Narcos and House of Cards," says Robinson, who first broke out big on NBC's The Office, and has also starred in films such as Hot Tub Time Machine. "It's hard to believe that's it's not actually happening-that they are just acting," Robinson says of actors Kevin Spacey and Wagner Moura. "That's the level I want to get to." » Read More

For milennia, humans and horses have shared a special bond. A new production from the Quebec-based Cavalia aims to tell story of mankind's long and complex relationship to these majestic creatures. Odysseo, the touring program from the Canadian equestrian and acrobatic performance troupe, premiered in 2011 and this week made its debut in San Jose. The $30 million production is bigger than its previous entertainment, with over 100 tour buses, 65 horses and 48 performers, including riders, acrobats and musicians. Artistic director and creator Normand Latourelle says Odysseo is a show unlike any other. "I think it's the best show that people can witness, ever," Latourelle says. » Read More

Amnesia is baked into our economy's dependence on planned obsolescence. Once last year's suite of electronic devices makes one trip around the sun, a new fleet of shinier gizmos is ushered in. As the years go by, information gets trapped by the medium that was previously in vogue. VCRs break down, CD players fade into obscurity, and those little ear buds with the white cord no longer plug into your handset. VHS tapes and compact discs become artifacts housed in the basement archives of museums. This can happen even when the information is of monumental historical significance. The single most titanic deed of the 1960s-the first human landing on the Moon, followed by the safe retrieval of the voyagers-was counterpointed later by » Read More

Don Buchla, the legendary modular synthesizer pioneer, passed away last week at the age of 79. Anyone currently playing a synthesizer, tweaking electronics for sound generation or making any sort of modern-day electronic keyboard music has Buchla to thank, at least partly. While Bob Moog was the first one to officially release a modular synthesizer as a commercial product, Buchla was probably the first one to envision modules with the intention of assembling them together into a live performance instrument. As an engineer and a musician, Buchla was a daring, ornery innovator with a keen sense of what avant-garde musicians, composers and performers might want. His modular electronic music systems forever changed the way sound is created and » Read More

The first time I smoked pot was in Eric Schroeder's garage in Fullerton, 1969. The high was different than now. Much more visceral. Fast forward 10 years. Sonoma State. Consuming the occasional edible. Getting a little uncomfortable. Forgetting I had graduated and attended another two years. I'm free to go? Fast forward 10 or 20 years. Pot definitely changed. Consuming pot had become an ordeal. Who the hell kidnapped the jovial Panama Red? This was knife-wielding-son-of-Chucky-with-spooky-soundtrack pot. Paranoia. So I joined a country club and started drinking beer. In 2008, my breathing faltered, and my words were getting choked off, like in the movies where someone is being strangled. Ak, lek argghh. You're cho-choking me. Fortunately, » Read More

After touring an exhibition put on by Yanfeng, the world's largest auto interior company, I hailed an Uber driver who happened to be on his first day of work. Six fares in and loving it, he sparked up the customary chit-chat, asking what I'd been doing. I stuttered. I didn't want to deflate his excitement. I'd just seen the future, and it didn't include him. Yanfeng's showroom prototype sported a soon-to-be omnipresent feature that will replace virtually any vehicle service that requires an actual driver. But, more cheerily, it'll also reduce traffic, pollution and death, plus save trillions of dollars. The revolutionary feature? A steering wheel that nestles into the dash during autonomous mode. » Read More