Star Trek on IMAX!

What's with J.J. Abrams and time travel/alternate dimensions? Lost, Fringe, now Star Trek!

Even Felicity goes back in time!

It's a love-hate relationship with J.J. As much as I love Lost, it's been a heart-wrenching (Daniel Faraday's murder), frustrating (who is Jacob??), five-year, 100+ hour, tortuous path to figuring out the island. My Lost-based nightmares will be able to subside in 2010 after its final season. Thankfully, J.J. has created a self-contained, merely two-hour feature that is 2009's Star Trek. I've never been big on the series, but I enjoyed this film! This movie has tipped the love/hate scale in J.J.'s favor.



My favorite scenes were with Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy as New and Old Spock, who gave great performances. (They appeared together on Jimmy Fallon's Late Night show, available online if you care to watch. Leonard is a funny old dude.) I won't give away any revealing details, but the film was definitely an exciting introduction to new Trekkies and included enough old school references to satisfy hardcore Trekkies. I have a newfound crush on emotionally-unavailable half-Vulcan half-humans, i.e. Spock.

Warning: Times Square AMC "IMAX" will rip you off. The screen is nowhere near as large as it should be. IMAX is associating its name with theaters that aren't actually IMAX. They can go suck it.

Star Trek Website

-Angela

NICE FACE Live at Don Pedro, Brooklyn

A big fan of the Brooklyn lo-fi scene, Nice Face opened for Crystal Stilts at Don Pedro on Thursday night, May 14th. The band is relatively new to playing live, but I would argue they're on par with the trendy lo-fi bands, i.e. Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Vivian Girls, etc. I had already seen Crystal Stilts and wanted to check out Nice Face, whose MySpace I'd been listening to over the past year.



Their songs are a perfect mix of warped vocals, grit, noise, and dark, catchy hooks. "FUBAR Over You" and "Hidden Automatic" were definite crowd pleasers. The band always has really great original cover art, which makes buying a hard copy worth the trouble. You can find their records here: http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/. Don Pedro was the perfect venue for Nice Face's first live show in more than a year. The space is extremely small, so their performance felt very intimate, with the lead singer and guitarist standing face-to-face, ground level with the audience.



Nice Face's MySpace

-Angela

Charlyne Yi and Akron/Family Live at Bowery Ballroom, NYC

Charlyne Yi opened for Akron/Family at Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, May 6th. I saw her walking out the doors as I entered and my friend and I gave each other a knowing glance... we've all seen and loved Knocked Up! (She was the super dorky, high as a kite Asian girlfriend of Martin Starr, who I will forever think of as Bill from Freaks and Geeks.) What I had thought was just a fun celebrity sighting ended up being much, much more. She performed live, singing charmingly off-key while playing multiple instruments (guitar, small harp, accordion), mixing awkward yet delightful comedy sketches with simplistic, sweet melodies and tons of audience participation.

Charlyne Yi's MySpace



Performance artist, musician, screenwriter, actress, comedian, on-screen and possibly real-life girlfriend of Michael Cera, Charlyne is my favorite celeb of the moment. I tried my best to look for Cera, but he was nowhere to be seen. Looking forward to seeing their mockumentary Paper Heart, which comes out on August 14th!

Paper Heart's Website



Although at times I felt I was forced into a hippie commune, dancing while participating in tribal chants, and though songs were frequently extended to the point of delirium, I found Akron/Family's enthusiastic energy to be refreshing and their music and vocals to very beautiful, meditative, folksy, experimental. There were impressive amounts of dead-on a capella, and also instrumental improv, not only by the three band members but by their backup wind instruments. Even the flute was badass!



Akron/Family's MySpace

Photos courtesy of SeanEdgar and Danfun's Flickr

-Angela