By CAPE COD TIMES
July 19, 2014
Concerts
· “Lighthouse Chamber Players,” 5 p.m. Sunday, Unitarian Universalist Meeting House of Provincetown, 236 Commercial St. All-Schubert concert including Sonatinas and Quartettsatz. $15, senior discounts available, free ages 12 and under. 508-487-9344.
· Brewster Band, 6 p.m. Sunday, Drummer Boy Park, Route 6A, Brewster. FREE!
· Curtis on Tour, 7 p.m. Sunday, Marine Biological Laboratory, Lillie Auditorium, 7 MBL St., Woods Hole. String chamber orchestra. $20-$150. 508-289-7423.
· Cape Harmony, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, First Church, 136 Main St., Sandwich Village. All-female a capella. $10, $5 ages 12 and under.
· “Remembering the Songs,” 8 p.m. Sunday, Cultural Center of Cape Cod, 307 Old Main St., South Yarmouth. Gary Stroutsos brings music traditions from Zuni, Navajo and Salish people. $15. Complimentary refreshments. 508-394-7100.
· Montana Skies, guitar and cello fusion, 8 p.m. Sunday, First United Methodist Church, Main Street, Chatham. $10, free for children 12 and under. 508-945-0474.
Irish
· Traditional Irish Session with Sean Murphy, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, O’Shea’s Olde Inne, 348 Main St., West Dennis. 508-398-8887.
Jazz
· Fred Fried, noon Sunday, Dunbar Tea Room, 1 Water St., Sandwich. 508-833-2485.
· Jazz Jam Cape Cod, 4 p.m. Sunday, The Island Merchant, 302 Main St., Hyannis. 508-771-1337.
· Fred Fried and Bruce Abbott, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Stewart’s Seafood Restaurant and Tavern, Route 6, Eastham. 508-240-7900.
· Bart Weisman Jazz Group, 7 p.m. Sunday, Riverway Restaurant, 1338 Route 28, South Yarmouth. 509-398-2172.
· Christopher Sidoli & John Thomas, 9 p.m. Sunday, Tin Pan Alley, 269 Commercial St., Provincetown. 508-487-1648.
Karaoke/Open Mic
· Open Mic Night, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, Weary Travelers Club, 77 Valley Bars Road, Pocasset.
· Smackdown Karaoke with Pixy 103’s Matty B., 8 p.m. Sunday, British Beer Company, 412 Main St., Hyannis.
· Latin Karaoke with Gusto, 9 p.m. Sunday, Ying’s, 59 Center St., Hyannis.
Pop/rock
· John Frattassio, Sunday, Courtyard Restaurant & Pub, 1337 County Road, Cataumet. 508-563-1818.
· Michael Hennessy, 4 p.m. Sunday, Trader Ed’s, Hyannis Marina, 1 Willow St.
· Jack Leyden, 5 p.m. Sunday, Ocean House Beach Bar, 425 Old Wharf Road, Dennis Port. 774-228-2065.
· Jimmy Peters, 5 p.m. Sunday, The Sand Dollar Bar & Grill, 244 Lower County Road, Dennis Port. 508-398-4823.
· Tony Niles, 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Chez Franck Pub, 81 Kings Way, Yarmouth Port. 508-744-3990.
· Kami Lyle Trio, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Harvest Gallery Wine Bar, 776 Main St., Dennis. 508-385-2444.
· Funktapuss Jam, 8 p.m. Sunday, House of Bud’s, 959 Bearses Way, Hyannis. 607-643-1712.
· Flydown’s Acoustic Rager, 9:30 p.m. Sunday, British Beer Company, 263 Grand Ave., Falmouth.
· Jack Leyden, 10 p.m. Sunday, Eclectic Cafe, 606 Main St., Hyannis. 774-228-2065.
Trips and tours
· Nauset Light tours, 4:30-7:30 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday, Ocean View Drive, Eastham. Sponsor: Nauset Light Preservation Society. Parking fees may apply. 508-240-2612. FREE!
· Three Sisters Lighthouses tour, 5-6 p.m. Sunday, meet at northeast corner of Nauset Light Beach parking area, Eastham. Beach fees may apply.
Art events
· “Spotlight on Artist Carl Wood,” Sunday through July 26, The Art Gallery at 820 Main, 820 Route 28, Harwich Port. 508-430-7622.
· Yarmouth Art Guild outdoor art show, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday, lawn near Bank of America and Cape Cod Cooperative, 125 Main St. (Route 6A), Yarmouth Port.
Meals
· Breakfast, 8-11 a.m. Sunday, Buzzards Bay Eagles Hall, 39 Cohasset Ave. All you can eat. $8. 508-759-9974.
Sales
· Hyannis Summer Arts and Craft Festival, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Village Green, 367 Main St., Hyannis. www.castleberryfairs.com.
Etc.
· Crosby Mansion open house, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, 163 Crosby Lane, off Route 6A, Brewster. Presented by Friends of Crosby Mansion. Docents available to answer questions and give talks. $3 over age 12. 508-240-2338 or 508-896-1744.
· Haigis Beach Day, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday, Haigis Beach, 83 Old Wharf Road, Dennis Port. Sponsored by Heritage Sands cottage community. Presented with National Marine Life Center. Brief presentation on marine animals and strandings, showcase of marine and animal specimens, question-and-answer session, family-friendly activities. Parking available at Heritage Sands, 61 Old Wharf Road, Dennis Port, and beach parking lot. heritagesands@matternow.com.; 978-518-4822. FREE!
Theater events
· “Romeo & Juliet,” 6:30 p.m. Sundays through Tuesdays, July 29, Lillian Gregerman Band Shell, 201 Onset Ave., Onset. Presented by Buzzards Play Productions. FREE!
· “Seasons of Love,” 6 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 31, and Aug. 11, 18 and Sept. 1, Old Sea Pines Inn, 2553 Main St., Brewster. Cape Rep/Sea Pines Broadway Dinner Musical Revue. $67.50. 508-896-6114.
Capsule reviews
· “22 Jump Street” (comedy, R, 122 minutes, reviewed by Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service). When this buddy cop parody hits its sweet spot (particularly bromance gags carried to hilarious extremes by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum), the writers serve up good, quick-footed and foul-mouthed fun. The film goes on way too long, peaks early and sputters before rallying with a frothy finale, but the sputters don’t matter much for the funniest movie of the summer. * * *
· “America: Imagine the World Without Her” (documentary, PG-13, 100 minutes, reviewed by Moore). This film sets itself up as a piece of documentary counter-history, opening with George Washington not surviving the 1777 defeat at the Battle of Brandywine. What would the world be if America wasn’t here? But filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza soon abandons any pretense of making a movie about how this country should have a more vigorous debate about its image, principles and past to posit his main thesis – that a conspiracy by academics and activists has created a culture of “shame” about American history. * ½
· “Begin Again” (romance, R, reviewed by Moore). Writer-director John Carney makes a semi-successful attempt to recreate the magic of his Oscar-winning musical “Once,” but in New York with a big-name cast. Get past the wildly improbable “music biz” moments and impromptu performances that feel anything but impromptu and this all-star cast and several utterly charming scenes give it a sparkle that overcomes the manufactured/trying-too-hard feel of it. Keira Knightley has never been more charming than as a British singer-songwriter summoned, reluctantly, on stage by a busker-pal at a Manhattan bar. Mark Ruffalo plays the only guy paying attention. * * ½
· “Chef” (comedy, R, 115 minutes, reviewed by Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times). Jon Favreau wrote “Chef,” directed it and stars as a gifted L.A. chef who gets fired and reinvents himself, traveling the country with his kid in a food truck. This is funny, quirky and insightful, with a bounty of interesting supporting characters. * * *
· “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” (sci-fi, R, 140 minutes, reviewed by Rick Bentley, The Fresno Bee). This updated tale of how apes surpass man as the dominate species has plenty of big battle sequences. But it also gives equal time to personal issues like respect, loyalty and family – a combination that makes this a solid pick. The film takes place 10 years after the events of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” with the apes hiding in wooded areas near San Francisco, and humans all but wiped out by an epidemic. * * * ½
· “Earth to Echo” (fantasy, PG, 91 minutes, reviewed by Moore). This is an engagingly unassuming “E.T.” knockoff, a kids’ movie that serves up a similar kids-find-alien story – this time, friends investigating a conspiracy mystery – in a “Blair Witch”/“Paranormal” shaky-cam package. Cast with cute, likable kids and given a few decent effects, there’s not the financial or emotional heft of “E.T.” But this derivative film works well enough. * * ½
· “How to Train Your Dragon 2” (animated, PG, 102 minutes, reviewed by Moore). The charms are thinned for this sequel, a cartoon with better animation and livelier action, if fewer jokes. Viking teen Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), his pet dragon Toothless and friends try to reform a malevolent Dragon Thief. The comedy focuses on physical schtick, and new dragons mean new menaces and lessons for Hiccup to learn in his journey to manhood. But the franchise, while still airborne, is getting a bit winded. * * ½
· “Jersey Boys” (musical biography, R, 137 minutes, reviewed by Moore). Whatever charms made “Jersey Boys” a Tony-winning Broadway musical are sorely missed in Clint Eastwood’s tone-deaf corpse of a movie. Late to the game, blandly cast and scripted with every Italian-American cliche, it is Eastwood’s worst film as a director. And it oversells the cultural significance of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons rendering their story in broad, tried and trite strokes. * ½
· “Maleficent” (fantasy, PG, 97 minutes, reviewed by Roeper) is is an admittedly great-looking, sometimes creepy, often plodding and utterly unconvincing re-imagining of “Sleeping Beauty” as a female empowerment metaphor. Angelina Jolie looks great, but she delivers a one-note performance as the villain from the 1959 Disney classic. Sometimes it’s best to let Sleeping Beauty lie. * ½
· “Persecuted” (thriller, PG-13, 91 minutes, reviewed by Moore). The unholy bond between religion and politics is the background for this confused and confusing thriller about a TV preacher ruined by a sinister government plot. Written and directed by Daniel Lusko, who has Christian documentaries among his credits, and having ex-GOP senator Fred Dalton Thompson and Fox News personality Gretchen Carlson in its cast, you can guess the politics in this slap-dash script, but the targets are less defined than you might expect. *
· “Planes: Fire & Rescue” (animated, PG, 84 minutes, reviewed by Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle). This occasionally rousing but mostly just adequate sequel has a kid-first vibe in its story of spunky hero Dusty Crophopper moving from racing plane to aerial firefighting. A fitting tribute to real-life forest-service workers, the film is at its best in the visually pleasing firefighting scenes, which have a storybook feel, while maintaining a disaster movie-style momentum. The dialogue is hit or miss, with too much sincerity and little attempt at plot nuance, plus the most reliance on cheap bodily function humor in the Disney catalog. * *
· “The Purge: Anarchy” (horror, R, 100 minutes, reviewed by Moore). This sequel abandons the sly message behind the story of American society resolving its crime/inequality/population problems with an annual free-pass-for-murder “purge” that ends up affecting isolated, gated suburbanites. Instead, this focuses on the people trapped outside when the annual “release the beast” commences. This film is preachier, and is seriously crippled by generally lackluster performances and illogical plot twists. So it becomes largely a first-person shooter video game with a dose of politics added. * ½
· “Sex Tape” (comedy, R, 90 minutes, reviewed by Connie Ogle, the Miami Herald). This uncomfortable embarrassment to raunchy comedies everywhere has a solid basic premise. Married Annie and Jay (Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) try to jumpstart their sex life by making a pornographic video, which inadvertently ends up on iPads of friends and family. But everything feels off and thrown-together phere: clumsy and repetitive scenes, the comic timing, the pacing, the jokes, the choppy editing, the fact that the stars play their college selves. Director Jake Kasdan seems to assume that the subject matter is enough for laughs and he’s wrong. * ½
· “Tammy” (comedy, R, 97 minutes, reviewed by Moore). Melissa McCarthy’s Tammy is a slovenly, morbidly obese vulgarian in this rude, crude comedy with a soft, squishy inside that McCarthy co-wrote for herself. After Tammy loses her job and husband, she goes on the road to Niagara Falls with her learning-to-be uninhibited grandmother (Susan Sarandon). The film is crowd-pleasing in its own way, mixing girth gags, slapstick and clueless come-ons, but McCarthy never quite delivers on its promise. * * ½
· “Third Person” (drama, R, 137 minutes, reviewed by Roeper). Like his Oscar-winning “Crash,” Paul Haggis gives us a series of interlocking stories, each fascinating, or at least interesting in its own right. Each is cast with more than capable actors, including Liam Neeson, Olivia Wilde, Adrien Brody and Mila Kunis. And like “Crash,” it rambles on and on. With a generous whittling-down, Haggis might have had something special. Instead, this wears out its welcome long before the end. * * ½
· “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (sci-fi action, PG-13, 165 minutes, reviewed by Roeper). This film will wear you down. Like the previous two sequels in this franchise, the fourth “Transformers” manages to be bloated and hollow at the same time. With a running time of 165 minutes, it’s like a spoiled kid who insists on showing you every toy he owns. Rating: * ½
Also showing
· Martha’s Vineyard Film Center, 79 Beach Road, Vineyard Haven: “What’s in a Name,” 7:30 p.m. Sunday; www.mvfilmsociety.com.
Freebies
· Cultural Survival Bazaar, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Marine Park, 180 Scranton Ave., Falmouth. Festival of Indigenous Art, Music, & Cultures from Around the World. Rain or shine.
· Tool Discovery Day, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Swift-Daley House Museum, Route 6, Eastham. Bring tool samples for a “whatsis” session or to trade. 508-255-0773.