Tico’s Breakfast & Lunch
Trifecta: Hearty and friendly Marina standby Tico’s Breakfast & Lunch adds… dinner.
Every city needs a great breakfast spot. Recently I relocated to Marina, where it seemed like there was no true breakfast place. Sure, Papa Chevo’s serves wonderful breakfast burritos, but I’m talking about a place ...
Cool As Ice
Banff Mountain Film Festival puts grueling survival – and high-flying stunts – on the big screen.
While attempting to be the first people to walk from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole unassisted, Australian adventurers James “Cas” Castrission and Justin “Jonesy” Jones had to deal with whipping wind, white-out ...
The Queen Of Versailles
Damned Dream: The Queen of Versailles shows the diminishing American Dream through one billionaire family.
Director Lauren Greenfield struck documentary gold when she started filming the Siegel family in 2007. At that time, the billionaire couple was constructing their dream home, a 90,000-square-foot house with 30 bathrooms and 10 kitchens ...
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi
Tasty Tidbit: Jiro Dreams of Sushi offers a mouthwatering documentary about a dedicated chef.
Every night, 85-year-old sushi chef Jiro Ono serves a menu of just sushi to only 10 lucky guests inside a tiny sushi bar located in a Tokyo subway station. Even though the restrooms are down ...
Big Sur Taphouse
Tapping Excitement: Big Sur Taphouse pours out great value and a surprising amount of character.
After the Big Sur Bazaar closed in 2008, the Mayer family, who owns the space as well as the adjoining Big Sur Deli next to the post office, put out a suggestion box asking what ...
Phoebe's Cafe
Hidden Heaven: Phoebe’s Café helps make picturesque Asilomar a nice getaway for everyone.
Even for locals, a trip to the new Phoebe’s Café at the Asilomar Conference Grounds can feel like a mini vacation. Tucked into a nook of the spacious Phoebe Hearst Social Hall – where visitors ...
I Melt With You
Starring Big Sur: The director of the new indie film I Melt With You talks about shooting in Monterey County.
Even though Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and Thomas Jane star in I Melt With You, director Mark Pellington believes that the film might not have gotten a theatrical release if it hadn’t been set in ...
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Following his breakthrough movie, 2008’s Let the Right One In, Swedish director Tomas Alfredson returns with his first film in English, the sprawling spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which opens this Friday at Century ...
Rock on Santa
A helpful 2011 music DVD shopping guide for the holidays.
This year, Santa Claus has delivered a full bag of music DVDs just in time to become stocking stuffers for your crusty rock-crazed uncle or your niece who is taking a college course on the ...
Melancholia
Heavenly Bodies: A new planet crashing to earth is not the only problem facing Kirsten Dunst in the striking
It’s unfortunate that Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s painful comments at a Cannes Film Festival press conference this past May almost overshadowed the reception to Melancholia, his fine new film about two sisters and the ...
Take Shelter
Stormy Situation: Academy Award nominee Michael Shannon stars as a man with apocalyptic visions in the chilling Take Shelter.
It all begins with a nightmare. Hard working family man Curtis (Michael Shannon) sees a massive storm cloud bulging with veins of lightening approaching his family home. It begins raining, but the raindrops are something ...
Miles Smiles
The Miles Davis Experience: 1949-1959 deserves a horny hello.
When trumpeter Miles Davis entered a New York City studio in 1959, he gave minimal directions to his sextet, which included saxophonists John Coltrane and “Cannonball” Adderley. But after the jazz greats left two recording ...
Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil
Backwoods Beauty: Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is the best horror comedy in a decade.
Like Shaun of the Dead and Scream before it, director and co-writer Eli Craig’s Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil puts a clever new spin on the horror movie genre. The simple but effective setup finds ...
Miller and Moore
Thurston Moore translates his Sonic Youth to the age-old redwoods.
Having seen Thurston Moore wring glorious noise from his electric guitar by beating it with drumsticks or scraping it across scaffolding at various Sonic Youth concerts, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that his ...
Trigger Happy
Small Town Murder Songs introduces an awesomely conflicted police officer and too much Canadian indie music.
Writer and director Ed Gass-Donnelly’s Small Town Murder Songs places a Twin Peaks-like murder in a setting that is more Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon than David Lynch’s fictional Washington town. When a nude young woman ...
Page One: Inside the New York Times
Times Will Tell: Page One’s peek behind the scenes at The New York Times proves sobering and inspiring.
Controversy erupts around the publication of classified documents WikiLeaks obtained. Colleagues head off to cover news in war zones like Iraq. Legal action by media conglomerate the Tribune Co. threatens. Though The New York Times ...
Silver Screen Sur
Jack Kerouac’s 'Big Sur' gets the Hollywood treatment from Kate Bosworth and company.
Joining a list of movies filmed in Monterey County that includes Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me, Turner and Hooch and Star Trek IV is an upcoming feature film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s 1961 novel ...
Van Goes
Camper Van Beethoven rekindles Key Lime Pie, eyes new album.
NOTE: Due to incoming storm Camper Van Beethoven's show has been postponed until Sunday, June 12. Jonathan Segel can easily recall the first time he heard Key Lime Pie, the album that Camper Van Beethoven ...
Downtown Brown
Unearthing the lost tale of James Brown performing live in Monterey.
Back in January of 1979, soul and funk great James Brown walked onto a Monterey stage and began chanting, “I’m back.” Then the charismatic tuxedo-clad performer, who was already sweating like a boxer in the ...
Redwood Revisited
The new chef at Fernwood’s Redwood Grill gives Big Sur new flavor that’s well worth a nibble.
Big Sur’s Fernwood is many different things to many different people. It’s the favored longtime watering hole for Big Sur locals. For tourists, it’s an affordable option for campsites, cabins or motel rooms. It has ...
Tiny Furniture
Writer, director and actress Lena Dunham emerges as a filmmaker-to-watch with her award-winning Tiny Furniture.
Made for an estimated $45,000 and shot mostly at her family’s Tribeca loft, Lena Dunham’s Tiny Furniture is a small film making big waves in the entertainment industry. Will Ferrell has praised the movie as ...
Old Men and No Sea
A group of weathered fishermen now share coffee and stories instead of the ocean.
The Sicilian fishermen of Monterey used to spend their morning hours scouring the bay in boats in search of the day’s catch. But now a core group of the men sit at a large wooden ...
Hot Topics
The Hot Toddies lead a feisty bill at East Village.
Countless bottles of Jameson whiskey and boxes of pizza were consumed as The Hot Toddies crafted their latest album titled Get Your Heart On. But, according to band members Erin Skidmore and Sylvia Hurtado – ...
Ready to Play
Unfolding an invaluable DVD holiday shopping guide for the music freak in the family.
From a previously unreleased Rolling Stones concert movie documenting the band at the peak of their powers to a film examining John Lennon’s post Beatles days, there’s been a flood of rock music DVDs released ...
Short Story
Hundreds show in support of Rachael Short.
Well over 300 people attended a benefit dinner at the Big Sur River Inn last night for Rachael Short, a Big Sur resident who was critically injured in a car accident on Highway 1 on ...
Moss’ Rolling Stones
The new Surf Hound Studio gives Moss Landing a little art, live music, film and surfer fun.
Bent over like a reed in a breeze, the lanky, 6-foot-one-inch Andrew Dolan strums an acoustic guitar. Around him, the Good Sams pull old-timey country music from their instruments. Behind him an eyeball dangles from ...
Boho Redux
Lucas Lamar and his Why I Love Carmel evokes town’s original art scene.
Cymbals crash and a bass line pounds as an impromptu music jam erupts in the loft above Lucas Lamar. A cigarette dangles out of his mouth as he nonchalantly adds more paint to a realistic ...
Howl
James Franco’s performance as Allen Ginsberg grounds a film about the Beat poem “Howl.”
A hallucinatory three part epic poem haunted by images of “angelheaded hipsters” and graphic homosexual acts, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” broke some of poetry’s established conventions when it was published in 1956. Inspired by the poem, ...
Freakonomics
An all-star team of documentary filmmakers come together for an adaptation of a best-selling book, Freakonomics.
Thought-provoking but not always persuasive, Freakonomics is essentially four video essays inspired by the 2005 nonfiction book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything and directed by a team of some of ...
That’s What SUP
The stand-up paddleboarding craze creeps into Monterey Bay.
Just inches away from me, hundreds of sea nettles fill the dark water like slow comets burning through the night sky. I’m standing on a 12-foot-long paddleboard I rented from Monterey Bay Kayaks, so I’m ...
Tune Up
New music series starts strong at East Village.
“I know and love everyone in this room,” Pacific Grove native and guitar phenom Matt Baldwin said Saturday night to a packed East Village Coffee Lounge, where he kicked off local music promoter Keigan Skydecker’s ...
Big Al
Big Sur’s own Beach Boy, Al Jardine, pulls in some world-class collaborators for his solo debut.
Sitting by a brick campfire pit on his Big Sur ranch, Beach Boys co-founder and Big Sur resident Al Jardine utters a big – but valid – statement about his first solo studio album, A ...
Trippy Team
Conor Oberst and The Felice Brothers keep an amazing season going in Big Sur.
Conor Oberst is known for singing devastating, soul-baring lyrics in a quivering voice on songs like Bright Eyes’ “Lua.” Meanwhile, The Felice Brothers whoop and holler on drunken sing-a-longs including their “Frankie’s Gun!” and “Whiskey ...
Country Cool
Delbert McClinton continues to cross genres with a performance at 53rd MJF.
Delbert McClinton’s latest CD, Acquired Taste, is all over the place. With its streaking guitar and Latin percussion, “Mama’s Little Baby” could be a lost Los Lobos song. “I Need to Know” is a grimy ...
Lit, Lectures and Flicks
An educated guide to the most stimulating speakers and screen options coming to town.
Following a summer of reading trashy novels on the beach and watching inane Hollywood blockbusters, fall is the time for more serious endeavors – whether it’s finally cracking open that neglected copy of Dostoevsky’s The ...
Student Guide 2010 | Command Centers
Popular hangouts where military garb will get you a good deal, and a great deal of camaraderie.
Game On With stunning views of the Monterey Bay, Seaside’s Bayonet and Black Horse Golf Courses (899-7271) have above-par green fees for active-duty military stationed on the Monterey Peninsula. Military personnel pay anywhere from $11.60 ...
Bohemian Rhapsodies
Local faves bid a fond farewell to ace guitarist Tom Ayres
He doesn’t remember the year. He doesn’t remember the venue. But guitarist Tom Ayres remembers the magic that occurred the first time he jammed with Mike Beck in the late’80s or early ‘90s at a ...
Feeling the Bern
Singer-songwriter combines Dylanesque complexity with a satiric edge.
The best parts of the 2007 comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story are the songs Dan Bern wrote for actor John C. Reilly’s character. There’s the midget equal rights song “Let Me Hold You ...
Star Gazing
Jack Kerouac tribute draws a galaxy of Hollywood standouts for inspired show
It’s been a foggy summer in Big Sur, but the stars were out for a screening of the Jack Kerouac documentary One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur this Saturday evening at the ...
Black’s Back
Former Pixies frontman Black Francis returns to Henry Miller Library.
Almost exactly a year ago, with his bald head blown up and projected on a nearby movie screen that gave it the look of a distant planet, Black Francis began a generous set of music ...
Take It To the Bridge
Kerouac’s Big Sur screens at Henry Miller – with a side of amazing music.
Death Cab For Cutie’s multiple-Grammy-nominated 2008 CD Narrow Stairs, which debuted at the top of the Billboard charts, begins with “Bixby Canyon Bridge.” On it, songwriter Ben Gibbard opens the track by airily singing: “I ...
Fired Up over forest flames
Enviros throw cold water on new wildfire prevention proposal.
Following the 2008 Basin Complex and Indians fires, locals agreed there’s a need to form a comprehensive plan to prepare for the next inevitable wildfire in Big Sur and the Los Padres National Forest. But ...
On Deck
The still-new City of Marina/On the Beach Skate Team dominates state circuit.
In the back room of Marina’s City Teen Center, members of the City of Marina/On the Beach Skate Team reveal the reason they are currently in first place in the California Amateur Skateboard League’s Norcal ...
Short and Sweeter
Big Sur International Film Screening Series 2010 only improves on first four.
The roots of the Annual Big Sur International Film Screening Series took hold after Magnus Toren impulsively purchased a film projector on eBay from a preacher in Kentucky. “I don’t remember how I could have ...
The City of Your Final Destination
Opulent Ruins: Despite being set in a sprawling jungle estate, James Ivory’s The City of Your Final Destination is nowhere to visit.
With three-time Oscar nominated director James Ivory (A Room With a View, Howards End) at the helm, The City of Your Final Destination can also boast of a powerhouse cast marked by the presence of ...
Asphalt Rock
Judgement Day vigorous string metal returns to rock Monterey.
The Oakland string band Judgement Day owes a lot of its success and sound to the streets. Violinist Anton Patzner maintains that the band’s biggest breakthroughs and the development of their signature string metal style ...
Casino Jack and the United States of Money
Lying Low: Casino Jack and the United States of Money examines shady dealings of swindler/lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
The director of the 2008 Oscar winning Taxi to the Dark Side, filmmaker Alex Gibney is one of most important documentarians working today. His past films have included the Oscar nominated Enron: The Smartest Guys ...
Big Ups Down South
Yo La Tengo and the Hipnic mark a massive weekend of music in Big Sur.
Listening to Yo La Tengo can feel like peering into a couple’s bedroom window. Of course, that couple is Yo La Tengo singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan and his wife and band mate Georgia Hubley, who drums ...
Rocky Road
Mountain biking documentary follows riders through North America’s highest mountains.
Populated by grizzly bears and featuring jagged snow covered peaks, the Continental Divide seems like an unlikely place to stage an almost 3,000-mile-long mountain bike race. Starting in the pearly whites of Banff, Alberta, Canada, ...
Mother
Maternal Bond: A mom goes to extreme lengths to clear her son’s name in the excellent South Korean thriller Mother.
The 27 year-old Do-joon still sleeps in his mother’s bed. When he goes out for a night of drinking, his mother, who earns a meager salary by selling herbs and administering acupuncture, frequently pays his ...
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