Eddie Izzard is, I guess, my favorite comedian. We've seen him a couple times before, and each time he has been innovative, informativ...

Spoon have been around for 20 years, but have managed to do so without me hearing anything by them. Anyhow, our friends Tom and Holly boug...

Based loosely on the exploits of Mark Wahlberg and his entourage as he rose to stardom, this used to be one of our favorite TV shows. Th...

This was half great, half pedestrian. The pedestrian half, caused by the schmaltzy sub-plot that involved Dwayne Johnson and his wife re...

I didn't want to go to this place again. We went a year ago, after Mrs P saw a glowing review on Check Please, Bay Area, and I was tho...

This place didn't earn its RANT through its location - right on the square in Sonoma, on a sunny Memorial Day; nor its staff - who wer...

A t last! A new, date-worthy spot, with a cool, relaxed vibe, and excellent food. Plate sizes are small-ish, so it's fine to have...

This might have cost $150m to make, and Tom Hardy may have more acting skills in his little finger than does Mel Gibson, and Charlize Ther...

Online restaurant reviews have always had a reputation for being filled with plaudits from the relatives, friends, or even staff at a new ...

Having peeked at a few pages to try and see what all the fuss was about, and quickly realizing it was badly-written tripe that was barely ...

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is a band I've known for 20 years but never seen touring anywhere near where I was. They're a band...

The Water Diviner is a good but not great film that tells the story of an Australian farmer - Russell Crowe - who travels to Turkey four y...

Unless you've been living under a shell, you'll already know that Jon Stewart is stepping down as host of The Daily Show, and Trev...

Sorry to disappoint all the Riot Grrls there last night, but this was just plain too loud. I know I sound like an old feller clutching his...

The fact that we've eaten many times at the old Chez Maman allowed us to give them the benefit of the doubt on the food at their new p...

I don't know if recently-opened places experience a drop in standards - food and service, or whether there's a natural drop in ent...

It's quite some time since we've gone to see a band for one main song, and while I've got a couple Kaiser Chiefs albums - and ...

"Not my kind of film" said Mrs P as we exited the theater. So we'll ignore her feedback shall we? Mr P thought this was an...

While not the warmest or heartiest of atmospheres - it was cold and windy Sunday evening, on a cold and windy corner of Filmore - once we ...

In my continuing quest to sample every new restaurant in San Francisco, even if they're only new to me rather than the City itself, an...

Having read the book just a couple of weeks ago, I was interested to see how the movie compared the printed version. It wasn't bette...

Preceded by quite possibly the dullest pair of support acts known to man, Belle and Sebastian performed a hectic set - for them - full of ...

Ever since we tried dinner at Chris Cosentino's previous restaurant Incanto, we've been looking forward to seeing what he can do a...

The colorful decor at Hawker Fare, the great service, and the basic premise of serving Thai street food at a bustling, indoor location sho...

This one gets a lucky middling review. My choice was a snoozy rant, but that was up-voted to a review by Mrs P who liked it a lot more tha...

At the other end of the entertainment scale - I'd just read Child 44, a Stalinist serial killer story - was Nick Hornby's latest n...

A short notice trip to Puerto Vallarta to see my brother and his wife on vacation led me to pluck a couple books from my home library (i.e...

Set in in Belfast, Northern Ireland in er, 1971, this gritty film tells the story of a British Army detachment sent into the impossible ba...

Having just opened a few weeks ago, this place seems to have got off to a great start, with none of the 'new restaurant' bugs that...

Will Smith plays an experienced con man who meets a beautiful woman who tries to con him. They have a brief fling, then go their separate...

Set in New York, 1981 - a year that by all accounts was one of the most violent years in history - Oscar Isaac plays a Latino immigrant wh...

I thought about this review overnight. I was tempted to just give it a REVIEW - definitely not a RAVE. However, I dwelt on the full ordina...

Another Nob Hill outing that required the services of Uber - there are more parking spots on the main route during Carnival - but once the...

A departure for us, seeing a writer on stage, reading from one of his essays and in conversation with his editor. Not that his writings ...

In our quest to eat our way across San Francisco, we tried for the first time a restaurant that had some positive reviews for its French c...

Jude Law plays another rough, tough type. Perhaps not as rough, or tough as his previous incarnation as Dom the recent ex-prisoner, but ce...

I guess there's little point in singing the praises of this white hot restaurant in one of San Francisco's less desirable neighbor...

Every actor goes through a time in their career - not necessarily towards the end of it - when they appear in a foreign-funded movie. Anyo...

Does this newly-opened place live up to the hype? It serves Cantonese and Teochew cuisine which, to this amateur diner felt like regular...

A typical Clint Eastwood directed action movie, this was a true story about Navy Seal Chris Kyle, who did four tours of duty in Iraq as a ...

Another one of Michael Bauer's (SF food critic) shabby recommendations. Funnily enough, I was in a bar Saturday night when MB's na...

I know I'll get lambasted by my wife - who loved this film, and my African-American friends - who'll no doubt be too committed to ...

There are a couple of new trends in SF dining that we've seen emerge during the past few months: Japanese and French restaurants. That...

I'm not usually one to tag along after sports personalities - at least not for the past 17 years, where living in California has reduc...

Watching films or documentaries about drug addiction is as tough for many people - including me - as it is following stories about individ...

The publicity saved it from being a commercial flop, but even Kim Jung Un's weirdness couldn't make this piece of crap funny.

Taking advantage of the low holiday road traffic, and our equally low stash of fresh food at home, we trundled up to the Sonoma area for a...

If your body craves rich food; food that's richer than Croesus; food that would make Governor Chris Christie think "Oh, that'...

Covers the last 25 years or so of the life of J.M.W. Turner, the English painter of land- and sea-scapes. Now, before you switch off, it...

It was heartening to find the movie theater completely full today, replete no doubt with hundreds of other party-poopers who would happily...