Weekend Preview: From Padres To Sex Kittens In Space

CAVANAUGH: This is KPBS Midday Edition. I'm Maureen Cavanaugh. Break out your kilts and your bagpipe, party with the opening pitch, and check out some films that are out of this world! And that's just half of what we're talking about on this weekend preview. My guests, Nina Garin is the things to do reporter for night and day at UT San Diego. GARIN: Hello. CAVANAUGH: And free-lance arts and music writer, Seth Combs. COMBS: Thanks for having me. CAVANAUGH: We talked yesterday on this show, but today is a holiday for a lot of baseball fans in San Diego. Is it too late, Nina, to get in on the party? GARIN: No, today is opening day. As we all know. And there's a party happening in the east village right now as we speak. CAVANAUGH: As we speak. We talked to a woman yesterday who was going to be down at the parking lot at 9:00. [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: And she was very excited. Of what is happening? How is San Diego celebrate something GARIN: In some other big baseball cities like Boston or Chicago, you go to the area where the game is happening and there's a scene. And I think San Diego is catching up. They're having kind of a street party all day until the game starts. So there'll be baseball fans talking about baseball, drinking beer, eating hotdogs, things like that. CAVANAUGH: So lots of food, lots of beer, and will there be music? GARIN: There will be music. Of there's going to be a Rolling Stones cover band. CAVANAUGH: Seth is laughing! GARIN: And then nightclub DJ, DJ chaotic. Am I saying that right? COMBS: Sure. GARIN: There's also going to be $5 beers all day from stone brewing company. CAVANAUGH: I like cover bands. COMBS: Trivia bands. CAVANAUGH: Now, do people still care about the Padres? We were in here yesterday with two diehard fans. But generally speaking what would you say? GARIN: Well, even though analysts are predicting that we're going to be at the bottom of our division and lucky to win 75 games -- COMBS: I think every major publication has had the same conclusion about the Padres' season. But you never know! GARIN: That's the thing I was going to say. About opening day, you never know. We all look good on opening day. CAVANAUGH: Fresh start, new year, baseball in San Diego. GARIN: Go Padres! CAVANAUGH: What's bad about that? The party began at 11:00 this morning. It continues until 6:00 tonight at J street between 7th and 10th avenues in the east village. It's free but the hotdogs aren't. [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: If you don't have tickets to the game, you could head over to Anthology instead for Kyle eastwood. This is a familiar name. Is he related to Clint? COMBS: Yes indeed. He's the son of Clint eastwood. What many people don't realize is that Clint is a huge jazz nut, and one of his first movies that he directed was a bioptic on Charley parker. And he's also an accomplished pianist himself. So Kyle grew up in this musical family and initially wanted to follow in his father's footsteps in film but decided to pursue his dreams as a jazz bassist. CAVANAUGH: Has he done work for any of his dad's films or projects? COMBS: Yeah, it's important to point out that he has become a very accomplished musician in his own right and put out several albums. But he mainly keeps busy with scoring the films for his dad's movies. Grand Torino, mystic river, the most recent one was Invictus. While those movies don't really have a jazz score so much, but he does a lot of these more symphonic scores as well. CAVANAUGH: So he's a frequent collaborator with his father on his music scores COMBS: He's pretty much the go-to guy. CAVANAUGH: Well, we have a bite from one of Kyle eastwood's works. This is Andalusia. (Audio Recording Played) CAVANAUGH: And that's Kyle on base, right? COMBS: Yeah, as I I mentioned, he's got some chops on the electric, acoustic and double base. And I just think that unfortunately for him, like Jacob Dylan or Adam Cohen, he's in his father's shadow. But he's good. CAVANAUGH: Speaking of that, if you go on the website and take a look, he actually looks a lot like his dad when he was young. COMBS: He does. CAVANAUGH: That can't hurt his career. [ LAUGHTER ] COMBS: No, it doesn't make him unpopular with the ladies. CAVANAUGH: Well, if you want to go and see for yourself, Kyle eastwood plays tonight at anthology on India street. Now for something completely different, this Saturday is something that takes just a little more stamina. Of it's a 12-hour marathon of Sci-fi films presented by time-out. What's going on here? GARIN: This is a festival put on by film-out San Diego, which is San Diego's LGBT film festival. It's their attempt to have films all-year-round and reach beyond their usual audience. Of the programmer, Michael McQuiggin, loves genre films. He's going to do Sci-fi. CAVANAUGH: All of these -- do all of these films take place out of space? GARIN: I don't know. [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: Well, we have barbarrel aright? GARIN: Right. CAVANAUGH: And that's Jane Fonda. GARIN: I believe it's sexy Jane Fonda in a gold bikini COMBS: Yeah! GARIN: What else do you need to know? CAVANAUGH: 1968 on another planet, right? And so we have also Logan's Run. Do you have a first film in this lineup? GARIN: Well, I'm going to admit that I've only recently started to appreciate Sci-fi. Or should I say grokking Sci-fi? I'm starting to read a book called stranger in a strange land. I think for me, this will be a good introduction to get a variety of what's out there for Sci-fi. CAVANAUGH: Ah. So you intend to sit for the 12 hours? GARIN: No. [ LAUGHTER ] GARIN: In a perfectly world, I would like to. CAVANAUGH: Thank you for being honest! One of the films in this lineup of Sci-fi films is Logan's Run, and here's a clip from that movie. NEW SPEAKER: Welcome to the 23rd century! The perfect world of total pleasure. Imagine a world in which you need never be alone. You touch a switch, turn a dial, and the perfect lover steps into your arms. Every pleasure is yours to experience. There's just one catch. When the typy crystal in the palm of your hand flashes its final message, your time is up. CAVANAUGH: Oh, that's a dated trailer. COMBS: It sounded like a pharmaceutical commercial. [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: Seth, you're a fan of Sci-fi. There's a Logan's Run remake coming up, isn't there? COMBS: I wouldn't say it's coming up. It's been in development for a long time. It's gone through so many rewrites and -- but if it's looking good finally. It's like everybody dies before or right when they're 30. CAVANAUGH: Ah, ha. COMBS: So they only have a certain amount. And this guy rebels against the system and says I don't want to die! But the remake is looking good. Brian singer was attached. Of he did most of the X-men movies. It seems he's out. But they've hired new writers. And one of the directors interested is Nicholas Reffin, I think is his last in my opinion. He directed Drive with Ryan Gosling. And now Gosling is attached to. So we might see it in 2014. GARIN: I'll see that one. [ LAUGHTER ] COMBS: Popular with the ladies. CAVANAUGH: Anything else going on at this screening? GARIN: Yeah, there's actually going to be a costume contest. CAVANAUGH: Ah! GARIN: So there's going to be that. COMBS: I'm going to dress as Barbarella. [ LAUGHTER ] CAVANAUGH: All right! Sci-fi super Saturday kicks off this Saturday at noon for 12 hours at the birch theatre in Northpark. Full-day pass is only $20. Fun with dick and Jane art show is coming up, Seth, at Voz Alta. What is opening here? COMBS: Well, it's a low-brow art show. We'll get into what that means in a second. But Voz Alta remains one of the most under rated galleries and organizations in up to. It's a showcase of two artists this particular show, called -- the two artists are Mustang Jane and dickie islands. Will and I describe it as a clever low-brow take on -- a lot of it's on Mexican culture and domestic everyday life. And futuristic Mexican robots to cannibalistic rabbits. CAVANAUGH: Now, you have used the term low-brow a couple of times. What does that mean in this context? Is it an insult or a compliment? COMBS: I've always compared low-brow art to a dive bar. Just a bar never wants to be considered a dive bar, it just is a dive bar. And low-brow art isn't so much low-brow but a lot of people get pegged as low-brow. It's a very misleading, in that people might think it deals with crass and controversial subjects but it's actually just a mix of surrealism and pop art which is why it's often called pop surrealism. CAVANAUGH: Fun with Dick and Jane art show will be at Voz Alta, at 1754 National Avenue, this Saturday from 6:00-11 PM. We must speak about tartan day. Bagpipes, kilts. GARIN: It's the San Diego Tartan day festival, which is part of a bigger Tartan day that celebrates Scottish Americans. San Diego has its own version in Balboa Park this weekend. CAVANAUGH: Who's hosting this event? GARIN: It's put on by a variety of Scottish clubs from San Diego, the house of Scotland, the North County Scotts, San Diego Scottish highland game, among others am CAVANAUGH: So is it a parade? GARIN: No, it's like -- think of it like the highland games without the games. COMBS: I think of it as the wedding scene from braveheart. CAVANAUGH: Oh, thank you! Without the blue faces. COMBS: I think that was just for battle. GARIN: Yeah, it's going to be more of a festival atmosphere. You'll be able to get some nice food and listen to music. CAVANAUGH: What kind of food? GARIN: Oh, well, you know they will not be serving haggis. Of the health department doesn't like haggis being served. CAVANAUGH: I see. GARIN: In a festival atmosphere. But you will be able to get bangers and onions, meat pies. And mushy peas. CAVANAUGH: Maybe a little bit of short bread. GARIN: Oh, you do get free short bread when you go, actually. CAVANAUGH: San Diego tartan day festival is this Saturday and Sunday at the house of Scott lant international cottages in Balboa Park, and it's going to be visually stunning, and it's free. A muse cam origination at the belly up in Solana beach. Who's playing? COMBS: Local boys getting bigger by the day, Transfer. CAVANAUGH: Uh-huh. And what part of town are they from? R they having a good year? COMBS: Yeah, I think they're -- it's four different guys, they're spread out all over the city. As far as having a good year, they just seem to get bigger and bigger every year. Last year I saw them touring with the likes of Brandon Flowers from the killers, touring all over the world mostly in Europe. But they'll still come back and go to a small club like the Casbah or the belly-up and rock it out for all the local fans. CAVANAUGH: And what's their music like? COMBS: Arena rock without the arena. Just really straight-ahead, good rock and roll music. The most direct -- I guess comparison would be like a band like early U2 or something, where they had that kind of big sound but didn't really have that sense of theatrics or pretension going where you couldn't relate to them, I guess. CAVANAUGH: Wow, okay. COMBS: Bridging alternative rock and big-sounding arena rock, you know? CAVANAUGH: They'll be playing Saturday night at 8:00 PM at the belly-up tavern in Solana beach. Thank you both very much. GARIN: Thank you. COMBS: A pleasure as always.