The Weekend Guide

FILM
The Descendants
It’s a good couple of weeks for movie fiends. The Descendants releases today, and will be followed by another Oscar Best Film pick, Moneyball next week. The Descendants, directed by Alexander Payne (Sideways), has been called “damn near perfect“. It won Best Drama, and Best Actor for George Clooney, at the Golden Globe Awards, and may well sweep the Oscar race as well. Clooney plays Matt King, a blueblood Honolulu attorney saddled with a comatose wife, the revelation that she cheated on him and may now never wake up, and the task of caring for their two young daughters. Throw in a side plot about real estate riches and greedy relatives, and under Payne’s deft direction, what could have been a soapy cliché turns, instead, into a “vastly entertaining and acutely perceptive meditation on what defines family“.
When: From, Thursday January 26.
Where: At cinemas across the city.

NIGHTLIFE
Paul van Dyk, Mr. Woodnote and Eva Lazarus
If your Saturday night is incomplete without busting out a move, this might be the perfect weekend. Superstar DJ Paul van Dyk returns to our city to play a gig featuring tracks from his upcoming album Evolution—a fitting name for a record by an artist who now chooses to describe his tunes simply as “advanced electronic music”. Van Dyk, whose popularity has only surged since he first performed here about a decade ago, is expected to pack out the 6,000 square feet Hard Rock Café. If you’d rather not party with the herds, there’s an indie alternative in the form of Australian beatboxer and saxophone player Mr. Woodnote and British rapper and singer Eva Lazarus, who perform at Cool Chef Café the same night. Their dance-friendly set at the recent York Live festival was one of the stand-out performances at the event, and their Mumbai concert will see them add a touch of Indian classical music (courtesy of sitar player Imran Khan) to their hip hop-meets-soul-meets-jazz sound.
When: Saturday, January 28, from 9pm onwards at both venues.
Where: Hard Rock Café. See here for details. Cool Chef Café, Thadani House, 329/A Worli Village, Worli Sea Face, off the Bandra-Worli Sea Link, near the Indian Coast Guard office. Tel: 2430 1127. The Rs300 entry fee gets you a beer.

ALSO AROUND TOWN
• Catch the last weekend of the plays being staged as part of the Writers’ Bloc theatre festival, at the NCPA’s Experimental Theatre. Call the venue for ticket availability. National Centre for the Performing Arts, NCPA Marg, Nariman Point. Tel: 6622 3737.

• Join the fight for gay rights at the Queer Azaadi March, this Saturday, January 28, from 3pm onwards. August Kranti Maidan, between Nana Chowk and the Kemps Corner Flyover.

• Soak in the sounds of critically hailed techno DJ and producer Phil Kieran at the latest edition of Aurus’s weekly sundowner sessions, this Sunday, January 29, from 5pm onwards. See here for entry fee and other details. Ground Floor, Nichani Kutir, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu. Tel: 6710 6666.

• Listen to the folk-fusion sounds of Bengali band Oikyotaan, fronted by singer Bonnie Chakraborty, at Blue Frog this Sunday, January 29, from 9pm. The entry fee is Rs300. Mathuradas Mills Compound, Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel. Tel: 6158 6158.