starring: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson
written and directed by: Quentin Tarantino
MPAA: Rated R for strong graphic violence throughout, a vicious fight, language and some nudity
Author: Jason LeRoy
Film Review: Les Misérables
starring: Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Samantha Barks, Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Aaron Tveit
screenplay by: William Nicholson
directed by: Tom Hooper
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for suggestive and sexual material, violence and thematic elements
Film Review: This Is 40
starring: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Jason Segel, Annie Mumulo, Robert Smigel, Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Chris O’Dowd, Melissa McCarthy, Lena Dunham
written and directed by: Judd Apatow
MPAA: Rated R for sexual content, crude humor, pervasive language and some drug material
Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts, 11/29/12-12/5/12
As November rains its way into December, the Bay Area does its part in the War on Christmas with the onset of our annual secular holiday concert season. Relive that scene in My So-Called Life where Rayanne went flyering drunk in the school parking lot when Toad the Wet Sprocket play not one but two full-length album shows. And also: THE BOSS. All this and more after the jump.
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Spinning Platters Interview: Ang Lee on “Life of Pi”
They said it couldn’t be done: a movie version of Yann Martel’s bestselling novel Life of Pi, an intensely visual parable that consists almost entirely of a teenaged Indian boy named Pi lost at sea on a tiny rowboat with a wild tiger as his only companion? Bah, said some. Blergh, exclaimed others. Bloop, said NeNe Leakes. But clearly the naysayers hadn’t considered the possibility that Ang Lee, the Oscar-winning 58-year-old director of such contemporary classics as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, would consider taking the helm. But take it he did, choosing the spiritual allegory as his follow-up to the modestly received Taking Woodstock.
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Spinning Platters Interview: Joe Wright on “Anna Karenina”
“I cannot believe that I am less important than Tyra Banks!” Joe Wright exclaims with mock-indignation. He has every reason to be nonplussed. Through a bizarre chain of last-minute developments, I have found myself with a direct conflict to our scheduled interview time: the opportunity to ask Tyra Banks a question over the phone for a rare pre-taped episode of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live. The call had originally been scheduled over an hour prior to my interview with Wright, but TyTy took her sweet-ass time arriving to the taping; so now here I am, sitting at the Ritz-Carlton with my iPhone flattened against my ear, waiting anxiously for my Tyra cue while Wright, the British director of such Oscar-nominated dramas as Pride and Prejudice and Atonement, paces in front of me with an unlit cigarette. I am fully aware that I am showing questionable judgment and hope that Wright’s next interviewer will show up so that we might reshuffle our schedule, but the next interviewer is nowhere to be found, and I am now personally responsible for keeping Joe Wright waiting.
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Spinning Platters Interview: Robert Zemeckis on “Flight”
François Truffaut once said that a great movie is the perfect blend of truth and spectacle. This is one of Robert Zemeckis’ favorite quotes, and as evidenced by his staggering filmography, a guiding principle in his work. From his 1984 action-comedy Romancing the Stone onward, he has displayed an virtuosic ability to craft culture-defining megahits that use cutting-edge technology to tell unforgettable stories. Comedic VFX-driven comedies like the Back to the Future films, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Death Becomes Her led to such powerfully soul-searching dramas as Forrest Gump (which won him the Oscar for Best Director), Contact, and Cast Away (which came out a few months after his deliciously sinister suspense flick, What Lies Beneath). Zemeckis’ interest in new filmmaking technology then led him on a decade-long detour into animation, and for a time, it seemed like we may have lost the visionary who so radically broadened the horizons of live-action film. But now, twelve years after his last non-animated movie, he is back with Flight.
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Film Review: “Silver Linings Playbook”
starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jackie Weaver, Chris Tucker, John Ortiz, Julia Stiles
written by: David O. Russell (screenplay), Matthew Quick (novel)
directed by: David O. Russell
MPAA: Rated R for language and some sexual content/nudity
Film Review: “Lincoln”
starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, James Spader
written by: Tony Kushner
directed by: Steven Spielberg
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for an intense scene of war violence, some images of carnage and brief strong language
Spinning Platters Interview: John Hawkes and Helen Hunt on “The Sessions”
If you think you’ve seen every possible narrative variation on a man trying to lose his virginity, then allow me to introduce you to The Sessions. A cheerful film of irrepressible optimism and remarkable sexual frankness, it is the true story of Mark O’Brien (John Hawkes), a man who was left near-paralyzed following a childhood bout with polio. Having attained local fame for graduating from Berkeley by attending classes on a motorized gurney, Mark now spends the majority of his days in an iron lung. His physical movement is limited to a 90-degree rotation of his neck, which he doesn’t let prevent him from pursuing work as a writer and freelance journalist (and what have you done lately?). When a magazine assigns him a story on sex and the disabled, his research leads him to “sex surrogate” Cheryl Cohen-Greene (Helen Hunt), essentially a physical therapist with an emphasis on sex. Yes, her vocation involves having sex with her clients. With great trepidation, Mark (still a virgin at 36) decides to undergo a series of therapy sessions with Cheryl to see if he is indeed capable of performing sexually.
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