Film Review: “Oppenheimer”

Physics, war, and the father of the atomic bomb: Nolan’s biopic captivates

General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon, l.) confers with Manhattan Project scientific director J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy).

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, Greek mythology tells us, and for that he was punished for all eternity. While physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer’s fate wasn’t quite as brutal, it proves nearly as tragic, as we see in Oppenheimer, writer/director Christopher Nolan’s epic new film about the father of the atomic bomb. 

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Film Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Joonas Suotamo is Chewbacca, Woody Harrelson is Beckett, Emilia Clarke is Qira and Alden Ehrenreich is Han Solo in SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY.

Solo: A Star Wars Story, which opens today in just about every Bay Area theater, is a big-screen comic-book origin story, with an accomplished and sometimes first rate cast in front of the camera, and some seriously seasoned talent behind it. Unfortunately, in the year-and-a-half since principal shooting began, issues real and manufactured have given the internet too much time to speculate, postulate, pontificate, and generally expectorate on any number of meaningless side stories. Thankfully, at the center of this mostly worthless dead zone of internet fodder lies a straightforward, entertaining film that should service, if not delight, Star Wars fans and casual viewers. Continue reading “Film Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story

Film Feature: 2017 Sundance Film Festival Spotlights #1

… in which our intrepid California-bred Senior Film Reviewer defies an epic winter storm and a fierce chest cold to bring you highlights from this year’s famous Park City fest.

The 2017 Sundance Film Festival ended last Saturday evening after ten days of showcasing over 200 films from around the globe; you can see all the winners here.

For the third year in a row, Spinning Platters was on the (snow-covered) ground trying to take in as many movies as our limited time and budget would allow. And so we bring you the first of our posts spotlighting the 17 films we managed to squeeze in to just over five days.

Many of these may receive distribution deals (if they haven’t already), so you can know what to watch for in the coming year with these handy capsule reviews, which use our patented Sundance Viewing Priority Level (VPL) Guide:

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Spinning Platters Interview: Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert on Beautiful Creatures [VIDEO]

Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES
Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

On paper, Beautiful Creatures may look like just another film adaptation of a bestselling YA series about a supernatural romance. Alden Ehrenreich stars as Ethan, a restless high schooler in podunk Gatlin, South Carolina, who yearns to break free from the oppressive small-mindedness and cultural atrophy of his hometown. Ethan is charming enough to seem like a standard-issue popular guy, but in private his tastes lean toward the cerebral (he is a voracious reader of banned books) and he dreams of the day he’ll leave Gatlin for good. Ethan’s thirst for something different is what attracts him to new girl Lena (Alice Englert), the quiet and witchy-looking descendent of one of Gatlin’s most notorious families. Lena is immediately targeted as a dangerous freak by the town’s many gossipy Bible-thumpers, and while Ethan rushes to defend her from their attacks, it turns out that Lena does present a very real threat: she comes from a family of Casters (read: Southern witches), and on her rapidly-approaching 16th birthday, she will be “claimed” for either good or evil – with potentially catastrophic consequences.

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