Sandra Bullock – Spinning Platters

Film Review: “Bullet Train”

Welcome to late-stage Brad

Balletic Fighting — Brad Pitt and Bad Bunny star in Bullet Train.

Fading assassins looking to complete the latest job. Low-level criminals looking for a clean exit from the life. Under-loved princesses looking to deal with daddy once and for all. Others looking for nothing more than cold, hard revenge. And in the middle of it all is bucket-hat Brad Pitt. In his latest, Bullet Train (or: Bucket-Hat Brad with a Bullet), Pitt romps, skips, hops, twirls, guffaws, and even sings his way through an overly-complicated, needlessly-sprawling, yet more than semi-entertaining roller coaster. Continue reading “Film Review: “Bullet Train””

Film Review: Ocean’s 8

Old-fashioned fun is the real mark in latest Ocean’s film

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock, l.) assembles a crack team of eight (from l., Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, and Helena Bohman Carter) to plan a foolproof heist.

You don’t need to have seen the previous three Ocean’s movies (that would be 11, 12, and 13 for the uninitiated) to enjoy Ocean’s 8, the female-helmed companion film that opens today; it stands alone as a highly enjoyable, old-fashioned heist movie. But those who are loyal fans of the original series will be rewarded with a few nods to the previous films, as well as a couple of cameos that I won’t reveal here, but which will no doubt please the films’ devotees. Breezy and fun, writer/director Gary Ross’s entry into the Ocean’s universe retains the brisk confidence of the original pictures, while providing a welcome freshness by changing the stories’ traditional casting.

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Film Review: Minions

Oh, so cute! Yet even more minions would’ve served Minions better.

Bob and Kevin and Stuart. Three Three (Minion) Stooges.

I’m not going to get too bogged down with analyzing the storyline or characters here (other than the Minions). The story actually well suits a feature-length treatment for these until-now side characters: After many millennia searching and serving (and inevitably losing) the biggest and baddest bosses they could find, three Minions leave their “colony” to find a new big bad boss. Honestly, I could watch 90 minutes of these adorable yellow pill-shaped creatures reading to each other in a classroom. With a language consisting of 50% Italian, 40% gibberish, and 10% random sounds, unique personalities befitting each standardly-named individual, and an unparalleled sense of loyalty, these little guys are too cute to dislike.

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Film Feature: Chad’s Top 10 Films of 2013

Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann present their Top 10 Films of 2013. Here’s Chad’s list, presented in the order of which he feels they deserve to be ranked (1 being the best, 10 being pretty damn good too!)

1.) Inside Llewyn Davis

“If it was never new and it never gets old, then it’s a folk song” The Coen brothers newest film is a hilarious, thought-provoking, darkly intelligent, musical journey into the 1961 New York folk music scene. Featuring masterful performances under the direction of master filmmakers, Inside Llewyn Davis is a documentary of sorts — accurately capturing a time period and a historical mentality…yet its message is timeless. Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 10 Films of 2013”

Film Review: Gravity

An exhilarating, suspenseful, emotional thrill ride unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Sandra Bullock takes on the universe in Gravity.

It’s hard to describe Gravity without using a superfluous amount of positive adjectives. The action drama directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), is a somewhat simple story of two astronauts who are marooned after their craft is left battered and adrift after being struck by debris from a botched Russian satellite dismantling. The film is more complex than that though, tapping into an unimaginable terror unlike any film has done before. It’s nice to have a visual spectacle of this magnitude also feature incredible performances. The visuals can only bring the audience in so far, but the stellar performances by George Clooney and, especially, Sandra Bullock help seal the deal. I can’t stress this enough — you are PULLED into this movie and firmly grasped for 90+ minutes! You won’t believe the wizardry of what you see on screen. And you won’t be able to shake the emotions for a while.

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Film Review: The Heat

Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy in The Heat

Is it possible for The Heat to be anything other than what you expect? Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy join together as the most lovable pair of odd couple style cops. Of course it’s going to be cheesy and predictable and, if everything goes as well as hoped, thoroughly entertaining. In the hands of director Paul Feig I don’t know how it could be bad. Continue reading “Film Review: The Heat”