Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Based on a true story, Wicked Little Letters is a charming period piece that reunites the terrific actresses Jessie Buckley and Olivia Colman, both of whom played the same character at different ages in 2021’s The Lost Daughter. While they share no scenes in that film, their new movie provides a welcome vehicle for showcasing their spirited chemistry.
The 96th Academy Awards air tomorrow, Sunday, March 10th, on ABC at a new, earlier 4:00 pm PST start time. Friendly reminder to fellow film fans: don’t forget to spring forward for daylight savings, or you might miss the start of the show! Below, Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann share their predictions and thoughts for the major categories. Although we feel smug when our picks win, we don’t mind some upsets to keep things interesting! You can print your own ballot here. Good luck to all!
Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the 2024 Oscars”
Following in his big brother Joel’s footsteps, Ethan Coen steps outside the pair’s successful filmmaking partnership with Drive-Away Dolls, his first solo narrative feature. Unfortunately, Ethan doesn’t do as well as his brother did with his 2021 award-winning The Tragedy of Macbeth. Drive-Away Dolls probably won’t win any awards, but it’s a serviceable, if mostly forgettable, attempt at a retro, low-brow comedy.
In the early 2000s, filmmaker Laura Chinn was a teenager living with her mother in Clearwater, Florida. Chinn’s older brother Max, terminally ill with brain cancer, spent the last few days of his life in a hospice center with an internationally famous resident: Terri Schiavo. Schiavo’s right-to-die legal case spanned fifteen years, from 1998 until 2005, when the courts finally allowed her husband to remove her feeding tube. In Chinn’s feature film debut, she turns this grim early experience into Suncoast, a fictional, semi-autobiographical tear-jerker of a movie with a few tonal problems, but also much to recommend it.
Released today in the middle of what seems like unending gray Bay Area winter weather, Sometimes I Think About Dying is the perfect film to watch given our collective dreary mood.
Continue reading “Film Review: “Sometimes I Think About Dying””
The new French film Driving Madeleine will no doubt remind American viewers of 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2018’s Green Book, two award-winning American movies about disparate characters connecting because of a car ride. But Driving Madeleine (or Une Belle Course, its original French title) removes the racial themes and white savior narratives that garnered criticism of the latter two films, and it’s all the better for it. While slightly predictable, Driving Madeleine is a charming, intelligent, and warm character study. If you can’t take a Sunday drive through Paris any time soon, watching this film makes for a great substitute.
Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: my 2023 cinematic favorites! You can also check out fellow film critic Chad Liffmann’s list here to compare and contrast and see who you agree with more. Will Oscar voters agree with us? We’ll find out when the nominations are announced on January 23rd!
Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2023”
Back in 2017, in my review of the lackluster film A Ghost Story, I declared that Manchester by the Sea was the “finest movie about grief ever made.” Fast forward to the present day, however, and I now retract my statement. Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s devastating new film All of Us Strangers has usurped that designation, and at this point I can’t fathom that another picture could even come close to knocking it out of position. An emotionally wrenching, achingly true, and deeply affecting story about trauma, grief, and memory, Haigh’s film is one of the year’s best.
In 2018, writer/director Paul King’s Paddington 2 earned the coveted number one spot on my Top 10 list. After a few years working in television, King has returned to the big screen with his Paddington 2 co-writer Simon Farnaby to bring us Wonka. The picture is a similarly delightful and warmhearted holiday treat.
Meg Ryan, star of such classic Nora Ephron-penned rom-coms as When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle, tries her hand at directing, co-writing, and starring in her own rom-com, and the results are disastrous. What this picture is is debatable, but one thing’s for sure: it’s neither rom nor com. The fact that Ryan dedicates the film to the late great Ephron only serves as a reminder of those halcyon days of far better Ephron-Ryan helmed vehicles.
