Chad Liffmann – Page 13 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: “The Little Mermaid”

Halle Bailey is a shining star in this mostly successful and worthwhile remake

“It’s a dinglehopper!” Disney has been churning out live-action remakes of their classic animated films since the mid-1990s. The velocity increased exponentially with Cinderella (2015), The Jungle Book and Pete’s Dragon (2016), and Beauty and the Beast (2017). There have been six (!) direct live-action remakes since then, not including numerous character origin stories, sequels, and spin-offs. Over seven titles are in the pipeline. With few exceptions, most of these have been lackluster cash grabs, devoid of the groundbreaking nature and pizzazz of the originals, and unable to modernize themes and storylines without stumbling hard. Thus, The Little Mermaid is the latest entry into Disney’s live-action remake collection, an adaptation of the 1989 animated classic. Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago; Mary Poppins Returns), the new The Little Mermaid succeeds in ways that previous Disney remakes failed, but at times the film trips over its own feet, err, fins.

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Film Review: “It Ain’t Over”

A wonderful tribute and legacy reclamation for one of baseball’s greatest

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the New York Yankees dominated the baseball world. Between a sixteen year span, 1947-1962, they won ten World Series titles. Only one player was on the team for all ten of those titles (a MLB player record) while also becoming an 18-time All-Star — Yogi Berra. And yet, his name is most commonly associated with witty sayings, or ‘yogi-isms’, like “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” and “It’s like déjà vu all over again.” In the early 2000s his wit was made even more famous by his appearance in an Aflac commercial (which was quite funny, actually). His ‘yogi-isms’ are neither the whole story, nor do they represent his greatest accomplishments. Berra was a World War II veteran, and then achieved some of the best player statistics in the history of the sport, and Sean Mullin’s new documentary, It Ain’t Over, splendidly captures and reclaims Berra’s much deserved legacy.

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Film Review: “The Eight Mountains”(Le Otto Montagne)

Tenderness and solitude are at the forefront of this epic tale of male friendship

Against a calm snow-capped vista of the Italian Alps, two friends come together and stand in silence. They don’t need to speak much. They’ve known each other for long enough that words don’t carry the same value. They part ways once again, for how long neither of them knows, to continue finding themselves and hoping that the other will do the same. Amidst these characters’ experiential subtleties, The Eight Mountains, based on the best-selling novel by Paolo Cognetti, unfolds as a (sneakily) epic tale of friendship and discovering one’s natural place in the world, while making a cinematic statement on the fragility of all living things.

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Album Review: The Black Keys, “Dropout Boogie”

From the twanging riffs and thumping percussion that open the album on the single, “Wild Child”, we know we’re in for a head-bopping, foot-stomping, groovy record. Dropout Boogie is The Black Keys’ eleventh studio album (!) and a conscious return to stripped down hard-nosed bluesy rock ‘n’ roll they first earned a passionate fanbase and later numerous accolades. For the first time in their studio album discography, the Akron, Ohio duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney solicited collaborations from other artists and the result is a river flow of laid back jaunts, comfortable grooves, and a few raw first take recordings. All hail the majesty and imperfections of the blues-rock guitar!

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Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Preview Spotlight #2

The 65th SFFilm Festival will take place April 21 – May 1, 2022, with screenings at various venues around the Bay Area. This year, the festival program features over 130 film from 56 countries, so there are plenty of options for everyone.

Here’s a look at five more features — get your tickets before they sell out!

1.) WE FEED PEOPLE
(USA, 2022. 90 min)

From director Ron Howard, We Feed People takes a close look at the World Central Kitchen (WCK) and the man who launched and manages it with every fiber of his being, world-renowned chef Jose Andres. The majority of the film is boots-on-the-ground footage of the WCK in action, with only snippets here and there taken from news reports. In this way, we get a devastating look at the aftermath of various disasters as WCK staff work fast among the wreckage and speak to the impacted residents. Most importantly, We Feed People contains a sense of urgency, that food shortages should be a thing of the past — it’s an inspirational gut punch. WCK is at the forefront of the fight: at the time of this writing, multiple WCK staff members in Ukraine have been injured in a recent Russian bombing.

Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sat., April 23rd, 5:30pm at the Vogue Theatre Continue reading “Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Preview Spotlight #2”

Film Feature: 65th SFFILM Festival Preview Spotlight #1

We’ll bring you spotlight coverage of many of the films leading up to and during the Festival. Here’s a look at five features and a short to get things started — get your tickets before they sell out!

1.) THE EXILES
(USA, Taiwan, France, China, 2021. 96 min)

A fascinating documentary that spotlights legendary Chinese documentarian Christine Choy (Who Killed Vincent Chin?) as an avenue into revisiting the massacre at Tiananmen Square and three high profile exiled dissidents. Produced by Steven Soderbergh and winner of this year’s Sundance Documentary Grand Jury Prize, The Exiles takes an honest look at the active erasure of history, and exemplifies the power of documentary filmmaking to preserve memories, events, and movements.

Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Sat., April 23rd, 3:00pm at the Victoria Theatre
– Sun., April 24th, 2:00pm at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive

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Film Review: “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”

The colorful SEGA spiny mammals are back and fully charged!

If there’s one thing the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog films have shown, it’s that Jim Carrey is sorely missed as a regular on-screen presence. His performance in 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog was, not so arguably, the best part of the film and without it the film would’ve been easily dismissed. The sequel, coming out only two years after the first, is a rare instance of more-is-better working for a franchise. Carrey remains the main draw, and he once again delivers the manic goods. Two new colorful iconic characters from the SEGA game’s universe, Tails and Knuckles, are fun additions. Unsurprisingly, the addition of extended plotlines surrounding minor side characters isn’t as fun. Like a broken record, I’ll once again say that movies are too long these days. Sonic 2 is twenty minutes too long (23 minutes longer than the first movie). Despite some extraneous tangents, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 doubles down on the jokes, the action, and the energy.

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Film Review: “Ambulance”

**Call an Ambulance, because I’m sick with satisfaction!**

Something happened at the end of Ambulance that I didn’t expect when the movie began. I cared. I cared for the characters. I haven’t cared for characters in a Michael Bay film for nearly ten years, back when Pain & Gain came out, and even that barely registered as honest emotion. I’m not going to defend Ambulance as a great film, nor a really good one. It stumbles in many of the same ways we’ve come to expect from Michael Bay’s projects, that is, in terms of story and confusing camerawork. However, as a piece of high concept escapism, Ambulance is a spectacular time at the movies.

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Film Review: “Uncharted”

Uncharted is a lot more fun when operating via video game controller

Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) and Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) search for a better movie.

The video game Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune was released in November, 2007 for the Playstation console. It was an immediate hit, spawning four main series sequels and a handful of spin-offs. When Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was released in 2009, chatter about a film adaptation began to take shape, since the series began earning fame for its cinematic presentation, and Among Thieves is widely considered by many to be among the best video games of all time (including me). Alas, we finally have the Uncharted film adaptation we’ve waited over a decade for, and it’s, well, meh. Much of the plot turns, action set pieces, and dialogue is inspired by, if not directly taken from, the video game series. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The film also pays fan service by sprinkling a handful of easter eggs (and a special cameo) throughout. All of this adds up to a moderately entertaining action adventure, but the best thrills are few and far between, and don’t measure up to the iconic gameplay.

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Film Review: “Stay Awake”

A tender portrait of a troubling issue

Ethan (Wyatt Oleff, r.) and Derek (Fin Argus, l.) unwillingly play the waiting game.

Unfortunately there has been a recent wave of films and TV shows about the U.S. prescription drug and opioid epidemic. Not unfortunate in the sense of artistic merit achieved (I’m NOT looking at you, Hillbilly Elegy), but unfortunate that there exists a crisis of this magnitude in the first place. Millions of people are affected by drug addiction each day, and the opioid crisis has already taken countless lives. The new indie film Stay Awake shines its own match light on the disease with great care and an intimate focus. In this film we don’t have villains (well, maybe the enabling doctor and drug co.), cringeworthy child abuse, or the stereotypical yet often truthful standards set forward by the depiction of drug addicts in Hollywood. Rather, Stay Awake shows that sometimes addiction and family issues lay just beneath the surface of small town normalcy and kind, functional people, and that caretakers deserve some of the spotlight.

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