Chad Liffmann – Page 15 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Hail, Caesar!

A silly, subversive, colorful day in the life of a 1950s Hollywood studio fixer — as only the Coens can envision.

Channing Tatum the singing, dancing sailor.

Expectations were high for Hail, Caesar! the new film from the modern great American filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen. Three years after their award-winning triple play of 2009’s A Serious Man, 2010’s True Grit, and 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis, the sparkling musical trailers for Hail, Caesar! began hitting the web, and suddenly Coen fever began spreading again. However, unlike the washed-out colors and quiet dramatic quality of the former titles, Hail, Caesar! seemed to promise bright colors, outlandish musical numbers, and an unbridled sense of fun. The question I found myself asking was — would Hail, Caesar! embrace the darkly comic bizarreness of early Coen films such as Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy, or the cynical chastisement of Hollywood in Barton Fink? Well, the answer is really ‘no’ to both. The most wonderful thing about Hail, Caesar! is that it has its own new brand of Coen humor, one of PG-13 lightweight, sarcastic and playful tones, but still filled to the brim with the filmmakers’ unparalleled attention to detail and love of subtle and not-so-subtle references.

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Film Review: Pride & Prejudice and Zombies

Zombie-slaying Bennet sisters worth cheering for. Zombies, not so much.

More influenced by 2005’s Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley than the classic piece of literature by Jane Austen or the works of George A. Romero, Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, is a mediocre popcorn flick. It’s not as campy or cheeky as I’d had hoped, nor as serious and emotional as it could be if it avoided being the former. Despite the PG-13 rating, there’s enough genre blending jokes and tame action to make the first hour an enjoyable piece of escapism. Unfortuantely, an apparent inability to conclude the story whilst providing a non-anticlimactic finish makes the last 30 min a bore — an uninspired CGI-filled bore. Yet PPZ can be taken in its entirety as a relative success. The failings don’t take away from what most folks will expect from a sci-fi period piece romance (not sure the appropriate genre?) based on a popular piece of spoof fiction.

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Film Review: 13 Hours

A loud, intense disappointment from director Michael Bay-nghazi

I have a feeling we're not in Scranton anymore. — I have a feeling we’re not in Scranton anymore.

I’ll start with what impressed me about Michael Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. First (yes there is more than one thing), the story follows the real life sequence of events, at least based on what is publicly known about the attack. Second, Bay still knows how to capture intensive explosive action on screen. The firefights are, indeed, very effective. Despite knowing how the events played out, the chaotic gunfire and threat of technicals kept me on the edge of my seat. But those moments come and go, and the remaining minutes of the film completely misfire on all cylinders. The dialogue, comprised of 95% stupid one-liners, is an embarrassment. The stereotyped supporting characters are cringe-worthy. And the message Bay is trying to get across is confusing. 13 Hours shows some directorial maturation from Bay, but the film fails to properly honor the real life heroes due to the same annoyances that we’ve come to expect from Bay’s everlasting churn of slightly entertaining blockbuster garbage.

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Festival Preview: Berlin & Beyond Film Festival (Jan 14-20)

Screen Shot 2016-01-10 at 10.07.42 AM

The 20th Anniversary of the Berlin & Beyond Film Festival has an amazing lineup, set to entertain audiences from Jan. 14-17 at the Castro Theatre and Jan. 18-20 at the Goethe-Institut — Tickets available here. Until Thursday, we wanted to provide you with some quick highlights to check out as you’re buying tickets:

Opening night film Who Am I: No System is Safe, a hacker-heist film that draws inspiration from Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, and has no doubt inspired a lot of story elements in the Golden Globe award winning show, Mr. Robot. The young award winning star of Who Am I, Tom Schilling, will be in attendance.

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Film Review: The Revenant

Revenge is a dish best served cold and gorgeously shot.

This is it, everyone. This is the movie that Leonardo DiCaprio will win an Oscar for…I think. That’s not to say that The Revenant is Leo’s best performance. I’d say that it ranks a few titles above midway through his filmography, right above Blood Diamond and just below The Departed (and far below The Aviator and Revolutionary Road). Nevertheless, it’s Leo’s most physically demanding performance and let’s give credit to director/writer/producer Alejandro González Iñárritu for convincing the actor to dive so deep into the demands of the role. The Revenant is most impressive when experiencing its outstanding technical achievements. As a simple tale of survival and revenge, its not overly impressive from a storytelling standpoint. But in capturing the tone and setting of the story, the skill set of the actors and filmmakers on display lift The Revenant to very memorable heights.

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Film Feature: Chad’s Top 10 Films of 2015

Spinning Platters film critics present their top 10 films of 2015

Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2015. Here is Chad’s list, presented in reverse-awesome order. Also check out Carrie‘s top ten list!

10.) Cinderella
Lily James emerging from her pumpkin-turned-coach.

A lack of the classic Disney song ‘Cinderelli!’ didn’t prevent Kenneth Branagh’s live action version of Cinderella from reaching magical heights. After a plethora of disappointing “re-imaginings” and “discover the true story” versions of classics — Maleficent, Alice in Wonderland, Oz the Great and Powerful — it was time for a movie to play it straight, and Cinderella did just that. With amazing performances from Lily James and Cate Blanchett and beautiful costumes and set designs, Cinderella (hopefully) represents the first in a new series of live action Disney remakes that stick to the strong source materials without egregious silly additions. (Read my full review of Cinderella here.)

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Film Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New Star Wars Movie

han-chiew-force-awakens-1280jpg-8e4aaf_1280w — One has aged. The other has not.

[KINDA SPOILERS AHEAD]

Don’t let my subtitle fool you—I actually really enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I saw it twice and can’t wait to see it again! However, as one of the most highly anticipated films in decades and what will likely be the highest grossing film of all time in the next week (with every word I type it probably makes another $1 million), it was hard to put all my thoughts together in an unbiased film review — after all, I don’t want to be one of the few saying “it’s really not that good”. But what I know now is that as The Force Awakens has marinated in my mind over the past two weeks, I now know that I didn’t just like the film, I actually loved the film. Everything I initially took exception to I have now found justification for, and that’s how my review will unfold:

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Film Review: The Big Short

One the most brilliantly infuriating films in years.

Let’s get this out there—Adam McKay, the director of Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgandy, should be nominated for an Oscar come February. Sorry, did I say an Oscar? I meant two Oscars, one for writing and one for directing The Big Short, adapted from the book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis. The film follows the true story of a few key players in the housing credit bubble collapse of 2007, specifically, a few that saw the crash coming and invested in the collapse. Yes indeed, there are no heroes here. Just anti-heroes and a whole lot of a**hole douchebag jerk faces that f*cked all of us over! Whew, ok, now that I got that off my chest, I should mention that this is one of the best films of the year. The incredibly witty script keeps the otherwise confusing subject matter entertaining and comprehensive. The Big Short treats its story with flair and casual grace, rather than overloading it with unnecessary drama or uppity intellectuality. Basically, the true events speak for themselves. The filmmakers just supplied the superb cast, tight script, and brilliant tongue-in-cheek storytelling devices to frame it.

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Film Review: In the Heart of the Sea

A disappointing whale of a tale.

‘There once was a man from Nantucket’… Pardon my immaturity, but I really couldn’t think of a better way to begin this review of the forgettable wannabe seafaring epic, In the Heart of the Sea. Based on the account of the true story of the whaling ship, the Essex, which in turn inspired the story of Moby Dick, one must wonder if anyone actually wanted or needed to see this story set to film. Director Ron Howard must have felt the need to see it through, because it seems that the filmmakers spared no expense in making it— no matter how bad the visuals, erroneous the 3D transfer, or weak the emotional storyline. In the Heart of the Sea is disappointing on so many levels, and yet its tough to figure out exactly what would’ve righted the wrongs. Hence, maybe the film, which was delayed, would’ve been better off shelved entirely.

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Film Review: Macbeth

‘All the perfumes of Arabia’ cannot sweeten Macbeth, and that’s a good thing, because it’s not a sweet story.

Macbeth thinks about jolly, hilarious things!

If you’re in the mood for some High School literature class caliber violence, then look no further than the new adaptation of Macbeth. Personally, I haven’t opened to a page from Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies, since sophomore (maybe junior?) year of high school. So knowing that the Macbeth director and writers chose to stick to roughly 90% (guesswork) of the original Shakespearean dialogue, I quickly read a Wikipedia summary before heading to the screening. This was a good choice. The one, and only, thing that the new Macbeth cinematic adaptation suffers from is its unwillingness to cater to the play’s newcomers. Otherwise, outstanding performances and cinematic flourishes from the director and cinematographer help Macbeth ascend the throne as one of the best Shakespeare adaptations in the last decade (Joss Whedon’s 2012 modern adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing is right up there.)

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