Chad Liffmann – Page 27 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: The To Do List

A raunchy two-joke movie that keeps the humor flowing.

Aubrey Plaza demonstrates her (acting) skills.

If you’re old enough to remember growing up in the 90’s, then The To Do List will supply you with a healthy dose of nostalgia. If you like sexual humor and gross-out comedies, then The To Do List will surely entertain you. If you find the combination of 90’s culture and sexual humor appealing, then this movie is basically a cinematic orgasm. It’s also a coming-out party for Aubrey Plaza, if Parks & Recreation hasn’t yet done the trick. The To Do List turns the stereotypical preachy message that you’d find in most romantic comedies (even the gross ones) over on its head, instead delivering the truth about teenage sexual curiosity and pressures…the unabashed, awkward, and honest truth.

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Album Review: Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

edward sharpe

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros is the self-titled third full-length album from the 10-person folk rock group. It’s fitting that the group’s third album is self-titled, since it emits a level of musical maturity that signals that they’ve finally found their authentic stride. Their super popular debut album, Up From Below, was filled with songs that were heard all over the radio and in commercials, movies, and just about everywhere one looked. Yet Up From Below felt forced, as if the group jumped onto the folk revival bandwagon late and inserted as many trending characteristics as they could. The same level of mass consumption didn’t occur with the second album, Here, but it nevertheless catered to a fan base eager to hear catchy choruses and jangling folk-rock melodies. With Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, the group has merged catchy hooks with natural sounding music composition. The songs don’t feel contrived. Sure, the album still carries a dose of pretentiousness that the group will never be able to shake. However, frontman Alex Ebert feels more at home here, embracing the rawness and eclectic range of influences and tones, and the band is able to follow suit, creating what may end up being one of the best albums of the year.

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Film Review: R.I.P.D.

R.I.P.D. is a good reminder of how similar movies used to be better.

Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds are ready for all terrible CGI creatures coming their way. — Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds are ready for all the terrible CG creatures coming their way.

– What do you call an undead police force?
– The R.I.P.D. The Rest In Peace Department.
– Ha!
– They would be like the Men in Black.
– Yeah. Except instead of aliens, they’d be fighting hell’s escapees.
(…to be continued)

Although R.I.P.D. is based on a comic book series of the same name, first published in 1999 (after Men in Black), I can easily imagine the concept for this movie arising in the above fashion. I haven’t read the source material, and therefore can’t speak to it, but it’s a bit too easy to find the parallels between R.I.P.D. and MIB; every character, plot turn, and joke from the former has a close equivalent in the latter. It’s surprising that we don’t see the MIB writers getting credited for the R.I.P.D. story or screenplay. Perhaps I’m being too harsh. But for the sake of argument, perhaps extra time should’ve been spent polishing what ends up being a cheap clone of a concept already executed to a much more satisfying degree. The characters in R.I.P.D. aren’t well developed, the special effects look gummy at best, and the plot doesn’t take any unexpected turns.

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Film Review: Turbo

A cute, formulaic, one-joke movie…but at least it’s not sluggish!

He's going the distance! He's going for speed! — He’s going the distance! He’s going for speed!

Low expectations commonly yield better-than-expected results. In the case of Turbo, a charming result emerges from an incredibly lackluster premise. ‘A snail that goes fast!‘…Okay, not really piquing my interest. ‘And, he races in the Indy 500!’ Snails and racing? No thank you, I’d rather read a book. Turbo doesn’t break any new ground, nor is it distinctly memorable. Its straightforward story is respectable, its characters are pleasant, and the colorful visuals are good. Nearly every joke is about the ‘snails vs. speed’ theme at play, but luckily the movie never slows to a snail-like crawl. But despite the film’s drawbacks, audiences will still be rewarded by Turbo, if only because it’s just not as bad as it seems.

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Album Review: White Dove – The Hoss, The Candle

Calling an album ‘melancholic’ or ‘ethereal’ can be dangerous, even though these terms, when used to describe music, are generally positive – invoking a beautiful calmness. They can also be used to describe music that fits a mood so well, the music then becomes synonymous with that mood. White Dove’s new album, The Hoss, The Candle, rides that line precariously. It’s the type of album best absorbed in the evening, sitting by candlelight and pondering life’s mysteries. To listen to it in any other setting with distractions would render the album forgettable.

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Film Review: Pacific Rim

Finally, the summer blockbuster we’ve been waiting for! Pacific Rim is smart, compelling, and unleashes an exhilarating fury of battling giants.

A jaeger strolls through Hong Kong streets in Pacific Rim — A Jaeger strolls through the neon lit streets of Hong Kong in Pacific Rim

From here on out, every time I gaze up into the fog-filled night sky that enshrouds the top portions of downtown San Francisco’s office buildings, I’ll imagine a colossal Kaiju smashing through the buildings like tissue paper, the debris raining down upon the dimly lit streets…and a Jaeger behemoth emerging through the haze, crushing the Kaiju’s skull in with a downward punch and throwing the giant beast’s body down the length of Market street. This is the lasting effect of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim. The film makes a solid effort to tell an emotional human tale in the midst of a near-future world at war with giant alien creatures. The effort is not lost, but takes a backseat behind the extraordinarily impressive battle sequences. As a science-fiction action movie, Pacific Rim delivers and then some.

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Film Review: The Lone Ranger

Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer strut their hero stuff in The Lone Ranger

“Hi-Ho, Silver! Away!”…meh. When Hans Zimmer’s rehashed Sherlock Holmes score kicks into “William Tell Overture” mode, Disney’s new re-imagining of The Lone Ranger is at its best. Unfortunately, this only happens twice. What could have been (and should have been) a fun adventure ends up being an odd concoction of conflicting tones and a bloated story. This “messiness” worked well in director Gore Verbinski’s last effort, Rango, but that film was about an eccentric chameleon in the midst of an identity crisis who ends up tangled in a Chinatown-esque conflict in a wild west animal town. So, it was obviously poised to extend the limits of the bizarre. The Lone Ranger, on the other hand, is about fun adventures. Bad guys vs. good guys. The film is 150 minutes long and easily could’ve been 90 minutes. The few action set pieces are fun and well choreographed, but they lose their effect when they are bookended by a plodding story involving genocide, power struggles, and weird spiritual visions.

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Film Review: Despicable Me 2

Steve Carell as Gru, standing with two adorable minions, in Despicable Me 2

Gru’s minions are so gosh darn adorable and hilarious! The production team behind Despicable Me 2 knows this, hence the endless amounts of advertising for the film featuring the little yellow round bundles of gibberish-speaking joy. Despicable Me 2 lacks the overall charm of the original, choosing instead to focus on minion mayhem, a tireless string of jokes, and adorable slapstick humor. This isn’t to say the film lacks a clever story. In fact, Despicable Me 2 impressively avoids trudging down expected paths. However, the story doesn’t feature the same emotional core as the original, nor does it stay as focused. Despicable Me 2 meanders a bit, but never loses sight of the task at hand — to entertain and have a really good time doing so. Plus…those minions!

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Film Review: White House Down

Jamie Foxx is Mr. President and Channing Tatum is Mr. Hero in White House Down

We say a picture is worth a thousand words. If my math is correct, a two hour and seventeen minute movie, therefore, should be worth 197,280 words (at 24 frames per second). Why, then, when White House Down ended, did my friend turn to me and say, “There are no words…”, and begin conjuring up fantasies of what he could have been doing for the previous 2+ hours instead? The answer is that White House Down is a terrible movie that misses all of its marks. It is not the fun explosion-filled action spectacle we used to expect from director Roland Emmerich in the mid-late 90’s and early 00’s. It’s better than 2012 and worse than Anonymous, although comparing WHD to 2012 is like comparing dirt to mud. It’s a shame this movie falls so far short because it had all the right ingredients in place for it to be a loud summer escapist romp. Instead, White House Down belittles its own silly story by trading in ‘silliness’ for ‘stupidity’. It is chalk full of stale acting and uninspired thrills, complete with a genuinely shocking amount of unrealistic moments (yes, even for a film about the White House being hijacked).

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Frameline Spotlights: C.O.G. / In the Name Of

From June 20-30, Frameline: The San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival is showing an eclectic lineup of films steeped in social, political, and sexual themes, pushing the boundaries and bringing audiences closer to the incredible stories of numerous individuals and communities, both fictional and real. Tickets for screenings are available at http://ticketing.frameline.org/festival/. Here is a glance at two of this year’s festival entries:

C.O.G. (USA, 2013)

Jonathan Groff is a sour apple in C.O.G.

Based on the unassuming essay by David Sedaris and under the steady direction of Kyle Patrick Alvarez, C.O.G. is the piercingly honest tale of a young man’s escape from his privileged Ivy-league world into the apple orchards and Christian community of a small town outside Portland, OR. The sold out audience at the Castro Theatre laughed, cheered, sat silent, and gasped, and left with a welcome sense of renewal, as if the film’s flawed characters had challenged each of us to examine ourselves in a way we hadn’t considered for some time.

C.O.G. screened on Saturday, June 22nd. For more info on the film, visit the film’s festival page or C.O.G.’s official website at http://www.cog-movie.com/

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