Author: Chad Liffmann

Film Review: “Asteroid City”

Wes Anderson’s latest is a multi-layered delight

I’d like to kick off this review with a question: what makes a Wes Anderson film the “most” Wes Anderson? Perhaps, objectively speaking, any Wes Anderson film, upon its release, is the “most” Wes Anderson, since that’s the project he’s put his latest ideas, artistry, and effort into. The unfairly subjective angle of this ranking, however, would require prioritizing Wes Anderson’s trademarks: the color palette, the quirkiness, the unique characters, and the cast size. Asteroid City, Anderson’s eleventh feature film as director, is, without a doubt, the “most”…. nah, I’m just kidding. Asteroid City represents a maturation in many respects, utilizing a multi-layered framing device to tell an oddball story about artistry, but with an emotional underbelly.

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Film Review: “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”

A bounding thrill ride caps off the iconic hero’s adventures in pure escapist fashion

Let’s first recall that Indiana Jones films were inspired by campy serials and pulp novels of the 1930s and 1940s, thus an unperturbed sense of adventure and eagerness for escapism has always been key to enjoying each film. Regarding suspension of belief, every viewer’s tolerance may vary, perhaps hitting a ceiling somewhere between powerful holy relics and extraterrestrials. That being said, the enjoyment of any given Indy film is not all on the viewer’s shoulders. An Indiana Jones film needs to be filled with adventure, introduce us to exotic locales and archeological lore, and look good while doing so. Of course, it also needs the willing participation of Harrison Ford. The first three films, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade have all these ingredients and are universally considered iconic examples of the action-adventure genre (even if Doom remains polarizing). The fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, featured a sixty-five-year old Ford, underdeveloped side characters, and a plot that aggressively pushed the boundary between escapism and ridiculousness, with mostly cringeworthy results. But even Crystal Skull has its defenders. Not here. Not today. With a great sigh of relief, then, I’m happy to report that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and final Indiana Jones film, manages to deliver a thrilling adventure and an emotional send off, even as it doubles down on its own outlandishness. 

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Film Review: “The Flash”

The Flash crumbles under the weight of its own tonal multiverse

Disclaimer: The arrests, allegations, and controversies surrounding Ezra Miller can’t be ignored. Many other actors, especially women and POC, have been punished for much less, their completed and upcoming work stripped away. My one sentence regarding Miller in The Flash is this: Their shtick is irritating in large quantities, having previously served in the DC Universe (DCU) as a quippy supporting character, and the film would be more successful (for many reasons) with a better leading actor. The rest of my review will ignore Miller, focusing instead on the merits and demerits of the film as a whole.

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Film Review: “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts”

Barely enough heart and humor to scratch through the mess

If only the Transformers film series began in 2018 with Bumblebee, a compelling audience-pleasing character introduction akin to 2008’s Iron Man, and then expanded the Transformers universe from there. Instead, we have five noisy, forgettable, often offensive Transformers films directed by Michael Bay between 2007-2017 in the back of our minds. Bumblebee successfully stripped the franchise back down to its essential parts and concentrated on a Spielbergian 1980s character-driven story with impressive robot action set pieces sprinkled throughout. It functioned as an effective standalone film and baseline for how to tell these stories in a cinematic way. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts functions as a sequel and a new series starting point, continuing a few important elements from its predecessor, like emotionally relatable characters and unique robot personalities, but it runs well off the rails by introducing far too many plot devices and ending with a long, no stakes CGI mess.  

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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

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.

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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