Features – Spinning Platters

Film Feature: 68th SFFILM Festival Preview #1

The 68th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) will take place April 17-April 27 with screenings at various theaters around San Francisco and the East Bay.

For a full view of special awards, spotlights, and centerpiece films, check out the complete festival guide. Tickets can be purchased here.

Below is a preview of the festival, featuring brief looks at six films:

1.) THE BOTANIST
(China, 2025. 96 min)

The soulful connection between humans and nature lies at the forefront of Jing Yi’s directorial debut, The Botanist, about a young boy, Arsin, in the remote northern province of Xinjiang during one summer. Arsin spends his time quietly in nature, pressing flowers, examining a faded family tree and contemplating the building blocks of life. The cast of non-actors are amazing, and the stunning real-world environment is beautifully captured in a manner that exhibits the environment as a critical character. When Arsin meets Meiyu, a young girl in the village, his perception of the relationship between nature and civilization becomes simultaneously complicated and ethereal, as the filmmakers employ subtle elements of magical realism to portray his evolving emotional and physical understanding of the world. Other world-building elements include a village radio continuously spouting news about oil taxes and burgeoning industry, Arsin’s aloof brother (“uncle”) calling his network of former lovers and friends in Shanghai, and high-angled shots of the village and surrounding landscape. All of these elements create a meditative and enchanting coming-of-age story about how a forgotten pastoral corner of the world still finds ways to embrace our kinship with the natural world.

Screenings (click here for tickets):
– Fri., April 18th, 6:00pm at the Presidio Theatre
– Sat., April 19th, 5:15pm at BAMPFA Continue reading “Film Feature: 68th SFFILM Festival Preview #1”

STERN GROVE LINEUP!!! DIANA ROSS!!! SLEATER-KINNEY!!! ORVILLE PECK!!! WOAH!!!!

Stern Grove just announced its 2025 season, and it’s, well, totally bonkers, as usual. Including your editor-in-chief’s all time favorite band, Sleater-Kinney, East Bay Legends The Pointer Sisters with fellow East Bay Legend, Lyrics Born, Queer Country icon Orville Peck, and many more. OH! And closing out the season is one of the last great rock pioneers, MS DIANA ROSS!!!!

They are also changing things up a bit to help ensure a fair ticket distribution and discourage third party resellers from hogging up the servers. I think it’s smart and opens up to multiple opportunities for fans to score free tickets: Continue reading “STERN GROVE LINEUP!!! DIANA ROSS!!! SLEATER-KINNEY!!! ORVILLE PECK!!! WOAH!!!!”

OUTSIDE LANDS DROPPED IT’S AMAZING 2025 LINE UP

I walked out the door this morning to experience the sun on my face for the first time in what feels like years. This last winter was one of the coldest, dreariest ones in memory. I enjoyed a gentle breeze while serotonin made its first real return to my brain in a while. Then I opened up my phone (a thing that has brought the opposite of joy lately) to see Outside Lands drop its lineup, and now I’ve moved from joyful to glowing!

Highlights include a triple shot of the best live acts in modern hip hop: Tyler, The Creator, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, and Doechii, the unclassifiable Doja Cat, the insane bass stylings of Thundercat, the inventive and brilliant Jorja Smith, and for those looking for a touch of proper nostalgia, there’s Ludacris! Lower on the bill and there are some insane Easter Eggs like Big Freedia & The SF Gay Men’s Chorus, whatever “Vampire Weekend / ” means, the reinvented Rebecca Black, and for those who need a little mosh in their weekend, Oakland’s Destroy Boys are playing as well as the amazing Mannequin Pussy.

Tickets are on sale TOMORROW! Yes, that’s 3/26 at 10 a.m. at SFOutsidelands.com. 3-Day GA tickets start at $499 ALL IN, and Payment Plans start at $99 down. The full lineup is below!

Continue reading “OUTSIDE LANDS DROPPED IT’S AMAZING 2025 LINE UP”

OUTSIDE LANDS EAGER BEAVER TICKETS ON SALE TOMORROW AT 10AM

Once the big festivals start announcing their line ups, I get excited about Outside Lands finally dropping their lineup. Always a little bit more interesting than the rest in the US, and I’ve never had a bad time in the 17 years I’ve been heading to the Golden Gate Park for this shindig. We still have to wait a little longer to learn about the music. The Eager Beaver tickets are always the cheapest way to get in and are on sale tomorrow. Out-the-door (fees included!) prices are Eager Beaver 3-Day GA tickets are $485.05 all in ($425 + $65.05 fees), 3-Day GA+ tickets are $734.55 all in ($665 + $69.55 fees) and 3-Day VIP tickets are $1,045.55 all in ($965 + $80.55 fees) and, for those with deep pockets and enjoy some fancy times, $5,095.55 all in ($4,895 + $200.55 fees) for Golden Gate Club tickets. For that price, you get front-of-stage viewing, access to the golf cart fleet for speedy transit around the site, and food & drinks provided by celebrity chefs Melissa King, Tyler Florence of Miller & Lux, and Dana Younkin & Nancy Oakes of Boulevard!

Tickets on sale at 10am on March 5th! You can find those tickets here! And once you secure those tickets, wedding packages are also available, so you can live your dream of getting married in the beauty of Golden Gate Park, surrounded by 75,000 of your closest friends!

Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the 2025 Oscars

Film critics Carrie and Chad on who will – and who should – win the 97th Academy Awards

The 97th Academy Awards air tomorrow, Sunday, March 2nd, on ABC and Hulu at 4:00 pm PST. As always, your faithful Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann share their predictions and hopes for the major categories. You can follow along and print your own ballot here. Good luck to nominees and Oscar pool participants alike!

Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the 2025 Oscars”

Every Kid Gets An “A” When They Can’t Remember Most of The Music From 2000 and 2001 Like An Amnesiac

The clocks turned to 12, and everything stopped. Yes, it was Y2K (and Kremlin Joe for you Futurama fans) that stopped everything. Y(orke)2k. Nobody cared about any of the music that came out “in the year two thousand” (Conan fans) because we were all on the Radiohead forums discussing what unreleased, once played as an encore, unbelievably interesting and oddly structured because I only heard it on someone’s mixtape that I couldn’t get a copy of, the song was going to be on the next Radiohead record. Just thinking about writing this list, I went a good five minutes before I could even name a record that came out prior to Kid A on 10/2/2000. But that was only half of it! The earth-shattering news on the album’s press release was that it was only part one! They had written so many songs they had enough for two albums! Amnesiac came out some seven months later. Because of that, and maybe because everyone kept saying the new millennium didn’t technically start until 2001, the two years will forever be jumbled in my brain as one, especially when it comes to music.

So, here we are. 11 years after I wrote my list of my favorite albums of 1999 (it was such an experience that I needed more than a decade of restorative meditation), to celebrate the 24th and 23rd anniversaries of both records, it’s time to compile the list of the best albums of 2000 and 2001! Continue reading “Every Kid Gets An “A” When They Can’t Remember Most of The Music From 2000 and 2001 Like An Amnesiac”

Added To Noise Pop: St Vincent! Ben Gibbard! Earl Sweatshirt! David Lynch Tribute!!!

A slew of new shows are on sale tomorrow with Noise Pop, including some huge stars in small places, including at Grace Cathedral: St Vincent on Feb 23rd and Benjamin Gibbard on Feb 25th, Fantastic Negrito at the 4-Star Theater in the Richmond(!), Marc Capelle’s Red Room Orchestra doing a Tribute to David Lynch on Feb 19th, and two nights of Earl Sweatshirt at Great American Music Hall Feb 25th and 26th!

Tickets are onsale tomorrow (Friday, January 24th) at 12 pm. Or you can buy a Noise Pop badge today!

Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2024

It’s been an odd year for movies, partly due to the lasting effects of labor strikes. There are very few masterpieces, and just as few disasters. Instead, 2024 featured a lot of solid 3-3.5 out of 5 star films, a healthy selection of entertaining fare that enabled the theater industry to finish the year far ahead of what many analysts had feared (box office-wise). Well, without further ado, here’s my ranked Top 20 best films of 2024 (and don’t forget to check out Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2024 as well): Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 20 Films of 2024”

Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2024

The end of the year of course means Top 10 lists! Here are my ten favorite films of 2024 (and four honorable mentions). Oscar nominations follow in just a few weeks, on Friday, January 17th. Stay tuned to see if Oscar voters share my thinking. And be sure to also check out fellow SP Film Critic Chad’s Top 20 list here. In the meantime–see you back in the cinema in 2025!

Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2024”

MOSSWOOD MELTDOWN HOLIDAY SPECIAL & FIRST FIVE BANDS

I’m starting to feel a twinge of… Hope? Maybe we can battle the rise of fascism in this country still? And our good friends at Mosswood Meltdown have announced that their first headliner is… DEVO! The only line of defense against the devolution of democracy. Plus, the return of the mighty Kreayshawn and garage titans Osees, The Exploding Hearts, and The Kids, with a LOT more to come! Tickets are on sale NOW!!! Buy early because prices go up!

“Oakland California, November 2024. A town without a Mayor, a D.A., or a major sports team. Our city has lost so much, but we haven’t lost the soul of the people. Here at Oakland CA’s Mosswood Meltdown Music Fest, we celebrate our own heroes. We elect John Waters, the Prince of Puke, to preside over our festivities.

We’ve witnessed De-evolution on a world stage in real-time, so this year, we’ll be hosting the pioneers of De-Evolutionary theory, the legendary art-punk band DEVO from Akron, Ohio, as well as San Francisco legends Osees, The Queen of Oakland, Kreayshawn, Portland’s only Rock n Roll band, The Exploding Hearts, and Bloody Belgium’s The Kids!

In the face of disasters, Oakland, CA, is resilient. Thanks for helping support independent music and arts in our community. “