Category: Films

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: “Master Gardener”

Spending time in this garden is no picnic

Master Gardener Narvel (Joel Edgerton) chats with his boss, Norma (Sigourney Weaver).

If you’re a fan of writer/director Paul Schrader, you’re bound to be disappointed by his newest film. With Master Gardener, the Taxi Driver screenwriter seems to have lost his focus, recycling old themes with no new insights and creating a picture that alternates between gothic camp and heavy-handed tedium.

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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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Film Review: “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret”

Margaret on the big screen was worth the wait

After waiting for a movie for almost 50 years, can it ever live up to expectations? In the case of the film adaptation of Judy Blume’s classic 1970 coming of age novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the answer is a resounding yes. 

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Film Feature: 66th SFFILM Festival Wrap-Up

The 66th SFFilm Festival concludes today, with screenings through this evening. We wrap up our Fest coverage with two final spotlights for you: Here’s a look at a documentary and a feature film that have been playing the film festival circuit, but may receive theatrical distribution.  Continue reading “Film Feature: 66th SFFILM Festival Wrap-Up”

Film Review: “Somewhere in Queens”

Romano, Metcalf anchor stellar directorial debut 

Leo (Ray Romano) and Angela (Laurie Metcalf) are surprised to meet their son’s new girlfriend.

Ray Romano is one of our most underrated dramatic actors. If you know him only from the network sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, you’ve only seen a fraction of what he’s capable of. Check him out in the indies Paddleton or The Big Sick, for which his heartbreakingly honest monologue about infidelity should have netted him a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination. Or better yet: go see him in his outstanding feature film directorial debut Somewhere in Queens, opening today.

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Film Review: “Showing Up”

Reichardt delivers a sharp, funny look at creativity

Sculptor Lizzy (Michelle Williams) prepares pieces for her upcoming gallery show.

 I saw Showing Up one week ago today, and sat down to write this review at 5:00am this morning. Yes, I procrastinated, even though I love to write about movies. But I think writer/director Kelly Reichardt would forgive me and understand my dilemma, as it’s exactly what her newest picture so charmingly explores.

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Film Feature: 66th SFFilm Festival Spotlights

The 66th SFFilm Festival opens tomorrow, Thursday, April 13th, and will run through Sunday, April 23rd. Tomorrow’s opening night premiere – a documentary about Steph Curry — is sold out for advance tickets and at rush (if you want to show up and take your chances), but luckily there’s tons more cool stuff to see over the next week and a half. Here we present just a taste: a look at four upcoming screenings — two documentaries and two narrative features. Continue reading “Film Feature: 66th SFFilm Festival Spotlights”

Film Review: “Air”

Affleck’s basketball shoe tale is a slam dunk

Nike exec Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) meets with Michael Jordan’s mother, Deloris (Viola Davis).

If you love basketball and you want to see an in depth movie about Michael Jordan, watch Netflix’s The Last Dance. But if you love stories about high-stakes gambling, go see Ben Affleck’s Air. What Affleck gives us here isn’t a sports story. It’s a tale about business, and a wonderfully juicy one at that. Air tells the story of how Jordan’s contract with Nike nearly single-handedly transformed the middling Oregon-based company into the world’s greatest apparel empire, thanks to the story’s main characters placing big bets: on Jordan by Sonny Vaccaro, a then little-known Nike marketing executive; on Vacarro by his boss, Nike founder Phil Knight, and on Nike by Jordan’s family, particularly his mother Deloris.

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