Films – Page 22 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Judy

Zellweger may find Oscar gold waiting at the end of her rainbow

Judy (Renée Zellweger) belts out The Trolley Song to an adoring crowd in 1968 London.

Remember the controversy back in 2013 because a bunch of Australians had dominated the new screen adaptation of The Great Gatsby, that most quintessential of American stories? Fast forward six years, and now we’ve got Brits helming a new biopic of one of America’s most beloved — and troubled — stars, Judy Garland. Fortunately, Judy fares a bit better than Gatsby, thanks in large part to a dazzling performance by Renée Zellweger in the title role.

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Film Review: Ad Astra

Occasional fits of brilliance keep us wondering what could have been

Brad Pitt, seen here not actually podcasting, but starring in James Gray’s Ad Astra.

At the top of many published lists of anticipated films for 2019 was James Gray’s Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt as an astronaut sent out into space to solve a mystery involving his father (Tommy Lee Jones), who had been a legendary astronaut himself before disappearing years ago while commanding a mission to the outer reaches of the solar system. Coming from respected director James Gray with a stellar cast and crew, many were dismayed when the movie was delayed, supposedly to work on “visual effects.” Is this the case, or were the more nefarious “studio notes” in play?

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Film Review: The Goldfinch

Acting, cinematography are highlights of imperfect adaptation of Tartt’s famed novel

Cinematographer Roger Deakins captures the desert at dusk as Las Vegas transplants Theo (Oakes Fegley, l.) and Boris (Finn Wolfhard) become friends.

As a film critic, I try to ignore early buzz on films I’m going to review so I can form my own unbiased opinion when I see the picture. But this month, it was hard to ignore the vitriol that poured on to social media after The Goldfinch premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; hate for the movie was prolific and fierce. So, naturally, going into Monday’s reviewer screening, I was apprehensive: could the picture really be as bad as all that!? I’m here to tell you that, thankfully, it is not. Is it the year’s best film? Far from it, but it’s not nearly as awful as Twitter would have you believe. If you’re a cinema fan — and/or a fan of Donna Tartt’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning novel on which the film is based — you will find enough here to keep you interested.

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Film Review: Brittany Runs a Marathon

Bell is a winner in charmer of a tale about perseverance and acceptance

Brittany (Jillian Bell) begins to think she needs to make some life changes.

The saying goes that a journey begins with a single step, and there’s no one that’s truer for than Brittany, the heroine of the new dramedy Brittany Runs a Marathon. Jillian Bell, who plays Brittany, gives us a refreshingly complicated character who we alternately root for and are dismayed by, though we always empathize with her. With his first feature film, writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo has made a well-crafted tale about conquering your fears, achieving your goals, and never giving up on your dreams that somehow doesn’t feel corny or contrived, but only honest, smart, and funny.

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Film Review: The Peanut Butter Falcon

Twain-esque fairy tale strains credulity, but yields some rewards

Mark Twain, redux: Our heroes (from l.: Dakota Johnson, Zack Gottsagen, and Shia LaBeouf) make their escape on a raft.

Your enjoyment of The Peanut Butter Falcon will depend largely on your ability to suspend disbelief and wholeheartedly embrace its fairy tale quality. If you can do that, you’re in for a sweet, feel-good treat, but, if, like me, you’re too cynical to ignore its myriad of coincidences and convenient plot turns, you may find yourself distanced from the story, unable to completely immerse yourself in its picaresque adventure.

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Film Review: Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood

A tarnished Golden State, and overripe fruit

Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) in Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood — Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) are cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

Let’s face it, we all want another Pulp Fiction. We all remember, either on opening night (me!), a bit later, or maybe way later through a TV the way we felt during, and right after, living through that unique moment in American cinema. How did Quentin Tarantino get away with gangsters talking about the Royale with cheese? Is that really John Travolta? Can we like him again? Did we just see Christopher Walken pop off a two-minute monologue about hiding family heirlooms in anal cavities? And wait, how could the middle of the story happen at the end of the film? Yep, we all remember, and let’s also face it that we’ve been waiting, WANTING another Pulp Fiction ever since. We should just stop with all that, because Tarantino’s ninth film, the excellent Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood proves, finally and triumphantly, that all the peculiar elements of his films can come together gracefully to create a dissimilar but still profoundly satisfying cinematic experience.

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Film Review: Midsommar

Summertime… and the living is… in doubt

Ari Aster's film Midsommar — Travelers arrive at the village of the Harga.

We all look to the light for safety, for warmth, for life. Filmmakers use light to communicate safety or victory, and definitely health. In almost every hospital scene, convalescing characters lie in a bed, tucked safely in sheets, looking out to friends and family, as if to say, “whew … I made it. I’m alive. I’m here,” Hospital sets usually include rejuvenating daytime light cascading in from expansive windows.

All the more impressive, then, that Ari Aster’s ambitious, perplexing, unrelenting film Midsommar uses, abuses, and undermines light, to prove that dread can build in any season, horror respects no clock, and terror can strike on the brightest of sunshiny days.

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Film Review: Yesterday

I believe in Yesterday: It’s a must-see

Newly minted rock star Jack (Himesh Patel) isn’t sure what to make of the marketing campaign for his album.

The “alternate fiction” genre has grown in popularity in recent years, with books, movies, and TV shows positing questions like, “What if Hitler had never been born?” or “What if JFK hadn’t been shot?” as starting points for fresh and creative stories. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriters Jack Barth and Richard Curtis throw their hat into the ring with Yesterday, a movie that asks, “What if only one person on earth knew who the Beatles were?” The filmmakers have great fun answering the question, but, make no mistake: this is no sci-fi film. What Boyle has given us here is an old-fashioned romantic comedy — and an exceptionally charming one at that — just wrapped in a unique narrative package.

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Film Review: The Last Black Man in San Francisco

Contemplative, timely film considers a changing SF

Jimmie (Jimmie Fails, r.) and his friend Mont (Jonathan Majors) reclaim Jimmie’s childhood home.

Opening on the heels of two recent, widely criticized national pieces bashing the “new” San Francisco in the New Yorker and the Washington Post, writer/director Joe Talbot’s first feature film, The Last Black Man in San Francisco, couldn’t be timelier. But Talbot has the advantage over those much dismissed east coast writers: he’s a San Francisco native (fifth generation, no less), and, as his film’s protagonist declares about our fair city by the Bay, “You don’t get to hate it unless you love it.” Continue reading “Film Review: The Last Black Man in San Francisco“

Film Review: Rocketman

Overstuffed effort … but worthwhile viewing

Taron Egerton as Elton John at Dodger Stadium in 1975

There are any number of Elton John lyrics that would fit nicely here, to start this review of Rocketman. You’re thinking of them now. You know you are. There are so many. How do you choose? You’re also picturing the former Reginald Dwight, festooned in iridescence and bedecked in enough feathers to set off hundreds of allergic reactions, enough sequins to blind at 100 yards. And now that you’re thinking about Elton, you’re tripping back over the bio and musical highlights: Big ’70s rock star, years of excess, late ’80s resurgence, recent marriage and fatherhood, late-career comparisons to Tom Jones or maybe Van Morrison.

Great, you think, but how, you ask, does all that get stuffed into a two-hour long mainstream movie? Great question!

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