Films – Page 23 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Beautiful Boy

Break out the tissue: Carell and Chalamet are superb in wrenching addiction drama

David (Steve Carell, r.) comforts his struggling son Nic (Timothée Chalamet).

Screenwriter Luke Davies knows a thing or two about writing tearjerkers — his adapted screenplay for the missing boy drama Lion was nominated for an Oscar last year — so it’s no surprise that his follow up is equally adept at pulling the heartstrings. Also based on a true story, Beautiful Boy is a gut-wrenching portrait of a son’s battle with addiction and his father’s unwavering quest to help him. With Oscar nominees Steve Carell (Foxcatcher) and Timothée Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name) as the father and son, respectively, Belgian director Felix Van Groeningen scored in the talent department, and it’s hard to imagine two other actors doing justice to the roles. Continue reading “Film Review: Beautiful Boy“

Film Review: The Oath

Happy Thanksgiving? Not this year

Chris Powell (Ike Barinholtz, center) and his wife Kai (Tiffany Haddish, top r.) preside over a very tense family Thanksgiving.

Comedian Ike Barinholtz (best known as Nurse Morgan on The Mindy Project) makes his big screen writing and directing debut with The Oath, a very timely, very funny, yet very dark comedy in which he also stars. A razor sharp take on today’s charged political climate, Barinholtz’s pointed comedy resembles Jordan Peele’s (a producer here) Get Out in terms of its satiric edge. While some viewers may find the satire a little too grim, Barinholtz has definitely made a think piece worth talking about, and for that reason, his film is worth a look. Continue reading “Film Review: The Oath“

Film Review: Bad Times at the El Royale

Bad times at this hotel make for good times at the cinema

A disparate trio of guests (from l., Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, and Cynthia Ervio) wait to check in to Lake Tahoe’s El Royale hotel.

Mad Men fans still mourning the end of that show have reason to rejoice: Jon Hamm revisits the late ‘60s in Bad Times at the El Royale, a period noir mystery that has stylistic echoes of Matthew Weiner’s acclaimed series. Imagine if Don Draper were a southern appliance salesman (still with a deep secret, of course) instead of a New York ad man, and you’ve got a sense of Hamm’s role here. But Hamm’s return to a 1969 persona is just one small reason to see this well-crafted and well-acted thriller, which has retro style and clever twists to spare.

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Film Review: A Star is Born

Lady Gaga, not Cooper’s debut film, is the real Star here

Mega star Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) and up-and-coming singer Ally (Lady Gaga) bond over songwriting.

What do the years 1937, 1954, and 1976 have in common with 2018? They, too, all had versions of the film A Star is Born playing in cinemas. Whether or not the movie-going public really needs a third remake of the 1937 original is up for debate (the ’54 and ’76 versions famously starred Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand, respectively), but actor Bradley Cooper apparently felt strongly that 2018 is the right moment for another try. He makes his writing and directing debut here, directing himself in a modern version of the classic story that, while showcasing the incredible talent of his co-star Lady Gaga, brings nothing fresh or extraordinary to the well-worn tale.

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Film Review: Love, Gilda

A life, in comedic terms

In a mid ’70s comedy and TV landscape forever changed by Saturday Night Live, the Not Ready for Prime Time players seemed to effortlessly grow from goofy kids to global celebrities. The names read now like a Founding Fathers of Comedy: John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Jane Curtin. Lost in that heady group was Gilda Radner, who initially struggled to be one of the boys, then found her footing with a number of memorable recurring characters.

The new film Love, Gilda clumsily attempts to make a number of points about comedy, stardom, women in show business, and the corrosive effect of being compared to her castmates. It misses a chance to help us understand Radner not as a pioneer, but as a flawed woman who for some years found comfort in her comedic talents. Continue reading “Film Review: Love, Gilda“

Film Review: Life Itself

Your life itself deserves better than this trite, facile disaster

Abby (Olivia Wilde) and Will (Oscar Isaac) are so very much in love. Too bad they’re in a Dan Fogelman drama.

I’m trying to come up with one kind thing to say about Life Itself, the new movie from writer/director Dan Fogelman, creator of television’s weep-inducing phenom This is Us, and all I can come up with is, boy, Oscar Isaac sure is nice to look at. When one of the film’s characters proclaims outright, “This is some deep philosophical shit,” you know you’re in trouble. Fogelman commits the cardinal screenwriting sin of telling (and over and over and over, mind you) rather than showing, and the result is a cringe-inducing, treacly, overwrought mess of a picture that even This is Us fans will do well to avoid.

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Film Review: A Simple Favor

Feig’s Favor to you: A twisty, stylish picture with a sly sense of humor

Suburban moms Stephanie (Anna Kendrick, l.) and Emily (Blake Lively) become fast friends over martinis.

“Secrets are like margarine: easy to spread; bad for the heart,” muses perky mommy vlogger Stephanie (Anna Kendrick) in director Paul Feig’s new film A Simple Favor, and does that ever prove to be a prophetic understatement. Feig, best known for helming the comedies Bridesmaids and The Heat, brings a breezy, stylized light touch to the film adaptation of Darcey Bell’s 2017 debut mystery thriller of the same name. The result is a mostly successful mash up of black comedy and icy noir that, despite similarities to better films, still manages to be a wickedly fun good time.

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Film Review: Juliet, Naked

It’s only rock and roll, but I like it

Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke in JULIET, NAKED. Photo credit: Alex Bailey. Courtesy of Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions — Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke star in Juliet, Naked.

What fun it is to have heroes who live perfect romantic lives in our imaginations. How satisfying is it to cherry-pick snippets of their lives, served to us on podcasts or through fawning interview pieces, which invite us to a front row seat to learn of their creative process, or the inspirations that led them to their best works, works which come to us like a pristine seashell discovered on a summertime beach.

We willfully crowd-out hazy moments of doubt, when we wonder about what it must have been like to live with, or love, or even just share extended lengths of time with our heroes. It’s too easy to drift lazily back to the film, or the novel, or the album, and back to our mental fanboy scrapbook.

Juliet, Naked, the implausible but devastatingly charming new film from Jesse Peretz, efficiently manages to show us the artist as both outwardly alluring and inwardly shattered, and sketches a portrait that convinces us to have sympathy for how the creative life can leave so much wreckage, and so many casualties, and yet produce compelling beauty and truth. Continue reading “Film Review: Juliet, Naked“

Film Review: The Wife

Close’s powerhouse performance elevates marital melodrama

Joan (Glenn Close) reacts as her husband Joe (Jonathan Pryce) receives some good news.

What sacrifices are acceptable for the sake of art? For marriage? Swedish director Björn Runge explores these questions in his new film The Wife, which, if nothing else, may become the film most remembered for netting six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close her first Oscar. Close’s performance is the best reason to see the picture, which manages to thoughtfully present serious themes while teetering on the edge of melodrama.

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Film Review: We the Animals

Where the wild things draw

Racing, clawing, screaming, drumming, dreaming their way through an impoverished childhood are three young boys at the center of Jeremiah Zagar’s heartfelt but lacking film We the Animals.

Based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Justin Torres, Zagar’s film locates its heart, its head, and its attitude squarely with Jonah, played by Evan Rosado. As the youngest of three boys, Jonah prefers drawing to fighting, and dreaming to adolescent scheming. In upstate New York, where Jonah and his brothers play out their childhoods, dangerous overpasses become impromptu playgrounds, and wild runs through the woods can take up whole afternoons. TV, video games, even radios are nowhere to be found. These are semi-feral boys left to their own devices for long periods of time.

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