Films – Page 26 – Spinning Platters

Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #2

Make time for these three great documentaries at the 61st San Francisco International Film Festival

1.) Carcasse
(Iceland/France 2016, 61 min. Vanguard)

Faraway lands and anthropologic impulses lured filmmaker Gústav Geir Bollason to the subject of how we adapt the 21st century’s material bounty to the timeless problems of survival. Drawing heavily from Robert Flaherty and Basil Wright, Bollason is fascinated with the ways in which we repurpose the consumerist world to adapt quite nicely in the survivalist one. Aircraft fuselages become shelters for lamb flocks. Volkswagen bodies become boat bridges. Compact car bodies become horse drawn buggies. Flaherty showed how the Inuk bent nature to tame nature. Bollason shows both the pervasive nature of modern material culture, and our ingenuity at bending it our needs. Plays with the short The Art of Flying (Jan van Ijken, Netherlands 2015, 7 min).

Screenings (tickets available here):
— Saturday, April 14th, 3:15pm, YBCA Screening Room
— Sunday, April 15, 2018, 8:00pm, YBCA Screening Room

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Film Review: Blockers

Don’t let anyone Block you from seeing this smart, funny comedy

Parents Mitchell (John Cena, l.), Lisa (Leslie Mann), and Hunter (Ike Barinholtz) try to figure out what their daughters are up to on prom night.

The teen sex comedy is given a refreshing update in Blockers, director Kay Cannon’s feature film directorial debut. Cannon, an actress and screenwriter best known for the Pitch Perfect series, brings a welcome feminine touch to a genre that’s typically directed by men, for a teenage boy audience (e.g., American Pie). Here, though, working from a script by brothers Brian and Jim Kehoe, Cannon’s focus is a trio of teen girls, friends since kindergarten, and their somewhat hastily made pact to lose their virginity on prom night. That the trio’s well intentioned but clueless parents set out to stop them (hence the film’s title) brings a layer of fun to the proceedings that widens the film’s audience from rebellious teens to adults, who may find themselves alternatively relating to the girls or the parents at any given moment. Continue reading “Film Review: Blockers“

Film Feature: SFFILM 2018 Festival Spotlights #1

61st annual San Francisco International Film Festival opens this Wednesday, April 4th

The 61st annual San Francisco International Film Festival begins this Wednesday, April 4th, and will run almost two weeks, until Thursday, April 17th. This year’s Festival features 186 films from over 40 countries, and will include eight world premieres, five North American premieres, and six U.S. premieres. Of special note is that over a third of this year’s selected films are directed by women. Tickets and more information about films and programs can be found here.

To help you plan your Fest schedule, we’ll start you off here with five Festival film spotlights (three narrative features and two documentaries). And be sure to bookmark Spinning Platters and check back frequently, as we’ll have more coverage throughout the Festival.

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Film Review: Ready Player One

Reality is a bummer, and so is this movie

Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) enters the Oasis via his virtual reality gear.

Let me start this review with a caveat, since I know there are a lot of die hard fans out there of Ernest Cline’s 2011 sci-fi book Ready Player One, on which director Steven Spielberg’s new movie is based: I have not read the book. So if you’re looking for a detailed synopsis of how the movie is different from the book, you may as well click off Spinning Platters right now and search for a different review. That said, however, I did attend the screening with a friend who had read the book, and he let me know that much of the film’s plot differs dramatically from Cline’s story; he also opined that he thought a lot of the book’s charm was lost on screen. But that’s where I come in: to discuss a.) what, exactly, is on screen; and b.) to tell you if it’s worth your time and money. And the short answers are: a.) not much of interest, and b.) no.
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Film Review: Isle of Dogs

Anderson’s new film stumbles

From l-r: Bryan Cranston as Chief, Bob Balaban as King, Koyu Rankin as Atari Kobayashi, Bill Murray as Boss, Edward Norton as Rex, and Jeff Goldblum as Duke.

Early in Isle of Dogs, Wes Anderson’s ninth feature film, the troubled but resolute stray dog Chief (Bryan Cranston) exhorts his pack to persevere despite extreme difficulties. “You’re Rex,” he says to Rex (Edward Norton). “You’re King,” he reminds King (Bob Balaban). “You’re Duke,” he cajoles Duke (Jeff Goldblum): “We’re a pack of scary, indestructible alpha dogs.” We the audience are now helplessly under their sway, and will follow them through this film anywhere.

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Film Review: Unsane

Soderbergh’s psych ward horror pic commits to mediocrity

Unwittingly committed to a psychiatric hospital, Sawyer (Claire Foy) tries in vain to leave.

Director Steven Soderbergh, whose much anticipated Logan Lucky last year ended up being a disappointment, continues his losing streak with his new film Unsane, a schlocky, run of the mill horror film that feels like the work of a first year film student, not a prolific and award winning director. Shot entirely on an iPhone 7Plus, the picture looks low budget and unpolished, although the grainy, shaky aesthetic in some sense works for the pulpy story. Too bad nothing else does, though; instead, we are treated to an interminable 97 minutes of Soderbergh trying to be a hip experimentalist. Continue reading “Film Review: Unsane“

Film Review: Love, Simon

You’ll love Simon, and his movie, too

High school senior Simon (Nick Robinson) has a secret.

“I’m done living in a world where I don’t get to be who I am. I deserve a great love story, and I want someone to share it with,” so declares high school senior Simon Spier, in Love, Simon, the new teen romance that bears his name, and, of course, he’s right. It took until 2018 for a major studio (in this case, 20th Century Fox) to release a picture about a gay teen romance, but the wait was worth it. Charming and authentic, Love, Simon takes the John Hughes era teen film template and updates it into something fresh, funny, smart, and much, much more inclusive.
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Interview: Director Cory Finley and Actress Anya Taylor-Joy on Thoroughbreds

Olivia Cooke and Anya Taylor-Joy play a kind of chess in Thoroughbreds, Cory Finley’s new film.

Cory Finley’s debut feature, Thoroughbreds, has many signs that point to a promising career in film. His dialogue is often whip-smart, crackling along at a fast pace. He has scenes of incredible tension realized in interestingly new yet classic style. He’s got a knack for casting, and clearly has a way with actors, as his small ensemble performs the heck out of the material. There’s so much to like about this movie, yet it left me with so many questions about its history and its themes. Lucky for me, director Cory Finley and star Anya Taylor-Joy were in town to talk about the film, and I was able to sit down with them to discuss this fun and tense film.

SP: When I saw this film, I had no idea it was based on a play, and then I watched it and talked to my friend, and I said, “I think that was based on a play.” I think there were two things that stood out. One is sort of just the conservation of characters. I was really surprised that we met the moms at all. I thought that we were going to get through the whole film without the moms. Were the moms in the play? Continue reading “Interview: Director Cory Finley and Actress Anya Taylor-Joy on Thoroughbreds“

Film Review: A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle for our Time: DuVernay’s adaptation worth the wait

Calvin (Levi Miller, l.), Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), and Meg (Storm Reid) face danger and confusion on the erie planet Camazotz.

If you’re going to go see A Wrinkle in Time, director Ava DuVernay’s new Disney big budget adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic 1962 young adult novel — and I absolutely think you should — there is one thing you should keep in mind: this movie is not meant for you, dear adult Spinning Platters reader. This movie is for the tween and teen set, whose imaginations haven’t yet been curdled by cynicism, and who want — and need — to be swept away by the adventure and spectacle of a story that will reassure them that they are brave, smart, kind, and worthy of love and acceptance. That’s a powerful message, and DuVernay’s new film delivers it with exactly the kind of spirited fun and genuine emotion that kids love, but jaded adults may scorn. And that’s a shame.
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Noise Pop Review:Too Much Johnson and Oddsac

Too much Johnson in my Oddsac

Joseph Cotton shows absolutely no respect for his suit.

Let me say right here, at the outset of this double review, that I had no intention of deliberately pairing Too Much Johnson and Oddsac together for any comedic purposes. Yes, it’s very easy to “put too much Johnson into the oddsac” or snickeringly flippant to say something like “too much Johnson, the story of oddsac’s life.” Nope, not having it. You can’t pin it on me. Sure, accuse me of being wildly naive, but when I looked through the film offerings when the Noisepop 2018 schedule was released, I picked these two purely for what I thought was their cinematic possibilities. Too bad the best things about these two offerings are the many jokes that can be made from their titles.

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