Films – Page 39 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Bad Moms

**The moms may be Bad, but their film has its moments**

Exhausted and overextended moms Amy (Mila Kunis, l.), Kiki (Kristen Bell), and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) decide to cut loose.

A few weeks ago, we learned that Mike and Dave need wedding dates, and now today, in Bad Moms, we find that some stressed out moms need to cut loose. In the summer’s second booze-soaked, raunchy-but-sweet comedy to open this month, Josh Lucas and Scott Moore, the co-writers of the Hangover trilogy, also pick up the director’s reins to bring us this similarly over-the-top, often very funny film that has a lot of predictable heart under its R-rated laughs.
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Show Review: Ratatouille—Feature Film with Live Orchestra

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.” -Anton Ego, Ratatouille

There will be no negative criticism here. Ratatouille live at the San Francisco Symphony was absolutely wonderful, highlighting both the magnificent award-winning score by Michael Giacchino and the brilliant animated masterpiece that is Brad Bird’s 2007 Pixar film. Audience members of all ages, including many families, entered Davies Symphony Hall over the weekend to watch Ratatouille. The SF Symphony has delivered numerous memorable film screenings accompanied by live scores, and this one sits near the top.

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Show Review: Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage: A 50th Anniversary Celebration

Starfleet uniforms everywhere, a few Klingons posed for pictures, and ‘live long and prosper’ hand signals were shared — yes, the crowds gathered in Davies Symphony Hall last Thursday and Friday for the CineConcerts produced performance of Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage: A 50th Anniversary Celebration. Fifty years ago, Gene Roddenberry’s incredible contribution to science fiction came to life in the form of Captain Kirk and crew on the starship Enterprise. Since 1966, Star Trek has taken on many forms of media — tv series, video games, feature films, books, and so on. These performances are as much a celebration of the progressive themes and groundbreaking stances in Star Trek as they are of the sense of human existence and exploration, and perseverance, that permeates through every incarnation of the original stories. Oh, yes, and a celebration of the music!

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Film Review: Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters panders then panders some more, and only delivers when embracing its own originality.

Mighty ghostbustin' foursome. — Mighty ghostbustin’ foursome.

It’s obvious, or maybe just to me, that director/writer Paul Feig was under serious pressure to cater his entire effort in relauching Ghostbusters to the fans of the original films. Possibly due to the stupid backlash against the production for casting four women in the lead roles, and for the sake of protecting a cherished 80s title, Feig decided to include an unfathomable amount of shout-outs, throwbacks, and cameos alluding to the original Ghostbusters films. The cast, and Feig, are incredibly talented. The best moments of the new Ghostbusters film happen when the original 80’s films are out of its sights, and instead, it embraces the comedic timing and inventive action that the actors and director are each capable of, respectively.

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Film Review: Seoul Searching

Charming picture captures the heart and Seoul of the best of John Hughes

The film’s publicity still (used on the movie poster) lets us know it’s Breakfast Club, Korean-style.

“Don’t you forget about me,” Simple Minds implored us in John Hughes’s 1985 coming of age classic The Breakfast Club. Korean-American writer/director Benson Lee makes sure that doesn’t happen in his new 1986-set similar film Seoul Searching. Less a blatant rip off of the original and more of an unapologetic and utterly affectionate homage, Lee pays tribute to the Hughes films of his youth while bringing a unique, fresh, and charming perspective to the genre.
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Spinning Platters Interview: Sarah Hicks, Ratatouille Feature Film with Live Orchestra

This upcoming weekend, July 16-17, the San Francisco Symphony will screen Pixar’s Oscar-winning film, Ratatouille, with the score performed live. Conducting the orchestra will be none other than the amazingly accomplished SF Symphony regular, Sarah Hicks. Sarah was gracious enough to answer some questions about her own musical tastes, as well as her special love of Pixar films…

Spinning Platters: My excitement for the Ratatouille show is growing, since it’s my favorite Pixar film. A popular dinner party question is ‘what’s your favorite Pixar film?’ So, do you have a favorite Pixar film?

Sarah Hicks: Oh, I can’t really choose because I love them all! That being said, I have to admit that the ones I keep going back to are Monsters, Inc., Up and Ratatouille.

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Show Review: The Music of John Williams—from Star Wars to Harry Potter!

As you can see from the image above, this wasn’t your average night at the symphony. On Thursday, the San Francisco Symphony honored legendary film composer John Williams with a program full of his iconic, award-winning scores. From fantasy epics like Star Wars and Harry Potter, to memorable dramas like Schindler’s List and Lincoln, John Williams has put a musical stamp on well over 100 films, and is still writing amazing scores to this day, at age 84.

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Film Review: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

Winning cast brings solid laughs to predictable picture

Mike (Adam Devine, l.) and Dave (Zac Efron, r.) are aghast after being chastised by their parents for their boorish behavior at family events.

Back in the pre-Internet days, an old creative writing teaching technique used to be to have students read the classifieds and generate a short story based on gems they found there. Screenwriters Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien obviously understand the imaginative gold of such an assignment, since, for their post-Neighbors 1 and 2 screenplay, they’ve turned an actual Craigslist ad into the decently funny picture Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. Directed by TV comedy director Jake Szymanski in his first feature film foray, Mike and Dave is neither no more nor no less than what you’d expect from a raunchy-but-sweet summer comedy.
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Film Review: The Secret Life of Pets

Animals run amok in wild, messy, manic children’s film.

I don’t really know what the point of The Secret Life of Pets was, but I know that children will love the film. The simple Toy Story-esque premise of ‘what do x do while people are gone’ (in this case where x are pets) is amusing for the first five to ten minutes of the film, but it quickly spins out of control. The story devolves into an adventure featuring an assortment of animal varieties, of few of which are very rarely legally allowed as pets. The aforementioned adventure is wonderfully animated and truly manic, but the gimmicky premise fades fast and the rest is a hyperactive mess with lots of humorous bits and not a lot of heart. Not like any children will care, though, since they’ll be fully satiated by the maniacally laughing psycho bunny, voiced by Kevin Hart.

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Film Review: The BFG

BFG delivers the magic, the humor, and the 3D.

Sophie and The BFG soak up the 3D rendered beauty. — Sophie and The BFG soak up the computer generated beauty.

There was a moment while watching The BFG that I snapped ever-so-briefly out of my trance and realized that I had been fully swept up in the magical atmosphere that Steven Spielberg had created in his cinematic adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic children’s story. It’s not often that I become immersed in a movie. Or rather, it’s not often that a movie can effectively invite me to get immersed in it. The BFG is one of the few. It’s not a perfect movie — it falls just shy from delivering a rewarding emotional peak and contains some moments of directionless storytelling. However, from an entertainment standpoint, The BFG is like a wondrous and inventive bedtime story. It’s a truly magical family-friendly film from start to finish.

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