Like a bunch of cut scenes without any of that fun video game stuff
Ratchet and Clank star in the movie based on their popular and long lasting video game series.
The Ratchet and Clank series of video games have long contained the best cut scenes and voice acting of any games of their type. From the very first game on the PS2, the strong characterizations and fun action have made for consistently entertaining games with real character arcs for both our main characters and some of the side characters as well. So how do you condense hundreds of hours of story into a 90-minute animated film?
Spinning Platters continues its coverage of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, which is happening NOW through May 5th. Information and tickets are available here.
Here’s a look at three more feature titles…
Assassination Classroom (Japan, 2015, 110 min, Dark Wave)
A scene from Eiichirô Hasumi’s ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM will play at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 – May 5,2016.
This is a bizarre one, ladies and gentlemen! Assassination Classroom is a new Japanese scifi-comedy-drama inspired by a manga series of the same name. The story is as outlandish as it gets, which is a welcome sight when you’re used to the common film festival fare. The plot: A ‘have a nice day’ smiley-faced alien comes to Earth and strikes a deal with the Japanese government that he will teach a middle school class how to assassinate him before graduation, at which point if he’s not assassinated he’ll destroy the planet. Woohoo! The film is filled with interesting socioeconomic commentary, with the alien being a metaphor for… something…I’m just not quite sure and too distracted by the zany, unexpected, unravelling plot to care. And that’s a good thing. Check it out!
Screenings:
Wednesday, April 27th – 10:00pm, Alamo Drafthouse
Tickets for Assassination Classroom available here.
Today, it begins! The San Francisco International Film Festival(SFIFF) runs from today, April 21st through Thursday, May 5th. We’ll continue to bring you spotlights of amazing films at the festival, and cover special events and awards. But allow us to give you one last preview of the program with spotlights on two more features and three excellent short film programs. Full program available here.
Phantom Boy (France/Belgium, 2015, 84 min, Global Visions)
A scene from Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli’s PHANTOM BOY will play at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 – May 5,2016.
From the filmmaking team that brought us 2010’s A Cat in Paris comes another fun, beautifully drawn adventure, Phantom Boy. In the film, a young cancer patient with a unique power to engage in out-of-body excursions teams up with a cop to stop a deranged gangster from taking over New York City. Constantly hilarious, always engaging, and totally charming, this film is an instant crowd-pleaser and should be on the top of everyone’s must-see festival list.
Spinning Platters continues its preview coverage of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, which opens tomorrow, Thursday, April 21st. Information and tickets are available here.
To whet your Fest appetite, here we spotlight two of the Festival’s features and two documentaries.
Five Nights in Maine (USA, 2015, 82 min, Marquee Presentations)
Sherwin (David Oyelowo) and his mother-in-law Lucinda (Dianne Wiest) share a moment at her Maine house.
When an adult dies unexpectedly, whose grief is greater – the surviving spouse, or the surviving parent? Are such comparisons even fair? Such are the heady questions that writer/director Maris Curran explores here, in a picture thematically similar to the recently released Demolition. After his wife Fiona (Hani Furstenberg) dies suddenly in a car crash, city-dweller Sherwin (David Oyelowo) visits Fiona’s terminally ill mother Lucinda (Dianne Wiest) at her isolated house in rural Maine. Though both try to maintain a polite façade with each other as they process their loss, issues of blame, recrimination, and bitterness slowly rise to the surface, forcing the two to confront past and present emotional wounds. A pas de deux between two of today’s best actors set against a stunning backdrop of fall light and foliage, Curran’s film is a flawlessly executed meditation on how we deal with life, loss, and love.
Cheadle is mesmerizing in his seemingly-effortless trading of cinematic duties for this thrilling tale.
Don Cheadle as Miles Davis
If there is only one thing that you learn about jazz, it’s not the instruments that make it up, nor the time that it was most popular, or even the players that were significant in its creation. That one crucial thing is that jazz is an improvisational story being told in musical form; it has its own cast of unreliable narrators who are making up the tale as they go, each twist and turn more intriguing than the last. It is a palette for painting pictures where the hues and overall artistic movement could shift at the drop of a hat. Whether the story is based on the truth, or a marvelous work of fiction, is less important than the journey there, and the anecdotes told along the way are what add the most excitement to it all. It is, therefore, very appropriate to take an approach to creating a biopic about a jazz icon in a style that best reflects the character of the music — a feat undertaken spellbindingly by actor Don Cheadle, who both stars in and directs Miles Ahead, the 2016 tale of musical virtuoso Miles Davis.
The Jungle Book adds incredible visuals to the bare necessities.
The Jungle Book (the book) was written by Rudyard Kipling as a collection of stories in 1894. They featured anthropomorphic animals, with a few of the stories revolving around a young “man cub” named Mowgli. Audiences are probably most familiar with the 1967 Disney animated adaptation — a jolly musical featuring the iconic songs “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You.” With Disney’s recent string of reviving their classic animated films into live action (with a lot of integrated CGI), the aim seems to be to incorporate characteristics of the original written works. In Jon Favreau’s (Elf, Iron Man, Chef) new directorial effort, The Jungle Book does indeed blend the darker aspects of Kipling’s original writings with the playful jubilee of the animated version. Because of this, the shifting tones can be a little off balance. However, The Jungle Book is a thoroughly engrossing adventure, with benchmark visuals and stellar voice work.
It’s that wonderful time of the year, again! Yes, time for the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The 59th edition of SFIFF will be hosting its two week celebration and screenings of incredible cinema from around the globe — April 21 through May 5. Year after year, Spinning Platters is here to provide you with tons of SFIFF coverage before, during, and after the event. Let’s start you off with four spotlights you should check out when SFIFF59 rolls around…
Microbe & Gasoline (France, 2015, 105 min, Global Visions)
A scene from Michel Gondry’s MICROBE AND GASOLINE will play at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 – May 5,2016.
Writer/director Michel Gondry’s newest cinematic entry may be his most charming to date. The whimsical tale of two adolescent friends (nicknamed Microbe and Gasoline) building a mobile tiny house for a chance to roadtrip across France to meet girls and explore the world is everything you’d want it to be — funny, inventive, and entertaining. Gondry’s usual DIY visual panache is less on display — maintaining focus instead on the two young lead characters whose conversations and musings on life transcend audience age groups. You’ll love Microbe & Gasoline!
Vallée’s newest meditation on grief could finally mean Oscar for Gyllenhaal
New friends Karen (Naomi Watts) and Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) find themselves in a tense situation at a function honoring Davis’s recently deceased wife.
How do we process sudden loss? Is there a right or wrong way to grieve, and how can we keep grief from overwhelming us? These are the weighty questions director Jean-Marc Vallée continues to contemplate in his somewhat uneven but emotionally arresting new picture Demolition. While not as strong as either Wild or Dallas Buyers Club, Vallée’s previous two films that explored death and grief, Demolition nonetheless is worth recommending based both on its raw and unique way of depicting the grieving process, and also on the strength of Jake Gyllenhaal’s exceptional performance as a man left shell-shocked by the unexpected death of his wife. Continue reading “Film Review: Demolition“
The Boss gets to a hilarious point, and then avoids it the rest of the way.
Troop Badass.
Melissa McCarthy has been a central figure in the female-led comedic renaissance in modern cinema. 2011’s Bridesmaids kicked off a constant flow of adult comedies featuring female leads, and the results have been great. That isn’t to say that female-led comedies were never produced before, but they were few and far between — about one to every ten male-led adult comedies (a guesstimate). The Boss is the latest entry in the new wave of such films, and while it’s not nearly as funny as others, it gleefully crosses the politically incorrect line on a few occasions while criticizing some of our society’s most antiquated views of women of all ages. And when it does, unfortunately not often enough, it’s hysterical!
Roy (Michael Shannon, l.) will do anything to protect his very special son Alton (Jaeden Lieberher).
Writer/director Jeff Nichols (Mud, Take Shelter, Shotgun Stories) continues his collaboration with the terrific actor Michael Shannon to great effect in his utterly engaging new science fiction film Midnight Special. Unlike another film by a well known writer/director that opened today, Nichols’s film grips you from its opening minute and keeps you enraptured for its nearly two hour run time. A film that pays homage to others of its genre while still managing to be totally unique, Midnight Special is well worth your box office dollars. Continue reading “Film Review: Midnight Special”
