Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Spinning Platters completes its coverage of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival with this third and final Spotlights post, focusing on six documentaries that screened at the Park City fest. Keep your eye out for many of these as they are widely released this coming year, and use our handy Sundance Viewing Priority Level (VPL) Guide to help you decide if they are worth your time:
Continue reading “Film Feature: Sundance Film Festival Spotlights #3”
When Casino Royale was being advertised a few years ago, the tagline often being used was “This is not your father’s James Bond.” Kingsman: The Secret Service is directed by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men First Class, Layer Cake, Kick Ass), who was under consideration for directing the James Bond reboot. This, then, is possibly a preview of what we might have seen from a James Bond film. But while it takes the basic framework of a classic spy thriller, the execution is much, much more.
Continue reading “Film Review: Kingsman: The Secret Service”
I sort of feel sorry for Francine Maisler, the casting director of Fifty Shades of Grey. Francine was given an impossible task — to cast the role of Christian Grey with an actor whose every physical characteristic would accurately reflect the subjective sexual fantasies of millions of female (and male) readers. 100 million, to be more exact. Once a Grey was found, the rest should’ve fallen more easily into place. To the filmmakers credit, and to Maisler’s, the casting job is almost as good as it could’ve been. Jamie Dornan makes for a sexy steely-eyed (see what I did there?) Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson makes for a very strong pretty-yet-plain Anastasia Steele. Oh, but there’s one problem…they have to have great chemistry together in order to pull it off. Oops. Fifty Shades of Grey is not as bad as you may think or hope, and if you’re brave enough to refrain from poking fun of it to look cool, it’s not hard to notice some strong cinematic merits and a strong yet simply central plot with a lot of interesting potential. Sadly, the lack of actor chemistry and the screenwriter’s loyalty to the book’s popularity sours the overall impact of the film, which, despite its effectiveness in pushing the boundaries of sex in a rated R film, should’ve had a stronger impact.
The Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, closed last Sunday, February 1st, and the award winners were announced that day; they can be found here.
Spinning Platters Sr. Film Reviewer Carrie Kahn continues her coverage of Festival films, so you can know what to look for in the coming year – and what to avoid – as many of these titles are purchased and widely distributed
As a reminder, we are using our patented Viewing Priority Level (VPL) Guide to advise you accordingly:
Continue reading “Film Feature: Sundance Film Festival Spotlights #2”
When a movie is supposed to be released in February, you worry a bit about the quality. The best movies don’t usually come out in the dumping grounds of January and February. When a movie is supposed to come out in February of 2013, but is finally released in February of 2015, that’s a big worry. The best movies usually don’t sit on the shelf for two years. But anyone seeing the trailer or the story of Seventh Son isn’t expecting much more than some tight world building, clever and maybe funny dialog, and some cool special effects set pieces. On those counts, how does Seventh Son deliver?
There’s a line in Jupiter Ascending where a former alien soldier stationed on Earth tells a newly-discovered woman of royalty, “Bees don’t lie.” With or without context, you should get a sense of how ridiculous this sounds, because it is. Completely. Ridiculous. Jupiter Ascending, from the Wachowskis, whose credibility is descending rapidly, is a silly overwrought mess. Too much is packed into too complex a premise. The tone shifts back and forth between silly and serious, imaginative and derivative, from The Fifth Element to Dune (minus the intelligence). When a movie gets pushed from a summer tentpole position (May-July) to the cinema graveyard shift (January-February), it’s obvious that something is wrong. In the case of Jupiter Ascending, it has all the makings of a sci fi summer blockbuster, but fails to execute on all fronts aside from some nifty special effects that look quite pretty.
About halfway through Black Sea I realized that I wasn’t breathing. It was a scene in which a few members of the submarine crew exit into the blackness of the ocean floor, and the claustrophobic intensity got the best of me. I had to take a moment to inhale and exhale and remind myself that it’s just a film, and soon after I was sucked back into it. Kevin Macdonald’s Black Sea is not just a deep sea treasure hunt that entertains with its thrills. The film sinks in deeper intellectually by the way it weaves in post-war sentiments, economic tensions, and the battle between war-torn human nature versus basic human values. Black Sea is the best submarine film released in many years, and one of the tightest thrillers in recent memory.
Braving the chill, the dry air, and the self-importance of the L.A. film industry folks who don’t turn off their cell phones during screenings, Senior Film Reviewer Carrie Kahn brings you these first spotlights (more to follow) from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, which closes this Sunday, February 1st.
From the good, the mediocre, to the downright horrific, some of these films may receive distribution deals and be widely released in the coming year. Lucky for you, we here at Spinning Platters are ready and willing to let you know which films to see and which to miss. We’ll start with five feature films, and our handy Viewing Priority Level (VPL) Guide will steer you in the right direction. Continue reading “Film Feature: Sundance Film Festival Spotlights #1”
At one point in time, Natasha Lyonne was a cult icon that did quirky, low budget indie films. Then, something strange happened. A little TV show about life in a women’s prison became one of the most popular shows on TV, bringing Lyonne up from cult icon to bonafide star. Sketchfest, by some force of magic, was able to get this big star to come to SF and slum it with us for an evening, discussing a film that’s nearly 20 years old.
Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac were overlooked during yesterday’s Oscar nominations, which is a bit disheartening, since they both give tremendous performances in writer/director J.C. Chandor’s newest film, A Most Violent Year (which opened in New York and L.A. in December, making it eligible for this year’s Oscars). Chandor, whose previous pictures include the pulse-quickening, terrific Margin Call and last year’s lost-at-sea thriller All is Lost, is a master at pulling his audience into a visceral time and place, and his skill remains exceptionally sharp, as evidenced here in his latest film.