Films – Page 65 – Spinning Platters

Film Review: Diana

Diana loves Hasnat, and we don’t care

Diana just wants to lie around with her hunky heart surgeon b.f. in Oliver Hirschbiegel’s Diana.

German director Oliver Hirschbiegel has made a puzzling contribution to the oeuvre of films about Diana, the late Princess of Wales. His new film, simply titled Diana, is very narrowly focused. Set during the last two years of Diana’s life, the picture highlights Diana’s (Naomi Watts) relationship with a London-based Pakistani heart surgeon, Dr. Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews). Hirschbiegel directed 2004’s critically acclaimed Downfall, so this misstep is both surprising and disappointing. The picture plays like a made-for-TV movie (appropriate perhaps for Lifetime), and does nothing to make the viewer remember Diana with any fondness or respect. Continue reading “Film Review: Diana”

Film Review: Blue is the Warmest Color

On screen drama outshines off screen soap opera

Adele (Adele Exarchopoulos) and Emma (Lea Seydoux) begin their new relationship with a kiss in Blue is the Warmest Color.

Much has been made in the press already about Blue is the Warmest Color, the three-hour French film that won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The film gained notice immediately when, in an unprecedented move, the festival’s highest award was bestowed not just on the film’s writer/director, Abdellatif Kechiche, but also its two lead actresses, Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux. Since that time, the film has made headlines for its plot – a lesbian romance between two young women (one of whom is a high school student when the film begins) containing a lengthy and explicit sex scene between the two, as well as for its off-screen melodrama. That drama has included a very public war of words between the actresses and their director, and a promise by several New York City theaters to admit teenagers of all ages, despite the film’s NC-17 rating, a decision that has irked several conservative organizations. Continue reading “Film Review: Blue is the Warmest Color”

Film Review: 12 Years a Slave

Hard to endure, hard to fathom, but essential.

"12 Years A Slave" captures a personal, intimate, fear. — “12 Years A Slave” captures a personal, intimate fear.

12 Years a Slave feels like it could very well be the most accurate cinematic depiction of the atrocities of slavery. We don’t just see the physical brutality, we also feel the isolation, the helplessness, and each slave’s necessary abandonment of individuality in order to survive. The geographical solitude in which two different worlds are formed, the one inhabited by the slaves and the one inhabited by the landowners and overseers, is one of the story’s focal points and how it affects the mentality of each character. For all of these reasons, 12 Years a Slave, based on the book of the true story by Solomon Northup, succeeds where no other film about slavery has. In other films of this nature, the “hero” rises up against the odds. The protagonist rises up by gradually becoming an outspoken leader, or by finding the only sympathetic ear that winds up being a ticket to freedom. Those stories may be inspiring, and well told, but they are often sugar-coated, to put it bluntly. When viewing 12 Years a Slave, we, the audience, don’t get special treatment. We are forced into a very dark place in our nation’s history, and we are asked to face the harrowing truth head on.

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Film Review: Free Birds

“Free Birds” is a surprising, scattered, Thanksgiving treat.

Jake (Woody Harrelson) slaps some comedy sense into Reggie (Owen Wilson)

Yes, this is a movie about turkeys. It’s not a spin-off adaptation of the mobile game, Angry Birds. Free Birds is not the strongest title, it lacks punch. Free Birds also hasn’t benefited from a strong and focused marketing campaign. The reason for this — Free Birds is wacky and crosses multiple genres, and even includes some very surprising plot twists. Yet, its filled with original humor and employs an extremely playful attitude with perfectly timed editing to create a funny and thoroughly entertaining family film.

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Show Review: Hitchcock Week — Psycho

Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! > — Ree! Ree! Ree! Ree! <<stabbing ensues>>

It’s Hitchcock Week with the San Francisco Symphony and Wednesday night kicked things off with Psycho (1960), Hitchcock’s masterpiece thriller. Why is the SF Symphony playing Psycho? And for what reason are they having a week devoted to Hitchcock, at all? For starters, Hitchcock films feature some of the most memorable scores in film history. Just like John Williams’s scores have enhanced the sense of adventure in countless films directed by Steven Spielberg, the scores in Alfred Hitchcock films have greatly enhanced the chilling suspense, the horrifying thrill, and the bloody payoffs of his stories. These are a few particularly momentous nights at the symphony because the scores have been removed from the film’s print and, instead, filled in by a live orchestra (in Psycho’s case, just the string section…it seemed).

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Film Review: The Counselor

‘The Counselor’ is in need of some script counseling.

It was exciting to imagine what the product of a Ridley Scott-Cormac McCarthy collaboration would be like. Add in an all-star cast and the anticipation grew stronger. Unfortunately, the finished product leaves so much to be desired. The Counselor features an original screenplay by McCarthy, who’s normally credited only with writing the novels on which a few film adaptations have been based (No Country For Old Men, The Road), and the inexperience shows here. The dialogue in The Counselor lacks flow, and in a story as convoluted as this, the flaws in the script are all the more blatant.

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Film Review: Gravity

An exhilarating, suspenseful, emotional thrill ride unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

Sandra Bullock takes on the universe in Gravity.

It’s hard to describe Gravity without using a superfluous amount of positive adjectives. The action drama directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), is a somewhat simple story of two astronauts who are marooned after their craft is left battered and adrift after being struck by debris from a botched Russian satellite dismantling. The film is more complex than that though, tapping into an unimaginable terror unlike any film has done before. It’s nice to have a visual spectacle of this magnitude also feature incredible performances. The visuals can only bring the audience in so far, but the stellar performances by George Clooney and, especially, Sandra Bullock help seal the deal. I can’t stress this enough — you are PULLED into this movie and firmly grasped for 90+ minutes! You won’t believe the wizardry of what you see on screen. And you won’t be able to shake the emotions for a while.

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Mill Valley Film Festival Spotlights

Film fans can relish eclectic offerings at 36th MVFF

There’s something for everyone at the MVFF, which opens on Thursday.

The 36^th Mill Valley Film Festival opens this Thursday, October 3, and runs until Sunday, October 13. The Festival is featuring early views of some hotly anticipated fall films, including August: Osage County, Nebraska (opening night film), Dallas Buyers Club, 12 Years a Slave, and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, among others. Here at Spinning Platters, though, we thought we’d spotlight some of the lower profile films that may not be getting as much attention. Full schedule, tickets, and more information available at: http://mvff.com

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Film Review: Rush

Rush is a fantastic, tense drama, and character driven.

Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl revving their dramatic chops

I don’t care for racing. It doesn’t interest me and I think the culture surrounding it is silly and uninviting. That being said, if I were forced at gunpoint to choose a type of car racing to watch, it would be Formula 1 racing. There’s a dynamic of risk and impending disaster, along with more beautiful environments, in Formula 1 racing. Rush, the new movie from director Ron Howard about a 1970’s rivalry in Formula 1 racing, is not only a great racing movie and a great sports movie, but a great drama. Spearheaded by solid direction and terrific performances, Rush also contains all the right pieces fitted together to complete the whole package — impeccable editing, strong writing, and thrilling cinematography.

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Film Review: Don Jon

A modern day romance with expectations to dash expectations.

Do Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson see eye to eye in 'Don Jon'? — Do Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Scarlett Johansson see eye to eye in ‘Don Jon’?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been acting for over twenty-five years. It should come as no surprise that he’s finally decided to write and direct, and with his debut, Don Jon, it’s a shame he didn’t start sooner. Hopefully this is just the first of many. In our roundtable interview, Gordon-Levitt stated that his hopes were to capture a relationship that involved two people that “have these unrealistic expectations and keep missing each other.” With his experience, Gordon-Levitt was no stranger to the expectations and unrealistic images that pop culture (specifically movies, television, and commercials) thrust upon young minds. Using a very tight and clever script, and with pitch perfect performances from all involved, his goal is accomplished. Don Jon is a brave and unique modern day romance.

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