It’s the week between Pride Weekend and the Fourth of July Weekend. A chance to catch your breath.
Speaking of catching things, let’s talk about what you can catch in this week’s shows. What we’ve got coming up this week in the Bay Area includes: ogres, lifers, (sc)avengers, The DudeandThe Iguana.
So, we’re going to do the preview now. Doing the preview now. Preview is go and now we go do the preview now. Previewwww.
Okja (left) and Mija (An Seo Hyun) share a moment.
She has eyes the color of sunlit amber. She has a face that always reflects your best mood. Just being near her, feeling the warmth of her body as you wake up from an afternoon nap, sends waves of serenity through you. Sometimes, when you’re not sure where she is, and you call after her, the moments before her reply can seem like small eternities.Continue reading “Film Review: Okja“
Edgar Wright on set directing Ansel Elgort in the marvelous new film Baby Driver.
Edgar Wright’s newest film, Baby Driver, is a labor of love, many years in the making. The film would be a typical action crime drama were it not made by Wright, who is anything but typical. Instead, we get a creatively inspired film that takes this oft repeated form and adds a magical twist, which is that nearly every scene, from a romantic conversation in a laundromat to a brisk foot chase with guns blazing, is not only accompanied by inspired musical choices, but is also choreographed to the songs. The result crackles with life and bristles with energy. We were overjoyed to be able to spend a few minutes discussing the music and choreography with director Edgar Wright and budding superstar Ansel Elgort.
2017 seems to be the year of the music festival. With new festivals like Desert Daze and Burger Boogaloo gaining traction, the stalwarts have upped the ante on their lineups, boasting unique and eclectic selections of damn fine music. FYF Fest has come a long way from its meager Echo Park beginnings and from July 21st to 23rd it will once again take over Exposition Park in Los Angeles this year and damn if they haven’t booked one hell of a lineup.
This movie goes for Big Dumb Fun, and is certainly big and dumb
Sir Anthony Hopkins about to chew some scenery in Transformers: The Last Knight
A few years back, I wrote a “live blog” of Transformers 4: I Can’t Remember the Subtitle, the first in the Michael Bay x Hasbro series of films to star Mark Wahlberg. It was a pretty silly movie, but looked amazing in IMAX 3-D, as many scenes were shot natively with IMAX 3-D cameras. This time around, nearly every shot in the final film comes from IMAX 3-D cameras, so of course I had to head out to the theater to provide another Transformers live blog!
It’s Pride Weekend in San Francisco this week, and it’s fun to see all the bright-eyed people in the city who are attending their first Pride celebration.
Speaking of going to new things, let’s talk about this week’s concerts. Here’s what we’ve got coming up this week in the Bay Area: tanned people, clan people, French people, bad people, and cool people. Should be a pretty cool week.
So, let’s preview. We’re previewing now. Let’s preview and do the preview where we preview. Preview!
Several different movies, crashing together; in other words, it’s a multi-car pile-up
The Book of Henry is not a Wes Anderson movie.
What if veteran comic book writer Gregg Hurwitz wrote a superhero origin story about a single mom, combined it with a treacly family drama about a cancer-stricken kid, and crossed that with a darkly comedic satire about cinematic depictions of gifted children? Well, you don’t have to guess what if, because this movie is playing in movie theaters now, although I’m guessing not for long. It may, however, play forever in the rotation of classic film fiascos.
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), center, tries to run down past glory, with Storm Jackson (Armie Hammer), left, and Cruz Ramirez, right (Cristela Alonzo).
Oh how quickly the young become old, the strong become weak, and the fresh, young, star becomes the stale, old, has-been. In the age of computer-generated animated features, oh how long ten years can be.
Sadly, Cars 3 proves this old axiom, as it leans heavily on the achievements of the first two films, and mostly settles on telling a very basic story in a fairly predictable way. Cars “purists” (wherever they are) will no doubt be satisfied, but the rest of us will leave the theater nostalgic for the spectacular achievements of Pixar’s earlier efforts.
It’s hard to keep ya head up when you have ambitions az a ridah
Demetrius Shipp, Jr. as Tupac Shakur, with Kat Graham as Jada Pinkett. Yes, they really were best friends!
The full name of the film is All Eyez On Me: The Untold Story of Tupac Shakur. It’s an ambitious premise for a film about one of the single most well documented figures of the last 30 years. There may have been superstar rappers before 2pac, but 2pac was the first superstar rapper since the dawn of the 24 hour news cycle. All of the highs and lows of his career were narrated by Kurt Loder on MTV News. So, really, how much of his story is actually “untold”? How will director Benny Boom find a new story to tell about one of the most talked about figures in modern history?
Cage diving with sharks is fun… until the rope breaks and the cage plummets.
Spinning Platters recently hosted its first music trivia event at SOMA StrEat Food Park, but if you missed it, have no fear – others are on the horizon. And to (ahem) tide you over, here’s a brief little summer movie quiz: match the tagline with its corresponding shark attack movie:
TAGLINESMOVIES
1.) Don’t go in the water a.) Sharknado 2: The Second One (2014)
2.) Pray that you drown first b.) The Shallows (2016)
3.) Stay out of the water c.) Jaws (1975)
4.) Shark happens! d.) The Reef (2010)
5.) Who will save you? e.) 47 Meters Down (2017)
6.) Not just another day at the beach f.) Open Water (2003)
Answers are at the bottom of the review*, but, in the meantime, let’s take a look at letter “e”, the newest shark movie on our list. In the pantheon of shark movies, British horror director Johannes Roberts’s 47 Meters Down ranks somewhere above Sharknado 2 and last year’s Blake Lively-Talks-to-A-Seagull picture (AKA The Shallows), but well below the 1975 standard bearer Jaws and the chilling Sundance indie hit Open Water. Continue reading “Film Review: 47 Meters Down“
