Raissa Marchetti-Kozlov shines as Rose in coming of age Vietnam musical, Dogfight. Photo courtesy of Benjamin Canant/Wilderspace Photography, 2018.
On their last weekend in San Francisco before their deployment to Vietnam, three young soldiers play the cruel tradition of finding the “ugliest” girl in town. Rules are set, bets are made, and the search begins.
The 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is going strong; it entered its second week today, and we’ve got five more spotlights for you (you can find our first round of coverage here). Below we profile four more feature films and one documentary. Complete programming and ticket information can be found here; now get out there and see some films before the Festival ends on August 5th!
Joaquin Phoenix as John Callahan and Jonah Hill as Donnie star in DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT.
Over the years, the director Gus Van Sant has returned time and again to his favorite subject: our constant struggle with self-deception and our many, mostly failed attempts at self-discovery. Let’s start with some dreamy-eyed pharmacy thieves (Drugstore Cowboy), move to homeless hustlers (My Own Private Idaho), catch up to a hitchhiker with enormous thumbs (Even Cowgirls Get The Blues), watch an aspiring TV Newswoman (To Die For), and let’s not forget the genius mathematician janitor at M.I.T. with girl trouble and the world’s funniest psychologist (Good Will Hunting). Van Sant’s characters show what an illusion we can be to ourselves. Does he return to this ground in Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot? Absolutely. Is it worth it to follow him yet again on this journey? Mostly.
8th grader Kayla (Elsie Fisher) spends much of her free time on her smart phone.
Regular readers of Spinning Platters may have noticed that I’m partial to coming of age films; The Way, Way Back is a personal favorite, and I had both The Edge of Seventeen and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl on my Top 10 lists for their respective years. But all three of those have now been pushed aside in favor of a new genre champion: writer/director Bo Burnham’s feature debut Eighth Grade sets a new standard for all future coming of age pictures. Filmmakers may as well concede now, because no other film will ever come close to measuring up to this exquisite masterpiece.
Local boys make good in masterful look at their changing city
Longtime Oakland friends Collin (Daveed Diggs, l.) and Miles (Rafael Casal) assess their changing city.
Berkeley High grads and old friends Daveed Diggs (of Broadway’s Hamilton fame) and local slam poet and artist Rafael Casal join Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station; Black Panther) and Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You) in bringing Oakland to the big screen, in a timely and powerful picture that should be required viewing not only for all Bay Area residents, but also for those who want to understand the ever shifting cultural and economic landscape of a Bay Area in flux. Diggs and Casal both wrote and star in Blindspotting, under the direction of their TV and short film director friend Carlos López Estrada, who makes his extraordinary feature film debut here, and was rewarded with a Sundance Grand Jury Prize nomination for his efforts.
Cross this off my bucket list: I’ve loved Peter Cetera for as long as I can remember.
Like many children of the 80s, I still harbor a strong sentimental attachment to some of the tunes that might make others groan. Before I was old enough to start developing musical tastes of my own, my mom raised me on a steady diet of light rock, less talk. (No, you just sang the KOIT jingle in your head!) I think my personal trifecta from those days is (in no particular order): Billy Joel, Lionel Richie (with The Commodores and solo), and Peter Cetera (with Chicago but especially solo). At least for me, there is something about the music I loved as a kid that can have the power to invoke a true sense of joy that can be hard to find anywhere else.
Last month, my mom won a pair of tickets to see REO Speedwagon and Chicago, and she asked me to go with her. I thought it would be a blast, but I admit I was disappointed at the prospect of seeing Chicago sans Cetera. Between sets, I decided I should look to see if he was touring on his own. Much to my delight, not only was he currently touring, but I found tickets that were a mere two weeks away, in San Jose. Before I could buy them, though, Chicago took the stage, and I put my phone away to enjoy what turned out to be a truly fantastic performance.
The next day, I returned to my ticketing site of choice to buy tickets, and discovered I’d overlooked a second date the night before: this one was a month away, rather than two weeks, and I’d have to schlep out to the Sacramento area in the dead of the summer, but instead of just being Cetera solo, it also boasted Richard Marx on the bill. Though this is an artist my mother enjoys as much as I do, he wasn’t an heirloom: Richard Marx is an artist I learned to love all on my own, from the late 80s on. I bought tickets in a matter of moments and then started counting down the days until I could get myself out to Thunder Valley Casino on Friday the 13th (of July). Continue reading “Show Review: Peter Cetera with Richard Marx at Thunder Valley Casino Amphitheatre, 7/13/18”
Amelia Meath & Nick Sanborn. All photos by Dakin Hardwick.
At first glance, the pairing of jazz experimentalist Kamasi Washington and electro-pop hitmakers Sylvan Esso seemed like a really odd mix. However, when Washington and his band took the stage, it didn’t take long for the audience to warm up to his impressive brand of hard, heavy, funk and hip hop infused jazz. Before the first song was over, a significant percentage of the audience was up and dancing. Hard. Continue reading “Show Review: Sylvan Esso, Kamasi Washington at The Greek Theater — UC Berkeley, 7/12/18”
The 38th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, showcasing over 65 films from more than twenty countries, opens this Thursday, July 19th, and runs for two and a half weeks, concluding on Sunday, Aug. 5th. Films will be shown at venues in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Albany, Oakland, and San Rafael, so there is plenty of time and opportunity to see a lot of quality films. Below we spotlight five Festival movies that you may want to check out. Complete schedule, tickets, and more information are available here. And be sure and follow Spinning Platters for more coverage during the Festival!
Cafe du Nord has been back for about a year, and I still hadn’t been to a show there. So, I played a little bit of show roulette. I decided to check out something, anything, just to see what the space has become. Lucky for me, Boston’s Bent Knee was playing the night I decided to drop in. A band I’ve been meaning to check out, too! So, my night has been confirmed. Continue reading “Show Review: Bent Knee, Gatherers at Cafe du Nord, 6/23/18”
Peter Fonda and writer/director Shana Feste discuss their new family comedy Boundaries
Peter Fonda. (Photo courtesy of Sean McCarthy.)
A family road trip is at the center of the new comedy Boundaries, a movie that has become very therapeutic for its writer-director, Shana Feste. Her story of a pot-smuggling father (Christopher Plummer) forced to bond with his neurotic daughter (Vera Farmiga) after being kicked out of a nursing home mirrors her reality very closely. To hear Feste tell it, only a few small changes needed to be made to the story, and the rest wrote itself.
The film mostly plays out during a long car ride to transport the cranky free spirit to a new home but along the way we meet a few characters from his wild past. One of them is fellow pot-smoker Joey, played by Peter Fonda with the devilish charm of an ex-hippie. His scenes are few, but shock the film to life in unexpected ways. Feste and Fonda came to San Francisco to promote Boundaries, and we spoke about filmmaking, battle scars, and the challenge of adapting family stories to the big screen. The following is a transcription of that conversation. Continue reading “Interview: Actor Peter Fonda and Writer/Director Shana Feste”
