Film Review: My Life as a Zucchini (Ma vie de Courgette)

A perfectly crafted, poignant charmer.

Zucchini looks to the sky.

My Life as a Zucchini is one of the most wonderful films of the year, which has resulted in its much deserved Oscar nomination this year for Best Animated Film. Zucchini is a stop motion animated feature from France and Switzerland about a nine year-old boy, Courgette (which is French for zucchini), who loses his mother and father and is taken to a foster home where a handful of other orphans reside. The brisk 70 minute film follows Courgette as he befriends the kindhearted policeman who takes him to the foster home, and then learns to love and trust the other foster children in similarly unfortunate situations. The animation is colorful and simple, yet each shot is overflowing with heart. My Life as a Zucchini is not meant for very young audiences — the subject matter may be beyond a young child’s understanding and there are some bits of nudity and substance abuse. And yet, I recommend audiences of nearly all ages see My Life as a Zucchini because it beautifully tackles how all people, including children and adults, can rise above their surface-level differences to love each other, even in the face of tragedies that affect their lives in unexpected ways.

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Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the 2017 Oscars

Film critics Carrie and Chad on who will – and who should – win the 89th Academy Awards

The 89th Academy Awards air this Sunday, February 26th on ABC at 5:30pm PST (tune in an hour or so earlier if you want to see any of the red carpet glitz). Once again, Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann share their annual predictions – and hopes – for the major categories. Follow along and see how we – and you – do on the big night!
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Album Review: Crystal Fairy: Crystal Fairy

The garage-doom record you always wanted, but were too afraid to ask for

Album cover for Crystal Fairy's self-titled debut
Album cover for Crystal Fairy’s self-titled debut

If 2015 and 2016 were any indication, 2017 has certainly shows that supergroups are coming back to the forefront in a big way. While this is nothing new in the music scene, it has become more apparent, recently, that supergroups pose a necessity for most musicians, to escape redundancy and to experiment with new sounds. In the early 2000s, many big collaborative albums were produced, but were always under the guise of guest vocalist and musicians. It left a manufactured tone about the record, one that felt as though the labels were just trying to squeeze dime after dime out of shifting paradigms in musical taste. A true supergroup combines all the best attributes and skills of the players to create something fresh and exciting, for fans and musicians alike. It doesn’t always work, of course; Giraffe Tongue Orchestra is an excellent example of an extremely talented group of musicians whose full length album left far too much to be desired. The Dead Weather, on the other hand (featuring Jack White, Allison Mossheart [The Kills], Dan Fertita [Queens of the Stone Age], and Jack Lawrence [City and Colour, The Raconteurs]) have made a number of albums that continue to grab people in one direction or another. So when it was announced that King Buzzo and Dale Crover (Melvins), Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes), and Omar Rodríguez-López (Mars Volta, At The Drive-In) were joining forces to create Crystal Fairy, the prospect was definitely a positive attention grabber.

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Film Review: Fist Fight

Run, don’t walk, away from this fight

Mr. Campbell (Charlie Day) and Mr. Strickland (Ice Cube) moments before they get into a… wait for it… fist fight.

I’m going to try and keep this review short, since you, gentle Spinning Platters readers, deserve better than even to have to read about this painfully awful, joyless, and unfunny new “film.” And I use that term loosely. Suffice to say I sat through 90 minutes of the most mean-spirited, petty, and demoralizing material ever presented as comedy on screen just to bring you this warning: Do. Not. Go. See. This. Movie. It hurts me to even say its title, but in the spirit of educating you so you know what to avoid, the picture in question is called Fist Fight; if you see it on your local theater marquee, now you know to instead choose to see literally anything else that’s playing.
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Film Review: The Great Wall

White male hero leads dumpster fire movie to a forgettable fate.

Do we LOOK like we’re having fun?

I chose the above picture for very specific reasons. I could’ve chosen a more beautiful shot of a heroic looking Matt Damon atop The Great Wall of China. But no, I preferred this one for the way it captures the feeling one has while watching The Great Wall — the feeling of trudging through the sewer, acting unfazed while knowing deep down that the journey will result in nothing but a sh*tty mess. If you were considering watching The Great Wall as a fun activity this weekend (or at some point), let me save you the two hours you’d never get back. First, The Great Wall is offensive for its white savior narrative. Second, it’s poorly shot and edited. And third, it features cartoonish special effects and thus can’t even manage to string together two minutes of respectable cinema without an embarrassing element restarting the clock.

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Spinning Platters’ Guide to the 2017 Noise Pop Festival

Noise Pop 2017 is upon us. For eleven straight days, we will be enjoying the finest in film and music that the scene has to offer. There is literally too much to do, and there is no way you can be everywhere at once, so here is a quick guide to the best of the fest. Of course, you may disagree with my choices, and if so, there’s the full schedule to choose from.

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Spinning Platters Interview: Susan Ottaviano of Book Of Love

Spinning Platters sat down with Book of Love vocalist Susan Ottaviano, and they discussed the band’s favorite city (spoiler alert: it’s San Francisco), fan remixes of their songs, and advice for the next generation of female fronted bands.

Book Of Love are playing DNA Lounge on Sunday, February 19th. Tickets can be purchased here!
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SF Sketchfest Review: The JV Club w/Janet Varney and guests Rachel Dratch, Jon Hamm, and musical guest Matt Nathanson at Brava Theater Center, 1/28/17

Sketchfest co-founder & all-around funny girl Janet Varney

I’ve always liked Janet Varney, who I knew almost exclusively from her work with Thrilling Adventure Hour, but once someone made the connection for me that she was one of the co-founders of SF Sketchfest, my admiration for her ratcheted up quite a few notches. So, she’s super funny, and likeable, and charming, and kind of a badass producer too? So cool! So this year, when I was perusing the schedule, and saw that she was doing a live podcast (The JV Club, it’s called) with Matt Nathanson, Rachel Dratch, and Jon Hamm? Hell yeah! I’d been trying to get to a Rachel Dratch appearance at Sketchfest for at least a year or two, and Jon Hamm is so fun when he’s in comedy mode (which I’d not yet seen live, either). I immediately put in my request and hoped I’d get to cover the show. Next thing I knew, there I was, at Brava Theater Center, last Saturday afternoon, with a great seat, just in time for the house lights to go down. Continue reading “SF Sketchfest Review: The JV Club w/Janet Varney and guests Rachel Dratch, Jon Hamm, and musical guest Matt Nathanson at Brava Theater Center, 1/28/17”

SF Sketchfest Review: Rock Solid with Pat Francis, Kyle Dodson, and special guest “Weird Al” Yankovic at Swedish American Hall, 1/21/2017

Special guest: the delightful “Weird Al” Yankovic

Show 2 of my 3 at this year’s SF Sketchfest was last weekend at Swedish American Hall on a chilly grey Saturday afternoon. What better way to spend such a day than laughing with Pat Francis taping a live Rock Solid podcast with Kyle Dodson and special guest “Weird Al” Yankovic? I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do, either. Continue reading “SF Sketchfest Review: Rock Solid with Pat Francis, Kyle Dodson, and special guest “Weird Al” Yankovic at Swedish American Hall, 1/21/2017″

Black History Month Series: Delta Blues to Rock and Roll and Beyond

It’s not possible to overstate the influence that the Mississippi Delta Blues has had on contemporary music. Every popular artist you can think of, from Beyonce, to Garth Brooks, and even Skrillex owes their due to the music which has some its origins in the West African music brought over by people kidnapped by the Dutch to become slaves in the American south. Blues forms the basis of rock and roll’s rhythms and instrumentation, and the blue notes as well – the flat 3rd, 5th, or 7th note that gives a more melancholy sound to the melody- is derived from blues. It was Muddy Waters, an early blues musician, who first started bending guitar strings while playing, in a departure from the classical style of guitar. Even jazz has its origins in the twelve-bar blues structure that grew out, at least in part, from southern work songs, chants, call and response, and spirituals sung by slaves, former slaves, or sharecroppers. Some researchers have made the case that blues emerged as a genre after the Emancipation Act, influenced strongly by the teachings of Booker T. Washington, and coinciding with the emergence of a Southern free black secular community.

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