Spinning Platters – Page 164 – Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds

SFIFF59 Spotlights #2: Five Nights in Maine/Frank & Lola/And when I die, I won’t stay dead/Notes on Blindness

SFIFF

Spinning Platters continues its preview coverage of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, which opens tomorrow, Thursday, April 21st. Information and tickets are available here.

To whet your Fest appetite, here we spotlight two of the Festival’s features and two documentaries.

Five Nights in Maine
(USA, 2015, 82 min, Marquee Presentations)

Sherwin (David Oyelowo) and his mother-in-law Lucinda (Dianne Wiest) share a moment at her Maine house.

When an adult dies unexpectedly, whose grief is greater – the surviving spouse, or the surviving parent? Are such comparisons even fair? Such are the heady questions that writer/director Maris Curran explores here, in a picture thematically similar to the recently released Demolition. After his wife Fiona (Hani Furstenberg) dies suddenly in a car crash, city-dweller Sherwin (David Oyelowo) visits Fiona’s terminally ill mother Lucinda (Dianne Wiest) at her isolated house in rural Maine. Though both try to maintain a polite façade with each other as they process their loss, issues of blame, recrimination, and bitterness slowly rise to the surface, forcing the two to confront past and present emotional wounds. A pas de deux between two of today’s best actors set against a stunning backdrop of fall light and foliage, Curran’s film is a flawlessly executed meditation on how we deal with life, loss, and love.

Screenings:

Saturday, April 23rd – 5:00pm, Alamo Drafthouse
Monday, April 25th – 1:00pm, Alamo Drafthouse
Tuesday, April 26th – 8:45pm, Alamo Drafthouse

Tickets for Five Nights in Maine available here.

Continue reading “SFIFF59 Spotlights #2: Five Nights in Maine/Frank & Lola/And when I die, I won’t stay dead/Notes on Blindness“

Film Review: Miles Ahead

Cheadle is mesmerizing in his seemingly-effortless trading of cinematic duties for this thrilling tale.

If there is only one thing that you learn about jazz, it’s not the instruments that make it up, nor the time that it was most popular, or even the players that were significant in its creation. That one crucial thing is that jazz is an improvisational story being told in musical form; it has its own cast of unreliable narrators who are making up the tale as they go, each twist and turn more intriguing than the last. It is a palette for painting pictures where the hues and overall artistic movement could shift at the drop of a hat. Whether the story is based on the truth, or a marvelous work of fiction, is less important than the journey there, and the anecdotes told along the way are what add the most excitement to it all. It is, therefore, very appropriate to take an approach to creating a biopic about a jazz icon in a style that best reflects the character of the music — a feat undertaken spellbindingly by actor Don Cheadle, who both stars in and directs Miles Ahead, the 2016 tale of musical virtuoso Miles Davis.

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Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-15 – 2016-04-20

A Storm will be looming over San Francisco this week, bringing rainbows and songs.

Happy Tax Day! One of the two sure things. OK, so let’s turn in the paperwork and then let’s go to a concert.

Preview time, guys. This week in the Bay Area, we have natural events, nouns, piercings, and a tradition that Louis Pasteur likely might not have smiled upon. But you never know.

And so we preview. Preview time. Let’s preview. Continue reading “Spinning Platters Weekly Guide to Bay Area Concerts: 2016-04-15 — 2016-04-20”

Film Review: The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book adds incredible visuals to the bare necessities.

The Jungle Book (the book) was written by Rudyard Kipling as a collection of stories in 1894. They featured anthropomorphic animals, with a few of the stories revolving around a young “man cub” named Mowgli. Audiences are probably most familiar with the 1967 Disney animated adaptation — a jolly musical featuring the iconic songs “The Bare Necessities” and “I Wan’na Be Like You.” With Disney’s recent string of reviving their classic animated films into live action (with a lot of integrated CGI), the aim seems to be to incorporate characteristics of the original written works. In Jon Favreau’s (Elf, Iron Man, Chef) new directorial effort, The Jungle Book does indeed blend the darker aspects of Kipling’s original writings with the playful jubilee of the animated version. Because of this, the shifting tones can be a little off balance. However, The Jungle Book is a thoroughly engrossing adventure, with benchmark visuals and stellar voice work.

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Show Review: Elvis Costello at The Masonic, 3/30/2016

Elvis performing at the Donostiako Jazzaldia 2010 (photo by Dena Flows)

It’s common for the fame of the song to equal the fame of the artist, and Elvis Costello came out with a handful of hits in the 80s that have made their way into the American consciousness. “What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace Love and Understanding” is one of the great rock anthems of the early 80s: a wanting to be more caring, but feeling burned and raw from life’s disappointments, and is as least as famous as the artist himself. He’s always been a broad reaching artist; early tracks of his like “Shipbuilding” and “Almost Blue” straddle the edge of jazz, but he’s best known for his angsty, sometimes political rock and roll from the 80s and early 90s.

He’s evolved as an artist since then, releasing jazz and country albums containing some truly excellent material, and more or less leaving his rock days behind. I imagine it must be a frustrating blessing to be so beloved as an artist for such a small subsection of a vast and eclectic catalogue; shows sell out but the audience wants the same five or six songs, when there are fifty newer songs that will never receive the same attention. It’s like the inverse to “adultolescence”, where instead of the artist’s refusal to grow, everyone else is attached to what he did at age 25. I’m guilty of this, and while I can get behind his new material, and his move towards a Merle Haggard musical style – a grandiose goal, and one he can pull off – I miss the angry rock star who I grew up listening to.

Continue reading “Show Review: Elvis Costello at The Masonic, 3/30/2016”

Show Review: Iggy Pop’s ‘Post Pop Depression’ Tour at The Masonic, 3/31/16

The Stooges were one of the greatest American rock bands of all time. That core team of Iggy Pop along with the Asheton Brothers created a brand new sound that was so thick, dirty and ferocious, it made even the heaviest bands of the 60s sound like Peter Paul and Mary. As a young punk, I devoured the three records they put out in the 60s. Those records are perfection. However, that also meant that I avoided any and all of Pop’s solo material. Sure, if people were dancing to “Lust For Life”, I’d join in, but the little solo material I came across otherwise — “Candy”, “Real Wild Child” — all sounded like over produced parodies of that animalistic beast that was The Stooges.

Fast forward to 2016. I learn that Pop is releasing a so-called “farewell” album. He enlisted Josh Homme, the “too handsome for his own good” mastermind behind Queens of the Stone Age, to produce the album. He then drafted Homme, along with other members of QOTSA and the Arctic Monkeys, as his backing band. With the majority of the Stooges having passed away, I thought that these guys were capable of emulating that sound. I had high hopes for a back to basics, thick and dirty rock record and tour.

I was wrong, but I was wrong in the best way possible.

Continue reading “Show Review: Iggy Pop’s ‘Post Pop Depression’ Tour at The Masonic, 3/31/16”

SFIFF59 Spotlights #1: Microbe & Gasoline / Dead Slow Ahead / Very Big Shot / Granny’s Dancing on the Table

SFIFF59

It’s that wonderful time of the year, again! Yes, time for the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF). The 59th edition of SFIFF will be hosting its two week celebration and screenings of incredible cinema from around the globe — April 21 through May 5. Year after year, Spinning Platters is here to provide you with tons of SFIFF coverage before, during, and after the event. Let’s start you off with four spotlights you should check out when SFIFF59 rolls around…

Microbe & Gasoline
(France, 2015, 105 min, Global Visions)

A scene from Michel Gondry's MICROBE AND GASOLINE will play at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 - May 5,2016. — A scene from Michel Gondry’s MICROBE AND GASOLINE will play at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, on April 21 – May 5,2016.

Writer/director Michel Gondry’s newest cinematic entry may be his most charming to date. The whimsical tale of two adolescent friends (nicknamed Microbe and Gasoline) building a mobile tiny house for a chance to roadtrip across France to meet girls and explore the world is everything you’d want it to be — funny, inventive, and entertaining. Gondry’s usual DIY visual panache is less on display — maintaining focus instead on the two young lead characters whose conversations and musings on life transcend audience age groups. You’ll love Microbe & Gasoline!

Screenings:

Sunday, April 24rd, 6:00pm, Victoria Theatre
Tuesday, April 26th, 5:30pm, Alamo Drafthouse

Tickets available here.

Continue reading “SFIFF59 Spotlights #1: Microbe & Gasoline / Dead Slow Ahead / Very Big Shot / Granny’s Dancing on the Table“

Film Review: Demolition

Vallée’s newest meditation on grief could finally mean Oscar for Gyllenhaal

New friends Karen (Naomi Watts) and Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) find themselves in a tense situation. — New friends Karen (Naomi Watts) and Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) find themselves in a tense situation at a function honoring Davis’s recently deceased wife.

How do we process sudden loss? Is there a right or wrong way to grieve, and how can we keep grief from overwhelming us? These are the weighty questions director Jean-Marc Vallée continues to contemplate in his somewhat uneven but emotionally arresting new picture Demolition. While not as strong as either Wild or Dallas Buyers Club, Vallée’s previous two films that explored death and grief, Demolition nonetheless is worth recommending based both on its raw and unique way of depicting the grieving process, and also on the strength of Jake Gyllenhaal’s exceptional performance as a man left shell-shocked by the unexpected death of his wife. Continue reading “Film Review: Demolition“

Film Review: The Boss

The Boss gets to a hilarious point, and then avoids it the rest of the way.

Melissa McCarthy has been a central figure in the female-led comedic renaissance in modern cinema. 2011’s Bridesmaids kicked off a constant flow of adult comedies featuring female leads, and the results have been great. That isn’t to say that female-led comedies were never produced before, but they were few and far between — about one to every ten male-led adult comedies (a guesstimate). The Boss is the latest entry in the new wave of such films, and while it’s not nearly as funny as others, it gleefully crosses the politically incorrect line on a few occasions while criticizing some of our society’s most antiquated views of women of all ages. And when it does, unfortunately not often enough, it’s hysterical!

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There, I Fixed it: Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are”

"You're pretty good so far, and haven't disappointed me. Please continue to be satisfactory." — “You’re pretty good so far, and haven’t disappointed me. Please continue to be satisfactory.”

Last night I was at a favorite piano bar, and someone offered me a hundred bucks to sing “Just the Way You Are.” I’m a fan of Billy Joel’s music, but I’m not a singer, and, since he’s basically a classically trained opera singer, he’s impossible to render on tune. Also, I’d never met this guy, never sang at this bar, and the guy was wearing a bad suit and tried to put his hands on my hips. So the answer was a stern no, with additional instructions to back off said less politely.

But let’s talk about this song for a minute or two. “Just the Way You Are” was a classic wedding song in the seventies. Look how sweet it is! It’s about loving someone with all their flaws. Or at least, that’s the obvious message. We are going to take the innocence right out of it, turning it from charming love song into something else by deploying my trusty feminist raygun at this pop standard.

Continue reading “There, I Fixed it: Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are””