Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
The 87th Academy Awards air this Sunday, February 22nd on ABC at 5:00pm PST (red carpet coverage begins at 4:00, if you want to dish on fashion highs and lows). There are some tight races this year – Best Picture and Best Actor are especially hard to call. Here are Carrie and Chad’s predictions – and hopes – for the major categories:
Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie and Chad Pick the Oscars”
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2014. Here is Chad’s list, presented in reverse order of greatness; you can also see Carrie’s list here.
Snowpiercer, Bong Joon-ho’s masterful post-apocalyptic thriller, was forced to fly beneath the radar since it was released on the same day as the horrific yet unfortunately box office dominating Transformers: Age of Extinction. Set in a human-created ice age in which the last survivors on the planet ride around on a crazy-long bullet train, Snowpiercer uses its science-fiction fantasy premise to punctuate some terrifying reflections on the socio-political tensions of modern day society. Chris Evans turns in another solid action hero performance (duh, Captain America) and Tilda Swinton is wicked good as the cruel and quirky “voice”/messenger of the upper class.
Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 10 Films of 2014”
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2014. Here is Carrie’s list, presented in alphabetical order. And you can see Chad’s list here.
Filmed intermittently over 12 years, Richard Linklater’s film chronicling a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from ages six to 18 in real time is both a technical marvel and a cinematic masterpiece. There has been nothing like it before on screen, and there will no doubt be nothing like it again. Utterly unique in scope and vision, the film lets us watch a life develop in front of our very eyes, with all of its attendant hopes, dreams, achievements, and disappointments. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke play Mason’s parents, changing and growing right alongside him and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater). An absolutely dazzling achievement that will leave you breathless and awed, Linklater’s picture is sure to be the one to beat for Best Picture come Oscar time. (You can also read Gordon’s full-length review here).
Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2014”
There are two types of people who are going to see director Richard Linklater’s newest film, Boyhood. There are those who will not know anything about, or perhaps not even care about the history of the making of the film. They may wonder what all the fuss is about. And then there are people like me who know the whole backstory, and will marvel at how this was all done, and realize that what they’re watching is an impossible movie, one that can’t exist. Yet it does, and it’s wonderful. Continue reading “Film Review: Boyhood”
Spinning Platters brings you more spotlights from the 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), which continues through this Thursday, May 8th. Program notes and tickets available here. There is still plenty of time to catch some screenings, and you can also see many of the films as they open widely throughout the year.
Boyhood
(USA 2014, 162 min)
Stunning, remarkable, and amazing don’t begin to do justice to Richard Linklater’s new movie. Filmed over the course of 12 years using all the same actors, the picture follows young Mason (a captivating Ellar Coltrane) from the ages of six to 18; in one scene he’s maybe 8, and maybe 30 minutes later, he’s 12, in seamless transitions that will leave you astounded. The film could have just as easily been called Childhood or Parenthood (Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette are equally terrific as Mason’s parents), as it’s about nothing less than the ephemeral nature of time and the meaning of life itself. Is life just a series of events – marriages, divorces, birthdays, graduations? What can we count on in life besides change? Breathtakingly original and achingly poignant, Boyhood is sure to be on many critics’ top ten list at year end; I know it will be on mine.
Screenings:
Continue reading “SFIFF Spotlights #7: Boyhood/Pioneer/Freedom Summer/Little Accidents”