Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
Following in his big brother Joel’s footsteps, Ethan Coen steps outside the pair’s successful filmmaking partnership with Drive-Away Dolls, his first solo narrative feature. Unfortunately, Ethan doesn’t do as well as his brother did with his 2021 award-winning The Tragedy of Macbeth. Drive-Away Dolls probably won’t win any awards, but it’s a serviceable, if mostly forgettable, attempt at a retro, low-brow comedy.
George Clooney is clearly a huge fan of the Coen Brothers. After starring in four of their films (Hail, Caesar!; Burn After Reading; O Brother, Where Art Thou; Intolerable Cruelty), he tries his hand at directing one of their screenplays with Suburbicon, marking his first return to the director’s chair since 2014’s The Monuments Men. The result is more successful than that mostly forgettable attempt, but his fan-boy energy permeates his new film almost to distraction. Tonally and stylistically, the picture is an unabashed imitation of a Coen Brothers production, which, if you’re a Coen Brothers fan, is super, but does mean that Clooney offers no cinematic originality here.
Continue reading “Film Review: Suburbicon“
Spinning Platters wraps up its coverage of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, which ended last Thursday, May 5th, after showcasing nearly 200 films from over 40 countries. The Fest may be over, but many of its offerings will be released throughout the year, so be sure to use our eight spotlight posts as a guide for potential future viewing.
We conclude our coverage by looking at three final films and two special events.
The Bandit
(USA, 2016, 82 min, Closing Night Film)
Local filmmaker Jesse Moss, who found success two years ago with his intense, stunning, but somber documentary The Overnighters, told us at the Q&A after the closing night screening of his new film that after that emotionally wrenching experience, he wanted to go in an opposite direction and make a “fun car comedy” like the films he loved while growing up – films like the ’70s Burt Reynolds-helmed, car chase classic Smokey and the Bandit. Still a documentarian, though, Moss has thus made what he terms the first “action-comedy” documentary. Indeed, as a look at ’70s heartthrob action and comedy star Burt Reynolds and his lifelong friendship with Hal Needham, the Hollywood stuntman turned writer/director who made the iconic Smokey, Moss’s new film succeeds brilliantly at echoing the good ol’ boy charm of the best of Needham and Reynolds’s pictures. Featuring historical interviews with Needham (who passed away in 2013), as well as interviews with former Smokey co-stars, country music stars, friends, colleagues, family, and Reynolds himself, The Bandit is chock full of juicy behind-the-scenes insider stories and enough old TV and movie clips to please the most ardent pop culture fans. As a portrait of both a bygone era of movie-making and, more importantly, of a singular friendship that could shift between respect and rivalry, Moss’s picture mirrors the good natured southern charm of the Reynolds-Needham collaborations, while also examining more serious issues of fame, competition, and deep, enduring friendship. The Bandit took home the Audience Award at SXSW this year, and deservedly so; a genuine crowd pleaser, the picture is a must-see for students of ’70s cinema, and anyone who values engrossing, well-made documentary stories.
Screenings:
Expectations were high for Hail, Caesar! the new film from the modern great American filmmakers, Joel and Ethan Coen. Three years after their award-winning triple play of 2009’s A Serious Man, 2010’s True Grit, and 2013’s Inside Llewyn Davis, the sparkling musical trailers for Hail, Caesar! began hitting the web, and suddenly Coen fever began spreading again. However, unlike the washed-out colors and quiet dramatic quality of the former titles, Hail, Caesar! seemed to promise bright colors, outlandish musical numbers, and an unbridled sense of fun. The question I found myself asking was — would Hail, Caesar! embrace the darkly comic bizarreness of early Coen films such as Raising Arizona and The Hudsucker Proxy, or the cynical chastisement of Hollywood in Barton Fink? Well, the answer is really ‘no’ to both. The most wonderful thing about Hail, Caesar! is that it has its own new brand of Coen humor, one of PG-13 lightweight, sarcastic and playful tones, but still filled to the brim with the filmmakers’ unparalleled attention to detail and love of subtle and not-so-subtle references.
Thomas Newman seems to be doing his best musical imitation of John Williams throughout the former’s original score for Bridge of Spies. The reason I started with this opinionated tidbit is because it’s probably the weakest part of the movie. The score isn’t among Newman’s finest (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Finding Nemo) and it’s far from capturing the spirit of Williams’ finest (Star Wars, Munich, Lincoln, basically everything…ever). The music in Bridge of Spies is the weakest, though still serviceable, mixed result in a movie production full of interesting mixes. Bridge of Spies represents the first time the Coen brothers have written for Spielberg, the first time Spielberg has employed a composer other than Williams for a feature film in lord knows how long, and judging by the number of production companies listed in the beginning, probably the first time Spielberg has needed the aid of a half dozen independent companies to help a production out. Sure, it’s also the fourth collaboration between Spielberg and Hanks, so there’s that. However, point being that Bridge of Spies had a lot of award-winning talent working together, and the results are infectious, if not odd, but totally worth our while. Embracing the tonal patchwork that comes from great minds working together, Bridge of Spies is a tense, fascinating true story of courage during the Cold War.
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter has been spreading buzz around the festival circuit. The Zellner brothers’ new modern fable is a sight to see, a surreal experience to witness, and a cinematic treasure to behold. David Zellner, who co-wrote, directed, and plays a crucial supporting character in the film, sat down with me outside the theatre in which it was screening to discuss the film:
Can you give us a brief history of Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter?
Yeah, my brother and I heard about it [the urban legend] in 2001. The urban legend began circulating online and this was before Twitter and Facebook, so it was through message boards. It was very cryptic, basically saying ‘Japanese woman went from Tokyo to Minnesota for this mythical fortune’. It was so mysterious to us because of the limited information and because the idea of someone going on a treasure hunt in the modern day world was such an antiquated notion. It’s something from the age of exploration. Especially in a time now where there’s less mystery in the world. Information is more readily available. Everything is mapped out, no uncharted land. So we liked the idea of someone on this antiquated quest, but set in the year 2001.
Is that why ‘conquistadors’ are such a prevalent theme in your film?
Spinning Platters brings you more spotlights from the 57th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), which continues through Thursday, May 8th. Program notes and tickets available here.
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
(USA, 2014, 105 min)
Based on rumors, urban legends, and some odd, tragic headlines from the early 2000s, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is a modern fable that mixes an assortment of thought-provoking themes into a tonally masterful picture. The Zellner brothers, David and Nathan, direct Babel veteran Rinko Kikuchi in the story of an emotionally lost, socially awkward, and solitary woman (aside from her closest friend, an adorable pet bunny named Bunzo) who journeys in search of the briefcase full of money that was hidden in the North Dakota snow by Steve Buscemi in Fargo. Weird premise, yes. Fascinating character piece, you betcha!
SFIFF info about the film here.
Continue reading “SFIFF Spotlights #6: Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter / Fed Up / Stand Up Planet”
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann present their Top 10 Films of 2013. Here’s Chad’s list, presented in the order of which he feels they deserve to be ranked (1 being the best, 10 being pretty damn good too!)
The Coen brothers newest film is a hilarious, thought-provoking, darkly intelligent, musical journey into the 1961 New York folk music scene. Featuring masterful performances under the direction of master filmmakers, Inside Llewyn Davis is a documentary of sorts — accurately capturing a time period and a historical mentality…yet its message is timeless.
Continue reading “Film Feature: Chad’s Top 10 Films of 2013”
In a dimly lit smoky bar, an unshaven, slightly disheveled, solo male singer leans into a mic and begins gently singing, ‘Hang me / Oh hang me / I’ll be dead and gone.’ For the next three or so minutes, we are up close and personal to this singer, watching his calm disposition as he sings out the entirety of the song, not even once looking up at the quiet audience wrapped up in the beautiful melody, drinks, and cigarettes. This is how Inside Llewyn Davis begins, the extraordinary and immaculately conceived new film by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, or as we know them, the Coen brothers. This singer is, of course, Llewyn Davis, and these opening lyrics are deliberately chosen to open the story — they set the tone and capture the somber outlook of the title character. Based on a pivotal moment in our nation’s cultural history, and using a fictionalized version of folk musician Dave Van Ronk to capture the experience of many lost artists of that time period, Inside Llewyn Davis is a pointedly dark and comical drama that serves as an allegorical tale and a cinematic exposé of the unfortunate “futility” of many talented artists.
The towering, imposing, and yet, gentle-voiced T-Bone Burnett strolled into the room occupied by a few eager journalists. Oscar Isaac, quiet and kind, followed close behind. The two artists, one a musician who has been inching closer and closer to becoming a household name for three award-winning decades, the other an actor who is sharply on the rise, not wholly but in part due to his incredible performance as the lead role in the Coen brother’s newest masterpiece, Inside Llewyn Davis, sit down at the table. Without pause, we jumped into conversation…and it wasn’t hard to get T-Bone going…
What are your five favorite film soundtracks?
T-Bone Burnett: God, I don’t know. I can’t even think of any.
Oscar Isaac: The Mission. Ennio Morricone.
T-Bone: Yeah, that was a good one. I like My Fair Lady. Even though I think that Dr. Strangelove is a much more strange and subversive film and should’ve won the Academy Award…I’m talking like a Hollywood insider, like a movie person <<laughter>>… but I loved that musical. You know the song, “I’ve Grown Accustomed To Her Face”? I can barely make it through that song, it’s just so beautiful. And “On the Street Where You Live,” It’s just beautiful songwriting and one beautiful melody after another. It beat Dr. Strangelove, which is one of the most important movies ever.
So, one of the reasons why I called the Coen brothers was because I had become a fan of theirs after their first movie, Blood Simple, because it just had so much of my home (Texas) about it and there was a style of storytelling that I thought was really great. And their next movie came out, Raising Arizona, that just had this insane soundtrack — “Ode to Joy” on the banjo with whistling and yodeling. And every joke of it landed for me. And one thing about the Coens is that there’s history in every shot. Isn’t that right?