… in which our intrepid California-bred Senior Film Reviewer defies an epic winter storm and a fierce chest cold to bring you highlights from this year’s famous Park City fest.
The 2017 Sundance Film Festival ended last Saturday evening after ten days of showcasing over 200 films from around the globe; you can see all the winners here.
For the third year in a row, Spinning Platters was on the (snow-covered) ground trying to take in as many movies as our limited time and budget would allow. And so we bring you the first of our posts spotlighting the 17 films we managed to squeeze in to just over five days.
Many of these may receive distribution deals (if they haven’t already), so you can know what to watch for in the coming year with these handy capsule reviews, which use our patented Sundance Viewing Priority Level (VPL) Guide:
It’s a very funny movie. What more do you need to know?
Zac Efron and Seth Rogen in Neighbors, in a scene chosen by me to get traffic if someone searches for “shirtless Zac Efron”
Comedy is subjective. What’s funny to you isn’t necessarily funny to me. There’s absolutely no way I can tell you that a movie is hilarious, and a must-see, and have it necessarily be the case for you. All that said, if you don’t think Neighbors is a very funny movie, I probably won’t take comedy recommendations from you in the future. It’s OK if you give me the same treatment. I’m guessing you won’t, though; this is as good as it gets in modern movie comedy. Continue reading “Film Review: Neighbors”
left: Analeigh Tipton, Teresa Palmer, and Dave Franco in WARM BODIES; right: writer/director Jonathan Levine
2013 is off to a pleasantly promising start when it comes to genre films. Just a few weeks after the soulfully spooky Mama, we are now treated to Jonathan Levine’s thoroughly delightful adaptation of Isaac Marion’s beloved novel Warm Bodies. A hilariously self-aware and surprisingly sweet reimagining of the overly familiar “love transforms a monster” trope, Warm Bodies tells the story of a zombie named R (Nicholas Hoult), who narrates much of the film from his very unique point-of-view. Although zombiedom has robbed R of his ability to express himself verbally, his thoughts are as articulately human as ever; the film mines quite a bit of humor from this cognitive disconnect.
R spends his days staggering around an abandoned airport with a familiar lineup of other zombies, grunting and pondering what these people were like in life. But R is roused from his undead existential crisis when he meets Julie (Teresa Palmer), the daughter of one of mankind’s last great protectors, Grigio (John Malkovich). Julie enters zombie territory on an armed mission along with her boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco) and best friend Nora (Analeigh Tipton); it’s love at first sight for R despite the fact that Julie is trying to kill him. When the mission goes haywire and Julie is left behind, R devises a plan to keep her safe from the other zombies in the hopes that she’ll fall in love with him in spite of their, uh, differences.
