Tag: film

Spinning Platters Interviews: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Rian Johnson on “Looper”

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis in LOOPER

Looper, the ingenious new sci-fi drama from writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick), has one hell of a setup. The year is 2044, and time travel hasn’t been invented yet — but it will be. And when it is, it immediately becomes illegal. But in the bombed-out dystopian American future of Johnson’s imagining, time travel’s illegality just means powerful crime syndicates are the only ones with access to it. Due to implanted tracking devices, disposing of bodies in the future is impossible. So the mobsters dispatch their targets back to 2044, bound and hooded, where they are immediately shot and killed by assassins known as “loopers,” who then incinerate the remains. But a new crime boss known as The Rainmaker has risen to power, and he is determined to “close the loops” by finding the future versions of the assassins from 2044, sending them back in time and having them killed — by the younger versions of themselves. Got that? The loopers are understandably perturbed by this, and a moment’s hesitation can lead to the older version of themselves escaping and creating quite a time-space conundrum. Such is the case with Joe, played in 2044 by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and in the future by Bruce Willis.

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Spinning Platters Interview: Michael Peña and Natalie Martinez on “End of Watch”

Michael Peña and Natalie Martinez in END OF WATCH

End of Watch is unlike any cop movie we’ve seen before. Its distinguishing traits range from its texture — the film is shot and edited to resemble a pulse-poundingly visceral “found footage” documentary — to its thoroughly realized characterizations of LAPD officers Brian (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Mike (Michael Peña), thrill-chasing partners and best friends who have a tendency to run toward the action while others run away from it. The film plays out like a feature-length episode of COPS as written by Aaron Sorkin or David Mamet; its substance comes from the palpable bond between Brian and Mike, which plays out in a series of remarkably authentic-feeling conversations we watch them have as they drive around on patrol, waiting for that next call, never knowing if they’ll be getting a cat out of a tree or walking into gunfire. This naturalistic and wholly believable quality comes both from the direction and script of David Ayer (Harsh Times) and the committed performances of Gyllenhaal and Peña, with whom Ayer rehearsed for several months before shooting the film to get their chemistry just right. Anna Kendrick and Natalie Martinez are heartfelt and dynamic as the officers’ better halves.

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Spinning Platters Interview: Zachary Booth and Ira Sachs on “Keep the Lights On”

Zachary Booth and Thure Lindhardt in Ira Sachs’ KEEP THE LIGHTS ON

Ira Sachs’ Keep the Lights On is the luminously wrenching chronicle of a ten-year relationship between two men, Erik (Danish actor Thure Lindhardt) and Paul (Zachary Booth, best known as Glenn Close’s antagonistic son Michael on Damages). Erik is a sensitive and open-hearted documentary filmmaker, while the more reserved Paul has a successful job as a lawyer at a major publishing house. After meeting at random through a gay party line (remember those?), the two form an instant connection that long outlasts what could easily have ended as a one-night stand. There is, however, a problem: Paul is a drug addict. And not just any drug. Despite his lucrative white-collar Manhattan life, Paul is a crack addict. Another problem: Erik is in love with Paul, and doesn’t know how to respond to his addiction except by continuing to invest in their relationship. And so the stage is set for one of the most assured independent films of 2012, and arguably the most powerful American gay relationship drama since Brokeback Mountain.

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Spinning Platters Interview: Ari Graynor, Lauren Anne Miller, Katie Anne Naylon & Jamie Travis on “For A Good Time, Call…”

Lauren Anne Miller and Ari Graynor in FOR A GOOD TIME, CALL…

In For A Good Time, Call…, Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller star as Katie and Lauren, sworn enemies forced to become roommates out of financial necessity. Fun-time Katie has been occupying her grandmother’s gorgeous rent-controlled Gramercy Park apartment since she semi-recently passed away, but the rent control is about to expire and her handful of odd jobs (including working for a phone sex line) won’t cover the new rent. Meanwhile, conservative Lauren finds herself unexpectedly homeless and in desperate need of housing. Their mutual gay best friend, Jesse (Justin Long), suggests they get over their long-standing feud and move into Katie’s apartment together, and the two begrudgingly agree. But when Lauren discovers that Katie has been doing freelance phone sex work, she has a business-minded brainstorm: wouldn’t it be much more profitable if they just started their own phone sex company?

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Spinning Platters Interview: Rashida Jones and Will McCormack on “Celeste and Jesse Forever”

Rashida Jones and Will McCormack, co-stars and co-writers of CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER

As if her skyrocketing acting career, Harvard education, impeccable comic timing, exquisite beauty, and legendary lineage weren’t threatening enough, Rashida Jones comes one step closer to total world domination with the release of Celeste and Jesse Forever. In addition to being her largest film role to date, Celeste and Jesse marks Jones’ screenwriting debut; she co-wrote the film with actor Will McCormack, who also appears in the film, and whom Jones briefly dated in the late ’90s before jointly realizing they were better as friends. Sadly, that kind of relationship decision-making wisdom eludes the title characters in their film, Celeste (Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg), an LA couple attempting to navigate a divorce while remaining best friends. Needless to say, these good intentions merely end up paving the freeway to heartache hell in this disarmingly intelligent, emotionally honest alternative to the usual rom-com fluff.

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Spinning Platters Interview: William Friedkin on “Killer Joe”

William Friedkin directs Emile Hirsch and Juno Temple on the set of KILLER JOE

“Fire away. Anything. Don’t be polite.” William Friedkin is feeling pretty candid these days. Maybe it’s because after nearly six decades in the business, the Academy Award-winning director of such classics as The French Connection and The Exorcist has nothing left to prove. Maybe it’s because he’s been working on his memoirs, due next year from HarperCollins, and is still in confessional mode. Or maybe he’s just well past the age where you stop giving a fuck what anyone thinks about you (he turns 77 this month). The night before our conversation, Spinning Platters attended a screening of his gleefully sadistic new movie, the NC-17-rated Killer Joe, followed by a moderated Q&A with Friedkin that quickly turned into a rowdy one-man show. Refusing to be seated, Friedkin stood in front of the jam-packed theater for nearly an hour and pontificated at length about his career, the controversy over Killer Joe, and anything the audience wanted to talk about. He even volunteered questions he figured we were too sheepish to ask (“Who wants to hear how I discovered Linda Blair?”). When he was informed that the theater needed him to wrap up, he was unfazed. “Why, what are they gonna play? Isn’t it too late to start a movie?”

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Spinning Platters Interview: Cillian Murphy and Rodrigo Cortés on “Red Lights”

Cillian Murphy in RED LIGHTS

In the dramatic thriller Red Lights, Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver star as the world’s foremost investigators of paranormal phenomena. Professional skeptics, they have debunked dozens of fraudulent mind readers, ghost hunters, and faith healers by detecting “red lights”, subtle clues to the trickery behind each of these “supernatural” occurrences. But when a world-renowned psychic (Robert De Niro) suddenly resurfaces after a lengthy exile — and the death of his biggest critic — they begin to investigate him, despite increasingly bizarre and dangerous incidents the closer they get. Co-starring Elizabeth Olsen and Joely Richardson, Red Lights is the second English-language film by Spanish writer/director Rodrigo Cortés, who previously created the acclaimed Ryan Reynolds thriller Buried. Below, Spinning Platters talks with Murphy and Cortés about manipulating the human brain, Murphy’s reflections on 28 Days Later and Inception, and how profoundly unamused he is by my phone’s autocorrect.

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Film Review: “Snow White and the Huntsman”

Charlize Theron in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

starring: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Toby Jones

written by: Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini

directed by: Rupert Sanders

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief sensuality

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Spinning Platters Interview: Richard Linklater on “Bernie”

Shirley MacLaine and Jack Black in Richard Linklater's BERNIE

Ever since leisurely ambling onto the cinematic scene with his generation-defining 1991 classic Slacker, Richard Linklater has remained one of the most influential and innovative figures in American independent film. A restless creative force frequently driven to push himself into personally uncharted territory, Linklater’s filmography is remarkably diverse: ensembles pieces beloved (Dazed and Confused) and overlooked (Fast Food Nation); dialogue-driven character studies romantic (Before Sunset/Before Sunrise) and claustrophobic (Tape); animated films adored (Waking Life) and alienating (A Scanner Darkly); and big-studio comedies iconic (The School of Rock) and ignored (The Bad News Bears). And now, for his 15th feature film, Linklater has returned to his native Texas to explore yet another genre: darkly comedic true crime.

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The Spinning Platters Guide to the San Francisco International Film Festival 2012

This year’s edition of the San Francisco International Film Festival will transpire in theaters around the city from April 19 to May 3. Last year’s SFIFF marked the Bay Area premieres of such critically acclaimed hits as Beginners, Another Earth, and The Future. This year’s reliably diverse lineup looks just as promising, featuring new work from actors like Shirley MacLaine, Jack Black, Diane Kruger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Greta Gerwig, John Krasinski, Freida Pinto, Emily Blunt, Val Kilmer, Lili Taylor, James Franco, Susan Sarandon, and Common, filmmakers like Richard Linklater, Michael Winterbottom, Lynn Shelton, Andrea Arnold, Lena Dunham, and little-known local winemaker Francis Ford Coppola, and documentaries on subjects ranging from Diana Vreeland and Marina Abramovic to ACT UP and the epidemic of sexual violence against women in the military. The festival will also feature several events, notably tributes to Kenneth Branagh and Judy Davis (both of whom will attend), a Midnight Mass tribute to the late Ken Russell featuring a Peaches Christ-hosted screening of Tommy, and perhaps most awesomely, a program of Buster Keaton short films with live musical accompaniment by Merrill Garbus and her tUnE-yArDs crew.

After the jump, we break down the 20 films we’re most excited to see this year into three categories: World Cinema, New Directors, and Documentaries. All film descriptions are courtesy of the San Francisco Film Society.

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