jennifer aniston – Spinning Platters

Film Feature: 2017 Sundance Film Festival Spotlights #1

… 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:

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Film Review: Office Christmas Party

This party is less than the sum of its party-goers.

OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY

Office Christmas Party must’ve been conceived when the six writers credited with the story and screenplay (red flag!) compiled a list of “Crazy sh-t that can happen at a Christmas Party!” Unfortunately, they then attempted to create a plot to surround the list of items in order to package all of it into a film. A better idea would’ve been to integrate the items directly into the story — like, say, having the main characters do these crazy things in order to advance the story. Nope. Thus, Office Christmas Party is a raunchy, foul-mouthed, sometimes funny holiday R-rated comedy that doesn’t fully utilize the amazing comedic chops of its extensive cast. It fights for laughs and prefers to show us an assortment of inconsequential montages of crazy party antics. They’re fun, but not funny. There’s just enough charisma from a few of the cast members to make Office Christmas Party worth attending. Just barely, though.

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Film Review: Horrible Bosses 2

A solid second ride thanks to great chemistry

Buddies Nick, Kurt, and Dale show off their new shower buddy.

From the co-writers of Dumb and Dumber To, the disappointing comedy sequel, comes Horrible Bosses 2, the slightly-less disappointing and still quite funny comedy sequel. Yes, we know that comedy sequels rarely work since the humor isn’t as fresh and the jokes are often forced. Horrible Bosses 2 is definitely not as funny as the original 2011 hit which took the dark fantasies of all white collar workers and spun them into a hilarious story of three down-and-out losers trying to kill their horrible bosses. But, HB2 still has plenty of great moments, primarily due to the chemistry between the three leads, and will likely entertain any fan of the first film (like myself) and coerce a few belly laughs from newcomers. But there’s no denying that considering the incredible cast of the new film, the film could’ve reached even greater comedic heights.

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