Reviews of albums, films, concerts, and more from the Bay Area Music and Movie Nerds
If you’re a fan of writer/director Paul Schrader, you’re bound to be disappointed by his newest film. With Master Gardener, the Taxi Driver screenwriter seems to have lost his focus, recycling old themes with no new insights and creating a picture that alternates between gothic camp and heavy-handed tedium.
Last year, for the first time ever, I selected a documentary as my number one film of the year. That doc, The Rescue, plays out like a thrilling Hollywood screenplay as it recounts the inspiring true tale of the rescue of 12 members of a boys’ soccer team and their coach after 18 days trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. Now art imitates life as that story that so captivated the world back in 2018 gets the high-powered Hollywood treatment. Directed by Oscar winner Ron Howard, Thirteen Lives proves itself an equally thrilling and moving dramatization.
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2016. Here is Carrie’s list, presented, unlike last year’s alphabetized list, in descending rank order. And you can check out Chad’s list here to see which one of us you agree with more!
Sometimes the story-within-the-story convention can be confusing or feel gimmicky, but in this visually stunning picture from fashion designer turned filmmaker Tom Ford, the technique works to terrific effect. Amy Adams, as a woman haunted by a decision she made years ago, reads a manuscript sent to her by her ex-husband Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal), and that story comes alive on screen in the form of family man Tony (Gyllenhaal again) and his confrontation with some dangerous, deranged miscreants. Ford’s keen aesthetic vision and sharp performances by Adams, Gyllenhaal, and Michael Shannon as a tenacious lawman combine to make this brutally poetic but utterly captivating film one of the year’s most definitively unusual. (You can also read my full-length review here.)
Continue reading “Film Feature: Carrie’s Top 10 Films of 2016”
Writer/director Jeff Nichols (Mud, Take Shelter, Shotgun Stories) continues his collaboration with the terrific actor Michael Shannon to great effect in his utterly engaging new science fiction film Midnight Special. Unlike another film by a well known writer/director that opened today, Nichols’s film grips you from its opening minute and keeps you enraptured for its nearly two hour run time. A film that pays homage to others of its genre while still managing to be totally unique, Midnight Special is well worth your box office dollars. Continue reading “Film Review: Midnight Special”
Exodus: Gods and Kings was bound to be a spectacular epic, considering the biblical source material and the director at the helm, Sir Ridley Scott. Scott echoed this projection when he said that Exodus: Gods and Kings is his “biggest” movie yet. Considering his long resume of major titles, that’s quite a statement and yet it’s true. The sets, the action, the effects, and the scope are all monumental, and these are mainly where the movie succeeds. It’s heartwarming to know that there’s still room for traditional sandal epics in the modern film business, featuring a good amount of built sets and armies of real actors (as opposed to CGI backdrops and armies…though these are still employed here as well). But trying to keep to tradition comes with a price, and some poor decisions. Exodus is weakest (and most controversial) in its casting choices and artistic breaks from the source material, but these falters can’t keep Exodus from providing a mostly exciting experience.
In my last review, I suggested you may want to see a blockbuster like Star Trek: Into Darkness instead of the independent film What Maisie Knew, since it’s a bit of a slog, and not exactly lightweight summer entertainment. This week, however, I have an indie to highly recommend, especially if you are now burned out on big budget Hollywood summer fare: the brilliant low budget Australian film Wish You Were Here. Continue reading “Film Review: Wish You Were Here”
Baz Luhrmann’s new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby has been generating buzz for months. Critics, Hollywood insiders, bloggers, and anyone with a pulse have all been asking: Can an Australian director, filming in Australia, with many British and Australian actors, pull off a film of a classic American novel? Will filming in 3D help or hinder the film? Will the film be worth seeing? The short answers are no, no, and no. Continue reading “Film Review: The Great Gatsby”
starring: Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Morrison, Kevin Dunn
written by: Gavin O’Connor, Anthony Tambakis & Cliff Dorfman
directed by: Gavin O’Connor
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense mixed martial arts fighting, some language and thematic material