Matt Damon (l.) plays Paul Safranek and Jason Sudeikis plays Dave Johnson in Downsizing from Paramount Pictures.
“Going small” is not a goal often associated with the dreams of mainstream America, but what if going small meant maintaining a lavish, upper middle-class, suburban lifestyle with all the trimmings? This deceptively simple idea underlies Downsizing, Alexander Payne’s newest film, starring Matt Damon, Hong Chau, and Christoph Waltz. The film presents enough imagination and asks enough questions to launch a series, but it never figures out what it’s trying to say.
A profound examination of religious faith — buried deep, deep within a hilariously crude, offensive, foul-mouthed animated film.
Oh, sh*t, these foods are f**cking foul-mouthed!
Imagine if Toy Story was written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and then sprinkled with a dash of Caligula. Even that probably doesn’t quite capture just how far Sausage Party goes in terms of it’s R-related language and content (supposedly it came close to an NC-17 rating, until they toned it down — yes, toned it down!). As advertised, the cast and creators of This is the End are back, this time to infuse their stoner, ultra-sexualized, black comedy into an animated feature. Sausage Party goes a step beyond just shock-value to deliver its laughs, serving a healthy does of side-splitting puns, curse-words, pop culture references, and hilarious characters. But Sausage Party is also an incredibly clever film. It disguises it’s more contemplative themes of divinity, the existence of an afterlife, and the triviality of religious tensions within the entertaining muck of a hilariously perverse one-note culinary joke — that anthropomorphic foods discover that they’re all doomed to be devoured by humans.
Ghostbusters panders then panders some more, and only delivers when embracing its own originality.
Mighty ghostbustin’ foursome.
It’s obvious, or maybe just to me, that director/writer Paul Feig was under serious pressure to cater his entire effort in relauching Ghostbusters to the fans of the original films. Possibly due to the stupid backlash against the production for casting four women in the lead roles, and for the sake of protecting a cherished 80s title, Feig decided to include an unfathomable amount of shout-outs, throwbacks, and cameos alluding to the original Ghostbusters films. The cast, and Feig, are incredibly talented. The best moments of the new Ghostbusters film happen when the original 80’s films are out of its sights, and instead, it embraces the comedic timing and inventive action that the actors and director are each capable of, respectively.
Yet another piece of evidence that comedy sequels don’t work.
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson telling it like it is in Zoolander 2.
Zoolander 2 (also seen in some advertising as 2oolander or Zoolander No. 2) starts with an exciting chase scene. Some mysterious figures on motorcycles are chasing a man in a hooded sweatshirt. They catch up to him in an alleyway, and riddle him with bullets. As he takes bullet after bullet in a shot that continues for 10-15 seconds, the audience goes from laughter to applause. Why? Because it’s Justin Bieber. That’s the comedic currency of this entire movie: celebrity cameos as punch lines.
Spinning Platters film critics present their top 10 films of 2015
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2015. Here is Carrie’s list, presented in alphabetical order. (And you can find Chad’s here.)
1.) Brooklyn
Eilis (Saoirse Ronan) shares a tender moment with boyfriend Tony (Emory Cohen).
The immigrant experience in America is exquisitely captured in director John Crowley’s finely crafted film about love, loss, and longing in 1950s Brooklyn. Based on the novel by Colm Tóibín, Nick Hornby’s screenplay presents us with the intrepid young Irish woman Eilis, who leaves her family in the Irish countryside for adventure and opportunity in New York. Saoirse Ronan suberbly conveys Eilis’s gradual shift from shy newcomer to confident cosmopolitan. Called back home for a family emergency, Eilis must choose between familiar comforts and new possibilities, and Ronan depicts Eilis’s struggle with heartrending openness and aching honesty. Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson, as competing suitors on opposite sides of the Atlantic, also deliver strong, sharply drawn performances.
Scott captures our imagination with riveting survival story
Abandoned astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) checks out his Martian surroundings.
No movie better exemplifies Kurt Vonnegut’s assertion that “science is magic that works” than Ridley Scott’s engaging new film The Martian. Based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, Scott’s picture is less a fantastical science fiction story like his Alien or Blade Runner, and more a pure and utterly gripping survival story, in the vein of pictures like Castaway or even 127 Hours. Only here, our hero isn’t trapped somewhere with the luxury of oxygen like a canyon in Utah or a remote tropical island, but years away from any human help, alone in outer space, on the inhospitable planet Mars.
The 58th San Francisco International Film Festival closes tomorrow, Thursday, May 7th, but that still leaves you time to see some films, including the closing night film, Experimenter (with Winona Ryder in attendance for the Q&A!). The screening is at 7:00pm at the Castro Theatre, and info and tickets are available here.
In the meantime, we’re spotlighting three other films that played during the Fest. And be sure check back after Thursday for our final wrap up.
Welcome to Me (USA, 2014, 86 min, Marquee Presentations)
Alice (Kristen Wiig) and Gabe (Wes Bentley) form a connection.
Saturday Night Live and Bridesmaids alum Kristen Wiig stars in director Shira Piven’s new film, but the picture is no lightweight comedy. It has some rich laughs, to be sure, but, ultimately, it’s a smart, compassionate, and serious look at mental illness and the narcissism of new social media and reality TV platforms. Wiig plays Alice, a Palm Desert former veterinary nurse with borderline personality disorder who wins the lottery and decides to invest her winnings in a local talk show hosted by, and entirely about, her. The film deftly explores the collision between mental and cultural illness, and Wiig continues to flex the dramatic muscle we saw in last year’s The Skeleton Twins by giving her bravest performance yet. A stellar supporting cast, helmed by Tim Robbins as a patient but firm therapist, and the wonderful Joan Cusack, channeling her famous Broadcast News character, help to shape the picture’s serio-comic tone. Wes Bentley, James Marsden, Linda Cardellini, and Jennifer Jason Leigh nicely complement the proceedings as well, but this is Wiig’s show all the way, and she’s absolutely masterful. Put this one on your must-see list now.
Screenings:
Opens this Friday, May 8th, in limited release in the Bay Area, including at the AMC Van Ness and the Presidio Theatres in San Francisco, and the Elmwood Theater in Berkeley. You can watch the trailer here.
Spinning Platters film critics present their top 10 films of 2014
Spinning Platters film critics Carrie Kahn and Chad Liffmann each share their ten favorite films of 2014. Here is Carrie’s list, presented in alphabetical order. And you can see Chad’s list here.
1.) Boyhood
Patricia Arquette and Ellar Coltrane are outstanding as a mother and son who grow and change together.
Filmed intermittently over 12 years, Richard Linklater’s film chronicling a boy named Mason (Ellar Coltrane) from ages six to 18 in real time is both a technical marvel and a cinematic masterpiece. There has been nothing like it before on screen, and there will no doubt be nothing like it again. Utterly unique in scope and vision, the film lets us watch a life develop in front of our very eyes, with all of its attendant hopes, dreams, achievements, and disappointments. Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke play Mason’s parents, changing and growing right alongside him and his older sister (Lorelei Linklater). An absolutely dazzling achievement that will leave you breathless and awed, Linklater’s picture is sure to be the one to beat for Best Picture come Oscar time. (You can also read Gordon’s full-length review here).
At the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, I sit with a group of other writers around a table as the audible antics begin approaching outside the door. SNL veterans Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, along with director Craig Johnson, are splitting each others’ sides with jokes and voices. They are tired and somewhat giddy from a day of press, supporting their incredible new film, The Skeleton Twins, and they loosely greet us with smiles and how ya dos. Bill chucks a muffin from that morning down the hallway, comically screaming ‘This BETTER BE GOOD!’. Bill and Kristen feed off each other’s energy, a polite and friendly Craig Johnson between them, and they all take a deep breath and search around the table for who’s first to dive in…
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Craig, you co-wrote the script with Mark Heyman, and I heard he’d been working on the script for eight years. How did the final cut of the film differentiate from the original script?
Craig Johnson: Well, we actually had a couple versions of it that were unfinished that were all over the place. We had one where Milo was a drag queen. (To Bill) I haven’t even told you about these versions of it. There was a road trip element.
A worthy return to Berk, where the kids are all grown up now.
‘Night fury in the sky, I can fly twice as high’
In 2010, How to Train Your Dragon surprised audiences with its incredible cinematography and emotionally resonant central relationship between a young nerdy Viking, Hiccup, and Toothless, the elusive and dangerous Night Fury dragon. Nearly 4.5 years later we are treated to the follow-up, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (the second installment of an intended trilogy), which thankfully has Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon) returning as director. DeBlois successfully incorporates the same sense of discovery, wonder, and emotional gravitas into the sequel that were so prevalent in the first film. How to Train Your Dragon 2 gets just about everything right — it expands the story’s universe without overreaching, lets the characters mature without forcing the issue, and keeps the focus on the powerful central storyline in a way that remains fun and engaging.
