Tag: Luke Wilson

Film Review: The Goldfinch

Acting, cinematography are highlights of imperfect adaptation of Tartt’s famed novel 

Cinematographer Roger Deakins captures the desert at dusk as Las Vegas transplants Theo (Oakes Fegley, l.) and Boris (Finn Wolfhard) become friends.

As a film critic, I try to ignore early buzz on films I’m going to review so I can form my own unbiased opinion when I see the picture. But this month, it was hard to ignore the vitriol that poured on to social media after The Goldfinch premiered at the Toronto Film Festival; hate for the movie was prolific and fierce. So, naturally, going into Monday’s reviewer screening, I was apprehensive: could the picture really be as bad as all that!? I’m here to tell you that, thankfully, it is not. Is it the year’s best film? Far from it, but it’s not nearly as awful as Twitter would have you believe. If you’re a cinema fan — and/or a fan of Donna Tartt’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winning novel on which the film is based — you will find enough here to keep you interested.

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Film Review: Brad’s Status

A midlife crisis worth watching: Stiller shines in funny and poignant story  

Brad (Ben Stiller, l.) reflects on his life while touring colleges with his son Troy (Austin Abrams). 

Ben Stiller, who can play middle-age angst like no one else (see While We’re Young, for example), is in fine form in writer/director Mike White’s new film Brad’s Status. Although the film’s premise about a soon-to-be-50 straight white man facing an existential crisis as he grapples with his life choices may sound like the epitome of naval-gazing white privilege, the picture touches on some universal themes with sensitivity and wry humor, thanks in large part to Stiller’s well-tuned performance and White’s sharp screenplay (White is perhaps best known for the 2000 cult hit Chuck and Buck and this year’s social satire Beatriz at Dinner).
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Spinning Platters Interview: Bill Hader & Kristen Wiig & Craig Johnson, “The Skeleton Twins”

Screen Shot 2014-09-08 at 9.47.23 PM

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.

Kristen Wiig: Maggie was a cat. (laughing)

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