Zoey Deutch – Spinning Platters

Film Review: “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass”

Screwball comedy delivers exuberant laughs

Gail (Zoey Deutch), John Slattery (l.), Caleb (Ben Wang), Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), and Vincent (Ken Marino) undertake a unique mission.

Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is a tough movie to review because all its best bits–the wackiest, most laugh-out-loud, incredulous moments that I’d love to discuss–are best kept under wraps so viewers can revel in the surprises. So here’s a two second review: this film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, in all the best ways. If you want a goofy, absurdist good time at the movies, go see this film. Continue reading “Film Review: “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass””

Film Review: Before I Fall

Groundhog Day in high school: Reliving teen angst proves effective in new drama about growing up

Sam (Zoey Deutch) is stunned to realize she is reliving the same day over and over.

Gen Xers who still have a hard time grasping that all the cool, disaffected icons of their youth (Ethan Hawke, Winona Ryder, Kyra Sedgwick, to name a few) are cast as parents now — and of teenagers no less — will be especially disconcerted by Before I Fall, a teen drama in which the lead actress looks remarkably familiar. Sure, Zoey Deutch had the one major female role in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! last year, but that’s not it. If “Miss Amanda Jones” plays in your head when you see young Zoey on screen, it’s because she’s an absolute dead ringer for the ultimate popular ‘80s It Girl herself: Lea Thompson, who has passed the torch of teen angst on to her millennial daughter.
Continue reading “Film Review: Before I Fall“

Film Review: Everybody Wants Some!!

Nobody will want any of Linklater’s tedious newest

Remember that time in college when you sat around your buddy’s room, listening to records, smoking pot and talking about Carl Sagan and old Twilight Zone episodes? Or that time you went to a super freaky party thrown by theater majors? Or that time your housemate got totally bent because you beat him at ping pong? You don’t? Well, writer/director Richard Linklater sure does, and he’s going to make you relive all those experiences and more in his meandering, occasionally funny, but mostly dull new picture Everybody Wants Some!! When you need not one, but two exclamation points to take the place of genuine excitement in your film, you know you’re in trouble. Continue reading “Film Review: Everybody Wants Some!!”