HollywoodandFine.com I spent years as a critic waiting eagerly for the end of the year, when I could finally (and with great deliberation) craft my 10-best list of movies for the year. No longer. Ten-best lists are, I’m afraid, a dime a dozen. Everybody has their own – and anyone …
HollywoodandFine.com Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” arrives on the big screen 27 years after it opened on Broadway – and with the same second-act problems that have plagued it through the years. Adapted to the screen by Rob Marshall (for whom his first feature, “Chicago,” may end up as the …
HollywoodandFine.com When you consider that Tom Cruise has been a major movie star for more than three decades, it’s surprising how few out-and-out stinkers he’s made (can Tom Hanks say the same thing?) and how much of himself he can still hold in reserve, with which to surprise us in …
HollywoodandFine.com Over the years, I’ve developed what I refer to as the 20-minute rule. It basically says that a movie that hasn’t hooked me in the first 20 minutes probably isn’t going to. I tend to apply it most forcefully when I’m watching films at festivals or when I’m sorting …
HollywoodandFine.com Rian Johnson went dark noir via teen angst in his breakout film, “Brick,” then got all Wes Anderson in “The Brothers Bloom.” Now, with “Looper,” he thinks big – or, at least, bigger, going futuristic sci-fi. But he treats the material as a crime-fiction saga, rather than a special-effects …
HollywoodandFine.com Lynn Shelton had me at “Humpday,” the feature that introduced me to the intuitively funny filmmaker, who comes back strong with “Your Sister’s Sister,” opening in limited release Friday (6/15/12). Working once again with Mark Duplass, Shelton brings Emily Blunt and Rosemarie Dewitt into the mix, in a story …
HollywoodandFine.com “The Five-Year Engagement” wrings a slightly different change on the old boy-meets-girl formula – and finds enough big laughs to make the whole thing enjoyable, even if it’s never particularly fresh. Written by Jason Segel and Nick Stoller (who also directed), “Engagement” brings together the same mix of the …
HollywoodandFine.com Adapt and evolve – hey, it’s what we do. But when you get stuck in the rut of your life without realizing it, it’s nice to have someone unexpected come along and nudge you out of it. That, at least, is one of the lessons to take away from …