HollywoodandFine.com A movie that’s bound to set your paranoia sensors flashing, “The East” is a cerebral thriller in which it’s hard to tell who’s the hero and who’s the villain. That’s especially true for the film’s central character, a former FBI agent named Sarah, played by the film’s producer and …
HollywoodandFine.com “Fill the Void” is as interesting for the things it doesn’t do as for what it does. Written and directed by Rama Burshtein and set in the Hasidic community of Tel Aviv, it’s a story about family and a sense of duty, informed by a devout faith. The faith …
Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters “Before Midnight,” the third and richest collaboration between Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and director Richard Linklater, finds the French and American couple Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) still talking, talking, talking – and making love. Having met on a train nearly two decades …
Why won’t Linklater, Hawkes and Delpy shut up? By Armond White Following Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight’s ongoing chronicle of an aging, talkative, narcissistic couple Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy (he’s author of two books This Time and That Time; she’s artistic) threatens to become the …
By Armond White In light of Michael bay’s Pain & Gain, it’s time to take another look one of its influences: Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1970 Zabriskie Point finally passes the test of time. Antonioni’s aestheticized vision of ‘60s political and spiritual turmoil was originally scoffed at as disingenuous and “unrealistic”–accusing the …
HollywoodandFine.com This apparently is the week for multiple unnecessary sequels, with “The Hangover Part III” going up against “Fast & Furious 6” (twice as uncalled-for) for that all-important teen-age dollar. So I’ll give the same “meh” response to “H3” as I did to “Iron Man 3”: better than the second …
By Armond White You might laugh at The Hangover Part III but you won’t laugh as hard as Todd Phillips, the film’s pecuniary director and co-screenwriter, who laffs all the way to his offshore Cayman Island account. The Hangover Part III continues what’s advertised as “The Wolfpack Trilogy”–kinda reminiscent of …
By Armond White What’s derisive in the American title A Pig Across Paris (now playing at Film Forum) drives home the bitterness hidden in the original French title La Traversee de Paris (Crossing Paris). This 1956 release hasn’t been shown in the U.S. in more than 50 years probably because …
HollywoodandFine.com Anyone who’s been married for any length of time should be able to enjoy Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight,” if squirming in your seat can be considered a form of enjoyment. The third in a trilogy that began with “Before Sunrise” (1995) and continued with “Before Sunset’ (2004), this film …
I thought it would be fun to watch Gordon Douglas’ Liberace vehicle “Sincerely Yours” (1955) — just out from the Warner Archive Collection — back-to-back with Steven Soderberg’s Liberace bio-pic “Beyond the Candelabra,” which bows Sunday night on HBO after its world premiere Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival. What …
