HollywoodandFine.com The second film of the summer inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s “La Ronde,” Fernando Mereilles’ “360” is an intriguing jigsaw puzzle of a movie, less schematic than Schnitzler’s play (or “30 Beats,” the dreadful film of a couple weeks ago). Still, it’s more interesting for its individual pieces than what …
HollywoodandFine.com America’s love affair with the stars of big business should have come to an end with the greed-driven crash of our financial system in 2008. Yet, somehow, Donald Trump remains not just a celebrity but one who was actually considered seriously as a presidential candidate – for about a …
The clash of art and reality should be a cultural turning point By Armond White The Christopher Nolan Batman movies are not exactly life affirming, so why do pundits refuse to connect those films to last week’s Aurora, Colorado, massacre at the midnight showing of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises? …
HollywoodandFine.com I was recently asked what I thought of the Kristen Stewart situation. To which I responded, quite honestly, that I didn’t. Ever. Not even for a second. Sure, I’d seen the headlines, which told me everything I needed to know: that she’d been caught having an affair with a …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll admit I’ve never seen any of the movies from the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, which include such deathless titles as “Super-Troopers,” “Beerfest” and “The Slammin’ Salmon.” And now, on the basis of “The Babymakers,” I’m not likely to. It’s not as if these films have been bubbling around …
HollywoodandFine.com There inevitably will be comparisons between “Celeste and Jesse Forever” and “(500) Days of Summer,” and that’s not a bad thing. Both are about intense relationships between young adults that end – and yet go on. Both are stories of love that has grown one-sided. And both ache with …
Chen Kaige’s Sacrifice bring light to current darkness By Armond White Combing the richness of his 2003 father-son film Together and the Chinese historical legend of his 2009 film The Promise, Chen Kaige creates a stirring, fascinating story of family and national heritage in Sacrifice. The personal drama moves into …
HollywoodandFine.com A South American director once observed to me that everything was political. He was referring to entertainment in general, more specifically the films that Hollywood chooses to make, even when they seemingly have nothing to do with politics – because that, in itself, is a political choice. That’s still …
HollywoodandFine.com Modern art long ago stopped being about recreating an image of reality and became about ideas. The key question always seems to be: Is art the thing itself? Or the idea of the thing? But what if you live in a society where the very ideas you harbor are …
HollywoodandFine.com He won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for “August: Osage County,” a tale of family dysfunction that was scathing and dark. But that wasn’t playwright Tracy Letts’ first foray into the brutal dynamics of family strife: Consider his play, now a film, called “Killer Joe.” Dysfunctional? The Smith …
