HollywoodandFine.com So is “Divergent” the new “Hunger Games”? Or “Twilight”? Or even “Harry Potter”? Probably not. Not because it’s bad but because it’s not bad … but not great either. It’s middling, as so many movies based on the first book of a series tend to be. “Divergent” is derived …
HollywoodandFine.com OK. I’ll admit it: My favorite film this week is also the most transgressive. It’s full of vicious one-liners that are guaranteed to offend, well, the easily offended. Jason Bateman makes his directing debut with “Bad Words,” the rudest comedy about an adult dealing with kids since “Bad Santa.” …
HollywoodandFine.com How do I love the work of Wes Anderson? Let me count the ways. Anderson may be the most consistently original filmmaker to emerge during the 25 years I’ve been writing about film in New York. He has a distinctive style that only gets deeper as he matures – …
HollywoodandFine.com If you crossed a disaster film from the 1970s with a low-budget action-thriller from the last five years, you’d get something that looks like “Non-Stop.” It’s no wonder that Liam Neeson looked so chagrined to talk about it on “60 Minutes” this past Sunday. But as he noted, they’re …
HollywoodandFine.com It took me two tries to see “The Lunchbox” (the first time was at a film festival screening that was cancelled for technical reasons) – but it was more than worth the effort. Ritesh Batra’s moving, subtly witty and perceptive film, opening Friday in limited release, is a showcase …
HollywoodandFine.com Love and murder – are there more crucial or basic ingredients for a good story? It’s like cooking and starting with chicken or beef stock: They are the building blocks from which the best recipes are constructed. Charlie Stratton’s “In Secret” is based on Emile Zola’s “Therese Raquin” – …
HollywoodandFine.com Who is the traitor? That question of loyalty, deception and betrayal haunts the Oscar-nominated film “Omar” by Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad, whose dark, weirdly funny “Paradise Now” was also an Oscar nominee. This thriller is about more than the sum of its parts. Adam Bakri is Omar, a young …
HollywoodandFine.com Elaine Stritch is one of those pop-culture figures who you either know too much about or have never heard of. A star of the Broadway stage for 70 years, she landed in New York at 18, took the town by storm and never looked back. She has a looong …
HollywoodandFine.com Here’s everything you need to know about what’s wrong with the movie industry today: This week, three remakes of movies that didn’t need remakes – or weren’t very good in the first place – will open on thousands of screens: “Robocop,” “Endless Love” and “About Last Night.” Having seen …
HollywoodandFine.com Akiva Goldsman’s track record is a spotty one, chockablock with commercially successful films full of formulaic writing and manipulatively sentimentalized emotion. Or just plain hogwash: “Batman & Robin,” anyone? Sure, he won an Oscar for Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind,” as middlebrow a choice as you could get in …
HollywoodandFine.com Having been mentioned as an Oscar contender for 2013, George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” was abruptly bumped from awards season to this week because, according to the press release, Clooney needed more time to finish it. So its release was moved to February, a month whose releases are seldom …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll admit that, during moments in “The Lego Movie,” my mouth was hanging open at the audacity and imagination of the images I was seeing. I also found myself laughing a lot more than I thought I would. Written and directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who did …
HollywoodandFine.com Penn and Teller’s “Tim’s Vermeer” is like a cinematic magic trick, one that unveils itself over the course of roughly 90 minutes – and encompasses the years it took Tim Jenison to work the illusion. Except it’s not an illusion. Jenison is an inventor who made his fortune creating …
HollywoodandFine.com Adam Rodgers’ “At Middleton” is that rarity: a romantic comedy that manages to surprise by subverting the formula and coming up with something fresh. Rodgers and cowriter Glenn German create two pairs of opposites, then mix and match them in a story about parents taking their children to tour …