HollywoodandFine.com Is it really so hard to make a funny, dirty sex comedy? Apparently so, judging from the recent, brain-dead “The Babymakers” – and now the laugh-challenged “For a Good Time, Call…” Not only isn’t it funny – it’s not sexy, either. This soggy pudding of a film stars Lauren …
Hit & Run flattens the road movie By Armond White Dax Shepard, the lead actor, co-writer (with David Palmer) and co-director of Hit & Run, aims for the bleachers. He’s made a lowest common denominator comedy with a road movie premise about Charlie, a guy who leaves his witness protection …
HollywoodandFine.com There are the seeds of a funny and exciting film buried within “Premium Rush.” Instead, director David Koepp has made one long chase movie, with few comic moments and not that much excitement. Sure, you’ll flinch a few times and, perhaps, cringe at moments of impact when bike meets …
HollywoodandFine.com Mike Birbiglia seems like an easy-going guy, someone who probably has a little trouble with confrontation or sticking up for himself. At least that’s how he comes off in “Sleepwalk With Me,” the film version of his hit one-man show that played off-Broadway for almost a year, opening in …
HollywoodandFine.com The title of Dax Shepard’s “Hit & Run” doesn’t really make sense, given the movie itself. If it implies car chases, well, that’s accurate – but, again, it’s not about accidents. The only thing accidental here is that this movie got made – and they seem to have done …
History Shines in Whitney Houston’s Sparkle By Armond White When Whitney Houston sings “His Eye is on the Sparrow” in Sparkle, her good gospel performance is unexpectedly stirring. Playing the mother of three talented daughters who have formed a singing group that unravels the family, Houston’s heartbroken recitation also seems …
Stallone creates a new genre in The Expendables 2 By Armond White Sylvester Stallone has created a new genre: Self-Camp. The Expendables 2 reunites the same over-the-hill gang of big screen hooligans as in the first installment but this time with a better, almost polished, sense of humor. (“Rest in …
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HollywoodandFine.com There is something magical about “The Odd Life of Timothy Green.” But not, unfortunately, magical enough. For a fable like this to work, you need a vision sharp enough, created with enough heart and wit, to brush aside complaints about its fantastic plot – fantastic in the sense of …
HollywoodandFine.com “Why Stop Now” boasts such a diverse cast of recognizable faces that you have to wonder where it all went wrong. A strange blend of comedy and drama that never quite jells, the film was cowritten and codirected by Ron Nyswaner (an Oscar nominee for “Philadelphia”) and newcomer Phil …
HollywoodandFine.com A caper film whose biggest thief is actually the inexorable flow of time, “Robot & Frank” is a terrific character study that offers the always-captivating Frank Langella the opportunity to stretch out a little bit. Though Jake Schreier’s film, from a script by Christopher Ford, builds to a contrived …
HollywoodandFine.com Craig Zobel’s “Compliance” may be the creepiest movie of the year. It has no physical violence, no sex, barely even a raised voice – and yet it burrows into your brain and keeps burrowing, the longer you watch. Based on a set of actual incidents, “Compliance” starts out simply …
HollywoodandFine.com The last time a kid was saying “I see dead people” in a movie, it was “The Sixth Sense” – and it was meant to be frightening. Now the kid who’s saying it is the star of “ParaNorman,” which is meant to be funny and exciting. Unfortunately wrong on …
HollywoodandFine.com A sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s 2010 hail-Mary all-action-star effort to regain relevance at the box office, “The Expendables 2” may be the biggest, bloodiest and most willfully stupid film since the last time Michael Bay stepped behind a camera. This one is directed by Simon West, someone else who …
