‘Trishna,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com Gorgeously shot and acted with aching tragic truthfulness, Michael Winterbottom’s “Trishna” is a romance of depth and feeling. Part of that, of course, is the source material; Winterbottom, who also wrote the script, has transposed Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” to modern India, where class differences still hold …

‘Crazy Eyes,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com “Crazy Eyes” was spawned by the same boozy mentality (and, sometimes, sentimentality) that has inspired the work of everyone from Dylan Thomas to Charles Bukowski. If Adam Sherman’s film, now in limited release, occasionally wobbles under the delusion that alcoholics are actually visionaries and their bad behavior comprises the …

‘The Do-Deca-Pentathalon,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com Boys will be boys. Always. Testosterone may not confer eternal youth on the male of the species, but it does enforce perpetual juvenile traits that can never truly be bred out of men. These come to the fore in Jay and Mark Duplass’ “The Do-Deca-Pentathalon.” A shaggy, basic tale …

Savages reviewed by Armond White for CityArts

An Oliver Stone Retrospective in Savages By Armond White Oliver Stone’s cinematic command turns Savages, his 19th film, into a reconsideration of his entire previous oeurve. Its story of three white California-carefree young adults progeny whose post-hippie, post-yuppie initiative into the drug trade conflicts with a Mexican cartel recalls Stone’s …

‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com Spider-Man was an angsty teen that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created in “Amazing Fantasy” comics in August 1962 – a character that’s apparently a perfect fit for Andrew Garfield in “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Garfield sweeps aside memories of Tobey Maguire as the web-spinner. He captures the personality split …

Andre Techine’s Unforgivable: Best Film of the Year? reviewed by Armond White for CityArts

Unforgivable by Armond White Cherubina, the nickname given to Judith (Carole Bouquet) in Unforgivables, comes from the love trickster in Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro. Judith, a former model with a bisexual past, now sells real estate, brokering a villa in Venice to the macho novelist Francis (Andre Dussollier) …

Magic Mike reviewed by Armond White for CityArts

Beefcake with Arty Frosting Channing Tatum hides behind Magic Mike By Armond White So what if Channing Tatum started as a stripper? The problem with Magic Mike, the semi-autobiographical melodrama he co-produced, is that he couldn’t find a filmmaker to properly translate that beefcake experience to the screen. Whatever Tatum …

The Sandler Memo (That’s My Boy) reviewed by Armond White forCityArts

That’s My Boy Exposes a Conspiracy By Armond White If you didn’t get the Memo to hate Adam Sandler, his new movie That’s My Boy would seem another likable, if minor, entry in his continuing series of unexpectedly challenging human comedies. The anti-Sandler Memo is a follow-the-leader pact–not literally a …

‘Seeking a Friend for the End of the World,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com Pre-apocalyptic films tend to be thrillers: Yikes, the world is about to end – how can we escape or avert imminent disaster? But Lorene Scafaria’s “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” strikes a different chord: one that is wistfully romantic, a little melancholy and unexpectedly funny. …

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