Brian DePalma’s 1996 Mission Impossible was a cartoon even though he didn’t direct it like one. The sheer, exhilarating pleasure of Mission Impossible IV (officially subtitled Ghost Protocol) comes from star-producer Tom Cruise’s ingenious decision to cast animation master Brad Bird. This is easily Bird best film since The Iron …
By Armond White You can’t get you mind off Lady Gaga while watching David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Gaga, the ubiquitous pop star summoned up by the same self-loathing zeitgeist that popularized the Stieg Larsson crime novels as well as their Swedish TV-movie franchise, bears an uncanny …
HollywoodandFine.com Herge’s “Tintin” comics have been huge in France since they were first published in 1929, but have never quite translated to American popularity. In the 1990s, an animated version of Tintin stories showed up on American TV, on Nickelodeon – which was the go-to channel for my kids in …
HollywoodandFine.com You know a tent-pole movie series is in trouble when it has to explain its title in its dialogue. As in Tom Cruise saying, about midway through “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” to the rest of his crew, “We’re going to Ghost Protocol. Ghost Protocol is…” and then explaining …
HollywoodandFine.com What can you say about Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” that wasn’t said previously about Ritchie’s Baker Street reboot from 2009, “Sherlock Holmes”? That it’s bigger, louder and more expensive? That’s hardly a shock from a sequel. Indeed, it’s kind of de rigueur, right? How about …
HollywoodandFine.com Roman Polanski takes the experience of watching Yasmina Reza’s play, “God of Carnage,” and amplifies the tension, turns anger into absurdity and captures an entire universe in, essentially, two and a half rooms of a Brooklyn apartment, in the film, “Carnage.” The apartment belongs to Michael and Penelope Longstreet …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s hard to believe no one has done a film tribute to Roger Corman before “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel,” Alex Stapleton’s loving time-capsule of the career of one of the true independent filmmaking sensibilities of all time. Still active at a spritely 85, Corman is shown …
HollywoodandFine.com Actress Tilda Swinton seems caught in the role of mother of troubled teens and shepherdess of similar lost sheep. She’s played them with quiet panic (as the mom of a suspected murderer in “The Deep End”) and bluster (the title role in “Julia,” sudden guardian in an ill-planned kidnapping). …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve seen what feels like a surprising number of movies that genuinely excited and moved me this year, films as different as “The Descendants” and “Drive” – both of which are on my 10-best list below. “The Descendants” is my favorite film of the year for its ability to …
HollywoodandFine.com From time to time, I offer an installment in my “Annals of the Overrated.” But I don’t believe director David Gordon Green is worth an entire installment – so let this review of his latest film, “The Sitter,” serve as his induction. Consider him officially overrated. Green, you may …
HollywoodandFine.com Thrillers and spy tales have devolved in movies to a hash of slice’n’dice editing, prefabricated plots and outlandish action and gunplay that makes all espionage into James Bond or, worse, a video game. Which is why “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is such a welcome relief. Like the John Le …
The Sitter Remakes the 80s By Armond White The Sitter confirms director David Gordon Green’s unexpected yet healthy career turn. His 2000 debut George Washington (NYFCC Best First Film prizewinner) about the out-of-reach desires of black and white kids in the modern impoverished South, introduced a sweet yet somber regional …
HollywoodandFine.com When is a comedy not a comedy? When it’s one of what apparently is becoming a series of holiday-themed movies by Garry Marshall. “Valentine’s Day” was the 2010 date movie from hell – an all-star cluster-grope that had fewer laughs than a rerun of “Laverne & Shirley,” Marshall’s signature …
HollywoodandFine.com People in Minnesota have this reputation for being “nice” that Diablo Cody seems determined to undermine – which she does in slashingly funny style in Jason Reitman’s “Young Adult,” opening in limited release Friday (12/9/11) before going wide on Dec. 16. The film reteams the “Juno” duo with a …