HollywoodandFine.com We take our mentors where we find them in life, though it’s not always apparent who’s teaching who. That’s the case in “Learning to Drive,” a comic drama by Isabel Coixet that offers beautifully matched performances by Patricia Clarkson and Ben Kingsley. They are strangers drawn together by coincidence …
HollywoodandFine.com The idea of human consciousness going mobile is an intriguing one: What if you could actually trade minds with another person? That’s the premise of “Self/less,” a disappointing mind-transfer tale notable for its performances if not its dramaturgy. Writers David and Alex Pastor and director Tarsem Singh take a …
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 So is the third film the decider in a series? Two out of three good enough for immortality? In the case of “Iron Man Three” (as the closing credits have it), I’d say it’s probably too close to call. Jon Favreau’s first two “Iron Man” films were a split …
HollywoodandFine.com Outrageous, offensive and alternately sophisticated and crude, “The Dictator” is also quite funny – as well as being Sacha Baron Cohen’s first comedy that is mostly scripted. Did I say offensive? Put it this way: If you don’t have a sense of humor about race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality and …
HollywoodandFine.com Three cheers for Martin Scorsese, who has not only made “Hugo” one of the most lovingly fanciful and heartfelt films of the year – he has also pulled off the subversive trick of introducing a new generation of kids to the magic of silent movies. And, to boot, he’s …