HollywoodandFine.com The New York Film Festival is underway and two of the biggest commercial titles of the fall are in its lineup. (They also happen to be opening this week.) Neither of these lives up to the hype, though I recognize that will be a distinctly minority opinion. “The Martian”: …
HollywoodandFine.com There is a growing canon of films built around a man/woman-alone against the elements. Two of last year’s most gripping films – “Gravity” and “All Is Lost” – and two to come shortly focus on the tininess of man in nature and the lengths and limits of his strength …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s the time of year when critics release their lists of the year’s best films. It feels like a competitive sport – or a provocation, which all of these lists are, by nature. As in: “This is my list of the best films. If you don’t agree, you’re wrong.” …
HollywoodandFine.com Like bookends – or perhaps a double-feature for adrenaline junkies – “All Is Lost” comes on the heels of “Gravity” with the distaff and earthbound version of a similar story. But where Sandra Bullock barely stopped talking during “Gravity,” Robert Redford barely says a word in the course of …
HollywoodandFine.com Apparently we’re going to have a bumper crop of outstanding thrillers this season – “Gravity,” the upcoming “All Is Lost” (well, not technically a thriller but still intense) – and now “Captain Phillips.” Where the first two are fiction, Pal Greengrass’ latest film finds him returning to a story …
HollywoodandFine.com Not since “127 Hours” have I run into a movie that provoked that mixture of excitement and trepidation in people I know who have seen the trailer as “Gravity.” The excitement is understandable. The trailers make it look like exactly what it is, which is a harrowing, white-knuckle tale …
Hope for the best, don’t expect the worst. It’s my movie criticism mantra, but as the lights darkened at the Princess of Wales Theater for “Gravity’s” Canadian gala, already hailed as a masterpiece following a Venice Film Festival Premiere, it wasn’t just the fact that I was way up in …