‘This Is Where I Leave You’: Better than expected

HollywoodandFine.com I went into “This Is Where I Leave You” with trepidation, mostly having to do with its director, Shawn Levy. The man behind such standard-lowering hits as “Cheaper By the Dozen” and the “Night at the Museum” movies, Levy is the filmmaker version of that old saying: To a …

The week in movies: ‘Bad Words,’ ‘Need for Speed’ and more

HollywoodandFine.com OK. I’ll admit it: My favorite film this week is also the most transgressive. It’s full of vicious one-liners that are guaranteed to offend, well, the easily offended. Jason Bateman makes his directing debut with “Bad Words,” the rudest comedy about an adult dealing with kids since “Bad Santa.” …

‘Disconnect,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com “Disconnect” is in the “Crash”/ “Nashville”/ “Short Cuts” school of story-telling, bringing together three disparate storylines that ultimately provide echoes and resonance between themselves, while involving people of tangential connection. But in Henry-Alex Rubin’s film, from Andrew Stern’s script, the connections – or the way they’re made – is …

‘Identity Thief,’ reviewed by Marshall Fine

HollywoodandFine.com Think of “Identity Thief” as a weak-tea reworking of “Midnight Run,” itself a long-overvalued action-comedy that was never as good its proponents would have you think. Here’s the most damning credit in the list of unremarkable credits for “Identity Thief”: The writer is Craig Mazin, whose filmography includes “Scary …

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