HollywoodandFine.com “Passion” isn’t Brian De Palma’s first remake, but it may be his worst: an over-inflated, melodramatically hot-blooded version of what was a cool French thriller. The French film, 2010’s “Love Crimes” from Alain Corneau, starred Ludivine Sagnier as the ambitious but mild-mannered No. 2 to a snaky executive played …
HollywoodandFine.com Everything that I loved about Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film, “Drive,” all the things that I found immediate and evocative – those are all the things that struck me as wrong-headed, self-indulgent and pretentious in his newest, already much-vilified “Only God Forgives.” Working once again with a nearly silent …
HollywoodandFine.com Francois Ozon’s “In the House,” opening Friday (4/19/13) in limited release, gets in your head, slowly at first, then with greater and greater speed. Initially seeming like a comedy about the vicarious voyeurism of a literature teacher at a Paris high school, it casually transforms itself into something else: …
HollywoodandFine.com I’m not sure why, but no one has been willing or able to speak truth to box-office power, so let me try: Robert Pattinson is a terrible actor. Oh, he’s pretty enough, with his sleepy eyes and pouty lips. Let him play a vampire in the “Twilight” series and …
HollywoodandFine.com Adapt and evolve – hey, it’s what we do. But when you get stuck in the rut of your life without realizing it, it’s nice to have someone unexpected come along and nudge you out of it. That, at least, is one of the lessons to take away from …