HollywoodandFine.com “Ruby Sparks” could be a tasty bit of magical realism in romantic-comedy form, the first produced screenplay by actress Zoe Kazan, who plays the title character. Except for one serious problem. Directed by the “Little Miss Sunshine” team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, “Ruby Sparks” should be the …
HollywoodandFine.com The strangeness of truth compared to the limits of the human imagination gets a crystalline demonstration in Malik Bendjelloul’s “Searching for Sugar Man,” an award-winner at Sundance that lives up to the hype, opening in limited release Friday (7/27/12). If you haven’t heard the hype – or if you …
HollywoodandFine.com Schadenfreude, the feeling of happiness at the misfortunes of another, is a tempting thing – mean-spirited, to be sure, but tempting, nonetheless. That’s particularly true when dealing with characters like the ones at the center of Lauren Greenfield’s stunning documentary, “The Queen of Versailles.” But it’s hard to feel …
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HollywoodandFine.com You don’t have to believe in the paranormal to be intrigued by the premise of Rodrigo Cortes’ “Red Lights,” now playing in limited release. And you don’t have to be a nonbeliever to find the conclusion that this effort-laden film reaches unsatisfactory – indeed, to find it frustrating and …
HollywoodandFine.com There’s a certain rowdy spirit to Stephen Gyllenhaal’s “Grassroots,” now playing in limited release, that gives the fact-based comedy-drama a surprising vitality for a movie that seems so schematic. Based on a true story, the film stars Jason Biggs as a journalist named Phil Campbell, who is fired from …
HollywoodandFine.com When you first meet Lucy, played with bracing forthrightness by Mira Sorvino in Nancy Savoca’s “Union Square,” well, let’s just say she can only grow on you. Because Lucy is – or seems to be – a serious pain. She’s whiny, she’s needy and she’s abrasive without even trying …
HollywoodandFine.com It took a Facebook communiqué from a friend, asking what I thought about “Savages,” for my thoughts to crystallize: “I was mixed,” I wrote. “Liked the action, thought the acting by the 3 heroes (and the writing for them) kind of sucked.” Which about sums it up. This film …
HollywoodandFine.com Spider-Man was an angsty teen that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created in “Amazing Fantasy” comics in August 1962 – a character that’s apparently a perfect fit for Andrew Garfield in “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Garfield sweeps aside memories of Tobey Maguire as the web-spinner. He captures the personality split …
HollywoodandFine.com Where do writers get their ideas? How do they go about putting words in other people’s mouths? To writers, it seems like an unanswerable question: It’s a compulsion, a need, an itch that needs to be scratched on a semi-regular basis. But the process seems like a mysterious one …
HollywoodandFine.com Pre-apocalyptic films tend to be thrillers: Yikes, the world is about to end – how can we escape or avert imminent disaster? But Lorene Scafaria’s “Seeking a Friend for the End of the World” strikes a different chord: one that is wistfully romantic, a little melancholy and unexpectedly funny. …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s noteworthy that Disney/Pixar’s “Brave,” opening Friday (6/22/12), is the first Pixar feature – and the first Disney animated feature in a while – to focus on a heroine, rather than a hero. And not a heroine whose fate is somehow bound up with romance – that’s a crucial …
HollywoodandFine.com “Rock of Ages” is technically a jukebox musical: a stage presentation of comedy, drama and song in which, instead of using original songs, the writers build a story out of existing music, re-purposing it to retrofit a plot or a plot point. Think “Mamma Mia.” But really, the jukebox …
HollywoodandFine.com I settled in for the screening of “Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present,” with the same skepticism I’d had when I went to see her retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, which the film documents. But I came away feeling chastened – mostly that I’d been so dismissive …