HollywoodandFine.com When I saw Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” at the Toronto Film Festival in September, I wrote that “Miller, in my estimation, has jumped into the class of Steven Soderbergh and other great directors of the past 25 years (who don’t worship at the Tarantino altar).” Not that I’ve got anything …
HollywoodandFine.com No good deed goes unpunished in Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Homesman.” And that’s how the West was won. Punishment is a running theme in this film, which Lee and two writing partners adapted from a novel by Glendon Swarthout. Lee directed the film, and plays a central character: George …
HollywoodandFine.com Romantic dramas seem to be few and far between these days. So it’s both refreshing and encouraging to see one as good as Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “Beyond the Lights.” It’s an area she has mined in the past, in films like “Love & Basketball” and “The Secret Life of Bees.” …
HollywoodandFine.com Christopher Nolan’s philosophy of filmmaking apparently is this: Why make one movie when you can make three? Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. “Interstellar” works much more often than it doesn’t. While the script by Nolan and his brother Jonathan wants to traffic in ideals and ideas about gravity, …
HollywoodandFine.com TV news has long since surpassed the excesses that seemed far-fetched in Paddy Chayefsky’s “Network” almost 40 years ago. Indeed, what’s shocking about Dan Gilroy’s “Nightcrawler” is how not shocking it is – while still being a rousing and visionary piece of work. In depicting the world of local …
HollywoodandFine.com Everyone, at some point, wonders how they would react to a split-second emergency. Fight or flight? Leap into action or race for the exit? Or simply crumble? That’s the question at the center of the wickedly chilly “Force Majeure,” a movie about a momentary decision that may lead to …
HollywoodandFine.com What is a laggie? Judging from the substance of Lynn Shelton’s new film, “Laggies,” it’s someone who has fallen behind in life. Not that Shelton or screenwriter Andrea Seigel are ever that explicit about it. Instead, this blithe romantic comedy just jumps right in, introducing Megan (Keira Knightley) and …
HollywoodandFine.com This seems to be the season for movies in the 140-150 minute range, length apparently meant to convey importance. David Ayer’s “Fury” is one of the few that warrants its length (or most of it). Brutal, punishing and exciting – in that order – “Fury” gives you an approximation …
HollywoodandFine.com “The Judge” is, in its way, the kind of old-fashioned potboiler – a courtroom drama – that the studios made regularly when the studios actually thought there was an audience for films about adult concerns. It’s directed by David Dobkin, heretofore a director primarily of comedy (“Wedding Crashers,” “Fred …
HollywoodandFine.com Bill Murray has had the most piquant of film careers, launching himself from “Saturday Night Live” into goofy comedies that eventually gave way to something deeper and more satisfying, appearing in everything from “Zombieland” (as a version of himself) to the films of Wes Anderson to wildly varied recent …