HollywoodandFine.com You’re as old as you feel – unless you’re James Bond. Then you’re both ageless and timeless. But as “Skyfall,” the newest adventure of 007, shows, even the world’s most dangerous secret agent needs to keep up with the times. And so director Sam Mendes and a trio of …
HollywoodandFine.com There are pleasures to be had from Yaron Zilberman’s “A Late Quartet,” opening in limited release today (11/2/12), principally having to do with its treatment of group dynamics battling artistic temperaments. The question is whether those are sufficient to warrant sitting through the rest of it. Set in the …
HollywoodandFine.com Anyone who has ever been caught up in the videogame revolution that exploded in the late 1970s and early 1980s – which has all but consumed popular culture for kids and teens in the time since – should have a ball with “Wreck-It Ralph.” But you don’t need to …
HollywoodandFine.com The commercials for “Flight” are a dazzling bit of bait-and-switch. If you’ve seen them, then your impression of the film is probably something along the lines of: A pilot saves an airliner from a seemingly certain crash, then must fight for his reputation against dark forces that want to …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve often said that the most influential films of the past 25 years were “Pulp Fiction” and “The Matrix,” two movies that have been copied endlessly by filmmakers who had nary a clue as to what these films were actually doing. It’s a list to which I’d also add …
HollywoodandFine.com “Fun Size” is no fun at any size. A limp teen comedy about teens searching for both a party and a lost child, “Fun Size” has fewer laughs than a half-hour of the average Nickelodeon sitcom – and that’s pretty damn few. Which makes sense because it’s a Nickelodeon …
HollywoodandFine.com There are a lot of ways Lorraine Levy could have gone with the premise of “The Other Son,” opening in limited release Friday. Thankfully, she took the least-expected one. A switched-at-birth tale, “The Other Son” raises the stakes on what is already an emotionally charged situation. Her story – …
HollywoodandFine.com David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” is a fascinating puzzle of a novel, with stories broken in half, then reassembled in a way that gives each added resonance and power. It seems like an unfilmable book because of its construction (more on that in a moment). But Mitchell has met his …
HollywoodandFine.com Sex is a magnetic force, one that attracts and repels with equal force. Those impulses can be electrifying or awkward, drawing us desperately while tripping us up regularly. To make it even more difficult, this primal bit of attraction comes freighted with teachings about morality, religion and hygiene. Now …
HollywoodandFine.com Jon Kasdan’s “The First Time” captures one of those moments in life when you only hope you have the presence of mind to absorb every detail so that you can savor it later. It’s that moment when you were in exactly the right place at the right time to …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll admit I’m a sucker for Martin McDonagh’s work. I’m a fan of his plays and loved his first feature, “In Bruges.” And I’m just as excited about his new film, “Seven Psychopaths,” perhaps the movie that forces you to laugh at more inappropriate moments than any film in …
HollywoodandFine.com The best films about recovery from addiction are not about reaching rock bottom and making that choice to stop. Rather, like “Smashed,” they’re about the very real and difficult task of going on, in an emotionally unshielded and intensely vulnerable way. Addiction, after all, isn’t about loving the substance …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s a little early to be proclaiming Ben Affleck’s “Argo” the best movie of the year – but one of the best? No question. Among the films I saw at this year’s Toronto Film Festival, it was the most exciting and engrossing. And I can’t think of anything I’ve …
HollywoodandFine.com Quiet but compelling, emotionally buttoned-up and naked at the same time, Ava DuVernay’s “Middle of Nowhere,” opening in limited release Friday (10/12/12), is a film about holding still while trying to move forward. It’s not an easy trick; indeed, it’s impossible. Which is what the film’s central character, Ruby …