HollywoodandFine.com “Why Stop Now” boasts such a diverse cast of recognizable faces that you have to wonder where it all went wrong. A strange blend of comedy and drama that never quite jells, the film was cowritten and codirected by Ron Nyswaner (an Oscar nominee for “Philadelphia”) and newcomer Phil …
HollywoodandFine.com A caper film whose biggest thief is actually the inexorable flow of time, “Robot & Frank” is a terrific character study that offers the always-captivating Frank Langella the opportunity to stretch out a little bit. Though Jake Schreier’s film, from a script by Christopher Ford, builds to a contrived …
HollywoodandFine.com Craig Zobel’s “Compliance” may be the creepiest movie of the year. It has no physical violence, no sex, barely even a raised voice – and yet it burrows into your brain and keeps burrowing, the longer you watch. Based on a set of actual incidents, “Compliance” starts out simply …
HollywoodandFine.com The last time a kid was saying “I see dead people” in a movie, it was “The Sixth Sense” – and it was meant to be frightening. Now the kid who’s saying it is the star of “ParaNorman,” which is meant to be funny and exciting. Unfortunately wrong on …
HollywoodandFine.com A sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s 2010 hail-Mary all-action-star effort to regain relevance at the box office, “The Expendables 2” may be the biggest, bloodiest and most willfully stupid film since the last time Michael Bay stepped behind a camera. This one is directed by Simon West, someone else who …
HollywoodandFine.com “Chicken with Plums,” opening Friday (8/17/12) in limited release, is a fascinating puzzle: at once a mordant comedy, a tale of unrequited love and a story of heart-breaking artistry. Directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud from Satrapi’s graphic novel, it is magical and mysterious, a story of love …
HollywoodandFine.com I rarely take notes during movies, but when the pretentious aphorisms started flying in David Cronenberg’s “Cosmopolis,” I dove for my notebook. I missed a few of the early ones, but managed to scribble down several of the ripest, most ridiculous pronouncements, starting with: “Life is too contemporary.” Or …
HollywoodandFine.com In her follow-up to “2 Days in Paris,” actress-filmmaker Julie Delpy moves her focus across the Atlantic and switches leading men – from Adam Goldberg to Chris Rock. The result is another shaggy, discursive and amusing film – long on character, short on plot, full of sly observations about …
HollywoodandFine.com It used to be that a movie that celebrated the use of marijuana was considered shocking, scandalous, unacceptable and inappropriate. To some people, it probably still is. These days, smoking weed is a staple in popular entertainment – not just as a cheap punchline but as a regular story …
HollywoodandFine.com Tony Gilroy is the smartest, most intriguing screenwriter since William Goldman was in his heyday. In a variety of films – including his own “Michael Clayton” and “Duplicity” – Gilroy has demonstrated both a toughness and a cleverness that few contemporary screenwriters possess. He comes through again with “The …
HollywoodandFine.com Here’s why I’d almost be willing to give “The Campaign” a pass on the fact that it’s sloppy, inconsistent and only intermittently funny: Because it takes a populist form like a Will Ferrell movie and makes sharp-edged digs (for a Will Ferrell movie) at a political system that’s in …
HollywoodandFine.com The commercials make “Hope Springs” look like some sort of mildly naughty sex comedy about an uptight older-middle-aged couple who rediscover the joys of sex through couples’ therapy. With Steve Carell – that wacky guy! – as the therapist. And the ads trumpet the fact that it’s from “the …
HollywoodandFine.com At about the halfway point in the new remake of “Total Recall,” I thought, “Wow, this is pretty good.” But pretty good is all it managed. Though Len Wiseman’s reworking of Philip K. Dick’s story (and the 1990 Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger film that was extrapolated from it) comes up …
HollywoodandFine.com The second film of the summer inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s “La Ronde,” Fernando Mereilles’ “360” is an intriguing jigsaw puzzle of a movie, less schematic than Schnitzler’s play (or “30 Beats,” the dreadful film of a couple weeks ago). Still, it’s more interesting for its individual pieces than what …