HollywoodandFine.com Lynn Shelton had me at “Humpday,” the feature that introduced me to the intuitively funny filmmaker, who comes back strong with “Your Sister’s Sister,” opening in limited release Friday (6/15/12). Working once again with Mark Duplass, Shelton brings Emily Blunt and Rosemarie Dewitt into the mix, in a story …
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 Greta Gerwig is a cross between a younger Chloe Sevigny and a young Meg Ryan. She’s somehow backed into semi-“It” girl status, at least among boosters of a certain segment of independent film. She comes off mostly as off-puttingly self-pitying and mopey in “Lola Versus,” a self-consciously quirky-moody rom-drom. …
HollywoodandFine.com There’s spoof that works and there’s caricature that depends on stereotype – and Bruce Beresford’s “Peace, Love & Misunderstanding” is witless caricature. Watching it makes you wonder what its creators saw in the script by Joseph Muszynski and Christine Mengert. In the world it creates, the town of Woodstock, …
HollywoodandFine.com As an act of cinema, “Prometheus” is stunningly designed, shot with great purpose in a serious fashion. When it finally shifts gears from “Building Dread” to “Action,” director Ridley Scott is in his sweet spot: cannily designed, well-crafted suspense in the familiar pattern of tension and release, tension and …
HollywoodandFine.com Small and delightfully self-assured, “Safety Not Guaranteed” celebrates the idea of taking a chance and accepting the unexpected, in ways that are quietly funny. It opens Friday (6/8/12) in limited release. Coming from first-timers Colin Trevorrow (director) and Derek Connolly (writer), the film is built on that hoariest of …
HollywoodandFine.com I’m not going to invoke the title of this film to describe writer-director Todd Solondz. But “Dark Horse,” opening in limited release Friday (6/8/12), is pure Solondz, a return to form after “Life During Wartime” and “Palindromes,” which seemed like experiments in style more than anything else. He once …
HollywoodandFine.com Nominated for the Oscar as best animated feature (which went to the visually brilliant but drastically unfunny “Rango”), “A Cat in Paris” is a slight but entertaining tale, most noteworthy for going old-school, with hand-drawn animation. Directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol from a script by Gagnol, this …
HollywoodandFine.com For a movie based on a fairy tale, “Snow White and the Huntsman” is kind of grim – or is that Grimm? The year’s second movie based on the tale of Snow White and the Wicked Queen, it’s a much more serious film than “Mirror Mirror,” which tried to …
HollywoodandFine.com The temptation to make lots of marijuana-derived jokes would be a lot stronger if “High School,” an alleged stoner comedy, were actually funny. But this half-baked enterprise, which has been sitting on the shelf for the two years since it played the festival circuit, isn’t just stale – it’s …
HollywoodandFine.com I will admit: I tend to have a bias against movies with the number “3” in the title. If there’s ever a dead giveaway that all imagination has been sapped from a movie, it’s that second sequel (as if the first sequel wasn’t bad enough). Sure, the filmmaker can …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve got to hand it to Morgan Spurlock, a documentary maker who has enough curiosity – and enough wherewithal – to make the movies he wants to make, and lots of them. “Mansome” is his second this year (after his entertaining Comic-Con doc), a slight but entertaining piece that …
HollywoodandFine.com Is there anything headier, happier and more confusing than first love? Of course not. That sensation is captured perfectly in Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” as wonderfully odd and formal a film as Anderson has made. Even in Anderson’s detail-oriented obsession with symmetry and control of his images, he manages …
HollywoodandFine.com “The Intouchables,” opening Friday (5/25/12) in limited release, offers the epitome of the breakout performance: Omar Sy, who won the Cesar, the French Oscar, for best actor for his performance in this film, defeating Jean Dujardin for “The Artist.” Sy was already a star in France – but he’ll …