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 …
HollywoodandFine.com America’s love affair with the stars of big business should have come to an end with the greed-driven crash of our financial system in 2008. Yet, somehow, Donald Trump remains not just a celebrity but one who was actually considered seriously as a presidential candidate – for about a …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll admit I’ve never seen any of the movies from the comedy troupe Broken Lizard, which include such deathless titles as “Super-Troopers,” “Beerfest” and “The Slammin’ Salmon.” And now, on the basis of “The Babymakers,” I’m not likely to. It’s not as if these films have been bubbling around …
HollywoodandFine.com There inevitably will be comparisons between “Celeste and Jesse Forever” and “(500) Days of Summer,” and that’s not a bad thing. Both are about intense relationships between young adults that end – and yet go on. Both are stories of love that has grown one-sided. And both ache with …
HollywoodandFine.com Modern art long ago stopped being about recreating an image of reality and became about ideas. The key question always seems to be: Is art the thing itself? Or the idea of the thing? But what if you live in a society where the very ideas you harbor are …
HollywoodandFine.com He won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for “August: Osage County,” a tale of family dysfunction that was scathing and dark. But that wasn’t playwright Tracy Letts’ first foray into the brutal dynamics of family strife: Consider his play, now a film, called “Killer Joe.” Dysfunctional? The Smith …
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 …