HollywoodandFine.com Disney has had such a long winning streak with its animated comedies and musicals that it’s almost possible to forgive the problems with “Frozen,” which opens in Los Angeles today and in wide release on Nov. 27. Indeed, there’s not a lot wrong with “Frozen”: The animation is state-of-the-art, …
HollywoodandFine.com I was a fan of Ken Scott’s Canadian comedy, “Starbuck,” when it reached American screens earlier this year. It’s a film that managed to be witty, surprising and soulful, all at the same time. I recall clearly checking its page on IMDB after I watched it, to find out …
HollywoodandFine.com There’s not much to say about “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” because it does what it’s supposed to. The sequel to last year’s hit, this second installment of what was a trilogy of books (but which will be a quartet of films) is directed by Francis Lawrence (the original …
HollywoodandFine.com The past, as William Faulkner famously wrote, “is never dead. It’s not even past.” Or, as Paul Thomas Anderson said in his film “Magnolia,” “We may be through with the past – but the past ain’t through with us.” That’s a lesson the Catholic Church seems to learn repeatedly. …
HollywoodandFine.com Fredrik Bond’s “Charlie Countryman” is an intriguing directorial debut: a blend of the madcap and the maniacal, a movie that mixes tones in ways that shouldn’t work but do. In that sense, it calls to mind a couple of other films: Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” and Jonathan Demme’s “Something …
HollywoodandFine.com Amir Bar-Lev and Charlie Lightening’s new film, “12-12-12” would be worth seeing if only for the moment where James Dolan loses his temper because of a technical glitch. Any New York Knicks fan can offer a laundry list of Dolan’s contumelies as the team’s owner. He’s one of those …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s interesting to see the way filmmakers stake out certain emotional territory as their own over the course of a career. Steven Spielberg is consumed with the notion of wonder, though he obviously has more arrows than that in his quiver. Martin Scorsese, in his own heaven/hell construct, seems …
HollywoodandFine.com Hayao Miyazaki has been a critical darling as an animator almost since his films started being imported to the U.S. He’s been hailed as a master and even given an Oscar for “Spirited Away.” Having announced his retirement, he’s made one final feature: “The Wind Rises,” which is getting …
HollywoodandFine.com The story is right there in the title of Alex Gibney’s furious new documentary: “The Armstrong Lie.” Gibney, as probing a documentarian as is working today, is obviously not the only person who’s angry at Lance Armstrong. The seven-time Tour de France victor disappointed millions of fans by routinely …
HollywoodandFine.com Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” had a certain playfulness that pitted the ultra-serious world of Asgard, land of the Norse gods, against 21st-century USA. Now director Alan Taylor has taken the reins of the franchise and, with “Thor: The Dark World,” drains the fun from it. Instead, he focuses on this …
HollywoodandFine.com In the Will Ferrell era of “Saturday Night Live,” there was a running bit: “Celebrity Jeopardy,” which always seemed to feature Darrell Hammond as Sean Connery, making rude jokes about Ferrell’s Alex Trebek. In one of those episodes, Tobey Maguire portrayed a semi-comatose Keanu Reeves, who kept muttering, “I …
HollywoodandFine.com I heard a lot of critics sniff at the inclusion of Richard Curtis’ “About Time” in this year’s New York Film Festival. The same cadre, no doubt, uses Curtis’ “Love, Actually” as an example of what’s wrong with romantic comedy. I’d like to demur. I happen to think that …
HollywoodandFine.com Having squandered most of this century’s first decade being a movie star, Matthew McConaughey has approached its second stanza as an actor. The results have been salutary. In a year in which he’s already turned in stellar work in “Mud,” after last year’s “Magic Mike” and “Killer Joe,” here …
HollywoodandFine.com Back in the days when he was still funny, Jay Leno used to have a routine about why an appreciation for the Three Stooges was a uniquely male phenomenon. It was dead-on. To that list of gender-specific entertainment geared to men, I’d add the willingness to watch and laugh …