HollywoodandFine.com When James Bond rebooted with Daniel Craig in “Casino Royale,” the blend of old-school spy tale and modern-action sensibility seemed right – if still a little restrained. Imagine now what would happen if James Bond were put in the hands of someone who was willing to not just rethink …
HollywoodandFine.com Maybe it’s because the studio movies at this time of year are so universally dreadful, but I find myself drawn to the smaller films that bite and snarl and generally have bad manners: “Bad Words,” “The Raid 2” and, this week, “Dom Hemingway.” Written and directed by Richard Shepard …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve been a fan of Spike Lee – if not of all of his movies – for 25 years. And I’ve found that, more often than not, he’s at his best when he’s directing someone else’s material – or someone else’s story. It was true of “The 25th Hour,” …
HollywoodandFine.com Niels Arestrup may be the most commandingly passive-aggressive father figure in the current cinema. In films such as “A Prophet,” the upcoming “Our Children” and, this week, “You Will Be My Son,” the leonine Arestrup plays a series of patriarchs with distinctly ambivalent relationships with their sons (though he …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve posted diatribes the past few years about Comic-Con – an event I’ve never attended and never hope to. But I was going to ignore it this year. For a couple of reasons: For one thing, I feel as though I’ve made my arguments in the past. But I …
HollywoodandFine.com When I was in college, I once interviewed the late Rupert Crosse, an African-American actor who got an Oscar nomination for a 1969 film called “The Reivers,” whose star was Steve McQueen. If I’d known then that I would, 40 years later, write a book about John Cassavetes (in …
HollywoodandFine.com At this point in his career, is there anything Quentin Tarantino can do to surprise us? Absolutely. I was floored by 2009’s “Inglourious Basterds” – not by the violence or the outrageousness of some of the action, but by Tarantino’s command of suspense, his ability to crank the tension …
HollywoodandFine.com Here’s the best thing I can say about “The Avengers” (and no, I will NOT refer to it as “Marvel’s The Avengers,” because the branding is implicit): It offers a couple of the biggest laughs in recent memory, including a slapstick gag worthy of Chuck Jones in his “Looney …