HollywoodandFine.com When you consider that Tom Cruise has been a major movie star for more than three decades, it’s surprising how few out-and-out stinkers he’s made (can Tom Hanks say the same thing?) and how much of himself he can still hold in reserve, with which to surprise us in …
HollywoodandFine.com I’m not going to apologize for laughing my ass off at Seth MacFarlane’s “A Million Ways to Die in the West.” And I’m not going to compare it to “Blazing Saddles.” Yes, they’re both spoofs of westerns with their own unique brand of gross-out humor. But that’s as far …
HollywoodandFine.com If you’re keeping score at home, of the three Marvel comic-book movies so far this summer (a term I use advisedly for a season that technically doesn’t start for another month), “X-Men: Days of Future Past” outranks “Amazing Spider-Man 2” and is about on a par with “Captain America: …
HollywoodandFine.com Here’s a misleading metric: This new film of “Godzilla” is miles above Roland Emmerich’s turgid mess of a film from 1998, which starred an embarrassed-looking Matthew Broderick and a bemused Jean Reno. Duh. There are lots of movies that make Gareth Edwards’ new “Godzilla” look like a masterpiece. That, …
HollywoodandFine.com Even as the brain-dead “Godzilla” is somehow getting a pass in its early reviews, you can bet that “Million Dollar Arm” is going to get savaged by the same critics, who are uncomfortable with movies that deal, ultimately, with feelings instead of ideas (or, in the case of “Godzilla,” …
HollywoodandFine.com “Neighbors” may not be a particularly well-thought-out film (huge third-act problems). But it has some of the biggest sustained laughs of the summer. The fact that the three biggest jokes are, in essence, penis jokes (one involves a used condom, so I count that) may have something to do …
HollywoodandFine.com Yes, yes, I know – spidermanspidermanspidermanspiderman. I’ll get to it. But my favorite movies of the week, as usual, are the small ones. Let’s start with Amma Asante’s “Belle,” a Jane Austen-ish film based on a true story. The central character is Dido Elizabeth Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), the daughter …
HollywoodandFine.com There are so many potentially interesting elements swirling around Wally Pfister’s “Transcendence” – something old, new, borrowed and blue – that the disappointment when they don’t add up to a significant movie is acute. Written by first-timer Jack Paglen and directed by Pfister (Christopher Nolan’s go-to cinematographer), “Transcendence” trolls …
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’m a little embarrassed at how much I enjoyed “The Raid 2,” Gareth Evans’ sequel to his blistering 2011 action film, “The Raid.” So let me be exceptionally clear: “The Raid 2” may be the most graphically violent movie in recent memory – and that’s taking into account the …