HollywoodandFine.com Either the title of the documentary “Muscle Shoals” resonates with you – in which case it resonates hard – or you have no idea what it means. But you should – or you should find out by watching the movie, one of the year’s most entertaining and enriching nonfiction …
HollywoodandFine.com As directorial debuts by actors go, “Don Jon” is an auspicious one. Too many of these projects are vanity affairs, the chance for the actor to try get all the focus. Alternatively, it’s a form of therapy, acted out in front of a camera and broadcast to the world. …
HollywoodandFine.com Ron Howard’s “Rush” is winning all sorts of praise as being daring (for taking on subject matter that apparently isn’t an automatic audience magnet), a throwback to the 1970s (when filmmakers took more risks) and just plain sexy and exciting. Yet I found it to be exactly as middlebrow …
HollywoodandFine.com Denis Villeneuve had two films at this year’s Toronto Film Festival. The better one was called “Enemy.” The one that’s getting the big studio release this week is called “Prisoners.” Being sold with an adrenalized trailer featuring the histrionics of Hugh Jackman, “Prisoners” is meant to be a thriller. …
HollywoodandFine.com Coming-of-age stories tend to be about innocents who have the veil pulled from their eyes. Which sort of describes “C.O.G.” – except for the innocent part. In fact, David (Jonathan Groff) is old enough to have finished grad school. Still, he’s lived a privileged life, relatively speaking, and longs …
HollywoodandFine.com Mid-life romance – the post-divorce kind – is tough all around. You’ve been burned or disappointed or humiliated or all of the above. How do you learn to trust someone new in that way? Nicole Holofcener brings a wonderfully humane approach to the subject with “Enough Said,” a bittersweet …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll say this about “Adore”: It never goes where you expect it to. This Australian film, from director Anne Fontaine, was titled “Two Mothers” when it screened at Sundance in January, “The Grandmothers” when it was a short novel by Doris Lessing. “Adore” seems more descriptive, if more vague …
HollywoodandFine.com Lynn Shelton obviously isn’t a filmmaker whose work suits everyone’s taste. With her lightly scripted, improvisational approach to movies, there’s a certain shaggy quality to her work – or at least to the films of hers I’ve seen (and liked): “Humpday” and “Your Sister’s Sister.” Add “Touchy Feely” to …
HollywoodandFine.com After all the hype about its supposedly mind-blowing revelations about the late J.D. Salinger, Shane Salerno’s “Salinger” turns out to be a hype – an overblown, overlong documentary about a famous writer, with little that is either truly revelatory or earth-shaking, at least if you’ve been paying attention at …
HollywoodandFine.com Hannah Fidell’s “A Teacher,” opening in limited release this week, is exactly the kind of movie I love to discover at film festivals: small, low-budget, without famous faces – but with a strong dramatic vision and the intelligence to carry it out with minimal resources. It seems like a …