HollywoodandFine.com The first “Wallander” novels by Henning Mankell were published in Sweden in the early 1990s. There have been Wallander movies and TV series in Sweden, as well as a British adaptation with Kenneth Branagh as the depressed detective Kurt Wallander that played in the U.S. on “Masterpiece: Mystery.” But …
HollywoodandFine.com For a movie based on a fairy tale, “Snow White and the Huntsman” is kind of grim – or is that Grimm? The year’s second movie based on the tale of Snow White and the Wicked Queen, it’s a much more serious film than “Mirror Mirror,” which tried to …
HollywoodandFine.com The temptation to make lots of marijuana-derived jokes would be a lot stronger if “High School,” an alleged stoner comedy, were actually funny. But this half-baked enterprise, which has been sitting on the shelf for the two years since it played the festival circuit, isn’t just stale – it’s …
HollywoodandFine.com I will admit: I tend to have a bias against movies with the number “3” in the title. If there’s ever a dead giveaway that all imagination has been sapped from a movie, it’s that second sequel (as if the first sequel wasn’t bad enough). Sure, the filmmaker can …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve got to hand it to Morgan Spurlock, a documentary maker who has enough curiosity – and enough wherewithal – to make the movies he wants to make, and lots of them. “Mansome” is his second this year (after his entertaining Comic-Con doc), a slight but entertaining piece that …
HollywoodandFine.com Is there anything headier, happier and more confusing than first love? Of course not. That sensation is captured perfectly in Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom,” as wonderfully odd and formal a film as Anderson has made. Even in Anderson’s detail-oriented obsession with symmetry and control of his images, he manages …
HollywoodandFine.com “The Intouchables,” opening Friday (5/25/12) in limited release, offers the epitome of the breakout performance: Omar Sy, who won the Cesar, the French Oscar, for best actor for his performance in this film, defeating Jean Dujardin for “The Artist.” Sy was already a star in France – but he’ll …
HollywoodandFine.com “Lovely Molly” is a direct descendant of “The Blair Witch Project.” Aside from the fact that it incorporates the same handheld, shaky-cam, faux-doc technique as that 1999 sensation, it was written and directed by Eduardo Sanchez, one of “Blair Witch”’s co-directors/creators. But this genre of horror film is played …
HollywoodandFine.com Though billed as a Russian film noir, “Elena” skimps on the noir and more’s the pity. Instead, it’s a disciplined, controlled and ultimately disappointing drama of family tension and murder. The crime does not go unpunished, but the punishment seems mild to the point of nonexistence. Nadezhda Markina plays …
HollywoodandFine.com Interesting the difference a few months can make. When I saw Tanya Wexler’s “Hysteria” last fall at the Toronto Film Festival, I enjoyed it for its perspective on how far we’ve come in terms of our attitudes toward women having control over their own bodies. Eight months later, “Hysteria,” …