HollywoodandFine.com Maiwenn Le Besco’s “Polisse” is tough and compelling, a police drama with no real plot but, rather, a snapshot slice-of-life of a group of Paris cops coping with what may be the most demanding assignment on the force. They are the members of the Child Protection Unit, charged with …
HollywoodandFine.com Outrageous, offensive and alternately sophisticated and crude, “The Dictator” is also quite funny – as well as being Sacha Baron Cohen’s first comedy that is mostly scripted. Did I say offensive? Put it this way: If you don’t have a sense of humor about race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality and …
HollywoodandFine.com I’m not sure who thought it would be a good idea to try to make a movie out of the self-help pregnancy guide, “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” but I have to assume that same person is currently hard at work on the video game. Which will undoubtedly …
HollywoodandFine.com Don’t judge “A Bag of Hammers” by its first 15 minutes. The debut feature from writer-director Brian Crano may start out sounding like a goofy buddy comedy, but stick with it – and it will surprise you. In a good way. The two central characters are Alan (Jake Sandvig) …
HollywoodandFine.com When Tim Burton and Johnny Depp decided, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to make a movie out of the campy ’60s TV show ‘Dark Shadows’,” the correct response should have been the following three words: “Wild Wild West.” Apparently no one had the stones to say that to Burton …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s only May and I already have my favorite film of the year: Bobcat Goldthwait’s “God Bless America,” as acidic and funny a movie as you’re likely to see this or any other year. Already available on VOD, it opens in limited theatrical release Friday (5/11/12). An antidote to …
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 …
HollywoodandFine.com Don’t trust the trailers for Anne Renton’s “The Perfect Family.” They make it look like an irreverent, iconoclastic satire, one that attacks hypocrisy among the pious – like something from the Farrelly brothers or, perhaps, John Waters. Oh wait – Waters already made that movie with Turner and called …
HollywoodandFine.com An all-star comedy in the same vein as such crowd-pleasers as “The Full Monty,” “Calendar Girls” and other British charmers, John Madden’s “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” is the kind of movie they seldom make anymore – except in England. When they try to do it in America, you …
HollywoodandFine.com Boaz Yakin’s “Safe” is high-octane silliness, a movie whose individual parts are greater than their sum. The plot, in a script Yakin wrote, pulls in strands of everything from cage fighting to the Russian mob. And then it sets Jason Statham loose in a world where he is the …