HollywoodandFine.com Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, “The Two Faces of January” is a movie that sheds layers like an onion, gradually revealing the dark heart at its core. Indeed, writer-director Hossein Amini keeps the viewer guessing until nearly the end of the film as to which of these …
HollywoodandFine.com There is always an audience for actors in late middle-age who know how to kick serious ass. Charles Bronson was 53 when he made “Death Wish,” Liam Neeson was 54 when he did “Taken” and Clint Eastwood was 73 when he did “Gran Torino.” Action has always been one …
HollywoodandFine.com “Pride” is the kind of movie that is best seen without knowing its storyline going in. Because it delivers something quite different than you expect, based on the kind of movie it seems to be. Even if you do know the plot (which deals with the coal-miners strike that …
HollywoodandFine.com I went into “This Is Where I Leave You” with trepidation, mostly having to do with its director, Shawn Levy. The man behind such standard-lowering hits as “Cheaper By the Dozen” and the “Night at the Museum” movies, Levy is the filmmaker version of that old saying: To a …
HollywoodandFine.com They used to make films like “A Walk Among the Tombstones” on a regular basis: mysteries built around flawed heroes, in which character was as important as plot, and action was the catharsis, not the reason for the story itself. Scott Frank, who directs and adapted the film from …
HollywoodandFine.com “Art and Craft” is a potent title that can be taken in several different ways, in this fascinatingly complex and endlessly entertaining documentary from a trio of filmmakers: Sam Cullman, Jennifer Grausman and Mark Becker. It examines the conflicting notions of art and imitation, finding an extremely bizarre middle …
HollywoodandFine.com There is a growing canon of films built around a man/woman-alone against the elements. Two of last year’s most gripping films – “Gravity” and “All Is Lost” – and two to come shortly focus on the tininess of man in nature and the lengths and limits of his strength …
HollywoodandFine.com I wrote a long piece a couple years ago, about why I refused to review the third “Transformers” movie: because the first two sucked, because Michael Bay is the Antichrist, because life is too short to spend watching make-believe computer-animated robots fight each other. I could go on and …
HollywoodandFine.com Paul Haggis’ “Third Person” may be the year’s most misunderstood film. It’s also one of the most intriguing. A jigsaw puzzle of characters and plots, it might remind some at first of “Crash,” Haggis’ Oscar-winning multiple-character drama. But “Third Person” has a different agenda. Initially, we see three different …
HollywoodandFine.com After I saw “22 Jump Street,” I noted publicly that, while it was funnier than “21 Jump Street,” so was my root canal. (Although the latter did include laughing gas.) Still, the bar wasn’t particularly high. So why is this film currently floating atop the Rotten Tomatoes chart with …