HollywoodandFine.com Based on a true story, “Gimme Shelter” is one of those films that means well: It’s earnest, filled with the spirit of forgiveness – indeed, it wouldn’t seem out of place on the Lifetime network. But this story about an abused, homeless and unwed pregnant teen – played with …
HollywoodandFine.com Hirokazu Koreeda’s “Like Father, Like Son” is a delicate but daunting tale, one whose quietly self-contained story manages to churn great waves of emotional complexity. The set-up is a popular literary and cinematic plot contrivance: the switched-at-birth trope. But it is acted out in movingly stark relief in this …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s easy to understand what they’re going for in the odd-couple action-comedy “Ride Along.” It’s the classic comedy-team set-up of the tough, cynical straight man and the big-hearted stooge. Whether it was Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby, Martin & Lewis – or such modern attempts …
HollywoodandFine.com There is a lovely simplicity to Jillian Schlesinger’s film “Maidentrip,” which includes the credit “made with Laura Dekker.” Dekker was the Dutch girl who, in 2010, at the age of 14, set sail from Gibraltar in a quest to be the youngest person ever to circumnavigate the globe alone …
HollywoodandFine.com Arvin Chen’s “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” examines several different kinds of love in a gentle, engaging tale of two couples, each struggling at a crucial point in their relationship. Set in Taiwan, the film begins with Mandy (Kimi Hsia), who is about to marry San-San (Stone), a …
HollywoodandFine.com Awards season is a phrase that makes it sound as though everyone is armed with shotguns, combing an empty cornfield in hopes of flushing statuettes from the brush. It implies a hunt, a focused pursuit whose sole goal is to return with an armful of trophies. Awards season is …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s the time of year when critics release their lists of the year’s best films. It feels like a competitive sport – or a provocation, which all of these lists are, by nature. As in: “This is my list of the best films. If you don’t agree, you’re wrong.” …
HollywoodandFine.com A few years back, a practice known as “bum fights” – in which young adults would pay homeless men to brawl with each other, then post videos on the Internet – shocked sentient adults for its cruelty, callousness and what it said about the breakdown of the social contract. …
HollywoodandFine.com Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor” opens at the end of the film on a harrowing moment about the title character, then jumps back in time to the beginning of this nerve-wracking story. But before Berg introduces us to the four central figures in this narrative, he drops in a segment …
HollywoodandFine.com Unless they find new ways to recycle their personae, comic actors would seem to have a limited shelf life. It’s all about reinvention. Otherwise, you’re stuck doing the same dumb stuff over and over. (Exhibit A: Adam Sandler). Still, I have to hand it to Ben Stiller. While his …