HollywoodandFine.com He’s not really a wolf – he’s more like a hyena, a scavenger, a bottom-feeder. Why would you want to know his story? That’s my takeaway from Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” His name is Jordan Belfort and, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he’s a fun-loving, money-churning, …
HollywoodandFine.com “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Tolstoy observed and he could have been talking about the Weston clan of “August: Osage County,” when he wrote that line to start “Anna Karenina.” This particular family get-together is like one of those “Royal Rumble” professional wrestling matches, where …
HollywoodandFine.com When my oldest son was a tot, one of the videotapes in heavy rotation on our TV was the cartoon feature, “The Land Before Time.” In it, a group of baby dinosaurs – a brontosaurus, triceratops and a couple of others – get separated from their herd during the …
HollywoodandFine.com The only way I can imagine having fun watching “Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues” is if I were drunk enough to be really funny myself, watching it with a group of friends on TV in the comfort of my living room – “Mystery Science Theater 3000”-style. Even then, it …
HollywoodandFine.com Spike Jonze’s “Her” is the year’s most audacious trick: a film whose best (and longest) moments are simply dialogue between two lovers, figuring out their feelings about themselves and each other. If that sounds like “Before Midnight” or either of the other Richard Linklater talking-lovers movies, well, OK – …
HollywoodandFine.com We are awash in films examining the Beats and the roots of the generation shift that occurred from the late 1950s through the 1960s – but none with a clearer eye than Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Inside Llewyn Davis.” The film is a circular thing: It seems to end …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve been a fan of Spike Lee – if not of all of his movies – for 25 years. And I’ve found that, more often than not, he’s at his best when he’s directing someone else’s material – or someone else’s story. It was true of “The 25th Hour,” …
HollywoodandFine.com Is Jason Statham the new Sylvester Stallone? I’d always imagined him as the new Steve McQueen. But Stallone took this script down off the shelf, taking credits as writer and producer on “Homefront” for his “Expendables” costar. It’s not hard to imagine it with Stallone playing the central character, …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ll admit that I was surprised when Jacob Latimore burst into song early into Kasi Lemmons’ “Black Nativity.” I went into the screening having only the vaguest knowledge of the cast and the director, and no one had mentioned that it was a musical. But I came out a …
HollywoodandFine.com There were a handful of towering figures in social-justice movements of the 20th century – people who spearheaded a liberation movement in the name of a principle, at great cost to themselves. Gandhi comes to mind, along with Martin Luther King Jr. But my list would be topped by …