HollywoodandFine.com Guy Ritchie’s “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” is a day late and a dollar short — actually, make that several seasons late, for anyone who watches the outrageously funny animated series, “Archer.” Watching Henry Cavill deadpan his way through this film as CIA agent Napoleon Solo (the name says it …
HollywoodandFine.com I tend to blow hot and cold on the films of Noah Baumbach though, truthfully, more hot than cold. I like his spikiest, least-audience-friendly films (“Margot at the Wedding,” “Greenberg”), as well as more mainstream offerings like his breakthrough “The Squid and the Whale” or this year’s “While We’re …
HollywoodandFine.com Jonathan Demme’s “Ricki and the Flash” is one of those near-misses that feels as though a lot of discussion went into the rationale behind every wrong-headed decision. No doubt Demme (and screenwriter Diablo Cody) can explain why a failed singer playing in a bar band is someone we should …
HollywoodandFine.com Half the struggle in documentary filmmaking is finding the right material. The other half is figuring out what to do with it. Two new documentaries get both halves of that equation right. “Listen to Me Marlon” takes previously unheard tape recordings of Marlon Brando and illustrates them with film, …
HollywoodandFine.com When the subject is immigration, outrage tends to outshout empathy. There’s a lot of fear but not a lot of humanity. Which is why “Samba” is a film that could make a difference. The story about an undocumented immigrant in Paris, this is a film about one man’s life, …
HollywoodandFine.com Right from the start, let me stipulate that, when it comes to most comic-book movies, I turn into Anti-Man. I believe comic-book movies — and the overweening Comic-Con mentality that has consumed the Hollywood studios — are strangling the movie industry, in part because these movies are so generic. …
HollywoodandFine.com Let me start by saying two things: I think Amy Schumer is one of the funniest humans around. I also think Judd Apatow is one of the most overrated comedy directors of our time. To my mind, “Trainwreck” is both a very funny movie — and yet another example …
HollywoodandFine.com The idea of human consciousness going mobile is an intriguing one: What if you could actually trade minds with another person? That’s the premise of “Self/less,” a disappointing mind-transfer tale notable for its performances if not its dramaturgy. Writers David and Alex Pastor and director Tarsem Singh take a …
HollywoodandFine.com The creators of “Minions” obviously never heard either of two complementary expressions: “A little goes a long way” and “too much of a good thing.” If they had, there would be no “Minions” movie. Except, of course, what am I saying? This is a Hollywood studio, where too much …
HollywoodandFine.com The wish of a terminally ill child as the subject for a documentary? I know, cue the cliches: strength in the face of tragedy, laughter through tears, the whole “Steel Magnolias” shtick. Except that Dana Nachman’s touching, funny nonfiction film, “Batkid Begins,” is sheer delight. Instead of something maudlin …