HollywoodandFine.com A second-rate “Die Hard” knock-off with Gerard Butler playing the Bruce Willis role, “Olympus Has Fallen” is preposterously overblown, an action movie that seems to prove the old saying: If brains were gunpowder, this movie wouldn’t have enough to blow its own nose. Directed by Antoine Fuqua – who …
HollywoodandFine.com A small but compelling story, “No Place on Earth” excavates the lost tale of one Ukrainian family’s survival during the Holocaust, when they hid in a series of deep caves that would intimidate even veteran spelunkers. Indeed, this documentary by Janet Tobias was inspired by the findings of one …
HollywoodandFine.com Ahhh, romantic comedy, that most elusive of genres: often attempted, so rarely successfully. You can count on one hand the number of good romantic comedies in any given year. Not that people aren’t making them – they just don’t do them very well. Which is why “Admission” is such …
HollywoodandFine.com Funny, surprising and full of heart, the French-Canadian comedy “Starbuck” has nothing to do with coffee (that name, after all, came from a character in “Moby-Dick”) and everything to do with redefining notions of family. Directed by Ken Scott from a script he wrote with Martin Petit, the film …
HollywoodandFine.com The darling of the Australian Academy Awards and a hit on the festival circuit, “The Sapphires” is that pure treat: an aggressively entertaining movie about the struggle, uplift, romance and joy of music. Based on a true story, it touches on the deep-seated racism in Australia that kept its …
HollywoodandFine.com There are just too damn many movies. And not nearly enough good ones. By my count, the New York Times ran reviews of 19 different movies on Friday, March 8. On March 15, they ran reviews of 18 more. This Friday, there are more than a dozen more scheduled …
HollywoodandFine.com As allegories go, Juan Diego Solanas’ “Upside Down” is about as deep as that famous Frank Gorshin “Star Trek” episode – we’re talking classic “Star Trek,” mind you. In the episode, titled “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” the Enterprise picks up two aliens whose faces are split down …
HollywoodandFine.com Let’s see if we can go through this entire review without making any puns or other kind of wordplay about magic as we discuss “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.” Seek elsewhere if you require jokes about the vanishing laughs and mystifying mediocrity of this film. The two big Steves – …
HollywoodandFine.com No one will ever accuse me of being a fan of Harmony Korine’s films. But I was surprised by his newest, “Spring Breakers” (opening in limited release Friday 3/15/13), which seems like a “Girls Gone Wild” video with automatic weapons, but is actually a bit deeper (and even creepier) …
HollywoodandFine.com Why would a movie studio try to stop critics from reviewing movies? It’s called a review embargo – and it seems a little self-explanatory. But still, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss a little movie-critic inside-baseball stuff. Perhaps we can get a larger discussion going. For those …