HollywoodandFine.com There are a number of people whose work I admire involved with “Inescapable.” So allow me to say some nice things about them before I talk about what is so wrong with this movie. The film is written and directed by Ruba Nadda, a Canadian director of Middle Eastern …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s rare that a filmmaker has more than one film out in a single year, unless they’re either making both features and documentaries – or they’re Steven Soderbergh. But Alex Karpovsky actually has two films out the same day: “Red Flag” and “Rubberneck.” They’re being released as a double-feature …
HollywoodandFine.com According to box-office pundits, “A Good Day to Die Hard” (on further reference: “Die Hard 5”) will be the big box-office winner this holiday weekend. It will reassert Bruce Willis’ box-office magnetism. And it will do it while kicking dirt on the aspirations of his two vintage rivals, Sylvester …
HollywoodandFine.com There’s been a lot of Oscar chatter about the fact that “Argo” seems on track to win the best-picture trophy this year – despite the fact that its director, Ben Affleck, was left off the list of best-director nominees. What seems to have gone undiscussed is the elephant in …
HollywoodandFine.com I’m probably the wrong demographic for “Beautiful Creatures,” the latest effort at franchise-building in the teen supernatural-romance genre. Based on the first in a series of books by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, “Beautiful Creatures” (opening Thursday) hopes the “Twihards” can shift their focus from the undead to the …
HollywoodandFine.com Her name is Lore (pronounced like Laura) and, from all appearances, she’s your typical petulant 14-year-old, focused on herself, with little time for her gaggle of siblings or her parents. But then reality sets in: Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) is an adolescent in 1945 Germany. The war is coming to …
HollywoodandFine.com Think of “Identity Thief” as a weak-tea reworking of “Midnight Run,” itself a long-overvalued action-comedy that was never as good its proponents would have you think. Here’s the most damning credit in the list of unremarkable credits for “Identity Thief”: The writer is Craig Mazin, whose filmography includes “Scary …
HollywoodandFine.com I have, on occasion, posted rants about filmmakers and actors who I consider overrated, a list that includes John Hughes, Terrence Malick, Zooey Deschanel and Ridley Scott, among others. And, at some point, a reader sent in a comment that said, “Why not write about someone who’s underrated?” To …
HollywoodandFine.com Dear Steven Soderbergh: Please don’t stop making movies. Your name is high on the list of filmmakers whose careers I’m thankful have coincided with my career as a movie critic. And “Side Effects” is further proof that you are at the height of your powers as a filmmaker. There’s …
HollywoodandFine.com Jonathan Levine’s “Warm Bodies” won the weekend box-office race for a couple of reasons. It’s a romantic comedy that works, for one thing. For another, it’s a smart reworking of “Romeo and Juliet.” And, finally, it takes the zombie genre someplace it hasn’t been before – though, at this …