HollywoodandFine.com It’s unfortunate but understandable that they had to change the name of Nick Flynn’s memoir, “Another Bullshit Night in Suck City,” to the more TV-ready title “Being Flynn.” If only they could have made it into an interesting tale, instead of a movie about miserable people making each other …
HollywoodandFine.com You know that feeling when a comedy has just elicited an unexpected howl of laughter from you? The kind that has you momentarily breathless from the sheer pleasurable violence of it? Well, that’s not something you’ll experience while watching David Wain’s “Wanderlust,” a movie that really wants to make …
HollywoodandFine.com Does heroism translate from real-life to the big screen? Not really, as it turns out. Oh sure, Johnny Weismuller was an Olympic hero – and he turned that into big-screen career playing Tarzan. On the other hand, Audie Murphy, a real-life World War II hero, played a civil-war soldier …
HollywoodandFine.com Films remind us of how far we’ve come as a society – as well as the opposite. We are, after all, in the 21st century, a time of virtually instant communication and any manner of futuristic devices that differentiate us from, say, our ancestors in the Middle Ages, or …
HollywoodandFine.com There’s nothing wrong with “This Means War” that a humor-transplant couldn’t cure. Granted, romantic comedy is the hardest kind of comedy to pull off, especially when that romcom also wants to be an action-thriller. But director McG – who is like a less grandiose version of Michael Bay – …
HollywoodandFine.com An Oscar nominee as best documentary, “Undefeated” is a sports film that’s less about football than it is about a coach, his players and the journey they take together. And it’s a terrific trip. Their team is the Manassas Tigers, a high school football squad in North Memphis, in …
HollywoodandFine.com The pickings among American animated features are so slim this year that they’ve allowed foreign-language animated films to slip into the category. But unlike American animated films, these aren’t kiddie cartoons. Instead, they’re adult works of cinematic art like “Chico & Rita,” a love story that covers decades and …
HollywoodandFine.com At some point in the future, when they assemble a festival of films devoted to the still-rippling effects of George W. Bush’s unnecessary war in Iraq, you can add Liza Johnson’s film “Return” to the list of movies that deserve to be seen. Like Neil Burger’s “The Lucky Ones” …
HollywoodandFine.com I found it instructive that, when I told my soon-to-be-25-year-old son that I’d seen “Safe House” and that it reminded me of “Three Days of the Condor,” he replied, “That reference would be relevant if I knew what ‘Three Days of the Condor’ was.” (He also said, “…and if …
HollywoodandFine.com Talk about mysterious islands – the one in “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” features an ensemble that includes Michael Caine, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson – and Luis Guzman. That’s some bizarre casting. Oh yeah, and heartthrobs Josh Hutcherson and Vanessa Hudgens: You can’t overlook the reason this film’s core …