HollywoodandFine.com Based on the memoir by Cheryl Strayed, Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Wild” offers an exceptional visual version of what could have been largely an interior journey. Indeed, Strayed herself refers to her three-month hike on the Pacific Crest Trail as a journey to find herself. It doesn’t get much more interior …
HollywoodandFine.com Marriage changes everything, whether you’re the one getting married or the best friend watching your pal coupling up with someone else. What happens to a certain kind of codependent friendship when one member finds a significant other? “Life Partners,” the first film by Susanna Fogel, would like to answer …
HollywoodandFine.com To my mind, “The Imitation Game” is the best film of the year: a gripping tale of wartime espionage and code-breaking that also manages to be the character study of an important figure whose contributions have been ignominiously ignored. Morten Tyldum’s film tells the story of Alan Turing, played …
HollywoodandFine.com At this point, it seems pretty pointless to review a new entry in “The Hunger Games” series. If you’re not already interested, you’re unlikely to plug in and buy a ticket to see this film, just as the story revs up for its conclusion. It would be a little …
HollywoodandFine.com The culture surrounding college sports has become so polluted with commercial concerns – from bowl games and TV revenue to paraphernalia, video-game money and beyond – that the recent events at Florida State (involving player lawlessness) only seem to underscore the issues. They also make it more apparent that …
HollywoodandFine.com I don’t want this to sound condescending, because I’m a big admirer of Jon Stewart’s work and admire his courage in taking on something as massive as directing a movie while holding down a full-time job. So when I say that this is not bad for a first film, …
HollywoodandFine.com When I saw Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher” at the Toronto Film Festival in September, I wrote that “Miller, in my estimation, has jumped into the class of Steven Soderbergh and other great directors of the past 25 years (who don’t worship at the Tarantino altar).” Not that I’ve got anything …
HollywoodandFine.com No good deed goes unpunished in Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Homesman.” And that’s how the West was won. Punishment is a running theme in this film, which Lee and two writing partners adapted from a novel by Glendon Swarthout. Lee directed the film, and plays a central character: George …
HollywoodandFine.com Romantic dramas seem to be few and far between these days. So it’s both refreshing and encouraging to see one as good as Gina Prince-Bythewood’s “Beyond the Lights.” It’s an area she has mined in the past, in films like “Love & Basketball” and “The Secret Life of Bees.” …
Hollywoodandfine.com There are so many movies released every Friday that no single critic has a prayer of seeing them all. But as it happens this week, I’ve seen several that deserve comment, if only briefly. Let’s start with “The Theory of Everything,” which some are touting as an Oscar contender. …