Nobody Knows Hollywood

Director(s): Glenn Ficarra , John Requa Year: 2015 Focus really wants you to know it’s a movie about cons and intelligence. It puts it right there in front of you in the opening scenes, ham-handedly telling you this is the movie. It even swears it’s not that movie with some tired meta-dialogue where the actors banter about not doing that familiar thing that we’ve all seen before, but you know I love that thing, oh you mean this thing? For the record, that bit works but it requires a relationship that hadn’t yet been earned on screen. Regardless, the film absolutely lays all its cards on the table and does exactly what it says it’s going to do – and pulling that high wire trick off masterfully, entertainingly and leaving the mark taken but still respectful of the craft is the sign of a truly gifted con artist…or storyteller for that matter. But for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, focus is just a tad bit shallow. First off, it’s great to see Will Smith a...

Director: Richard Linklater Year: 2013 Like many veteran filmmakers, Director Richard Linklater is increasingly showing his cards. He is at least deeply interested in, if not obsessed with, the role of compressed time in the visual medium. In essence, this review is part and parcel with the same idea since I watched and am reviewing Before Midnight (2013) after seeing Boyhood (2014) (and Before Sunset and Before Sunrise). It is very difficult for most people to fully recognize or value the present. We measure by looking back. Some call this nostalgia, others history. Regardless, the gift Linklater has given us in this third installment of films is the passage of time in the relationship of Jesse (Ethan Hawke), Celine (Julie Delpy). They’re now early in their 40’s. They’re now committed to each other – miles apart from the dreamy idea of courtship or discovery. Though not married, they are a couple, with twin girls to sweeten the pot. Because they are...

My biases up front: I grew up loving the Paddington books. I adored my stuffed Paddington (ironic twist with the film – more on that later) and bought deeply into the idea that I had adopted him and would take good care of him. When I saw the trailer for the film, featuring the motley version of Paddington going through a series of bathroom gross-out gags I thought it was another example of a childhood favorite “modernized” by some executive fool in the name of drawing the younger demographic. In truth, maybe that was the appeal here as my three and five year old were very excited to see the misadventures and bathroom gags of Paddington. Thankfully, for me (and my children), that was the only scene that bordered on that type of humor. Paddington is given to us in the film via an adventure film from a British explorer in the mid 1900’s. The explorer finds two intelligent and friendly bears in the far reaches of darkest Peru – the name alone sparks adventure. Like most gr...