Word: hollywood
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Movie critics secretly believe what so many Hollywood films teach: that even the most ordinary schlubbs can rise to excellence. So this reviewer was happy to salute the recent films of two Hollywood types who previously, to put it politely, hadn't made masterpieces. This summer, Adam Sandler dispensed with his standard idiot character and his movies' gay-baiting infantilism to play a borderline adult in the rambunctious, satisfying You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Director Adam Shankman, who had slummed in Disney comedies about exasperated adults and the sassy kids in their care (The Pacifier, Cheaper...
...Last week, researchers at Heriot Watt University's Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory in Edinburgh, which studies best practices in relationship counseling, completed a study of 40 Hollywood romantic comedies released between 1995-2005. They found that problems typically reported by couples in relationship counseling at their counseling center reflect misconceptions about love and romance depicted in Hollywood films. (See TIME's Top 10 movies of the year...
...fact that Hollywood sells us an enhanced version of romance should come as no surprise, of course. But does that portrayal reflect a pre-existing expectation that film buffs hold or does it instill it? As part of their research, Dr Holmes' team had around 130 student volunteers watch the 2001 romantic comedy Serendipity, while another group of the same size watched a David Lynch drama. Viewers of the romantic comedy were found to be more likely to believe in fate and destiny. It was a small study confined to one region, but, Dr Holmes argues, "it does give...
...transition from silents to talkies, and the rise of the big studio picture, Sragow's thorough scene-setting could double as a cinematic history lesson - illuminating the many famous lives that Fleming touched (and helped to shape) and the ways in which sets, casts, contracts and careers worked during Hollywood's grand glory days...
...romance of a teenage boy and a lovely young war widow; The Other (1972), a spectral mood piece about nine-year-old twins involved in murder; and Same Time, Next Year (1978), with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn as annual adulterers. As his career wore on, and Hollywood jettisoned sentiment and subtlety for sharks and light sabers, Mulligan's aura dimmed. He had outlived the mood he so delicately captured...