By Armond White Poor Tina Fey is still doing her Sarah Palin impersonation in Admission, the new comedy where she is supposed to portray Portia Nathan, a Princeton University admissions officer who discovers the sensitivity she has misplaced due to careerism. Admitting her lifelong failings, get it? Problem is, Fey’s …
HollywoodandFine.com The darling of the Australian Academy Awards and a hit on the festival circuit, “The Sapphires” is that pure treat: an aggressively entertaining movie about the struggle, uplift, romance and joy of music. Based on a true story, it touches on the deep-seated racism in Australia that kept its …
HollywoodandFine.com There are just too damn many movies. And not nearly enough good ones. By my count, the New York Times ran reviews of 19 different movies on Friday, March 8. On March 15, they ran reviews of 18 more. This Friday, there are more than a dozen more scheduled …
By Armond White Did Simone DeBeauvoir have a bubbly personality?” Ginger (Elle Fanning) asks her BFF. And Rosa (Alice Englert), without a care about DeBeauvoir’s philosophical stature, reasons that the cluelessly academic titan “Hasn’t read Girl. These two 1960s British teenagers, fans of pop magazines like Girl, new music and …
HollywoodandFine.com As allegories go, Juan Diego Solanas’ “Upside Down” is about as deep as that famous Frank Gorshin “Star Trek” episode – we’re talking classic “Star Trek,” mind you. In the episode, titled “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” the Enterprise picks up two aliens whose faces are split down …
By Armond White As Su Friedrich’s Gut Renovation (now playing at Film Forum) made the filmmaker’s case against the politics of economic and neighborhood change, I envisioned an ideal double-bill: Gut Renovation should ideally be seen alongside John Boorman’s 1990 masterpiece Where the Heart Is. Not sure if Friedrich knows …
HollywoodandFine.com Let’s see if we can go through this entire review without making any puns or other kind of wordplay about magic as we discuss “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone.” Seek elsewhere if you require jokes about the vanishing laughs and mystifying mediocrity of this film. The two big Steves – …
By Armond White In God is the Bigger Elvis, about former movie actress Dolores Hart who gave up her Hollywood career opposite such glamorous stars as Elvis Presley, Montgomery Clift, Stephen Boyd and is now Mother Prioress at the Regina Laudis Benedictine abbey in Bethleham, Conn., director Rebecca Cammisa touches …
HollywoodandFine.com No one will ever accuse me of being a fan of Harmony Korine’s films. But I was surprised by his newest, “Spring Breakers” (opening in limited release Friday 3/15/13), which seems like a “Girls Gone Wild” video with automatic weapons, but is actually a bit deeper (and even creepier) …
HollywoodandFine.com Why would a movie studio try to stop critics from reviewing movies? It’s called a review embargo – and it seems a little self-explanatory. But still, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss a little movie-critic inside-baseball stuff. Perhaps we can get a larger discussion going. For those …
