The Rum Diary review By Armond White for CityArts.info Johnny Depp‘s Hunter Thompson persona is no different from his pirate Jack Sparrow–another intoxicated hipster whose antisocial bravado is backed by multi-million dollar Hollywood privilege. Depp is so infatuated with Hunter Thompson’s hipster cool that his new production of The Rum …
Pauline Kael, Criticism’s Last Icon By Armond White Pauline Kael’s reputation as America’s most distinguished film critic is secure. She’s defended by high-placed friends fighting the misogynists and elites who spent the past ten years since her death trying to erase her influence on film culture. Several new books maintain …
Moneyball Directed by Bennett Miller By Armond White Five decades after Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, we still suffer the delusion that men who play professional baseball enjoy the sport. Bennett Miller’s Moneyball exists to prove that America’s favorite pastime is subject to the same greed, envy, anguish and disappointment as …
Restless Directed by Gus Van Sant Reviewed in CityArts By Armond White All that keeps the death-infatuated Restless from being laughably dismissed like last year’s Charlie St. Cloud is that it’s signed by Gus Van Sant. No mere sentimentalist who would employ a tween heartthrob like Zac Efron, Van Sant …
Pekinpah As Pop, Peckinpah As Classic. Think of Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 Straw Dogs as a pop myth, not some vulgar expiation of unruly, anti-feminist temper—or Hollywood exploitation of same. Its story, by now a notorious legend, digs into a primal event: a modern, civilized man forced to use brute cunning to protect his home and property. Peckinpah’s dismantling of social custom comes from an era unlike today when popular filmmakers, through personal intelligence and experience, believed art had a serious purpose. The new remake of Straw Dogs trashes that precept and the disaster should resound throughout the art world. Anyone who cares about art in any form should rise up against this foul remake.
JANE EYRE Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Jamie Bell, and Judi Dench Director: Cary Fukunaga With the great 1944 version starring Orson Welles, Joan Fontaine, and a perfect supporting cast easily available on home video to buy or rent, nobody needs a sixth remake of Charlotte Bronte’s Gothic Victorian novel, published in …
Hall Pass Director: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly Cast: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fischer, Christina Applegate Hall Pass is garbage waiting for the dump truck. The latest assault on public decency from the pathetic oeuvre of the Farrelly Brothers is the same old swill, wrapped in odor-resistant disposable trash bags. What, you …
From his angry young man in La Haine (1995), to his Capoeira-loving Ocean’s 12 sidekick and his Cesar-award winning Mesrine, Vincent Cassel, 44, gives his all: head, heart and muscle. We sat down at Manhattan‘s Mercer Hotel to discuss his domineering ballet master in Black Swan. I found him intense, …
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: 3D is a scam. A gimmick. A rip-off. And it’s time to stand up and say, “No more.” Because 3D, apparently, is becoming the studios’ go-to feature when it comes to ginning up box-office receipts. But it’s not clear whether audiences …
This year’s blogathon masterminded by The Self-Styled Siren and Ferdy On Films and deploying a murderers’ row of dozens of bloggers, is seeking donations for the Film Noir Foundation. Specifically, they will go to fund the restoration of Cy Enfield’s “The Sound of Fury” (1950) with Frank Lovejoy and Lloyd Bridges, …
Unknown For a fine actor who has played everyone from Oscar Wilde to Alfred Kinsey with great acclaim, Liam Neeson seems to have embarked on a new career of making one cheesy bomb after another. Maybe he’s bored. Maybe he just wants to soak up the money and throw in …
A prep school student is mercilessly bullied by classmates who suspect he’s gay — to the point where he tries to commit suicide. Sounds like the kind of horror story that’s all too common in the cyber age, but in fact we’re talking about Vincent Minnelli’s 1956 film version of …
Leo on Her Unconventional Oscar Ads February 10, 2011 10:00 AM by Thelma Adams Actress Melissa Leo inevitably surprises. Usually, it’s because she dives so deep into her characters. Whether she’s jabbing her forefinger at the camera as The Fighter‘s peroxide-blonde matriarch Alice Ward, or driving a clunker across a …
Exciting news for vintage movie fans! Warner Home Video announced today that that Clarence Brown’s all-star aviation drama “Night Flight” (1933) will be released on DVD on June 7. Unseen in any format since 1942 because of rights issues, this David O. Selznick production stars Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Myrna …
