Marino Waxes, Rudd Wanes in Wanderlust By Armond White Wanderlust starts with an idea borrowed from Albert Brooks’ 1986 Lost in America–a yuppie couple respond to career setbacks by embarking on a cross-country journey that tests their mettle. Here, George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) leave their tiny, expensive …
Heavy Metal Gothic Dek: Ghost Rider Redeems and Critiques By Armond White If the filmmaking team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor wrote out their thoughts on how contemporary pop has traduced fun, warped thrills, debased energy in the art form they love, it would be a great provocative piece of …
Denzel Goes Rogue By Armond White Safe House, an espionage chase film set in South Africa, is rotten enough to be a sequel to District 9 where South African racial issues were treated to a dumb sci-fi alien allegory. Here, the alien is Denzel Washington who first appears walking down …
By Armond White Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse isn’t funny at all but it sure is laughable. A Hungarian farmer with a bum arm Ohlsdorfer (Janos Derzi) lives in a drab, yet limitless cabin with his morose spinster daughter (Erika Bok) who boils potatoes which go half-eaten. This goes on …
By Armond White for CityArts Light Bulb Virtuosity–the quality that lit up the best of arts culture during 2012–turns out to be the quality least appreciated in this transitional period for technology, economics and politics. It’s ironic that artists like Steven Spielberg, Kanye West, Jay Z and Picasso (revived at …
By Armond White Movie-watching can never be same after the double header of Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin, his first animated film, and his live-action War Horse. Each film upgrades the way our imaginations construct the world, the way we see ourselves in the digital age. All art devotes …
Dolly and Latifah Reclaim Glee By Armond White Todd Graff’s Joyful Noise tells the story of a Pacashau, Ga., church choir entering a gospel music competition against better-financed groups. It’s an underdog fable that neatly parallels Graff’s own career since directing his 2001 debut film Camp, the underappreciated–yet secretly influential–pop …
The Sitter Remakes the 80s By Armond White The Sitter confirms director David Gordon Green’s unexpected yet healthy career turn. His 2000 debut George Washington (NYFCC Best First Film prizewinner) about the out-of-reach desires of black and white kids in the modern impoverished South, introduced a sweet yet somber regional …
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 …
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 …