AltWeeklies Wire
Looking Back at a Rock-and-roller Like Patti Smith is Hard to Donew
I've liked Patti Smith ever since Detroit's legendary Creem magazine published her definition of rock and roll in the poem "We Don’t Look Back!" So it's weird to see a looking-back film like Dream of Life, even though it is distinguished by documenting her constant effort to keep moving forward.
New York Press |
Armond White |
08-07-2008 |
Reviews
Courtney Hunt's Simplistic Look at Poverty is a Perfect Example of ‘Smudged-Doorframe Cinema’new
The threshold from which director-writer Hunt views her characters' hard times makes them look more pathetic than necessary.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-31-2008 |
Reviews
Kevin Costner Returns in a Heartfelt Film that Satirizes the Electoral Processnew
Like Warren Beatty's Bulworth, Swing Vote examines the electoral process as a personal one.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-31-2008 |
Reviews
Epic 'Santago' Can Be Easily Seen and Handled on a Three-disc Versionnew
The term "greatness" is often heaped upon Satantango as a fail-safe. It's easier to kowtow to the heft of the thing, rather than make sense of it--that is, submitting its tale of shiftless folk in a rural Hungarian hamlet (deceitful members of a farm collective) to real critical scrutiny.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Bela Tarr, Satantango
The Quirky Adolescent Alienation of 'Boy A' Leaves a Lot Out of Life's Complexitynew
Over-stylized and under-thought, Boy A ruins its simple story of a young man in Manchester, England, trying to escape a grievous youthful error.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Boy A, John Crowley
Nanette Burstein Pretends to Document Our Country's Soul in 'American Teen'new
Not exactly a humanist document, American Teen actually belongs to the Disaster Movie genre. It gathers a mixed group of high school students in their senior year—a preppie, a jock, a nerd, a princess (The Breakfast Club cliches)--and leers at their hostility to each other.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-24-2008 |
Reviews
Eddie Murphy's Skin Color -- Not His Movies -- Makes the Media Hate Himnew
By beautiful coincidence, the critical drubbing of Murphy's Meet Dave preceded controversy over the New Yorker magazines cover cartoon of Barack Obama as a terrorist-agent.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-24-2008 |
Movies
ABBA's Pop Goes Head-to-head with the Darker Rock of 'Lou Reed's Berlin'new
Both Mamma Mia! and Lou Reed's Berlin reveal what impact pop music has on the aesthetics and sensibilities of filmmakers, pointing to a bigger issue: What meanings do people take from pop music?
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-17-2008 |
Reviews
Guillermo Del Toro's 'Hellboy II' is All About Rock-hard, Right-handed Self-pleasurenew
The movie is lax on personal expression, simply a spook-the-kids, psyche-the-hipsters carnival.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-10-2008 |
Reviews
'The Exiles' Presents a Regrettably Ignored View of L.A. Life and American Historynew
Mackenzie's sparkling, moody black-and-white images of what might be called the Native American Diaspora (following a generation of Indians who moved off the reservation and migrated to post-war Los Angeles), depict a classic American story of aspiration and tragedy. It is beautiful and devastating.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-10-2008 |
Reviews
'The Wackness' and 'Gunnin' for That #1 Spot' Achieve Emotional Resonancenew
Neither is a special effects extravaganza, but they stir emotion by emphasizing the human scale of what movies can show.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-03-2008 |
Reviews
Will Smith's 'Hancock' Brazenly Embraces the Post-racial Strategy of the Obama Campaignnew
Movie star Will Smith is also a political figure. His big screen exploits reflect the way we think about race, masculinity, humor, violence and fantasy.
New York Press |
Armond White |
07-03-2008 |
Reviews
Hollywood's Liberal Elite Builds the Dalton Trumbo Mythnew
The one-word title is suitably mythic since Trumbo himself spent the latter years of his career creating a mythology around his victimization by the post-WWII House Un-American Activities Committee and Hollywood's eventual enforcement of a blacklist.
New York Press |
Armond White |
06-26-2008 |
Reviews
Catherine Breillat Proves She's More Than a Porno-polemicistnew
As if to legitimize her unorthodox approach, the period drama of The Last Mistress brings Breillat into the haughty realm of Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the infamous (often adapted) 18th-century novel of sexual gamesmanship as psychological and political intrigue.
New York Press |
Armond White |
06-26-2008 |
Reviews
Werner Herzog's Gross 'Encounters'new
In his latest attempt to capture visual wonder, Herzog finds the quirky; but it's not that amazing.
New York Press |
Armond White |
06-19-2008 |
Reviews
