PAVLOV’s FRANCHISE: The Delusion of Marvel’s The Avengers By Armond White Previous Marvel Comics superhero movies such as Iron Man, The Hulk, Captain America and Thor were like roughly cut puzzle pieces that looked odd and unfinished by themselves–pretend-movies derived from already established brands. Most of them, particularly Jon Favreau’s …
Boaz Yakin Actioner Plays It Safe By Armond White Beneath Jason Statham’s chin scruff is a heart of gold. Producer Luc Besson never let it go sentimental in movies like the terrific Transporter series or Besson-influenced productions like War with Jet Li. Neveldine-Taylor took Statham’s violent relentless stoicism to the …
Detention Kahn vs. the World of Pop By Armond White Pop culture moves fast but not as fast as Joseph Kahn’s Detention, a rampage through recent pop history that is so delirious–and so sharp about the cynicism ingrained in commercial pop’s heedless seductions of youth–that it sometimes seems one and …
Hunger Plays TV Games By Armond White On the most superficial level, The Hunger Games is about a futuristic post-war society called Panem sacrificing its young people in a gladiatorial-style survival tournament. Each district in Panem send a female and male Tribute, chosen by blood-type lottery, to fend for themselves …
John Carter as Wall-E Sequel By Armond White Andrew Stanton’ John Carter fulfills the promise of his previous film Wall-E. The dystopian state of our film culture is apparent in every luckless scene that adapts Edgar Rice Burrroughs’ 1917 adventure novel A Queenof Mars. Burroughs’ boys’ fiction had recognizable influence …
Being Flynn Gets Human By Armond White Award Season is over and we can try to get back to films as part of our culture and not some meaningless race between vanity (actors), greed (the film industry) and celebrity-worship (the media) competing to see who can run our culture into …
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 …
By Armond White This exclusive CityArts series will chart recent releases that failed to to get Oscar nominations. Yet, just like the Oscar-nominated fare, these movies are not a part of film culture; but exist outside what moviegoers care about and talk about. Their staggered release delays the effects 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 …
