By Armond White It was a rich year for new theatrical releases but the DVD releases have also been extraordinary. Film History lessons begin here: Nashville (Criterion) Following Disney’s years-ahead lead packaging Blu-Ray discs with digital copies of new releases, Criterion finally begins offer movies-worth packages of classic films. No …
By Armond White DeNiro and Stallone’s first face-off was at the Oscars 36 years ago when Rocky won the Best Picture Academy Award over Taxi Driver. Turns out that was a defining moment for pop culture: Feel-good entertainment defeated thought-provoking art cinema and the challenge of serious life-reflection represented by …
HollywoodandFine.com It’s the time of year when critics release their lists of the year’s best films. It feels like a competitive sport – or a provocation, which all of these lists are, by nature. As in: “This is my list of the best films. If you don’t agree, you’re wrong.” …
HollywoodandFine.com A few years back, a practice known as “bum fights” – in which young adults would pay homeless men to brawl with each other, then post videos on the Internet – shocked sentient adults for its cruelty, callousness and what it said about the breakdown of the social contract. …
HollywoodandFine.com Peter Berg’s “Lone Survivor” opens at the end of the film on a harrowing moment about the title character, then jumps back in time to the beginning of this nerve-wracking story. But before Berg introduces us to the four central figures in this narrative, he drops in a segment …
HollywoodandFine.com Unless they find new ways to recycle their personae, comic actors would seem to have a limited shelf life. It’s all about reinvention. Otherwise, you’re stuck doing the same dumb stuff over and over. (Exhibit A: Adam Sandler). Still, I have to hand it to Ben Stiller. While his …
HollywoodandFine.com He’s not really a wolf – he’s more like a hyena, a scavenger, a bottom-feeder. Why would you want to know his story? That’s my takeaway from Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.” His name is Jordan Belfort and, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio, he’s a fun-loving, money-churning, …
HollywoodandFine.com “Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” Tolstoy observed and he could have been talking about the Weston clan of “August: Osage County,” when he wrote that line to start “Anna Karenina.” This particular family get-together is like one of those “Royal Rumble” professional wrestling matches, where …
By Armond White The Wolf of Wall Street and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty share the same misfortune. Both films deal with the ambition of working-class protagonists: Scorsese’s three-hour epic about a kid from The Bronx who becomes a Wall Street titan (Leonardo DiCaprio) charts his aggression through mind-altering …
By Armond White Idris Elba is such a fine figure of a movie star that only racism (its practice and its expectations) can explain why his Black British suave masculinity prevented him from being the new century’s James Bond. Nelson Mandela will have to suffice and in Mandela: Long Walk …
