HollywoodandFine.com It’s the rare teen-ager who can see beyond tomorrow. While they may worry about the future, they tend to live in the moment because, among other things, they feel immortal and most have little evidence to the contrary. Certainly that’s the case with Sutter Keely (Miles Teller), the high-school …
By Armond White As I sat down at the AMC Empire Cinemas in Times Square for that evening’s all-media screening, I could smell a dead rat–and then The Wolverine confirmed it. It wasn’t the first time that an all-media screening took place in that filthy, Crossroads-of-Consumerism flea pit (very recently …
HollywoodandFine.com Whatever else you may say about “The Wolverine,” the latest Marvel comic-book adventure to reach the big screen, say this: It takes guts – and, apparently, both a big movie star and a popular hero – to get Hollywood to spend a bundle on a tentpole movie the bulk …
HollywoodandFine.com Aubrey Plaza’s deadpan affect would seem to have limited comic potential. And yet, as she’s shown in the past (in “Safety Not Guaranteed”) and now with “The To Do List,” she’s really a minimalist who knows how to do a lot with a little. A sex comedy with heart, …
By Armond White Cate Blanchett’s singularly obnoxious character in Blue Jasmine blocks our empathy. First because she’s such a phony–having changed her name from the mundane Jeanette to the pretentious Jasmine (“My mother’s favorite flower”), next because she embodies superciliousness (comically indifferent to everyone’s interest besides her own love of …
HollywoodandFine.com Approaching the age of 80, with more than 40 feature films under his belt, Woody Allen continues to astonish, finding new ways to surprise audiences with each year’s film. With “Blue Jasmine,” he shows once again that he is a master of texture and tone – of creating complex, …
HollywoodandFine.com I’ve posted diatribes the past few years about Comic-Con – an event I’ve never attended and never hope to. But I was going to ignore it this year. For a couple of reasons: For one thing, I feel as though I’ve made my arguments in the past. But I …
Only God Forgives is a decadent drag act Ryan Gosling plays DiCaprio to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Scorsese–acting out an adolescent idea of manliness in Drive and now Only God Forgives. But sulky Gosling lacks DiCaprio’s hammy brio just as Refn lacks Scorsese’s flamboyance, so he mopes and broods; practicing a …
Must-See Movies Beyond the Blockbusters We’ve all heard the stories of the Cannes Film Festival audience booing the premiere of “Only God Forgives,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s first film after “Drive” with Ryan Gosling back front and center. Not very forgiving, huh? Those who are less judgmental, or less enamored of …
By Armond White Whatever else is going on in Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess (now playing at Film Forum), it is also–unmistakably–a satire on film culture’s extinction. The weird weekend gathering of chess and computer geeks at an early 80s conference (they’re testing whether a machine can outplay a human being) …
