Screening Gotham: Understanding Armond

The latecoming last of 2006's movie news of note from around New York:

--Among my favorite new film blogs is Armond Dangerous, a smart, funny and splendidly comprehensive enterprise dedicated to "parsing the confounding film criticism of Mr. Armond White." In a fashion recalling that godparent of all critical paeans, The Bruni Digest, an author known only as The Resistance tends to careful analysis like Thursday's, translating White's baffling NY Press review of We Are Marshall:

AW: Director McG, best known for the Charlie’s Angels pop-fests, uses the colorful emotional shorthand of commercials and music videos -- a new lingo. McG has gone from no real emotion to dealing with genuine tragedy, but who’s to say he is any less equipped than the rest of us?

Translation: Who's to say the man responsible for discovering a subtle visual vocabulary to compliment the nuanced music of Smashmouth is unfit to convey real-life tragedy and pain?

Hell, it's a three-day weekend. Spend it getting caught up with Armond.

--NPR has a podcast of Leonard Lopate's interview Thursday with New Yorker Films/Lincoln Plaza Cinema godheads Dan and Toby Talbot. Again: three-day weekend, a must-listen, etc. (Via GreenCine Daily)

--David Carr rips the words from my mouth with his appreciation of the two otherwise most underappreciated actors of 2006: Alec Baldwin and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Particularly the latter:

In Stranger Than Fiction, she does with a stray dab of flour what other actresses need a missile full of lipstick to accomplish. ... Her sleazy way of walking in Sherrybaby is no less remarkable than the all-business stomp of the high-end cake decorator in The Great New Wonderful. She cares a lot more about letting people see the story than the actor telling it.

Yep. Pretty much.

--The endlessly readable Andy Horbal, a Pittsburghian (Pittsburgher?) as-yet-immune to the strafing cynicism of assholes like myself, proffers this deconstruction of year-end lists. Scroll down (way down, actually) for the highlight: a visual explanation of why Flightplan and Invincible are as worthy of inclusion in any best-of canon. (He's absolutely right about Invincible, by the way.)

Posted at December 29, 2006 12:42 PM