Well, not all of you. Just the ones on the haterade-swilling Anti-Sandler train, "an unconscious social ideology that protects Hollywood’s status quo" according to everyone's favorite provocateur, Armond White: "Sandler’s key challenge notes the derangement of social values, beginning with the celebrity young Donny endured [...] silliness doesn’t prevent Sandler from accurately pinpointing our social hypocrisy. That’s what W.C. Fields used to do [...] Despite its deliberate ribaldry and outrage, That’s My Boy poignantly reminds the elite class of its forgotten virtues [...] Sandler dares to express feelings about family, ethnicity, friendship – the realpolitik of genuine social interaction. [City Arts]
Looker proprietor and all-around swell guy Lawrence Levi braved last night's New York Film Critic's Circle Awards so you (read: I) didn't have to, submitting to Twitter one of the juicier exchanges overheard on a night when anecdotal blips rained down like thumbs at an Adam Sandler flick.
more »
Say what you will about Armond White, at least the iconoclast film critic is a conversation-starter. Over at CityArts White has posted his annual "Better-Than" list, in which he pairs seemingly disparate films of the year to show you why the movies you love/think are great are, in fact, vastly overrated. Example: " Jack and Jill > The Descendants," White insists, in a clear trouncing of "humility" over "sanctity." "Adam Sandler’s affectionate, very broad ethnic satire defies Alexander Payne’s smug denial of America’s ethnic history," he writes. Don't stop there, Armond!
more »
Traditionally a "guilty pleasure" is something you'd be embarrassed for the world to know you secretly enjoyed or for your Facebook friends to see you clicked on, but you know what? Around here we embrace the bad-to-godawful movies we love, and besides; what the heck does it even mean to like something ironically, you insufferable hipster? Toss away your pretentious hat, sit down in the circle of trust, take a deep breath, and join Movieline in unabashedly celebrating the inane, misguided, off-the-mark, and downright B-A-D but nevertheless shamelessly entertaining movies of the year - the Top 9 Not-So-Guilty Pleasures of 2011. Because we all love some terrible things, don't we?
more »
