Armond White
National Review
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Past articles by Armond:
Dead for a Dollar Is This Year’s Most American Movie
'Dead for a Dollar' is an all-American panoply as respected by every practitioner of the Western, but director Walter Hill’s sensibility reflects how contemporary American lives and careers get casually destroyed, how sexual and racial covenants are spoken disingenuously to hide political corruption. → Read More
Spielberg Goes Easy on Himself in The Fabelmans
"The Fabelmans" is consistent with Spielberg’s sympathetic eye for human foible, but it suppresses issues about family life and art-making that demand more rigorous scrutiny. → Read More
Raymond & Ray Buries the Idea of Toxic Masculinity
Rodrigo García’s new family drama goes beyond virtue-signaling. → Read More
Sympathy for the Screwup Son
My Son Hunter brings scruples to political satire. → Read More
Bros Wallows in Hollywood Narcissism
Producer Judd Apatow and director Nicholas Stoller can’t make a star of resentful, hang-dog star Billy Eichner. The real goal is to substantiate their industry’s agenda regarding sex, identity, and social position. → Read More
Why Jean-Luc Godard Matters
The New Wave genius, who died this week, transcended politics and changed everything. → Read More
The Subversive Humor of Funny Pages
"Funny Pages" jostles the viewer between meanness and affection through filmmaker Owen Kline’s vision that people are either laughably unlike us or pathetically just like us. → Read More
The Madonna-fying of Beyoncé
After the Machiavellian political platitudes and faux black feminism of Lemonade, Beyoncé hones her bubble-gum R & B to inveigle responses to the current sexual-rights movement. She’s become the black Madonna. Not a good thing. → Read More
In Men, the Kavanaugh–Blasey Ford Nightmare Returns
Yet another politicized genre movie, this one pitched to the #MeToo era. → Read More
Grammy and Oscars: The Return of Minstrelsy
The biggest prizes in showbiz mislead consumers to think that all is right with the industry. → Read More
Sam Elliott Abides
By pointing out director Jane Campion’s inauthenticity, Sam Elliott questioned the judgment of Academy voters and, more significantly, provided the critical thinking that barely exists among reviewers and media shills. → Read More
The Batman: A Stockholder’s Report
"The Batman" proves how comic books evolved from marginal adolescent fare into the dominant strain of the modern ethos, and shows Hollywood’s craven manipulation of its easily susceptible audience. → Read More
Being the Ricardos — or Their Activist Alter Egos
Nicole Kidman salvages Aaron Sorkin’s propaganda in this biopic about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz → Read More
The Worst Person in the World — The Worst Role Model in the Movies
The Oscar-nominated melodrama justifies Millennial egotism. → Read More
The Kid Rock–Neil Young War
Kid Rock’s constitutional-history song 'We the People" expresses righteous indignation. Although resembling an act of civil disobedience, it's most impressive as an act of cultural dissent. → Read More
The Better-Than List for 2021
This year’s Better-Than List is, more than ever, a reminder of the standards we must hold to keep our sanity and to maintain culture that preserves our humanity and morality. Every Better-Than choice offers alternatives to deceit, ineptitude, and nihilism. → Read More
Red Rocket Unites the States with Shallow Loser Vision
Director-writer Sean Baker conceived Mikey solely in terms of his lower region. The film’s rude title doesn’t just equate Mikey to a thing but specifically to a dog’s inflamed member. Pointless arousal and mischievous abuse describe Baker’s comic cosmic vision. → Read More
House of Hamaguchi
A Japanese import repackages sentimentality for film buffs. → Read More
The Birthing-Person Movie
"The Lost Daughter" is so perfectly rotten that it surely reflects some twisted, deep-seated attitude held by Maggie Gyllenhaal, the actress turned director-writer, again taking to her soapbox for a politically modish statement. → Read More
The Wokening of Steven Spielberg
"West Side Story" exemplifies the old creeds that the progressive Left is determined to dismantle, or — if you look hard at Spielberg’s reboot — change at a fundamental level. Revising American cultural history this way erases "West Side Story’s" original, unrepeatable, indisputable impact. → Read More