another maniacal Armond White review, this time "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Pretty standard right-wing fare overall, basically what I would expect Washington Times reviews to resemble. Maybe White's looking for a Golden Moonie Parachute?

wtf?!?!?

Yeah let's just not make any films about it, right? Fucking twat.

Ha ha christ

whoa whoa, what??!?!? Armond White thinks The Blair Witch Project was a DOCUMENTARY?!?!@?!@??!! SOOMEBODY PLEASE REVOKE HIS FILM CRITIC'S LICENSE ASAP!!!

(tho I think he's right about Tarentino)

He really should have replaced "guilt" with "anger".

Tarantino, Kathleen Turner and Jerry Schatzberg encourages audiences to think or behave politically. American cinema in the Tarantino years has pandered to violence, racism, greed and self-satisfaction. It's not impossible that the torturers at Abu Ghraib—including even Saddam Hussein's own precedent-setting torturers—were inspired by the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs. QT made sadism hip and sent it 'round the world. Now we're stuck in the middle of a global crisis for which neither he, nor Michael Moore, have an answer.

Tarantino's production company is named after a Godard film but I'll be damned if I can find any Godard in what he does.

It's infotainment!

He's more of a Melville fan by way of Woo. But really, it's all in the snazzy suits.

Bungled that of course, should read: his weakness is his lack of objectivity, which if he is a documentarist, should be his focus.

This is all brought up on that other Moore thread.

What do you lefties think about Godard's quote, "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image. He doesn't know what he's doing." Agree/Somewhat Agree/Disagree?

I think that's probably a fair point. Moore is working in a very different tradition than Godard. Considering he's such a corpulent man, it's interesting that his films don't tend to have a 'body' in the way Godard's do. I hear the editing in 'F9/11' is 'good', but I suspect the people saying that (I think it was some BBC critic covering Cannes) are not people who think Godard's Brechtian editing style is 'good'. It's like criticizing a newspaper op-ed column for not being James Joyce.

Why shouldn't subjectivity and point-of-view be the focus of a documentarist?

Because people are lazy and want to accept the 'truths' that other present for them :)

You may have to ask someone who thinks that it is his fault.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/

oh no, please don't me bring poor Nanook back into another thread. He's tired.

Yours truly, Mister Obvious

If everyone agreed that Nanook was a documentary, pure and simple, then you're right. You could argue that people shouldn't/can't hold Moore to a different standard. But that view of Nanook isn't universal or even a majority.

hstencil, that was in reference to the "it needs to be objective" arguments. "Objectivity" is a lame bogeyman raised by the right to attack Moore, when objectivity is neither necessary nor preferable (documentary without a POV = boring/pointless).

Reference Library: Encyclopedia

Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Documentary film
An incredibly broad category of cinematic expression, traditionally, the only common characteristic to all documentary films is that they are meant to be non-fiction films. The French used the term to refer to any non-fiction film, including travelogues and instructional videos. The earliest "moving pictures" were by definition documentary. They were single shots, moments captured on film, whether of a train entering a station, a boat docking, or a factory of people getting off work. Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. These short films were called "actualities." Very little storytelling took place before the turn of the century, due mostly to technological limitations: cameras could hold only very small amounts of film; many of the first films are a minute or less in length.
With Robert J. Flaherty's Nanook of the North in 1922, documentary film embraced romanticism; Flaherty went on to film a number of heavily staged romantic films, usually showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then (for instance, in Nanook of the North Flaherty does not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but has them use a harpoon instead, putting themselves in considerable danger).

Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. In later years, attempts to steer the action in this way, without informing the audience, have come to be considered both unethical and contradictory to the nature of documentary film. On the other hand, both the story line and content of any documentary are imposed by the filmmaker.

Amazon.com description:

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential video
Robert J. Flaherty, who wrote, directed, produced, shot, and edited this landmark picture, will forever be remembered as the godfather of documentary filmmaking. While this landmark 1922 production, shot on the northeastern shore of Hudson Bay, isn't a true documentary by contemporary conventions, it remains the first great nonfiction film. With the help of Nanook and his friends and family, Flaherty undertook the mission of re-creating an Eskimo culture that no longer existed in a series of staged scenes. Nanook ice fishes, harpoons a walrus, catches a seal, traps, builds an igloo, and trades pelts at a trading post, all captured by Flaherty's inquisitive camera. Though he presents a "happy" culture bordering on primitive innocence (Nanook and his family were in reality quite westernized), his loving portrait is anything but condescending. Ultimately Flaherty shares his tremendous respect and awe for a culture that has learned to not just survive but thrive in such an inhospitable environment. On a purely visual level the film is a beautiful work of cinema, an understated drama in an austere, unblemished landscape of snow and ice. With unerring simplicity and directness, Flaherty re-creates the details and rhythms of a culture long gone and gives the world a glimpse.

review from Silent Film Sources:

Nanook of the North (1922)
R E V I E W 1922. 6 reels.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Revillon Freres present NANOOK OF THE NORTH. A story of life and love in the actual arctic. Produced by Robert J. Flaherty F.R.G.S. Pathepicture.
Opening title: The mysterious Barren Lands- desolate, boulder-strewn, wind-swept- illimitable spaces which top the world.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Produced for video by David Shepard. Nanook of the North was the first of Robert J. Flaherty's romantic depictions of man's dignified perseverance in combating a malevolent nature. Flaherty is often called "the father of the documentary", and he did make the first theatrical documentary feature with Nanook. But that fact does not do justice to the humanism and the technical brilliance that makes his best works -- Nanook, Man of Aran and Louisiana Story -- beautiful and enduring.

imdb:

Nanook of the North (1922)
Directed by
Robert J. Flaherty

Writing credits
Robert J. Flaherty

Genre: Documentary (more)

Tagline: A story of life and love in the actual Arctic. (more)

Plot Summary: Documents one year in the life of Nanook, an Eskimo (Inuit) and his family. Describes the trading, hunting... (more)

Shall I go on? Googling gets old.

x-post

An IMDB entry for it says documentary - OK, IMDB also lists Häxan as a doc. Is Häxan a documentary? An Amazon review, a dictionary reference that includes the line "In later years, attempts to steer the action in this way, without informing the audience, have come to be considered both unethical and contradictory to the nature of documentary film."

None of these show a consensus of opinion on Nanook that lets you use it and its methods as a standard. (Because that consensus does not exist.)

I think your error is in assuming that a documentary is about accounting history. Documentary != history book.

I'm reminded of how effective this whole embedded journalist thing worked during the war's early stages... lame ass FOX reporters felt the espirit de corps and wouldn't report anything negative... they became buddies with the soldiers.

(And my point is....?)

i am really dreading seeing this movie.

J. Hoberman

a) does he mean Garth out of Wayne's World?
b) if so, what's he on about?
c) and you know what the worst part is? I never learned to read.

No other reviews "noticed this" because he left off the last part of the reporter's statement - "it must be avenged, or at least punished." (something to that effect)

No Country for Old Men > better than There Will Be Blood, Zodiac

The Coen brothers hauntingly mythologize Americana, while P.T. Anderson and David Fincher make it morbid, sadistic and self-congratulatory.

o_O

zodiac >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no country for old men (which i loved)

yes

armond's line that morbs quoted in the "there will be blood" thread was some all-time hilarity

Plainview is the most remarkable movie performance since Eddie Murphy’s Norbit trifecta.

zodiac >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no country for old men (which i loved)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>there will be blood (which i really really liked)

zodiac was not that good ..... the first half, maybe

i dont like pt anderson but i wanna see there will be blood

To be fair zodiac is maybe only >>> no country for old men.

and what and Alex OTM

and No Country was really good but come on it was totally morbid and sadistic

twbb >>>> zodiac (which i liked a lot) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no country for old men (which is doomed to mediocrity by coens' unimaginative fidelity to mediocre source material)

and i love tommy lee jones that was one phoned-in cranky-old-sheriff routine.

BUT that was one, i mean

i dont like pt anderson but i wanna see there will be blood

yeah don't let PT hate stop you, it's not like any of his previous movies

Maybe it's a mediocre book, but I think it works really well cinematically. I can't imagine what you would want to change.

but what if I hate PTA and DDL both

boys lovin' morbid and sadistic

The Wind That Shakes the Barley >>>>>>> Zodiac = TWBB

I don't think TLJ's performance was any more phoned in than DDL's frankly (if we are talking about performances these guys can do in their sleep.)

these were my three favourite movies of the year. i tied them at #1.

Zodiac >> The Wind That Shakes the Barley > No Country for Old Men >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TWBB

the wind that shakes the barley was good but a little too earnest and on the nose for me.

I can't imagine what you would want to change.

caring what happens at any point to anyone?

xpost: disagree completely about tlj vs. ddl, i think ddl's been working on that performance for years and finally got to do it. (butcher bill was about halfway there.)

enough with the fuckin triangular brackets already.

^^^^^^

i mean i guess the point of no country is to do with fate and the persistence of evil in the world and the morally compromised nature of human existence and all that stuff mccarthy has done better in other books, but the story is really problematic. people do stupid shit all the way through it, and we're supposed to buy their bad ends as "fate"? i think mccarthy only committed to the genre halfway, he didn't let himself go all the way pulp, which leaves it as kind of po-faced pulp, just self-aware enough to be ineffectual. coens made the same mistake, even though they didn't have to -- they could have taken the ridiculous story and had fun with it. (i think the reason the road is a better book than no country is that mccarthy really does commit to the post-apocalyptic thing and for the most part does not clutter it with rumination. that will probably make it a better movie too, although probably armond white won't think so.)

the wind that shakes the barley was about as good as the best of the irish troubles flicks. reminded me of 'soldier of orange' for some reason. still not as good as zodiac or no country for old men (which is awesomely directed and acted if nothing else).

Armond taking Woody Allen, Dargis and AO Scott to the woodshed this week is funny stuff.

http://www.nypress.com/21/3/film/ArmondWhite.cfm

gimme Loach "earnestness" any day if you feel the cost of bloodletting in your throat.

i can understand the comparisons between there will be blood and no country, but i don't get exactly where zodiac ties into the equation. is the uniting thought that they are longish, auteurish pictures by established directors, primarily about crime in america?

i liked no country but i like it less & less the more i think about it

while i loved zodiac and love it more & more every day

^^^^^^ >>>>>>>> (>>>>>>>) ?

i like all three of them more and more with every lovely day.

but with no country... im not that concerned with figuring out what it means, or what the moral is... i think the meaning is kinda beyond that

Cassandra’s Dream isn’t prophecy, it’s decadence.

wtf does this even mean

agreed, slocks.

the thing i liked the least about zodiac (the uselessness of the rdj character) seems less and less offensive to me every day.

twbb >>>> zodiac (which i liked a lot) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no country for old men (which is doomed to mediocrity by coens' unimaginative fidelity to mediocre source material)

-- tipsy mothra, Thursday, January 17, 2008 7:55 PM

u mad doggie

so mad

i just love that the characters never meet and you barely even notice that.

man he really stuck it to dargis and scott there!!

The Wind That Shakes The Barley was just okay, but I'll definitely take it over No Country and (most especially) Zodiac.

i mean i really liked wind shakes but i cant say i loved it. maybe i just cant fully commit to any kind of art that has no sense of humour whatsoever.

Imagine a world where every ILE film thread turns into a debate about the relative merits of Bamako, Offside and Away from Her.

I've only read NCfOM, but it didn't impress me as being solely about fate. I have no problem with genre pieces where people do stupid shit, especially in Texas.

you should see it morbz. and on the big screen.

offside rules though but you know that.

no country is ok, competently handled, i didn't hate it. but it's the 5th-best mccarthy book i've read and the, what, 4th- or 5th-best coen film i can think of. its acclaim really does mystify me, but so do lots of things.

(coen movies i like better: fargo, blood simple, raising arizona, the ladykillers) (ok kidding about the ladykillers. but not kidding about the big lebowski.)

i just cant fully commit to any kind of art that has no sense of humour whatsoever.

-- s1ocki, Thursday, January 17, 2008 2:24 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

otm

THE LADYKILLERS?!?!?

You are mad.

xp: yeah, Cillian Murphy shoulda been braying about milkshakes just before he was executed. Instant hype and Oscar noms to follow.

(ladykillers was a joke)

you know that's not what i mean.

wind shakes was so... "DO YOU SEE? GET IT?? IRAQ MUCH??"

spoilers, yo

"wind shakes was so... "DO YOU SEE? GET IT?? IRAQ MUCH??""

I neither saw or cared much about that parallel.

at the end when it cuts straight to black and the "IRAQ MUCH?" title card comes up... chills.

anyway like i said i did like it a lot... but loved it? think it was GREAT? not really.

ha, s1ocki, if that's your biggest objection to Barley -- it was Armond's too!!

NCFOM is better than Fargo. Fargo's too clever clever by a half.

nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!! xp

i think no country probably their best.

Brother-on-brother stories are as old as civil wars, I didn't really see Iraq at all.

My problem with Barley is that it wasn't humorless so much as emotionless.

ncfom isn't half-clever enough.

I admit I've only begun to think that in the past 10 years. When I saw it initially I thought it was brilliant so I may end up feeling like that about NCFOM in 2020.

fargo sucks.

"ncfom isn't half-clever enough."

It doesn't need to be.

boring and annoying. i used to kinda like it, too.

xp
Haven't seen anything I loved or thought was great from '07 yet. Or '06 (Inland Empire closest).

what does that even mean (re: clever/half-clever/whatever)

i have no idea.

but among the things i think no country is not enough: clever, interesting, imaginative, smart. funny. scary. sad.

(which are all things i think twbb and zodiac have plenty of.)

Zodiac is a good big-budget cop show (Armond thinks the voices of the men inhabiting it are too high).

no it's something more than that. you're not going to get away with dismissing a movie for its genre on this board, mister.

ok now i agree with slocki.

fargo sucks.

-- omar little, Thursday, January 17, 2008 4:09 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

insane

fargo sucks

xp

I'm not ... I just didn't find Zodiac an all-too-original example of that genre, the way its fans do.

Fargo is a smug funny-accent travesty.

i love tommy lee jones but his marshall in the fugitive is about 500 times better than his cop in ncfom

shit, his speech to rosario dawson at the end of men in black 2 is better than anything in ncfom

here is why fargo doesn't suck

frances macdormand
steve buscemi
peter stomare
william h macy
harve presnell

carter burwell

steve park
john carroll lynch

steve reevis

i think fargo got humanized by frances mcdormand. maybe being married to a coen helps. ncfom doesn't get humanized by anything.

Zodiac is not a genre picture

are you kidding? josh mf brolin.

steve reevis

-- remy bean, Thursday, January 17, 2008 4:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

fuck yeah

josh brolin is... misdirected

everyone is inscrutable and blank and we're supposed to project all these film crit motivations and desires onto them but i didnt really. i think the movie looked good and there were a couple half decent exchanges but to pretend its fucking with fargo or that its the best coen bros is crazy revisionism

tlj brings some humanity to it. i didn't like fargo because i thought it was generically directed when compared to the coens' best stuff. though their worst stuff is totally overdirected.

josh brolin's character was too stupid to live. (in the book as soon as he headed back out to the shooting site with the water, i completely lost interest in him.)

they don't look totally blank! there's just not a lot of dialogue! what, you want them to be making frownie faces and big wide-eyed A-HAs when they realize shit?

funny thing is the only reason he survived as long as he did is he went out there, because if he wasn't pursued from the start they would have just tracked him to his trailer and killed him and his wife there, right? that was the impression i got anyway.

Fargo & Barton Fink are the fave Coens films of people whose contempt for humanity is (even) great(er than mine).

how would they have tracked him to the trailer...?

x-post

if he hadn't gone back there, there was nothing to tie him to it at all. it's a big clumsy plot device. and not surprising, since plot is not mccarthy's strong point.

my fave Coen Bros films are the comedies - Hudsucker Proxy and Big Lebowski

haha yeah plotting is definitely not what McCarthy's good at!

there was a tracking device in the money bag, which is how chigurh tracked him from place to place.

people who like hudsucker proxy hate humanity a lot more than people who like fargo

people who like intolerable cruelty just hate themselves.

where do O Brother fans fit in?

oh! you're right about the transponder. ok.

the character's still an idiot though.

(although the transponder didn't have much of a range, right? presumably if he'd just packed up and skipped town he would have been ok.)

people who like hudsucker proxy hate humanity a lot more than people who like fargo

uh okay I guess... I don't know what this means either

"the character's still an idiot though."

I didn't think this at all.

hudsucker proxy is shallow and glib, borderline autistic. the idea that because some midwesterners in fargo have funny accents the movie hates humanity is the most o_O thing on this thread.

no, he's a pretty resourceful and smart dude. who makes some pretty bad mistakes. who hates humanity now?

Raising Arizona >>>>>> Intolerable Cruelty >>> Hudsucker Proxy and Big Lebowski

Biggest too clever schtick in Fargo is the "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" thing at the beginning.

i do not understand the fargo hate, except for people who do not think it is funny. more than anything else the coens have ever done, it makes me laugh out loud.

i am like prince #1 a+ champion of vaguely realistic humanist cinema, and i can't stand barton fink or miller's crossing for being too cruel and roundly mean-spirited, but there is no way i would level the same charge at fargo.

raising arizona is bullshit. dismissing fargo as "smug funny-accent travesty" and then riding for that garbage is psychotic

i am reserving judgment on fargo cuz i havent seen it since it came out. i liked it then, not sure if i would be as into it now.

we shore get up to some heeelarious goings-on!! huyk!

i haven't seen it since it came out, either, but remember enjoying it quite a bit. however, being from minnesota meant enduring "...do you ALL talk like that?" for years after

A: actually, yeah, a lot of people DO talk like that

yes

is there one review or critic or school of thought that we can blame for all the people who now think fargo is some smug anti-humanity genre exercise because people say dontcha know?

look how frances macdonald said 'yah' in that last scene - clearly these so-called coen brothers are nietzschean sociopaths!

xp: Donal Logue

he's a pretty resourceful and smart dude. who makes some pretty bad mistakes.

this is how he's intended -- there's the bit where his wife is all, like, oh he can take care of himself -- but in fact he pretty much fucks everything up from the start and keeps fucking up until he inevitably gets himself and assorted other people killed. which is the big moralizing twist: the hero never stands a chance. death awaits us all! thus has it ever been, etc. but you know, you can improve your odds at longevity a little by not being a dumbass.

pretty sure i don't recall anyone actually from minnesota getting upset by the lol what rubes character typing. i think that's because the coens actually did a decent job of presenting uniquely midwestern personalities. regardless, i don't need idiot movie critics going to bat for me and my neighbors and getting capt save a lutefisk

I don't think that's the moralizing twist or the point of the movie at all.

also, aren't they FROM minnesota originally??

anyway, now i think i might have to blow off doing laundry and go see twbb instead

For my money, Miller's Crossing is clearly their best film. But given that I am Richard Roeper compared to some of you guys, I understand if my opinion doesn't carry much weight around here. :)

Also, NCFOM was their best film since Lebowski, that much is certain. Whether it deserves to be slobbered over is a matter of personal taste.

Hating on TLJ performance in this movie baffles me. It's a great performance. Should he never act again because he's always going to look and sound like TLJ?

Crimewave >>> Miller's Crossing

thats what im saying, man! is fargo shittier or more cruel to its characters than double indemnity or chinatown or blade runner or or sunset blvd or mulholland drive or etc etc etc

o brother is funny and cute and well-loved unironically by every CMT-watching redneck non-cinephile i know back on SC

I've never seen Crimewave.

TLJ was great! It probably hurts him that he has no "range," but I love the dude, even in his bad movies.

another maniacal Coen Bros thread, this time in the Armond White thread

tipsy: so the movie is inhuman because you think the main character is so stupid he deserves to die? ya that's really on the movie there.

the characters in fargo came across like a lot of regular minnesotans i knew from my time there. i didn't think they were rubes, but i remember seeing it in nyc when it was released and many people were loling at the accents (which i don't necessarily think was the film's intent).

god i hated o brother.

If anything, this thread convinced me to see Shakes the Barley, and maybe to finally check out Zodiac (despite not being much of a Fincher fan).

"I've never seen Crimewave."

Haha I was kidding. It's good, but Miller's Crossing is better (if not their best.)

I hate Fincher generally, but I love love loved Zodiac.

its not great CINEMA!!@@#!@ or anything but for a tart little populist hit its def good enough - most dvd collections file it next to, like, the notebook & 13 going on 30

xp about o brother

i just thought it was annoying

i mean i cant speak on the midwestern stuff but as a southerner the only ppl getting all madd about the southern shit in that was yankees

its basically mama's family: the motion picture

as for Zodiac, it's about information glut, a very modern and un-cinematic problem. which makes it kind of a bold, maybe even important film.

problem's not with tlj, it's with the hokey character, who's essentially written as Crinkly Texas Lawman. the movie does get rid of some of his lamer contemplations (the weakest part of the book by far), and also fobs off some of them on the other Crinkly Texas Lawman toward the end, but still leaves him half-thought-out and indistinct. so tlj fills him in with all his usual crinkly-lawmanisms.

you are totally projecting. he doesn't do that at all.

yeah i love tlj but his role in that was like a tlk parody from the critic or something

tlk lol

so the movie is inhuman because you think the main character is so stupid he deserves to die?

the movie's lack of humanity didn't bother me, that's mostly a given with the coens.i was just noting that part of what sets fargo apart is that marge is a larger, warmer character than they usually manage, which i think is mostly frances mcdormand's doing.

my problem with no country is that i think it's a basically kind of dopey book, rendered entirely too literally.

(i actually think javier bardem is a bigger detriment than either brolin or tlj, but again i don't really think it's his fault.)

Haha okay seriously I am never trusting your opinion. Javier Bardem's performance is phenomenal.

Was there a thread this year for favorite movies of 2007? I don't see it on the front page and suck at using ILX search. I have a general sense of what some of you guys dug.

I have no idea what this warm thing is either. I think all the principles come off as very human as NCFOM.

The only two films in this discussion that have moved me are Barley and Raising Arizona.

re humor and Loach -- he's had humor in plenty of his other films, but there wasn't really much room for it in Barley's story, wouldn't ya say? (tho there's some inherently funny/grim Irish stuff, like the old lady whose house is torched by the Brits who declares she'll live in the chicken coop.)

no really i like javier bardem and was excited to see him in this and, eh. i already said this on the ncfom thread, but i thought he wasn't scary or funny enough. could have been more of both, or either, but as a relentless force of death he just seemed kinda ho-hum.

"but i thought he wasn't scary or funny enough"

See my comments above.

the scene in the convenience store was good, i liked that.

Raising Arizona is way more hateful towards its characters than Fargo or Hudsucker or O Brother or any of their other films really

"lolz lookit that silly redneck stealing diapers"

I don't think that's hateful, just funny. Aside from McDormand, Fargo isn't funny either.

tipsy, i agree with that last statement. jb did an excellent job with the script and direction he had, but cigurh seemed much more of a conceit than an actual character

I was one of those critics who called Fargo "smug" in my college paper at the time, but I've warmed to it enough, partly because I've read some insightful things over the years – doncha know – on ILE.

Whatever. I'll never love the Coens, and have a problem with their adapting a terrible novel so that they can – do what exactly? Improve it marginally? But the thing worked as an effective suspense film.

Barley doesn't belong in this discussion at all; it's probably my favorite film of the year.

Dopey? audiences didn't even understand the last 20 minutes of the film. Or the fact that Anton is not a literal character in the film. Not to mention all the redundant shots and dialog the coens left OUT of the film, giving you only exactly what you need to know. brolin made mostly intelligent decisions, it's just that from the moment he took the money death began stalking him.

I agree javier bardem could have been both scarier and funnier, but i understand why the kept him fairly blank.

Morbius, you did not find any, err, comedy of terror, when Marge Gunderson ran around her house with a bag over her head? Or when she fell down the stairs in a shower curtain?

i think there's less to understand in the last 20 minutes (and/or the last section of the book) than meets the eye. straining for significance. (this is also true of there will be blood, but that's some really entertaining straining.)

You guys are underplaying the capacity for cruelty in the Coens, even when they're trying to be gentle and "human." I vividly remember the theater audience laughing AT Gunderson rather than with.

I didn't realize she was laughing.

It was muffled by the death-shrieks

wood chippers are inherently funny

remy, how many times do you think I saw Fargo? Once in '96! I don't remember either scene.

It's a cumulative let's-laugh-at-the-rube thing.

funniest thing to say during orgasm ^^^

You guys are underplaying the capacity for cruelty in the Coens

Perhaps you're underplaying OUR capacity for cruelty? Morbs pretty much summed me up with "boys lovin' morbid and sadistic".

why don't more of you boys love the morbid and sadistic Fassbinder? Too gay and not enough blood?

why can't we love morbid sadistic fassbinder and americans together? WW2 ended a long time ago.

i love fassbinder but i need to see more. berlin alexanderplatz is in the queue.

I can't speak for the other boys, but I like the few Fassbinders I've seen. I found them a little too overtly philosophical, I guess ... not quite Brecht, but close.

that guy hasn't even put out a movie in like 10 years

fassbinder, what have you done for me lately?

what dude accomplished is more impressive to me than any other filmmaker in the history of cinema, and I'm only familiar with a small amount of his work.

yeah i remember a scorsese quote about cocaine where he said that he'd stay up for days doing coke and have ideas for 5 movies by the end of it, and then instead of making the movies he'd just do more coke. but fassbinder did that and actually made the movies.

I couldn't get through Berlin Alexanderpants - I'm skipping straight to the epilogue, which sounds like the most interesting bit (to me)

no spoilers

The butler did it.

Shakey, maybe you should watch the '31 film, then RWF's epilogue.

At least RWF didn't have to do his drugs at Robbie Robertson's house.

Perhaps you're underplaying OUR capacity for cruelty?

The response to NCFOM here is pretty measured, considering how the Coens make ILE'ers dig on swine.

no, i just begrudgingly give them free pass in light of their other talents.

like getting billy bob thornton to shut up.

This shit must cease.

Haven't seen anything I loved or thought was great from '07 yet. Or '06 (Inland Empire closest).

You keep bringing this up. What was the last great movie you've seen?

Fox and Friends

was our 2006 thread in the Sandbox?

the detrius one? mostly

Munich, of course. ILXors throw "great" around like it was low-grade weed.

Clearly.

Of course thinking Munich is a great film is more indicative of the amount of low-grade weed you've been smoking, but still clearly.

DANCE ON CAMERA

Fri Jan 18 @ 6:15pm

POP VIDEO ARTISTS AND HOLLYWOOD INFLUENCE

Armond White's tantalizing take on the music videos of the king & queen of pop - Michael & Janet Jackson.

http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/doc08/program14.html

Sorry to back up a bit here, but, I have no idea what to think of No Country. thought I hated it - what was it for? The coin flipping thing and some scenes where characters were over explaining really annoyed me

pretty sure i don't recall anyone actually from minnesota getting upset by the lol what rubes character typing.

half my relatives talk like that, or used to until they moved out of rural minnesota and lost the minnewegian accents. far as I know everyone loves the movie.
http://flakmag.com/misc/images/hotdish1.jpg

Munich is a "so close" case for me. I would call Inland Empire something like great, tho. My last red film was Tropical Malady tho. That was a long while back.

At the time, Minnesotans seemed about evenly split by the Fargo caricatures. Half were offended, half were starstruck by a major sleeper hit-cum-Oscar nominee about their state.

Still think the best film I've seen in the past five years is Head-On, but Zodiac/Wind/No Country are all great films IMO (even if a second viewing was required for me to think that about the last.)

Eric, I'll give you some bad weed to push Munich over the line. (I really wish I could take notes at the Armond Q&A for you, but I think I have to see the Joe shorts tonight. AW vs AW!)

I think Malady only gets to green for me.

actually great movies of the last 5 years... dogville. i think there will be blood is close. (i don't have a problem calling it "great," but there are levels of great and it obviously has some problems.) goodbye dragon inn is pretty great, although i guess it barely sneaks into the last five years. the world is great-ish.

so is the holy girl.

There's a fine old thread where Eric takes me to task for saying I need never read a word by any critics who liked Dogville again!

(waived til at least I finish yr book)

Armond thinks Mr. 3000 is one of the great movies of the last five years, so he's not completely insane.

There's a fine old thread where Eric takes me to task for saying I need never read a word by any critics who liked Dogville again!

Your recall is just as spooky as jaymc's.

haha see now hoberman's love of dogville is one of the things that keeps him in my "pay attention to" column. (and then he liked southland tales too, love you j.ho.)

if i was a high school drama teacher i'd stage a production of dogville.

And it'd be BETTER!

xp: c'mon, i'm not even a contender! I only remember threads where ppl give me shit.

I saw Dogville at the 19th & B'way Loews on Good Friday. Cinematic Gethsemane.

I can't ignore J. Hoberman anymore if I wanted to. His columns are now a fixture in the City Pages.

xp: c'mon, i'm not even a contender! I only remember threads where ppl give me shit.

That's constitutes an amount of text that rivals In Search of Lost Time.

I LET YOU HAVE THAT ONE!

jesus 'dogville' was bad: probably a more boneheaded non-critique of capitalism than 'there will be blood'.

x=post I know.

those movies aren't about capitalism. also not misanthropic. or anti-american. or whatever. also they both have very funny endings (although dogville's makes more sense).

also i can only imagine the depth of loathing armond white feels for dogville. i don't remember if he reviewed it.

i have no idea what dogville's appeal is if it isn't to a kneejerk euro 'god aren't people cruel' misanthropy. 'twbbb' is at least a decent looking bit of film (as opposed to rehashing brecht) but equally naive politics-wise.

xp: He did and maybe you can't imagine!

Also tipsy, we have to discuss the "ugly liberal anger" dinner scene in Huckabees. I found it exhilarating.

bingo: "one of the most fatuous movies ever made."

xp: yeah i love that scene.

kneejerk euro 'god aren't people cruel' misanthropy

hey this is why I couldn't make it through Berlin Alexanderplantz! people are evil and stupid and cruel zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz* I guess the epilogue had some okay moments here and there

dogville's appeal to me was that i thought it was v. entertaining. it was like a punk'd remake of the crucible.

and the staging device yes is a gimmick but really well done. i don't mind gimmicks, i just want people to know what they're doing with them. plus i could listen to john hurt's narration all day.

calling it a movie given the second-generation-vid look is a dollop of kindness tho.

Not all of them are ENTIRELY evil and stupid and cruel, Shakey! No more than the average Altman gallery.

and i totally read dogville as cautionary, not condemnatory. i.e. not "people are terrible," just "people can be terrible, so watch it." which is a totally sensible and not at all people-hating pov.

it was like a punk'd remake of the crucible.

OTM!

Plus, Dogville had a lot of gorgeously processed shots in there too. Way more "filmic" than, I dunno, Crimson Gold or whatever also-great-but-butt-ugly-looking movies got big ups from lefty critics at the time.

maybe im a retard but all this 'truly great movie' stuff just brings me back to zodiac, which affected me like practically nothing else

punk'd adds sumthin?

post-The Kingdom, von Trier challenges my dogma(e) that being an asshole is irrelevant to one's artistry...

And you were just praising David O. Russell a few posts up?

I think the Kingdom is the only thing of his I've really dug. That Bjork movie was unwatchable (I think I have a hard time with completely unsympathetic protagonists - its no problem if the protagonist is evil/stupid/whatever as long as they're made interesting and relatable, but if they're not I just tune out...)

'crimson gold' got in and got out, showed you a bit of tehran, did its thing. wouldn't watch it again. but 'dogville' was a real striver, and so long! i think LVT is weird about punishing women. honestly no idea what the film has to recommend it. preferred even 'it's all about love'.

xpost

maybe im a retard but all this 'truly great movie' stuff just brings me back to zodiac, which affected me like practically nothing else

-- and what, Friday, January 18, 2008 6:22 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

yeah me too. i don't usually care for truly great movies (it's kind of a vote for significance or what people in the future will think) but this was one.

xp: no, the ways in which Russell seems to be an asshole haven't surfaced in the films themselves, so far as I can tell.

LVT is weird about punishing women

^^^^ding ding ding. it gets really tiresome. also its mostly lacking from the Kingdom, which is perhaps why I enjoy that more.

xp: no, the ways in which Russell seems to be an asshole haven't surfaced in the films themselves, so far as I can tell.

-- Dr Morbius, Friday, January 18, 2008 6:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

haha i had to make this argument to my editor this week when he aksed how i could like a director who was so nasty IRL.

also Eric, Jerry Lewis is kind of a fiend IRL. "women can't be funny" etc

Hey, I'm all about asshole directors.

And anti-humanitarians.

some of LVT's films (dogville, breaking the waves, etc.) are more specifically about a woman's ability to transcend punishment. sexist maybe, but the characters are at least strong.

the wimmin-hatin' bothered me more in breaking the waves and dancer than dogville (the only one of the three where the victim gets revenge). his sadism does always feel gleeful, so my reaction to the movies partly depends on how much i'm willing to share in the glee. (otoh i prefer gleeful sadism to whatever kind you get from michael haneke, say.)

zodiac is really good. i need to see it again, like was said up above it keeps getting better in my head.

I liek Haneke and Von Triers so apparently I like mean europeans. YAY EUROPE!

how bout catherine breillat? she's pretty mean. (i don't like her much but am kind of interested in her new one.)

I really draw the line at vaginal mega-closeups.

i havent seen everything yet, but im with the zodiac backers...i can't imagine that it won't end up being the best film of the year for me.

and im not sure why "power corrupts" and "people are cruel" are considered naive politics?

ethan is right, fargo is the best one.

i always suspect ppl who use the "smug" and "misanthropic" and "they hate their characters" stuff are responding more to reviews of the coens than the actual movies.

i mean if you're still throwing down confident pronouncements about a movie you haven't seen since 1996 it's hard to believe you're that interested in engaging with something which you've already decided (judging from the quality of ppl who like it) is beneath you. but that's no surprise.

and jesus christ does every single fucking work of art have to be a renoir-esque celebration of life? so long, jonathan swift/ambrose bierce/flannery o'connor/joe orton/mike judge.

mike judge eh

tried to sneak that one in there

going back - Morbs', you're repping for the worst scene in Huckabee. The kitchen scene about Jesus with the giant Hummer DO YOU SEE sign outside... ugh.

I haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth or Children of Men since the theater, but I think those were the last two new movies I'd call great. Before that, 25th Hour.

children of men would be the last movie i loved before zodiac, but zodiac is better

pans labyrinth was tim burton/vertigo comix bullshit

crazy talk!

i liked it ok esp capt vidale & the chekovian doctor but the goth fantasy crap was boring and gay

i thot children of men was pretty great but i have to say as much as i liked zodiac (a lot!) it wasnt my fave movie of the year by a long shot. but maybe i dont get what the criteria are? honestly i dont really like the "what was the last truly GREAT movie" conversation, it strikes me a useless excuse to show off and act like a dick

honestly i dont really like the "what was the last truly GREAT movie" conversation ilx, it strikes me a useless excuse to show off and act like a dick

-- max, Friday, January 18, 2008 4:29 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

lazy joek

pans labyrinth was fuckin great i thot, incl the boring gay goth fantasy

yes i loved the boring gay goth fantasy and i never go for stuff like that. it wasn't really a fantasy...OR WAS IT?

fargo is so fucking good and lol @ morbius of ny arguing w/ southerners and midwesterners that fargo is offensive but raising arizon isnt

im standing halfway between and what and slocki here

i liked pans labyrinth until the end!! cant believe they felt the need to make sure you knew it was just her imagination

i didnt think it was that clear cut deej but i was really fucking high

ha I was just about to say "that's precisely what wasn't made sure of!" but i wasn't sure i could talk about it clearly. pan's labyrinth is so cool about realism v. allegory.

yeah listen to horseshoe shes smart

i mean if you're still throwing down confident pronouncements about a movie you haven't seen since 1996

I've seen Raising Arizona twice in the last 6 months. It def condescends to its characters, its pretty mean-spirited throughout.

many x-posts

whatevs I'm just echoing you, dude!

xpost

to me it wasnt enough ambiguity .... there's that reveal shot where someone (some people? i forget) see her standing by herself while she sees herself w/ the goat dude that is pretty :-/

I would have liked it more if there was way more of the underworld crap

actually my sense was less that it was clearly "goth fantasy is REAL" (or "goth fantasy is FAKE" for that matter) and more that it didnt really matter in the end--that searching for the hard truth of what "actually happened" is sort of antithetical to the movie's project

i didn't think it was that clear either. it's kind of important morally that she refuses to sacrifice the baby, and if it's just her imagination then that didn't even happen, right? i guess part of the question is what you think paganism represents in the film.

so much of it is about the creation/projection of reality; everyone in the movie is creating their own world & purpose & ethics--to single out the girl's adventure as specifically up for debate in terms of real or unreal strikes me as unfair

what you think paganism represents in the film

yeah and the structure of the film purposely muddies this, I think? god i want to rewatch it right now so i can make sure. so smartly made, i remember thinking.

i mean purposely muddies the representational one-to-one-ness of the allegory.

yeah its actually a really difficult movie to read

for something that i thought was going to be a spanish kids movie when i bought my ticket

everyone in the movie is creating their own world

right and the captain's world revolves around violence and torture and martyrdom, blood sacrifice handed down through generations, etc. very roman catholic. the pagan world though makes the girl re-enact isaac and abraham, with the twist that the key is in her refusal to make the sacrifice rather than her willingness to. which i don't think makes the movie just anti-catholic (although it is, arguably) so much as anti-authoritarian at a fundamental level.

man i dunno max, i wanted it to be how yr describing but that reveal shot seemed to undercut it. Everyone else can affect their own reality except her, as a kid she's suffering under all these other forces, so it was like the story betrays her when they don't let her story stand on equal footing

i have to see it again

i mean if you're still throwing down confident pronouncements about a movie you haven't seen since 1996 it's hard to believe you're that interested in engaging with something which you've already decided

Yeah JD, I'm not interested in "engaging with it" bcz I made up my mind as a 30+ year old about said film and don't have time to rewatch blah stuff cuz it won Oscars and is worshiped by Coen cultists - life's too short.

deej, what I'm arguing is RaisAriz is funny and touching and Fargo ain't. The End.

the problem with Pan's Labyrinth was that the dude with eyes in his hands had less screen time than a stuttering freedom fighter. false advertising!

and no max, I'm not trying to act like a dick. When ppl say they saw 5 or 6 "great" American big-studio films this year, I just instinctively react Cheeee-rist, save that shit for ILM and albums. (normally I'd ask WHY IS IT GREAT, but ppl don't like to answer that)

Dunno why people putting a stock anti-fascist story and a stock "little girl's metaphor fantasy" story together would add up to a great movie.

It was better than Lives Of Others, though.

I mean, at least it didn't have to have five "2 years later" scenes to seek that all important happy ending.

Pan's Labryinth and "Armond White" don't belong on the same thread.

and im not sure why "power corrupts" and "people are cruel" are considered naive politics?

-- ryan, Friday, 18 January 2008 20:09 (Yesterday) Link

they're apolitical statements -- or, they lead, as in 'there will be blood', to Bad Emblematic Figures because the filmmakers are politically naive. so it's not capitalism, really, in 'dogville' or 'twbb', but mean people, not common economic exploitation that, in reality, is deemed acceptable, but (in 'dogville') really obvious and morally objectionable stuff that the bad people do. 'power corrupts' is kind of nihilistic; 'people are mean' -- yeah, if they get the chance, but these films don't get into that.

was sophocles politically naive? i mean, to argue ad absurdum, you can reduce the greeks and shakespeare to simpleminded thesis statements too. (stipulating that pta and lvt are not sophocles or shakespeare.) i agree that neither movie is as economically astute as something like ruby in paradise or the dardennes, but they're working on a different scale. dogville is in a social-fable tradition, brecht to arthur miller to whatever. twbb is in the american-tragedy tradition, dreiser to gatsby to kane etc. you could call both those traditions essentially naive if you wanted, but i wouldn't. and of course being in those traditions doesn't automatically make either movie good, although i think they both are -- because they are energetic and self-aware of their own traditions and imaginative in approaching them. (also because i was completely entertained by both of them.)

raising arizona is bullshit. dismissing fargo as "smug funny-accent travesty" and then riding for that garbage is psychotic

ethan I think it's time you switched to sanka

no the thing of shakespeare is, you can't do that, can't reduce things down to thesis positions. hard to bring him up without making the comparison, but plainview is not a full character the way shakespeare's were. obviously the mode of presentation is so different that the comparison is dicey anyway.

i would say 'dogville' is on about the same level, politically, as the dardennes -- ie pretty low. 'dogville' is probably better in that sense, in that it isn't vitiated by catholic mysticism. dardennes make films about poor people, but they don't have much in the way of socio-political insight. they make better films than LVT.

'kane' seems more politically smart (taking into account the circumstances it was made under) to me than 'twbb', 'gatsby' more psychologically true.

'raising arizona' is the coens' worst pre-'oh brother' film.

john goodman is pretty good as usual but yeeesh.

i like almost all the movies mentioned here except for raising arizona and dogville

i like food, it tastes good

"When ppl say they saw 5 or 6 "great" American big-studio films this year, I just instinctively react Cheeee-rist, save that shit for ILM and albums."

Yeah good job policing what folks like, Morbs. You stay on that.

I seriously have no idea what qualifies as being "great cinema" for you Morbs, but one thing I am completely clear on is that whatever elusive quality it may be it's not something that I give much of a shit about or would expect most other people to.

I don't read Morbs as taking issue with quality so much as quantity. Rather than reserving 'great' for something mind-blowing, it gets tacked on to a bunch of films (even when they might account for a fifth of what someone saw in a year) because they're reasonably well-made and because there's so much shit out there in general.

'kane' seems more politically smart (taking into account the circumstances it was made under) to me than 'twbb', 'gatsby' more psychologically true.

definitely. i'm just saying that's twbb's self-conscious lineage. he's playing with that form. and i know, i'm always suspicious of people saying things like "oh it's not meant to be xxxx" by way of excusing something for not being xxxx, BUT plainview is not exactly a character study. more like an archetype. so the lack of depth just didn't seem like an issue to me. he's a sort of monolithic game piece on a monumental board. the movie seems to me more about the force of his action than the nuances of his character. but that's a subjective thing; to me the movie was kind of like getting steamrolled or bulldozed, and that was exciting, i don't get bulldozed at movies very often. if you didn't feel bulldozed, or object to bulldozing on principle, it would be a different experience.

(and to take that a step further, pta's and ddl's bulldozing approach mirror plainview's; the movie's an example of what it's about)

"I don't read Morbs as taking issue with quality so much as quantity."

Yes, the fact that it's a semantic argument makes it a bunch better. . . wait no it doesn't and it doesn't change anything I said.

Except you were talking about the 'qualities of a great film' and what they are for Morbs.

And apparently one of those qualities is rarity. I can see how that really changes things a lot.

I mean what this really comes down to is Morbs feeling that overt enthusiasm is basically unseemly when talking about film and should be reserved only for the most magnificent of Spielberg's creations and not some crap churned out by David Fincher.

Imagine a world where every ILE film thread turns into a debate about the relative merits of Bamako, Offside and Away from Her.

what a snobbish thing to say. i haven't seen bamako, i loved offside (shouldn't it be "offsides"), and away from her felt stilted and unimaginative. it didn't move me.

offsides (plural) is hockey right? soccer is singular?

sures

re the "great" standard, that's a perpetual problem right? movies, records, books, whatever, people get very hung up on calling something great. (i had a related debate with some friends not long ago about the word "genius.") i'm cautious about it too, but maybe not as cautious as some. "great" seems like a pretty broad category itself -- there are forms and degrees of greatness. you can obviously have a great performance in an ok film, or a great film that still has some flaws. but if you have enough accumulated experience of movies or music or whatever, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to call things great if they strike you as great. great films and music are rare, but they're not like vanishingly rare; with the amount of stuff being produced every year, the likelihood that you'll see something great if you pay enough attention is really pretty good. (unless you're going to argue that there are fewer than one or two great movies made a year, in which case you'd be arguing that there are fewer than 100 or 200 great films period, which i just don't think is true at all.)

i have one friend who refuses to call anything "great" until it's had some time -- 10 or 20 years -- to prove its greatness. i guess that's one way to do it. otoh, my point to him is that a lot of stuff that ends up being considered great 10 or 20 years later -- or 50 or 75 -- is stuff that was also called great when it first appeared. and that the reputation it accrues as it goes is partly built on that initial enthusiasm. obv. not true for everything -- some things get hype and then fade (although often to be rediscovered later), some things aren't noticed much at first and then find champions later, etc. but none of that negates the critical project at the front end, it just means its part of an evolutionary process.

(it's, in that last sentence. sorry.)

although i do also think the passage of time provides interesting critical perspective, which is why some of my favorite criticism is of reissues or retrospectives.

out of the 50-100 non-random films i choose see annually, i am willing to bet that between 3-5 movies will be hands-down 'great' by the standards of any sane person.

of those 3-5, i will probably think 2 or 3 re great in a few years, but i will have upgraded the status of another 1 or 2, and also seen on video at least a few i would like to add to that (past) year's cinematic hall of fame.

+/-500 movies in the history of the art form is not really overenthusiastic, or undiscriminating.

indiscriminatory, even

i think 'indiscriminate' is what you're looking for

seventeen hours of my weekend have been devoted to editing, and yet i somehow manage to insert six typoes and three syntactical errors in a forty-word post. i need sleep. :(

unless you're going to argue that there are fewer than one or two great movies made a year, in which case you'd be arguing that there are fewer than 100 or 200 great films period, which i just don't think is true at all.

Unless I'm willing to argue that the Great Rate has slowed in recent years because the commercial (ie, anything that's exhibited for profit) narrative film is suffering from burnout/exhaustion/Everything's Been Sorta Done after a century. Which I might be! I think I could find 6-10 great films from every year in the '50s.

seventeen hours of my weekend have been devoted to editing, and yet i somehow manage to insert six typoes and three syntactical errors in a forty-word post. i need sleep. :(

-- remy bean, Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:13 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link

He's started a new shitstorm!

Critical babble doesn’t talk about what matters, but it sustains Ten Current Film Culture Fallacies:

1)“The Three Amigos” Iñárritu, Cuarón and del Toro are Mexico’s greatest filmmakers while Julian Hernandez is ignored.

2) Gus Van Sant is the new Visconti when he’s really the new Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger.

3) Documentaries ought to be partisan rather than reportorial or observational.

4) Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Dreamgirls equal the great MGM musicals.

5) Paul Verhoeven’s social satire Showgirls was camp while Cronenberg’s campy melodramas are profound.

6) Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough while all other gay-themed movies were ignored.

7) Todd Haynes’ academic dullness is anything but.

8) Dogma was a legitimate film movement.

9) Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected.

10) Mumblecore matters.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/005869.html

he can't even stick to his formal conceit

Brokeback Mountain was a breakthrough while all other gay-themed movies were ignored.

Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected.

unless he's saying these statements are actually fallacies!

Gus Van Sant is the new Visconti when he’s really the new Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger.

is this just a gay-bashing thing? apart from them being gay, what links these two? GVT is kind of minimalist when he's allowed to be. but for visconti not so much with the minimalism.

3) Documentaries ought to be partisan rather than reportorial or observational.

how is this a fallacy? since when? and what does it even mean?

I don't even understand what he's saying in 9). Stephen Chow's been rejected? In what world?

4) Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Dreamgirls equal the great MGM musicals.

oscar voters != film culture

8) Dogma was a legitimate film movement.

ok this is a funny zing because dogme was probably the lamest film movement since the 'cinema du look', but to say it wasn't 'legitimate' begs some big questions.

He's mentally ill isn't he?

"Neil Jordan’s sensitive, imaginative The Brave One"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Re Chow, he apparently means celebrated by critics to the extent Hou is. How he measures these thing I can't say.

It's Armondworld, and he just lives in it.

HE MEASURES IT WITH THE CELEBRA-METER!

it's pretty nit-picky stuff, not exacty the tablets of stone. if he done something like "1. long takes are interesting" (w/r/t taiwanese cinema) or "2. politics is better when done indirectly" (cf crit-jizz on TWBB; negative reaction to all the films directly about the war), then there'd be something at least to talk about. but "critics overpraise dreamgirls and mumblecore" is zzzzzzzzzz

god the brave one was the worst piece of shit ever, utterly inexcusable and vile

Typical critic slocki you are just missing the imagination in it.

Armond's right though about the NYT's ball-licking Ebert profile a couple of weekends ago.

So what? A stopped watch, etc.

Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger

this doesnt even make sense

fagin was not the artful dodger

also not jailbait

wtf is mumblecore

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Mutual_appreciation.jpg

^^ really good movie

that looks horrible

i thought maybe it had something to do with casey affleck

Glenn Kenny to Armond White: "You think you're applying some form of moral rigor to your work, but the fact is that you're a bully and a hypocrite, and I don't want to know you." Comments ensue.

"Armond's deeply confused screed makes me glad I quit the Press so that I don't have to attempt to explain to people out of professional courtesy what point he thought he was trying to make," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in a comment at the House Next Door. "My admiration for Armond's originality and the impact of his 1980s and 90s writing on my own have been detailed at length here many times, so I won't rehash it again. Cutting to the chase: It has become increasingly and sadly clear in recent years that Armond's as much the establishment as AO Scott, in that he derives much of his impact from the institutional weight of a print publication and from the insulated status that this one-way model of communication affords." There's more.

I assumed Mumblecore was like Thumbsucker or Me You Everyone or whatever.

"My admiration for Armond's originality and the impact of his 1980s and 90s writing on my own have been detailed at length here many times"

Was Armond good once? I find that hard to believe.

dude, in that column he praised Bowsley Crowther!

*Bosley

i think armond white was pretty good when he wz mainly writin abt music in the late 80s -- or at least i thought so then

where's the kenny quote from, al

it's from the greencine link Morbs posted.

Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess. Damn, even I was hoping at least one more of those were true.

Kenny responding to commenters on his blog:

White's schtick is that only he has the perception, the judgment, and the moral vision to see through it all; this, in his mind, excuses his incivility...no, to hell with it, it's not incivility, it's simple snickering haughty mean-spiritedness. And I feel sorry (among other things) for anybody who insists on mistaking it for brilliant contrarianism.

The link

White's schtick is that only he has the perception, the judgment, and the moral vision to see through it all; this, in his mind, excuses his incivility...no, to hell with it, it's not incivility, it's simple snickering haughty mean-spiritedness. And I feel sorry (among other things) for anybody who insists on mistaking it for brilliant contrarianism.

i cant think of anyone on ilx like this

especially not on the primaries thread, no sir

wtf @ three amigos

also how is J-horror not pop cinema. or do I not understand what pop means

he's just creating fictional issues in order to make himself look better. if he was a hou hsiao hsien fan and a stephen chow basher he could more easily make the case that the latter is overpraised and the former is almost completely ignored, since chow gets nothing but love and hhh seems to get press from the film comment sect.

9) Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected.

i can't speak on chow, but chen kaige and zhang yimou were getting a lot of critical love back in the 80s and early 90s; they were far from rejected. iirc zhang has basically turned to doing massive epic films now like those two miramax overpaid for. yeah they've gone out of fashion, but that one 'hero' film just didn't have a lot going for it.

yes, Armond wrote well, regularly, in the '90s for sure.

just wait til November, max. (oh, i'm THE meanspirited one on ILX, am i?)

Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess.

I'm Not There, DVD May 6

5) Paul Verhoeven’s social satire Showgirls was camp while Cronenberg’s campy melodramas are profound.

pretty half-and-half on this.

the polemical value of boosting mid-90s verhoeven has just about run its course now.

I'm really glad I never think to use phrases like "polemical value."

oh BURN

actually i think the moore review has the ghost of a really strong idea in it -- getting at mm's (vast) flaws via godard's political reading of the edit -- but to make it fly AW'd have had to a. identify how "politics of the edit" operates (he does this a bit but not in a usable way), b. identify how "politics of the edit" manifests in critical writing, ie establish his own inability to be objective (by virtue of being a writer; by virtue of the need to make sentences and paragraphs from his thoughts and responses) and c. cut it away from his own moral jihad against "corruptin pop culture", which is kinda completely an irrelevance to the godardian argt

as it is i don't think AW understands godard any better than momus understands brecht

the polemical value of boosting mid-90s verhoeven has just about run its course now.

I proudly championed Showgirls before, while and after it was hip to do so.

I think with #5, AW is inarticulately trying to point out that it's a mistake to read the praise for Showgirls purely in terms of it's "polemical value".

mind you, when people say it's camp i think they mean 'in a good way', right? not that this feels like a particularly pressing argument to be having in 2008.

haha i wz discussin w.dave q last night how the unisex locker-room scene is the only bit of starship troopers which is true to heinlein's original utopian political vision

= pressing is as pressing does, i guess

Eric, if I watch Showgirls will you watch I'm Not There?

Camp is not supposed to be consciously artful, hence AW is accusing hipsters of underappreciating Showgirls.

it is Ten Current Film Culture Fallacies -- tho i might have missed some recent 'showgirls in retrospect: it's no madame butterfly!' pieces.

Eric, if I watch Showgirls will you watch I'm Not There?

... No?

I guess I understand the Verhoeven part of that item but I don't see much camp in Cronenberg. unless he just means homoeroticism.

'i'm not there' is awes, eric.

yeah, how else can you keep your contempt for Haynes' academiciousness up to date?

(Eric hates music made w/ guitars except for Prince. weird.)

I don't have to listen to Love & Theft to keep my contempt for Dylan up to date.

And I prefer Prince's synth era greatly to his guitar era.

early cburg is fairly schlocky if that's the same as camp -- he cooled that out after naked lunch, by goin for flattened ballardian boringness mostly

i like em but i'm an idiot

I don't listen to Dylan's music hardly ever, it's not a prereq. How often do nrq and I agree?

That's what has me skeptical.

ooh i will add my vote to "i'm not there" fandom

(but i like dylan) (see "idiot" claim)

a Mark appearance!

i am busy pimpin my radioshow alfred:
"a bite of stars a slug of time and THOU" (key word in caps)

it also features mr tracer hand, dave q and (possibly) discussion of heinlein abt sex...

early cburg is fairly schlocky if that's the same as camp

I guess that's true .... I assumed he was talking about the more recent ones (HOV and Eastern Promises) but Showgirls is 90s so who knows

Eric hasn't listened to Disco Dylan, apparently.

Whatever you do, mark, don't say "cunt" -- it upsets Tracer.

The King of Comedy for Showgirls, then.

At the risk of killing a nice running joke, deal.

a lot of the post-mortems on 'i'm not there''s lack of b.o. have basically said it's for dylan fans only. i don't know if this is true because i liked it and i like dylan, but no-one claims of (visual) artist biopics that you have to be a fan to get it.

it's more knowing the intricacies of the dylanmyth i think than the songs

at least it seemed to me that might be a barrier if you weren't a little bit up on em

On which planet would I'm Not There have been a box office hit?

the boomers do rule this country, i'd have expected it to do all right

and there are some pretty big-name stars in it ... and far from heaven was up for oscars ....

I expected it to at least be an art-house hit but it came and went in abt 2 seconds

Did it go over well with boomers? I enthusiastically recommended it to my parents and they hated it so much that they didn't tell me they saw it until months later when I asked.

A "straightforward" Dylan pic starring, oh, Emile Hirsch? a la Walk the Line might've had a shot. But, as the Haynes movie conjectures, no one knows who Dylan is. (it's a yuk that Ledger is a star of a Dylan biopic within the film)

Far From Heaven was up for Oscars bcz the Academy ignored (or didn't register) the subtext and Brechtian agenda.

I meant, no one knows who Dylan is in the sense that everyone now knows Johnny Cash was a dark soul rescued from pills n booze by the love of Reese Witherspoon.

no one knows who Dylan is in the sense that everyone now knows that Ray Charles was black.

Far From Heaven was up for Oscars bcz the Academy ignored (or didn't register) the subtext and Brechtian agenda.

ha ha ha ha

armond white is a terrible human being

it's more knowing the intricacies of the dylanmyth i think than the songs

-- mark s, Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:32 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

at least it seemed to me that might be a barrier if you weren't a little bit up on em

-- mark s, Thursday, April 24, 2008 7:35 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

yea probably. i walked in telling my friends (also dylan fans) that i'm SO NOT a dylan fanboy and have NEVER HEARD anything he did post-'basement tapes' (whereas they have); but when we came out i was like "oh well that sort of relates to..." and they were all o_O. i guess this comes down to me being in denial about being a fanboy.

i can't speak on chow, but chen kaige and zhang yimou were getting a lot of critical love back in the 80s and early 90s; they were far from rejected. iirc zhang has basically turned to doing massive epic films now like those two miramax overpaid for. yeah they've gone out of fashion, but that one 'hero' film just didn't have a lot going for it.

-- banriquit, Thursday, April 24, 2008 5:33 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

chen kaige and zhang yimou were like the freakin' STEREOTYPICAL adored foreign film directors in the 90s!!! and ya they both make horrible movies now... for whatever it's worth

exactly

has anyone else seen "Manufacturing Dissent", a doc on Michael Moore.....it was pretty daming and didn't seem to be a right wing hack job or anything...

yeah muggins 'ere had to review it. a lot of it was pretty useless, some of it was true: none of the true stuff was new, though. the biggest scoop came from an article published in 'premiere' in 1990. the makers' USP is "it's not a right-wing hack job", but it also follows one of the RWHJs by doing the "LOLLL MICHAEL MOORE WON'T BE INTERVIEWED" tactic.

im not a big moore fan at all but the doc made me like him.

they do have a couple good points about 'roger and me' but nothing that justified a 90-minute-long theatrically released film.

chen kaige and zhang yimou ... and ya they both make horrible movies now...

Curse of the Golden Flower was a delightful sword-and-queue spectacle, I thought.

didn't see that one! "together" was pretty awful though. as were hero and house of flying daggers.

"The film also presents extended footage of the Al Smith annual memorial dinner from which Moore, in Fahrenheit 9/11, took a clip of President George W. Bush greeting the guests as the "haves and have-mores", insinuating that President Bush views the elite upper-class as his constituency, not the average American. The extended footage shows each speaker at the dinner poking fun at himself, including a clip of Al Gore joking that he invented the Internet. It is argued that the extended footage shows Moore to have taken the quote from President Bush out of context.[2]"

^^^^ thought this was made pretty obvious in Moore's movie?

house of flying daggers had some awesome scenes but there wasn't much of a story, and what story did exist just seemed like an excuse for him to stage that shit.

fairly sure the "manufacturing dissent" guy is a lefty -- mm is by no means unreservedly loved on the far left (alex cockburn has called him a brownshirt irrc)

michael moore tends to perform no service other than preaching to the choir and pissing off the right

xp: how many good genre movies don't have much of a story?

i would have liked just a little more of a story than what was there...i don't even remember the point of it, tbh. i did sort of like it while i was watching it, because it was certainly very well done.

^^^^ thought this was made pretty obvious in Moore's movie?

-- milo z, Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

even if it wasn't, this was the most cackhandedly earnest bullshit -- omfg! satirist takes quote out of context! they got it wrong there.

fairly sure the "manufacturing dissent" guy is a lefty

yeah they basically are (it's a twosome).

they could have hit moore a lot harder on stuff like the 'saudis own america' b.s. in 'fahrenheit', but they instead mostly make it about moore being an egotist (iirc).

but moore's thing is he doesn't just want to preach to the choir, isn't it? hence man-of-the-people act, which the makers of 'manufacturing dissent' says is weak and hypocritical.

Far From Heaven was up for Oscars bcz the Academy ignored (or didn't register) the subtext and Brechtian agenda.

I'm sorry, was there actually anything else in that movie?

i think whatever moore's intent is--and i think his intentions are what you say--the way his work is perceived depends upon your party affiliation. which may have as much to do with the current political climate but probably isn't helped by his persona!

After actually buckling down and reading the latest Armond tirade, I'm left eerily indifferent. Speaking purely solipsistically, he's right that the function of film criticism has been degraded. I can't even read Armond and feel much anymore. So I guess you could say that White's writing is responsible for killing my interest in film criticism.

i will read it at some point but the guy is such a pseud. there is no such thing as the "Vachel Lindsay-Manny Farber tradition", it's a practically meaningless phrase. (also manny is great so stfu.)

Yah seriously, if Manny Farber is supposed to be considered un-great, then the institution is not worth defending.

you should read my book abt "if...." eric!

(can't stop bein shameless today it seems)

naming a critic most people have not heard of (vachel lindsay) gives his essay that bit of heft and 'historical perspective' i suppose. speaking as someone whose 'job' it is to read vast volumes of old film crit, i don't think this is an era particularly notable for bad film writing.

wasn't vachel lindsay famous in his day for treating film as if it wasn't just theatre on screen? -- which presumably means most other film writers back then DID, hence weren't much cop

actually i know dick abt him except he wrote a poem called "the congo" and liked jazz and pere ubu's "voice of the sand" is based on another poem

wasn't vachel lindsay famous in his day for treating film as if it wasn't just theatre on screen? -- which presumably means most other film writers back then DID, hence weren't much cop

-- mark s, Thursday, April 24, 2008 10:21 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

pretty much yeah. (part of the thing here is that lots of films in the early 1910s WERE like theatre on screen! deliberately!) it's more that he was practically one of the first Serious Writers to Take Film Seriously. there really weren't many film critics in the modern sense at the time. he was one of a tiny number of people who wrote perceptively about d w griffith (not a theatre-on-screen guy) at the time, as he was working, in the 1910s.

(the thing about film-should-not-be-filmed-theatre is, it turned into film-should-have-no-points-of-contact-with-theatre, in the '20s...)

After actually buckling down and reading the latest Armond tirade, I'm left eerily indifferent. Speaking purely solipsistically, he's right that the function of film criticism has been degraded. I can't even read Armond and feel much anymore. So I guess you could say that White's writing is responsible for killing my interest in film criticism

Isn't every serious film critic supposed to write about the Death of Film Criticism? Pauline Kael wrote one every two years.

What annoys me is taking Bosley Crowther (there's revisionism for ya) over decent mediocrity Roger Ebert. I'm not sure what this is supposed to represent, other than Armond's being "difficult" again.

I'm not sure I've ever even heard of Vachel Lindsay before today.

Eric, a friend of mine (thirtyish Canadian female) hasn't seen any Sirk, so aside from the obvious '50s stylings I think she mostly took Far from Heaven at face value, and loved it. So it's possible there WAS more to it.

haha I always interpret Vachel Lindsay's legacy as "terrible poet, good film critic," though I've read two examples of each.

what was in Far from Heaven that wasn't at 'face value'? i thought the point of sirkyness was that everything is direct and out in the open? it's not like the shit was subtle

the hairdos were at war with the wallpaper