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.
― remy bean, Sunday, 20 January 2008 21:36 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― remy bean, Sunday, 20 January 2008 21:40 (sixteen years ago) link
indiscriminatory, even
― remy bean, Sunday, 20 January 2008 22:25 (sixteen years ago) link
i think 'indiscriminate' is what you're looking for
― gabbneb, Sunday, 20 January 2008 22:38 (sixteen years ago) link
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, 20 January 2008 23:13 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 23 January 2008 15:03 (sixteen years ago) link
-- remy bean, Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:13 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Link
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 23 January 2008 15:15 (sixteen years ago) 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
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:19 (sixteen years ago) link
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!
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:30 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:32 (sixteen years ago) link
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?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
oscar voters != film culture
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
He's mentally ill isn't he?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
"Neil Jordan’s sensitive, imaginative The Brave One"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Re Chow, he apparently means celebrated by critics to the extent Hou is. How he measures these thing I can't say.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
It's Armondworld, and he just lives in it.
― C. Grisso/McCain, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:38 (sixteen years ago) link
HE MEASURES IT WITH THE CELEBRA-METER!
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:39 (sixteen years ago) link
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
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
god the brave one was the worst piece of shit ever, utterly inexcusable and vile
― s1ocki, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Typical critic slocki you are just missing the imagination in it.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Armond's right though about the NYT's ball-licking Ebert profile a couple of weekends ago.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
So what? A stopped watch, etc.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger
this doesnt even make sense
― max, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link
fagin was not the artful dodger
also not jailbait
wtf is mumblecore
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Mutual_appreciation.jpg
― sleep, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:01 (sixteen years ago) link
^^ really good movie
― s1ocki, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
that looks horrible
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
I assumed Mumblecore was like Thumbsucker or Me You Everyone or whatever.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link
"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.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link
dude, in that column he praised Bowsley Crowther!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:09 (sixteen years ago) link
*Bosley
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link
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
― mark s, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:13 (sixteen years ago) link
where's the kenny quote from, al
― omar little, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
it's from the greencine link Morbs posted.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Eric H., Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
The link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:17 (sixteen years ago) link
i cant think of anyone on ilx like this
― max, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
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
― dmr, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:20 (sixteen years ago) link
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.
― omar little, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link
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, 24 April 2008 17:33 (sixteen years ago) link
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?)
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess.
I'm Not There, DVD May 6
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:38 (sixteen years ago) link