Bad Grandpa > Nebraska
ok this is baller
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:00 (ten years ago) link
And true.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:02 (ten years ago) link
"New Slaves > Inside Llewyn Davis" just sad, though - dude couldn't think up an actual movie to prefer?
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:02 (ten years ago) link
did he see the new bieber doc?
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:03 (ten years ago) link
Actually, pacing the last few years, this about half "right," half "wrong," and still 100 percent extraneous.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:03 (ten years ago) link
yeah it codifies an honorable impulse, forcing people to contrast and compare films one the industry itself prefers you wouldn't, into desperate contrarian shtick
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:06 (ten years ago) link
though honestly I can't shake my fist too hard at his trolling because honestly i still find his reviews more worthwhile than like 90% of the stuff out there. Presenting your pr-dismissing, idiosyncratic take like a wresting heel doesn't make it LESS entertaining.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:10 (ten years ago) link
honestly
wrestling heel, rather. sorry so typo.
"on his road to Hatersville"
― Inside Lewellyn Sinclair (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:16 (ten years ago) link
You should read more film criticism if you think Armond White's reviews are as good as it gets.
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:18 (ten years ago) link
you should reread my post if you think i said that
― da croupier, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:19 (ten years ago) link
There are tons of film reviewers more entertaining than he is, if that's what you're into, which fine.
Anyway, list is his least controversial out of his Better Than lists, which I think I remember saying about last year's as well. He's losing his "touch".
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:23 (ten years ago) link
The Gardener is terrific.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:27 (ten years ago) link
it's pretty hysterical that after making false dichotomies the premise of all his reviews for years, he's finally just straight up using the ">" sign like people ranking stuff on twitter.
― some dude, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:40 (ten years ago) link
just lolz at him feeling the need to put down Computer Chess with You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet (both films I really liked)
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:43 (ten years ago) link
Binoche, Sukowa, Arterton, Adams, Lawrence, Collette gave a year of revelatory female performances through inspired auteurs, all ignored for Cate Blanchett’s dreadful, facetious embodiment of another foul Woody Allen conceit.
tired of everyone ignoring amy adams and jennifer lawrence
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 18:44 (ten years ago) link
The problem with contemporary film culture–in skirts.
Michael Bay satirizes American ambition in imagery so bright and exhilarating it exposes the core of spiritual dislocation and rot that Scorsese turns into another self-pleased, overlong gangster epic.
don't know why I'm thinking hard about this but: isn't this the difference between symptom and diagnosis? the "core" of spiritual dislocation is exposed only by bright and exhilarating imagery? dngi
― ryan, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:00 (ten years ago) link
Want a pair of his glasses that magically turn gold into shit and vice versa.
Meanwhile, on twitter, GK is kvetching and Whit Stillman is coming down in Armond's corner. This is some kind of sad nerd flame war overload.
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:10 (ten years ago) link
(says the man who follows both and is reading the tweets)
hmmmm
Armond White is the Kanye of Film Criticism
White may have deficiencies as a film critic proper. His knowledge of the medium’s history is often confused and scattershot; his contrarianism (itself a valid function in the whole broader apparatus of cultural taste-formation) often treads precariously close to straight-up trolling. But White’s coarseness, and the attempted egoism of his mocking of McQueen, are not among his flaws. Rudeness is precisely the point. White is denying (or trying to deny) this continued process of guilt-assuaging and artful feel-goodery. Like Kanye West, Armond White essentially stages (in grand, performative sweeps) the return of this repressed material in a way that film like 12 Years A Slave never could. He knows that it is difficult for certain people to reconcile his identity as a black, gay, right-wing Christian. And that's why he puts his personality across so forcefully. That anyone regards him as a problem is the problem.
http://www.nowtoronto.com/movies/story.cfm?content=196100
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:14 (ten years ago) link
Like Kanye West, Armond White essentially stages (in grand, performative sweeps) the return of this repressed material in a way that film like 12 Years A Slave never could.
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6292689408/h6B05F03D/
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:22 (ten years ago) link
"Rudeness as Grand Perfomative Sweep" by Armond White copyright 2014University of Chicago Press
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:24 (ten years ago) link
god forbid we just call someone a dick when they act like a dick
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:31 (ten years ago) link
reading Semley's tweets about it are enough, not clicking on that and enabling "random thing is the Kanye of whatever" as something for 2014
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:39 (ten years ago) link
Pain & Gain > The Wolf of Wall Street
I'd co-sign with this. I really hate the way he (and other critics) use the hyphenate "porn" to deride movies, it's almost always lazy and inaccurate.
― Simon H., Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:43 (ten years ago) link
(In reference to his nonsensical Act of Killing slam.)
― Simon H., Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:45 (ten years ago) link
murgatroid otm
― some dude, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:46 (ten years ago) link
Semley is so magnificently far off the mark on this one.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:47 (ten years ago) link
not clicking on that and enabling "random thing is the Kanye of whatever" as something for 2014
Ditto. Of course, I could just be saying that because I was called the Drake of 2014 ILX film threads.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:48 (ten years ago) link
i mean, the argument just feels so perfect as a combination of trolling an argument about a troll + i need some content, quick
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:49 (ten years ago) link
the fallout from this could be hilarious. i think this guy's insane, really. if not as much of a creep as jeffrey wells or np thompson.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 19:54 (ten years ago) link
i actually kind of agree with this -- any given piece of his is always going to be more entertaining than peter travers. what's frustrating about him is that he clearly has some talent (clever phrasemaker, knowledge of film history) that he's pissing away. an armond white who backed up his contrarian opinions with actual arguments could actually be a really good critic.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:04 (ten years ago) link
My problem with White is his prose, which has deteriorated over the years.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:06 (ten years ago) link
I read an old SPIN review of his of a Morrissey album and it was zippier and less ponderous and less crippled by a need to construct strawmen than anything written in the last 10 years.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:07 (ten years ago) link
I read an old SPIN review of his of a Morrissey album
haha whaaaat
― Hungry4Ass, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:09 (ten years ago) link
here's a, uh, Feargal Sharkey review: http://books.google.com/books?id=xdLsQBjl0-IC&pg=PA41&dq=spin+morrissey+armond&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tbDNUrP8E4eOkAfTuYCwAg&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=spin%20morrissey%20armond&f=false
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:11 (ten years ago) link
The book that compiles some of his earlier stuff is titled The Resistance.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:15 (ten years ago) link
If memory serves, his reviews of Erotica and janet. are fantastic.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:17 (ten years ago) link
David Denby says Armond's ruining it for Movie Critics everywhere
― Maintenance Engineer of Foolhardiness (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:24 (ten years ago) link
oh that is rich
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:27 (ten years ago) link
Movie critics enjoy a position of privilege virtually unknown to the rest of American society: they can say what they want and write as nastily as they want, as frequently as they want (the Internet is an extraordinary goad to fiery eloquence), and no one will punish them for it.
lolwut
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:29 (ten years ago) link
He apparently knows no female movie critics.
― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:31 (ten years ago) link
An intelligent man who enjoys upsetting what he takes to be liberal complacencies about culture, White, an African-American, has spent many merry hours cutting up the films (for instance) of Spike Lee
this sentence can be defined "privilege and good manners"
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 January 2014 20:48 (ten years ago) link
whatever the worst version of white ppl could imagine is i'd still take it over denby. kinda agree he's going soft maybe, like maybe he got sick of being dismissed as contrarian i don't know. alot of that list seems like gimmes and even the vaguely challopsy ones aren't really so much (like i can easily imagine pain and gain is better than wolf of wall street neverminding the gulf in quality between the source materials). this might just be a reflection of no real consensus good movies this year (he's hardly the first person to have problems w/ 12 years a slave or think of it as torture porn).
― balls, Wednesday, 8 January 2014 22:45 (ten years ago) link
I mean, when his stunting for Man of Steel is the only thing I can really get het up over, it's an off year for the Better Than list.
― Alfre, Lord Woodard (Eric H.), Thursday, 9 January 2014 01:14 (ten years ago) link
yeah, it's hard to take when Armond's otm (altho he's apparently against wuv! too re Her, right)
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 January 2014 01:42 (ten years ago) link
http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/new-york-film-critics-circle-to-vote-on-armond-whites-expulsion
Why does this matter? The issue of intra-group decorum, while vital to the Circle itself, is not of especial importance to outsiders. Nor does it matter because it makes critics as a whole look bad, as David Denby argued on the New Yorker's website. It matters because of pieces like John Semley's "Armond White is the Kanye of Film Criticism," and because of people who've left comments, on this blog and elsewhere, saying things like, "But 12 Years a Slave *is* white liberal bullshit."No one does more to further the idea of White as a bold contrarian than White himself, aka "the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism." But bold contrarians don't yell out public comments and then pretend they didn't, which is the very opposite of speaking truth to power. Notwithstanding its rhetorical lapses, White's review of 12 Years a Slave made a fitfully powerful case against the film, but yelling "Fuck you!" as its director accepts an award is not criticism. It's cowardice.
No one does more to further the idea of White as a bold contrarian than White himself, aka "the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism." But bold contrarians don't yell out public comments and then pretend they didn't, which is the very opposite of speaking truth to power. Notwithstanding its rhetorical lapses, White's review of 12 Years a Slave made a fitfully powerful case against the film, but yelling "Fuck you!" as its director accepts an award is not criticism. It's cowardice.
― Maintenance Engineer of Foolhardiness (C. Grisso/McCain), Thursday, 9 January 2014 02:09 (ten years ago) link
white is essentially a one-person war between these two modes of film crit, an academic who's stuck himself firmly in the thumbsup/thumbsdown community that he hates so much -- and he could be so happy if he just knew how to give up the big show! i support pop-academic film crit that exists in part for political subtext and occasionally makes ridiculous statements, i hate rottentomatoes, it's just so hard to fully support white because he's so wrong all the time. he hardly watches movies anymore, if he ever did, doesn't seem to fully grasp what actually happened in anything he watches, writes as if he's slept through most of everything he sees. also has certain ridiculous abstract standards and buzzwords that he's formed into some halfway moral code that can be applied to any film for any reason he chooses. i wish there was a version of him around who actually did the work.
― my whole family is catholic so look at the pickle i'm in (zachlyon), Thursday, 9 January 2014 02:22 (ten years ago) link