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

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There's probably a good point or two buried in here, but who can tell?

FILM OF THE FASCIST LIBERAL
Michael Moore mistakes image for message, panders, gloats.

By Armond White

Before Quentin Tarantino and his fellow Cannes jurors passed judgment on President Bush by awarding Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 the Palme d'Or (thus inflating the film's importance), they should have queried themselves: Have they done anything in their own films to tame the arrogance of a man, a moviegoer, like Bush? Not much in the careers of American jurors 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.

To pretend that Fahrenheit 9/11 is a work of art is disingenuous. Moore himself is part of the punditocracy that, like unscrupulous politicians, solicits trite sentiment. His exploitative title doesn't measure temperature; it disgraces that sorrowful date just to inflame liberal guilt. For Moore, guilt covers everything that stemmed from Bush's election and is only eased by blame. Moore doesn't separate the election from the terrorists' attacks or from the war on Iraq. As in Bowling for Columbine, he lines up unrelated points for a domino effect of dissatisfaction. This is not historical context; it's a harangue.

But in the Tarantino era, film folk seldom look at movies intelligently—or politically. They become dupes for the sarcastic invective Moore offers in place of argument. His supposed "coup" of Bush visiting a Florida elementary school after being informed of the first World Trade tower hit turns out a dud. Moore times Bush's visit with a digital counter but clearly we're not watching Bush wallow in playtime or indecision. It's seven minutes of the most powerful man in the world suffering. He's miserably distracted. Moore's insensitivity—certain to the point of hostility that he alone is right—amounts to liberalism with a fascist face.

The orgy of self-congratulation at Cannes proved film culture has lost the imperative of humane understanding. The lunacy was repeated stateside with local acclaim for Jehane Noujaim's specious Control Room. Apparently, the double whammy of 9/11 and the Iraq War has so rattled modern moral conscience that American self-hatred is the new documentary mode. No one required Noujaim to trace the history of Al Jazeera or examine its standard content. Her celebration of Al Jazeera (as opposition to any media representing American interests) was carelessly praised as some kind of palliative: "The number one must-see film of the summer." "An essential movie [that] not only goes through the looking glass, but turns the mirror back on us."

As Kevin Costner worried in JFK, we are indeed through the looking glass now. Political paranoia has turned critics and festival jurors into small-minded esthetes who prize their own objection to the Iraq War over their obligation to truth. Through Noujaim's ineptitude (or is she just biased?) the propagandists of Al Jazeera are defended simply to please Bush's opponents, those willing to believe that Americans are always wrong, always to blame, never to be trusted. It's unbearable to sit in a Control Room audience full of masochistic Americans lapping up the calumny.

Of course, Noujaim heroizes journalists, the most duplicitous of modern professionals, on both sides of the war. She humors the U.S. military spokesman at Centcom in Baghdad as well as the very Westernized Al Jazeera employees. Her naive suggestion that journalists are apolitical matches Moore's disregard of journalistic accountability. (That's one way to guarantee good reviews.) She cannily keeps her distance from those Al Jazeera employees who wear robes and turbans. Noujaim wants to make Arab reporters seem just like ours—an elite class—so she refrains from asking about their politics. This ruse of journalistic fairness and impartiality links Control Room to Fahrenheit: They're sham docs for gullible viewers. Both films use non-inquiring "entertainment" devices (talking heads as celebrities) at precisely the moment we should be looking at the world more seriously, delving into personal motive.

The corruption of documentary with entertainment is at the heart of Michael Moore's style—it's also his failing. Cheap, easy laughs don't constitute an argument; like pity and self-righteous anger, it all stems from simplistic outrage. His best moment shows a phalanx of black congresspersons protesting the 2000 presidential election and being undermined by the Senate (Al Gore presiding). By targeting Bush, Moore absolves all those bad senators of their responsibilities.

But Moore neglects the real journalistic work of seeking out why this intramural betrayal happened. He's after an effect, not the facts. Difficult, gut-twisting and disillusioning as politics are, Moore never inquires into the human basis of political behavior. Such revelations once distinguished the documentary as an art form; now the genre is merde. There's no insight into the political process or why politicians routinely cheat their constituency—such as Democratic congressman John Conyers Jr. admitting, "We don't read most of the bills!" Thus Moore lets a soundbite explain why the Patriot Act passed.

As facile as the makers of The Blair Witch Project and Capturing the Friedmans, Moore's doc method avoids complexity. He makes trite points (Bush golfing, politicos putting on make-up) that vitiate his professed seriousness. Like Noujaim, Moore knows that his pseudo-serious audience doesn't want debate. Their mandate is for superficial provocation: Slam Bush and the war so we don't have to ponder our own capitalism or unwillingness to fight.

Neither Fahrenheit nor Control Room tell us what life is like now, in what the West knows as the Terrorist Millennium. Glossing the issues of "a staged war," emphasizing Bush's incompetence and the mendacity of his cabinet (even Noujaim offers distanced ridicule of Bush policies) is, essentially, an ad hominem attack, not ideological or moral reasoning. Merde. These filmmakers practice the lazy tactic of cutting from an inane Bush speech to screaming, injured Iraqi women or children. This obfuscates the war with sentimentality. (Not just morally offensive editing, it hides behind the notion that killing men is an acceptable consequence of war but only a monster would harm women and children.) Moore and Noujaim's "entertaining" sallies (gotcha shots of Bush père et fils shaking hands with Saudi business partners; grieving mothers of U.S. soldiers) might be enough to sway the inattentive, but both movies leave important questions unasked.

Moore would have audiences believe that the security alert codes are entirely a Pentagon hoax (although he doesn't investigate why the national media goes along with it). Noujaim suggests there's no bias in Al Jazeera's rhetoric of images and speeches. (She even accepts a reporter's disdain for the Kurds in Iraq). Each pompous filmmaker ignores the threat of fanaticism—and the reality of American panic—because Iraq is their only cause. They're incapable of substantive political discourse. Moore likes to put bigwigs on the spot (including Ricky Martin and a gum-smacking Britney Spears!) but he never interviews people who can articulate an opposing point of view. In his hypocrisy, he chides the corporate greed behind Halliburton and the Carlyle Group as if it were alien to American custom.

This obtuse journalism also occurs in Control Room. Most reviewers quoted an Al Jazeera exec saying he wanted his children to be educated in America, but none observed his snide, middle-class contempt. (Was it too much like their own?) A good example of the complication that these movies skirt is the same exec's anger over a U.S. missile strike that hit Al Jazeera headquarters killing a correspondent and cameraman. "This is a crime," he says. "It must be avenged!" Noujaim accepts his threat as understandable rage, rather than demand journalistic integrity. No American reviews noticed this.

These films play too loosely with the passions aroused by the war, pandering to liberal Americans' kick-me guilt. That partly explains the Cannes debacle—many liberals simply want their prejudices entertained. This reduces the Palm d'Or to the level of the MTV Movie Awards.

Good, because Cannes has been on an anti-American spree since lauding Gus Van Sant's Elephant. Such grandstanding political gestures don't address popular cinema's decline—proof that people no longer recognize quality or care that a documentary be sound and informative. Few connect the ideology of pop culture to real-world political activity.

Jean-Luc Godard once famously said, "Every edit is a political act." But Godard's denunciation of Fahrenheit 9/11 was ignored by a U.S. media fawning over its Cannes victory (the latest Harvey Weinstein promotional stunt, facilitated by stooge Quentin). No major American media outlets quoted Godard: "Moore doesn't distinguish between text and image. He doesn't know what he's doing."

This time, Jean-Luc is only half right. Moore very deliberately mixes tv drama and movie clips into his rhetorical hodge-podge (referencing Bonanza, Dragnet and song clips by REM). These tropes probably made Tarantino delirious. Fahrenheit seizes upon the mess of postmodern capitalist pop only to misread how pop trivia malnourishes the moral lives of audiences—those who are then sent off to war, as well as Beltway politicians and Wall Street bankers who have the privilege to dismiss pop as escapism.

That's what Godard meant about distinguishing text and image. In Moore's doc style, images have only superficial, convenient meaning and no historical resonance—unlike Peter Davis' 1974 Vietnam doc Hearts and Minds, which used Hollywood clips (Bataan) to show the ideological indoctrination of pop culture. Davis suggested that a generation was fooled into romanticizing war and xenophobia. That was part of how Vietnam protestors understood their experience. Moore, being culturally ignorant, stands on shaky ground when he ridicules GIs who listen to pop on bombing missions, never respecting their cultural conditioning or examining their sense of patriotism. He's as clueless as those critics who lambasted David O. Russell's Desert Storm satire Three Kings. (A neglect that helped condition the country to continue Bush Sr.'s war.)

Moore doesn't understand the link between the Entertainment Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Complex, and his dumbed-down method of turning political tragedy into comedy is part of the problem. It's a class vice in which the media elite can exercise disdain while pitying the underclass who must pay the price. Fahrenheit 9/11 becomes infuriating every time Moore uses a poor or black person to symbolize Bush's homeland victims (the same arrogance the Coen brothers pointed out with the Mother Jones gag in The Ladykillers). He returns to Flint, MI (the setting for Roger & Me) for sociological cheap shots but misses the real story of the post-9/11 experience—such as life among Muslim immigrants in Detroit where suspicion and opportunism mix. Or even the middle-American discomfort explained in Neil Young's Greendale, a vastly more revealing film.

Propaganda like Fahrenheit 9/11 won't help today's moviegoers gain political insight. Moore's condescension settles on young GIs wounded in Iraq, now in a veterans' hospital (where they face lost funding and benefits). One vet gives Moore what he wants: "I'm going to be very active this year and make sure that the Democrats take power." We're not supposed to remember the opening sequence that showed Democrats complicit with Bush's ascension and the invasion of Iraq. Moore, as desultory as Jerry Bruckheimer, simply wants to get a rise out of us. Like Tarantino, he's uninterested in making movies that show how the world really works.

Fahrenheit 9/11 and Control Room leave viewers susceptible to the deceptions of politicians and media charlatans. Exploiting the Iraq invasion and American political distress is a form of war profiteering. Documentaries this poor are no better than pulp fiction.

(so not only are these films bad but they are partly responsible for murder and torture worldwide, etc....what a scumbag)

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 17:56 (8 years ago) Permalink

Armond White mistakes ass for hole in ground, shits, giggles.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:00 (8 years ago) Permalink

Oh, my. "The propagandists of al-Jazeera," etc.

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?

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:03 (8 years ago) Permalink

Was that elementary school actually in Florida?

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:04 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Punditocracy"??!! I love it.

― andy, Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:05 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't know what he's on about here, his POV is non-existent and completely arbitrary based on whatever the hell he had for breakfast.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:05 (8 years ago) Permalink

Does he actually refute any of the facts in Moore's film? I didn't see any examples. That says something, doesn't it?

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:13 (8 years ago) Permalink

The headline is the worst thing: calling Moore a fascist is just loopy. The review is based on the premise that Moore oughtn't to make propaganda or op-ed, but rather mull for 90 minutes over 'complexities'. Well, why on earth should he? The weird thing is that White thinks Moore should really be pondering 'our own capitalism or our unwillingness to fight'. Well, what unwillingness to fight? Surely the anti-capitalistic, pro-militaristic film White seems to be advocating would fit much better with fascism that Moore's liberalism does? Perhaps the headline is referring to White rather than Moore.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:18 (8 years ago) Permalink

No one required Noujaim to trace the history of Al Jazeera or examine its standard content. Her celebration of Al Jazeera (as opposition to any media representing American interests) was carelessly praised as some kind of palliative: "The number one must-see film of the summer." "An essential movie [that] not only goes through the looking glass, but turns the mirror back on us."

wtf?!?!?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:19 (8 years ago) Permalink

Oh no! Fahrenheit 9/11 incorporates morally bankrupt "pop culture"! Oh NO!

― Sean Thomas (sgthomas), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

Exploiting the Iraq invasion and American political distress is a form of war profiteering.

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

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:20 (8 years ago) Permalink

Summary of this review: 'I am very annoyed by this film.'
Summary of our response: 'Good.'

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:21 (8 years ago) Permalink

She cannily keeps her distance from those Al Jazeera employees who wear robes and turbans.

Ha ha christ

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:22 (8 years ago) Permalink

As facile as the makers of The Blair Witch Project...

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)

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:22 (8 years ago) Permalink

he's also obviously never watched three kings all the way through

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:24 (8 years ago) Permalink

It seems as though the film has been pretty effective at pissing off the people that it is meant to piss off. In that sense, it certainly is a success.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:24 (8 years ago) Permalink

Tarentino is being consistent. He's not advocating peace but administering a dose of the old ultraviolence to Bush.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:24 (8 years ago) Permalink

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 admire Moore's intention of bringing some of these connections, such as that between Bush and the Saudi royal family, to light. I just think he has a very heavy-handed style and his weakness is his completely overt subjectivity; which if he is a documentarist, it should be; otherwise, he is an entertainer, and the movie should not be passed off as fact. My biggest problem with it is that question - what is the intent of the movie, is it entertainment (Ricky Martin anyone?), or news?

― The Devil's Triad (calstars), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:26 (8 years ago) Permalink

"it disgraces that sorrowful date just to inflame liberal guilt."

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

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:26 (8 years ago) Permalink

I meant he was right about Tarantino in this:

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.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:26 (8 years ago) Permalink

what is the intent of the
movie, is it entertainment (Ricky Martin anyone?), or news?

It's infotainment!

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:27 (8 years ago) Permalink

first frag should read: "Tarantino, Kathleen Turner and Jerry Schatzberg [don't encourage] audiences to think or behave politically" since I truncated it.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:28 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't follow his writing closely, but my general impression of Armond White is that he's been slowly losing his mind since the mid-eighties -- every column or essay I've ever seen of his has him seriously blowing his gasket over something or other. CONFIRM OR DENY!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:28 (8 years ago) Permalink

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.

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

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:28 (8 years ago) Permalink

White is not wrong in that instance, but it's definitely unfair to lay all of the blame on Tarantino. In fact, by doing this, he's making himself as guilty as Moore by blowing things out of proportion.

― deanomgwtf!!!p%3Fmsgid%3D4581997 (deangulberry), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:29 (8 years ago) Permalink

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

― The Devil's Triad (calstars), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:29 (8 years ago) Permalink

Momus, did you ever get around to seeing Kill Bill? I would actually love to read a Kill Bill review by you.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:30 (8 years ago) Permalink

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.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:31 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't care of AW doesn't like Tarantino, but to let that dislike turn into saying "he could be responsible for prison torture from the U.S. and the Iraqis" is simplistic, pretentious bullshit from someone who doesn't understand that this sort of crap was going on in the world long before Quentin Tarantino.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

No, Scott, I didn't. I probably will see it one day, though, and if ILX still exists I'll tell you my thoughts.

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.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:32 (8 years ago) Permalink

"As Kevin Costner worried in JFK..." !!!!!!
Priceless. Armond White is a buffoon.

― Neb Reyob (Ben Boyer), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:33 (8 years ago) Permalink

Wait wait wait isn't Armond White the guy who creamed his pants about 3000 Miles to Graceland?!?!

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:34 (8 years ago) Permalink

his weakness is his lack of objectivity, which if he is a documentarist, should be his focus.

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

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:35 (8 years ago) Permalink

I dunno, Gear, although Reservoir Dogs does kinda fit in with the Peckinpah legacy, I'd say its depiction of torture doesn't fit any specific trope other than "huh huh this looks cool, esp. with old 1970s tunes." Big difference between that and the opening credits of Wild Bunch (okay I know its insects but THEY'RE STANDING IN FOR PEOPLE).

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:35 (8 years ago) Permalink

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 :)

― deanomgwtf!!!p%3Fmsgid%3D4581997 (deangulberry), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:35 (8 years ago) Permalink

And that's Michael Moore's fault, how?

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:36 (8 years ago) Permalink

Right I understand that, but I think he's overstating the film's influence on the regime of Saddam Hussein.

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:38 (8 years ago) Permalink

And that's Michael Moore's fault, how?

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

― deanomgwtf!!!p%3Fmsgid%3D4581997 (deangulberry), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:40 (8 years ago) Permalink

Al-Jazeera bashing = automatic idiotic review.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:41 (8 years ago) Permalink

Momus I think when a documentarist is reporting on a subject he should leave his bias or his favor at home. I guess we could debate whether the 'documentary' as a medium is inherently supposed to be objective or subjective, but the best ones I've seen ('One Day in September' comes to mind) leave polarizing issues like politics out of the story.

― The Devil's Triad (calstars), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:42 (8 years ago) Permalink

how could this movie leave politics out of the story?!!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:42 (8 years ago) Permalink

"if only 'spellbound' stayed away from polarizing issues like spelling"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:43 (8 years ago) Permalink

You are delusional. No movie can possibly be objective (and One Day in September certainly wasn't.) I'd rather have someone be upfront with his biases than pretend they don't exist.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:44 (8 years ago) Permalink

"why did marcel ophuls have to keep bringing up the nazis in 'the sorrow and the pity'?"

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:44 (8 years ago) Permalink

for another, perhaps more informed point of view:

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

― lovebug starski, Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:44 (8 years ago) Permalink

"Why didn't we see more of the witch's POV in The Blair Witch Project?"

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

The Fog of War had to talk about war, that was what killed it for me

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

MAYBE WE SHOULD LET THE GOVERNMENT MAKE ALL OF THE DOCUMENTARIES

― deanomgwtf!!!p%3Fmsgid%3D4581997 (deangulberry), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:45 (8 years ago) Permalink

hahahaha alex

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:46 (8 years ago) Permalink

I don't consider Hitchen's particularly sane or well-informed.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 18:47 (8 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 1673 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Wasn't vulgar auteurism a part of auteurism right from the start? Edgar G. Ulmer and Robert Aldrich and Sam Fuller rather than William Wyler and Fred Zinnemann?

― clemenza, Saturday, 13 April 2013 15:20 (1 month ago) Permalink

Yes, to an extent, and that's part of my skepticism. I sometimes feel new generations want to find something to champion that isn't in line with the prevailing taste (so maybe it is a smidge of contrarianism, though I don't think it's as forthright as Armond's).

― Gukbe, Saturday, 13 April 2013 15:22 (1 month ago) Permalink

I like Jaime and Calum's writing a lot (and I think Jaime is higher on Jerry Lewis -- the linchpin of vulgar auteurism? -- than I am).

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 13 April 2013 15:58 (1 month ago) Permalink

shove it, zachylon, i don't anyone to give a shit about what i think except me

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Saturday, April 13, 2013 8:39 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i didn't even mean it *like that* but ok

― infirm neophytic child (zachlyon), Saturday, 13 April 2013 18:01 (1 month ago) Permalink

meh alright

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 13 April 2013 18:18 (1 month ago) Permalink

I mean, I wouldn't go to Morbs' DJ night and he wouldn't go to mine and I think we're both fine with that.

― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Saturday, 13 April 2013 19:56 (1 month ago) Permalink

i wish i had a DJ night.

― Pat Finn, Saturday, 13 April 2013 20:05 (1 month ago) Permalink

AW's take on F911 actually seems mostly OTM, hard to remember a time when ppl actually took moore seriously, but citing 'kevin costner in jfk' as an appeal to authority is an all-time lol.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Saturday, 13 April 2013 20:06 (1 month ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

oh lord

http://cityarts.info/2013/05/01/spielbergs-shortcoming/

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 02:44 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

For the past seven months I’ve personally been fielding questions about why I didn’t like the movie Lincoln. Going through the unpleasant effort of explaining the film’s basic inaccuracy and unfairness to people who were prepared to love and defend it simply because it was customized to their political sentiments, made my explanation all the more frustrating. (When die-hard Spielberg scoffers praised Lincoln, I knew their commendations had nothing to do with esthetics or history, only with the film’s slanted politics and strenuously forced contemporary parallel to Obama’s lame-duck presidency.)

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 02:48 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

he sounds like a Soviet press agent from 1981.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 02:48 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

The least coherent Soviet press agent from 1981.

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 02:49 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

meh, that's 50/50 btwn otm and crazy.

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 03:19 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

As you are 50/50 between otm and crazy, that means Armond's piece is 25/75, respectively.

― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 03:38 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

It’s as bad as a Saturday Night Live skit. Or a Jon Stewart’s Early Show skit. Or a Real Time with Bill Maher skit. (Or a Morning Joe, Rachel Maddow skit, I mean, “newscast.”) That’s how low the producer of the terrific early Zemeckis-Gale comedies has sunk.

I'm a huge fan of Used Cars but man

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 03:58 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

That whole practice of acting like your personal canon is everybody's...Armond's still got it

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 03:59 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

also the "early" in front of "Zemeckis-Gale," presumably to distinguish between I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Back To The Future...I tip my hat.

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 04:00 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

There’s obscenity in joking about the media’s protection of Obama’s image and its implicit lack of decorum which began (negatively) with the media’s assault on George W, Bush’s presidency. But Nevermind. (That might have been a more clever title for the short–what, was Tony Kushner, having justly lost the Oscar, too busy reading Entertainment Weekly?).

you really have to work hard for me not to "right on" any slam of whcd horseshit. and there's no denying armond works hard.

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 04:07 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

it's maddening yet somehow unsurprising that AW fails to elaborate on the supposed 'basic inaccuracy and unfairness' of spielberg's film, but then again you'd think that a guy who thinks that jon stewart hosts the 'early show' wouldn't throw stones about stuff like that.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 04:36 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

This guy could turn the Smurfs 2 into a WAKE UP LIBERAL SHEEPLE thinkpiece.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 05:15 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

i so wouldn't be surprised if that review actually existed

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 05:17 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

love that Armond gets an Ebert dig in there.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 06:20 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I think I genuinely might find Armond tiresome now, and I am not really a fan of Obama or the WHCD (although I still think Colbert's turn was brilliant).

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 06:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

colbert's turn was brilliant because armond's otm about the whcd, tho. (doing it to obama would of course be nice but i don't ask anything of colbert anymore; i feel like he has already overachieved.)

that ebert line is NEXTLEVEL: just coherent enough to imply that roger ebert whitewashed america's critical discourse. also laughed out loud at this:

Spielberg boasts about Day Lewis’ method of ”becom[ing] his character: Hawkeye from Last Of The Mohicans, Bill the Butcher in The Gangs of New York and Abraham Lincoln from Lincoln. And you know what, he nailed it.” Nailing it is the correct, crucifying term for the Washington Correspondents Dinner’s deprecation of American history.

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 06:58 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

"deprecation"

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 06:59 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

WHCD is horeshit, no doubt, but this whole piece is just silly axe-grinding that ropes in a number of disparate elements that he hates. Ebert comment has some merit, sure, but it's also being very selective, the same as the Maddow comment.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:00 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

i can barely even parse this dude's sentences any more.

he should just move into a literal echo chamber, he'd probably get off on it.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:01 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

maybe robert fripp can build him something.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:02 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

tbf he's leveled that criticism @ ebert forever

― infirm neophytic child (zachlyon), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:02 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

oh no it is absurdly selective! i am an ebert fan. armond, yknow. has a shtick.

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:04 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Oh I know he has, but that's the problem. He throws in his pet peeves wherever he can, all the time. It betrays his move from criticism into vendetta.

― Gukbe, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:04 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

ok sorry sorry but the brackets here.

It is not funny when Obama-as-Day-Lewis confuses things, saying “The hardest part? Trying to understand his [my] motivations. Why did he [I] pursue ‘heatlh care’ first? What makes him [me] tick? Why doesn’t he [I] get mad? If I was him I’d be mad all the time. But I’m not him, I’m Daniel Day Lewis.”

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:07 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

and yeah he lost all sense of perspective and grammar long ago.

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:08 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I love all these fictional Spielberg haters who suddenly came rushing out to praise Lincoln after trashing the dude for so many years.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:12 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

why does anyone bother reading armond white, is the question? you have no one to blame but yourselves.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:18 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

you [i] have no one to blame but yourselves [obama]

― the white queen and her caustic judgments (difficult listening hour), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 07:21 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I'm just amazed that he waited a whole month to get in his first post-death Ebert dig. Unless I missed one, of course.

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 11:53 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

That whole practice of acting like your personal canon is everybody's

It's a critic's job not to care about everybody's canon, homie.

tbf he's leveled that criticism @ ebert forever

yeah, he should stop, you ppl have won.

― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:05 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

you ppl have won

Yes. The ppl have also won on The Shawshank Redemption, too. Life is choosing new battles, et al.

― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:09 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

But, wait! It gets worse!

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:10 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

love that comma

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:11 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

his piece on Portrait of Jason was his best in awhile.

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:13 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

Reviews in which he knows the spotlight isn't going to be on are typically better.

― cacao nibs (Eric H.), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:14 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I'm just amazed that he waited a whole month to get in his first post-death Ebert dig. Unless I missed one, of course.

― Public Brooding Closet (cryptosicko), Tuesday, May 7, 2013 6:53 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the man has untold reserves of restraint.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:44 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

It's a critic's job not to care about everybody's canon, homie.

no shit, boyee, but when critics act like it's a matter of record that a relatively obscure note in someone's career was their peak, it can suggest their head is up their ass. and dare i suggest it re: armond.

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 15:16 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

dude, trolling is what armond _does_

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 15:53 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

which is why I used phrases like "he's still got it" and "i tip my hat" in regards to it

― da croupier, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 15:58 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

when critics act like it's a matter of record that a relatively obscure note in someone's career was their peak

Uh no boyee, he was likely saying the early Zemeckis-Gale comedies were better than the shit Bob Z has been churning out for the last quarter-century.

Armond aside, the smuggled truth of the WHCD skit is that Bam is a mere actor feeding his supporters' fantasies. Good for POTUS for farting in their faces. Rodham 2016.

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 May 2013 01:04 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

I hear she produces the most delicate-toned air biscuits. Just lovely.

― Not Simone Choule (Eric H.), Thursday, 9 May 2013 03:44 (2 weeks ago) Permalink

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