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

yeah, it's hard to take when Armond's otm (altho he's apparently against wuv! too re Her, right)

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.

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.

the first graf of that indiewire story -- ugh. I know it's tongue in cheek but

Pain & Gain > The Wolf of Wall Street

Haven't seen WoWS yet, but P&G is one of my favorite movies of last year.

From slashfilm interview:

The internet is full of some of the same people who simply exist to defame me. It seems to be their only purpose in life. This is an important part of the lies that are being spread right now, because they’re being spread by people who simply want to hate on Armond. It happens that these are people, many of them so-called film critics, they just don’t have the ability and they probably don’t even have the interest of ever debating a film with me, probably because they can’t. And so, out of that weakness, out of that envy, out of that fear, they decide to make ad hominem attacks against me and say that I’m a bad guy, that I’m rude to people, and they talk against me personally because they can never ever match me intellectually, and will never engage me in a debate. I’m all about the discussion of film as you well know, and these so-called colleagues of mine never are because they’re incapable of it. And so they take the weak way out by hating on me, and hating on me to the extent that they lie about me and they repeat these lies in the media.

Decrying the sorry state of journalism and writing yet using "hate on"

http://www.slashfilm.com/armond-white-denies-heckling-steve-mcqueen-nyfcc-awards/

using "hate on" in the third person, no less

Decrying the sorry state of filmcrit yet his idea of engagement is to heckle filmmakers.

i wish there was a version of him around who actually did the work.

so otm.

certifiably insane

quoted in that indiewire thing

Among some Circle members and media folk, there is personal, petty interest in seeing me maligned. I guess the awards themselves don't matter. It's a shameless attempt to squelch the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism....

Did I make sotto voce comments to entertain my five guests? Sure, but nothing intended for others to hear and none correctly "reported." I don't even know what it means to call Steve McQueen a "garbage man" or "doorman" even though the racist implications are obvious. None of this makes sense which is what happens when online journalism reports a malicious lie.

can't decide what wins the trophy: calling yourself "the strongest voice that exists in contemporary criticism" or "did i make sotto voce comments to entertain my five guests?" or "i don't even know what it means...even though the racist implications are obvious"

curious if referring to your +5 at the NYFCC is a humblebrag

whit stillman and four more?

He knows that it is difficult for certain people to reconcile his identity as a black, gay, right-wing Christian.

I'd always assumed his gayness based on the references to Michael Lucas and Wakefield Poole that occasionally pop up in his reviews, but has he ever actually publicly come out?

It's difficult for him to reconcile his own identity as a black, gay, right-wing Christian.

That's what I figured.

critics usu don't come out, cuz no one cares

AW's politics are far too addled to earn "right-wing" I'd say

free armond

Zack Snyder’s powerful visionary re-imagining of the spiritual potential in comix trounces Alfonso Cuaron’s second-rate Kubrick-DePalma rip-off.

right is wrong, up is down, dogs are cats

lol what does that insult even mean
― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, January 7, 2014 1:44 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think it means that white is accusing mcqueen of being an uncle tom. or low-class. or both, somehow. pretty hateful either/both ways.

what happens when you veer into unintentional self-parody and just stay on that road for years and years? when do people start ignoring you? or are we doomed to play this out forever?

btw if you type "armond white" into Google, it autofills "troll" afterward

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/01/13/armond-white-kicked-out-of-ny-critics/

Gee, that's certainly not going to fuel his schtick any.

(Armond tosses out provocations like grenades and eats acclaimed films for breakfast)

an editor let this sentence in?

It's a parenthetical

you don't say

I guess this would all be considered a win-win, really.

I saw 12 Years yesterday and consider Armond's accusations of slavery porn to be among the most clueless he's ever uttered. He's not a critic, he's a shameless, attention-craving charlatan who's found the best way to get what he wants with the least effort.

what does he want, tell me

oh attention. well that's bad then

for its own sake, its not very worthwhile.

you'd think he'd like porn

because...

he's Christian

Note his dropping of the names Michael Lucas and Wakefield Poole into his reviews.

link?

he likes a fair amount of brainless pop music, cuz he's gay

how nice

nice day all day on the nice board

because...

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, January 13, 2014 11:12 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because he enjoys the films of Paul WS Anderson

link?

― a group of dadfucker types (Matt P), Monday, January 13, 2014 6:19 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

From his ridiculous rant against the Palm D'Or re: Blue is the Warmest Color:

The Festival circuit is notoriously gullible and 2013 moviegoers may never have seen stuff like this, not even Radley Metzger’s Therese and Isabelle or Jake Deckard’s Men in the Sand) but at best they’ll be shocked, not enlightened, bored not edified.

(ok, so my memory failed me a bit--he's not referencing Wakefield Poole directly, but rather a recent remake of Poole's 70s gay porn film Men in the Sand. Still...)

A Google search didn't turn up his reference to Michael Lucas, and I can't remember which review it occurred in (probably something from the NY Press days), but as far as I can recall, it was a similar kind of comparison.

oic he's got a catholic block

toting up the religious bigots itt

on the Armond story and other hot-take 'controversies'

http://blog.sundancenow.com/weekly-columns/bombast-124

http://cityarts.info/2014/02/11/p-c-ping-pong/

The film tours pre-Feminist oppression and indicts Catholic Church restrictions before arriving at its predetermined destination: a harangue on sexual tolerance regarding Philomena’s gay son which includes the mushiest, most calculating AIDS exploitation since Brokeback Mountain.

!!?

Brokeback Mountain exploits AIDS by having a gay guy be a victim of a homophobic murder in the 1970s, duh!

That said, Philomena does sound insufferable. The church and Republicans are homophobic? You're shitting me!

he should have just coined "AIDSploitation" otherwise really what's the point?

Okay, why didn't any of you tell me that Armond has a column in Out magazine now?

Anyway, I may be misreading this review but if I get the gist, it's that the 300 sequel is good because it has hot men and abs: http://www.out.com/entertainment/armond-white/2014/03/16/zack-snyder-re-invents-epic-erotic-300-rise-empire

"Most adventure movies offer fleeting thrills, Snyder’s 300 series combines an emotional surge with a chubby that keeps you ready for more."

The spiky and smooth neck hairs are as textured as the different sets of aureole and bulgy nipples that—through 3D imagery—seem touchable.

genuinely feel this could be a rejuvenative direction for him. rex reed should do it too.

news to me! defensible standard for such a film imho

xp