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

i do think it's pretentious tho

unsure what seinfeld has to do w/ this

jacopo was a character in seinfeld. none of this matters. j hoberman is a fine critic and armond white is... not.

Love that defence. "What's he mad at me for? I'm obsessed with his wife, doesn't that count for something?" Nope, that probably doesn't help at all.

I can't believe how much I hate Armond White - it's the kind of shuddering, visceral loathing I usually only experience with politicians and Fox News hosts. His political readings are usually so insanely contrary that he reminds of that guy who posts long blogs about how Lady Gaga is a tool of the Illuminati.

Trying to figure WTF about Jennifer Jason Leigh's body of work in from that decade makes her the "the best actress in the ’90s" according to Armond White. The only role of hers that I could recall from that time period was in Dolores Clairborne. I can't recall anything special about her performance in that film.

I find her an irritant.

i think she's kind of not-good, but she did do some good movies: miami blues, kansas city, hudsucker proxy... existenz.

Watching her act is like watching a Palmetto bug on its back, squirming.

i was gonna say "mary louise parker would have been better in those movies" and i guess that's JJL had an "arc" on weeds

Existenz was good, but Armond seems to be a Cronenberg hater so I can't see him appreciating her acting in that film.

what a dilemma for armond "consistency" white

like her a lot in mrs. parker & the vicious circle, existenz, the king is alive

for the record, JJL is fantastic

white "denied responsibility" for making the abortion comment before holberman got the review he made it in from the library and put it online, leading to his pathetic "Reading the English language, I am not calling for him to be aborted" defense. What a prince this guy is.

She and Phoebe Cates make Fast Times at Ridgemont High on for the ages!

one for ages

More caffeine please!

gave me a high-on for the ages

Hudsucker, Existenz, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Fast Times, Synechdoche, Palindromes, The Hitcher (lol), the Anniversary Party - she's been good in a lot of stuff

it's kind of sad that Jennifer Jason Leigh and Rachel Leigh Cook have become intertwined in my mind when I read their names, right

doesn't sound sad to me

yeah actually it sounds kind of hot, nvrmind

Georgia

(also the name of Baumbach's mom)

Lincoln/Kennedy coinky-dink that.

altho Georgia was the name of Mare Winningham's character in that film.

I saw Georgia a few weeks ago and – wow. She's like Meryl Streep: tic tic tic. The only scene in which I believed her was her "terrible" onstage performance.

i don't find meryl tic-y. JJL is though.

What is the actual abortion comment?

Armond White gracefully gives up the moral high ground to make petty, snide comments

holy hell, I am not reading all of that

Only through the help of a critical colleague (whose identity must be protected) was I able to RSVP to a Greenberg screening.

(better photographed, too: I liked Harris Savides’ image of Stiller barely swimming across a pool—possibly an homage to my joke that Baumbach was the rat at the bottom of Margot at the Wedding’s pool)

seems pretty likely that the shot was an homage to armond white

an 'armage' if you will

The Indian-giver discourtesy is reflected in the film itself,

classy. this guy is such a putz.

i'm a music journalist, and even i think he's too far up himself.

tldr

feel bad now that I gave NY Press a click

i always thought it was "jay hoberman"

seems pretty likely that the shot was an homage to armond white

loll

if every publicist bans armond white maybe he'll work himself into such a fit of rage that he spontaneously combusts, and then we'll be rid of him. sound like a plan?

Stepping into this Greenberg controversy, Hoberman holds onto his pathetic, unexamined anger. It exposes the hidden conspiracy by him and his backward children (you know who you are) to control film discourse. They give Baumbach the acclaim and attention withheld from less well-connected indie filmmakers. Their defense of Baumbach disguises their reluctance to engage this writer in a forthright discussion of aesthetics; it’s basically a witch hunt.

Well, not with me you don’t! As Chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle, I must rise above it. Hoberman’s despotic behavior blurs the line between criticism and gossip—as when disparaging Kael, relentlessly attacking Spielberg for opposing his own ethnic shibboleths or more recently giving traitorous praise to the movie Green Zone for encouraging insurrection in the American military.

By going against one critic’s independence while protecting Baumbach’s petulant, supercilious filmmaking, Hoberman and Dart reveal their roles in the contemporary power structure (represented by casting Ben Stiller as an icon of the gentry). They want to normalize the arrogance of class privilege. Baumbach is not just their darling scion; he’s their unaborted poster-child. Baumbach’s movies pave the way for the elite to pass advantages on to their own progeny, to maintain the status quo.

"disparaging Kael"

despotism!

i was gonna end my clip at "I must rise above it" which is just amazing, given the previous 1000+ words, but the final line about green zone was just too bizarre to pass up. traitorous? encouraging insurrection? does he always flip the david horowitz switch on when he wants to?

can a mod change the title to read "another egomaniacal Armond White review ..."

their roles in the contemporary power structure (represented by casting Ben Stiller as an icon of the gentry)

lol @ a paulette complaining about a film critic trying to influence other critics' opinions

white is clearly a delusional megalomaniac.

i hope hoberman stays classy and just ignores this walking temper-tantrum.

It was an honorable, cordial system until—after the mid-’80s rise of entertainment media—studios and their publicists exerted greater control over media access to films, insuring favorable/biased coverage.

Dear Armong Wite if there is no "invite" to a "screening" it is my understanding that the "NY Post" gives you something called "money" that you can "spend" to "see the movie."

Fact: The following lines, from a June 3, 1998, review of Mr. Jealousy that appeared in New York Press, do not constitute a call for abortion:

“I won’t comment on Baumbach’s deliberate, onscreen references to his former film-reviewer mother [Georgia Brown] ex[cept to note how her colleagues now shamelessly bestow reviews as belated nursery presents. To others, Mr. Jealousy might suggest retroactive abortion.”

The last line is not Oscar Wilde but it’s also not a death warrant; its impact is in your inference. It clearly points out the clubhouse aspect of Baumbach’s raves, then contrasts natal congratulations with their demurral. No more than that. The abortion quip is easily understood unless your goal is to besmirch another critic and wage a personal attack. This was not sourcing Internet myth nor fact-checking, but spreading hateful, damaging rumors as per our degraded, gossip-obsessed media. Hoberman hasn’t stooped this low since questioning Pauline Kael’s ethnicity and ethnic loyalty simply for not liking the movie Shoah. By resurrecting the corpse of Georgia Brown’s undistinguished, forgotten movie-reviewing career—defending his former underling and buddy—Hoberman once again found an underhanded way of praising himself. In short, it was a Greenberg tantrum.

does white have an editor? that rambling screed lurches from an attack on hoberman to a review of the film and then back to hoberman with no warning.