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

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.

Interesting that Armond White believes that calling for retroactive abortion is "the act of demurring, especially a mild, polite, or considered expression of opposition." (emphasis mine)

The point he's missing is that he constructed that entire segment to be very pointedly about positive reviews from critics being stand-ins for congratulating dude's mom for birthing him; there is no way for the abortion comment to be abstract if it supposed to contrast the previous statement. If he wanted that level of deniability, he needed to make an analogy rather than using a simile.

this is what happens when you think what you do is "important"

I honestly have no idea how you could read that review as suggesting anything other than that Baumbach be aborted.

totally siked to read this tbh

Hoberman and Dart reveal their roles in the contemporary power structure

oh for chrissakes people still writing and thinking like this?

meetings of the ny film crix circle must be kinda tense

I honestly have no idea how you could read that review as suggesting anything other than that Baumbach be aborted.

He is trying to say that the good reviews from is mothers' peers are akin to baby shower gifts, whereas his bad review is akin to someone crashing the party and saying "baby wasn't worth it". He is not trying to actually call for dude's abortion, he is trying to give dude's movie a bad review and is attempting to cast its impact in terms of the simile he set up about the mother's perceived self-regard. The problem is that it is nigh-impossible to make that kind of direct comment and not have it be taken as a blatant statement that dude should have been aborted.

is this much different from "I KIlled Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick"?

- not a record

Would Thurston Moore have sullied his dick with xgau's brains?

is there any1 better @ trolling than armond? love this dude

Armond's writing style lends itself quite well to being misunderstood and misinterpreted.

"retroactive abortion", though? that's a jokey way of saying murder

it's pretty clear what white was saying: "Mr. Jealousy" has references to the director's mother, other critics are saying nice things about the movie because they are sucking up to the director's mother in lieu of giving a baby shower gift, but I think the film is bad enough that georgia brown should have killed noah baumbach as a kid before he made it. ha ha.

amazing that he thinks he can say he meant something else and expect anyone to believe it.

and no i don't think he "really" meant to say baumbach should be killed really actually in real life

is this much different from "I KIlled Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick"?

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, March 17, 2010 12:14 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

did noah baumbach make a movie about how much he hates armond white?

meetings of the ny film crix circle must be kinda tense

How did he ever get voted president or is it decided by lottery?

Pauline Kael appeared to him in a dream.