Gus Van Sant is the new Visconti when he’s really the new Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger.
is this just a gay-bashing thing? apart from them being gay, what links these two? GVT is kind of minimalist when he's allowed to be. but for visconti not so much with the minimalism.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:32 (sixteen years ago) link
3) Documentaries ought to be partisan rather than reportorial or observational.
how is this a fallacy? since when? and what does it even mean?
I don't even understand what he's saying in 9). Stephen Chow's been rejected? In what world?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
4) Chicago, Moulin Rouge and Dreamgirls equal the great MGM musicals.
oscar voters != film culture
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:33 (sixteen years ago) link
8) Dogma was a legitimate film movement.
ok this is a funny zing because dogme was probably the lamest film movement since the 'cinema du look', but to say it wasn't 'legitimate' begs some big questions.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
He's mentally ill isn't he?
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:35 (sixteen years ago) link
"Neil Jordan’s sensitive, imaginative The Brave One"
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Re Chow, he apparently means celebrated by critics to the extent Hou is. How he measures these thing I can't say.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:36 (sixteen years ago) link
It's Armondworld, and he just lives in it.
― C. Grisso/McCain, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:38 (sixteen years ago) link
HE MEASURES IT WITH THE CELEBRA-METER!
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:39 (sixteen years ago) link
it's pretty nit-picky stuff, not exacty the tablets of stone. if he done something like "1. long takes are interesting" (w/r/t taiwanese cinema) or "2. politics is better when done indirectly" (cf crit-jizz on TWBB; negative reaction to all the films directly about the war), then there'd be something at least to talk about. but "critics overpraise dreamgirls and mumblecore" is zzzzzzzzzz
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:41 (sixteen years ago) link
god the brave one was the worst piece of shit ever, utterly inexcusable and vile
― s1ocki, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:48 (sixteen years ago) link
Typical critic slocki you are just missing the imagination in it.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:49 (sixteen years ago) link
Armond's right though about the NYT's ball-licking Ebert profile a couple of weekends ago.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:54 (sixteen years ago) link
So what? A stopped watch, etc.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:56 (sixteen years ago) link
Fagin, a jailbait artful dodger
this doesnt even make sense
― max, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:58 (sixteen years ago) link
fagin was not the artful dodger
also not jailbait
wtf is mumblecore
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 April 2008 16:59 (sixteen years ago) link
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Mutual_appreciation.jpg
― sleep, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:01 (sixteen years ago) link
^^ really good movie
― s1ocki, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:02 (sixteen years ago) link
that looks horrible
― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
i thought maybe it had something to do with casey affleck
Glenn Kenny to Armond White: "You think you're applying some form of moral rigor to your work, but the fact is that you're a bully and a hypocrite, and I don't want to know you." Comments ensue.
"Armond's deeply confused screed makes me glad I quit the Press so that I don't have to attempt to explain to people out of professional courtesy what point he thought he was trying to make," writes Matt Zoller Seitz in a comment at the House Next Door. "My admiration for Armond's originality and the impact of his 1980s and 90s writing on my own have been detailed at length here many times, so I won't rehash it again. Cutting to the chase: It has become increasingly and sadly clear in recent years that Armond's as much the establishment as AO Scott, in that he derives much of his impact from the institutional weight of a print publication and from the insulated status that this one-way model of communication affords." There's more.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:05 (sixteen years ago) link
I assumed Mumblecore was like Thumbsucker or Me You Everyone or whatever.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:06 (sixteen years ago) link
"My admiration for Armond's originality and the impact of his 1980s and 90s writing on my own have been detailed at length here many times"
Was Armond good once? I find that hard to believe.
― Alex in SF, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:08 (sixteen years ago) link
dude, in that column he praised Bowsley Crowther!
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:09 (sixteen years ago) link
*Bosley
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:10 (sixteen years ago) link
i think armond white was pretty good when he wz mainly writin abt music in the late 80s -- or at least i thought so then
― mark s, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:13 (sixteen years ago) link
where's the kenny quote from, al
― omar little, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
it's from the greencine link Morbs posted.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:14 (sixteen years ago) link
Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess. Damn, even I was hoping at least one more of those were true.
― Eric H., Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
Kenny responding to commenters on his blog:
White's schtick is that only he has the perception, the judgment, and the moral vision to see through it all; this, in his mind, excuses his incivility...no, to hell with it, it's not incivility, it's simple snickering haughty mean-spiritedness. And I feel sorry (among other things) for anybody who insists on mistaking it for brilliant contrarianism.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:16 (sixteen years ago) link
The link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:17 (sixteen years ago) link
i cant think of anyone on ilx like this
― max, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:18 (sixteen years ago) link
especially not on the primaries thread, no sir
wtf @ three amigos
also how is J-horror not pop cinema. or do I not understand what pop means
― dmr, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:20 (sixteen years ago) link
he's just creating fictional issues in order to make himself look better. if he was a hou hsiao hsien fan and a stephen chow basher he could more easily make the case that the latter is overpraised and the former is almost completely ignored, since chow gets nothing but love and hhh seems to get press from the film comment sect.
― omar little, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:28 (sixteen years ago) link
9) Only non-pop Asian cinema from J-horror to Hou Hsiao Hsien counts, while Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and Stephen Chow are rejected.
i can't speak on chow, but chen kaige and zhang yimou were getting a lot of critical love back in the 80s and early 90s; they were far from rejected. iirc zhang has basically turned to doing massive epic films now like those two miramax overpaid for. yeah they've gone out of fashion, but that one 'hero' film just didn't have a lot going for it.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:33 (sixteen years ago) link
yes, Armond wrote well, regularly, in the '90s for sure.
just wait til November, max. (oh, i'm THE meanspirited one on ILX, am i?)
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:36 (sixteen years ago) link
Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess.
I'm Not There, DVD May 6
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:38 (sixteen years ago) link
5) Paul Verhoeven’s social satire Showgirls was camp while Cronenberg’s campy melodramas are profound.
pretty half-and-half on this.
the polemical value of boosting mid-90s verhoeven has just about run its course now.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:39 (sixteen years ago) link
I'm really glad I never think to use phrases like "polemical value."
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:41 (sixteen years ago) link
oh BURN
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:42 (sixteen years ago) link
actually i think the moore review has the ghost of a really strong idea in it -- getting at mm's (vast) flaws via godard's political reading of the edit -- but to make it fly AW'd have had to a. identify how "politics of the edit" operates (he does this a bit but not in a usable way), b. identify how "politics of the edit" manifests in critical writing, ie establish his own inability to be objective (by virtue of being a writer; by virtue of the need to make sentences and paragraphs from his thoughts and responses) and c. cut it away from his own moral jihad against "corruptin pop culture", which is kinda completely an irrelevance to the godardian argt
as it is i don't think AW understands godard any better than momus understands brecht
― mark s, Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:46 (sixteen years ago) link
I proudly championed Showgirls before, while and after it was hip to do so.
― Eric H., Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:47 (sixteen years ago) link
I think with #5, AW is inarticulately trying to point out that it's a mistake to read the praise for Showgirls purely in terms of it's "polemical value".
― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 24 April 2008 17:57 (sixteen years ago) link
mind you, when people say it's camp i think they mean 'in a good way', right? not that this feels like a particularly pressing argument to be having in 2008.
― banriquit, Thursday, 24 April 2008 18:00 (sixteen years ago) link
haha i wz discussin w.dave q last night how the unisex locker-room scene is the only bit of starship troopers which is true to heinlein's original utopian political vision
― mark s, Thursday, 24 April 2008 18:03 (sixteen years ago) link
= pressing is as pressing does, i guess
― mark s, Thursday, 24 April 2008 18:05 (sixteen years ago) link