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

"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.

dude, in that column he praised Bowsley Crowther!

*Bosley

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

where's the kenny quote from, al

it's from the greencine link Morbs posted.

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.

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.

The link

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.

i cant think of anyone on ilx like this

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

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.

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.

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?)

Points at which I actually agree with Armond: well, only 5 and 7 I guess.

I'm Not There, DVD May 6

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.

I'm really glad I never think to use phrases like "polemical value."

oh BURN

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

the polemical value of boosting mid-90s verhoeven has just about run its course now.

I proudly championed Showgirls before, while and after it was hip to do so.

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".

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.

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

= pressing is as pressing does, i guess

Eric, if I watch Showgirls will you watch I'm Not There?

Camp is not supposed to be consciously artful, hence AW is accusing hipsters of underappreciating Showgirls.

it is Ten Current Film Culture Fallacies -- tho i might have missed some recent 'showgirls in retrospect: it's no madame butterfly!' pieces.

Eric, if I watch Showgirls will you watch I'm Not There?

... No?

I guess I understand the Verhoeven part of that item but I don't see much camp in Cronenberg. unless he just means homoeroticism.

'i'm not there' is awes, eric.

yeah, how else can you keep your contempt for Haynes' academiciousness up to date?

(Eric hates music made w/ guitars except for Prince. weird.)

I don't have to listen to Love & Theft to keep my contempt for Dylan up to date.

And I prefer Prince's synth era greatly to his guitar era.

early cburg is fairly schlocky if that's the same as camp -- he cooled that out after naked lunch, by goin for flattened ballardian boringness mostly

i like em but i'm an idiot

I don't listen to Dylan's music hardly ever, it's not a prereq. How often do nrq and I agree?

That's what has me skeptical.

ooh i will add my vote to "i'm not there" fandom

(but i like dylan) (see "idiot" claim)

a Mark appearance!

i am busy pimpin my radioshow alfred:
"a bite of stars a slug of time and THOU" (key word in caps)

it also features mr tracer hand, dave q and (possibly) discussion of heinlein abt sex...

early cburg is fairly schlocky if that's the same as camp

I guess that's true .... I assumed he was talking about the more recent ones (HOV and Eastern Promises) but Showgirls is 90s so who knows

Eric hasn't listened to Disco Dylan, apparently.

Whatever you do, mark, don't say "cunt" -- it upsets Tracer.

The King of Comedy for Showgirls, then.

At the risk of killing a nice running joke, deal.

a lot of the post-mortems on 'i'm not there''s lack of b.o. have basically said it's for dylan fans only. i don't know if this is true because i liked it and i like dylan, but no-one claims of (visual) artist biopics that you have to be a fan to get it.

it's more knowing the intricacies of the dylanmyth i think than the songs

at least it seemed to me that might be a barrier if you weren't a little bit up on em

On which planet would I'm Not There have been a box office hit?

the boomers do rule this country, i'd have expected it to do all right

and there are some pretty big-name stars in it ... and far from heaven was up for oscars ....

I expected it to at least be an art-house hit but it came and went in abt 2 seconds