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

" This Star Trek sells cuteness, sentimentality and explosive F/X as if Starship Troopers, Minority Report, Mission to Mars or even Blade Runner or The Matrix (all visionary standard-setters) never happened."

Forget the Oscar bait, Transporter 3 is the only movie you need to see this season

NOTHING IN CINEMA this week is more important than Transporter 3. It’s been a long time since a new movie has been so spiritually and aesthetically exhilarating. Producer Luc Besson, director Olivier Megaton and star Jason Statham work at the top of their imagination and abilities—not like they’re completing a formulaic sequel but reinventing the action movie genre.

thats basically otm i mean cmon

oh also mission to mars is being remade with the o.g. cast and script but its being retitled mission 2 mars

Transporter 3 is clearly the wackest, most formulaic of the Transporter series!

Holy shit @ the cast list for The Expendables!

* Sylvester Stallone as Barney Ross a.k.a. "The Schizo", a long-time veteran Expendable and the leader of the team. He struggles with his social life. The only valuable possession he acquired in his life is his custom pickup truck. [13] [14]
* Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, a British American Expendable second in command and former S.A.S. soldier also an expert at using Close Quarters Combat with knives. Lee, although a tough guy in his work, he struggles in society's atmosphere as he has trouble when dealing with women. [15]
* Mickey Rourke as Tool, an arms dealer who helps the Expendables and is one of the first Expendables from Ross's old team.[16]
* Jet Li as Bao Thao, a Chinese American Expendable who was a former mercenary in China and a master at Hand-to-hand combat[17] Thao also has dreams of having a successful and peaceful future.[18]
* Dolph Lundgren as Gunnar Jensen, a German Expendable who is an expert at Sniping and a war veteran who also has a knack for making strange violent humor. Jensen also shares a hate-love relationship with Ross, his long time friend [19]
* Terry Crews as Hale Caeser, an Expendable and Bao Thao's best friend. He is also a Weapons specialist[20]
* Charisma Carpenter as Lacy, Lee Christmas's fiancee[21]
* Lauren Jones as Cheyenne
* Eric Roberts as Monroe, a rogue C.I.A agent who is trying to prevent the Expendables from killing General Garza
* Steve Austin as Dan Paine, a bodyguard for Monroe and a former Marine[22]
* Randy Couture as Toll Road, a long-time Expendable from Ross's old team with Tool and a skilled Demolitions expert[23]
* David Zayas as General Garza, the Dictator[24]
* Giselle Itié as Sandra, a young island native woman
* Gary Daniels as The Brit, a former Expendable who is General Garza's main henchman and wants to go to war against the Expendables as revenge for kicking him out of the team[25]
* Nick Searcy as Agent Will Sands
* Amin Joseph as the leader of a group of Pirates of Somali that challenge the Expendables
* Arnold Schwarzenegger In a cameo role. [26]
* Bruce Willis in a cameo role
* Senyo Amoaku as the second in command of the Pirates of Somali that challenge The Expendables.
* Ravi Shankar as a cameo role

Transporter 3 is clearly the wackest, most formulaic of the Transporter series!

poll

Would pay serious $$$ to hear Armond and Michael Bay one-on-one on Godard's late '60s output.

^^^

how much money

Dude reads like a hyper-parody of Kael's "championing of trash" crusade.

i would pay at least $4

more than i have at the moment tbh ;_;

I'd pay more than I'd pay for a ticket to Transformers 2.

I might pay as much for the Criterion Transformers DVD, with B&N's 50% off sale.

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/winter2004/features/images/critic.jpg

that's him? for some reason i always thought he was that dorky guy with dreads. who am i thinking of??

elvis mitchell?
http://www.buzzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/elvis_mitchell_20080630.jpg

lol
On April 27, 2008, Mitchell was returning from Toronto to Detroit when border guards found Cuban cigars and $12,000 in cash on him.

yeah, mitchell! lmbo

what i like about white is that he's so far off in the wilderness, ranting away in whatever's left of the new york press, that he's easy to forget about until somebody does something like revive this thread. but whenever you happen to tune in, he's right there as crazy as always, getting crazier all the time. like a mad preacher on some staticky AM station you occasionally run across at 2 in the morning.

(and get tired of as soon as the novelty wears off again)

Really, he's most amusing when two competing sensibilities jerk knees at the same time. Like Redacted, pitting his love for De Palma against his love for Dubya's war in Iraq.

haha yes, or when demme casts denzel/altman uses digital video/etc

p.s.

G.I. Joe’s in the same innocuous class as the Laura Croft and Thunderbirds movies. It has the spirit of Saturday Afternoon toy commercials, even to the extent of extolling basic American values: the very realistic appreciation of militarism as a foundation for capitalist freedom that supplies delight in both G.I. Joe and Transformers 2. There’s more realpolitik here than in the now-overrated The Hurt Locker.*

Sommers isn’t quite in Michael Bay’s directorial class, but he has the ability to envision a nightmare and spin it into a provocative coup the Surrealists wouldn’t dare.

not sure what this means:

This Eiffel Tower image also recalls the postmodern epigraph that closes Godard’s In Praise of Love : “I will go to my grave with more visions than man has previously ever known.” The trashy secret of G.I. Joe is its ironic capitalizing on the fact that awesome, dread-filled visions don’t necessarily destroy childhood innocence. Seeing the Eiffel Tower fall is part of loving it (which could not be said of the World Trade Center). The Brothers Grimm understood. That’s why people are queuing-up, contributing to the Jackpot.

http://nypress.com/article-20189-gi-joe-the-rise-of-cobra.html

*btw he previously said, "Kathryn Bigelow's latest joins the short list of great Iraq War films" but i guess that was before everyone else started praising it, so now he has to back off lest he be forced to agree with others.

thanking youuuu

I'm trying to remember the Armond White review I was anticipating, but I can't now.

Oh wait it was his GI Joe review. I will have to savor this now.

the "now-overrated" hooooo boy

"As for acting, operatives Tatum and Wayans look great in their special Accelerator suits, surging through the air, tumbling and weaving in dreamlike acrobatics to gladden the wide-eyed part of your aesthetic sensibility."

Yes, acting.

Wait there is no talk of acting in that sentence?!?! WTF?

they're not actors, they're OPERATIVES

marvel at their operations

can't spell operative without opera and this film is pop opera at its finest. steven spielberg would be proud.

white is clearly stating sommers uses actors like bresson

I like when Armond White writes in second person.

crossposting from the gi joe thead cause dammit this took like 5 minutes:

complete list of other films armond cites in this review:

iron man
star trek
harry potter 6 ("and the half-blooded chintz"--good one dude!)
the mummy
transformers 2
wanted
3:10 to yuma
drag me to hell
transporter 3
torque (those last two are "superior pop art")
the laura (sic) croft films
thunderbirds
the hurt locker ("now overrated")
united 93
cloverfield
mars attacks
in praise of love

One of these things is not like the other. . .

Can someone do a complete list of the critics that Armond is citing? Guessing that would be longer.

"This Eiffel Tower image also recalls the postmodern epigraph that closes Godard’s In Praise of Love : 'I will go to my grave with more visions than man has previously ever known." Uh huh.

will gladden

at this point is he doing this just to see if anyone's still reading?

Meh, he's the only critic I remember what he thinks of any given movie more than a few weeks after it opens. Granted, it's because he's predictable, but still ...

but i mean, throwing that godard quote in there, it's just trolling really. who does he think his audience is, besides people who tune in to watch him be crazy?

he's the glenn beck of film critics

One of these things is not like the other. . .

yeah, Mars Attacks is the great one.

Isn't Will Gladden the third string QB for the Seahawks?

the very realistic appreciation of militarism as a foundation for capitalist freedom that supplies delight

fuck this sentence, fuck this guy

"yeah, Mars Attacks is the great one."

I thought you liked the Hurt Locker.

slocki what part are u objecting 2

i do, but it's no Mars Attacks! xp

I bet you just like it less now that it's been overrated.