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."
― Like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:45 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― goole, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― by another name (amateurist), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:46 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense. (HI DERE), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:53 (fourteen years ago) link
this is what happens when you think what you do is "important"
― call all destroyer, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:57 (fourteen years ago) link
I honestly have no idea how you could read that review as suggesting anything other than that Baumbach be aborted.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
totally siked to read this tbh
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:05 (fourteen years ago) link
Hoberman and Dart reveal their roles in the contemporary power structure
oh for chrissakes people still writing and thinking like this?
― The Magnificent Colin Firth (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:10 (fourteen years ago) link
meetings of the ny film crix circle must be kinda tense
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense. (HI DERE), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:12 (fourteen years ago) link
is this much different from "I KIlled Christgau with My Big Fucking Dick"?
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
- not a record
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Would Thurston Moore have sullied his dick with xgau's brains?
― The Magnificent Colin Firth (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
is there any1 better @ trolling than armond? love this dude
― no chapo (Lamp), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
Armond's writing style lends itself quite well to being misunderstood and misinterpreted.
― Your body is a spiderland (polyphonic), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:16 (fourteen years ago) link
"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.
― goole, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:18 (fourteen years ago) link
and no i don't think he "really" meant to say baumbach should be killed really actually in real life
― 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?
― goole, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
How did he ever get voted president or is it decided by lottery?
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:20 (fourteen years ago) link
Pauline Kael appeared to him in a dream.
― The Magnificent Colin Firth (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:24 (fourteen years ago) link
that was only the entire subtext of Margot at the Wedding, jeez, how did you miss that. the entire movie was a subliminal dig at Armond
― dmr, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:43 (fourteen years ago) link
he inspired Jack Black's character iirc
― dmr, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 17:44 (fourteen years ago) link
he is right about publicists and critics, of course
(guessing those of you who dutifully trot out to every hyped stinker on opening weekend hv no comment there)
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:23 (fourteen years ago) link
of course
― max, Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:28 (fourteen years ago) link
can't believe i still haven't read this
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:37 (fourteen years ago) link
probably too busy dutifully trotting out to every hyped stinker on opening weekend
― max, Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Greenberg, the big-budget mumblecore movie by Noah Baumbach, should enter the language as Woody Allen’s Zelig did—a title that goes beyond ethnic specificity to stand for a particular social disorder: the tendency toward vanity, suppression and censorship.
this is all kind of awkward isn't it? im not 100% sure what it means. the word greenberg should go beyond the specific (jewishness? am i reading this right?) to the particular (vanity, suppression, censorship)?
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Jim Hoberman joined the crackdown, exhibiting his own case of Greenberg syndrome.
wait what? the hobes has moved to LA to deal with some personal shit?
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:50 (fourteen years ago) link
take it easy max, i dont even know what you thought of Dooly Appointed etc.
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:52 (fourteen years ago) link
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. Publicists’ power increased as the media gave itself over to non-inquisitive, low-integrity forms of celebrity news and gossip.
morbs, he isn't otm about this. the idea that the publicity machine only got going in the mid-80s is ludicrous. i mean, just off the top of my head, you have the whole kael/beatty thing in the 70s. but apart from that, publicists have always, always tried, as they are paid to, to get favourable responses to films. access, baby, access.
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:55 (fourteen years ago) link
"got going" i take to mean bringing it to a whole new level, tail wags dog, etc.
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:57 (fourteen years ago) link
well, yeah, alright.
these arguments should be made by someone who isn't mental tho.
("bringing it to a whole new level" is not very morbs imo.)
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:58 (fourteen years ago) link
imo hoberman should "step up to the plate" and respond
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 11:59 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, publicists go back before the 80s. the difference is the perception of the relevance of critics, and their increasingly disposable nature when it comes to marketing films (it seems more important in the case of Greenberg, but maybe that's part of where the outrage comes from).
― Freddy 'The Wonder Chicken' (Gukbe), Thursday, 18 March 2010 12:36 (fourteen years ago) link
dudes you are NOT taking an armo article seriously right?
― by another name (amateurist), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:04 (fourteen years ago) link
he has good points amid the craziness, almost always. You know, like music writers.
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
The abortion uproar seems more serious, but it’s easily dismissed as a mere nit-picking gripe. Even if I had advised abortion (which I did not), fact is, abortion remains a hallmark of the privileged class that extols Baumbach.
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:07 (fourteen years ago) link
yah thats really good but this is my favorite part btw:
It’s unfortunate to have to point out that it is also a racist lynching by white critics of a black critic. Fact: Year after year, Hoberman never even deigns to review movies with black subjects, and he passes this racist contempt on to his epigones. That’s hegemony.
lacks some of the subtlety of other passages but makes it up for just going top level on the racial shit + fact colon construction
― Lamp, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:10 (fourteen years ago) link
would it be possible to reconstruct armonds political philosophy
― max, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:12 (fourteen years ago) link
is it some kind of n/l right-wing marxism?
xpost Not without a claims adjuster.
― queen frostine (Eric H.), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:13 (fourteen years ago) link
j-hob responded btw:
Further unburdening his mind, Armond expresses displeasure that I criticized Pauline Kael's review of Shoah, panned a number of Steven Spielberg's movies, and most recently gave "traitorous praise to the movie Green Zone for encouraging insurrection in the American military." Sanity has prevailed, though. At least he hasn't called for my "retroactive abortion" (yet), even if I am "the scoundrel-czar of contemporary film criticism," a publicist-coddling representative of the film industry status quo as well as "a force behind racist snobbery in the film festival circuit (which led to such cultural disasters as Precious)" who, "like some nefarious, shadowy dictator in a Fritz Lang silent" exerts an influence that "stretches from coast to coast, institution to institution." It's true!
Tomorrow, I plan to get universal health care, settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn.
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Can Hoberman and Dart’s objections to the very mention of abortion mean that they are, in fact, Pro-Life? (I remember Hoberman railing against Juno for choosing life while praising the Romanian abortion thriller 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days.) Can’t wait to see Hoberman and Dart defend their Pro-Life position on the Glenn Beck show.
fuck that, give armond his own show imo
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:15 (fourteen years ago) link
hoberman is pro-life! he hated the pro-life juno! he's pro-life!
i shamefully admit that i would watch this guy on tv
― call all destroyer, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:17 (fourteen years ago) link
funnier than Arrested Development, but then so was Shoah.
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:18 (fourteen years ago) link
u shldnt play tball when were discussing the pros here doc
gramscian whos been mugged
― Lamp, Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Shoah was objectively pro-jewish and pro-Netanyahu.
― The Magnificent Colin Firth (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:20 (fourteen years ago) link
has anyone read his bio of Tupac?
― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:21 (fourteen years ago) link
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2010/03/armond_white.php
hoba weighs in
― lipster grifter (history mayne), Thursday, 18 March 2010 15:21 (fourteen years ago) link