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

gear got hitched and has better things to do now than dissect insane armond screeds and scumbag yelper reviews

morbs, i think armond is generally a good critic & i would like to see his music video thing -- his statement about the "telephone" video is just the definition of a challenging opinion

I can't imagine that a wife is more fulfilling than interpolating quotes from JFK but whatev.

"morbs, i think armond is generally a good critic"

no, no he is not

i don't agree with his opinions that often but he provokes thought, which is rare in criticism in the internet age, be it film or music

he articulates ideas, no matter how wacky they sometimes are

"name a single decent American-made feature film this year"

if we're talking docs, i could name at least ten

if we're talking fiction, i haven't seen but have heard great things about COLD WEATHER, BLUE VALENTINE, WINTER'S BONE, TINY FURNITURE and PUTTY HILL.

he didnt say 'decent' he said 'exciting' dummies

how exciting did y'all find Vincere btw? oh, went to Hot Tub Time Machine instead eh

vincere only played for like two weeks or s.thing?

"he provokes thought"

i suppose, in the same fly that a mosquito buzzing around the room might "provoke thought."

same WAY

Iron Man 2 was really exciting. And it seemed like the kind of flick White would like, too.

" kind of flick White would like, too."

you mean that it got bad reviews from every other respectable critic?

Telephone is like the 8th best Akerlund music video, but I guess Armond decided he wouldn't seem ballsy enough if he championed them instead.

xpost, I didn't mean EXACTLY that, but it was close enough to my sentiment

It's pretty funny how annoyed some people are with him for ruining Toy Story 3's 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. "How dare he have a different opinion?" Of course it would be better if his argument against the movie wasn't blatantly contrarian bullshit.

Just to give you a taste: "Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence."

http://www.nypress.com/article-21357-bored-game.html

It's a troll, but that's his schtick. People should be used to it by now.

My only real question is why does anyone care about a 100 percent rating on RT?

I don't think the angry Toy Story 3 fans are aficionadoes of Armond's work, which is why it's so funny. They're like, "Why, it's almost as if he's hating this movie just to be different!" Well yes.

That fanboy whining in full:

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Meet-The-Only-Two-People-Who-Hate-Toy-Story-3-19118.html

"It’s impossible for an opinion to be wrong. Most of the time. Sometimes though, something is so self-evident that it moves beyond opinion. When everyone in the world gets together and agrees that yes, this is really good, that one lone voice standing in the corner and shouting the opposite isn’t just a different opinion, it’s a wrong opinion."

Pixar has now made three movies explicitly about toys, yet the best movie depiction of how toys express human experience remains Whit Stillman’s 1990 Metropolitan.

^^^lol comedy gold in the very first sentence. don't ever change armond

Pixar has now made three movies explicitly about toys, yet the best movie depiction of how toys express human experience remains Whit Stillman’s 1990 Metropolitan. As class-conscious Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) tries fitting in with East Side debutantes, he discovers his toy cowboy pistol in his estranged father’s trash. Without specifying the model, Stillman evokes past childhood, lost innocence and Townsend’s longing for even imagined potency. But Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination—the usefulness of toys—and strictly celebrates consumerism.

Not seen it, but the previews did reek of a lesser Whit Stillman.

gah. shakey got there already.

Hah, I already beat both y'all! Toy Story 3 anticipation thread

Yah, there are plenty of weak spots through which one could poke your finger into Toy Story 3 and deflate the whole thing, but it not living up to the legacy of Walt Stillman isn't among them.

Haven't seen the movie, or the first 2 TSs, but Pixarfans, get a life

what about Whit Stillman fans?

of all of the statements Morbius has made about movies, "Pixarfans, get a life" strikes me as easily being the least controversial

also I still find AW, even since he's lost his mind, a more reliable barometer than Shakey Mo

?

I didn't think our tastes in movies is THAT far apart, Apatow aside

I definitely have no love for Pixar for ex.

I'm hearin' voices in my head think I'm schizophrenic
I swear they sayin' "stan for 'transformers 2'" from another planet

"Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence."

Armond is now my hero. He's like..an artist. Wielding ridiculous challops like nunchakus.

Plenty to chew on:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/07/hating-the-player-losing-the-game-the-armond-white-meta-review/

By my count there are about three declarative statements in this entire piece that are not categorically inaccurate. The rest is a seething tissue of factual errors, self-negating examples, glaring elisions, logical inconsistencies, specious industrial analysis, mystifying rhetorical constructions and basic grammatical errors.

nice. and that's the thing -- white's opinions aren't the problem, because who cares, it's a free country. it's the quality of his criticism and the general lack of anything that feels like insight.

good stuff in that article

Man cannot live on challops alone.

On There Will Be Blood:
"Plainview is the most remarkable movie performance since Eddie Murphy’s Norbit trifecta."

Oh Armond, you rebel.

pretty decent article above

Really ought to give Norbit a try, given I even liked Murphy's fat schtick in the second Nutty Prof.

I love his fat schtick but Nutty Professor looks like Lubitsch next to Norbit.

(Lubitsch means nothing to you, of course)

Means not as funny as There Will Be Blood.

Fat schtick is the worst, you guys.

Raging Bull is the worst kind of sports film, an insult to true art like Mighty Ducks 3.

It's been a while since I saw it, but I think that Armond White is right and that columnist wrong about the scene from Metropolitan. I mean, Eigeman's character says the lines the columnist says he says, but the point is that the toys ARE the protagonist's childhood toys abandoned by his father. Great movie, but far from the best scene in it.

The older article linked w/in that one is also amazing, w/ AW's 'top ten' quotes.

He was totally OTM re Chameleon Street, which I saw him introduce at AMMI in Astoria.

I do think it is fair to say that Roger Ebert destroyed film criticism. Because of the wide and far reach of television, he became an example of what a film critic does for too many people. And what he did simply was not criticism. It was simply blather. And it was a kind of purposefully dishonest enthusiasm for product, not real criticism at all…I think he does NOT have the training. I think he simply had the position. I think he does NOT have the training. I’VE got the training. And frankly, I don’t care how that sounds, but the fact is, I’ve got the training. I’m a pedigreed film critic. I’ve studied it. I know it. And I know many other people who’ve studied it as well, studied it seriously. Ebert just simply happened to have the job. And he’s had the job for a long time. He does not have the foundation. He simply got the job. And if you’ve ever seen any of his shows, and ever watched his shows on at least a two-week basis, then you surely saw how he would review, let’s say, eight movies a week and every week liked probably six of them. And that is just simply inherently dishonest. That’s what’s called being a shill. And it’s a tragic thing that that became the example of what a film critic does for too many people. Often he wasn’t practicing criticism at all. Often he would point out gaffes or mistakes in continuity. That’s not criticism. That’s really a pea-brained kind of fan gibberish.

Armond discusses the state of film criticism on the slashfilmcast

complete bullshit, as per ush.

david effing bordwell did the preface for ebert's most recent collection. willing to bet he's more 'pedigreed' than armond white.