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

"For years now, Hoberman hasn't been able to stand the heat of the New York Press' competition. "

This is like an epic diss track.

Yes, racism motivates Schwarzbaum and Hoberman. They pretend to be hip and ladylike...

J. Hoberman pretends to be ladylike?

Their fit of public indecency brings pettiness, sour grapes—and their privilege—into the open when normally it never affects public perception of the critical ranks.

I notice he doesn't mention his Greenberg dis at all.

uh this basically seems like ppl are castigating AW because he didn't simperingly kiss butt but presented kind of honestly?

yeah, i dunno. to me it reads like an arrogant asshole sucking his own dick (note mixed metaphor). failing to take a joke, getting petty and bitchy about it, and lavishing praise on the only person with the "wisdom" to acknowledge his own incredible importance. horrible, horrible piece of writing.

uh this basically seems like ppl are castigating AW because he didn't simperingly kiss butt but presented kind of honestly?

― zvookster, Thursday, January 20, 2011 8:55 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

commencing eye-roll sequence

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2011/01/11/armond-white-darren-aronofsky-nyfcc-awards/

http://gawker.com/5730615/worlds-crankiest-film-critic-makes-annette-bening-cry-at-awards-show

White also introduced playwright Tony Kushner, who was there to award The Social Network best picture, by saying, "Maybe he can explain why it won best picture."

yeah he's like ricky gervais up in this bitch, s0 funny, not afraid to tell it like it is

Two things

- lolling at the dude who fantasized about a "retroactive abortion" (no matter how otm) chastizing others for having "sick fantasies"

- sexy-maternal?????

otm?

the sexy-maternal thing really says it all

parasite suckling at the engorged teats of a monster etc

the thing about AW is he's not being honest even w/r/t to his own opinions i think. he projects weird shit onto other people and has a martyrdom complex that should be a case study. it's not surprising he gives bitchy negative reviews to antiwar movies tbh.

he went so far out of his way to say nice things abt michele williams that she made a joke of it. he responded to aronofsky saying "u give us another reason not to read your paper" with "“That’s all right. Darren reads me. That’s all I want. And because he reads me, he knows the truth.” which is fine, considering that's kind of vicious, what he's responding to. and he finished a long praise-filled preamble with "Surely Kushner, whose great play Angels in American showed how spiritual and social connections transformed lust and duty to family, friends and country into moral responsibility, will explain why The Social Network is deserving." which is over the line, but the reactions were hit pieces based on his offending some kind of social politesse

i wonder how many movies he hates he would actually love if he wasn't 24/7 aware of what other critics thought about them.

he responded to aronofsky saying "u give us another reason not to read your paper" with "“That’s all right. Darren reads me. That’s all I want. And because he reads me, he knows the truth.” which is fine, considering that's kind of vicious, what he's responding to.

kind of deserved an incredibly sarcastic "COMEBACK" from darren aronovsky but i guess ymmv

really though, "because he reads me, he knows the truth”? that's pretty weak

he went so far out of his way to say nice things abt michele williams that she made a joke of it.

that's a sweet way to look at someone introducing a woman by saying "well, i liked that movie you made four years ago" and her saying "woof, guess i won't read anything you've written about my movies since then."

isn't it just the only way to look at it

so why did Armond call her "naive" in his new piece?

as in naive Michelle Williams and gullible Mark Ruffalo followed suit, perhaps nervously thinking this is what film folk do in the presence of critics: a rare chance to settle scores.

the point is he's responding to lying, dishonest & apparently very successful hit pieces, i'm not going to defend his being butthurt that actors made fun of him

"dishonest"

"naive" for following the herd, i think, as in "i want to like her still, she was just naive"

seems like the only real difference in perception is whether annette bening was pissed at him (their take) or her fellow actors (his take), or whether he said Kushner "surely could explain" why the Social Network was deserving (his take) or whether he said MAYBE Kushner could explain (their take)

even without him stooping to calling a couple of other writers total racists for hating him (though w/schwarzbaum maybe it comes down to the time he called her a cunt or w/e during a NYFCC debate and then proudly wrote about it in the NY Press), he's been this kind of creep for years and well beyond the usual snark, so even if he was gracious (and according to himself he was the most ingratiating person in the room) he would still have had it coming if anyone bitched him out.

he responded to aronofsky saying "u give us another reason not to read your paper" with "“That’s all right. Darren reads me. That’s all I want. And because he reads me, he knows the truth.”

what this reads like, to me, is armond failing to understand that the role of critics at functions like this is to be affable about getting roasted. being affable demonstrates deference, and it's likewise the critic's job to defer to artists, at least in polite social/public settings. armond chafes at that. he rightly sees these demonstrations of deference as an acknowledgment of the critic's lesser status relative to celebrity artists. of course, he doesn't see the critic as any less important than what he critiques. quite the opposite. his own criticism clearly demonstrates this. it's no mere response to cinema. armond's criticism is an aggressive attempt to reshape the perceived meaning of films, essentially to remake them, to push them into shapes that only HE could or would design. cinema is the raw material from which armond creates the world, and he can't seem to tolerate any suggestion that he is not the most important being in it.

^^^OTM

The art for this piece is a picture of him with Annette Bening and little hearts around them.

Cuz, you see, otherwise people wouldn't know she was on his side.

cinema is the raw material from which armond creates the world,

Armond would totally use this as blurb material for his next book.

so while he infantilizes himself in describing his relationship w/Bening, he also refuses to cede any authority - the infant is the mother's equal, but it is also paradoxically the center of the world

xp

I hope he and John Simon drink at the same watering hole.

starting to seriously think this dude needs psychiatric help

He got the old antagonisms rolling, then naive Michelle Williams and gullible Mark
Ruffalo followed suit

Mark Ruffalo, well known victim of Rick-Rolls.

The art for this piece is a picture of him with Annette Bening and little hearts around them.

She has a heart on for Armond.

what this reads like, to me, is armond failing to understand that the role of critics at functions like this is to be affable about getting roasted. being affable demonstrates deference, and it's likewise the critic's job to defer to artists, at least in polite social/public settings. armond chafes at that. he rightly sees these demonstrations of deference as an acknowledgment of the critic's lesser status relative to celebrity artists. of course, he doesn't see the critic as any less important than what he critiques. quite the opposite. his own criticism clearly demonstrates this. it's no mere response to cinema. armond's criticism is an aggressive attempt to reshape the perceived meaning of films, essentially to remake them, to push them into shapes that only HE could or would design. cinema is the raw material from which armond creates the world, and he can't seem to tolerate any suggestion that he is not the most important being in it.

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Thursday, January 20, 2011 9:39 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

"being affable demonstrates deference", no it doesn't!

darren aronofsky's zing was merited wasn't it? no-one takes armond white seriously as a critic.

i don't have the energy to argue the point. can we just agree that i'm right?

or what -- you'll insult us at the next New York Film Critics Circle meeting?

it's no mere response to cinema. armond's criticism is an aggressive attempt to reshape the perceived meaning of films, essentially to remake them, to push them into shapes that only HE could or would design.

I have a certain affection for Armond because of this. He comes out with a lot of absurd reviews that bring the lolz, but I like (at least, on a conceptual basis) this notion of reshaping (or, rather, finding new perspectives on) the meaning of films. He makes intriguing arguments from time to time, when he's not being all the things this thread is saying. All those problems get in the way, of course, but it would be great if he would focus in and open up a debate about some of the films he champions that nobody else does.

^ agree with much of that. wish he were less aggro & egomaniacal about it.

City Island > The Social Network
Gotta have at the Facebook movie once again, if only to counter the fallacious consensus that no other movie dealt with the Internet phenomenon. Ray De Felitta's emotionally large family comedy and Andy Garcia's warm comeback performance epitomized timeless, non-cyber interfacing.

i saw city island. it's bad. juliana margulies is good in it. the only thing about it that "dealt with the Internet phenomenon" was a lame subplot where the weird son is secretly into fat girls, and finds out the online performer he's obsessed with actually lives next door to him. what are the chances?

"the internet phenomenon"

this whole internet fad

the phenomenon of distracting people so they can't watch foreign films w/ subtitles

its not my fault i cant speak all the languages

city island was set in queens but it wasn't subtitled

for some reason i find julianna margulies a total babe w/ straight hair but not w/ curly hair. and usually i like curly haired chicks

just adding another data point 2 this informative discussion

*concurs*