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

He has kind words for *Grown Ups* but neglects *Zohan*!? V. disappointed.

In Jill drag, Sandler looks like young women you see on the subway; she’s a homely archetype Fanny Brice, Judy Canova and Martha Raye made popular. (Eddie Murphy also mastered this comic affection in The Klumps and Norbit.)

Apatow produced Zohan i think?

If the comment about him not cracking a smile during J&J is in fact true, it is incredibly telling.

I'm just finding it super funny that White's taste in sandler films is disappointingly highbrow, relatively speaking.

Is this anti-semitism?

Sandler, of course, always goes back to Jewishness. He may be the least ethnically abashed Jewish film comic outside the Borscht Belt which is Jack and Jill’s natural strength. Jack’s self-consciousness about Jill is rooted in Jewish comics’ proverbial self-deprecation (that’s why the twinship premise). Jill’s large features, gaucheness, petulance and unsophisticated ways are not anti-Jewish traits but the qualities that insecure, social-climbing ethnic groups usually evade.

Of course, more problematic is that parenthetical. "(that's why the twinship premise)" seems to be missing a verb.

also armond apparently doesn't know what the word non-plussed means

A lot of people don't!

I think it's getting to the point where the wrong meaning for 'non-plussed' is becoming semi-acceptable

How do you know he's not nonplussed in that scene?

My favourite bit:

the key to classic comedy going back to the Greeks.

"You know the ones I mean."

http://leemasaur.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/hedonismbot.jpg

Spielberg changes games, heals the sick, raise the dead, makes all the little girls talk out of their heads

I think it is kind of cool that Spielberg makes Armond White so ecstatic.

"This ribbon of hurtling delight" is a nice Armondish turn of phrase

He can pan old movies too, oh yes he can!

(countdown to Morbs wholehearted agreement w/review in 10...9...8...)

I wish I could disappoint you, But I've seen C et J twice and it left me cold, as Rivette almost always does. Never heard the Kael quote!

funny bcz as rerelease hosannas for it have been unleashed in NYC the last 2 days, I was gonna look for demurrals.

That's a quality Kael zinger.

Not really worth linking to his Avengers review, but I love the mind that can bear down a film for its crass consumerism (fair enough) and somehow triumph Transformers.

his Avengers review is pretty disappointing tbh

I guess it depends whether you think there is something else going on in the tentpole movie, which can theoretically happen.

Celine reminds me of what AW wrote about some other alleged Gallic classic: "When people say they hate French films, this is what they're talking about."

every time this thread gets revived i wind up rereading the damn review at the start of it and being amazed once again by what a shitty writer AW is.

Celine and Julie can be viewed as a proto-Mumblecore movie for its seemingly arbitrary storyline and self-infatuated preoccupation with cultural privilege. Indeed, Labourier and Berto’s bland antics resemble the mundane actions and unprepossessing actors of Mumblecore. It’s a particular let down from the sexy wit that gave the French New Wave undeniable appeal.

and this. seriously, everything -- everything -- about this paragraph is vomitous.

his assertion that people who like or love the film are doing so as some kind of an anti-keal move is just baffling.

it's like:

"can be viewed" -- typical bizarre armond formulation that reminds me of greil marcus's funny description of albert goldman ("the addled syntax of someone who dictates instead of writes")
"seemingly arbitrary storyline" -- well, is it or isn't it?
"self-infatuated" -- how?
"preoccupation with cultural privilege" -- it's based on a HENRY JAMES story!
"It’s a particular let down" -- as opposed to what?
"the sexy wit that gave the French New Wave undeniable appeal" -- OK i give the fuck up

citing Greil Marcus in your argument = funny

his assertion that people who like or love the film are doing so as some kind of an anti-keal move is just baffling.

It's off point to be sure, but I would argue that 100 percent of the people who will watch C+J Music Factory will know who Kael is, tho maybe not what her opinion of Rivette is.

i'm 100% sure my ex has no idea who kael is and C&J was his favourite film.

Is your ex George Glass?

def not.

was his favourite film.... until he met tarkovsky. and i can assure you he still has no idea who kael is.

RIP Sarris, this killed him:

http://cityarts.info/2012/06/20/the-sandler-memo/

If you didn’t get the Memo to hate Adam Sandler, his new movie That’s My Boy would seem another likable, if minor, entry in his continuing series of unexpectedly challenging human comedies. The anti-Sandler Memo is a follow-the-leader pact–not literally a missive but an unconscious social ideology that protects Hollywood’s status quo. It perverts honest, healthy response to Sandler whose comic tendency is to affront the status quo in film after film. His spoofing of political correctness and middle-brow propriety is the real reason behind all the haterade which became ridiculous after last year‘s ingenious, heartfelt Jack and Jill provoked an endless backlash of unprecedented lunacy and vitriol.

i love how his reviews always have a needle of truth hiding in a haystack of goading horseshit

you got the memo!

Sometimes I'm astonished at how fine tuned he is as a mirror-image. That's My Boy is nowhere near as horrible as Jack & Jill, hence his enthusiasm isn't quite as overstated.

lol okay, he does have a slight point re: Jack and Jill, which was exactly the same type of gooey sentimentalism wrapped in a ball of crassness as all of his other movies and, as a result, kind of a weird choice to be the focus of the IRE OF THE AGES, but that is a spectacular piece of overstatement

that's the thing! it's not just foaming-at-the-mouth lunacy, it's a considered, contrarian stance apparently worded to annoy the largest number of people possible

it's ingenious and heartfelt

on taste and observation armond white could be a great critic but apparently he'd rather be a wrestling heel

This bit has so much crazy packed into it that I didn't even notice the horrific grammar:

Donny and Todd’s estrangement gets to the deeper issue of self esteem. (How it might be conveyed through parenting as much as heritage–also the theme of the Wayans Brothers’ underappreciated Little Man.

And I forgot the closed parenthesis after the period.

so eager is he to spill the haterade that grammar collapses

"It’s not just childish critics and mindless bloggers who deal dirt to Sandler and Murphy; the worst offenders are precisely those who fall for any blockbuster."

Who are these ppl who fall for any blockbuster? Doesn't that describe Armond?

GI Joe isn't just any blockbuster

how about Gamer?

reading these Armond White reviews makes following pop culture even less fun than it currently is.

It bums me out in a "glancing at People Magazines in the doctor's office" kinda way. And that's a unique melancholy that the APA will soon address.

Pretty sure Pfizer's already got a pill in Stage 2 trials.

how about Gamer?

in fairness, there are a number of hardcore Neveldine/Taylor stans in the critical community.

it hits hard enough to make you think "who thought it was a good idea to pay people to share their thoughts on things?" and "we should probably stop talking about movies now"

it's just tiring and I'd like that pill