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

there's nothing wrong with finding worth in trashy films but AW never really explains what kind of cinematic merit he finds in things like 'resident evil.' he sort of starts to do that in the first paragraph here but then he just goes back to his old bean-counting routine: this movie is 'unforgettable,' this other movie is 'unbearable.' no reasons, no arguments, just a bunch of contentions. it's like arguing with a 5-year-old.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, September 19, 2012 3:59 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah. i would really love armond if he actually explained his interpretations. but that's par the course for contrarians: say something loud and surprising and just leave it there for the reader to get exasperated at.

also i'd like him if he actually paid attention to the majority of the movies he covers. his pans are like 70% misinformation on the most basic level.

When I die and go to hell, it's just gonna be [Rachel getting married] on a perpetual loop

with Peggy Noonan singing "Unknown Legend."

https://twitter.com/thighmaster/statuses/248576493662371840
https://twitter.com/3xchair/statuses/248612135901462528

interesting! when i very briefly ran a movie critic commentary blogspot i eventually concluded that "falling asleep" must be part of his method.

it was very funny

adult, professional, courteous

http://cityarts.info/2012/10/08/cityarts-exclusive-arts-analysis-beasts-of-the-northern-wild/

“I’m trying to make sense of the acclaim for Precious and the concurrent advent of Barack Obama.”

Weird, since I'm trying to make sense of how much self-loathing there might be in his final paragraph on The Paperboy: "A final key to the unarticulated bitterness of Daniels’ hysteria: The trio of black women singing in the dive bar where McConaughey picks up trade. Note how their angry-faced gestures betray modern drag queen hostility rather than Civil Rights era generosity and musical pleasure. That anachronistic sexual/racial rage exposes Daniels. The Paperboy ultimately is a drag-act response to the legacy of Southern bigotry Americans have forgotten and Northern ignorance they now embrace."

I've never seen a film by Lee Daniels, but everything I've read about him suggests that White is pretty otm with this one (although it's low-hanging fruit, and his writing is incomprehensible). As long as he talks about Daniels, that is, when he begins accusing the liberal (white) elite of loving him, I'm scratching my head. Wasn't it Oprah who produced Precious? Hasn't 30 Rock been mercilessly satirizing that film? And did Paperboy really cause a 'ruckus' at this years Cannes-festival? Everything I've read about it suggested that most critics were just shaking their heads and getting on with it...

Shadowboxer is another Lee Daniels film I watched, and whoa was it weird.

it's low-hanging fruit, and his writing is incomprehensible

Yeah, he bends over backwards to make it seem as though everyone loves The Paperboy or something, which, wtf.

well even some critics who think The Paperboy is insane dreck say it's worth seeing for the facepalms (or maybe just McC's ass).

If McC indeed showers next to a Tom of Finland, I can probably stomach a small amount of Nic pee.

@TeganMH
Tegan Higginbotham

Nicole Kidman has denied using fake urine in new film, Paperboy. But critics are skeptical, saying the pee looked unnatural & expressionless

That's how you know it's hers!

ebert reviewed the paperboy as if it were wild things, so i've been interested

FACT CHECK:

The mess of Southern-depravity cliches says as much about 53-year-old Daniels’ fuzzy recall of the Civil Rights era...

A few paragraphs later:

The way Daniels integrates an anachronistic playlist of 60s-70s r&b tunes into The Paperboy’s story (set in 1969, the year of Daniels’ birth)

Also, how are '60s songs anachronistic if the film is set in 1969?

These characters would still be listening to Spike Jones.

Yeah, he bends over backwards to make it seem as though everyone loves The Paperboy or something, which, wtf.

― Ham Lushbaugh (Eric H.), Tuesday, October 9, 2012 2:03 PM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Because if he didn't, he'd only have a sucky movie to trash, not the big bad critical establishment that's so overrun with hipsters and nihilists.

armond white is just following in the great bosley crowther tradition of writing reviews of movies you've slept through.

also the only reasonable responses to AW are to ignore him or to make fun of him (or like glenn kenny, say you'll do the first but keep doing the second). there is absolutely no point in trying to parse any of his reviews. he has nothing of interest to say, and his writing is only symptomatic of his own complexes.

"Won’t Back Down is a condescending version of what the excellent action movie Never Back Down..."

In case you think I made that up: http://cityarts.info/2012/09/28/the-miseducation-of-viola-davis/

Between this and the Paul T/WS Anderson thing, he sure loves things that sound vaguely alike!

It's a shame the whole Paul Anderson thing kept him from realizing he could negatively compare the actors in The Master to Dana Carvey in The Master of Disguise

"Dana Carvey's command of the traditions of mimicry-as-subversive-satire embarrass the hipster nihilism of Paul Thomas Anderson's morally and politically disengaged pretend-epic."

Again, I thought that film was about the problem of teachers unions, how on earth can it be a 'liberal' film? He really is the Antonin Scalia of film critics.

It is anti-union propaganda, I don't know how anyone would draw the conclusion it is liberal.

does Armond have Career Opportunities in mind

Never Back Down is bare-chested Sean Faris vs. bare-chested Cam Gigandet. Talk about your "drag queen hostility" and "sexual rage."

Not going to lie. Kinda digging malfunctioning Armond during election years.

http://cityarts.info/2012/10/12/affectless-affleck/

Affleck and Clooney are part of the elite who have never served their country and can’t fathom that kind of patriotism and so smirk at it. It’s a Joe Biden kind of movie.

I'm not aware of Beau Biden's military bonafides but I'm pretty sure Joe didn't smirk at his son's service.

It's all good though, because

Affleck the auteur chooses worst material than Affleck the actor.

he's about two years from an actual mental breakdown

That seems like a conservative projection.

I was gonna say, "from" or "past"?

the past year has been one long "two weeks, two weeks, two weeks" total recall twitch

I don't know if he'll get better or worse if Romney wins.

Affleck and Clooney are part of the elite who have never served their country and can’t fathom that kind of patriotism and so smirk at it.

this is like a sentence written by the world's most obnoxious 4th grader.

Jay Nordlinger?

http://cityarts.info/2012/10/26/supergroupies/

See, 99% of this review reminds me why I still sometimes wanna read the guy. Then he has to throw in a dig at his fellow critics at the end, more Armond vs. the world posturing, and w/r/t a film that doesn't even have much of a critical rep (that I know of, anyway) at this point anyway.

seems pretty lazy to me... "this film has cross-cutting... who else cross-cut... dw griffith..."

The stories were edited by pomposity

zing?

The Wachowskis–critic Gregory Solman always called them the Watch-Out-skis

owned?

http://rlv.zcache.com/ski_boy_1_watch_out_im_coming_poster-r45a31c908b324eb8ac60742844050641_k4i_400.jpg

yeah seems if a critic really wanted to devastate cloud atlas and by extension a supposed film culture composed of critics unfamiliar w/ anything before the first godfather and film directors unfamiliar w/ anything before the first star wars that comparing it to intolerance might be a very easy, effective way to do it (that i haven't seen anyone do this is more due to nobody taking cloud atlas seriously enough to bother more than any unfamiliarity w/ one of the four griffith movies everyone and their mother is familiar w/), this isn't actually that though, this is making a jibe and repeating it in vaguely different wording. an easy enough task, but nothing's easy when you're as lazy as armond white.

also this isn't really a critical darling

they never are

Which means he should love it, no?

NYT review mentioned Intolerance

lol, plz google "cloud atlas intolerance"