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

Fincher makes a god out of a Hollywood super-hack in the same way that the media praise Steve McQueen, Jordan Peele, J. J. Abrams, Alfonso Cuarón, Megan Rapinoe, Kylie Jenner, Colin Kaepernick, Taylor Swift, John Legend, and Shaun King. Millennials can’t tell the difference between artists, athletes, intellects, and influencers. So Mank inflates a story about the obscure co-screenwriter of a film that has no impact on the culture, turning it into a Netflix pseudo-event.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/review-mank-david-fincher-facile-fascism/

(Poll?)

Saying that Citizen Kane had no impact on the culture is the most insane thing he's said yet.

It's allegedly Trump's favorite movie (but we know it's really Bloodsport)!

i feel lightheaded after reading that... like im floating

not sure i can handle the increasing intensity as Armond approaches the singularity of Pure Challop

Citizen Kane not having impact on the culture is...I know, roll your eyes and move on. The logical construct, I suppose, is that it had a tremendous impact on the course of film history, therefore film has had no impact on the culture.

the full review goes hard on the idea of Mank being a film made by and for millenials

Quoting witticisms already well known to every film buff is the same as name-dropping, a sign of Millennial triteness where nothing is sacred except one’s own ego.

lol, God forbid you use an actual quote in a biopic.

those people who quote people - is nothing sacred for them?

Doesn't mention Mindhunter when summarizing Fincher's career (House of Cards, yes).

I think what I hate most is what seems to be his starting point so often: a film can't just be okay--if it's not good or great, it has to be The Worst Thing Ever (fascistic, bogus, confused, ignorant, etc.) Even Kael, who has come to define hyperbole for many people, wrote middling reviews of films she neither embraced or dismissed--half her reviews were like that, picking out a few good things in otherwise marginal films.

(He does say "Citizen Kane was a game-changer — it’s what birthed film noir among other innovations" a little farther down from the "no impact" line, so--putting aside the crime of using "game-changer"--I guess that was meant as a sarcastic jab at Fincher.)

I won't click on Armond's reviews anymore out of fear that hits might equal even a fraction of a cent making its way into his pocket, but that passage quoted by jaymc is some kind of masterpiece of whatever it is that Armond does.

("trolling" is probably the word I was looking for, but like "reviewing," Armond seems to be only doing this on his own crazed, inscrutable level)

I won't click on Armond's reviews anymore out of fear that hits might equal even a fraction of a cent making its way into his pocket,

Talk about hyperbolic and crazed!

Sure. I mean, I was half kidding--more like I no longer feel like slogging through his writing just to uncover the occasional LOL (I'll let ILX do that for me).

I'm actually curious about your reasons for, upthread, calling Armond "one of the greatest living film critics." What is it about him that you respect or respond to? I'm not saying a case can't be made for him (he's idiosyncratic, I'll give him that much); I'm just wondering what kind of defence can be mounted in favour of his criticism these days.

Was wondering the same. It feels like he's just a knee-jerk cheerleader for a right-wing publication.

Even the much-despised John Simon (not by me), when he wrote for the National Review, I don't think you could detect right-wing political currents in his reviews. (His pomposity might have been a right-wing caricature 50 years before he arrived, but by the time he's there, that was more like a left-wing caricature.)

Even politics aside, the basic coherence of his writing has deteriorated so much and his thoughts are so disordered that its next to impossible to parse any meaning at all from a lot of what he puts up, he obfuscates and contradicts himself almost on a word by word level. The leaps are so extreme and bizarre - its not just that hes expressing an extreme or bad viewpoint, but its hard to even put my hand on a thought to agree or disagree with most of the time.

Because his work demands discussion, he makes people want to talk about film, he's not wallpaper like almost everyone else, I agree with him less than half of the time, and he irritates (ex)critics who are envious of his minor fame/infamy but will never admit it.

I mean I'm really struggling to think of a single other film critic that makes me feel anything--Nick Pinkerton is one, MZS and Godfrey as well, and in the NYT, Mahola Dargis and Janet Maslin. Brody is hit or miss and as equally insane as Armond.

I'd love for that situation to change, btw...

Few of those statements speak to the quality of his work. Most focus on what he isn't or how he rankles people. Not what I consider "GOAT" quality.

And what kind of discussion does he inspire? Most of it is "lol, this fucking guy" level discourse.

Just not feeling "professional contrarian" as a virtue.

That's without getting into his toxic politics which have played a larger role in his writing in recent years which put him more firmly in edgelord territory

There's a reason you can find many a 4chan thread lauding him

I've had plenty of discussions in real life with people about Armond's reviews, good and bad. More lately since the release of the NY Press book. I like his writing a lot. I couldn't care less about his politics. Of course it's incorporated into his work, so was Pauline Kael's homophobia. I'm a fan of his writing, his Get Out review in particular is an exemplary piece of criticism for a couple reasons: I completely disagreed with his assessment of the movie but I can't say it was wrong, AND I've never forgotten what he said about Eddie Murphy's recent comedies--let's just say I don't think he's wrong. Why anyone who hates Armond's writing would ever look in this thread, let alone post in it, is beyond me.

"Another maniacal Armond White review..."

Doesn't the thread title suggest it's specifically for people who don't think much of him?

Yes. But it's the only thread for Armond. Beyond me!

the entire purpose of this thread is to dunk on him. you can galaxy brain this all you want but I don't think a defense of him as a critic is really tenable

xpAlthough, your comment reminds me of David Brooks, who own hate read thread I've participated in. I suppose I don't hold commensurate views on columnists--art&entertainment critics can do whatever they want in my eyes, they're in the sandbox, op-ed columnists writing about the way people live, policy, and "values" is another story, they deserve nothing but scrutiny and scorn.

I said I like his writing, that's out in outer space? Christ

I've never thought of critics as being judged differently than any other kind of writer.

Regarding their politics, it would be more relevant in David Brooks' case than Armond or any other film critic's, for example

Beyond that, I like his writing, I think he writes good criticism. Shoot me into the sun!

I do, apparently, judge critics very differently than my favourite music. As per the sincerity thread on ILM, I don't care at all about that with music (or at least think it's such a subjective call, it's meaningless). With critics, my very subjective appraisal of the their honesty (I'll name it that rather than their sincerity) accounts for about 80% of how worthwhile I think they are.

xp since his criticism is generally just a series of jokes about latte-liberalism (from the right) I can only make inferences based on that. lots of other readers like him too, but these are mainly people who read the national review

columnists writing about the way people live, policy, and "values" is another story, they deserve nothing but scrutiny and scorn

LOL, find an Armond review from the last 10 years that doesnt have a 2:1 ratio of this stuff to film

Armond used to be an interesting critic and compelling writer, now he's a good troll* and applies his talent to that. The limit of his concerns makes the work much lesser, but it's not hard to understand someone who liked him needling and finding ways to provoke and annoy on points of art still valuing those skills in a different phase of his work.

*good at being a troll: trolls are better when they force you to reexamine your own thinking by annoying you, even if the result is to give you a better structure for the opinions you already had. Unfortunately modern Armond seems more concerned with the irritation than the provocation, but many of us gloss over the worse parts of older artists' output to still appreciate the things we liked about them before. flappy seems to have pulled this off well.

xp Lol ok true true, I just ignore what he says, and it's ostensibly not the purpose of his pieces... but, being in the NR, these lines become blurry. Someone like Brooks or Peggy Noonan just has absolutely nothing to offer to the world, unlike art critics, who I consider closer to artists than journalists, and as with Armond, I let whatever partisan insanity pass by.

I do agree his best writing is (mostly) behind him. But please, I wasn't being sarcastic upthread, I would like recommendations on other contemporary film critics that are good!

and sic is OTM

trolls are better when they force you to reexamine your own thinking by annoying you, even if the result is to give you a better structure for the opinions you already had.

dgaf about Armond. I've only read a few of his columns, but I like A. S. Hamrah's stuff: https://thebaffler.com/authors/a-s-hamrah

Honestly, the best "film writing" I ever read was all the blogs I read during the '00s, a much better format than magazine columns

He's been awful for years, unworthy of the concentration.

Yet a few years ago I remembered one of the few attentive, intelligent reviews of New Order's Republic, and Rolling Stone published it as its lead review.

Armond White wrote it.

I would like recommendations on other contemporary film critics that are good!

I don't think he's much referenced here, and I've said this many times, but generally I think David Edelstein is excellent. He was once thought to be a Paulette; maybe that was once true, but he's long since moved on.

I don't know if he's on leave (from New York) or what, though. He got into some trouble a year or two ago for a flippant Last Tango joke--his internal censor went down, and he momentarily thought it was 1977 instead of 2018--and he hasn't written anything for a while. (No connection between the two, I don't think--he continued to write for months after the incident.)

When he was concurrently writing for the National Review and The Advocate, it was striking that he still managed to write cogent, insightful reviews in the latter. Since getting the heave-ho, nothing I've seen him write is worthy of his talents.

Armond’s reviews of the last few years have a light sprinkling of commentary about the topic at hand over a lot of axe grinding about whatever social stance was bugging him that day

I like Edelstein too and he was the only print film critic who had no trouble translating to NPR's format.

he was very paulette-y in the 80s (to the extent that it was mildly irritating) but honestly it's not an awful route towards being a good critic once yr thinking abt films she wasn't writing abt

Edelstein can be good, yes