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

A quick roundup of the worse-than films' transgressions: PC distractions, Kelly Reichardt condemns American capitalism as racist and homophobic, the brainwashing of black Americans, speciously equates contemporary politics with bygone grievance, privileged feminism and cultural thuggery, a Planned Parenthood commercial, anti-Trump hectoring, feeble Harvey Weinstein rumor for the #MeToo movement, political and cultural posturing, Spike Lee’s trendy BLM racism.

It's laughable. And not really film criticism.

What a laff!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQixDj3-KE

Thanks for linking the Nayman piece; will read it when I get back home. I do love that White put out a Spielberg book that also includes some of his very early work in the '70s. Going thru it is like seeing a critic's entire rise and fall like no other single volume document I can think of.

(The entire last section of the book is simply titled "Obama," which of course.)

As per usual, a lot of the movies he holds up as "better than" are indeed interesting and/or great choices regardless of what's on the other side of the comparison.

2020: The Movie and The Plot Against the President > Time

But not all of them.

yeah its funny - aside from exceptions like that example, its not that he's always or even often wrong about the 'better thans', but instead its that the pairings just seem completely random, which makes the gobbledygook blurbs even more amusingly WTF

When I saw Eighth Grade and Mid90s pretty close together a few years ago, and markedly preferred Mid90s (I did come around on Eighth Grade after a second viewing), I remember thinking "Hey, that's a perfect better-than pairing"--and then White ended up grouping both films together on the wrong side of some other film I can't remember. That made me smile.

I think the concept is fine, and I think Kael, without ever explicitly saying so, did some of that herself: she'd hold up one film as a superior to a related, more acclaimed film. You could even say that better-than was one of the driving forces of Sarris's auterism (Nicholas Ray's and Phil Karlson's socially-minded films were less celebrated and better than Stanley Kramer's and Elia Kazan's.) And of sabermetrics. And Chuck Eddy. And lots else.

It's just that with White, having followed at least this corner of his career for a few years, I can make up the list of his worse-than films beforehand. Anybody could--just make a list of the most acclaimed films of the year. Which isn't that interesting, even before he tacks on the I-see-through-this rationalizations.

equate contemporary politics with bygone grievance

dude in Mangrove had been hassled and his businesses disrupted by cops for ten years before the court case, and continued to be for ten years after winning the case. Armond fails to see that the "courtroom drama" marks one moment in a long continuity for this member of the Mangrove Nine, even aside from his contention that black business owners and activists... no longer suffer violations of justice from provably lying law officers.

the Better Than rankings are indeed interesting and often otm. his argumgrievances are mostly garbage.

Disappointed to find that Armond White, whose maniacality has over the course of his long career always been interesting, has started to degenerate into extremely dull "the cleansing moral clarity of Sebastian Gorka" pablum

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/review-the-plot-against-the-president-bridges-conservative-generation-gap/

The "better thans" are still enjoyable to read, though.

Armond Takes On...TCM

https://news.yahoo.com/turner-classic-movies-enemy-film-103039309.html

While the series focused on Hollywood production practices, making it easier to apply the same generalities as today’s “systemic racism” canard, TCM’s jurists had difficulty equating the primarily liberal bent of Hollywood employees with the imagined offenses pointed to in their films. That’s why the series dealt only with movies made before 1968, the implication being that contemporary Hollywood is totally enlightened and sin-free.

The second sentence here represents the one halfway reasonable point in this piece, though one I've already seen made by folks far less odious than White.

Except that the second clause in the sentence does not in any way follow from the first. (Not even internally, in his implication that 55 years ago is "contemporary.")

In the context of depictions in race in movies I think that is fairly contemporary, sadly. A lot of sociopolitical problems we're dealing with now stalled out in the 1970s. look at Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, from 1975: Fassbinder made the perfect denunciation of the media and the contemporary left in Germany at the time, and it's striking how similar it is to our situation. I don't think we've moved much beyond Guess Who's Coming to Dinner on one end and Death Wish on the other.

Meanwhile, Armond’s heart is truly in the fourth coming of Zach Snyder and I fully expect him to turn out another three or four essays on the movie over the next month.

Momentarily distracted by Morrissey's latest tantrum...

https://letterboxd.com/notarmondwhite/film/the-simpsons-christmas-special/

But that little eco-terrorist vegan Lisa was always the show’s sponsored character, a stunt that liberal viewers enjoyed and conservative viewers tolerated. (Homer was its Archie Bunker.) Are the Simpsons colored yellow because the show is cowardly, its one-time edginess just a relic from before the days of PC fascism?

another maniacal rhetorical question

One Simpsons actor apologized to the nation of India for the portrayal of the Apu character, yet the show’s producers have never apologized for the Reverend Lovejoy and Ned Flanders characters that trash Christianity.

kind of surprised there hasnt been some kind of armond reference on the simpsons by now tbh

This doesn't make sense in a way--Point Blank is emblematic of the kinds of films that end up on the right side of better-thans--but if Armond White were writing about 1967 today, I bet he'd pair it with Buzz Kulik's Warning Shot and give the nod to Kulik. (Actually, retrospectively doing year-by-year better-thans would be really interesting...with, for me, someone other than Armond White.)

Kinda ... not maniacal? And pretty honest about what's alluring about this movie and its main character?

https://letterboxd.com/notarmondwhite/film/ferris-buellers-day-off/1/

stopped reading after the first graf

J/K. But hoo boy:

This montage of all-American amenities is lavish but strikingly common. It is what members of BLM and Antifa derive from and in fact envy.

I mean, it's a putrid stance, but it speaks to the mindset that the movie's appealing to in a way that goes beyond the well-established "but Ferris is the VILLAIN!" bit.

"Ferris is the villain" only popular in film crit circles. I've never a non-crit person who disliked him.

and, actually, I agree, with misgivings, it's Hughes' best film.

It would not be surprising to find that Ferris Bueller was a favorite film among a range of luminaries; Ferris’s like can be seen in the styles of John Roberts, Robert Francis O’Rourke, Drake, Billie Eilish, and David Hogg, who all reflect American acquisitiveness, aspiration, and individual (perhaps even reckless) choice.

Yup, first thing I think of re David Hogg is his recklessness about flaunting his individual choice.

The first thing I think of re David Hogg is how reckless I'd like to be with him flaunting it.

(note that the hormonal sci-fi of Hughes’s Weird Science is superior to anything from the Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Wouldn't be an Armond White review without at least one of these...

I don't know if I think Bueller is a villain but I do think he's a dick and I'm not a film critic

Read the review and it made me kind of sad; the old Armond was too original and zingy to recycle the same boring shit you can find in the institutional right wing; there are flashes of the old White here but there are moments where it could be Tucker Carlson and there's enough of that already.

there are flashes of the old White here

Yeah, I think this is what I responded to here, the semblance of an argument built from the evidence of the movie, for a change.

We need Chuck now. Heston remembered. https://t.co/cYHVEEbBXm pic.twitter.com/RxKnUzvu0C

— armond white (@3xchair) August 20, 2021

otm

Fauci is a "despot" people

A lesson in media trickery: How National Geographics'#Fauci sells a political despot to film culture. Read it only here: @NatGeoUS @DrFaucis1 @lizgarbus pic.twitter.com/wW7weaSjNG

— armond white (@3xchair) September 10, 2021

(I can only assume the tagging of dummy accounts is deliberate.)

He says "Read it only here:" but then didn't include a link?

Hated his Nomadland review. He takes a 40-second bit of speechifying, and that becomes the platform for his typical National Review suck-up review--couldn't even see it as, at the very least, a good road film.

If you don't think the Alec Baldwin t-shirt is a brilliantly funny, justified riposte, you probably enjoy SNL, Samantha Bee, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show, Jimmy Fallon and Bill Maher. @DonaldJTrumpJr @nbcsnl pic.twitter.com/VURC7TIsPf

— armond white (@3xchair) October 25, 2021

gosh he's right

is that Tim Heidecker on the left?

xp lol I was gonna say, but glad I didn't have to say

Alt-White

I would love to see an AW review of Malcolm & Marie (isn't one, evidently). I think it would make him apoplectic...except maybe the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" rule would apply: the film seems to be hated by some of the same lefty critics White hates, so maybe he'd contort himself into defending the film.

Wasn't sure whether to bump this thread, the detrius thread or an Obama thread...

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/obamas-13-commandments/

Here it is again. The annual list event: “Barack Obama’s Favorite Movies of 2021.” Is he competing with journalists’ awards season? Or is this uncalled-for missive-to-the-masses simply another way to convince them that the King of Kalorama thinks just like they do? A critic-friend reacted to the announcement breviloquently: “‘God’ weighs in.”

It’s always amusing to see how Team Obama keeps its grip on the culture. This yearly lecture from on high is conceived to show Obama’s smarter-than-a-populist diversions. It lines up with mainstream-media tastes. Like pollsters and advance men, Team Obama shrewdly suss out what appeals to the media and what can be sold as hipness — the same way pet social policies are promoted during election campaigns.

The odd thing about Obama’s annual Ten Commandments (now an inclusive 13 Commandments) is that it’s always aimed toward cultural “improvement,” at demonstrating evolved taste. This arts version of progressivism resembles the Soviet knack for Socialist Realism.

Let’s break it down:

Drive My Car tops the list, suggesting that Japanese artistes imitating Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya are more refined than you. This undeniable art-movie snobbery disregards Eddie Murphy’s wonderful Coming 2 America (or might that African inheritance comedy resurrect the dread Birth Certificate controversy?)

Summer of Soul celebrates black music to prove one’s ethnic authenticity, a facile con-job preferable to Belfast’s white nostalgia, the family half we don’t talk about.

West Side Story keeps America’s past racist shame alive. Honoring old friend Spielberg who “fundamentally transforms” the classic musical according to Obama’s vision of the fractured U.S. It’s also belated thanks for the Obama deification in The BFG. (c.f. Make Spielberg Great Again.)

The Power of the Dog slams American history and toxic masculinity, hiding behind the skirts of Jane Campion’s copycat feminism.

Pig distracts from that Bill Ayers, old-time radical police slur with a backstory for fine-dining gratuity, an elite’s politically correct euphemism for leaving a “tip.”

Passing mixes racial and gender identity while paying tribute to outdated black literature.

The Card Counter condemns the Iraq War, the U.S. military, the carceral system, and flirts with interracial sex. A quadruple campaign platform.

Judas and the Black Messiah distorts Sixties black activism. Funny that the new Messiah himself likes it.

The Worst Person in the World is an ironic justification of personal peccadilloes regardless of popular approval.

Old Henry replaces Faulkner’s race profundity with new American antipathy. This corrupted, unpopular Western proves these films are not consensus favorites.

The Last Duel is a chic feminist rewrite of history. Its analogy asks: Can Michelle replace Hillary?

The Tragedy of Macbeth is low-hanging fruit. If you make the obvious comparison, it either gets called a conspiracy theory or you get canceled.

C’Mon, C’Mon tells a story that’s such a broken-family, broken-nation coincidence that it easily resembles a Barack-Michelle public-service announcement.

Quo Vadis, Aida? Huh? Its Serbian subject — reviewing Bosnia’s tragedy — reminds us that foreign policy is never far from Obama’s thoughts. But why this and not Zola to give a nod to the trans activists incensed by Dave Chappelle?

No sane person believes Obama actually saw and judged the films for himself. All these choices are demagogic, geared toward endearing the electorate. The list perpetuates bias, devotion, and gullibility. That’s how movies and politics work.

Team Obama must think Hollywood needs to be reminded that the great renaissance man is on its side and that his constituents need improved taste. Or does the former president only want your fealty?

“Pig distracts from that Bill Ayers, old-time radical police slur with a backstory for fine-dining gratuity, an elite’s politically correct euphemism for leaving a “tip.””

this is the worst sentence i have ever read in my entire life

Drive My Car tops the list, suggesting that Japanese artistes imitating Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya are more refined than you.

he's on the sauce, is that it

love this guy tbh!

No sane person believes

How would Armond White know what sane people believe?