The Armond White Thread

[domino harvey]

He's exhausted his allowable Spielberg references for the rest of his career. At this point I wouldn't even accept a Jurassic Park comment in reference to Carnosaur

[MichaelB]

He's exhausted his allowable Spielberg references for the rest of his career.

Oh, fair enough.

[colinr0380]

I would agree with Michael's defence of Armond White's reference to The Terminal, though with the caveat that even a stopped clock is correct twice a day! It was only a matter of time before a Spielberg reference would actually turn out to be relevant to the matter at hand! Enjoy the fleeting moment of appropriate alignment before he continues on with applying the use of sound in the latest Terence Malick film unfavourably to the soundtrack of Always or something similar.

[JonathanM]

Though based on everything I've heard about the film, he's probably right in his negative opinion, Armond White's review for Observe and Report is one of the most ineptly structured and executed pieces of writing to ever appear in a major publication. There is no way in hell this isn't the first draft result of a 2AM email to his editor an hour after the film was over.

The problem is that the goods are all in that first paragraph. The rest of it is just padding and re-iteration.

[tavernier]

With its giddily complex noir plot and color-drenched widescreen images, Made in U.S.A was a final burst of exuberance from Jean-Luc Godard’s early sixties barrage of delirious movie-movies. Yet this chaotic crime thriller and acidly funny critique of consumerism—featuring Anna Karina as the most brightly dressed private investigator in film history, rummaging through an intricate plot for a former lover who might have been assassinated—also points toward the more political cinema that would come to define Godard. Featuring characters with names such as Richard Nixon, Robert McNamara, David Goodis, and Doris Mizoguchi, and appearances by a slapstick Jean-Pierre Léaud and a sweetly singing Marianne Faithfull, this piece of pop art is like a Looney Tunes rendition of The Big Sleep gone New Wave.

Time to fire whichever intern wrote this shit

That has Armond's fingerprints all over it.

[kaujot]

If there isn't a Spielberg reference, it's not Armond.

[Barmy]

It's Godard's wackiest, zaniest flick!

[tavernier]

AW loves Melville's Leon Morin, Priest.

My favorite bit of Armondian inscrutability:

It doesn’t deny the kind of spirituality today’s critics desperately avoid in Steve McQueen’s Hunger

[domino harvey]

I do like the film but

An argument could be made for Leon Morin, Priest as Melville’s finest film

No it could not

[Nothing]

I was just going to say "All we need now to confirm it might be good is an Armond White pan," and then wouldn't you know:

It’s watchable, yet still terrible cinema.

And, yet, Armond is almost certainly right, as usual.

[Cde.]

Despite his habit of delving head first into irrelevancies and comparing everything to his list of favourites, I don't think Armond is wrong more often than any other critic working for a major print publication in America.

[Fiery Angel]

Despite his habit of delving head first into irrelevancies and comparing everything to his list of favourites, I don't think Armond is wrong more often than any other critic working for a major print publication in America.

That's more an indictment of his profession than a defense of his critical acumen.

[swo17]

It's not that he is wrong, but how he is wrong that puts Armond in a whole other league.

[Fiery Angel]

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Movies.

[domino harvey]

Posted and discussed on the second page of this thread

[Fiery Angel]

Sorry, I didn't notice that piece was April 30, 2008. It looked familiar but I just assumed it was Armond repeating himself, not me not paying attention.

[Cash Flagg]

He pans Up.

[knives]

How can he decry sentimentality, and then worship Spielberg?

[Nothing]

As usual, there's a use and a justification for Armond's attack but he goes a little overboard. I've seen most of the Pixar flicks, with children, and in such a context the films provide reasonable entertainment. The problem arises when so-called film critics start to claim that Wall-E is one of the best of year - it isn't, it's sentimental corporate trash at heart, just as Armond says. But the films are harmless enough and they have a function, so, ultimately, Armond comes off looking like a scrooge. Or, to quote The Big Lebowski, "you're not wrong, Donny, you're just an asshole."

Indeed it's this article that makes me sick.

Oh NO, how could anyone POSSIBLY dislike The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Star Trek and Iron Man... How entirely contrarian, either that or the man must be crazy... :-#

[knives]

Okay Armie

On a more serious note, why can't a pixar movie be considered great just because it comes from the Pixar house? Using your logic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has no artistic merit, something I'll fight you tooth and nail for. Just because something comes from a corporation or big studio does not by virtue reduce its merits to nothing. Let's say Pixar was the company that put out your favorite movie, does that take away the artistic merits of that movie?

Not liking Wall-e or the Incredibles is perfectly fine. No one movie can get a 100% consensus, but to say that those movies have no artistic merit, as White continues to do and you have suggested, because you don't like the product, or aspects of the product is superficial and ridiculous.

And like I said in my earlier post, if White is going to attack an aspect of a film because of what his pattern for liking is, it shouldn't be, and would be hypocritical to be, sentimentality.

[JonathanM]

If he'd said that about the Dreamworks cartoons then I'd agree with him.

And that's coming from someone who thought that Ratatouille was unrelentingly terrible.

[Caged Horse]

Using your logic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has no artistic merit, something I'll fight you tooth and nail for..

As would I -- but any film from that era, animated or not, has earned the valediction of history, which is to say the attention and endorsement (conscious or otherwise) of several generations of audiences, critics and scholars. Pixar's 1995-onwards oeuvre hasn't -- yet -- though I'm quietly confident some of the 'animation masterpieces' AW mentions (Chicken Little?!) stand a lot less chance.

[bunuelian]

I thought I'd read his Star Trek review to see if it would satisfy me as someone who thinks it's terrible, despite my Trekkieness. I think his review is about as terrible as the movie, but possibly more entertaining.

Is Mission to Mars really a "visionary standard-setter"?

[dx23]

Oh NO, how could anyone POSSIBLY dislike The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Star Trek and Iron Man... How entirely contrarian, either that or the man must be crazy...

I think is it just his gimmick. That is the way he has brought readers to his reviews. Look at the fact that we have a thread dedicated to him and it says enough about the impact of this "I hate everything everyone likes" gimmick.

"you're not wrong, Donny, you're just an asshole."

This is what it is going to say in his tombstone, since it clearly describes his legacy. 20 years from now, people will still read Roger Ebert reviews, while Mr White here will be long forgotten or just dismissed as the asshole reviewer who didn't like movies.

[Vic Pardo]

Oh NO, how could anyone POSSIBLY dislike The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Star Trek and Iron Man... How entirely contrarian, either that or the man must be crazy...

Just for the record, I didn't like DARK KNIGHT, SLUMDOG, STAR TREK or IRON MAN either. The only reason I can't say I didn't like THE WRESTLER is because I haven't seen it. I might like THE WRESTLER, though. Unlike those other films, it actually seems to be about something. I tend not to like big-budget special effects movies anyway, unless they have a sense of humor and don't take themselves too seriously, like TRANSFORMERS. Or have some interesting design schemes, like 300, which also had a sense of humor--and wasn't that big-budget either.