The Armond White Thread

[colinr0380]

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

It's not even a standard setter in Brian De Palma's career! (Alright so perhaps I went in with the wrong attitude, hoping for some sort of filmic version of a Kim Stanley Robinson novel. But as I think I've quipped before on the forum, if your Mars film is up against Red Planet with Val Kilmer and that film ends up seeming more entertaining and comparatively more plausible(!), then you're in trouble!)

[Nothing]

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.

Er... I was being ironic. Those are some of the worst films of 2008. Roger Ebert is, to quote a fair and reasoned source, a "fat pig". 8-[

More to the point, why wasn't that review under the NY Press banner? Have NY Press bowed under pressure (studio pressure?) and let Armond go?

[Fierias]

More to the point, why wasn't that review under the NY Press banner? Have NY Press bowed under pressure (studio pressure?) and let Armond go?

Have no fear.

[Nothing]

Have no fear.

A deep sense of relief overcomes me

[domino harvey]

Look, I could care less about Pixar and Up, but even I can concede that

Up’s uninteresting story of an old widower who attaches his home to helium balloons and floats off to Venezuela

Does not compute. It may sound pretty dumb, but it's still anything but uninteresting

[domino harvey]

Wait, stop the presses:

No matter how many people get verklempt over the lugubrious Benjamin Button, I know in my soul that history will avenge the Wayanses’ superior age/masculinity farce Little Man and fans who have already forgotten Eminem’s 8 Mile will one day catch up to Damon Wayans’ insightful hip-hop burlesque, Marci X.

[kaujot]

I have no words.

[jbeall]

I don't know if this question has been answered on this thread, but how is Armond any different from a troll? To be a contrarian is one thing, but Armond simply cannot believe the shit he writes. Is he not a troll only b/c he's writing reviews instead of posting in a forum?

[Caged Horse]

the Wayanses’ superior age/masculinity farce Little Man

Has the time come for me to reassess my love of Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress, on the basis that Armond White wrote the Criterion edition's appreciative liner notes?

[HarryLong]

Has anyone considered the possibility that this guy really needs to be on medication?

[Anhedionisiac]

He doesn't need medication, he needs a straitjacket and a one-way ticket to Bellevue

[dx23]

I don't know if this question has been answered on this thread, but how is Armond any different from a troll? To be a contrarian is one thing, but Armond simply cannot believe the shit he writes. Is he not a troll only b/c he's writing reviews instead of posting in a forum?

And too me that should disqualify all of his reviews from sites like Rottentomatoes.

[rs98762001]

Wait, stop the presses:

No matter how many people get verklempt over the lugubrious Benjamin Button, I know in my soul that history will avenge the Wayanses’ superior age/masculinity farce Little Man and fans who have already forgotten Eminem’s 8 Mile will one day catch up to Damon Wayans’ insightful hip-hop burlesque, Marci X.

He's right though in this case. There's no way Little Man can be any worse than Benjamin Button.

[Antoine Doinel]

As probably the only person on this forum who has seen a significant amount of the film Little Man, I can positively say, it is far, far worse than Benjamin Button. And for anyone who has sat for even two minutes of Little Man, it's all the evidence you need that AW is either delusional or the kind of guy that writes something outrageous and then sits at home trawling the internet to bask in the reaction.

Or both.

[domino harvey]

The sheer amount of time not devoted to any film under discussion leads me to believe, and I think I've said this before, that his reviews are 90% written before he actually sees the film

[jojo]

I always read his reviews for a laugh. He is a funny guy.

[Perkins Cobb]

I think some of you guys are missing the point. I've been critical of Armond too, but he really is a good (or once good) writer and a serious thinker who happens to have gone 'round the bend. He is not taking these contrary opinions to get attention (writing for the NY Press, that's not gonna happen anyway). He really believes them. He may be talking himself into believing them out of some psychological need to separate himself from the pack, and he obviously has a need to one-up himself on every other critic and on his readership. But one thing he is not is insincere.

I also subscribe to the stopped-clock theory on Armond: even though his criticism doesn't have the value it did ten years ago, most of his reviews still contain one or two phrases that are genuinely insightful, or call the movie in question on some bullshit that many other critics have swallowed. Otherwise, he wouldn't be worth reading at all, or worth mocking.

I mean, Rex Reed's reviews are even more densely packed with pushy, obnoxious howlers, but we don't have an eight-page thread devoted entirely to his stupidity.

[domino harvey]

Well, I believe Rex Reed's transparency is more honest than White's single-minded assault on the status quo. If Reed says he likes a film, it may hold little weight since I don't value his opinion, but I still believe that judgment comes from the film under discussion, not preconceived notions of the film

[solaris72]

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

WHAT
He calls out Pixar for sentimentality but loves Mission to Fucking Mars?!
One of the stupidest, most mawkish and falsely self-important SF films of the last thirty years?
It is in no way a "visionary trend-setter," even by the low standards of movies set on Mars.

[Mr Sausage]

But one thing he is not is insincere.

That's the goddamn problem. The guy so aggressively means everything he says. Even Ebert manages some irony now and again.

[John Cope]

Yeah irony is always a good thing but Armond's reviews/views are so aggressively self-contained that they call attention to themselves as such and irony, I would say, settles as though by default into a penumbra surrounding them.

Anyway, I meant to respond to this from a couple pages back:

Glenn Kenny's comments nailed it as usual. Despite what Thelma Adams said, I have heard from a couple of other New York-based critics who regularly attend screenings with AW and who sit on NYFCC with him. They say that the man is a colossal prick and as obstinate and despicable as his reviews would lead you to believe.

That may or may not be true but fwiw I interviewed him five or six years ago and have kept in sporadic contact since then and found him nothing but amenable to discussion and approachable. God knows he has committed views but he always seems willing to discuss their underlying merits and fully engage with criticism of them (he spoke once of the self-conscious intentionality of filmic devices in both Bertolucci and, unavoidably, Spielberg--that these things were never meant to be subtle but rather blatant and direct--which was something for some reason I had never considered till then). I ultimately agree with Perkins Cobb that it's become harder to see the merits in AW's pov but that I still greatly sympathize with what he values in a more fundamental sense (i.e. sincere melodrama, etc.) and can see where he's coming from usually in principle if not in application. But, yeah, no persuasion can justify or make good sense of the championing he has done for Mission to Mars.

[domino harvey]

From what I understand, Armond White is usually very affable and polite to someone's face, it's when you've left the room that the claws come out. You may recognize this behavior as that of a coward

[Perkins Cobb]

The guy so aggressively means everything he says. Even Ebert manages some irony now and again.

It's the Bill Maher effect. Armond has gradually slipped from passionate advocacy to being that blowhard at a party who shouts down everybody with a differing opinion.

The only time I've encountered him in person was at a "question and answer" session after a screening of Loving, during which Armond managed to keep Irvin Kershner from getting a word in edgewise. If you've ever met Kershner, you know that's a formidable accomplishment.

But I'm kind of with him on Mission to Mars.

[MichaelB]

From what I understand, Armond White is usually very affable and polite to someone's face, it's when you've left the room that the claws come out. You may recognize this behavior as that of a coward

Yes, but how does this differ from posting relentless personal attacks on named individuals on an online forum while hiding behind a pseudonym?

OK, maybe your name really is Domino Harvey, but I'm not sure what Nothing's excuse is...

[domino harvey]

From what I understand, Armond White is usually very affable and polite to someone's face, it's when you've left the room that the claws come out. You may recognize this behavior as that of a coward

Yes, but how does this differ from posting relentless personal attacks on named individuals on an online forum while hiding behind a pseudonym?

OK, maybe your name really is Domino Harvey, but I'm not sure what Nothing's excuse is...

What in the world?