The Armond White Thread

[rs98762001]

I can't stop laughing. The man can't really believe what he writes, can he?

[aox]

Is that real?

[domino harvey]

What we've all been waiting for: Spielberg's Game Changers

It's like picking a favorite child but... best Armond White article ever?

The idea that Altman's Neve Campbell ballet film is the pinnacle of modern dance on-screen is willfully obtuse on the part of White, who we know at least loves Hollywood musicals from the fifties-- but then again, so do most film lovers, so that's not a good point of confrontat-- I mean reference.

[stroszeck]

Wow. I'm now really really curious to know what the REAL reason is why White elevates every single Spielberg movie as if it fell down from the firmaments. There's got to be some thing that happened between them years ago that he's held onto, like maybe White was crossing a street and Spielberg approached him and gave him a compliment on his shirt or something. There's no way any critic would openly gush over the complete filmography of a filmmaker, particularly one who has been as divisive as the Berg has in recent years. (My nine year old nephew thought Indy 5 was "corny" and thought Tintin was "just ok")

[tavernier]

maybe White was crossing a street and Spielberg approached him and gave him a compliment on his shirt or something.

awesome image

[Arthur House]

Wow. I'm now really really curious to know what the REAL reason is why White elevates every single Spielberg movie as if it fell down from the firmaments. There's got to be some thing that happened between them years ago that he's held onto, like maybe White was crossing a street and Spielberg approached him and gave him a compliment on his shirt or something. There's no way any critic would openly gush over the complete filmography of a filmmaker, particularly one who has been as divisive as the Berg has in recent years. (My nine year old nephew thought Indy 5 was "corny" and thought Tintin was "just ok")

I read a personality profile on White once, where he claimed he had an epiphany after walking 40 miles in the Detroit snow or something* to see Close Encounters... on its original release, and that set him on the road to being a critic. He went on to say that Spielberg was the finest humanist in films since John Ford.

*I jest, but he did have to take a few buses and then walk a bit to get to the theatre and back.

[rs98762001]

...like maybe White was crossing a street and Spielberg approached him and gave him a compliment on his shirt or something.

Hilarious. But probably true.

[Gregory]

Probably this shirt

[The Narrator Returns]

In news that should surprise no one, he just compared Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance to Godard.

[knives]

And? Their previous efforts have had some similarities to early Godard though for dramatically different purposes.

[Mr Sausage]

Armond's prose is excruciating. He has a tin ear ("jokingly provoke", ugh), and he can't ever seem to put together a coherent argument. His reviews are a series of (usually incomprehensible) non-sequiturs. There is so much jargon, and so often he replaces simple, clear words with bigger synonyms that say the same thing, only less well, like he's a freshman English student trying to jazz up his unimpressive thoughts.

How can someone be a professional writer for so many years and in such respected publications and be this inarticulate?

[jbeall]

Because giving trolls column-space guarantees lots of hits.

[SpiderBaby]

I actually enjoyed this new Ghost Rider film.

[Cold Bishop]

I like Neveldine & Taylor. It's just too bad that this blowhard is their biggest champion.

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

Most junk movies (The Terminator, Iron Man, Kick-Ass, Thor and others) cheat us out of moral reckoning; Neveldine-Taylor jokingly provoke our conscience by heightening action tropes. Narrative acceleration (sped-up camera moves, jump-cut editing) gets so technically striking that viewers are forced to question their comprehension where most movies simply request intermittent attention.

If only this were true. But the idea that a moral conscience arises from the current taste in accelerated action--speed achieved by a cut--relies on sophistic arguments that belie the emptiness of the claim. Alternatively, we would have to say that a fight filmed without a cut is morally bankrupt, or that anything filmed without a Pop sensibility--without simultaneously extolling and critiquing surfaces--is a disingenuous fraud. But Ghost Rider is not a Campbell's soup can; he is a character courting a fan's absolutely willing, quasi-religious faith in a Marvel-verse that must constantly divulge details in order to defibrillate the imagined world (with maps, family trees, interactions with other superheroes, etc.) and sustain the faith, not unlike Middle-earth or the Galactic Republic.
Additionally, White must believe that a deconstructed, hyperbolic action sequence calls the content into question--the old Brechtian trick and perhaps the reason for the comparison with Godard. I would respond that putting violence into the realm of impossible physics betrays the real experiences of violence in this world; if anything, it attempts (always unsuccessfully) to depoliticize them. (In the interest of full disclosure, I just saw Zombie Holocaust and loved it.)

[wattsup32]

Most junk movies (The Terminator, Iron Man, Kick-Ass, Thor and others) cheat us out of moral reckoning; Neveldine-Taylor jokingly provoke our conscience by heightening action tropes. Narrative acceleration (sped-up camera moves, jump-cut editing) gets so technically striking that viewers are forced to question their comprehension where most movies simply request intermittent attention.

Either Neveldine or Taylor was on the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast discussing "Crank 2: High Voltage" and the new Ghost Rider movie. Even a cursory listen to that episode will reveal that these guys haphazardly slap their films together by doing whatever strikes their fancy in the moment. I don't mean this in the pejorative. I like watching the crazy ballsiness they put together. I am, however, suggesting that Our Hero is a full of shit sophist because he either knows what he is saying has been explicitly denied by the directors, or he's too lazy a critic to seek out easy to locate director statements that would clarify his thoughts about their work.

By the way, if you aren't listening to the "How Did This Get Made?" podcast, you really should be. It is hilarious and a ton of fun.

[knives]

It was Taylor and I don't think you're giving them enough credit. Certainly they do come from the Suzuki let's just make everything interesting school, but that doesn't preclude actual intelligence or satire on their part.

[wattsup32]

It was Taylor and I don't think you're giving them enough credit. Certainly they do come from the Suzuki let's just make everything interesting school, but that doesn't preclude actual intelligence or satire on their part.

I was neither giving credit nor denying it. My comment wasn't about them; it was about Armond's assessment of their intent as artist. Taylor explicitly denied several times that they aren't doing any of what White was quoted as saying.

[Bill Thompson]

When I read what White wrote in that quoted sentence I rad man commenting on the finished product, not the intentions of the directors while filming. He's giving his thoughts on what their direction ended up giving to the audience, not making a statement about whether the two directors actually intended to do as such in the first place.

I'll be the first to admit that Armond is a crazy guy, but I dig his writing and I like his criticism. I hardly agree with him, but I don't really need to. His tastes are just as valid as any other critic or movie lover out there. I often don't agree with his interpretations or how he comes to his conclusions about a film, but I'm not willing to call the man a troll or dismiss his opinion simply because he doesn't like/dislike the same movies as the majority. Personally I wouldn't want to live in a world where individual thought was jettisoned in favor of critical groupthink.

[Brian C]

When I read what White wrote in that quoted sentence I rad man commenting on the finished product, not the intentions of the directors while filming. He's giving his thoughts on what their direction ended up giving to the audience, not making a statement about whether the two directors actually intended to do as such in the first place.

Well, in plain English, that's not really what he says. He says that "Neveldine-Taylor" do something, not that the movie does it, and furthermore he adds an adverb that clearly implies intent ("jokingly").

[Bill Thompson]

But he can say that they do something, because they are doing something with their direction. That something does not have to be intentional however, it can be an unintentional result. Again, I do not believe that he implies intention, but that he is more speaking the end product and why he believes it works. I can see where others could interpret your stance from what he has written, but that's not the vibe I got from this particular quotation.

[Brian C]

But he can say that they do something, because they are doing something with their direction. That something does not have to be intentional however, it can be an unintentional result. Again, I do not believe that he implies intention, but that he is more speaking the end product and why he believes it works. I can see where others could interpret your stance from what he has written, but that's not the vibe I got from this particular quotation.

Fair enough - in lieu of reading what is actually written, I will defer to your "vibes".

[Bill Thompson]

Fair enough - in lieu of reading what is actually written, I will defer to your "vibes".

That's a pretty unfair attempt at snark, and uncalled for I would say. I already explained how the piece is actually written and what I think the piece says based on the way it was written. The vibe comment was simply an ending statement to explain how I understand people could get a different feeling from what he wrote.

[Mr Sausage]

Armond's piece is built on the intentional fallacy. The first sentence alone declares his purpose:

If the filmmaking team Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor wrote out their thoughts on how contemporary pop has traduced fun, warped thrills and debased energy in the art form they love, it would be a great provocative piece of criticism—although few film publications would want such a principled view of the destructive entertainment that’s routinely sold to the public.

His thesis is that the filmmakers have thoughtful, principled views about culture that they are working through in their films (apparently, Neveldine and Taylor would be very surprised to hear that). The premise of Armond's review is that everything in their movies is intentional.

[Bill Thompson]

I was responding to the specific quoted piece, not the entire review. If the entire article comes together as a whole to speak about intention then I will take your word for it (not opposed to reading the article, but I do try to avoid reading reviews of movies I have yet to see), but the supplied quote that was being bandied about did not, by itself, speak of intention, but rather result.