criterionforum.org

Posted: **Thu Feb 05, 2009 4:04 am**

I love this AW observation:

The day I saw Wall-E taught me about the uselessness of current family cartoons: It was a late Monday afternoon following Wall-E’s weekend box-office “win.” School was on holiday, yet an adult, a child and myself were the only people at the matinee. Apparently, despite critical hosannas, word-of-mouth had already pegged Wall-E as no fun. Liberated school kids had better things to do than watch a dystopia that then morphed into saccharine, manipulative Pixar formula.

He twists himself into a pretzel trying to say that kids were smart enough to stay away from ta movie that ended up making $223 million at the box office in the U.S. alone. (Note "win" in quotes.) But if word-of-mouth pegged the movie as "no fun," how the fuck did it make so much money? And if "liberated" students knew enough to stay away from this piece of junk, doesn't that ruin AW's argument that people are stupid and they'll lap up any kind of Hollywood drivel?
I'm also curious where he saw the movie with only 2 other people in the theater on the Monday before July 4: maybe the word got out he was in the house so they allowed everyone to see it in another theater in the multiplex?

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:21 am**

AW disagrees.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:19 am**

But doesn't he always?

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:21 am**

I hate so much about the things he chooses to be

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:43 pm**

Armond can lick my sweaty taint.

I've taught summer classes to snotty kids from all sorts of backgrounds who're behind in school, and the idea that

It’s all designed to flatter the middle-class art-film audience’s patronizing attitude toward the Third World.These kids’ claim on the conscience of the bourgeois West invokes post-9/11 guilt—a piety so strong that it fools many liberals into mistaking their condescension for empathy.

is nothing more than Armond's asinine condescension projected onto people who actually get out once in a while. Having been around kids like those in The Class, I try really hard to be empathic and usually fail. It sucks when your audience not only has no interest in what you're trying to do, but actively works to prevent you from doing it. Does that automatically mean they're bad people? No, but sometimes the kids are just shitheads, and sometimes growing up in unfortunate circumstances just makes people ignorant and stupid. I've wanted to call my kids "skanks" and worse, and have held my temper, but it's not hard to imagine someone slipping up after being pushed long and hard enough. It's a fairly realistic reaction.

Bégaudeau brightens when his most hostile pupil says she’s just read Plato’s The Republic. Plainly, she’s learned nothing from it, yet Cantet accepts this apple-polishing as victory.

Is Armond really that naive a viewer that he makes no distinction between the character's and director's respective viewpoints?!?!? OF COURSE Bégaudeau brightens up--I know the feeling well, but how many high school students from any background are going to get something from The Republic? (At Rutgers, I doubt anybody other than poli sci majors get anything out of it, and maybe it's enough to be satisfied with at least opening a window in the student's mind to a world beyond the limited one they already know.) That doesn't mean Cantet lacks a certain ironic distance from Bégaudeau. Maybe Armond oughta learn how to read (books or films) more carefully before he throws stones from glass houses.

Our imperfect democracy has surpassed this French liberal romanticism at least since Robert Mulligan’s 1967 film Up the Down Staircase. When Sandy Dennis’ suburban white teacher coped with the turmoil of an urban high school, a veteran casually advised, “You can’t give up, and you can’t give them up. They’ve been given up already. We’re their last chance. Or maybe they’re our last chance.” Cantet doesn't quite know how to say that.

Who's the romantic now? Cantet's too smart to say it because it reeks of sentimentality, and that's not what his film is about. Jesus, the worst type of critic is one who rips on the ideology of others from the safety of his own sheltered existence while pretending that he's somehow not guilty of trying to impose his own, even more limited ideology on every fucking film he watches. Sometimes, Armond, a film adopts realism as its aesthetic!! Not all films, Armond, have to conform to someone's romantic vision of film morality!!! As if we didn't already go through this argument 150 years ago when Flaubert and Baudelaire were put on trial for offending the ruling aesthetic morality. ](*,) ](*,) If there's a more narrow-minded asshole than Armond White writing film criticism today, god help us all.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:02 pm**

People should just stop linking to Armond White reviews. It's like trolling by proxy.

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 5:24 pm**

Like the proverbial stopped clock, Armey is RIGHT on this one. =D>

Posted: **Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:20 pm**

Armey = Barmy? :-k

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2009 3:05 pm**

Not exactly. Barmy's only agreeing with White here b/c the latter is critiquing liberals without having a clue what he's talking about. How Barmy-esque.

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2009 6:16 pm**

Oh come on, Armond's not that bad, especially considering the standard of what passes for film criticism in the USA (haven't seen The Class yet, but hated Time Out).

Posted: **Sun Feb 15, 2009 8:50 pm**

Armond = Nothing?

Posted: **Tue Feb 17, 2009 5:08 pm**

The New York profile of our favorite critic.

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 2:08 am**

BenKess wrote:To put it plainly, Armond White is a genius. His writing fundamentally and forever changed the way I view art and life.

cannot register

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 6:56 am**

Mark Jacobson wrote:All this, along with sites like Armond Dangerous—Parsing the Confounding Film Criticism of Mr. Armond White, which offers coverage of White’s self- declared “humanist” jeremiad against Williamsburg-style “nihilism” (the page links to an article called “Hip to Be Square: Armond White vs. the Ghost Hipsters Part 16”), brings a smile to the critic’s eternally bemused, goateed face.

“Shows I’m doing my job,” he says, leaning back from his bento box in a Ninth Avenue sushi restaurant.

one paragraph down

White says, "I don’t say these things to call attention to myself or to get a rise out of people."

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:58 am**

Anyone who can enrage fanboys by arguing, at length, that Hellboy II is nowhere near as good as the Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name" is worthy of no small measure of respect if you ask me.

While I seldom agree with him and seldom seek out his reviews, I think that there should be a place for critics like White. Like it or not, he does bring a different perspective and a different approach.

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:00 pm**

JonathanM wrote:Anyone who can enrage fanboys by arguing, at length, that Hellboy II is nowhere near as good as the Ting Tings' "That's Not My Name" is worthy of no small measure of respect if you ask me.

Let's be honest: enraging fanboys is by no means a difficult thing to do.

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:22 pm**

Mr_sausage wrote:Let's be honest: enraging fanboys is by no means a difficult thing to do.

True, but doing it via the medium of unflattering comparisons with rubbish pop songs does have a certain degree of flair.

Posted: **Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:57 pm**

In high school, bored with the trite homework assignments I'd been given, I tried to get my English teacher to sign off on an essay comparing Franklin Pierce and a gallon of milk. Obviously I was being an annoying little shit and my teacher told me to show some respect for the assignment. A good editor would have passed a similar message on to White.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:00 am**

So you would argue that he was being disrespectful to what... the film? the post of film critic?

As for the first possibility, I don't see being disrespectful as a bad thing. Particularly when it's directed at a film as utterly generic and unambitious as Hellboy II. If my job was to write about the week's big films and I'd sat through every summer blockbuster in 2008 I think I'd be disrespectful by the end of it too.

As for the second possibility, I think it's up to the individual to determine his own tolerances for the demands of the job. As far as disrespect is concerned, I much prefer the disrespect shown in an insulting but original and entertaining comparison to the daily disrespect of lifestyle hacks who cut and paste press releases in lieu of opinion.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2009 1:04 am**

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.

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:26 am**

Jeff wrote:They say that the man is a colossal prick and as obstinate and despicable as his reviews would lead you to believe.

"Just doin' my job."

Posted: **Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:40 am**

Wonder how often he sleeps during the films? Bet he rarely watches and just has an opinion from the start.
Also I liked Hellboy 2 very much, got to at least give Del Toro an A for effort and love.

Posted: **Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:00 pm**

Jeff wrote: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.

Judging by the lack of response, I'm guessing this particular form of internet sideswiping doesn't bother anyone but me. Nevertheless, I'd like to respond. Anonymous sources ( "a couple of other New York-based critics who regularly attend screenings with AW and who sit on NYFCC with him") have called this guy a "colossal prick and as obstinate and despicable as his reviews would lead you to believe."

Sorry, but in spite of the fact I am no fan of his opinion(s), I really loathe having people quote unnamed sources to substantiate their emotional responses to a public figure's opinions.

Posted: **Thu Feb 26, 2009 11:28 pm**

Mestes wrote:Sorry, but in spite of the fact I am no fan of his opinion(s), I really loathe having people quote unnamed sources to substantiate their emotional responses to a public figure's opinions.

Indeed so. Plus, he could enjoy fucking fat little boys inside the crematoria at Auschwitz and it wouldn't have any bearing one way or the other on his critical output. i can think of a number of great critics who were, by even the most charitable of yardsticks, complete pricks and it didn't stop them from being great critics. Indeed, one might even suggest that in order to be a great critic you have to be willing to work hard at not being a nice guy.

Posted: **Fri Feb 27, 2009 12:55 am**

JonathanM wrote: Indeed so. Plus, he could enjoy fucking fat little boys inside the crematoria at Auschwitz and it wouldn't have any bearing one way or the other on his critical output.

What are you talking about?

criterionforum.org

The Armond White Thread

Re: Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009)

Re: The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

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Re: The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

Re: The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

Re: The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

Re: The Class (Laurent Cantet, 2008)

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Re: Film Criticism

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Re: Film Criticism