criterionforum.org

domino harvey wrote:I find his polished stuff dull and unmemorable-- he has no ideas about film outside of the flamethrower approach he's honed at NYP. His essays for Criterion are like the studious but rote papers that bored academics parse together a couple times a year for tenure-required conferences, the sort that audiences fidget politely through and then instantly forget when the next person starts speaking

yep. the Z essay was remarkable only for what it wasn't: insane ramblings from a paranoid-schizophrenic, which is what he sounds like when he turns a review of Salt into a tea-party manifesto, or any number of his other recent fever-induced ramblings. What he does in the Criterion pieces is largely straightforward, pseudo-academic, trite, and devoid of any real personal insight - which is what the best essays offer. All they really do is prove he is indeed capable of coherence, or at least he is in the hands of an actual editor, but not much else. I hate that they give him any work though, and I hope his recent descent into madness has put an end to the relationship. Anyone who pens lines like

Such escapist action tropes somehow make suspense indistinguishable from sedition.

simply can not be taken seriously. for fuck's sake.

The June 2010 issue of Sight & Sound polled several dozen critics on what they think are the "most inspirational five books about film ever written." The subject of this thread selected two books from Pauline Kael, one from Andrew Sarris and one from Richard Dyer. Ok, fair enough as it goes. So what was his fifth selection? Nothing else than The Resistance: Ten Years of Pop Culture That Shook the World. A book written of course by the man himself, Armond White. No blurb accompanied that selection. Maybe he thought that speaks for itself.

wait....you mean White was one of the critics polled, and in his five choices he included his OWN book? Jesus H Christ on a cracker. hilarious. He truly is nothing but a delusional megalomaniac.

What did he think it was, the criterionforum.org Lists Project or something?

That's like when Edward Dmytryk and Cecil B DeMille named their own movies on their ten best films ever made tallies

Ernest Borgnine recently listed Marty as one of his top five. By White standards this is really tame.

zedz wrote:What did he think it was, the criterionforum.org Lists Project or something?

I have no problem voting for my own films. Hello, my name is Peter Bogdanovich

domino harvey wrote:That's like when Edward Dmytryk and Cecil B DeMille named their own movies on their ten best films ever made tallies

It's worse- there's a difference between 'best' and 'most influential', and while it's pretty goddamned egotistical to vote for something you did as one of the best things ever made it's much worse to cite yourself as a major influence.

Although, in White's case, it would be pretty accurate for him just to list his book and a picture of his own asshole as influences.

Here's Borgnine's official top 5 films of all time.

I particularly enjoyed the Dino DeLaurentiis entry at #4

I couldn't read the rest of the list when I saw Life is Beautiful on his list. But hell what can you expect from some guy who was a huge Dubya supporter with a wife who's a poor man's Zsa Zsa Gabor?

Ebert's retort to Armond White claiming he "destroyed film criticism"

Roger Ebert wrote:I was actually quite chuffed to read this. He's the only one of my colleagues willing to admit the power of my influence.

Considering all he's been through, it's quite admirable that Ebert remains a classy dude. I'm not always on board with his criticism, but he's clearly smart and his love of film is infectious. Armond, however, continues to bend time and space by finding new ways to be impossible to take seriously.

From his review of Machete

If this kind of selfconscious cinema junk is to be enjoyed, it can only be enjoyed by morons.

Haha Armond White is basically Pat from Achewood- compare that comment to "However, I more enjoy his music intentionally, rather than out of any genuine joy that it creates for me. It just seems responsible to own some."

recalls the underrated (yet brilliant) Jonah Hex

Again Armond? Really?

Armond is not a fan. Of The Social Network, that is.

I couldn't guess in advance which movie(s) Armond would say were better. I certainly didn't see this one coming.

Armond White wrote:Not Soul Man, Harvard Man nor The Paper Chase—all movies that “got Harvard” to varying instructive degrees—The Social Network is simply Hollywood’s way, post- Obama, of sanctioning Harvard’s “masters of the universe” mystique.

Oh, he loves Soul Man. He wrote a whole separate piece on it somewhere.

As to this review, it's certainly no shock as he has never had anything good to say about Fincher.

Armond White wrote:a frighteningly casual presentation of the self-righteous hostility that has become Internet etiquette.

Self-righteous hostility, you say?

He's also extended the Social Network review into a screed against Rotten Tomatoes 'groupthink' and the downfall of film criticism (except his own unfettered beacon of truth of course).

Reviews of blockbuster films Toy Story 3 and Inception by established professional film critics (myself particularly) received a record number of largely intemperate posts on the RottenTomatoes site

\:D/

HistoryProf wrote:a screed against Rotten Tomatoes

He seems more desperate and incoherent than usual. His use of (poorly employed) verbal razzle-dazzle to mask his half-baked notions reminds me of my first semester as an English major. Not a new criticism, I know, but, god God, this guy... A perverse idea, but, can anyone else picture him as a reality show villain?

If anyone's familiar with radio UFO crackpot Riley Martin, his are the mannerisms and voice that I hear in my head whenever I read an Armond review.

For some reason the voice I hear is that of Kramer's lawyer in Seinfeld. If they ever make a biopic...