Armond's Evil

Hello, boys and girls! Long time, no see! Today we're looking at Armond White's review of "Resident Evil: Afterlife." Enjoy!

Sometimes directors grab an opportunity just to stretch their filmmaking muscles. That explains both Mark Romanek’s new venture, Never Let Me Go, and why Paul W.S. Anderson has essayed Resident Evil: Afterlife, his second movie in the Resident Evil series, which he initiated with the fantastically swift, streamlined and compelling original film in 2002.

If by "original", you mean based on a long-running series of Japanese video games, sure.

In Afterlife, Anderson confirms his astonishing gift for imagery and frighteningly good action craft. Despite the grim, pessimistic CapCom video game premise where Alice (Milla Jovovich) fights a constantly mutating, globe-threatening virus—like Ripley always battling those aliens—Anderson finds ways to depict apocalyptic scenarios that actually suggest foresight.

Foresight of Apocalyptic scenarios, that is. It's not like Anderson was predicting the economy in Q3 of 2012 or something.

They have a stylish, sharp-witted sense of the future and a dreamy, exciting faith in human resilience embodied in Jovovich’s lithe, resourceful, strikingly lovely Alice, as well as a group of survivors that include actors Boris Kodjoe and Ali Larter.

Some of the best actors of a generation, to be sure.

But I get it now: Armond prefers apocalyptic futures with faith in humanity. Just like I prefer my skiing to be extra rocky.

If critics and fanboys weren’t suckers for simplistic nihilism

DRINK!!!!!

and high-pressure marketing, Afterlife would be universally acclaimed as a visionary feat, superior to Inception and Avatar on every level.

You know what, Armond? You're absolutely right. If "critics" and "fanboys" didn't … like… other… movies… they… would… like… this… one.

Brilliant!

Just look at how Anderson activates his canvas in the plane crash sequence. First, the shock of the crash is solarized in a wide shot, then he cuts to the interior where the imagery is frozen yet the camera pans left, moving through suspended time, characters and objects, all composed in perfect pop-art balance like a James Rosenquist panorama, and then the camera pivots—and in 3-D.

Holy Sh*t! He has a wide shot of a crash! Then an interior shot! An interior shot that MOVES! IN MOTHAF*CKING 3-D!

What incredible, mind-blowing, innovating directing! Wide-shot then interior shot… WOW!

Did someone forget to mention to Armond that there are two Paul Andersons, and this is the other one?

Anderson redeems that techno-gimmick which James Cameron foolishly hawks as a gateway to new perception because he realizes it’s just a play thing, not a New Age talisman.

Anderson redeems 3-D because he realizes its a gimmick and uses it anyway? Is Barry Bonds redeemed for realizing steroids were shrinking his junk but using them anyway?

Anderson toys with 3-D for artistic caprice, constantly shifting levels, distance, perspective, layers.

3-D has layers. Like Onions. Or Ogres.

He’s a clear-eyed visionary who expiates videogame cynicism, insisting on imaginative potential. When Alice is resurrected from her android state (“Thank you for making me human”), it confirms Anderson’s ingenuity as a life force.

So, to recap, not only is Anderson a magnificent, visionary director, he's an ingenious "life force"!

Afterlife opens with deceptively dark movie homages to Demy’s Umbrellas of Cherbourg, plus teasing riffs on Hitchcock’s The Birds, Terminator, even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre when Jovovich and Larter team up to facedown a terrifying male behemoth—

You can call them "homages". You can also call them "rip-offs".

it’s a stunning bad bitcharama.

Now I know why Armond enjoyed this film.

Anderson never got the respect he deserved for his great Death Race.

Don't forget his epic masterpiece "Mortal Kombat".

But now that opportunity’s knocked again, he knocks it into the stratosphere.

Wait… Opportunity knocks, he knocks Opportunity into the stratosphere? You mean like instead of taking said Opportunity, he hits it so far away from him it ends up in the atmosphere? Did Armond mix up what he was saying?

Either Armond was being surprisingly honest here or he needs to brush up on his metaphors.

Armond White on /Filmcast

Our pal Armond appeared on the /Filmcast to more or less explain himself in front of the virtual lynch mob that's been lighting their torches and sharpening their pitchforks ever since he panned District 9.

For right now, there's far too many gangrenous quotes from Mr. White for me to wade through here, but expect a post detailing some of my favorite Armond soundbites.

Although I did take a listen to the part where Armond defends himself and explains why Transformers 2 is a "piece of art" while Inception is a horrible film without any redeeming qualities. His defense boiled down to:

"I'm smart and can point out why Transformers 2 is better. I can't do that here, but I could if I had a Moviola on me."

Nicely done, Mr. White.

Podcast can be found here:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/07/20/filmcast-ep-109-inception-guest-armond-white-from-new-york-press/

Armond vs. Toys

On Thursday, we looked at Armond White's pan of Inception. I have now seen Inception. More on that later.

Today, let's take a look at Armond's other critical sucker-punch (or more like an arm flail that resembles a punch), his review of Toy Story 3.

Now, if you're like me, and have fond childhood memories of seeing the original 'Toy Story's (sp?) in the theatre, having Toy Story 3 come out was a bit like revisting old memories. Not for Armond White. For him, it was like revisiting old bowel movements.

Let's jump in!

Pixar has now made three movies explicitly about toys, yet the best movie depiction of how toys express human experience remains Whit Stillman’s 1990 Metropolitan.

Armond jumps right in by saying Toy Story 3 doesn't match his own Indie adult drama. I'm not going to go for the easy joke that this line is pretentious as hell. But I won't.

But you admit this line doesn't match the human pretentious experience as much as David Edelstein's review of Maria Full of Grace. Right?

But Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination—the usefulness of toys—and strictly celebrates consumerism.

The lesson, ladies and gentlemen, is that Armond White enjoys seeing characters in movies drinking "KING COLA" and getting their e-mail through "UMAIL.COM".

I feel like a 6-year-old

That explains a lot.

having to report how in Toy Story 3 two dolls—Sheriff Woody (Tom Hanks) and Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen)—try to save a toy box of childhood playthings from either disuse or imprisonment as donations to a daycare center because their human owner, 17-year-old Andy, packs them up as he heads off to college.

You're watching a G rated CGI family film - did you expect adult-sounding plot points?

Like Woody must deal with the kidnapping of his adopted step-son after the death of his wife in Iraq after a drug deal gone wrong.

But none of these digital-cartoon characters reflect human experience; it’s essentially a bored game that only the brainwashed will buy into. Besides, Transformers 2 already explored the same plot to greater thrill and opulence.

BWAHAHAH!!! HAHA!!! Uhaha - uh... He was joking, right?

I must be brainwashed!

I admit to simply not digging the toys-come-to-life fantasy (I don’t babysit children, so I don’t have to)

Sorry to break it to you, Mr. White, but you babysit your own mind, so there -

Toy Story 3 suckers fans to think they can accept this drivel without paying for it politically, aesthetically or spiritually.

I always knew Toy Story 3 was a political allegory!

Look at the Barbie and Ken sequence where the sexually dubious male doll struts a chick-flick fashion show. Since it serves the same time-keeping purpose as a chick-flick digression, it’s not satirical. We’re meant to enjoy our susceptibility, not question it, as in Joe Dante’s more challenging Small Soldiers.

I was a huge fan of Small Soldiers once... When I was 9.

Have shill-critics forgotten that movie?

What's Small Soldiers again?

Do they mistake Toy Story 3’s day for 4th of July patriotism opening ?

Did you mistake Toy Story 3's opening for election day? Politics and Pixar mix like Shrek and torture porn.

Only Big Baby, with one Keane eye and one lazy eye, and Mr. Potato Head’s deconstruction into Dali’s slip-sliding “Persistence of Memory” are worthy of mature delectation

He sure likes the word "delectation", doesn't he?

The Toy Story franchise isn’t for children and adults, it’s for non-thinking children and adults. When a movie is this formulaic, it’s no longer a toy because it does all the work for you. It’s a sap’s story.

non-thinking children and adults? Then why didn't you like it, Armond?

BOOOM! SUCKER-PUNCHED!

Armond White: Punny Inception

To kick off our new website with a bang, I present you Armond White's review of Inception.

Enjoy. Pretension is like... fine wine.

Christopher Nolan doesn’t have a born filmmaker’s natural gift for detail, composition and movement, but on the evidence of his fussily constructed mind-game movies Following, Memento, Insomnia and the new Inception, he’s definitely a born con artist.

How nice! Everybody knows you start off a review by insulting the director!

When I reviewed Avatar, the first thing I wrote was "F*ck you, James Cameron, you suck."

Maybe I'm not as eloquent as Mr. White here, but I subscribe to the same school of thought.

Inception proves this is Nolan’s moment—a beginning-of-the-end moment for film culture

Holy crap! The Mayans were right! Film culture really is ending in 2010!

Be afraid, ladies and gents. Our buddy Armond says it is so...

It takes the form of a sci-fi adventure movie, updating the old Fantastic Voyage for the digital age, but instead of exploring the human body, Leonardo DiCaprio as dream extractor Dom Cobb goes inside people’s unconscious with the help of his young exploratory team: Joseph Gordon-levitt, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy.

Right, because a movie about people exploring the inside of a human body in a spaceship is very similar to a movie about people trying to steal ideas from a person's subconscious... Did our Friendy Neighborhood Armond even watch this movie?

Its essential con is that, as in Memento, Nolan ignores the morality of his characters’ actions; he accepts that they will do anything—which is the cynicism critics admired in Memento, the con-man’s motivating nihilism.

OMFG - did you see that? Armond dropped the N bomb... Nihilism! I really didn't think he would do that. I mean, I know his reviewing style depends on the shock of using that word so frequently, but... man. It never gets old.

On a serious note, ignoring morality is great fun. You should try it some time Armond.

Stuck in film-noir mode

...As opposed to jumping in and out of film noir mode? What, did you want Inception to be the next Last Action Hero?

Like Grand Theft Auto’s quasi-cinematic extension of noir and action-flick plots, Inception manipulates the digital audience’s delectation for relentless subterfuge.

Excuse me for a moment while I consult the dictionary. Delectation means delights, okay... Subterfuge means "A statement or action resorted to in order to deceive." Ah, back with the old Nolan-is-a-con-man routine. Excellent. On a more serious note, we, the "digital audience" want to be tricked?

Is that why Armond liked Transformers 2? Because it was so damn simple he didn't feel tricked?

Cobb never runs into paradisaical visions like What Dreams May Come—only terror, danger and violence.

Oh yeah? And the music didn't match the brilliance of High Noon, and the cinematography wasn't as brooding as Dark City, and oh! oh! the action didn't match the high-intensity chaos of Armond's favorite Death Race?

See, I can do it too.

Nolan out-Finchers Fincher and seeks Kubrickian misanthropy—but there’s a simple-minded sappiness at the heart of this cynical vision.

Am I the only one who is wondering how a movie can be nihilistic and sappy at the same time? Would that be like a version of "The Blind Side" where at the end Michael goes on a killing rampage for the hell of it?

Inception is full of second-rate aesthetics, yet when shoddy aesthetics become the new standard, it’s sufficient to up-end the art of cinema.

Boom! Take that, modern cinema which I'm currently making a living on!

Nolan’s fascinated by his cast of narcissistic criminals indulging their own treacheries—nihilism chasing its own tail.

Someone needs to tell Armond that he doesn't need to use the N word to be funny.

it distracts from how business and class really work. his shapeless storytelling (going from Paris to Mumbai to nameless ski slopes, carelessly shifting tenses like a video game) throws audiences into artistic limbo—an “unconstructed dream space” like Toy Story 3—that leaves them bereft of art’s genuine purpose: a way of dealing with the real world.

Ooh - Armond smackdown on Toy Story 3!

That's like a 60 year old man wrestling a teddy bear. It's hilarious, but at times... Sad.

Cobb’s dream obsession suggests pop-culture addiction, mirroring how consumers habitually escape reality with video games and movies. But Nolan never critiques this as Neveldine/Taylor did in Gamer.

Oh really, Armond? Does every negative review from you spiral into talk about pop-culture/materialistic societies?

And OMG, how did I forget Gamer, with its 29% Approval rating on RottenTomatoes!

It was, lest we forget, a 21st century masterpiece.

this conceptual failure is apparent from DiCaprio’s glib characterization. Nolan finally has the budget to work with his look-alike (Leo’s an irresistible movie star), yet fails to write him a good role. Cobb suffers the same marital nightmares leo had in Shutter Island; this isn’t depth, it’s morbidity and the confusion is all over the screen.

Forgetting the Hi-Larious misuse of capitalization in his review, Armond does have a point - Inception, written in 2001, is clearly mooching off of Shutter Island, which came out in February.

Inception should have been called Self-Deception.

Hey! That's punny! 'Cause they both end with "ception"!

Maybe it should have been called "Contraception"! Because it's like birth control! Most like it, but for some it rips and we end up with a crying baby.

Armond, you are that crying baby.

Our Mission Statement

We here at "Fire Armond White" believe some very simple things. One, that film criticism can be valid and not result to bullying; Two, that internet opinions simply because they are on the internet does not mean they are automatically invalid; and Three, the Armond White is quite possibly the worst film critic on the planet.

I say "possibly" because I live in America and cannot vouch for the film critics in, say, Papua New Guinea (that being said, I hear their version of RottenTomatoes, best translated as Unpleasant Pineapple, is much more intuitive than ours)

That's not to say we have anything specifically against only Armond White. We hate others, too.

Like Earl Dittman. I fully support an Earl Dittman/Armond White At the Movies. It would be like The Odd Couple mixed with Fraiser. With a more pretentious vocabulary.

Best Regards,
indy42