From here until Oscar Night, we'll be discussing several other reviewers and film journalists who we feel are deserving of tomatoes in the face, but for now, just to get back in the spirit of things, here's a nice little piece from Armond White that wrapped up his 2010 in cinema. Now as usual, our pal Armond couldn't do a end-of-year review the old fashioned way - picking boring Top 10s and Bottom 10s or whatnot. Instead, he decided to post his alternatives to movies considered the best of the year by other critics. Classy move.
He starts off by "Unfriending" the facebook movie The Social Network.
Mainstream Consensus names The Social Network the film of the year but everybody knows it lacks the power and popularity of true consensus-making films like On the Waterfront, The Godfather, E.T. and Saving Private Ryan. The questionable unanimity around TSN proves the disconnect between pundits and the public and exposes how so-called critics' tendency to flatter their own caste fails to grasp genuine film art.
That's right. Everybody calls The Social Network the best film of the year, but everybody knows it sucks. Don't snicker, we're getting valuable insight into how Armond thinks.
This year's Better-Than List provides an opportunity to see how a great year for movies, highlighted by a renaissance of cinema's Old Masters—from Resnais and Bellocchio to Chabrol and Haile Gerima
Do you know who any of those people are? Me neither. Moving on.
—has been obscured by the media preference for slick new images of its own noxious, select kind. The Social Network rewards immorality, but this list knows better.
It's noxious, but is it nihilistic?
Wild Grass > The Social Network
By "Wild Grass", he is of course referring to film released only in France. Remember, Armond is not an elitist!
Alain Resnais concocted one of the year's two best films with a constantly inventive fantasia on our common idiosyncrasynot polarized like the high-tech bullying that David Fincher burnishes and sentimentalizes.
He's breakin' out the thesaurus. "Idiosyncrasynot" means... oh hang on, it's just a typo, he meant to just say "idiosyncrasy". Much better.
Now from here on out we get a barrage of picks:
Vincere > Carlos
Mother and Child > The Kids Are All Right
Life During Wartime > The King's Speech
But then we get this:
Another Year > The Social Network
Mike Leigh looks at the middle-aged need to connect sympathetically, exquisitely, while Fincher and Aaron Sorkin's TV-glib script reduces human relations to a sophomoric power grab.
Sophomoric power grabs in a movie about a sophomore grabbing power? Inconceivable.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World > Inception
Edgar Wright finds a funny, sexy, visually exciting way to illustrate the mind while Christopher Nolan bends the frame—and fanboys—into mindlessness.
You heard it here first. Armond White finds Michael Cera sexy and visually exciting.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole > Toy Story 3
Zack Snyder's such a compelling visionary he can credibly turn owls into human surrogates while resurrecting the moral meaning of narrative; Toy Story 3 is a full-length commercial for dupes who mistake merchandizing for culture.
And for those who mistake "merchandizing" for a legitimate criticism.
City Island > The Social Network
Gotta have at the Facebook movie once again,
Have at it. Always follow your dreams!
if only to counter the fallacious consensus that no other movie dealt with the Internet phenomenon.
Armond is in fact discussing the other movie made about Facebook, entitled "This Movie Does Not Exist".
Ray De Felitta's emotionally large family comedy and Andy Garcia's warm comeback performance epitomized timeless, non-cyber interfacing.
Or no, actually he's discussing... "City Island", a movie that has nothing to do with... Facebook... or the Internet...
But that doesn't matter. You keep going, Armond. Don't let anybody stop you.
If you don´t know who Chabrol or Resnais are you are disqualifying yourself to talk seriously about cinema. Really. I was watching today "American Idol" and the participants were asked to sing Beatles' songs. Some of them said that they never heard a song from them before. Yes, that´s right. Your phrase has the same meaning.
ReplyDelete"Sophomoric power grabs in a movie about a sophomore grabbing power?"
ReplyDeleteHis silly point is that it could've been more, but you're right, it shouldn't.
"But that doesn't matter. You keep going, Armond. Don't let anybody stop you."
Only, you're calling for him to be fired...
I think if you rename this blog to something less inflammatory(and irresponsible{and so, juvenile}), then you'd be allowed to say whatever you want. Until then, you should stop.