Cook -




I've read literally as much as I can find of White since I started the "Armond White" thread last month. I spend more time reading than I do watching, or talking about, movies. War Horse is not great. It looks great but it's exploitative trash akin to a Hovis advert (google it!)

The first Jurassic Park is a landmark film granted. Not a great film looking back and its sequels certainly aren't.



They are when they are so blatently tainted with bias. Fincher is a popular, middle-road film-maker who will always attract a crowd of quasi-serious film watchers. White would give "Ass" a great, and more importantly crammed with pretentious cliches, review.



Never seen it.


Bollocks. Big words do not = sophistication. Read George Orwell!



He doesn't give a number of stars (which I actually respect) but of course he gives conclusive opinions. He rudely dismisses the things he doesn't care for and crawls up the arse of the ones he does.



Planet of the Apes is no worse than War Horse. Both are pretty bad.



The Transformers films are bad.



Ah so he's right as a matter of fact then. I get it now. Why didn't you just say this? Who needs other critics and opinions now? Armond White is right, period! And I hated Avartar and agreed with him on that.


It is an under-represented War, yes! So why make a film in which the main character is a f*cking horse? How many men died in WW1? 18 milion was it?

On the contrary, I would say it's in the lesser half of Spielberg's visually impressive works. It's great because of its anti-protagonist structure, and the way he uses that structure to take you through different facets of humanity.



Everyone has bias. Bias isn't a bad thing as long as your perspective is genuinely personal.



I've read Orwell. White is also sophisticated because he gets you to think about movies from a perspective that is most likely different from the one you're used to. While his opinions seem conclusive of themselves granted, he deliberately pinpoints specific aspects of any given production and uses that conceit to avoid summarizing the film (his reviews are spoiler free).



You don't need other opinions if you trust White's.



Because Spielberg already made Saving Private Ryan and didn't want to rehash himself.

You could say that about any critic, though. If there's a critic who you 100% trust to steer you towards films you'll like and away from films you won't, you wouldn't need anyone else. But, so what? I don't put that level of trust into any person. There are certainly critics whose work I respect, but not to that level.

Me either, I only use a critics as a general guide for films. For example, I love Dustin Putman, but i'm not going to blindly see every film that he gives a high rating to or avoid every film he gives a low rating to.

Looks like Spielberg is going to sign on to make a new Moses epic...

I expect to see one expertly shot, beautifully realized tracking shot, maybe of Moses walking around Egypt while he's still a prince. And then an ending where Moses is crying that he couldn't save more Jews.

I'd rather put my faith in one person than in a fake consensus like RT or Imdb, and I still need some sort of a guide on what to see.

So you don't like George Orwell or you do like George Orwell?

So if Armond White asks you to strap a bomb on your person and blow up a major Hollywood studio, would you do it?

Well ask yourself, since when did George Orwell use big words?

I read both 1984 and Animal Farm before I started 9th grade and nothing in the books really gave me a problem with the vocab, so I'm guessing HughGrantsImposter likes Orwell.
-Jeremy

Yes, Jeremy. Despite the subject matter Orwell tackled and his (in my opinion) genius, he made a point of keeping English as simple as possible.

After reading his "Politics and the English Language" essay i've been suspicious of imposters trying to flummox the audience.

MGamesCook -



You would say that? Or Armond White would?



But yours isn't personal. You just believe whatever another human being tells you. This is the opposite of personal. Your opinions are completely depersonalised.



His life perspective! Which I respect because I do the same. But his life ain't my life. Nor is it yours.



This demonstrates a breathtaking narrow-mindedness and immaturity. I don't know how old you are or what level of study you are undertaking but I'm pretty sure you're setting yourself up for a failure academically speaking if you continue in this mind set.



Saving Private Ryan was about WW2. A very different conflict to WW1.

I've avoided the shit out of this thread so far, but I thought you might appreciate this.

I love that routine, because I'm a big fan of anybody who understands the power of words to shape the world as we experience it.

Cheers for that. I'll watch it over the weekend.

I could go into a huge diatribe on how words (or rather how modern day ettiqutte-dicated words) have corrupted politics and public discourse, but this is probably the wrong forum to do so.

I would. You won't find that specific statement among White's articles no matter how hard you look. That's just me.



Not true. I use White's opinions to form my own ideas, and I never state one of his or anyone else's ideas without quoting him.



But what the hell does your life perspective have to do with Apes being an average film? I try to get into the mindset of the filmmaker and interpret the vision, or lack thereof, that went into a project. That's how you learn about the creation of good art and entertainment. Your own life shouldn't factor in at all. White's perspective comes merely from studied expertise.

MGamesCook




That's not the point. The point is you use one person, one mammal's opinions to form the entirity of your ideas. That isn't healthy, And I'm sure Armond White would agree with me on that.



I couldn't review a film like Rise of the Apes through my own experience because it's a just an action/B-movie. But many films can be viewed through your own prism. And are meant to be I would guess. Think Mike Leigh and hundreds of others. Are you seriouly trying to suggest that all filmakers reject empathy?

Fact of the matter is that you've talked yourself into the silly corner on this thread, Cook.

I don't think he would agree. And I think it's actually much healthier to trust one mammal than to trust a group of 300 which is made up of everything ranging from mammal to amoeba. Statistics lie; individuals tell the truth.



I don't think any good filmmaker relies solely on empathy for viewer response. If high school students were the only ones who liked Superbad, it would be a bad movie. Lot of people, including myself, can't relate too personally to Happy-Go-Lucky, but they appreciate it for a well-crafted piece of expression. Basically, the only personal perspective which should ultimately matter is the degree to which you are willing to commit yourself to film. So instead of evaluating how a Leigh film relates to you, one should simply evaluate how much Leigh cares about his characters or themes. And that conclusion is a far more objective one than mere personal reactions.

That's bull. Statistics are just numerical statements that are generated by some individual. Just like any other statement, they may be true, they may be false, or they may be true but misleading. Saying that statistics lie is just a copout used by those who have math skills that are too poor to allow them to judge the accuracy and relevance of statistics, or who have the skills but are too lazy to apply them.

And individual lie often.

I agree that individuals lie often. I think JB and Ebert lie quite often. Armond White does not lie. At most, he is guilty of stretching his own truths to hyperbole, but to me that's no crime. But RT is a fundamental lie, and there is never any exception that.

Ebert may be a bit hard to get a hold of, but I really would like to see you accuse JB of lying in a place where he can actually see it. Accusing him here on his own forums, but where he's unlikely to see it, is low, very low.

-Jeremy

Bro, what are you talking about? The guy doesn't even get paid. Not like I'm sending deriding letters to his editor or anything; he has a life outside of this, which Ebert does not. You know what's low? Disappointing followers who got hooked by his willingness to champion great mainstream material 5 or more years ago. I've been following JB since the early 00s, even going so far as to read all the Price novels, but he ain't the same critic he used to be. I'm sorry, but I don't believe the JB of 2003 or 2005 would have reviewed Avatar, HP8, Hugo, Artist, and Dragon Tattoo the way he did. I think he, like so many other critics, has tried too hard to change with the times and has abandoned essential integrity. Especially in the 90s, you could really sense his excitement for movies and he went out of his way to recommend a lot of really fun stuff. Why do you think he puts out less 3.5 star reviews these days? It's not the times that have changed, it's him.

In his original top 100 commentary, here's a quote from the City Lights entry:



That's the JB I got into way back when...what happened to him? Here's something from his Artist review: