erickeitel
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The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.
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Post by erickeitel on Apr 3, 2017 19:21:07 GMT
When all else fails, just act like you're above it all. Person 1 makes a half-joking/half-serious April fools remark Person 2 claims fans of a certain critic he disagrees with have little knowledge of film as an art, because of a convoluted point about snowflakes and an animated film's box office Person 1 tries to let on that he wasn't entirely serious to begin with, but even if he were Person 2 and others should lighten up a tad Person 2 labels this behavior as Person 1 acting like he is above it all Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems like Person 2 is somewhat out of touch with the conversation. Could be just me though. Nothing I said was convoluted (And you can't be "half-joking" and "half-serious" aren't really terms), but you do you.
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Post by bobbystarks on Apr 3, 2017 19:30:28 GMT
Sounds like you all need to
GET STUCKMANNIZED
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erickeitel
Junior Member
The beauty of life is in small details, not in big events.
Posts: 464
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Post by erickeitel on Apr 3, 2017 19:36:58 GMT
This is what Armond White fans call good criticism. It made $49 million this past weekend. Anybody who calls this good criticism is a dilettante. I fail to see your point tbh He objects to the casting of the actor, in a voiceover role, no less—not because of the craft but because Baldwin impersonates Trump. He then says the movie is likely to push others away because of it. It clearly wasn't, based on the box office receipts, which isn't really surprising given Trump's approval rating. (Not that White acknowledges that.) This is par the course for Armond, who clearly values the Conservative party more than he does film and filmmaking (His idea of a good documentarian is Dinesh D'Souza). If a movie alludes to liberalism, he doesn't like it. If it alludes to Conservatism, he does. It's silly when liberals do the opposite, just as it is when he does it.
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Post by taranofprydain on Apr 3, 2017 22:19:39 GMT
Ebert is my favorite. I doubt I'll ever like anyone more. I also have a strong affinity for Joe Morgenstern (Wall Street Journal), just because I love listening to his podcast. His writing is so eloquent and his voice is so soothing to me for some reason. www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/film-reviewsAbsolutely yes. Morgenstern is the best living film reviewer.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Apr 4, 2017 0:18:16 GMT
Sounds like you all need to GET STUCKMANNIZED"X was great! Seriously, guys. I can't even begin to tell you how good he/she was." For the record, I enjoy the guy and I love his smaller-fare recommendations, but he can get really repetitive.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Apr 4, 2017 0:34:19 GMT
I'll exclude the obvious Ebert right now.
Manohla, definitely. I've actually enjoyed a great deal of AO Scott. And Peter Travers may not always be so eloquent (and loves handing out high ratings like candy), but I still love his sarcastic bite and his obvious love for what he does. For video reviewers, Matthew Buck, who's far more analytical and provides more fascinating perspectives than his usual surface-value Channel Awesome brethren.
For worst, a lot of the usual suspects were already mentioned, but I'd also add Amy Nicholson for her often... very oddly reasoned compliments and criticisms.
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grundle
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Post by grundle on Jun 18, 2017 4:03:20 GMT
Good thread taran Faves:Nick Pinkerton (Artforum/Reverse Shot) J. Hoberman (Artforum/Village Voice) Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (The A.V. Club/MUBI) Adrian Martin (lola journal/la furia umana) Michael Sicinski (Cinema Scope) Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) Roger Koza (con los ojos abiertos) Miguel Marias (Senses of Cinema) Richard Brody (The New Yorker) Armond White (National Review) Honorable mentions to: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Senses of Cinema/la furia umana) Dave Kehr (Chicago Reader) Carlota Moseguà (otros cines europa) Vadim Rizov (Filmmaker Magazine) Adam Nayman (Reverse Shot/Cinema Scope) Fernando F. Croce (Slant Magazine) Nicole Brenez (la furia umana) Ed Gonzalez (Slant Magazine) Girish Shambu (lola journal) Daniel Kazman (MUBI) Mike D'Angelo (The A.V. Club) Denis Lim (Artforum) Phil Coldiron (Cinema Scope) Manohla Dargis (The New York Times) Bernard Eisenschitz (Cahiers du Cinèma) Robert Koehler (Sight & Sound) I don't know if they are the worst, but they are people I detest:Mark Kermode Roger Ebert Eric Kohn David Ehrlich Mick LaSalle Rex Reed A. O. Scott Chris Stuckmann Peter Travers Kyle Smith Peter Bradshaw Lou Lumenick Todd McCarthy David Edelstein
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eliuson
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Post by eliuson on Jun 18, 2017 7:53:46 GMT
Grundlez has just brought up so many great film critics, I'll add some more that to my knowledge, are great as well.
Love: Holly Willis (Filmmaker Magazine) Adrian Martin (Lola Journal) Michel Ciment (Positif) Bertrand Tavernier (Cahiers du Cinema and Positif) Daniel Fairfax (Senses of Cinema) Nicholas Page (The Big Picture) Edward Lawrenson (Sight and Sound) Chuck Bowen (Slant) Brad Stevens (Sight and Sound) Jordan Cronk ( Reverse Shot) Marc Lauria (Senses of Cinema) Annie Dell'Aria (Moving Image Review and Art Journal) Bert Rebhandl (Frieze) Angelos Koutsourakis (Senses of Cinema) Simon Rothohler (Cargo Magazine) Kent Jones (Film Comment) Catherine Grant (La Furia Umana) David Cairns (Mubi) Josh Cabrita (Mubi) Doug Dibbern (Mubi) Craig Keller (Cinemasparagus) Kim Morgan (New Beverly) David Thomson (Film Comment) Ian Christie (Sight and Sound) Maximilian Le Cain (Senses of Cinema) Rouzbeh Rashidi (Experimental Film Society) Dean Kavanagh (Experimental Film Society) A.S Hamrah (n+1) Jacques Ranciere (Sight and Sound) Volker Pantenburg (Austrian Film museum) Fernanda Solorzano (Letras Libres) Maria M. Delgado (Sight and Sound) Joanna Di Mattia (Senses of Cinema) Lee Hill (Senses of Cinema) Scott Foundas (Variety) Jim Ridley (Nashville Scene) Anne Billson (The Guardian) Quintin (CinemaScope) Howard Feinstein (Filmmaker Magazine) Daniel V.Villamediana (Transit) Geoff Gardner (Senses of Cinema) Aaron Cutler (Slant) Marsha McCreadie (only for her essay on Fassbinder for Senses of Cinema) Ryan Khran (Aufhebung) Dominik Kamalzadeh (Kolik Film) Mallory Andrews (Cleo Journal) Andrew G. Gilbert (Screen Machine) Neil Young (The Hollywood Reporter) Jon Frosch  (The Hollywood Reporter) Travis Jeppesen (Artforum) Alberto Saez Villarino (El Antepenultimo Mohicano) Olaf Moller (Film Comment) Stephane Delorme (Cahiers du Cinema) Sergio Huidobro (Revista Iconica) Tara Judah (Desistfilm) Tristan Pollack (Desistfilm) Isaac Leon Frias (Desistfilm) Jonathan Romney (Film Comment) Richard Porton (Cineaste) Geoffrey O 'Brien (Film Comment) Tony Pipolo (Artforum)
These are a few too many that I read on a regular basis. Hoping it helps you all to get more into what truly is film criticism.
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eliuson
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Post by eliuson on Jun 22, 2017 3:49:30 GMT
Worst:
Jesse Cataldo (Slant) Carson Lund (Slant) Jake Cole (Slant) Mark Peranson (Cinema Scope) Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) Michael Sragow (Film Comment) Laura Kern (Film Comment) Justin Chang (Variety) Alison Willmore (Buzzfeed) Scott Tobias (NPR) Matt Singer (Screen Crush) Dana Stevens (Slate) Keith Watson (Slant) Leah Pickett (The Chicago Reader)
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2018 18:21:17 GMT
Only a single mention of Jonathan Rosenbaum in this thread (for best, of course) is deeply disturbing.
For worst, I don't know. Probably someone on Youtube.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 15, 2018 20:32:33 GMT
I'll say this ..............Armond White, who is off his rocker nuts at times, can sometimes stop on a dime and write some really insightful stuff when he wants to make a point on something he feels passionately about - usually race relations in US history - and he doesn't feel passionately about all films to say the least, at times he's just a jerk towards a film.
His recent piece on Blackkklansman is an upsetting, unpleasant, mostly on point breakdown of the film with only some pettiness. If reviews or critics still mattered you could picture Lee responding to it, point by point, you could even picture a great debate. In fact, you could make a movie out of it....
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on Aug 15, 2018 20:45:19 GMT
Best: Jonathan Rosenbaum, Pauline Kael, Armond White
Worst: It's low-hanging fruit and not a very original pick, but most of the current youtube film "critic" circle, if that even counts.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 15, 2018 20:53:47 GMT
lol at the amount of Armond White love in this thread. What are y'all smoking? Sure he's not just a contrarian like people like to say, but that doesn't make his opinions any less baffling. Disagreeing with the majority doesn't make you special if your reasons are laughable and borderline incoherent and all come from a place of brown-nosing political partisanship.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 15, 2018 21:24:09 GMT
lol at the amount of Armond White love in this thread. What are y'all smoking? Sure he's not just a contrarian like people like to say, but that doesn't make his opinions any less baffling. Disagreeing with the majority doesn't make you special if your reasons are laughable and borderline incoherent and all come from a place of brown-nosing political partisanship. That's mostly true but one of the things about White is he gets a lot of room to write, he's not limited by space really - and that doesn't apply to the vast majority of writers now so if there's something he wants to really concentrate on and not be a just a contrarian he has room to write on it. I'm not so sure it actually is just brown-nosing political partisanship with him either (I think he hates film) but the fact that people think it is, and the reason no one reads him then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy but if you never read him, sometimes you miss out on some good criticism..........on the other hand 95% of the time you don't.
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Post by Lord_Buscemi on Aug 15, 2018 22:22:14 GMT
lol at the amount of Armond White love in this thread. What are y'all smoking? Sure he's not just a contrarian like people like to say, but that doesn't make his opinions any less baffling. Disagreeing with the majority doesn't make you special if your reasons are laughable and borderline incoherent and all come from a place of brown-nosing political partisanship. Confirmed brainlet
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 15, 2018 22:37:51 GMT
Bashing Armond just because you're throwing him a very general label of "ignorant right winger" and then lumping him together with the RWNJs is very ignorant. No one's bashing him for that. No one has used the term "ignorant right winger." He's an eloquent writer but most of his opinions are laughably off-base. I don't understand how one can enjoy his criticism unironically unless they agree with the neoconservativatism that informs it. He's such a negative writer too, who legitimately seems to not care about the medium he's paid to write about.
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urbanpatrician
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Post by urbanpatrician on Aug 15, 2018 22:45:09 GMT
Bashing Armond just because you're throwing him a very general label of "ignorant right winger" and then lumping him together with the RWNJs is very ignorant. No one's bashing him for that. No one has used the term "ignorant right winger." He's an eloquent writer but most of his opinions are laughably off-base. I don't understand how one can enjoy his criticism unironically unless they agree with the neoconservativatism that informs it. He's such a negative writer too, who legitimately seems to not care about the medium he's paid to write about. I'm not saying you. I hear that in other places....this generalization of Armond as something or another. They just love finding categories to put Armond in, when in fact is he's simply a film critic who's just very self-oriented. I don't know what's laughably off-base about him. Might be negative sometimes, but I'm sure everyone has different reviews they're impressed with from him.... the reviews I'm thinking of from him probably isn't the same as the ones you're thinking of. I don't enjoy him ironically, I enjoy him pretty literally actually.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Aug 16, 2018 18:39:08 GMT
there are so many legitimate complaints people can hold against white's writing but yall have the hardest time figuring them out somehow
"he hates film and doesn't care about it" is like the most obviously disprovable statement i've seen on this board, and he's addressed that numerous times through the years. the dude who makes a startup group dedicated to film criticism, has wrote books on film and culture, and of course has seen thousands of movies now hates film because he doesn't like some american status quo pictures?
one of the faults i have with him is that he does play up his outlandish takes when his takes aren't especially outlandish most of the time ("chazelle sucks and bay is actually not that bad" is one of the default opinions in my circles; i would be surprised if someone didn't agree with that) so it's excusable why people would think this, but if you go through more than his like clickbaited opinions it becomes pretty clear that his favorites aren't super out there. in some thread on facebook someone asked him about his favorite recent films and he said Being 17, B.P.M., Goodbye to Language, Man of Steel, and a few others that i didn't think were especially noteworthy for being overly lauded or hated. like he has some weird takes, more than most critics in the normiesphere, but he's honestly nowhere near as out there as a lot of people i know and trust with film
i also don't understand why people use his interest in pop culture and politics against him when that's an extremely important aspect of film criticism that is often either surface level or brushed away in a lot of mainstream criticism.
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Post by pacinoyes on Aug 16, 2018 19:01:53 GMT
i also don't understand why people use his interest in pop culture and politics against him when that's an extremely important aspect of film criticism that is often either surface level or brushed away in a lot of mainstream criticism. Good post ............Well I am one of the ones who just said he hates film and I stand by that for me - he at least hates movies enough to not be a great critic - the best critics have to be more open to be persuaded than White ever is - but I would say the determination to write, proves that he doesn't hate writing and that can sometimes be enough. When he finds a film he wants to talk about that is tied into something else he's interested in it can be a great and volatile mix. But no one is really interested in him and this is a movie board anyway and that's sad - no one is commenting on the Blackkklansan piece which I suspect no one has sought out except his fans (which he clearly has a cadre of). It's clearly the most interesting, insightful piece of writing on film I've since this year at least and you'd never know about it by this board and it's endless lists that don't involve any give and take - a healthy debate - at all.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Aug 16, 2018 19:06:30 GMT
They're all trash now. Criticism now-a-days is just a huge Bingo sheet and if it gets 5 in a row, they it wins a 90% on RT... even if everything outside of that line is utter shit (hell, even the stuff in the Bingo line is usually shallow at best).
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Aug 16, 2018 19:24:24 GMT
i also don't understand why people use his interest in pop culture and politics against him when that's an extremely important aspect of film criticism that is often either surface level or brushed away in a lot of mainstream criticism. Good post ............Well I am one of the ones who just said he hates film and I stand by that for me - he at least hates movies enough to not be a great critic - the best critics have to be more open to be persuaded than White ever is - but I would say the determination to write, proves that he doesn't hate writing and that can sometimes be enough. When he finds a film he wants to talk about that is tied into something else he's interested in it can be a great and volatile mix. But no one is really interested in him and this is a movie board anyway and that's sad - no one is commenting on the Blackkklansan piece which I suspect no one has sought out except his fans (which he clearly has a cadre of). It's clearly the most interesting, insightful piece of writing on film I've since this year at least and you'd never know about it by this board and it's endless lists that don't involve any give and take - a healthy debate - at all. i think that's a really unusual stance that muddles pretty set in stone definitions - one may have the criteria that great critics are ones who are somewhat open to persuasion, but the notion that anyone who criticizes movies for a living hates them just goes against all sorts of logic i'm aware of. and yes it would be nice to see more actual discussion someday - though i recognize i am part of that problem as well.
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Film Socialism
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Post by Film Socialism on Aug 16, 2018 19:25:52 GMT
They're all trash now. Criticism now-a-days is just a huge Bingo sheet and if it gets 5 in a row, they it wins a 90% on RT... even if everything outside of that line is utter shit (hell, even the stuff in the Bingo line is usually shallow at best). i initially thought this was a frighteningly bad take but if you're using RT critics i guess i can kind of get behind it the concept behind RT is great, however their pool of critics they choose from is horrible. criticism is in a fantastic place thesedays for film in terms of actual good criticism being written.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2018 19:43:51 GMT
I just stumbled upon this guy on Letterboxd named Houston. Jesus Christ. The guy is an absolute moron, it's crazy how many followers he's got on there.
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Post by moonman157 on Sept 18, 2018 19:54:38 GMT
fuckin' lol @ people discussing White seriously
he used to be a great critic, sadly he's devolved into mostly writing utter twaddle in the last few years
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Post by Miles Morales on Dec 15, 2018 7:47:29 GMT
Reviving this thread, don't mind me.
Best: Baradwaj Rangan (very unbiased and articulate. Also, his sense of capturing subtle details is unmatched) Worst: Armond White, Taran Adarsh (with opposite problems. White revels in being a contrarian while Adarsh gives good/great grades to anything that has the potential to become a box office hit).
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