David Fincher’s The Social Network doesn’t officially open until this Friday, but for weeks now it’s been playing film festivals and special screenings (notice how a studio will bend over backwards to show you a film when they know it’s good? Never believe the “this movie is for fans not critics” hype). Throughout this time, it’s managed almost universally positive reviews, including 35 reviews on RottenTomatoes, all 35 of which with certified “fresh” ratings (a grading system first devised by LL Cool J in 1988). The question now becomes not whether The Social Network is any good, but what will Armond White say, the man who became the first of 135 critics to trash Toy Story 3 (while simultaneously praising Transformers 2) and called Resident Evil “superior to Inception on every level.”
His Social Network review should be do any day now, so start taking bets. My money’s on him hating it. Dude loves nothing more than puttin’ the whole system on trial, usually via the word “verisimilitude.” Seriously, Armond White loves that word. Here’s what he had to say about 94% fresh rated The Town:
None of these stereotypes, handed down from The Departed by way of Mystic River, are real characters. That’s because The Town, directed and co-written by Affleck, uses that same exploitative, pseudo-naturalistic expression HBO now takes for verisimilitude.
USE YOUR HEADS, SHEEPLE! HE’S USING PSEUDO NATURALISM TO CREATE THE ILLUSION OF TRUTH, AND THE CHARACTERS ARE FROM BOSTON!
But by reducing cultural specifics to criminal statistics, Affleck commits the ultimate middle-class condescension. His tightly grasped clichés (there’s even time-lapse clouds to show inexorable fate) means he’s merely enjoying the low-life heist film conventions, glossing over how poverty corrupts.
OPEN YOUR EYES, STUPIDS! IF THIS WERE REALISM, THESE BANK ROBBERS WOULD BE CORRUPT!
The familiarity of these clichés explains the critical raves for Affleck’s two directorial stints. Given their specious ethnic subject matter, it is necessary to point out the mainstream media’s preference for this heist fantasy over the superior Takers as proof of racial preference; critics swallow Affleck’s thuggish pieties while ignoring the ethnic details in Takers and dismissing director John Luessenhop’s splendid distillation of genre form that gave it speed and complexity.
NEED I MORE PROOF THAT IT SUCKED THAN THAT PEOPLE LIKED IT? YOU’RE ALL RACIST! I’M TIRED OF OPENING EYES FOR TODAY, A-DUBS OUT! SKEET SKEET EBERT SUCKS!



Having just seen The Town, I must say this (as a jaded movie-goer and not a hetrosexual woman, because the hetro woman in me would kick my ass just for thinking it) – the 10 second, completely-irrelevant, gratuitous workout-abs scene was overly self-indulgent, even for Affleck.
Social what now? Sorry, all I can think about is Affleck’s abs.
Ya, but you’re gonna linger
finger on it when it comes out on DVD.I’ll forgive any of Afflecks “Scope mah sixers, but nawt yooz guys ya queeahs” self indulgence for his directing coherent and generally awesome action sequences.
ffffuuuuuuccccckkkkkkHTML
Armond will have an opinion on The Social NetworK? I thought black people still only used Myspace.
Did I say black people? I meant
mexicansfilipinos.In the current Cineaste, Affleck responds: “Takahs was awesome–if yah queeah fah Paul Wakka and Annakin, yah fackin daaahkie!”
Dude has got to be piiisssed about his last name.
Sincerely though–specious ethnic subject matter? I need one of you book owners to explain that shit.
He’s also pissed that his first name is how Orientals say almond.
Oddly enough, White’s favourite Sega Genesis game was “Sword of Verisimilitudeillion”.
It means Larry that this dipshit found a synonym for verisimilitude.
When I look at that smug picture of Armond White, I just know he’s peering into my very soul and saying to himself, “You can’t see me, you cracka-assed honkey”. Then I laugh, because I can see him.
/good story
@apba–whatever, Schooly McLiteracy, this dude is wicked verisimilitahded.
After watching the Yogi Bear trailer for the fifteenth time, Armond White turned to his wife and with tears rolling down his cheeks, said “It’s just too beautiful for words.”
He then died, happy.
Does Armond White’s crap taste in movies lend verisimilitude to The Bell Curve?
Armond White pours H8er-ade in his surreal for breakfast.
If critics and fanboys weren’t suckers for simplistic nihilism and high-pressure marketing, This Ain’t Avatar XXX would be universally acclaimed as a visionary feat, superior to Avatar on every level. – Armond White