"Hey, nerd, it looks like your computer's got a KNOWLEDGE virus."
Look, I know it feels like I hammer on Armond White a lot, but dammit, I only do it because it’s fun. Jokes aside, I tried to do a list like this for Pete Hammond, and it didn’t work. It wasn’t funny, and I think the process made me dumber (Sample quote: “Purists may wonder ‘Why the remake?’ but after seeing it will wonder no more.”). White, venerable curmudgeonly academiad of the New York Press, is much more fun, because as preposterously dense and academic he is, if you unpack the quotes, they usually contain genuine insight (when he’s not being hilariously contrarian). He’s fun to make fun of, but that’s partially because he’s fun to read (and thus, by extension, good at his job). I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t take these posts as me picking on the guy. I’m not being sarcastic when I say that I really do love the thesaurificent old cantankeramous, even if he does represent the fusty tyrranicism of the country club Gutentocracy.
So here’s a snapshot of 2010 through Armond White quotes — some cranky, most obtuse, occasionally dead on — but all classic Armond.
“Attacks from bloggers—crude interlopers of a once august profession— are not about diversity of opinion. Every moviegoer with a laptop claims equal—vengeful—standing with so-called professionals. This anti-intellectual backlash defies the purpose of the [New York Film Critic] Circle’s founding in 1935. Professional dignity is the last thing Internetters respect.” (more on that jag here)
“Charlie St. Cloud is so sappy it recalls Oscar Wilde’s Dickens jab.” [Oh, don't worry, he doesn't explain it further, that's just something you're required to know if you read A-Dubz. Btw, if it's Dickens jabs you're after, I thought Little Fockers did it better. -Ed]
“This is just mawkishness with a shamelessly quixotic view of metaphysics.” [re: Charlie St. Cloud again]
“The combination of privilege and temerity obviously appeals to the pessimism of trust-fund hipsters who think their own isolation and parental competition are a profound condition.” [on Sofia Coppola's Somewhere]
“Actors are paid to be embarrassing, and audiences pay to get embarrassed. That’s the lesson to learn from Dinner for Schmucks, an idiot-comedy for idiots.” [I agree 100%]
“Like Grand Theft Auto’s quasi-cinematic extension of noir and action-flick plots, Inception manipulates the digital audience’s delectation for relentless subterfuge.”
“Nolanoids have been faithfully awaiting a vision, and in these crystal-clear (fake) annihilation scenes, Nolan out-Finchers Fincher and seeks Kubrickian misanthropy—but there’s a simple-minded sappiness at the heart of this cynical vision.”
“Iron Man 2 isn’t any worse than the first Iron Man, but we need new language to discuss the cultural stagnation evident in the ho-hum response to this sequel. Iron Man 2 is exactly what critics and audiences deserve following the celebration of that awful, dung-hued first film.” [dung-hued!]
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When I read his quotes I picture him rolling his “R’s” a lot and doing lots of hand gestures tot he ceiling. While wearing a frilly cravat.
If this guy forshakked Alka-Seltzer, it would be an effervescent Neveldine-Taylor truthbomb.
Armond White wears a Dolce & Gabbana monocle.
Oh, and would it be redundant to say that White feels his effervescent Neveldine-Taylor truthbomb doesn’t stink?
I strongly suspect that he lives under a bridge and eats goats.
But it’s a fancy bridge, and there’s wine to go with the goat.
Good luck getting that image of Armond White taking fizzling, foamy shits out of your head.
Armond White has never met a woman he couldn’t smooth into bed by comparing the rape scene in A Clockwork Orange to a beautifully graphic take down of consumerist cultural.
Is it bad that I confuse him with Uncle Ruckus on The Boondocks? Probably a stroke. Very Bad.
Is a “Gutentocracy” when people that love Police Academy run the world?
I would dearly love to listen to Armond White yell at a bank teller:
“The voracity of the exploitocracy, for which you shill, treads with nary an auspice of abashment. As your precepters in this farce reap and garner from the fruitage that are the vapid complacent citizenry, not a pearl, leave alone wax-paper-chalice, of supposedly unrecompensed coffee (that is unwritten contract) can be gleaned!”
Only a mutton-breathed frogswallet could think such a discromulous thing.
I imagine Armond White’s farts are absolutely exquisite!
Armond White’s farts must smell positively heavenly!
O, my dear lord! White’s imaginations are as foul as Vulcan’s stithy.
Anathema.
i have not eaten nearly enough chipotle to create a fart loud enough to respond to the venom spewed by White in this column
After spending four years doing close reading/analytical writing while getting my English degree, the only thing I want to “unpack” while reading even a snippet of Armond White is a gun to put in my mouth. My suicide will no doubt smite the unhaulting nincompoopery of the computocratic armchair criticism machismo.
As hard as I try I can’t enjoy Armond White on any level beyond finding his mere doucheyness kind of funny. Reading him is like being trapped in a room with a really pretentious undergrad (with a thesaurus) who just took his first literary theory course and now can’t help but berate you with his “stunningly deep insights” on the political dynamics of pop culture.
White does almost take it to a level of super, over the top, parody, though, which can be kind of amusing on the surface (often to the point where I wonder if its intentional on his part). But once you get past his over use of GRE study words, usually his reviews are either just completely banal, “Marxism/Postcolonial Theory 101″ type insights, or sheer nonsense.
I do admit that his vocabulary is kind of fun, though, mainly because it usually seems like he is deliberately using big words just for the sake of using them–often to the point that he flirts with misusing them entirely. He’ll often use a word, for example, that is technically “correct” definition wise, but completely wrong idiomatically. So the general impression is of a 9 year old writing out a review in plain English, then randomly using a thesaurus to replace random words with much bigger words to make himself sound smarter–despite that fact that in a good deal of cases, even though these words may fit technically in terms of bare definition, they don’t always make sense in terms of context/usage.
My general impression of him is that he has a massive chip on his shoulder. He’s like one of those under priveleged kids who attends an Ivy League school, wants desperately to fit in, so then he WAY overcompensates and just ends up becoming all the more out of place because of it. His reviews and writing style always seems really affected and unnatural to me.
Armond White is tricking us all. It’s just a more elaborate hoax than what Joaquin Phoenix “pulled” on us. Or White is just the ultimate troll. Is there a troll academy?
Respectfully disagree, Juan Carlo. He uses words carefully and correctly, they’re tough sentences to rewrite. You really can’t find better words to achieve his effect.
Affected and unnatural is a good schtick, I’ll give the man credit.
As my fabulously gay uncle once told me; “never trust a f*g with an ascot.” Armond White is gay right? (Checks Gaydar).
“Cruise should look up Neveldine-Taylor.”
I think he meant Messrs. Neveldine-Taylor.
More like Armond Black, amirite