So what's Brendan Gleeson in "Mission Impossible II" got to do with the price of beans?

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• Brian says:

  October 30, 2009 at 11:45 am

  I thank­fully only read Wells when you mock him at your sites. But I get the sense that “Whatever That Means” could also work as the name of his blog.

• Tom Russell says:

  October 30, 2009 at 1:08 pm

  We actu­ally have the old Kino set of MABUSE THE GAMBLER at home from the lib­rary, and have been drag­ging our feet, wait­ing for The Right Mood. But I think your words about Mabuse might provide just the impetus we’ve been look­ing for…

• The First Bill C says:

  October 30, 2009 at 1:09 pm

  “Maybe love’s a tomb where you dance at night.
  Maybe sanc­tu­ary is an elec­tric light”
  And you’re mak­ing fun of Tears for Fears?;-)

• bill says:

  October 30, 2009 at 1:19 pm

  At first, I was primar­ily bothered by the fact that White was at best so-so on THEATER OF BLOOD (which ain’t per­fect, but it has moments of great­ness), but this is really the kicker:
  “Almost 10 years before Vincent Price’s defin­it­ive per­form­ance as the ghoul­ish rap­per in Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’…”
  He really thinks his per­form­ance in the THRILLER video is Price’s defin­it­ive per­form­ance? He really and truly thinks that? For really and for true?

• Tom Russell says:

  October 30, 2009 at 1:48 pm

  This is some­thing I’ve grappled with for a long time. Let’s grant, of course, that Armond White is a bully, that his argu­ments are non­sensic­al, that his prose is nearly unread­able, and that his opin­ions go far bey­ond con­trari­an­ism to the point where it’s really hard to take them or him ser­i­ously. We all know that, and I think most of us can agree on those points without much controversy.
  But are his opin­ions, as Bill so aptly put it, for really and for true? Does he really believe the things he says, or is it an act?
  When I say that Scorsese’s greatest and most essen­tial film is KUNDUN, I know it’s a con­trari­an pos­i­tion to take but I do believe it sin­cerely. The same when I pick out THE STRAIGHT STORY as David Lynch’s crown­ing achieve­ment. When I cham­pi­on HUDSON HAWK as a mis­un­der­stood satire on big-budget action films, I know I’m pretty much stand­ing on my lone­some and, to a cer­tain degree, attract­ing atten­tion to myself, but, again: I do believe it’s a very funny film. I am a strident defend­er of 1776 and a huge fan of Rock Hudson.
  I know that these are con­trari­an opin­ions, but I’d like to think I came by them hon­estly and not just to be dif­fi­cult. The ques­tion is, are White’s opin­ions held for the former or the lat­ter? Is he self-aware of the myri­ad con­tra­dic­tions in his reasoning?

• James Keepnews says:

  October 30, 2009 at 2:36 pm

  TR – Since I made my White (in per­haps two senses?) point on The Auteurs com­ment thread, as far as your grapple avec l’Armond goes, I’d say the answers are, in order: yes, yes, yes and yes.
  Which is to say: I fully believe he fully appre­ci­ates his often con­trari­an opin­ions as the polem­ic­al, consensus-bucking screeds they reg­u­larly are. I’m not so cyn­ic­al as to sug­gest he delib­er­ately stakes out his turf with con­trar­i­ness afore­thought, but it often reads that way, does­n’t it? Moreover, someone so besot­ted with mor­al­ity and eth­ics in his cri­ti­cism – can we agree, a dan­ger­ous or at least untrust­worthy inclin­a­tion in any arts crit­ic? – can­’t have that good a sense of humor. In this regard, Kant comes off like more of a joker than White.
  That said, I still have not par­ted with White’s col­lec­tion of City Sun/Film Comment essays from the mid-90’s, _The Resistance_, which demon­strates AW’s eru­di­tion in an earli­er, less hec­tor­ing peri­od (80’s into the early 90’s). His uniron­ic love for sin­gu­lar artists ran­ging from Terence Davies to Bill Gunn star­ted there, and I’d ven­ture to say nev­er became more iron­ic over time. He did not lack for WTF-worthy state­ments, but it’s also unlikely someone would have been able to fea­ture “Armond White-ism of the week” back then.

• tc says:

  October 30, 2009 at 3:26 pm

  I can think of sev­er­al crit­ics – includ­ing the latter-day Pauline Kael, to my sor­row – who began judging movies (or whatever) in terms of “What fits my persona?“I doubt they’re con­scious of the dis­tor­tion, though, since self-dramatization is a power­ful motor that does­n’t leave much room for self-scrutiny. But it sure helps to have a per­sona that’s appealing/rational/trustworthy/creditable in the first place.

• otherbill says:

  October 30, 2009 at 5:50 pm

  @ Tom Russell- I won­der the same thing about Mr. White on a weekly basis (TORQUE!?!?). I can only add my own bemuse­ment to the pile.
  On a more pos­it­ive note- know that your are not alone on the patch of ground you have staked out w/r/t KUNDUN.

• partisan says:

  October 30, 2009 at 8:37 pm

  If we’re talk­ing about vil­lians (and actu­ally it seem we’re talk­ing about Armond White), noth­ing suits Halloween and essen­tial vil­liany than bru­tal murders! Here’s some­thing on the inter­net you might find inter­est­ing: Some guy’s col­lec­tion of the 100 greatest murders in the movies: http://angryflower.com/paulsmurders.html