comment #1

George Prager says ...

Throw it back.

comment #2

crazynine says ...

"Is it fair or achievable (in a legitimate, fair-minded sense) to compare rabid believers among true-believer, herd-mentality fanboys with the right-wing birthers and townhall "death panel" protesters?"

Sure, but only if you simultaneously compare true-believer, herd-mentality fanboys with the left-wing Obama drones and BusHitler protesters.

Unthinking ideological servitude is offensive in all of its political (and commercial) permutations.

Now, if one were to compare fanboys to Mac users. . . (I keed, I keed!)

comment #3

MovieBob says ...

You don't see it because it's not there ;)

In all seriousness, though, this sounds like overthinking it. I understand the desire to be able to find a paralell between a set of people/ideas widely despised and a second set of people/ideas YOU despise... but I don't see where this would come together.

People who already have their minds made up before they have all the facts because they're intellectual-approach to the world around them is grounded in BELIEF instead of THOUGHT all act pretty much the same, regardless of what the "belief" in question is. It's not something that's unique to the "fanboys" or to the town hall plants.

(Incidentally, does this mean you didn't care for "District 9?" If so, that's a review I'd like to see. I just did it last night - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/876-District-9 - and it's easily top-10 material on my end.)

comment #4

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

There's no correlation whatsoever.

I can't wait for District 9. Away at a wedding this weekend so delaying until next week, but by all accounts it's a cracker.

comment #5

bildeaux says ...

Yeah seems like he didn't like it, or just doesn't understand the fuss.

I'll find out tonight.

b.

comment #6

mccool says ...

who comes up with this shit? this pseudo-intellectual nonsense ... this compartmentalizing, self actualizing waste of energy. College kids think their ideas are all great revelations, but they're kids. I hope whoever came up with this is a kid, or was stoned. Think outside the box and off the plane, wonderful, but a dumb idea is a dumb idea, it doesn't need to be chewed or explored.

comment #7

Josh Massey says ...

I think Obama supporters are much closer in nature to fanboys. You guys keep talking yourself into thinking he's doing a great job in the same way fanboys twisted like pretzels to find something good to say about The Phantom Menace or King Kong.

comment #8

actionman says ...

my head is still spinning from District 9. truly something special. i'll probably go see it again tomorrow.

comment #9

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

King Kong. Fuck. I remember when Chud and AICN simply wouldn't admit that King Kong was a piece of shit. Talk about emperor's new clothes. Although, to be fair, the mainstream press went mental over it too, and then quickly retracted their statements when they realized it was gash.

What a clusterfuck of a film.

comment #10

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

In actionman I trust.

comment #11

Josh Massey says ...

You spend days/months/years talking yourself into how magnificent something is going to be. When it turns out to be less so, it's human nature to try and convince yourself otherwise.

Eventually, like with The Phantom Menace, you just admit the truth.

comment #12

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey says ...

There's also the fact that some films really do seem like they're good upon first viewing, and it takes time to digest them and realize they were gash. The Star Wars prequels were so bombastic, epic in scope and with John Williams' classic score, that it was easy to think you'd just seen something good when you walked out of the cinema. But the more you think about them, the weaker they become in your mind.

I thought Terminator Salvation was alright directly after I saw it, but now I can barely remember it.

comment #13

Jonah says ...

"I think Obama supporters are much closer in nature to fanboys. You guys keep talking yourself into thinking he's doing a great job in the same way fanboys twisted like pretzels to find something good to say about The Phantom Menace or King Kong."

Kind of like the people that still insist GWB was a good president, and that time will show just how great he was.
Fanboys, all of them.

comment #14

MovieBob says ...

"King Kong" WAS good. It's a three-star movie with a problematic first act and a self-indulgent middle, hardly anything to be classed as a disaster. Most of the overblowing came from people assuming Jackson was aiming to deliver some kind of ultra-dramatic "classy" reworking of the story. Instead he made a giant "look at all this stuff!!!" monster movie primarily concerned with how much creature spectacle it could throw up onscreen - in other words, he made KING KONG.

comment #15

Josh Tate says ...

I'm surprised those 500 commenters are actually getting worked up about something written by Armond the Contrarian. He's gotten to the point where one can predict his take on any given movie in advance.

comment #16

corey3rd says ...

complaining about Armond White is like whining about the humidity. It's just going to be that way. Go inside, turn on the AC and don't let you waste a life arguing his life.

comment #17

Joshua Mooney says ...

It's not "fair," Jeff, it's just plain absurd. There is no comparison, for reasons you already know. Anyway, doesn't take a fanboy to hate on Armond White, but as corey3rd pointed out, why bother? I give him two seconds of "fuckyounutjob" interior monologue no more than once a month, and I'm happy. But the "birthers" and "deathers" and the rest of them? They are truly dangerous. I've got plans for them cunts.

comment #18

TulseLuper says ...

Partisans are partisans. We all feel passionately about different artists and different political views, and often we won't hear a word against them. There are plenty of said fanatics on the left as well.

As for Armond White, I don't understand why everyone is going apeshit at him over District 9. It's not like this is anything new; hell, he was the one critic who gave In the Loop an outright pan (Some had reservations like Anthony Lane but White really read the film the riot act.) And as much as I can't stand White, I can't recommend Roger Ebert's defense of him enough.

comment #19

TulseLuper says ...

Okay Ebert hasn't defended White altogether but he has conceded that he can occasionally make good points.

comment #20

EdHavens says ...

Armond White always makes good points, regardless of whether you agree with them or not.

Frankly, I'm tired of watching fanboys shit all over anyone who makes an honest, articulate and genuine case against one of their films. Or, if they are going to say something, they should try to make an honest, articulate and genuine case against his points. But I don't think this round of vitriol against Armond is as bad as it usually is.

comment #21

lipranzer says ...

"Armond White always makes good points."

Um, no. Anybody who rails against movies shot in digital as being anti-film and then, without irony, praises RACHEL GETTING MARRIED (a movie that, incidentally, I liked a lot), which is SHOT IN DIGITAL, doesn't make good points at all.

As for DISTRICT 9, I liked it, but I didn't love it. I sort of predicted where it was going, and I'm not sure the "good" alien was much different from the "noble savage" stereotype. Still, it was well-made for the most part.

comment #22

Terry McCarty says ...

Jackson's KING KONG, if it had been pruned to no longer than 140 minutes, would have been more highly regarded by all (certainly me) than the 190-minute "don't touch a frame of this, I'm Peter Jackson" theatrical version.

comment #23

Terry McCarty says ...

ROTTEN TOMATOES, HITFLIX--sites for fanboys to suck sugary teat-milk from. I'm probably one of the few to go to RT and actually click individual review links rather than merely look at "consensus" percentages.

comment #24

Terry McCarty says ...

BoshBarnetWonkyDonkey wrote:
I thought Terminator Salvation was alright directly after I saw it, but now I can barely remember it.

McG seems to have realized the flaws of the film and is promising to make the next installment better--from a recent interview I read (linked onto RT).

comment #25

EdHavens says ...

Lipranzer, I am guessing you are refering to White's comments in his review of Public Enemies? And you know what? He makes good points about the movie's horrendous videography. The colors were unnaturally ripe. The exteriors were overbright and the interiors were over-dark. The nightclub scene where Dillinger met Billie was so underlit it did resemble a brown-out. And he was right on when he also slammed Tetro's videography in the same review as being proof of the true aesthetic richness we are losing in the digital revoltion.

And White even recognized that Demme and DP Declan Quinn were trying to simulate the shaky aesthetics of a home movie in Rachel Getting Married.

I think it's a good thing White can recognize the need for digital cinematography in a little intimate family-themed movie and decry its use in a $100m plus crime epic.

comment #26

petunio says ...

Now wouldn't it be nice having less Yes Men in Rotten Tomatoes?. Every time a highly advertised movie that has some sort of following by rabid 20-something teenagers ready to swarm the poor critics email box with hundreds of barely intelligible emails.

Back in the day, Roger Ebert seemed "edgy" with his reviews, now he pleads angry fans not to email him thousands of emails in some of his reviews. Almost apologetic there.

About the Health reform, Obama should just follow Bill Maher's advice and go on national television and shout "Jesus told me to socialize medicine!". End of the day, this is all sadly related to Jesus in some twisted way.

comment #27

actionman says ...

Armond White is fucking moron. The man thinks that both War and Torque are masterworks, and the pinnacles of the action genre. Anyone who buys the shit he's shoveling needs to get their freakin' head examined. And yet...I still read the guy...

comment #28

lipranzer says ...

No, I'm not talking about PUBLIC ENEMIES, although it doesn't surprise me if he hated that movie. I'm talking about his reviews of movies like TARNATION, which, by the way, is a home movie basically, and BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD, and just about every other movie shot on digital. But if one of his beloved auteurs shot it in digital, all of a sudden it works (heaven knows what would happen if Spielberg decided to shoot a movie in digital, and again, I'm not knocking Spielberg - I'm still a fan). It's those kind of inconsistencies and moronic tendencies (to say "I liked TRANSFORMERS 2 because they blew things up real good" is one thing, to compare Bay to Godard is loony tunes) that make Armond White a moron and a hack.

comment #29

EdHavens says ...

I'm reading White's Tarnation review right now (http://www.nypress.com/article-10275-outsiders-come-in.html), and I think you're seeing something that's not there. I see White rightfully stating that having a video recorder and a copy of iMovie does not make one a filmmaker, and I also see White praising the shot-on-video "My Life on Ice," calling it the most convincing proof he had yet seen that the new video technology might be used as conscientiously and imaginatively as film.

As for his review of Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (http://www.nypress.com/article-17439-the-new-pornographers.html), I again think you're seeing something that's just not there. White makes absolutely zero mention in his review of how it was shot, let alone decrying its visual aesthetic.

He does have peculiar tastes at times, as we all do, but White is neither a moron nor a hack. And if you're going to make an argument against him, at least make it with evidence that supports your claim. And for the record, I am not a big fan of White's. I just don't like it when people slam a fellow critic for their incorrect assumptions about his or her writing, or because that critic doesn't like what they like.

comment #30

EDouglasCS says ...

Well said, Ed.

comment #31

nbxzero says ...

Movies Armond White rated as Rotten:

District 9
Harry Potter
500 Days of Summer
The Hangover
Up
Star Trek
The Dark Knight
WALL-E

Movies he rated as Fresh:

G.I. Joe
Transformers 2
Land of the Lost
Dance Flick
Confessions of a Shopaholic
Bedtime Stories
Terminator Salvation
Next Day Air

I think that says it all.

comment #32

mtgilchrist says ...

1. Rotten Tomatoes is an aggregate site, not a destination for its own opinions, and as such there are plenty of different options to explore if you want to read review from non-genre sites.

2. Armond White is a reliable contrarian, but what's most fascinating (and troubling) is the balance in his work between pure critique and deliberate provocation. I actually agree with some of his criticisms of District 9, in particular the fact that you can't selectively associate something like apartheid with the story, characters or structure of a fictional story. But his ability to construct well-articulated arguments about films is deservedly overshadowed by the fact that his taste is wildly inconsistent, at least in the sense that his priorities are uneven between one film and another, which makes his opinion unreliable from either a pure reader standpoint but especially from a consumerist one.

3. Regarding your original question, Jeff, I think that the only parallels that can be made are between any group that espouses a certain point of view and is threatened by an opposing viewpoint, be that left or right. I'm as troubled by the intolerance and hostility of the movie community as I am by the hateful, anarchic suggestions of the political community (especially the public right), but there are certainly people all over the political spectrum who are so egreguiously threatened by discussion and disagreement that they can only respond with animosity, fear and anger.