comment #1

Burgus says ...

Armond White.. What a surprise.

comment #2

maxfm says ...

Armond and Rex?

Sounds like I'll be seeing Inception ASAP.

comment #3

George Prager says ...

If I made a movie and these guys all praised it, I would consider myself a failure.

comment #4

raygo says ...

No one takes Rex Reed seriously. Armond White is just a note above Reed.

comment #5

phantasmata says ...

pinkerton has always had it out for nolan; he was going to pan this movie no matter what. same with white. btw, we should have an armond white drinking game where we down stolichnya every time the word "nihilism" appears in one of his reviews. "boo hoo hoo this movie doesn't confirm my morality, it's a dreadful display of spiritual barbarism, boo hoo hoo." and who the hell gives a shit about rex reed?

also, skip the pinkerton review if you don't want to be spoiled. god, what a fucking dickbag that guy is.

comment #6

Glenn Kenny says ...

White's review is particularly special, a tossed-off bag of bile in which he calls the film "despicable," which I think is just a bit of an overreaction even if you don't like the thing.

comment #7

reverent and free says ...

Armond White panned Inception...and the sun rose this morning.

Even Edelstein isn't much of a surprise considering he said nay to Nolan's last three films. But then I'm in the Dark Knight holdout camp, so I'll have to see.

comment #8

Sams says ...

Todd McCarthy didn't care too much for it either.

comment #9

JohnCope says ...

Matt Zoller Seitz also disliked the film, saying that Nolan is far too much of a rationalist to properly iimmerse himself in dream state logic or even represent dreams effectively. I buy that though it must, of course, be noted that Seitz is another who has actively disliked everything of Nolan's after Memento. It seems this is starting to break down along lines of initial loyalty. I'm ambivalent about Nolan (though I've liked some of his work very much) so my experience may be more of an interesting test case scenario.

Also, the real value of Seitz's recent comments is that he too uses the opportunity to make a case about the conformist nature of film reviewing and the enormous pressure to fall into line behind the blockbusters which consensus perceives as deserving.

comment #10

JohnCope says ...

"immerse"

comment #11

Sean says ...

Glenn, overreactionary as calling it "despicable" may be, White is definitely punning on DESPICABLE ME. (Well, not a pun per se.) He's always engaged in those word games. (And, again, your definition of "game" may vary.)

To me this is Armond at his most coherent. Like so many critics, his auteurist hat is fixed too tightly on his head, and so, right, everyone can expect him to dislike INCEPTION. But his basic point that Nolan's movies are only concerned with their own internal mechanics and emotional temperature, and that they don't provide any real insight into how people in the real world live their lives, is at least a thought that can be grappled with (unlike his content-free TOY STORY 3 review.) You can disagree with that point, but he has legitimately put the onus on you to do so, and support your statement.

I can only disagree by agreeing -- Lenny in MEMENTO might not be a naturalistic, relatable character, such that he commands empathy and audience identification on a scene-by-scene, beat-by-beat basis, but there is a moral charge in seeing the scope of his mindfuck made clear. This is also true of THE PRESTIGE, less so of FOLLOWING; INSOMNIA's performances elevate it to greater relatability, if a less forceful conclusion.

Nolan is preoccupied with the stories that we tell about ourselves and just how reliable or fragile they are. This can lead to a movie that feels like it's happening behind glass, but I can still get a thrill from something formal like that, where I have to impute additional humanity into it to make it resonant. And audiences clearly get a thrill from them as well. But Armond isn't off his rocker to identify these aspects of Nolan's movies, or being a troll to dislike them.

comment #12

Sean says ...

John, where's MZS's review?

comment #13

nemo says ...

I don't know anything about Pinkerton, but if Armond White and Rex Reed don't like it, it's a must-see for me.

Sean's comment above is one of the most thought-provoking reviews of Nolan's career I've read.

comment #14

JohnCope says ...

@Sean: actually, it was a thread on his Facebook page but I'm sure he'll publish a more extensive version of his thoughts somewhere else soon.

comment #15

Sean says ...

I've resisted friending MZS because, you know, I don't actually know him, he's not actually my friend, but if he's cultivating a house next door to The House Next Door over there, I guess I will.

comment #16

Sad McBain says ...

White and Reed may have names, but their brand...

Actually Reed's review is predictably hilarious.

And Jeff, I'm surprised you haven't picked up on this critique of White's TS3 review where the author exposes all of White's factual and logical inaccuracies. I know no thinking person takes this guy seriously, but now some one has taken the time to prove it. http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/07/hating-the-player-losing-the-game-the-armond-white-meta-review/

comment #17

cricket says ...

"I know no thinking person takes this guy [White] seriously..."

Then you should scroll up and read Sean.

White is often a crank, but that doesn't render everything he writes gibberish. At his best he's more interesting than most reviewers. I can't imagine only reading people I agree with.

comment #18

Jonathan Spuij says ...

McCarthy's review isn't a pan. It's just not a masterpiece, there's plenty of things he does admire about the film.

comment #19

actionman says ...

edelstein, white, and reed are notorious pussies.

and like spuij said above, mccarthy's review was def not an out-right pan.

comment #20

Sad McBain says ...

Cricket, you should read the story I linked to. The man is disingenuous at worst, forgetful at best. Of course I don't read only people I agree with; that doesn't mean we need to obsolve the Sarah Palin of film criticism of his factual and critical inaacuracies.

comment #21

Floyd Thursby says ...

I hope Cotillard runs into Reed somewhere, shouts, "I'll wart you, you senile prick," and slugs him.

comment #22

Telemachos says ...

I think some of the disparity may come from expectation. If you looking for an action-adventure with some thought and intelligence behind it, INCEPTION completely delivers (like THE MATRIX did back in '99). If you're looking for a film that explores the more delicate and metaphysical aspects of dreaming, the dreamstate, and reality, then you may be somewhat mixed, as INCEPTION touches on these points, but only as a jumping off point for more adventure.

In other words, it's not Tarkovsky. Then again, were people really expecting it to be?

comment #23

701 says ...

I honestly can't believe that WB screwed this up by screening the film early for a handful of critics, letting early raves out on the web, and then hosting all-media screenings for everyone else.

It's like they were deliberately trying to set off a backlash. (They succeeded.)

This is f-----g Film Marketing 101: you show a great movie to everyone all at once so that people review the film, and not reviews.

Jesus effin' Christ on a pogo stick.

How much do those idiots at WB get paid to screw things up?

comment #24

lazarus says ...

LOL at Armond White as a "name-brand", although I guess you could say the same about Natural Light, but that doesn't make it worthy of inclusion in a discussion about legitimate beers.

comment #25

DavidF says ...

At this point I'm steering clear of all reviews.

Still, is Wells ever going to get to see thing or is he going to have to buy a ticket like everyone else?

comment #26

Sean says ...

McBain, I've retweeted that same Slant link myself, because I think it's a good dismantling of how far afield White can go. But unlike, in my opinions, Rex Reed and Anthony Lane's bodies of works, there is insight to be mined from White's reviews because he's honestly a student of the movies, and not just in a like-books-but-with-actors! way. While I think his preconceptions often poison his moviegoing experiences, I think he reports on those experiences honestly.

And he has the apparatus to really engage a movie, both for praise or scorn, when he chooses to do so; he can work at the granular level. His INCEPTION pan operates mostly on the theme/story/morals level, which ... I mean, it isn't inappropriate -- that's where most of the nation's film discourse takes place -- but it's easy for a writer to get flabby when he sits there, and I think as White's "troll" star has risen, he's been content to entertain himself swatting at flies.

comment #27

MilkMan says ...

From mstrmnd.com: "Writers equating or comparing Nolan (and Inception) to Kubrick are revealing how tragically inept their reviewing skills are. Nolan is a product of the age of criminal science, his films are primarily tales of crime and guilt. Their overlap is minimal at best: he employs only rarely similar symbols of Kubrick, they share neither themes, nor archetypes and certainly not storytelling or visual styles. While both may be misidentified as pessimists, equating them is like saying Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy are similar because they both wrote in Russian during the 19th century. On very basic levels they are in complete opposition: Nolan gravitates programmatically towards 'gotcha' plots, stories that reveal twists in mechanics forced into the camera's foreground to shock an audience, Kubrick kept a steady distance from his characters and arcs to allow the audience to find his numerous mode-jerks on their own, if they even really wanted or needed them, and in most cases they were entirely unnecessary, his films could succeed without an audience detecting any of them. To label Nolan as "Kubrick with a heart" is the final paradox, Nolan might properly be argued as "Kubrick without a heart," but audiences seem to be seduced by Nolan's orgiastic suffering that stands in for soul. Nolan is really "James Bond with a heart" but reviewers probably feel dumb expressing that cold reality. Strange culture we inhabit now."

comment #28

Sean says ...

@actionman: Is that really the dialectic here? INCEPTION's awesome awesomeness is going to be so awesome that reviewers who can't appreciate it are pussies? I mean, if you wanted to say that about TRANSFORMERS 2 then I would understand the spirit in which it was intended, but even with all the hype it never occurred to me that INCEPTION was going to be heralded as a article of macho faith.

comment #29

Glenn Kenny says ...

Sean writes, in comment #11: "But [Armond White's] basic point that Nolan's movies are only concerned with their own internal mechanics and emotional temperature, and that they don't provide any real insight into how people in the real world live their lives, is at least a thought that can be grappled with...You can disagree with that point, but he has legitimately put the onus on you to do so, and support your statement."

Jeez, I was just making a comment on a Wells thread, and all of a sudden I've got an onus on me. How the hell did that happen?

As it happens, I kind of agree with White's point, at least his point as you articulate it, that Nolan's films are largely, if not only, concerned with their own internal mechanics, and so on. The difference for me is that I DON'T CARE. Or rather, that it doesn't bother me. I don't expect, or want, every film I see to be the aesthetic and moral equivalent of "Le regle de jou." Or, as I put it in my own review, "those expecting Renoir will be disappointed, but if you're stupid enough to expect Renoir from this, you deserve worse than to be disappointed." Which was a little harsh, I guess. But I have no problem admitting that I really don't mind a clever little formalist item every once in a while (as I also say in my review, I really dig early Ellery Queen), and I found "Inception" pretty satisfactory on that level. Armond and his idea of humanism can go stew in their own bitter juices.

comment #30

Sean says ...

Glenn, I apologize for being imprecise: I meant that the onus falls to the royal you, the universal Glenn of which we are all a part.

That said, and as I mentioned earlier, I like my puzzleboxes too. I hope to be there for INCEPTION opening night and in IMAX. The critic who really gets me wound up about Nolan is Jim Emerson, whose picking apart of various scenes and shots in THE DARK KNIGHT is the kind of movie reviewing I'm always happy to see more of.

comment #31

Jeffrey Wells says ...

Wells toDavidF: "Is Wells ever going to get to see thing or is he going to have to buy a ticket like everyone else?," you said. I reviewed it first thing this morning under "My Guitar Wants To Kill," etc.

comment #32

Glenn Kenny says ...

Sean, I was kinda just messin' with ya...

comment #33

George Prager says ...

"those expecting Renoir will be disappointed, but if you're stupid enough to expect Renoir from this, you deserve worse than to be disappointed."

Didn't White compare GROWN-UPs to Renoir a couple of weeks ago?

comment #34

nbxzero says ...

Anyone who thought Armond White was going to give Inception a positive review is nuts. Because Jonah Hex and Dance Flick were so much better (in his mind).

comment #35

C.C. Baxter says ...

Avowed Nolanite Mike D'Angelo is kinda nonplussed too, based on recent tweets.

comment #36

actionman says ...

"INCEPTION's awesome awesomeness is going to be so awesome that reviewers who can't appreciate it are pussies?"

No, Sean. Not what I'm saying at all. Just sayin' they're a bunch of Nancy-Ladies. That's all.

comment #37

ledbulb says ...

Sean's comment above is one of the most thought-provoking reviews of Nolan's career I've read.
As the current led bulb.

comment #38

Sean says ...

@actionman: I dunno, maybe Team America's pussy/dick/asshole structure better befits those three.

I have to say that, while he was at Slate, Edelstein was maybe my favorite "mainstream" critic writing, though I am much less energized by his NY Mag work -- he seems to have fallen more into the Reed/Lane witty-columnist camp than the weekly-deadline-honed writer I'd enjoyed. But maybe I haven't read his NY Mag stuff frequently enough to really say.

comment #39

moviechick44 says ...

A lot of nitpicking if you ask me. I think Nolan's vision is of grand scope and near genuis. To guffaw this film seems odd to me, like they could do better.
Toy Story 3 this is definitely not. But ya know what...that's OK too.

comment #40

DeeZee says ...

Ebert gave it four stars, and oddly enough, 2 1/2 stars to Sorcerer's Apprentice.

comment #41

K. Bowen says ...

The Kubrick meme really does need to stop. Every complex film gets slapped with that label.

A clinical version of Tarkovsky. Solaris. Movies about guilty men rebuilding flawed versions of dead wives from the seeds of memory and subconscious. Both films fueled by guilt.

comment #42

ZayTonday says ...

Armond said that the storytelling in Inception was just as shitty as Toy Story 3 and that it wasn't as good at social commentary as Gamer was.

He was actually serious.

Armond White is a guy who gets paid to troll the Internet.

comment #43

ZayTonday says ...

If you read the Observer and Village Voice reviews it's painfully obvious that they came in to the theater with an axe to grind.

Rex Reed was worse than Armond believe it or not:

"Like other Christopher Nolan head scratchers-the brainless Memento, the perilously inert Insomnia, the contrived illusionist thriller The Prestige, the idiotic Batman Begins and the mechanical, maniacally baffling and laughably overrated The Dark Knight-this latest deadly exercise in smart-aleck filmmaking without purpose from Mr. Nolan's scrambled eggs for brains makes no sense whatsoever. Is it clear that I have consistently hated his movies without exception, and I have yet to see one of them that makes one lick of sense."

comment #44

great scott says ...

I know I've harped on this before, but I'd make a million dollar bet that Leonard Maltin won't like it either. The more innovative, original, and "out there" a film is, the more old fuddy duddy Leonard resists it.

Since it reportedly runs 150 minutes, I'm 90% certain that even if he likes it, he'll complain that it's too long.

comment #45

Sean says ...

@Zay: If we're going to play this game, what's wrong with the social commentary in GAMER?

comment #46

LexG says ...

I liked GAMER, even though it's by far the least of the N/T directorial efforts. But I think all the best satirical points and social commentary were reserved for the sex-game subplot, which was FASCINATING. Funny, that's a movie where the main stuff with Butler was kind of neither here nor there, and within the movie there's this side movie about his ex as some zombied-out sex slave that's a zillion times more entertaining and provocative and well-filmed than the standard shit where Butler's racing around warehouses in some generic first-person shooter game.

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comment #48

reverent and free says ...

Sean, it seems to me that Edelstein has less space in his nymag column than he did at Slate, though he does expand some (not all) of his reviews on his blog The Projectionist.

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comment #50

Sams says ...

A. O. Scott's NYTimes review. He's not too impressed either.:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/movies/16inception.html?src=twt&twt=nytimesmovies

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