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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:32 pm
by Big Magilla
Damien wrote:The real difference between Armond White and Nathan Lee is that even though White is pretty nutty, he has a singular voice and writes with originality and passion. Lee is just a bland little movie nerd with nothing of interst to posit.
As are most of today's critics. Though most would abhor the comparison, they are more the literary children of Rex Reed than Andrew Sarris or James Agee. Be that as it may, they are often more enjoyable reads than White who resembles no one in print so much as that nefarious N.Y. Times theatre critic of the late 20th Century, John Simon, with his vicious attacks on people and films he does't like. Art, like life, is seldom black and white. There are sometimes things to like in bad movies and things to bristle at in good ones.
White's putdowns of films often carries with them the inference that if you like one, or God forbid, all of those he mentions in his endless lists, there must be something wrong with you. Conversely if you don't like anything or everything he does, there must definitely be somthing wrong with you.
I disagree with Penelope. I think White, like Ann Coulter, is just a mean spirtied person who believes everything he writes, at least at the moment he's writing it.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:27 pm
by Eric
Alright, I could be wrong -- I admit I haven't been reading much of either White or Lee lately.
When I say White's writing still feels closeted (as opposed to the man), I'm mainly talking about his reviews for this and other gay movies (the ones he likes, A Thousand Clouds of Peace, and the ones he doesn't, Brokeback) where I sense a great resistance to offering any sort of self-disclosure about the subject matter.
The other extreme end of the ROY G. BIV spectrum would admittedly end up something like Lee's most regrettable writing impulses that have seemed to manifest a lot more often lately: to sexualize and lust after almost everything (an impulse I regret to say I'm guilty of every now and then myself), I guess I'm simply perceiving a self-built obstruction from a critic who I usually expect to operate with all stops out.
Then again, I suppose it's entirely possible that I'm blind to the possibility that White also writes about, say, race from the same sort of third-person voice.
That all said, I think both are clearly among the most fascinating film critics (have you read some of Lee's pieces in Film Comment, Damien? His piece on Borat, for starters, seems to have a very distinct voice), apart from their endorsement of this film.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:25 pm
by Penelope
Damien wrote:Johnny Guitar wrote:I thought that White was out and open?
I don't think White wears a placard broadcasting himself as queer, but he is out.
Maybe Eric meant Nathan Lee's not out?
But Lee pretty much outs himself in his Chuck and Larry review.
I can't stand White because I get the sense that he doesn't necessarily believe what he's saying--it comes across to me as all an act, an attempt to draw attention to himself--in the same way that Ann Coulter says outlandish things, so does Armand White. Thus, I can't trust what he says to either be reflective of his own views or even a serious critique of the film in question.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:08 pm
by Damien
Johnny Guitar wrote:I thought that White was out and open?
I don't think White wears a placard broadcasting himself as queer, but he is out.
Maybe Eric meant Nathan Lee's not out?
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 12:05 pm
by Damien
The real difference between Armond White and Nathan Lee is that even though White is pretty nutty, he has a singular voice and writes with originality and passion. Lee is just a bland little movie nerd with nothing of interst to posit.
Case in point, Nathan Lee had this vacuous, pointless and self-important Op-Ed piece in the New York Times today. Try to get through it without dozing off:
Giving It All Away
By NATHAN LEE
MY earliest memory of the movies is how I spoiled one. Every year my family went camping in New Hampshire, and every year it rained so hard we took shelter in the local movie theater. One damp summer afternoon, surrounded by men, women and children traumatized by the death of E.T., I suddenly cried out, “Don’t worry, he comes back to life!” I was 10 years old.
As the final volume of J. K. Rowling’s series goes on sale and Potter-mania goes through the roof, I wonder what would happen if some budding book critic, one of those lucky few to mistakenly receive an early copy in the mail, entered a bookstore today feeling a similar compulsion and spoiled the most anticipated finale in the history of anticipation with a shout: “Harry Potter dies!”
My guess is he’d be instantly killed.
Wishing to avoid that fate myself, let me be clear that I haven’t the slightest idea what happens on Page 759 of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”; I never got past Page 10 of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Personally, I couldn’t care less about the fate of the neurotic boy wizard. Professionally — as a film critic who might be assigned to review the movie version someday — I hope he croaks. I’m a sucker for bleak endings.
And as you can see from my first memory of the cinema, which was also my first act of criticism, I’m not above ruining an ending for others. I’m that terrible thing, the film critic armed with spoilers who isn’t afraid to use them.
I wouldn’t dare unmask the secrets in the movie “A History of Violence” out of respect for the artistry of David Cronenberg and the integrity of his booby-trapped plot, but there isn’t a single frame of “The Number 23” I wouldn’t mock in great, guiltless detail for the simple reason that I find it extremely silly. A spoiler requires something to spoil and someone to take offense at the spoiling, and I’m confident that my readership does not include humorless scholars of the Joel Schumacher oeuvre.
To spoil or not to spoil involves larger questions about the role of the critic, the needs of the reader and the changes to both caused by the scale, speed and outlaw spirit of Web-based commentary. In February, I tested that relationship — and roused the ire of some ardent online cinephiles — in my review of “The Wayward Cloud,” a lousy movie by a great director. Because I admire the work of Tsai Ming-liang, I gave myself license to fully explore where it went wrong.
As I worked though my argument it became clear that all roads led to the spoiling of a crucial scene — but spoiled for whom? On the one hand, I felt obligated to deter those unfamiliar with the director’s work and who might never give him another chance if they disliked — with good reason — the film under discussion. For them, I took special care to name his other titles and recommend their pleasures.
On the other hand, I wanted to say something relevant to those in the know — many of whom were already familiar with the unmentionable scene, which had been exhaustively described (and defended) online for nearly two years.
Reviewing a marginal art film in the pages of an alternative weekly presents a specific set of problems, but the same issues arise for the book reviewer of a newspaper or an essayist for Artforum: Who is the audience and what are their expectations? How do I best convey what they need to know? Does the work of other critics modify what I can “safely” discuss? Am I writing for those who already know the work or am I attempting to cultivate a new audience? How long should a work be available to the public before the question of spoilers is irrelevant?
It’s silly to insist that the critic never spoil. In practice, spoilers can be irresponsible, motivated by laziness, vindictiveness or snark, but if the ambition to inform the reader outweighs the need to protect them, then spoilers are warranted on principle. The integrity of the critic doesn’t revolve around whether or not they’re willing to spoil, but why they chose to do so.
Our obsession with spoilers has a diminishing effect, reducing popular criticism to a kind of glorified consumer reporting and the audience to babies. People outraged by spoilers should avoid all reviews before going to the movies or reading the book they’ve waited so long for, because the fact is all criticism spoils, no matter how scrupulous.
From the very first sentence, from the moment you name a director, specify a genre or identify an influence you’ve removed some essential element of surprise. “Rosebud was the name of his sled” spoils “Citizen Kane,” but so in a certain way does the information that Orson Welles was 25 years old when he made the film.
The critic who says too much isn’t the problem. The problem is that we don’t trust critics to say exactly what we need to know.
Nathan Lee is a film critic for The Village Voice.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 11:06 am
by Johnny Guitar
I thought that White was out and open?
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 2:34 am
by Eric
The true difference between Armond's and Nathan Lee's take on this film is that one of them remains in the closet.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:46 pm
by Big Magilla
Penelope wrote:I swear, Armond White is nearly as much of a moronic idiot as GW Bush.
At least White will sit down and watch a movie even if he proably already has his mind made up about it - Bush would probably refuse to watch half of what White does on moral grounds even if he had the time.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 7:43 pm
by Big Magilla
Damien wrote:With his idiotic summary dismissal of Bruno Dumont in his review of Flanders, this Nathan Lee person surpassed Richard Roeper and Jeffrey Lyons as the stupidest person alive writing film reviews.
{Dirty Little Secret: Nathan Lee's a Neo-Con.}
I'll take his pithy reviews over that old windbag Armond White's any day of the week.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:47 pm
by Penelope
I swear, Armond White is nearly as much of a moronic idiot as GW Bush.
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 12:38 pm
by Sonic Youth
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 5:18 am
by Eric
AFAIC, anyone who could create a film as loathesome as 29 Palms deserves whatever scorn they have coming to them.
I'll admit his writing has seemed to take a turn for the worse since he got the Village Voice gig, But I'll trust Nathan Lee to review a film properly before I trust the same from GLAAD. (Where did this neocon accusation come from? I'll admit I don't read him weekly to know for sure.)
Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 12:20 am
by Damien
With his idiotic summary dismissal of Bruno Dumont in his review of Flanders, this Nathan Lee person surpassed Richard Roeper and Jeffrey Lyons as the stupidest person alive writing film reviews.
{Dirty Little Secret: Nathan Lee's a Neo-Con.}
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 10:01 pm
by Eric
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2007 6:07 pm
by kaytodd
On the other hand...
I looked up both films in imdb.com. In Movie Connections they have Chuck And Larry as an "unauthorized remake" of Strange Bedfellows. Supposedly, the earlier film was made for Australian audiences, the actors spoke with thick accents and there were many references in the script that would be familiar only to people in Australia. They wanted to remake the film for American audiences.
What is interesting to me is the term "unauthorized remake." Does that mean the makers of Chuck And Larry acknowledge the connection between the films but decided they did not violate copyright laws so therefore they owe the makers of Strange Bedfellows nothing?
Do the people at imdb.com know what they are talking about when they call this an "unauthorized remake?" West Side Story is listed as a "reference" of the 1936 Romeo And Juliet and Havana is listed as a "reference" of Casablanca, not as an "unauthorized remake." Or are the people at imdb.com just expressing their opinion when they suggest Chuck And Larry is a remake?
I will likely never be able to express my opinion. I have no interest in seeing either film.