By Mike D'Angelo, John Lichman, Vadim Rizov, and Keith Uhlich
[Editor's Note: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the commenters, and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of The House Next Door.]
INTRODUCTION
Hello Greenpoint!
We're back again with our official "Best Introductory Segway Ever" and return guest Mike D'Angelo, who came to discuss a film dear to (one of) our hearts: Afterschool.
Vadim hates the film since he has a gigantic chip on his shoulder about being a part of the "YouTube Generation" (yet I'm fairly confident he watches Hulu more than anything else these days), so he and Mike trade a few hundred verbal blows, during which we learn about Antonio Campos' talk with D'Angelo, namecheck Filmbrain, and contemplate renaming the New York Film Festival as "NYFF" ("knife"). Either way, best modern American film or not? Who knows! Listen and find out!
We (those who attended KNIFE) then try to figure out what The Headless Woman and Bullet in the Head are all about, have our second official "Worst Segway Ever" to A Christmas Tale, the movie with the optional subtitle everyone seems to ignore, and discuss the recurring themes of Arnaud Desplechin.
And though we don't talk about Meet Dave, we DO discuss Armond White's insane essay on Soul Man and how it relates to President-Elect Barack Obama. Also, we coin the following phrase to deal with every Armond White piece ever, giving us our episode title:
"That's true, but not what Armond means."
(Armond, come on. Please. )
Join us next time when we'll have two special episodes! In what order, we'll find out! And if you ever see Vadim or myself at the bar, feel free to buy us a drink! Or pressure The Onion's New York Decider site to hire me. Grassroots is expensive with no fixed income. (JL)
Podcast is embedded below. Any problems, it can also be found here as a downloadable mp3 file. (TRT: 53 minutes 01 second)
PODCAST
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Mike D'Angelo looks like this.
John Lichman is a freelance writer who contributes to The Reeler, Primetime A&E [print only] and anyone with cash. He works odd jobs to afford his vices, sleeps on couches and can drink Vadim Rizov under a table.
Vadim Rizov is a New York-based freelance writer. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, The Onion AV Club and Paste Magazine, among others.
Keith Uhlich is editor of The House Next Door.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
HND@Grassroots: Season 2, Episode 8 (26), "That's true, but not what Armond means."
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19 comments:
Maybe it's because I'm something of a contrarian ass myself, but I think White's essay, like most of his work, is really sort of complicated and doing a lot of things. It was an interesting and less played-out way to discuss our president, it's implicitly and explicitly at times about the way certain kinds of racial comedies are perceived as "racist" when they really kinda aren't, and some other stuff.
I also feel confused why White's oppositional tactics are taken to task weekly by someone on some film blog somewhere while the same ire is rarely sent in the direction of a certain kind of safe, tow-the-art-film-line critics...
Because Armond is hilarious, while the quote whores are just tedious.
Well, technically, we're the film blog you're at. So it isn't just somewhere.
But we love Armond. We despise Ben Lyons.
And trust me, if we could convince Peter Travers or any Lyons to show up, we totally would have them on and defend themselves.
Hell, I'd love for Ben Lyons to defend the "12 million" number Vadim brought up in the last podcast comments.
But Brandon, seriously:
this was just an excuse for Armond to write a few thousand words on Soul Man. It had nothing to do with the President-elect aside from it being a convenient tie-in.
I don't have time right now to undertake a complete list of all the reasons White bugs me, but the top of it would be his constant use of "hipster." A hipster, in White's definition, is anyone who disagrees with him, which makes him pretty much impossible to argue with. A lot of the time, he believes using a word with a negative connotation is, in and of itself, an argument; it is not. Similarly, he believes that saying a certain group of people he disagrees with like a film is an argument against it; it isn't, anymore than my claiming my solidarity with people of that film would constitute any kind of meaningful argument. He also in the Desplechin review refers to some presumable "gatekeepers" (presumably also hipsters) who shove Desplechin's down everyone's throats. Frankly, for Armond to pretend he's somehow been excluded from the top tier of cinematic debate is just nuts. Constantly playing the role of the marginalized outsider is totally disingenuous. Armond is also part of the New York Film Critics Circle, which means that the people who read him are the small audience that read a lot of film criticism from serious writers on a regular basis. Serious-minded he is; I have no doubt in my mind that he's basically coming from the same place as Kent Jones or Pauline Kael (however much he'd protest) and less from, say, Bosley Crowther's territory. The fact that he insists that he's completely Other — that he addresses a different, more populist audience...well, it's a pose, and call it a theoretical one if you want, but I don't know what good it's supposed to do anyone. He's basically attacking his audience, week after week after week, in addition to his colleagues.
I mean, just a few quick reasons. There's more where that came from.
Armond's gate-crashing truth-teller shtick is the critical Viagra he needs to keep doing what he does. Yes, it's played out, and no longer convincing to anybody but Armond (and maybe a few young 'uns who are just now discovering him). But the man's frequently brilliant, and even the most self-satisfied rant is likely to contain a number of argument-sparking observations you just won't get from anybody else. That "Soul Man" piece was unhinged, inspired and altogether a breath of fresh air -- not great enough to counterbalance Armond's trashing of onetime fave Brian de Palma over "Redacted" for purely (right wing) political reasons while saying barely a word about the movie's audacious visuals, but damn good nonetheless. Any day when I pick up a newspaper and see a few thousand words devoted to defending an old movie almost nobody liked is a good day. Better that than another spate of articles on "Quantum of Solace" (which I think I'm alone in liking, but that's another thread).
Might as well say it: Norman Mailer was full of shit, too. "The Time of Our Time" is on my bedside table as we speak.
I flat-out love that "Soul Man" piece. Normally I can't stand White, but reading that surprising, out-of-nowhere essay today left me giddy with pleasure. I remember sort of liking "Soul Man" when I was sixteen, then reading the near-universal thrashing it received (including from Ebert, back in the days when he gave a one-star review now and then) and thinking, "Boy, guess I'm immature." Glad to know I still am.
One of the many delights THE FUTURIST! looks forward to is another podcast by Bloggerland's Mad Hatter, March Hare and Dormouse who invite another guest to their Mad Mar-Tea-ni Party.
It was grand to hear another session so quickly after the Classic Faisal Fete.
John Lichman, so far the only Web job position you have found is the one Life has landed you ... arms and legs akimbo adhered to the ugly web of unemployment staring into the hungry segmented eyes of desperation as it approaches you like a giant Black Widow. Before it devours you, lets just hope you at least get sex out of it before the ingesting ... aren't those critters are known for that?
THE FUTURIST! would gladly finance a show to blow Ben Lyons off the airwaves. Imagine a review show with Vadim and Lichman in all their Armond White NY hipness spouting polysyllabic pronunciations on film. And not just the latest computerized Space Monkeys movie or Ben Stiller humiliation comedy or Let's Scare Kit Kittridge to Death ... no!! V and L would rhapsodize on Indie films featuring men making omelettes in medieval armor in slow motion. Just imagine this, boys, in your alcohol sodden Grassroots environs. Fantastic ... and Keith Uhlich stage right making martinis for the duo clad in a tweeds, sweater vest and ascot. This is TV History!
THE FUTURIST! must leave now ... he is overcome with ideas ... and he must take out the trash Canne ... (thank you Mike D'Angelo for the correction in grammar.)
Mr. Seitz basically nailed it. The snark of the rest of you guys, not so much...
I think my issue and I should've phrased this way initially, is that White's opinions on stuff are questioned and suggested as disengenuous, while again, lesser critics who do way less interesting stuff are mainly simply considered hack-y or "quote whores" and not like, incredibly problematic to film criticism.
Again the condescension. To cynically say White like had some film critic version of morning wood and just HAD to write about 'Soul Man' and was gonna do it any way he could is callous.
White, while hardly an outsider, has no doubt sacrificed a certain level of fame he could've had because of his opinions. Furthermore, his work is about populism often and he's working on this like, Richard Rorty sense of irony in that he knows his readership simply isn't the "average person" and so, his is speaking to the readers of free alt. weeklies and film dorks all around, reminding them of the, moral and ethical issues related to the movies celebrated and dismissed.
Of course, it's always easy to say someone else nailed it better than you did, Brandon.
But whenever you want to admit that, please feel free.
And try to do so without saying, "[x] was right when [x] said and I meant what [x] said!!"
Not to mention, I respect what Armond does write and never once have I tried to use his words against him. Rather, they where why i invited him on,
BTW, Brando:
Try arguing with us when you're not attempting to one-up Vadim since you've got some weird bone to pick with him since he's younger than you.
My god, that Armond makes a statement that's inane--you must see it as odd, since failure to do so means you're not a real film critic! OMG! you're just...normal!! OH NOES!!!! OH NOES!!! YOU ARE NORMAL?!!?!? OMFG.
Armond White, Armond White, Armond White...repeat to infinity. Are there eleven letters others one can write in the film blog atmosphere to get people in to such a tizzy? This conversation has been going on with the same things said for so long that I find it surprising that every time his name comes up people don't just say, didn't we do this three months ago? I mean, I don't like his criticism, I think he is far too into the effect his thought may produce than in the thought itself, and I think he has some very serious errors in his analysis of cinema. So thats where I stand, but the main point is, haven't we all been here before and before and before?
Hell, I was more dissapointed in the discussion of Desplechin. I was surprised by the similar surface level criticism on display in that discussion, and even more surprised at how little of his work these critics had seen. He has been a pretty big figure for at least 10 years now. And Esther Kahn continues to be the most misunderstood of films. ARMOND!!!!
While I wish John hadn't drunk-posted three responses in a row, Brandon I don't get you. How am I "condescending" to a man with a much wider readership, track record and way more influence? To condescend I'd have to have some way to look down on him. I obviously don't.
Your main point seems to be that we shouldn't bash White because we don't spend as much time talking about other critics who aren't as constantly discussed as sources of frustration. Fair enough: I'm not a big fan of, say, Kenneth Turan or Stephen Ho.den. I also never read them these days. Perhaps this is a tribute to Armond's obvious superiority. White's a big kid, and I'm sure our tiny little podcast isn't hurting his feelings.
But mostly, what is your bizarre fixation on labeling me as snarky, condescending, etc.? Because we're coming up on our year-long anniversary. I almost feel like I should buy you a drink. Better yet, the futurist should.
Hey Lewis, sorry we didn't list our complete Desplechin viewing logs. I've seen La Vie Des Morts, My Sex Life, Esther Kahn and Kings And Queen additionally. Hope that clears something up. Review is here: http://www.thehousenextdooronline.com/2008/11/its-clarity-christmas-tale.html
That didn't work. But it's under my tag or whatever.
Whoa, when did things get so bitchy over here at the HND@Grassroots? Drunk-posting you say? Liichmaaaann!
I dug the podcast (well, most of it anyway -- I had to skip what I'm sure was all the dope discussion of Afterschool -- that's right, I skipped ahead and kept listening!).
I think md'a is a wonderful foil for the House team because he has such an assured voice (both as author and speaker, apparently) and his strong convictions / opinions are easy to react against. True, he can be something of a mic hog, but that's really a minor fault when weighed against his value as a good conversation starter / sustainer.
I think my favourite 'cast (of recent memory, anyway, and I haven't listened to all of them either, so I suppose I'm somewhat biased) is D'Angelo's first appearance. The heavily debated subject matter (TDK) might have had something to do with the appeal, but I think the level of discussion / debate was also very high. It was a good'n for sure.
Only wish I'd had more exposure to the films discussed this time 'round. I was left a little out in the cold, unfortunately, but that's a result of my own (vast and terribly incapacitating) blind spots, so I can't complain.
And dammit, the podcasts would be worth it just for THE FUTURIST!'s continuing presence as dedicated subscriber. TF! -- is there anything you can't do?
Lastly, it was nice of Uhlich to keep it in his pants this week. That really got distracting last time out. A veritable elephant in the room, if you know what I mean.
(I mean the cell phone.)
The condescension point was aimed at Lichman because he basically set-up White's Soul-Man/Obama article as an excuse to review Soul-Man. Like, not only questioning but outright saying "this is why White did this" is very condescending an undercuts the strength and apparently, emotional resonance of White's piece.
Or, it's condescending when Lichman says in a factual manner that White's opinion is "inane".
Matt made a point that really wasn't the same as mine, but seemed like a good address of why White's good and why people don't like him and so, I noted it as such. It seemed like a good way halfway point towards seriously discussing White without all the "he's great!" or "he's crazy!" stuff.
My issue with the certain kinds of critiques launched at White are that they fall back on his disingenuous-ness or some kind of "difficult to be difficult" assertion which while stupid, shouldn't be seen as stupider or more inauthentic than critics who tow the party line.
At this point, I'm basically just having a fairly pleasant discussion about White and other stuff. I'm not sure what there is in any of my comments here to be upset by. I think it's you guys who should chill-out.
I generally expect full disclosures of film knowledge and viewing histories from critics so as to be better able to judge whether they are well versed, learned and completist enough to be allowed to either make a comment or have said comment taken seriously. Thank you for filling in that gap so as for all readers/listeners to have the ability to make surface judgements!
I noticed in that review linked to your inability to respond without snark precluded any response at all! Cheerio.
Vadim, THE FUTURIST! might buy brandon a drink, he might get bitchier. THE FUTURIST! loves his Lichman/Rizov talk fests and can't wait until the next.
Kevin H.? Sorry, but THE FUTURIST! likes it when Uhlich keeps it "out" of his pants. AS long as it's on vibrate.
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