Why is armond white always so right?

Why is armond white always so right?

>Cuarón treats this exaggerated state of the world as a genre exercise. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezski does long Steadicam takes through bombed-out neighborhoods and on motorway shoot-outs that resemble the surreally distanced, uninterrupted viewpoint of a videogame. But these show-offy sequences come 16 years after Scorsese and De Palma pioneered them in GoodFellas and Bonfire of the Vanities. They’re done to impress, yet are so slow and stagey that they’re portentous. Children of Men never explains how the world got this way and so its dread is convincingly sophomoric—as is Theo’s reluctant heroism.

>The political antipathy of Iraq war protestors and War on Terror skeptics is what drives this pretentious action flick. It panders to a decadent yearning for apocalypse as if to confirm recent fear and resentment about loss of political power. V for Vendetta’s mistake was not recognizing that a sense of self-righteous self-annihilation was the new mood. And Cuarón, a true hack, is nothing if not market-savvy. His dystopia evokes the zombie film 28 Days Later, then jacks things up to resemble Elem Klimov’s disasters of war in Come and See.

>Children of Men is only deep on its surface. Cuarón cannot edit scenes for rhythm or real feeling, which is what separates his eschatological set pieces from the wit of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Minority Report or Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers—films that treated the experience of social collapse as personal, rather than a game.
Fact is, Children of Men is too smug to be Orwellian or even satirical. Cuarón combines dread and lack of affect, then gets sentimental. Note his maudlin final shot of a ship christened “Tomorrow”; it ought to expose Cuarón to fans who think this film’s visual style is superior to Apocalypto or Minority Report. Those movies had genuine breadth and excitement; Children of Men is delusionary.

>Children of Men is only deep on its surface
literally true for the other two "amigos" too (del taco and inarritu)

i liked it

You already made this thread.

armond white is rarely right 2bh. he's a meme. he's reddit.

Stop with the adjectives, Christ.

>This is a negro attempting intellectual thought

Children of Men is good though

Armond is my favourite reviewer but he's just being a contrarian edgelord on this movie

>Why is armond white always so right?
Because you're a contrarian faggot

can you explain why in detail?

That's the most pretentious, self-indulgent piece of crap I've read in my life. Like something written by a sophomore philosophy student with an adderall surplus and blue balls.

CoM is a great fucking movie. Everyone loves it, except some people who think it sends out some political message that they dislike,

is this a pasta now?

Wait, so he is praising War of the Worlds to criticize Children of Men? Truly a contarian meme...

>if someone has an opinion that is unique it's contrarian

I don't think I've ever found a significant point I'd disagree with the man on. Nobody ever does. People paint entire walls of text with a label of either 'good' or 'bad' and criticize the whole thing based on that leading to retarded comebacks that don't promote any further thought. Just look at this thread. People are calling him out on this but nobody's ever going to take a point and fight it.

tl;dr will come up in every single Armond White thread and NEVER be addressed.


He's not actually that big on adjectives. Just when he does use them he often goes for obscure ones. I don't think I've ever looked one up and found it inappropriate though. His sentences aren't hard to understand because they're overloaded, he just has a high-tier vocabulary.

War of the Worlds is awesome though.

wow great argument you sure burned me with that hot opinion faglord

>tfw to intelligent to disagree with Armond White

people who think Children of Men is pretentious are projecting hard

White lives for film and he reviews consequently display a nuanced understand most other critics can only references in passing.

Let's hear your hot take on the movie, needle dick

The car down the hill escape scene is perfection. It couldn't have been done any better.

i liked it

>its a being cucked in real life physically is no longer enough i need armond whites big hypothetical cock to enrich me mentally and dominate me culturally as well episode

Armond White is legitimately an excellent critic who is much smarter than most of the trash writing for major papers. He's absolutely right about Cuaron, who has always been a showboating gimmick incapable of subtlety or intelligence.

Your brain is completely fried by maymays at this point

>at a friends house
>we all take turns choosing a song
>decide to put on court of the crimson king thinking they might like it since they are all pot smoking hipsters
>they fucking hate it
>they are making fun of it and me
>it gets to the flute solo and someone jumps up and turns it off, they are all laughing at me and my shit taste
>some time later we decide to watch a movie
>tell them we should watch children of men


whos devilish here?

its just a movie. get a life.
i liked it

neither you nor armond white is any more right than when you made this thread yesterday

you tremendous faggot

>But these show-offy sequences come 16 years after Scorsese and De Palma pioneered them in GoodFellas and Bonfire of the Vanities

Not sure how he thinks long takes were 'pioneered' in the 90s but even if they were, there's a huge difference between walking through a restaurant and a massive action sequence.

and 99℅ of movies

fuck why am I laughing at this

explain

Okay I'll bite. So my issue with the excerpts taken from this review are multiple but I'll list a few gems:

1) Not every film has to be a coherent political ideology that explains the collapse of society, in fact a lot of the humanity from films is lost when you spend ages trying to construct a plausible chain of events that lead the world to a certain point. By creating a setting of chaos and disaster without specific causes beyond not having children the film becomes a timeless story that appeals to any generation, if it's a cautionary tale then it becomes all the more useful.

2) The decadent yearning for apocalypse is a weak line to take. The film doesn't comment on poor electoral choices or the conduct of it's people in creating their hell, it seeks to paint a picture of the worst of humanity emerging from disaster and how even amidst the chaos and suffering there are still things that can hopefully unite us, certain appeals to human decency. Armond seems to be more concerned with the power of evil external forces destroying humanity with films like Starship Troopers (what a fucking meme) and uncomfortable facing a world where we accept humanity may have self-destructive tendancies.

3) As for film technique, this is literally an assertion. The reason to maintain an uninterrupted viewpoint is because multiple angles for "aesthetics" does to some extent detract from reality. This film tries to paint itself as plausible and the "videogame" tactics it employs do this well. On rhythmic pacing I would question White's judgement given the films listed.

Aside from individual critiques of this review though this is classic Armond White. A critic who claims that his novel takes on films are a form of critical thinking inaccessible by regular film critics. In reality he seems to clearly form an opinion of a film after he's watched it and once that has happened he constructs his justification post hoc. White will always be limited by this lack of critical thinking.

Come on you trolly little fuck I took ages writing this

...

whatever fag

Sweet I've won, have a good day Cred Forums never change

1.) You could just as easily say that it's an excuse to be shallow as it makes a flick 'timeless.'

btw all movies are timeless you pleb

2.) How the world ends isn't the point here. The point is that Cuaron is capitalizing on destruction fetishism.

3.) It's not real it's a movie. The cinematographer jerking himself off is distracting, not immersive. If you question White's judgement based on his films listed I think you need to address each one now and maybe provide some better examples of your own.

>In reality he seems to clearly form an opinion of a film after he's watched it and once that has happened he constructs his justification post hoc
Pretty sure that's how thought works. It's art not an equation. There's no objective process by which you can break down a movie's elements and then reach the best opinion. How the fuck do you define 'critical thinking' you fucking teenager?

You don't deserve thoughtful replies just for creating a wall of text. You wrote a lot but nothing particularly smart or useful.