January 4, 2007

Lists. Armond White.

"Don't be fooled by the '10 Best Films' lists from critics who never even saw the year's most interesting films," harrumphs Armond White at the top of a chart presented at the New York Press (click it to blow it up).

Armond White's Better-Than List

"They're merely corroborating the promotional campaigns of the most highly publicized movies and failing to seek out the best," he carries on. "This year more than ever, it's necessary to separate genuine achievement from pure hype, thus my alternative: 'The Better-Than List.'"

Updated through 1/9.

It's hardly a surprise that this list of comparisons seems intentionally designed to tick off absolutely everyone for one of its choices or other, but then, criticism is only made all the healthier - or at least livelier - by its contrarians. Nacho Libre, for example? Better than Borat. United 93? World Trade Center's better. And so on.

Armond Dangerous hasn't picked up on it yet, by the way, but surely it's only a matter of time.

Update: ST VanAirsdale is actually quite impressed.

Update, 1/8: Armond Dangerous catches up.

Update, 1/9: Jim Emerson considers - at length - the strange case of Armond White. And then questions the appeal of the contrarian in general.



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Posted by dwhudson at January 4, 2007 12:33 PM

Comments

As I said over at The Reeler, what annoys me is that Armond's attacks on other critics are neither correct nor justified.

The #1 pick in the IndieWire poll (and #2 in the Film Comment poll) was The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, a film that arrived with hardly any promotional campaign at all.

Yawn. Armond's game is getting tired and old. Plus, if there's one film this year that was guilty of pure hype, it was World Trade Center.

Posted by: Filmbrain at January 5, 2007 9:12 AM