0.) Or, as it will be known c.2026, 'The Only Amendment'.
1.) My (projection-rich?) guess is that in their minds, much as Jews’ and other 'Orientals'’ having done well under capitalism, and (taking James Webb's claims for truth) many features of African-American culture's deriving from the Scots-Irish culture many conservatives laud*, if you're fundamentally the Wrong Type of Person it doesn't matter if you've got one or two good qualities.
…or, to put it plainer, race trumps everything else.
*e.g. piety, hell-raising, respect for holding one's liquor, a puritanical streak, and 'honour culture' (that is, to my 'Oriental' mind if not Webb's, thin-skinnèd truculence)
Props to the phrase, because it sounds like something Paul Harvey would say & therefore would be perfect in a culture war argument pitched at 70-year-olds howling their way into irrelevance.
The term of art was "light in the loafers" meaning an effeminate man. Mr duck-duck-go says variously from the 1950's, 1900's, and from England "light" as a reference to lewd and wanton from the 1300's(!).
Many decades ago, back when I worked in a steel-adjacent industry, I once participated in a trade conference where I chatted up a guy who, as it turned out, worked with a woman I knew (another conference) in our New York office. I told him to convey my regards to her. This he did, she reported some years later (still another conference): “Guy from San Francisco said to tell you hello. A little light in the loafers, if you know what I mean.” The anecdote, which amused us both, was related in her hotel room shortly after we woke up.
On the day after I saw David Mamet going all "groomer hysteria"on Fox News, I get to see this Armond White chap extolling Zack Snyder’s "sophisticated mythmaking" as a "yearning for faith." (I realize the article is from last year...)
Yes dear — angrily nursing a nostalgic grudge that the modern world (read: white people in a modern world) has no central unifying myth is a cornerstone of fascist ideology. It's why the three big male Modernist poets were fascist or had fascist sympathies.
At least "300", with its source material, stands as a _naked_* example of how 'myth', unifying or otherwise, can stand in near-complete opposition to reality and so be nearly purely malinstructive. (…which if it wasn't a word, needs to be one—I've just listened to a BBC "History Extra" featuring an historian going on at length at how badly the lessons of Winston Churchill's life have been used since 1945.)
I almost included above the reaction of a[n unpleasant] Iranian emigré co-worker to "300": out of everything wrong with it, what seems to have offended him most was—well, as he put it 'Jarrrr…we were _never_ _BLACK_!!!!'.
Until Donald Trump, I had no idea how many tens of millions of Americans were just dying to be part of a "central unifying myth." And I mean the word "dying" literally.
“It’s as if moral, play-by-the-rules business successes like Donald Trump and Elon Musk didn’t exist!”
👨🍳😘
“…the real magic of the movies: their ability to mold the masses into an ideological uniform movement. Join me at the barricades as we make Hollywood great again!”
When White felt it necessary to translate a Latin cliche in NR, Bill Buckley rolled over in his grave and threw up his hands - what had the NR readership come to? This is what happened after Yale started recruiting public school non-legacy students in the ‘60’s!
A few weeks ago I watched Max Ophuls sumptuous final film Lola Montez . A French film -It's an amazing piece of work. Every little part is perfect and complete and contributes to making the entire film perfect and complete . The sets, the costumes the players the camera movement and a remarkably literate script all add up to make a gorgeous and compelling film . Plus- there is a remarkable amount of cleavage . French cleavage. Which, as all cineastes know is the best kind. It certainly added to my enjoyment.
If that’s the sort of thing you like, check out 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳, an object lesson in the need for sound highway maintenance procedures, for an early scene in which the entire cast spends a few minutes peering down Véra Clouzot’s blouse. Also, look up Bosley Crowther’s review of the film some time: comedy gold.
WOF was the second Criterion release I bought. ("Orphee'" the first.)I had seen it on a relatively "Big Screen" at the Little Art theatre in Yellow Springs when I was in high school.
I still hate the " lol nothing matters" ending. Feels tacked on and arbitrary. Love the rest of it though.
This Armond White fella is WAAAAY over my head, I don't even know where to start with a sentence like this:
"His lament struggles to stand up as backlash but can’t locate professional principle — which Donald Trump’s resignation from the Screen Actors Guild zeroed in on — so Scorsese’s backlash doesn’t quite inspire a movement."
This is the sweetest victory in the culture war, to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their film directors.
The ONE thing that Megan McArdle wrote that made me laugh was in her review of Atlas Shrugged, where she said, "I watched it on my laptop and had to suppress an urge to check my email."
You are not alone! Bring back the Hayes Code! In the good old days, such rules weren't just for the sake of decency, but education. When I was conceived in my parent's bedroom my mother kept one foot on the floor at all times, or so she said. I feel like this should explain something about the trajectory of my post-pubescent life later on, but I'm not sure what.
Right now seems like there's some debate about the word "genocide" and whether it applies to Ukraine, or if we're just seeing war crimes of the non-genocidal variety. And then there's Armond White, just throwin' it out there, "Ima call EVERYTHING genocide!"
Good for you Armond, you show those words who's boss.
I'm sorry, but I can't help not enjoying Armond White's better writings about film. These days I pretty much only read him when you provide a link, but when I do it takes me back to the days reading him in the New York Press, which was often exhilarating in similar ways to reading old Lester Bangs stuff in Creem. I don't know, but it seems every piece I've read at National Review contains a throwaway sentence or two that has nothing to do with the rest of the article but serves as chum in the water for the brain dead audience. Like the one about Trump losing his SAG card in this one. I figure maybe it's hard to get paid for serious writing about film these days, so if flinging a little shit is a requirement of the paycheck, so be it.
Not that I usually agree with him. When he's on, I find his takes wacky and entertaining, but by no means dumb or ill thought out. In this case, for example, I'm with Scorcese in loving that time when the great directors were meticulously studying each other's work and creating a dialogue that consisted of great directors and films referencing and trying to one up each other and their own great films and really have no idea what White is trying to say to counter that.
On a side note, I notice that his mention of Nomadland as an example of the fetishization of disillusionment is consistent with nearly all other reviewers. I concede the possibility that I am the nutcase here, but I'm pretty sure it was meant to be much more of an aspirational tale than one of disillusion, and I'm afraid it says something terrible about so much of humanity that fails to see that. Watch that long scene towards the end where she's sitting by herself on the edge of a canyon at sunset and tell me that's a scene of disillusionment. I don't see it.
"I figure maybe it's hard to get paid for serious writing about film these days" your sense of humor is so dry sometimes I almost miss the jokes. As to Nomadland, yeah, you're right; it's a bardo, and Fern comes out the other side.
I read "Did you notice there are no positive role models in Goodfellas...." and immediately collapsed. I am screaming.
I'd go for Ray Liotta, but he was a snitch after all...
I'm a De Niro girl myself, but I get it.
Maybe the helicopter pilot?
I don't understand why today's Republicans wouldn't see the entire Mafia as a positive role model.
Too swarthy—you know where _that_ can lead.
Yeah, I get that. Still you gotta admit these are guys who really know how to find a "Second Amendment solution" to any problem!
0.) Or, as it will be known c.2026, 'The Only Amendment'.
1.) My (projection-rich?) guess is that in their minds, much as Jews’ and other 'Orientals'’ having done well under capitalism, and (taking James Webb's claims for truth) many features of African-American culture's deriving from the Scots-Irish culture many conservatives laud*, if you're fundamentally the Wrong Type of Person it doesn't matter if you've got one or two good qualities.
…or, to put it plainer, race trumps everything else.
*e.g. piety, hell-raising, respect for holding one's liquor, a puritanical streak, and 'honour culture' (that is, to my 'Oriental' mind if not Webb's, thin-skinnèd truculence)
This. Considering they're both owned by the same Russian Mafiya, LLC.
"light-loafered critics"
Money quote! Keep this up I'll need to come up off of another 7 dollars this month.
Props to the phrase, because it sounds like something Paul Harvey would say & therefore would be perfect in a culture war argument pitched at 70-year-olds howling their way into irrelevance.
I remember seeing a clip of Bob Hope using this, don't know if he originated it, but it sounds like him.
The term of art was "light in the loafers" meaning an effeminate man. Mr duck-duck-go says variously from the 1950's, 1900's, and from England "light" as a reference to lewd and wanton from the 1300's(!).
Many decades ago, back when I worked in a steel-adjacent industry, I once participated in a trade conference where I chatted up a guy who, as it turned out, worked with a woman I knew (another conference) in our New York office. I told him to convey my regards to her. This he did, she reported some years later (still another conference): “Guy from San Francisco said to tell you hello. A little light in the loafers, if you know what I mean.” The anecdote, which amused us both, was related in her hotel room shortly after we woke up.
Oh...THOSE loafers...
Hald-penny loafer for yer thoughts...?
On the day after I saw David Mamet going all "groomer hysteria"on Fox News, I get to see this Armond White chap extolling Zack Snyder’s "sophisticated mythmaking" as a "yearning for faith." (I realize the article is from last year...)
Yes dear — angrily nursing a nostalgic grudge that the modern world (read: white people in a modern world) has no central unifying myth is a cornerstone of fascist ideology. It's why the three big male Modernist poets were fascist or had fascist sympathies.
It's also why Tolkien is sus af...
Fuck Zack Snyder. He makes ugly films.
At least "300", with its source material, stands as a _naked_* example of how 'myth', unifying or otherwise, can stand in near-complete opposition to reality and so be nearly purely malinstructive. (…which if it wasn't a word, needs to be one—I've just listened to a BBC "History Extra" featuring an historian going on at length at how badly the lessons of Winston Churchill's life have been used since 1945.)
*[as well, of course, as 'ripped' and oiled]
One of the things that got me about “300” (I only saw clips) is that the Persians were apparently….African?
I almost included above the reaction of a[n unpleasant] Iranian emigré co-worker to "300": out of everything wrong with it, what seems to have offended him most was—well, as he put it 'Jarrrr…we were _never_ _BLACK_!!!!'.
Until Donald Trump, I had no idea how many tens of millions of Americans were just dying to be part of a "central unifying myth." And I mean the word "dying" literally.
Wasn't 'Groomer Hysteria' the name of the lead character in the next 'Max Max' movie?
Pound, Eliot and…?
I guess Yeats - but I'm a horticulturist and I probably know more about soil and stuff than Modernist poetry.
Yeats
Thanks!!
“It’s as if moral, play-by-the-rules business successes like Donald Trump and Elon Musk didn’t exist!”
👨🍳😘
“…the real magic of the movies: their ability to mold the masses into an ideological uniform movement. Join me at the barricades as we make Hollywood great again!”
👨🍳😘
Right out of the Leni Riefenstahl playbook... and Cut!
Yeah, they just don't make movies like Jud Suss anymore.
Culture must serve the interests of the State, and the State must serve the interests of the wealthy.
And in the USA when has it never not, at least as the general rule?
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas."
And that's Karl Marx, so you know it's right.
When White felt it necessary to translate a Latin cliche in NR, Bill Buckley rolled over in his grave and threw up his hands - what had the NR readership come to? This is what happened after Yale started recruiting public school non-legacy students in the ‘60’s!
And when there's Google right there, just waiting to be asked!
A few weeks ago I watched Max Ophuls sumptuous final film Lola Montez . A French film -It's an amazing piece of work. Every little part is perfect and complete and contributes to making the entire film perfect and complete . The sets, the costumes the players the camera movement and a remarkably literate script all add up to make a gorgeous and compelling film . Plus- there is a remarkable amount of cleavage . French cleavage. Which, as all cineastes know is the best kind. It certainly added to my enjoyment.
If that’s the sort of thing you like, check out 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳, an object lesson in the need for sound highway maintenance procedures, for an early scene in which the entire cast spends a few minutes peering down Véra Clouzot’s blouse. Also, look up Bosley Crowther’s review of the film some time: comedy gold.
WOF was the second Criterion release I bought. ("Orphee'" the first.)I had seen it on a relatively "Big Screen" at the Little Art theatre in Yellow Springs when I was in high school.
I still hate the " lol nothing matters" ending. Feels tacked on and arbitrary. Love the rest of it though.
Vera Clouzot had excellent cleavage.
I checked, and it was directed by her husband, who probably shared your opinion on the cleavage.
"So, Georges, what was it that first attracted you to Vera?"
"Oh, it was her... eyes. Yes, definitely her eyes."
Gorgeous, perfect movie.
This Armond White fella is WAAAAY over my head, I don't even know where to start with a sentence like this:
"His lament struggles to stand up as backlash but can’t locate professional principle — which Donald Trump’s resignation from the Screen Actors Guild zeroed in on — so Scorsese’s backlash doesn’t quite inspire a movement."
I really enjoy the rightwing take "He lamented -- he must be trying to inspire a movement!"
This is the sweetest victory in the culture war, to crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their film directors.
Me trying to diagram that sentence: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-silvia
Drop a 230 pound sociopath into a sentence in the middle of a hyphenated clause always makes it difficult to diagram.
Armond White's backwash however...
The Atlas Shrugged and God's Not Dead cinematic universes aren't going to watch themselves.
The ONE thing that Megan McArdle wrote that made me laugh was in her review of Atlas Shrugged, where she said, "I watched it on my laptop and had to suppress an urge to check my email."
EVERYTHING Megan McArdle writes makes me laugh.
This is the CROSS-over the world never knew it needed...
You are not alone! Bring back the Hayes Code! In the good old days, such rules weren't just for the sake of decency, but education. When I was conceived in my parent's bedroom my mother kept one foot on the floor at all times, or so she said. I feel like this should explain something about the trajectory of my post-pubescent life later on, but I'm not sure what.
I'll check my copy of the Kama Sutra to see what position that is.
By "Hayes Code" they mean Rutherford B. Hayes. So 1878-ish.
"...foreign filth such as communism, existentialism, and espresso."
Another nominee in the category of "Best Use of the Rule of Three by Roy Edroso."
And as a bonus, "... along with pot and the Black Panthers."
And...we have a band name!
>“sneaking filth into our young’uns culture-trough.”
…and brainwashin' our fighting boys:
https://youtu.be/H265U0PpqCI
….
(All the easier when the Communists have the music:
https://youtu.be/vvCGZEqk8Ak
….)
Next: George Romero's "Zhdanov the Dead".
"...the naive, genocidal delusions..." of GREEN BOOK? What the fuck is he going on about?
Right now seems like there's some debate about the word "genocide" and whether it applies to Ukraine, or if we're just seeing war crimes of the non-genocidal variety. And then there's Armond White, just throwin' it out there, "Ima call EVERYTHING genocide!"
Good for you Armond, you show those words who's boss.
The words are already trembling in fear.
I'm a huge Antifa Ekberg fan.
This is where we need the "nudge nudge" guy from Monty Python to step in.
SAAAEEY NOOOO MMMOAH!
Or a huge Anita Ekberg fan?
I'm sorry, but I can't help not enjoying Armond White's better writings about film. These days I pretty much only read him when you provide a link, but when I do it takes me back to the days reading him in the New York Press, which was often exhilarating in similar ways to reading old Lester Bangs stuff in Creem. I don't know, but it seems every piece I've read at National Review contains a throwaway sentence or two that has nothing to do with the rest of the article but serves as chum in the water for the brain dead audience. Like the one about Trump losing his SAG card in this one. I figure maybe it's hard to get paid for serious writing about film these days, so if flinging a little shit is a requirement of the paycheck, so be it.
Not that I usually agree with him. When he's on, I find his takes wacky and entertaining, but by no means dumb or ill thought out. In this case, for example, I'm with Scorcese in loving that time when the great directors were meticulously studying each other's work and creating a dialogue that consisted of great directors and films referencing and trying to one up each other and their own great films and really have no idea what White is trying to say to counter that.
On a side note, I notice that his mention of Nomadland as an example of the fetishization of disillusionment is consistent with nearly all other reviewers. I concede the possibility that I am the nutcase here, but I'm pretty sure it was meant to be much more of an aspirational tale than one of disillusion, and I'm afraid it says something terrible about so much of humanity that fails to see that. Watch that long scene towards the end where she's sitting by herself on the edge of a canyon at sunset and tell me that's a scene of disillusionment. I don't see it.
"I figure maybe it's hard to get paid for serious writing about film these days" your sense of humor is so dry sometimes I almost miss the jokes. As to Nomadland, yeah, you're right; it's a bardo, and Fern comes out the other side.