The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)

[transmogrifier]

White should've retired twenty years ago. He was never a brilliant writer to begin with, but his reviews at the National Review are even more lazy, shrill, and atrociously written than his reviews for the short-lived City Arts (copy editing doesn't appear to be a big priority at NR these days, even when its writers are rehashing the zombie conservative myth that university English departments have stopped teaching The Classics in order to make room for inferior works by non-white authors). White endlessly decries the political correctness of liberals while only praising movies he finds amenable to his political beliefs.

Pretty much. He is a terrible writer with a large vocabulary. His ideas are sophomoric and poorly reasoned because he is obsessed with politics and the spooky liberal.

[Peng]

Bottle Rocket - 6.5
Rushmore - 7.5
The Royal Tenenbaums - 10
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - 7
The Darjeeling Limited - 6
Fantastic Mr. Fox - 9
Moonrise Kingdom - 9
The Grand Budapest Hotel - 9
Isle of Dogs - 7.5

[baby doll]

As someone that finds certain strands of "liberalism" irritating, I find his takes refreshing, even if I rarely agree with them. I used to be fascinated by what directors he used to like but he's a hard nut to crack sometimes. He loves Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, even if he used to decry Tarantino for the usual complaint of "hipster nihilism." He used to love Spielberg but I can't imagine him sitting through something like The Post w/o wanting to make a beeline to the exit door. He also used to love Mike Leigh, Altman, Jonathan Demme, and Almodovar when I read his stuff about 15 years ago. Not sure if that's still the case.

No matter how irritating liberals may be, that doesn't make White a better, more intelligible writer. Increasingly his reviews read less and less like films reviews and more like unhinged exercises in free association, in which White juxtaposes a film with whatever conservative talking point/conspiracy theory is at hand (e.g., in his review of Beanpole, he intimates that the film is part of some nefarious liberal plot to remind American voters of the rumoured Trump pee tape). Regardless of one's political beliefs, it's evident that White is phoning it in and has been for a long time.

[MadMan]

White was good for a laugh based on how silly his film opinions were. When he wasn't trolling he was capable of actually decent writing, but he couldn't resist being a contrarian the whole time.

[MadMan]

I like the New Yorker although I agree they can be full of it sometimes. As for Wes Anderson, I can't wait for his latest.

1. The Life Aquatic-100
2. Rushmore-100
3. Tenenbaums-100
4. GBH-97
5. The Isle of Dogs-96
6. Moonrise Kingdom-93
7. Bottle Rocket-90
8. The Darjeeling Limited-87
9. Fantastic Mr. Fox-85

[Peng]

Wow it's been over a year. Trailer released right before the pandemic blew up.

Same date as Wright's Last Night in Soho.