An Artist's Interpretation of Armond White
Whenever a new mass-market blockbuster is poised to be launched, movie nerds and fanboys wait with baited breath. Their eyes remain peeled on the Tomatometer until the message goes out: “Armond White’s review is in!”
Then like sad puppy dogs, they gape and caw at the 3-5 percentile drop after Armond’s words eviscerte their previous (and completely meaningless) 100 percent rating. On her defense of Armond, Jen Yamato wrote:
I completely support his arguments as they pertain to the incompleteness of said social commentary. The Armond hate here is unwarranted.
And it’s shockingly true when commenter’s best responses to White’s throughly thought out criticism include ” it’s obvious he’s racist towards white people” and “[A] dumb PR move. You just made a lot of enemies with this. We all know the reason he’s still here is because of the amount of traffic it gives the site.”
There are 499 more comments and counting that eschew the same ignorant racism and fanboy politics that help fuel the same fire for critics that the people watching these movies are nothing more than mouth-breathing mongo-fanboys. Is that harsh? Of course it is, but so is being an ignorant and anonymous troll on the Internet threatening a man’s life just for providing commentary on a sci-fi movie.
But as it’s been established in the past, Armond can sometimes be fundamentally right without even meaning it. Or as Mike D’Angelo coined: “That’s true, but not what Armond meant.” Of course, he’s a fire brand. But White represents something even rarer in this age: a fully employed local critic who has maintained his own voice throughout the years and can–regardless of how far a stretch they may be–argue films by using films to the point of year-end lists.
White is incredibly inspiring if you take the time to learn the methods behind his madness, even by taking the time to just read 10 quotes. Shockingly, White is a firm populist when it comes to his opinions, choosing fare like The Transporter 3 as “true visual wit. These are not stunts; they’re objets d’art. Somewhere, Buster Keaton is smiling and Spielberg should take notes.”
Sure, it’s easy to disagree with Armond, or even spend entire threads talking about how “he just doesn’t get it.” But he does and a majority of the fanboy/armchair critics find it far easier to say he’s wrong than take the time to understand what he’s writing. I’ll be willing to put down money that 7/8’s of the crowd denouncing his District 9 review didn’t even bother to look up You, The Living in terms of his comparison. And so what if he loved it compared to Funny People?
Just keep your minds open while we’re succumbing to low-brow culture and being reminded of it constantly. Honestly, if this is reaction to how low something like the Tomatometer is, it’s dumb. To think, no one cares about G.I. Joe’s dramatic drop from the 90 percentile down to the 30s, while critics championed the film–but when one speaks out, others demand he be removed?
It’s just proof we’re hitting Idiocracy sooner rather than later.
-John Lichman
August 14th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
I used to read Armond White until I realized I was being like all those people who used to watch Jerry Falwell because they needed someone to scream at every morning (or today, Rush Limbaugh).
You say we should “take the time to understand what he’s writing?” Okay, but he certainly doesn’t take the time to understand what’s going on in the films he watches. This is a critic who wrote a whole rant based on a line in COPLAND, i.e., “Being white is not a bulletproof vest!” Except that’s not the line; it’s actually “Being RIGHT is not a bulletproof vest!”, which, as I’m sure you’d agree, is entirely different. If a film has any kind of “liberal” politics, he automatically trashes it, or if it has “liberals” behind it, yet the message films he likes seem to be no more sophisticated than Stanley Kramer films (HOME OF THE BRAVE, I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY). He’s the worst kind of autuerist – one who, with rare exceptions (Brian DePalma is in his doghouse because of REDACTED – like I said, “liberal”), won’t acknowledge even artists have their bad days. And he makes some twisted leaps in logic because of this – any film shot in digital is anti-film and evil, yet he loved RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, which is shot in digital, because it’s by Jonathan Demme (in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out I liked the film quite a bit, and like Demme’s work in general). He makes personal attacks on people just to be petty and mean – calling Casey Affleck “a retard” and reportedly calling EW critic Lisa Schwarzbaum “a cunt.” Finally, the fact he praises junk like Michael Bay movies wouldn’t be so bad if it was because he said he had a good time at those movies, but he elevates them to art to justify his liking it (comparing Bay to Godard). This is reminiscent of the time Ernest Lehman was promoting FAMILY PLOT (Hitchcock’s last film, which Lehman wrote), and a journalist came up with an elaborate and symbolic explanation for the license plate on the car driven by Bruce Dern’s character, to which Lehman pointed out that for legal reasons, the license plate was in fact his own.
It’s easy to see why White is still employed as a critic – because he’s so controversial and contrarian, he generates readership and discussion. But it’s time to stop taking him seriously, because he’s nothing better than a hack.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:40 am
Came across this on the internet, thought you might be interested, even though you are in California.
Best,
T
———————————————————————–
Folks,
You may be interested in knowing that Critic Armond White is making a special presentation on Michael Jackson in New York City.
It is entitled Keep Moving: Michael Jackson’s Video Art.
The presentation focuses on Michael Jackson’s innovations and influences in the music video genre. It takes place at the end of August (SUN, August 30, 2009) and will be at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City.
Here is a link:
http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/mj.html
Armond White made a similar presentation on Michael Jackson in January of 2008. Here’s a review:
http://wowjonesreport.blogspot.com/2008/01/michael-jackson-subject-of-state-of-art.html
Here are two clips from that presentation
(Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdb5jEDFxSM
(Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBe0Aeh_jO4
Heres to spreading the word.
August 26th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Armond White has a new book out!
It’s titled KEEP MOVING: THE MICHAEL JACKSON CHRONICLES
http://www.resistanceworks.blogspot.com
November 11th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Normally this would seem a bit ’spamy’ too me – but since commentors above are listing Armond White resources – here’s the link to a podcast interview with Armond we did yesterday :)
http://www.thefilmtalk.com/2009/11/10/armond-white-interview-christmas-carol-podcast-review