Armond White vs. The World



Armond White is a film critic over at New York Press- an alternative weekly newspaper that has had incredible traffic on the web in the past year. Mostly due to White's -shall we say- alternative views on modern movie classics such as There Will Be Blood, Wall E & The Hurt Locker. He is basically a man that has the most curiously original taste in movies and a man that has no shame in bashing Toy Story 3 because of product placement & then praising Transformers 3 (a movie destroyed by every film critic imaginable & containing just as much product placement as about any other movie in history).

He is different and revels in his originally poor taste in film. Although I shouldn't really criticize his taste considering film criticism is -after all- an objective profession. Roger Ebert has come out calling him a Troll, former Premiere Magazine chief critic Glenn Kenny has called him a "Bully & a hypocrite" & just about every other film critic in the country has had their own saying about the man that has openly idolized legendary -and nonetheless controversial- film critic Pauline Kael.

It's interesting to have a guy this entertaining in the profession. His reviews tend to be well written and highly amusing in A what the fuck kind of way. He is what he is- a man that has firmly asserted himself into film media due to controversy (White is currently the chairman of the New York Film Critics Circle, a prestigious group that is as influential and well regarded as any in the biz). However, his denial about being an attention whore is also amusing. One can only imagine a person with White's taste writing about film.

He has the intellect and capacity to exude great debates but he sometimes deliberately writes to infuriate rather than to actually lay claim to firm reasons as to why he did not like the said picture. He has openly criticized film critics and -more importantly- film bloggers, whom he considers bad for his profession. White's reasoning behind some of his reviews is sadly inauthentic and sheepishly thought out. He is the anti film critic, a man possessed to cause controversy and make a name for himself just for the fun of it & for that I salute you Mr White by looking forward to your next comically written gem.