Do the Contrarian! It's the White List (again)

He is right about "Slumdog Millionaire". But his championing of "Rocknrolla"(Guy Ritchie tells a really long gay joke) and "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" in particular suggest that Mr. White is not a contrarian, but the lamest and most pathetic of provocateurs, which not a new assessment.

JE: "Lurid, chaotic and maudlin, 'Slumdog' suggests a Baz Luhrmann version of 'Oliver Twist.'" I have to admit I had the same thought while watching the movie. I looked up White's original review of "Slumdog" and... he's actually good at finding ways describe what's so brutal, exploitative and phony in Danny Boyle's soulless, souped-up "style": "gameshow flash and shrillness," "TV-influenced ostentation," "attention-deficit compulsiveness like so much product from England’s advertising mills." Of course, he doesn't bother to explain what he's talking about. He just hurls flashy snippets at you -- which is basically the way Boyle directs movies. White writes: "Over-stimulation crushes feeling; Boyle only evokes sentimentality." Only in his last paragraph does he approach a meaningful observation: "The bloody/corny finale includes a replay of all Jamal’s literally shit-covered memories. Boyle aggressively crosscuts between the three protagonists’ fates, putting D.W. Griffith’s most radical narrative invention to disgraceful use. Boyle is a poverty pimp with an Avid."

I'd be wrong to say I "agree" with him, because he doesn't give enough examples to back up what he says. I hope to go into detail -- probably after the Oscar nominations (not that they'll change anything)...

http://www.nypress.com/article-18907-the-mis-education-of-a-millionaire.html

I cannot stand Armond White.

That said, at least he serve the important function of making us all appreciate critics like yourself, Jim. While White's bizarre taste in of itself doesn't make him a bad critic, his routinely inexplicable pronouncements about films--pronouncements he doesn't even *try* to explic, most times--disqualify him from serious discussion. Not to mention his frustratingly condescending attitude to those who disagree with him, including, and especially, when it's *everyone*.

"I think of film criticism the way I've heard Hebrew scholars describe their approach to the Torah: It's not about discovering dogma, it's about learning to ask meaningful questions, even if you can never fully answer them.)"

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this excellent clarification of what film criticism is. It's the questions we ask ourselves walking out of the theater or late at night about why or why not a film left us humbled or moved or angered or betrayed, etc. White's list comes off as insulting even towards the films listed "BETTER" than other films because he never seems like he has anything nice to say.

Filmgoers know enough these days to understand what they're going to see when they pay 10 dollars for Iron Man. There's no beneficial purpose of critics getting on the web and slamming movies in such a distasteful manner. His blog explained nothing, really, about why these films should circulate discussion. In this day and age, it is frustrating to justify the aesthetic merit (and even the "fun-ness") of criticism when too many people are out there to spread an agenda. But hey, there's always the critical blurbs on the DVD packaging to really call for a laugh.

I don't like it when people compare movies from the same trilogy, let alone other random films. Good Lord. If two movies are similar enough that you can actually compare them that way, neither may be worth watching in the first place.

Be fair, though. Wall-E did go downhill once the film left Earth.

P.S.- Is abortionhorny a word now?

My brain shut down when I read him accuse Let the Right One In of being a "J-horror rip-off". Now that's a doozy.

About 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days: "the pity-party of two abortionhorny Romanian co-eds."

I would occasionally find White's contrarianism entertaining, but how do you react to something like that? Though I know White is simply trying to get people to react with outrage (and not provide any kind of insight or thought-provoking commentary), I'll just make sure I avoid wasting my time reading him from now on.

Completely out of context put-downs of film and other art can be amusing and clever, but only when they are actually amusing and clever. White didn't manage either of those. He just makes it easy to ignore him.

I must admit that there are several films each year where I come out of the theater thinking "I wonder what Armond White's going to say." When I showed my friend a copy of The Wrestler a while back, I told him "It's 100% on the Tomato Meter now, but Armond White hasn't chimed in yet." He asked who White was. A few days later I sent him White's predictably scathing takedown of the film.

I would be more interested in White's work if his arguments, such as they are, hadn't become so repetitive. Movies are bad because they pander to liberal sensibilities, or to "hipsters" (is he still using that term?) or some variant thereof. Sometimes he's dead on when he eviscerates condescending movies like Revolutionary Road, but he uses the same tool for every job, just hammering away with his giant rubber mallet, trying to jam pegs of all shapes into round holes.

But he shows up in the damndest places. Just when you're shaking your head at a man who thinks Spielberg is the most perfect human being ever born and moons over movies like Death Race and cries out for attention by claiming that Twilight is superior to Let the Right One In, he suddenly crops up writing the liner notes to Straub/Huillet's "Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach."

I used to find him fascinating. Now that I've gotten tired of reading the same "anti-liberal sensibilities" screed in every other review, I think of him more as a curiosity.

Criticism needs its apostates, but a good critic needs to have a generous spirit, to try to understand a film on its own terms. Everyone brings their own tastes and biases to the table, but demanding that every film fit into your pre-fab philosophical framework doesn't contribute much.

White reached his apex in about 2001 or 2002, when he actually backed up his contrarianism (which was still blatant) with examples from the films, well-chosen quotes, and most importantly, a stubborn insistence that what was new and championed wasn't necessarily the best.

That's what I (used to) value about White: he awoke in me a recognition that we shouldn't just accept what it is new without recognizing that, in many cases, a higher standard may have been reached five, ten, fifty years ago! I also valued White's insistence on the artistic value of both Steven Spielberg (one of my favourite directors) and Brian De Palma (not a director whose films I normally admire, but one I have revisited thanks to White and others).

But now, White has become a joke. His reviews have no value whatsoever (the last review I can think of that had any value was his takedown of "The Squid and the Whale", a film I didn't dislike as much as White, but that needed to be called out even by its admirers for its blatant class superiority). You can predict before reading the review whether White will like the film or not: he hates David Fincher, so instead of bothering to notice how radically "Zodiac" departed from some of Fincher's previous films, he used phrases like "glorification of violence", etc. in describing the movie. If the movie stars Jason Statham, he loves it (and man, what a lousy filmography Statham has). If it stars George Clooney, the film is smug.

I could go on and on, but I think it's sad that someone who once wrote reviews of value (read his entry on "The Color Purple" that is found in the great book "Love and Hisses") has turned into a predictable joke of a critic.

JE: I've championed "Love and Hisses" (a National Society of Film Critics collection edited by my former LAFCA colleague Peter Rainer) for many years! The concept is to contrast "positive" and "negative" reviews -- but at its best the book illustrates how (as I always say) a critic's verdict is -- or ought to be -- the least interesting thing he/she has to say. A valid observation is a valid observation, no matter how the critic comes down on it. And even the most off-base review can contain an enlightening angle.

I never got the "class superiority" argument about "Squid and the Whale," which could not have been a more accurate document of its East Coast social/intellectual milieu (that's a word one the characters would use -- and probably does) if it were... a documentary. Which, in many ways, it is (though Noah Baumbach insists it's not strictly autobiographical). White knows and recognizes these people. He probably doesn't like them, but his writing attests that he's one of them.

If you're a Republican, the comment about Shotgun Stories is actually kind of funny (it would have been funnier had White called it the WWE), but it is not a valid criticism of The Wrestler. Nor are any of the other comments in the article, for that matter. Comparing one movie to another can be a constructive exercise (and it is indeed the process whereby critics arrive at their yearly top ten), but here it seems silly. White is arguing, primarily, for the content and perspective of one movie (as he intereprets it) over another. Alas, merely having a certain kind of content and perspective does not make a film good.
So what if Rachel Getting Married is "multi-cultural" and Frozen River is the story of "hard luck working class women" That does not make 'Rachel' better than 'Frozen.' They are different movies about different things in different ways and their quality is depedent on the choices made by the filmmakers prior to, during, and post-production. If a critic cannot articulate why they like or dislike those choices, then why are they a critic?

Armond White is a complete and utter joke. I don't understand why he's still around, other than for his paper to say, "Look at the outrage our critic sparks!"

JE: That's why my first impulse was (and is) to ignore him. But he does provide instructive examples of how invective or exaltation alone pass for film criticism, even when nothing of substance is offered to back it up.

I'm not sure I've ever understood an Armond White view... well, until you deconstructed them Jim. Then I understood them... but never what he's talking about.

But this brings up an interesting question, I think.
Is it every alright to psychoanalyze the prospective fans or non-fans of a film? (Which is, as much as I can understand, what White does in his reviews.) Or should we always stick to what we personally thought/felt and leave everybody else's interpretations to them?

An example from Ebert's review of "Fight Club":

"I think it's the numbing effects of movies like this that cause people go to a little crazy. Although sophisticates will be able to rationalize the movie as an argument against the behavior it shows, my guess is that audience will like the behavior but not the argument. Certainly they'll buy tickets because they can see Pitt and Norton pounding on each other; a lot more people will leave this movie and get in fights than will leave it discussing Tyler Durden's moral philosophy. The images in movies like this argue for themselves, and it takes a lot of narration (or Narration) to argue against them."

Ebert, to his credit, does at first say "MY GUESS" is that the audience will like the action and not the intellectual aspects of the film but he then claims a lot more people will leave this movie and get in fights than will leave discussing the philosophy. While I'm of the opinion that Ebert's prediction did come true (and that's an opinion, not a documented fact), I'm not sure he should be stating what people's reaction will be as if it is inevitable. Furthermore, even if most audiences do leave and fight, is that the film's fault?

To be fair, Ebert says elsewhere in his review why he feels it will be the film's fault. He writes:

"The movie was directed by David Fincher and written by Jim Uhls, who adapted the novel by Chuck Palahniuk. In many ways, it's like Fincher's movie "The Game" (1997), with the violence cranked up for teenage boys of all ages. That film was also about a testing process in which a man drowning in capitalism (Michael Douglas) has the rug of his life pulled out from under him and has to learn to fight for survival. I admired "The Game" much more than "Fight Club" because it was really about its theme, while the message in "Fight Club" is like bleeding scraps of Socially Redeeming Content thrown to the howling mob."

He argues the film will get people too emotionally wired, violent-feeling and angry to care for any positive, rational messages or insightful observations and that people will simply walk out full of angst but low on brains. I've come to agree that tends to be the result but only in hindsight, after meeting, in person, countless fans of the film (because EVERYbody has seen it now) and asking them why they liked it only to get a response like "that's what I want to do with my life, man". Me: "What? Quit your job, move into a junkyard and join a fight club/ become a terrorist?" Them: "Yeah, man!" Me: "I'm just gonna... walk away now..."

But if the film was coming out for the first time tomorrow, I'm not sure I'd want to jump to conclusions about how people react. All I could say is how I reacted, which, at the time, was positively. Now I've seen the film a few more times and have more ambivalent feelings towards it. But that's me. There are also the Emersons of the world (perhaps the 'sophisticates' that Ebert speaks of) who read into the film more, feel it has some fascinating observations and are uplifted by it.

What I've learned from debating with Jim and his fans the last week in those epic "TDK" threads is that... everybody has their reasons. And I can argue against those reasons but I can't say "you just say that because you're [enter whatever personality quirk you mean to call their credibility into question here] type of person". (Which I have done to Jim before, calling him too 'cold' for thinking "The Wrestler is too 'sweet' or saying that he 'thinks too much' because he's bothered by lapses of 'realism' in "The Dark Knight". I haven't met Jim, so how would I know how 'cold' he is, and how do I know how much he had to think to notice errors in "TDK"... in reality, he probably didn't have to think much at all, they just glared right out at him.)

But, even though I'm struggling to come up with (substantial) examples off the top of my head, is there really no situation in which we can't call into question the credibility of the critic or of the audience?

Alright, here's maybe an example...
The top 20 films on IMDB...
- 2 spaghetti westerns (both Leone)
- 1 superhero movie (TDK)
- 4 fantasy-action-adventures (Lord of the Rings, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars & Empire Stikes Back)
- 5 gangster flicks (Godather 1 and 2, GoodFellas and I hope you'll excuse me counting Pulp Fiction and City of God as gangster flicks)
- 1 samurai flick (7 Samurai)
- 1 thriller (Rear Window)
- 2 dramas (12 Angry Men and One Flew Over)
- and Casablanca, the most out of place amongst the others

And, just so you know, the next in line are "The Usual Suspects" and "Fight Club" ... followed by "Psycho" and "Silence of the Lambs".

Would any of you hate me for assuming that most of those who voted for the top 20-24 are teen-to-middle-aged males who especially enjoy dark and/or violent and action-packed and/or fantasy-adventure movies?

Sure aren't a lot of romances high up on that list. Not many dramas (though, I know, every movie is a drama). Not many comedies (though there are admittedly so few great ones). Not many films with women as the leads. And a lot of dark flicks up there too. Even "Star Wars" is about stopping an evil empire. So I come to conclusions about why the films that are popular are more popular than the others... I conclude it is because of the audiences, not the films and I have a gut feeling what type of movie those audiences go for...

I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but no matter how hyperbolic I am at least there's a White quote up there to make me look reasonable.

No, that's not what I meant to say. I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but after years of watching the New York Press being rejiggered, deconstructed, reconstructed, defanged and passed like a hot potato between different editors, writers and owners, it absolutely amazes me that Armond White is apparently the only writer there who enjoys consistent employment. If it didn't change owners so often I would suspect blackmail. He says "most of these high-profile films insult one's intelligence, while the year's best movies vanish from the marketplace for lack of critical support," eh? Nice to see he he hasn't changed an atom in the five years since I last read anything of his. I think if he ever found himself unable to claim that, over and over, he'd retire.

Back when I read his stuff I was amazed at how childish it was. He could not merely dislike a movie, he had to hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. He could not merely like a movie, he had to shout from the rooftops of its unequivocal brilliance. And he almost never did this unless he was absolutely sure somebody, anybody, disagreed, so that he could mention their hideous shallowness and stupidity in the review. You nailed it on how he loves to characterize audiences as a way of criticizing the movie. One of his favorite words was "philistine," which meant "anyone who has an opinion dissimilar to Armond White's regarding anything about any movie." It was also an adjective describing anything such people do or think, Webster's be damned.

You also nailed it on the nonsensical comparisons. Since Spielberg, along with a couple of other directors, has done nothing but earthshakingly brilliant work as far as I've seen him describe it, he gave 'A.I.' a rave review, and then proceeded to mention it in every single review of every movie for the rest of the summer, whether it made any sense or not. These non-'A.I.' movies were either hopelessly braindead and corrupt (not like 'A.I.!') or unspeakably profound (just like 'A.I.!'). Mostly the former. After that I pretty much gave up.

Anyway, the worst I can say is that after reading quite a few of his reviews over the years I didn't see anything that conveyed the impression that I was reading the words of someone saw a movie, reacted to it and is describing that reaction. It's all vitriol and incomprehensible pronouncements and immature contrariness. I don't know what purpose he thinks his criticism serves, but I've found it totally useless as either advice or analysis.

Ah, that felt good. I know I didn't add anything you didn't already say more eloquently, but thanks for letting me vent.

(Incidentally, am I misremembering or did he also make a habit out of giving away major plot points for no discernible reason? You know a critic's delightful when something like that doesn't even make your list of complaints.)

Sorry to double-comment, but I decided to look back to make sure I wasn't falsely accusing White of blowing major plot points in his reviews. Turns out I forgot more than I thought. He doesn't merely do that, he does it in reviews that are allegedly about other movies. Now I remember that old feeling of astonished anger, the kind you'd get if you sat down to read a combined review of 'Hostel' and 'The Ringer' and had a major surprise in 'Match Point' spoiled for you halfway through (actual example). Ah, memories.

Armond strikes me as brilliant on occasion (I wanted to memorize every word of his reviews for "A.I." and "Monster", to name a few), but frankly, his personality, which is very prickly, too often gets in the way.

It's not enough that he has to like or dislike something -- he has to distinguish himself as being RIGHT and everyone else as WRONG in order to achieve self-validation. His "Better Than" lists may be childish equations when one gets down to it (for the record, I agree with him 100% that "Death Race" is great and Statham's resume is damned impressive), but for me the sentence that speaks loudest in this entire piece comes in his introduction:

"This tragedy is exemplified by the scary acclaim for the year’s worst: The atrocious Slumdog Millionaire and Pixar’s hideous Wall-E, the buzz-kill movie of all time. Trust no critic who endorses them."

Yeah, well fuck you too, buddy.

From my experiences and the wisdom I've yet gathered in this life, the best of communal experiences - be they those of critics, moviegoers, politicians, the public at large, whatever - are discussion-based. Armond doesn't seem to enjoy any of that, and would rather let his own absolute, unwaveringly perfect tyranny rule. He's smart but too self-assured, and could use a smidgen of humility now and again (and maybe the occasional kick in the ass, thank you Glenn Kenny). I agree with him that a great majority of the current moviegoing culture is to be lamented, but Jesus H. Christ on a Rubber Crutch...

JE: Yeah, his need to be "right" may be outweighed by his need to denounce everyone else as "wrong."

she turns Stephenie Meyer’s book series into a Brontë-esque vision

You can't make this crap up!

The central problem with this sort of reasoning, nay, rationalisation, is that it compares pieces of art, some admittedly half-baked, as if they were readily available commodities. As if art is a binary concept, with an antithesis to each work. It is a singularly esoteric way of looking at film – quantum criticism.

One of the tips for substitute teachers in my district is:

"Ignore minor misbehavior if you think it is only an attention-seeking device."

I can't think of a better way to respond to White's Better Than list.

What a surprise White brings about another round of vitriol. I love all these "I think White is totally irrelevant but let me quote to you something i read from him x number of years ago," as if the man has burned words into their mind. But really of course comparing Batman and Transporter makes sense, both films promise to be escapist entertainment but where Batman looks flat, is cut terribly and tries its hardest to smother hope; Besson and company have been steadily making the best pure action films for a long decade now. Why is White hung up on Statham and Jet Li? Their physicality alone makes watching them interesting. Listen 30 years from now they won't be studying how Christian Bale moved in the bat suit, film students will be looking over Li and Stathams set pieces in their respective films. Why compare Blueberry Nights to Benjamin Buttons? Both works are done by true cinematic artists, its just Fincher uses his art to stifle my dreams where Kar-Wai gets my soul to soar (for all you who cringe at Religulous talk, that just means i get to feeling all poetical which isn't exactly an explanation as much as a feeling, which is why i go to the movies.) White and I don't always see eye to eye, i thought Grand Torino was splendid in many ways, he did not, but i appreciate his dedication to keep film art at the forefront of his cinematic musings.

When I first discovered him, White was a breath of fresh air. I disagreed with his verdicts on almost everything. I agree that that's not the most important element of a review, but, with White, aside from understanding whether it was a rave or a knock-down (and there seems to be little middle-ground in Mr. White's work), I could not understand what on earth he was talking about.
BUT- he was the first film critic I'd found who idolized Spielberg. And as a long-time Spielberg fan, it was a relief to know that at least one critic in the world shared my love. Of course, he did not share my love. His admiration for Spielberg surpasses the most positive writing I've read about the man. Since 1997, of Spielberg's films have made White's top-10 list. He seems to like every Spielberg movie ever made, with the exception of Raiders of the Lost Ark. He named A.I. one of the 10 best films ever made in the 2002 Sight & Sound poll. I find this rather absurd, and I love A.I. (of course, for totally different listen, more akin to the views of Jonathan Rosenbaum and A.O. Scott).
That failed paragraph was intended just to say- I could not understand what in god's name he was talking about, but it was nice to have a notoriously free-thinking critic on my side on this one.
As I got a tiny bit accustomed to his style, learning to predict his tastes, however, I did find more and more stuff to relate to. As Pauline Kael said about him (I'm paraphrasing)- I often start reading a review of his thinking he's waaay off, but by the end, I can't help but agree with some of his observations. He's given me loads to think about concering the nihlism abound today. I disagree with many of his conclusions (Like Gus van Sant being a dirty old pedophile for making Elephant and Paranoid Park- his attacks on van Sant's character I find particularly repulsive), but his anti-nihilist stance does occaisionally come out as more than jsut labeling. I was on the edge about Before The Devil Knows You're Dead, and his words were the ones that made me realize how hateful that movie was. And being one of the only critics to pan 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, he was the one sounding board I could use to come to terms with my less-than-thrilled reaction to the film. And I still find that. Every once in a while I find a review of his that makes a point that does crystalize something in the movie that no other critic I read regularly had made.
I've learned to live with Armond White. Filter out the contrarianism (which I believe is his honest opinion about a given movie, except that hemade his mind up long before going into the theater), find the bits of wisdom, and enjoy the thuroughly unique writings he has to offer.

For some Armond White hilarity: a Hellboy II review where he criticizes the film against a Ting Tings song? Wha? http://www.nypress.com/article-18530-hell-hath-obvious-limits.html

Ranking works of art, even collaborative, commercial art like movies, is a rather pointless endeavor. No two people can ever see the same movie. When a person who has never read a Batman comic sees Dark Knight, he sees a very different movie than I do. (I doubt a month has gone by in the last 45 years that I didn't read a Batman comic.)

I judge a movie primarily by one question: Did the filmmakers accomplish what they set out to do? Therefore, Crank is a much better movie than Crash. Iron Man is a much better movie than Rain Man, and Shoot 'Em Up is a much better movie than Saving Private Ryan.

But that's for me. You all saw different films than I did.

Armond White is quite possibly the most irresponsible critic working today. He has failed in just about every capacity to do what I think is the most important duty of any real critic, which is to promote good art. Take his article on Doris Dorrie's "Cherry Blossoms" posted on the 14th. It would be nice to think that that article was written with the intent of exposing her work to a larger audience, however, White's intentions don't seem that noble. The article is instead just another opportunity for White to further rail against the "hipsters" (which I'm starting to think don't exist).

And then there's this:

" ... but David Fincher merely remade Titanic as Forrest Gump — an endless, two-hankie Kubrick movie for fanboys."

How would Titanic remade as Forrest Gump resemble anything close to a Kubrick movie ... ?

With all of the blogs, sites, mags, papers, etc. out there holding itself out as criticism, there are really only 2 ways to rise above the white noise; excellence and contrivance. Oh, you can rant on, you can throw around Bresson or Goddard, you can pump out over-educated, under-thought bilge, but in the end, the voice that rises above the din is extraordinary for being beautiful or just the loudest. I think that list is pretty easily placed in the latter. On this very blog I've seen both. Jim, you're just as guilty in some respects of contrariness. I will never believe or fathom your criticism of Daniel Day Lewis's acting in There Will Be Blood. It was deeply contrived and anamolous. There were plenty of things to poke fun at in TWBB but his performance just wasn't one of them. You don't prefer him, to use a good writer's term.

However, sometimes these things stick. You see backlash, where it seems the entire audience says, "Hey, that guy was right!" I.E. Titanic.

White is right about something. A consensus of critical praise is not a good thing. Has any critic seen "The Hours", "Driving Miss Daisy" or "Chariots of Fire" twice, voluntarily?

He lost me when he called Wall-E cynical. It's the most hopeful film of the year.

I knew you'd take issue with my "Squid and the Whale" statement, since I know you loved the film. I understand your point that the film was more of an examination of this type of person, but I think at times it also accepted the Berkman's worldview as the natural way of things. This is what I wrote about the film after seeing it:

"The Squid and the Whale" may take subtle digs at Bernard and Walt's mock intellectualism, but it also endorses their point-of-view with its own innate sense of privilige and elitism. When Bernard shows his children the new home he has purchased (which is perfectly nice if a bit worn-down), the youngest son complains about it not being as nice as his mother's home, and the movie seems to accept this point-of-view as reasonable as opposed to the whining of a spoiled brat. Also, a secondary character named Ivan (William Baldwin), who works as a tennis instructor, is derided by Bernard as not being an intellectual, and the movie presents Ivan as such a superficial caricature (who always addresses people as "My brother") that one can't help but feel that Baumbach shares Bernard's disdain for this jock.

Maybe you felt differently Jim, but that's what I took away from those two scenes. Which is not to say that I disliked the film...but who really cares about like and dislike, right?

JE: True, but I read the movie differently. Those kids are spoiled brats because their parents have raised them that way. Much of the comedy (and horror) comes from the ways the kids either imitate or rebel against their upbringing. The older one tries so hard to imitate his father that he's like a little clone Nazi. But the youngest is (consciously or unconsciously) rebelling by proudly declaring himself a "philistine" (because it sounds reasonable to him) and responding to the kindness of his tennis coach, who his father considers to be a representation of the "philistine" jock, but who is really just kind of a goofy, socially awkward guy. Probably more like the father in those respects than not -- but less mean. I thought the joke was on the class affectations of both men, but particularly the prejudice of the father.

I love to stop by your blog, Jim. I've commented here and there.
But I've been meaning to compliment you on the quality of your readers. I know of no other blog or website where I can sit and read every comment on just about any thread.
Your readers, truly, are more thoughtful and considerate of their themes than just about every paid writer on the internet.

Also, the better/worse evaluation is wasteful, and damages the value we should place on those who spend their lives imagining.

I'll say at least one word in defense of White: he's one of the few critics who makes class and politics an integral part of his readings. That may not be a priority to everyone, but it's refreshing to see that kind of analysis on occasion. Though I've disagreed vehemently with him on some (er, most) points, there's no doubt that he makes me rethink some films on angles I hadn't considered.

But, as Jim says in the post, this isn't really about the rightness/wrongness of White's criticisms, but about the strangely irrelevant way he puts them into a BETTER THAN list. And some of them do seem chosen for no reason other than to poke needles into the eyes of those who dared enjoy WALL-E, or whatever.

Now: I will disagree with White's (and yours, Jim) linking of Boyle and Luhrmann, which is based on one stylistic quirk alone: fast editing. Show me two or three frames from a movie and I can immediately tell you whether it's Boyle or Luhrmann (or one of the Luhrmann's imitators), because Boyle has such a distinct style of visual composition that he's far out of their league. I enjoy watching his films; Luhrmann et al give me a headache.

Alex- I also read the movie pretty much completely differently. This kid is basically extremely insecure and is a product of his insecure father. They both have they're faults, but the movie's neither endorsing their point of view nor slamming it. It's simply an examination (autobiographical for the most part)of how a family influences behavior and resentments. I don't think Ivan is presented as a superficial caricature at all. I think you got that one totally wrong. At first, he is a goofball, then you learn that he is smarter and more mature than you think. So, in a way, "Squid and the Whale" is peeling off the layers of superficiality to get at the truth. And the ending totally exemplifies this for me.

White is a true critic of the Bush era. Either you're with him or against him. Am I the only person who thinks he's being dishonest and this may all be a self-promoting act?

I'm pretty sure the point of every White review is not the movie, but calling attention to himself. I've occasionally seen the front page of NY Press promote his reviews with the same mentality as a WWE promo: "This week, it's Armond White vs. Will Smith! And the Fresh Prince is going down!"

Personally, I don't think his opinions are real. I'm pretty sure he's slipped a few times. When he does his random listings of movies that he hated (to demonstrate how audiences and other critics know nothing about movies), I'm pretty sure he has included movies from years back he's raved about (that happened to be movies most other critics liked as well).

White even gets basic facts wrong like his recent rant about the two parts of "Che" having different aspect ratios. The only problem was White thought the ratios used were 1.85 and 1.66 instead of 2.35 and 1.85. The movie is 4.5 hours. And anybody, much less a self-proclaimed film scholar would have been paying attention enough to notice that.

I also remember White ranting about how terrible "The Sopranos" was again and again. Despite that he wasn't a television critic and wasn't paid to write about it, he demonstrated he was quite a loyal viewer of the show. White hated the show so much that he tuned in week after week to see what would happen next!

We do have to be honest that someone who writes like he does (All declarations and few coherent arguments) might not actually be for real. I don't know anyone who could read his stuff and believe he's a serious thinker. Attacking people because you disagree with them reminds me of calling someone unpatriotic because they didn't support the Iraq War. It's childish and, quite honestly, bordering on insane. Shouting down other people and name-calling doesn't make you right even if your opinion is considered a dissenting view.

To me, Armond White is little more than an inverted version of Ben Lyons and vice versa. Shallow. Empty. Except White puts on the illusion his writing has substance and, unfortunately, enough people out there indulge him rather than expecting more from film criticism.

I think that the idea of making comparisons between different films with similar subject matter is not necessarily a bad one; Jim himself did the segment in '06 comparing pairing his top ten movies with other great movies. A comparison between "Transporter 3" and "The Dark Knight," or "Let the Right One In" and "Twilight," could be illuminating, for what each movie says about their broad genre (action adn then horror/romance). White doesn't actually do this though. It seems almost pointless to criticize what he's done, because he hasn't really done anything. X is good because it does this, whereas Y is bad because it does this instead. Possibly his original reviews of these films touch on some of the other topics--there isn't enough here for me to lay judgment on the man's judgments.

As an aside: is "Transporter 3" any good? I saw the first one, and could barely stand it, even though I tremendously enjoyed Luc Besson's "Leon"/"The Professional."

As far as the top IMDb movies: there used to be a bit more variety toward the top, as "Citizen Kane" and "Dr. Strangelove" used to be within or near the top 10. Sadly, neither film is anymore. (On the other hand, "American Beauty" has also dropped out of the top ten, for which I am thankful.) I think that there is some correlation, but not a strong one, between IMDb voters and (at least my personal estimation of) quality.

Sorry to triple post on a subject ("The Squid and the Whale") which has nothing to do with this thread, but I just wanted to respond by saying your reading is extremely valid, and an interesting perspective on the film's point-of-view. I do think we can agree that there is no question the film doesn't accept Jeff Daniels' worldview as normal or healthy, and certainly it shows the danger of the son following in his father's footsteps (such as in the painful "I wish you had less freckles" scene). But I also think that the movie does at certain points endorse a certain elitism without being critical of it.

Apart from all this, I also was underwhelmed by the film because I felt that the presentation of the family wasn't entirely convincing (Linney's constant use of "Chicken" and "Pickle" didn't feel, to me anyway, like lived-in expressions of familial unity...which, I'm sure you'll argue, was the point...but shouldn't even a cold, distant family have some indication of actually once being close?) And the performance of the youngest son was distracting to me...it seemed as if he, as an actor (and Baumbach, as writer/director), were aware that what he was doing as a young boy was shocking (the library scene), or precocious (the "I'm a Philistine" scene), and that kind of hampered the comedy for me.

But enough of actually discussing a film and its themes...this was supposed to be an Armond White thread, so I'll end, tongue-in-cheek, with a White-esque statement:

"The Squid and the Whale" congratulates blue-staters who protested the war in Iraq and defended Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Its anti-Spielberg filmmaking of the highest order.

steven: To be fair to White, I have the same habit of regularly watching TV shows I don't like, to see what will happen next. As an example, I have liked at most one episode of heroes this entire season, but kept watching out of curiosity of how much worse the show would get. It's probably not the most productive use of my time, but I can undersatnd someone watching a cultural phenomenon like The Sopranos just to get his/her facts straight. (Of course, he may have been unfair to it. Who knows.)

Also: Danny Boyle was compared to Guy Ritchie (Slumdog vs. Rocknrolla), wasn't he? What do they have in common, besides being British and flashy, and occasionally showcasing characters with difficult-to-follow dialects?

What a surprise White brings about another round of vitriol. I love all these "I think White is totally irrelevant but let me quote to you something i read from him x number of years ago," as if the man has burned words into their mind.

I assume my comments apply, since I made a point of saying it's been five years since I bothered reading his column. I wouldn't deny that I'll never forget reading his reviews. I'll also never forget trying to read Roderick Thorp's Nothing Last Forever as a teenager and finally just throwing it across the room, but it wasn't an unforgettable experience because I thought the book was worthwhile.

Twilight BETTER THAN Let The Right One In???!!! What, is he a 14-year-old girl now?
He's the movie-critic equivalent of a radio shock-jock. And no, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Insanely Long Chase Scenes was not Spielberg "par excellence."
First time I've read this guy's stuff, and it's the last time.

Alex, I'll throw some support your way re: The Squid and the Whale, which I thought rang just as false as the social poses it tried to critique. To me, it felt like a cheap exercise in anti-intellectualism from an insider's point of view (maybe that's in line with your critique about it being elitist in spite of itself?), minus any kind of insight that'd redeem the exercise, weighed down with characters I didn't want to be in the company of.

Anyway, just two cents to let you know you're not the only person who found the movie grating.

And now back to your regularly scheduled White discussion.

JE: Did you see Baumbach's next movie, "Margot at the Wedding"? It made "Squid and the Whale" look like "Sanford and Son."

That guy's sad; not worth the time. What I'd like to see more of are credible critics that you happen to disagree with, like your 'No Country' and Dark Knight' musings. Educational, entertaining.
But thanks for the Detour sign.

I did see Margot at the Wedding and what White says about that film makes his point about The Squid and the Whale more clear. He writes: "Not since Woody Allen’s Big Apple reign in the 1980s has a filmmaker so shamelessly flattered the professional classes in the guise of exposing them". Or as Richard Schickel said "He's the kind of filmmaker who thinks that if he sets his star to masturbating on camera, he's making a statement, when all he's actually doing is signifying the true spirit of his movie". That's the point: is it really an exorcism of the memories Baumbach went through or is it an indulgence of them?

JE: I mentioned when I wrote about "Margot" that in one scene Jack Black pulls down his pants, looks at himself in the mirror, and exclaims that his scrotum is longer than his penis, as if this is the first time he's ever noticed. That seems to say everything about these characters' depth of self-awareness. On the other hand, Armond White is quite fond of Wes Anderson's work, and "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou" was co-written by Anderson and Baumbauch. They're collaborating on Anderson's next movie, "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," too.

I wouldn't compare "Margot" with "Squid and the Whale" though, and it would be unfair of a critic to assume that one director will continue to keep doing the same thing. "Margot" to me was Bombach going through the growing pains of trying to make something original, and not just loosely autobiographical, even if he was still borrowing from his experiences. I think he failed with that one, whereas the "Squid" was a MUCH better movie.

This was just funny. The guy essentially wants to take every movie that critics championed and say that a completely crappy alternative is better. Once he said that "Twilight" was better than "Let the Right One In", I just started laughing. He just wants attention and I'm sorry to say that he's getting it.

I'm wondering if we really need to approve or disapprove of the characters in Baumbauch's movies. If someone sets out to make a movie about this class of person, is it necessary to be for or against them? In watching all of his films, it seems to me that he's merely making movies about people and places that he understands best. That is exactly what I've liked about his movies. I think the same thing could be said of Allen, who's films seems to lessen in quality as he gets further from classes and places that he really understands (with a couple of exceptions). If Allen or Baumbauch wants to flatter east coast intellectuals, then more power to em'. If I made a movie, I'd be prone to flattering the midwestern working class that I was born and raised around.

Let me be the contrarian (ooooh!) and take a moment to stick up for the man, in a way: he's excellent at viewing movies as experiences of emotion (an angle often forgotten as film major theory wanking overtakes the communal experience of actually WATCHING a movie; God do I hate film majors, yes it's a bias and it's not an absolute, but there it is), even if he's often retarded at articulating that in a way outside of his own supposedly anti-elitist brand of elitism. CJ7, Death Race, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, RocknRolla... all films I adore, and I think the man makes some astonishingly good points on them. For that, I love him.

Nevertheless, that doesn't forgive his bouts of childish reduction, his name-calling, his bullying, the list goes on. It'd all be so much better if he wasn't so defensive.

Oh, and Squid and the Whale rocks. Just sayin'. :)

I know we're fully into tangent territory, but I guess that's what the Internet is for.

On the issue of context... my reaction to "The Squid and the Whale" was that its characters were so absurdly caricatured and overwrought that they didn't resemble any actually human beings which was a detriment to the film. Yet I have since heard from others who have echoed Jim's sentiment that it "could not have been a more accurate document of its East Coast social/intellectual milieu (that's a word one the characters would use -- and probably does) if it were... a documentary."

I find it inconceivable that such beings as depicted in Squid exist in the universe let alone here on Earth, yet it's obvious that for some people this was a spot-on portrayal.

The world's a strange place...

@ Christopher Long: Even Stephen King - who named Squid and the Whale his #1 movie of 2005 - said that he'd seen these kind of destructive and self-destructive character types more than he'd even wanted to and that the film rang true to him. (Then again, he also gave four stars to FOUR films from the summer 2004, including Shrek 2, in the same article he ripped Ebert for handing out, ahem, too many four star ratings; the head spins...) For me, it's the non-satirical flipside to American Beauty, a film I once loved before I came to realize just how smug it truly was.

Well put Jim. You have won back some of my goodwill following the whole Dark Knight and now Slumdog Millionaire furores.

Armond White is a stooge. Nothing more really needs to be said.

When I saw Rachel Getting Married BETTER THAN Frozen River I suspected Armond was writing titles on ping-pong balls and pulling them out at random from one of those machines they use to call the lottery just to be extra confounding. Then I hit the Let The Right One In J-Horror comment and it struck me that he's simply become lazy. Though for an even less supportable analysis of that movie try Fangoria's stab at contrarianism http://www.fangoriaonline.com/blogs/raising-hell/924-international-horror-cinema-in-2008.html