Okay, so there is a term that I came up with called "Obamatized", a play on words from a condition women sometimes have called being d*ckmatized. You see, after Obama was elected, folks got all infatuated and/or caught up and started throwing Black folks out there left and right, sometimes with epic "FAIL" results. Take ineffective goofball Republican Chairman Michael Steele for instance, or adulterer and head of Citigroup Dick Parsons. 10 years ago, a Black man in either one of these positions would have been as unthinkable as Obama being president. Just like this this dude being the president of the New York Film Critics Circle, at one time arguably the most powerful and influential critic organization on the planet, was unthinkable, and probably should have remained so.
My blog homie, pop culture writer Micheal A. Gonzales (do yourself a favor and check him out HERE) sent me an article from NY Magazine* on the latest shenanigans of Armond White, the aforementioned head of the NY Film Critics Circle. I wrote an article on this dude a couple of years ago, which you can read on the post after this one. I was bewildered at why he just seemed to be so contentious all the time, serving no real purpose or adding anything to the world of cinema except for his dissension.
There are those that just seem to have received zero love as a baby and child, and spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back through attention whoring or "look at me!" antics...in my opinion, Armond White seems to be one of them. How else do you explain these oddities taken from the article?
"In the category of $100 million–budget comic-book action-adventure films, White declared the “genre expertise” displayed by his great hero Steven Spielberg in the criminally ignored Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was “better than” the overpraised “dunglike banality” of Iron Man."
And this:
"White’s assertion that the “kinetic art” to be found in assumedly schlocky Transporter 3 was “better than” that favorite of “impressionable teenagers,” The Dark Knight and also said this of The Dark Knight: [it] “fabricates disaster simply to tease millennial death wish and psychosis.”"" (from IW-what the eff does that even mean?)
After the Dark Knight opine he was raked over the coals:
"This opinion generated a mini-firestorm of hate mail on Rotten Tomatoes, the widely skimmed Internet movie-review site currently featuring a forum titled “Armond White of the New York Press May Be the Worst Film Critic Ever.” Among the more than 300 postings—for other critics, two comments is a groundswell—White was described as “sad,” “crotchety,” a peddler of “Cold War platitudes,” a hater of the common people, a “Christian boy,” an abuser of affirmative action, and a mindless typist".
He also trashed "The Wrestler" only one of four major critics to do so. Everyone, especially a critic, is entitled to express their opinion, but from what I have seen, Armond White continuously goes against the grain, again and again, and his views and explanations don't seem to carry much weight. It seems that he does it for attention, and not because it's really what he holds in his heart. It all seems very disingenuous.
White says, “I don’t say these things to call attention to myself or to get a rise out of people. I say them because I believe them. We’re living in times when critics get fired if they don’t like enough movies. People don’t need to hear what mouthpieces for the movie industry tell them. They need to hear the truth.”
That may be true, but why are his "truths" always so different from absolutely everyone's, in addition to being extremely negative? Consider this:
"At the City Sun, the borderline-radical black weekly where he regularly slammed Spike Lee’s movies, referring to Clockers as “40 acres and a bunch of bull.”"
Or this head scratcher:
"White took a similarly purist stand when he railed against critics lobbying for free DVD screeners. “This is about the aesthetics of film reviewing,” he says. “We are obligated to see movies the way the public has to see them. If not, then become a DVD reviewer, don’t become a film critic.” Asking for product from the movie companies is a compromise of journalistic integrity, White says, declaring “the New York critics have been corrupted.”"
Or this quote:
In a post called “White Noise,” [Glenn] Kenny wrote, “White’s known for spewing bile at his peers in print, and then turning around and being quite affable to said peers in person—I’ve experienced it. And I’ve had it. So: Screw you, Armond.”
Or this bit of wisdom from White:
"The “comically humane” films of Wes Anderson, maker of Rushmore, are infinitely “better than” the “toothless Robert Altman gumming” of Paul Thomas Anderson, whose There Will Be Blood is a “symptom of everything wrong with the American experience.”
Or this:
"It is in this way that White can confidently tell you a film like Blade Runner is “effective for about fifteen minutes” and probably should have never been made, because there was no way it was ever going to surpass Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as a dystopic vision of the future. "
*sigh*
If Mr. White is married, or even has a pet I would be very surprised. What I am not surprised to find out, however, is that is he the youngest of seven children. Make of that what you will.
*source
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