The Armond White Takedown I've Been Waiting For

[crumbum]

A thoughtful and well-reasoned dissection of his critical mindset based on his recent review of Toy Story 3:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/07/hating-the-player-losing-the-game-the-armond-white-meta-review/

[Bryan]

I read that too, and wound up spending the next hour and a half following links, and trawling through Armond-alia. I came to the conclusion that the wisest course is: don't feed the troll. Ebert's got it right.

I accept that he's smart and film-literate, etc. And I don't even really think that his contrarianism is calculated to piss people off. I think it's calculated to satisfy his certainty that he's the only one who gets it. I'm sure he has his moments of brilliance, but I'm not prepared to wade through his nonsense to get to it.

[crumbum]

I've been fascinated by him for a long time and though I keep swearing I'll stop reading him, I can't stop. Ultimately it's his utter carelessness about the craft of writing that bothers me most. Despite the other inconsistencies that this article makes clear, I think he would have some important things to say if only he would bother to make his prose intelligible.

[cavorting with nudists]

I wrote White off as an incoherent vile-tempered moron long ago, but I clicked on the link.  I wouldn't mind seeing somebody say mean things about Toy Story 3, but why did it have to be him? Anyway, that's ten minutes spent reading a beatdown on somebody I try to avoid thinking about, over a movie I don't care about, that I won't get back.

[cavorting with nudists]

Wait, I'm gonna walk back some of the glib meanness in my own post.  I don't actually think the linked piece is a waste of time.  It takes White more seriously than I think he deserves, but then White does provoke strong reactions in a lot of people, and the writer does a very good job of coming back at him with substantive arguments about the kind of criticism he practices.  White won't learn anything from it, but doubtless people who care about film criticism can.