39 responses so far

• 1 8-12-2009 at 12:42 pm
  
  twinzin said...

  He wants to speak volumes with his reviews but in return he makes himself look and sound ridiculous with the terms he uses. I don’t like the guy. He doesn’t even critique most of the time.

• 2 8-12-2009 at 12:44 pm
  
  Georgie said...

  Yes, he does have his right to an opinion, but if he’s giving negative reviews for the sake of giving negative reviews then he should be off of RT, at least in my eyes. A critic should not be part of RT if they give reviews purely to screw up the RT-meter, that defeats the purpose of the meter.

• 3 8-12-2009 at 12:51 pm
  
  AmericanRequiem said...

  KILL ARMOND WHITE!

• 4 8-12-2009 at 12:54 pm
  
  Steven Kar said...

  But HP6, 500 Days of Summer, The Hangover, Up, and Star Trek WERE bad movies. What’s so wrong with that?

  Just because the majority liked them, doesn’t make them good worthy movies or validate them artistically.

  He still gets on my nerves though.

• 5 8-12-2009 at 12:54 pm
  
  Chase Kahn said...

  He calls the film racist and a “celebration” of the Soweto South African riots and then uses it to get on his Spielberg soapbox…again.

  I’ve said this before, but he’s becoming unpredictably predictable. He’s so much of a diagnosed contrarian that its lost its sting.

• 6 8-12-2009 at 1:10 pm
  
  j said...

  It’s interesting to see how differently RT & MC perceive the same reviews. It has a 75 average with Cream of Crop & 96 with MC.

  The two reviews RT has that aren’t the same as MC’s A) give 3.5 stars or B) say it’s “quite possibly the best film I’ve seen all year.” So they can’t really be the ones to bring down the RT score.

  Either way, while this surprisingly high early showing will result in a pretty high score in the end, I don’t think it’ll be that high. A 96 is larger than any of the LOTR’s.

• 7 8-12-2009 at 1:34 pm
  
  Georgie said...

  You can think a movie is overrated but still give it a positive review though. For instance, I was not the biggest fan of TDK, but I could never justify giving it a negative review. And if he thinks D9 is racist he’s obviously missed something about the movie.

• 8 8-12-2009 at 1:42 pm
  
  Ronnie C. said...

  I’ve read some of his other reviews, and everything seems to follow a very distinct pattern.
  If it’s a popular movie with a modicum of style, he labels it as hipster pandering.
  If the film introduces any sort of analysis of moral ambiguity, he labels it as “nihilistic” and an assault on virtue.
  If it’s a financially struggling indie flick that has managed to connect strongly with the critics, he assaults it for being an “art-house” film and being out of touch.
  For someone who seems to despite hipsters, he tends to define himself by the movies he likes (and dislikes). For his incredibly poorly thought out Dark Knight review, he goes awkwardly out of his way to talk about how much he hated There Will Be Blood, Hellboy II and Encounters at the End of the World. His Coraline review discusses how much he hated WALL-E.
  His Slumdog Millionaire review throws in a random and un-called-for rag on City of God.
  It goes beyond being deliberately contrarian. His reviewing style is a narcissistic and narrow-minded celebration of the banal. He not only bashes acclaimed movies (which is fine), but during his negative reviews, he wastes everyone’s time by boasting about how much he hated other highly acclaimed movies.
  He’s the kind of reviewer that would attack a movie for having hype. That defeats the entire purpose of reviewing films to begin with.

• 9 8-12-2009 at 1:53 pm
  
  Sound Designer Dan said...

  Ah, Armond White.

  The only critic to compare Hellboy 2 not to another comic book film, mind you, but to a Ting Tings song.

• 10 8-12-2009 at 1:53 pm
  
  Chad Hartigan said...

  Why is it hard to grasp that he doesn’t like these films? He consistently dislikes films that many others enjoy and finds things to like in films others despise. So he’s consistent! And has an opinion. And is more eloquent in backing them up than 80% of other critics. Who thinks they have the right to assume that he gives negative reviews just to give them?

• 11 8-12-2009 at 1:58 pm
  
  Kristopher Tapley said...

  You would be a Whitey.

• 12 8-12-2009 at 2:24 pm
  
  Mr. Harmonica said...

  Speaking of taking people too seriously. Armond White is hilarious. He may be full of shit, but who cares? Who r e a l l y cares? People care too much about the Tomato-meter or whatever they call it. People who think a film looks really good, should always see it and decide for themselves. I think it’s awesome that Mr. White gets paid to be a professional shit-stirrer, but I’m going to have to be Captain Obvious here and say that anything from mere mention to hubbub about his reviews gets him off. So if anybody truly loathes the guy, the best thing to do is not pay anything attention to him.

• 13 8-12-2009 at 2:28 pm
  
  a-mad said...

  I get a kick out of the response he gets on RT. Already 160 comments, and counting. I wonder if he does it just to see how riled up people get… He certainly has their attention, if not their utter disdain…

• 14 8-12-2009 at 2:52 pm
  
  Guy Lodge said...

  I’m not all that crazy about White either, but the idea that he should be “invalidated” — before any number of inept critics far less informed, articulate and passionate than he — is ludicrous. And I’ve said this before, but people need to stop putting so much stock in RT or Metacritic scores. They’re largely meaningless, so who cares if one critic or another “throws them off”?

  Bottom line is he has a right to express his opinions, just as detractors have a right to ignore them. It was ever thus.

  PS. Screen International’s review a few days ago was mixed-to-negative.

• 15 8-12-2009 at 3:07 pm
  
  tony rock said...

  Even if the guy genuinely dislikes all of these films, that shouldn’t matter…either way the guy is an idiot. He’s either being contrarian for the sake of it, or he just lacks taste.

  Karr: HP6, 500 Days of Summer, The Hangover, Up, and Star Trek ARE good movies…see? I can do it, too.

• 16 8-12-2009 at 4:02 pm
  
  Aleksis said...

  Armond White is easily the most interesting film critic around. One of the only ones worth reading. I don’t know why people keep calling him worthless, or a gimmick, or whatever. Most of what he writes is insightful, intelligent and thought-provoking – yet because it’s not the same as what most critics think it must be “contrarian” or “nonsense”.

  The contrarian thing is stupid, anyway. If he was such a contrarian then why was critics’ darling Happy-Go-Lucky his top film of 2008? He openly worships Wes Anderson, Steven Spielberg and Mike Leigh – hardly unpopular opinions.

• 17 8-12-2009 at 4:55 pm
  
  Noah said...

  The most important thing is that a critic is consistent. Consistency helps aid the reader decide whether or not this particular person’s opinion is useful. It’s not like he’s picking and choosing arbitrarily; he clearly has a preference for a certain type of movie – and undying affection for Spielberg in particular.

  For me, I like that he challenges the status quo even though it might frustrate me. My favorite critic was Pauline Kael who I disagreed with more often than I agreed with, but who raised valid points in her criticism. Somebody challenge your beliefs or popular belief is not only acceptable, in my opinion, but necessary. The world of film criticism would be a less fun place without the strong opinions of people like Armond White.

• 18 8-12-2009 at 5:13 pm
  
  Bill said...

  It’s one thing to dislike Harry Potter, Star Trek, and The Hangover. Not a big deal. But Armond White has also given the thumbs down to:

  Hunger
  Gomorrah
  The Wrestler
  The Class
  4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
  Milk
  There Will Be Blood
  In Bruges
  Atonement
  A Christmas Tale
  Cache
  Michael Clayton

  Among others.

• 19 8-12-2009 at 5:27 pm
  
  Gustavo H.R. said...

  If he likes Spielberg, he’ll always be invited to my parties. Damn the rest.

• 20 8-12-2009 at 5:32 pm
  
  Brian said...

  His reasoning of District 9 “sucking,” being that it comes from “second rate” cinema nations (South Africa/New Zealand), is one of the most offensive statements I’ve read from a professional critic.

• 21 8-12-2009 at 5:41 pm
  
  ThinkHero said...

  I don’t have a huge problem with his crappy taste in movies, and his non-mainstream views. My question is “Can he write a review without first looking at whatever everyone else is saying, and then saying the opposite?”

  That is, perhaps if he could submit his reviews before anyone else says anything, then I would believe that he was giving his actual own real opinion as opposed to waiting for everyone else and being contrarian. Then it wouldn’t bother me as much.

  Dennis

• 22 8-12-2009 at 7:14 pm
  
  KB said...

  I just can’t respect any critic that would give “Transformers II” a good review. Idiot….

• 23 8-12-2009 at 9:21 pm
  
  Zan said...

  Because White is so informed about the historical aspects of cinema (he’s a French New Wave enthusiast), I find it hard to believe that he finds such a distaste for good modern cinema.

  Now, “good” is a subjective term, but if you look at the list Bill posted, those are universally regarded as fine contributions to present-day film. I could understand a divergence of opinion on one or two, but for someone so well versed, I find it wholly implausible that he’s doing this because he believes in it.

• 24 8-13-2009 at 12:46 am
  
  j said...

  If reviews stay the course for MC, 3 of the only 4 90+’s of the year come out this week. That’d be an unlikely but interesting confluence of events. I’ve seen Ponyo, but I prefer Mononoke, Nausicaa, & especially Spirited; it’s better than Kiki, Howl, Totoro, & Sky.

  Right now RT has a feature on best through “worst” of Miyazaki, with the latter having an 86%. Few come close to his average RT score; William Wyler has the same 9.4.

• 25 8-13-2009 at 3:41 am
  
  PJ said...

  Kicking him off RT for the purposes of homogenising an arbitrary aggregate is silly, but White’s review for “District 9″ is all kinds of offensive and crazy. Firstly, apparently “sloppy and dopey pop cinema” is characteristic of “second-rate film cultures” which he seems to base simply on the nationalities of those involved with the film. I’m not sure how White could maintain that with a straight face, as neither South Africa nor New Zealand has been responsible anything approaching the horror of say “Transformers 2″ or G.I. Joe”. It’s also unclear how exactly Peter Jackson is “intellectually juvenile”, unless he’s using Jackson’s penchant for genre-amalgamation as a qualifier. Regarding the supposed racism, I haven’t seen the film but if White really wishes to play apologist for Michael Bay’s rather blatant racism in “Transformers 2″ then I guess I have a fair idea.

• 26 8-13-2009 at 5:16 pm
  
  aaron said...

  the only thing more annoying than white are the people who make apologies for him. ronnie c. hit the nail on the head: everything that white dislikes is “hipster nihilism.” he’s like rush limbaugh–everything that sucks in the world is because of liberals. for white, if a movie sucks, it’s because it was made by a hipster, features hipsters, and/or is “nihilistic” (which is just code for “secular”). and he rarely actually reviews a film; he just compares it some other film that he likes that is “so much better.”

  i don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong w/ being contrarian, but at least have some sort of logic behind what you write. white doesn’t. he decided that everything wrong w/ film is because of “hipster nihilism” and so every film that sucks is an example of this; that is not an argument. boston university film professor ray carney is an example of someone who almost always disagrees w/ popular opinion when it comes to film, but at least that guy has arguments for his positions. he also doesn’t pretend he’s Mr. Tough Guy Christian who tells fellow film critics to “step outside” (seriously?) and that “they don’t know who they are dealing with.” i mean, really? really? reading white’s drivel i got the impression that he’s more or less a bully and that nymag profile basically confirmed my suspicions.

• 27 8-13-2009 at 6:47 pm
  
  ThinkHero said...

  Contrarian is no better than someone that goes along with the crowd all the time. It means they don’t have a real opinion of their own. They wait to see what other people think and instead go the opposite way, which still means you base it on other people.

  Dennis

• 28 8-18-2009 at 2:26 am
  
  james said...

  Well, better than the circle jerk going on about district 9. It wasnt that great..the plot was a mess, the writing was sloppy, and its honestly didnt make much any sense

• 29 8-19-2009 at 6:45 am
  
  ben said...

  Everyone seems to think that the film is an “allegory” about apartheid. Sci-fi is perfectly capable of doing this. They could have set such an allegory in space and disguised every parallel under strange-sounding names. This film TROPES on apartheid, and uses the same setting–but never approaches (for better or worse) the complex totality of an “allegory.”

• 30 8-19-2009 at 6:49 am
  
  Guy Lodge said...

  “This film TROPES on apartheid”

  As someone familiar with “trope” as a noun rather than a verb, I don’t entirely follow this thought. Can you explain a little? (Not being snarky — I’m interested.)

• 31 8-19-2009 at 6:58 am
  
  ben said...

  Sure. “tropos” in greek means “manner, way, custom,” and a trope is a motif, but I think in film talk, a trope is something less than a symbol. A trope is usually a *partial* reference to a larger or more consistent set of symbols, usually with an aspect of cliche. To trope (verb) on something is to introduce tropes as embellishment, without developing them. So, this movie (especially in the talking-heads moclumentary section) mentions and makes use of many well-known aspects of global slums and neoliberal talking-head-language… but then it leaves those references where they lie. An allegory would be a string of consistent references, with an added meaning. To trope on something is to repeatedly look in its direction, but not to make connections, just to nod at these motifs as they appear, as though on a checklist.

• 32 8-24-2009 at 4:47 am
  
  Jon said...

  District 9 is a movie about apartheid made by a South African White man, in South Africa where all the africans and aliens live and look disgusting while the hero is a White man who has sex with aliens and gets infected.

  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

  district 9 is 100% racist. All Blomkamp does is bring up race stereotypes one after the next.

  And even if I ignore the racial aspects of the film, it goes from being intriguing in the beggining to nothing more than a shoot-em-up 3rd act.

  I’m glad Armond called the film out. Black people don’t just take this form of racism anymore. This isn’t the 50’s. He’s got every reason to tear this movie a new one.

• 33 8-26-2009 at 9:42 pm
  
  Rosie said...

  I had expected DISTRICT 9 to be one of my favorite movies this summer. And although it had an interesting premise, I discovered that I didn’t like the movie very much. I don’t know. I supposed that it could be that I found it questionable that the mother ship would remain hovering over Johannesburg for at least two decades or more, without any fuel or its command module. I’m still wondering how the aliens (who were ailing when the South Africans first discovered them) managed to get their hands on enough weaponry to trade with the Nigerians.

  I found the movie’s portrayal of the Nigerians rather repulsive. Mind you, the South Africans were not portrayed in a positive light, including the main character. But the Nigerians were portrayed in such a one-dimensional and negative way that . . . well, it repelled me. And if the aliens are supposed to be metaphors of the black South Africans during apartheid, does that mean sleeping with them was supposed to be regarded with revulsion? Apparently, we’re supposed to regard Nigerian prostitutes having sex with aliens with revulsion. And could someone please explain why the Nigerians would refer to its shaman (or whatever) with a Southern African word, instead of a word in Yoruba, Hausa or Igbo. And are we really supposed to believe that all Africans who practice in paganism, indulge in cannibalism?

  And why couldn’t Blomkamp have told the story with one of the aliens as the main character?

  Also, there is one scene that featured the main character losing some of his teeth after being affected by the alien liquid. Yet, a scene or two later, he is smiling at the camera with all of his teeth showing. Hmmm? Also, the last half hour was an exercise in excessive action scenes that didn’t mesh very well with the rest of the film.

  Yeah . . . DISTRICT 9 disappointed me.

• 34 8-26-2009 at 10:00 pm
  
  Robert Hamer said...

  “while the hero is a White man who has sex with aliens and gets infected.”

  Thanks, Jon, for revealing that you actually haven’t seen this movie and are full of shit. Oh, and great job capitalizing “White” while admonishing Blomcamp for being racist. Pot, meet kettle.

• 35 8-28-2009 at 9:19 pm
  
  Peter said...

  I think that Armond White is an EXCELLENT reviewer! Think about it: who is the best reviewer?

  a) one who praises only great movies
  b) one who sometimes praises good movies, sometimes bad ones
  c) one who praises only terrible movies

  Now obviously b) is a crappy reviewer because based on his/her review you never know if a movie is worth spending $10 on the cinema ticket. But really, for practical matters a) and c) provide you with the same info. From their opinion you’ll always know if you’re gonna enjoy the movie.

  Now Armond White is a certainly a c)-type reviewer. A 100% c). Perfect, superhuman consistency. There is nothing more one could wish for…

  And who’s ever claimed that reviewer are supposed to support good movies?

• 36 8-30-2009 at 7:38 pm
  
  Michaela said...

  First off, I have never read a review by this man until a minute ago. I saw District 9 last night and CAN’T AGREE MORE WITH HIM! I felt extremely uncomfortable with every stereotype in it. Any Joe Blow watching this will not look critically at this film. I’m wondering how many – racist could care less about the plight displaced peoples – walked away feeling validated for thinking they way they do. I am all for not having to look critically at EVERY film but this was not the smart film so many reviewers made it out to be. Not at all. Very disappointing.

• 37 9-11-2009 at 5:58 pm
  
  breal said...

  Fuck the Critics, and fuck all of your opinions to…fuck my own response….

• 38 12-28-2009 at 7:54 am
  
  letty said...

  Who can take what a vine swinginging porch monkey says seriously?

• 39 12-28-2009 at 7:55 am
  
  letty said...

  Jon – STFU you stupid cock smoking faggot!

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