Armond White Has Nothing to Offer Movie Goers
Being Negative for the Sake of Negativity
Curiosity got the best of me and I had to see what reviewers decided that Toy Story 3 was not a good movie. More importantly, I wanted to see what problem they had with such a heart warming movie. As I clicked the link to sort the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes so that I could see the bad reviews a thought crossed my mind. That thought was "It better not be Armond White who ruined the perfect rating."
Optimism caught me for a second, feeling that this review, well known for going against the grain, would not come out against what everyone else thought was a good movie. That optimism was quickly quashed as the first name to appear was none other than Armond White.
Among Armond's complaints for Toy Story 3 is that it relishes in consumerism, that it forces the viewer to connect with their inner child and that it fails to match the thrills of Transformers 2. To be fair, Armond does say that he simply does not like the concept of the movie, but when he begins looking for greater political meaning in a children's movie he begins to lose credibility.
It is not like Toy Story 3 is the first time Armond White has gone against the grain, though. White has felt that Avatar, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, District 9, Up, Precious: Based of the Novel Push by Sapphire and An Education were all bad movies. That is against the opinions of the majority of reviewers (each of those films has a positive Tomatometer rating). If those movie titles seem a little too familiar when listed together, it is because those were the 2009 Academy Award nominees for Best Picture.
It is not out of the realm of possibility that someone could not like those movies, but to hate all of them? Again, it stretches Armond White's credibility as anything other than a contrarian.
What movies does Armond White like? He recently gave a favorable review to the universally panned Jonah Hex. Two movies that destroyed the childhood memories of millions, G. I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, were also reviewed favorably with White stating that G. I. Joe "demonstrates livelier filmmaking than such utter banality as Iron Man and Star Trek."
A random sampling of other reviewers (all bearing the "Top Critic" label on Rotten Tomatoes) shows Armond White's against the grain ways. Roger Moore agrees with the Tomatometer 73% of the time, Roger Ebert 72%, James Bernardinelli 77%, Lisa Kennedy 74%, and Eric Hynes 82%. That shows that the average reviewer will disagree with the mainstream about a quarter of the time. How often does Armond White agree with the wider view? A meager 52% of the time.
These reviews are not by accident. Armond White is no idiot. He knows that controversy will draw more viewers to his work. Almost without question the only reviews he puts out that are against the grain are for popular movies that stand to make a lot of money. In the process, Armond White destroys his credibility as real movie fans ignore him and appreciate good films the way they deserve to be viewed. Armond White does not deserve the attention he gets, because he is just an attention hungry wannabe.
Sources
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-2725/
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-1238/
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-16/
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-117/
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-6103/
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/author/author-13723/
http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/82/nominees.html
http://beta.rottentomatoes.com/m/toy_story_3/
Published by Derek Jenkins
Derek is a freelance writer and computer programmer with a passion for hockey, mixed martial arts and movies. View profile
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5 Comments
Post a CommentThere's offering a counterpoint and then there's just being stubborn for the sake of it. When he criticizes Toy Story he talked about voice actors who were not in the film.
To me it seems like he just bashes a movie for the sake of going against the grain.
Oh and whoever likes Jonah Hex should be mauled.
I have read quite a few of his reviews, though most were in previous years as I grew tired of his views that were, without fail, against what everyone else thought. Pixar film? Automatic fail from him. Wes Anderson film or mindless action film? Greatest film of all time. He has definitely been spot on with films before, but he tries much too hard to find faults with films that have few, while writing off the faults of films with many.
LOL. Thanks for the correction, but even if he hated every film on the Academy Award's Top 100 Films of All Time... those 100 films still represent less than a drop in the bucket of ALL FILMS ever made. I may have read more of his reviews than you (I suspect, I might be wrong), but he has written many positive reviews for films. Several Spielberg films (A.I. comes to mind), and Wong Kar Wai films. There is a whole collection of "positive" reviews for films, music, and pop culture in general, in his book "The Resistance". I think people dwell on his "negative" reviews too much. And, Roger Ebert, in his famous "troll" blog entry, in my opinion, was a backhanded "compliment".
He can hate them (and it's 10 films btw). It isn't a great counterpoint when you can assume before even reading the review that he will be the opposing force. I don't enjoy his review (and rarely read them anymore) because his reviews are contrived to get people talking. As Roger Ebert said, the man is a troll.
Why can't White hate all of the 2009 Academy Award Nominees? They represent 5 films out of how many that were made throughout cinematic history? Armond White offers a great counterpoint (well thought out, excellently written, meticulously researched) to the usually bland adulatory film reviews offered for major (big studio) film releases. You don't have to agree with Armond White to enjoy his articles/reviews.