Armond White

Ahhhhh, Armond White. Just recently, Kevin sent me a link to Armond White's year-end list that was so baffling in its phony intellectual absurdity, so bemusing in its unbalanced presumptions based on such little concrete detail, so frustratingly constructed as some sort of "out-of-the-mainstream-'non-artsy'-film-critic-year-end-list" in such a pandering, inconsistent manner, I felt compelled to write a large post dedicated to removing the false pedestals holding up Armond's pitiful excuse for a career as a film critic. After posting this, I will e-mail it to him repeatedly until I get a response.

I read some more reviews of his. My hate festered. His review of The Wrestler was slop. He referred to the main character, played by Mickey Rourke, as "Ram Jam" throughout the entire assesment. This is pathetic. "Ram Jam" is the name of Rourke's signature move in the film, not one of his names or nicknames (The Ram, Randy, Robin). Was he actually watching the movie? Or was he too busy glossing over the screen with re-imagined images from "Transporter 3"? (Which, by the way, he commended as the best film of 2008. Seriously.) 

I couldn't believe it. Is this man truly touting himself as "controversial" and "the only film critic willing to go against the grain"? Honestly? C'mon, Armond! There has to be some satire behind this! Please?

But it isn't. His idea of controversy is simply selecting the most disliked, sloppy films of the year, and dangling them above the better movies in some sick, ceremonial, badly written dance. His reasoning behind disliking such technically and emotionally superior films is usually culminated in a one sentence squalor, lashing out at the movie's supposed "negativity" and "cynicism" compared to his favorite's much more "lighthearted" and "uplifting" look on life. What a poor way to assess films. Their happiness meter? If a movie gets to be even remotely depressing, does Armond run out of the theater, eyes filled with tears and guns blazing, ready to type up another gem? What a despicable and immature method to film reviewing. Unacceptable.

Now to address the man himself. Armond White, you are a phony. Can you even make a complete sentence out of your own deranged scribbling? Your writing, in all its post-auteuristic flourishes, is but a reflection of your own auto-fellative hubris. You seem little more than a sterile, self-important buffoon with a highly decomposed sense of cinema, surely picked apart by your vapid brand of pseudo-intellectualism. You are a parody. A working joke. Someone who values the appearance of knowledge more than the possession of it. Someone who fawns over the idea of becoming a wise man, but is just as content gluing on a beard and posing on a boulder. Your despotic, blathering commentary is an impediment to cinema. A blight upon the face of intellectual artistic criticism. You deserve to be fired. With fire. Literally set on fire. Doused with kerosene, then set aflame. Like the raging imbecile that you are, sent scorching into the night, a human torch, until your remains are ash, and your filthy, useless tongue reduced to dust beneath my feet. You, sir, are an utter travesty.