Armond White vs. Everyone

[The Ivy League Nigga]

He was a guest speaker at a class I was teaching for teen-filmmakers. He was exceedingly polite, thoughtful, and uncontroversial. Def on the quiet side. Not that I expected him to come in yelling or ranting, I think we all just expected someone slightly more boisterous with more contentious views after reading his work.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Like others have said, we're (people who care about these things) all well-informed on the arts now and in the age of information we don't need "experts" to steer our opinion. This is why I don't mind that most critics are worthless aside from entertainment-value, if they weren't a bit controversial I think they'd lose their job because who really gives a shit what someone like Ebert says (?), other than elitists who use other elitist (who are more eloquent, i.e. critics) to verify their opinions.

[Thun]

Like others have said, we're (people who care about these things) all well-informed on the arts now and in the age of information we don't need "experts" to steer our opinion.

This is an idea that has been agreed upon here and celebrated? This is something you believe in wholeheartedly?

[Comedy Quaddafi]

I can see only one person argued something similar on the previous page, so I guess not everyone would agree.

But what I meant to say is, we watch movies to enjoy ourselves (I think that's the case but I'm not always sure) and now it's far easier to access qualified opinions from "common" people so we don't need proffesional gatekeepers.

[Thun]

We just don't need them at all? The commenters on Rotten Tomatoes and in this forum consistently churn out informed, qualified opinions?

I think the inevitable and continuing democratization of information and opinion making is a on the whole a good thing, but completely dismissing the insight of experienced, knowledgeable, trained critics is throwing the baby out with the bath water, in my opinion.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Point taken. However, I think there's a paradox here because "critic-approved" movies are rarely very populist, which means that a "casual" movie-watcher can't really use a review to form expectations about whether he/she will be entertained by the latest Blockbuster. If you want to watch cgi-robots you're not gonna care that some uppity critic says Transformers suck. The critics therefore speak mostly to people who already trained in identifying things they will like - in this case, film-fags. Maybe I'm not entirely adressing your point though, so no, we shouldn't dismiss their training and qualifications but we shouldn't take them too seriously either because controversy seems to me to help them to stay relevant - so we can sit and critique their criticism.

[Icesickle]

Like others have said, we're (people who care about these things) all well-informed on the arts now and in the age of information we don't need "experts" to steer our opinion.

Okay Glenn Beck.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Your ice-edit totally ruined the build-up to the joke I was going to make. It was funny too.

"He must be a pleasant gentleman, that Glenn Beck" - or something like that.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

But yeah, if you constantly have to label everything "Top Thiththy of all time" or "Top Thwenthy of their respecthive decade" then critics are definitely a great tool to further affirm your superior taste, especially if you only base your opinions on the tiny margin of movies that happen to make their way across your little microscope.

[Thun]

Point taken. However, I think there's a paradox here because "critic-approved" movies are rarely very populist, which means that a "casual" movie-watcher can't really use a review to form expectations about whether he/she will be entertained by the latest Blockbuster.

Right, but as Armond White hinted in that interview, the point of criticism is not, and should not be, to validate the basest of consumer choices. That's the job of advertisers and shills. Criticism is supposed to spotlight, analyze, and celebrate great art. In order to do so, distinctions have to be drawn and certain works have to be criticized for not living up to the expectations of great art, which most would agree revolve around the notion of being emotionally and/or intellectually affected (huge simplification of course, but I think you understand what I'm getting at.)

The fact that a large portion of the population is in it for sheer consumerist-entertainment value (I have a feeling this assumption is overly simplistic, though) does not diminish the importance of informed reviewery in the least. In an era in which anyone can claim to be a critic and have their opinions read in spite of having zero credentials or training, I'd say quite the opposite is true. If in your estimation, the majority of people are uninterested in critically engaging the majority of films, isn't the majority of the popular online discourse that you are celebrating likely to be a regurgitation of banal, sycophantic, uncritical claims?

If you want to watch cgi-robots you're not gonna care that some uppity critic says Transformers suck. The critics therefore speak mostly to people who already trained in identifying things they will like - in this case, film-fags.

See, this is where mini-generation gaps come into play. Not very long ago --- other posters can verify this --- a much larger portion of middle-class, partially educated people aspired to become as literate and as critical as conditions would allow. There was an enormously influential "upper middlebrow" culture at work. Everyday working people took time out of their day to read the surprisingly erudite, corporate agenda-free criticism that was offered for free or close to it in local publications. People had greater access to qualified writing that taught them how to watch films and derive greater satisfaction from them, including blockbusters. These readers were not "art fags," they were not "uppity," they were not attempting to put on airs, they were simply the products of a time in which reading and writing were held in considerably higher esteem by virtually all walks of life.

Now, obviously, a series of enormous macro-level societal changes has buried that era beneath several strata of history. But it wasn't that long ago, so "dinosaurs" like me and Roger Ebert and Armond White and even ol' Ithey have witnessed a nearly complete decimation of literate discourse on popular culture. But not one of us was born wealthy or to Ivy League educated parents. We arrived at our current station in life partly by participating in the upper-middlebrow culture that was all around us, by reading and digesting the thoughts of good writers whose prose served as a stepping stone to tackling more complex pieces. I shit you not, brohem - I would not have had a chance in college or graduate school if I hadn't been reading what my parents left on the coffeetable and kitchen table with ferocity and passion.

The characterization of all experienced/credential-bearing reviewers as some kind of elitist cabal is both mean-spirited and wrong, in my opinion. Armond White (not that I hold his word to be gospel but he spoke about all of this at length in the interview) has suggested that one of the primary functions of a movie reviewer is to spotlight those films that depict the predicament of the have-nots of the world and ensure that people in similar conditions can access them and experience what they have to offer. Now, you might argue that most "pedigreed" film journalism and reviewery is cordoned off in academic publications and periodicals and websites that cater to an upper middle class readership .... but this wasn't always the case and that reality is not bettered by a deluge of unqualified reviewery coming from every anonymous corner of the internet, especially of it largely reflects the agenda of wealthy corporate Hollywood types.

Sorry for rambling, this thread got me thinking. I want to draw a parallel with rap music and the role of the DJ as critic but I'm sure that'll piss everyone off so I'll save it.

[Thun]

But yeah, if you constantly have to label everything "Top Thiththy of all time" or "Top Thwenthy of their respecthive decade" then critics are definitely a great tool to further affirm your superior taste, especially if you only base your opinions on the tiny margin of movies that happen to make their way across your little microscope.

You realize that a good review can have a value beyond assessing a particular work as "good" or "bad", right? Read my post above.

[Icesickle]

But yeah, if you constantly have to label everything "Top Thiththy of all time" or "Top Thwenthy of their respecthive decade" then critics are definitely a great tool to further affirm your superior taste, especially if you only base your opinions on the tiny margin of movies that happen to make their way across your little microscope.

If we were all only so worldy and straddled the line between effete pretentiousness and soccer goonery so deftly like you, chief.

[Comedy Quaddafi]

Right, but as Armond White hinted in that interview, the point of criticism is not, and should not be, to validate the basest of consumer choices. That's the job of advertisers and shills. Criticism is supposed to spotlight, analyze, and celebrate great art. In order to do so, distinctions have to be drawn and certain works have to be criticized for not living up to the expectations of great art, which most would agree revolve around the notion of being emotionally and/or intellectually affected (huge simplification of course, but I think you understand what I'm getting at.)

I think I do too. At the same time, I honestly think a lot of critics are quick to praise hollow movies that masquerade as something else, simply because they attempt to be intellectually or emotionally stimulating. Benjamin Button, The Fighter, The Town, Crash, American History X, Slumdog Millionaire, etc., basically there's a long list of shallow and shitty movies that gets to be put on a pedestal because they are deceptively "deep." I've read enough proffesional reviewers spewing garbage about the clever eco-messages and anti-war ideas in Avatar until I've reached the point where I refuse to take any of their ilk seriously. Incredibly myopic of me, maybe, and perhaps I've just been following the wrong journals.

The fact that a large portion of the population is in it for sheer consumerist-entertainment value (I have a feeling this assumption is overly simplistic, though) does not diminish the importance of informed reviewery in the least. In an era in which anyone can claim to be a critic and have their opinions read in spite of having zero credentials or training, I'd say quite the opposite is true. If in your estimation, the majority of people are uninterested in critically engaging the majority of films, isn't the majority of the popular online discourse that you are celebrating likely to be a regurgitation of banal, sycophantic, uncritical claims?

Yeah I see where you're going with that. In general I trust "random guy on the internet" more when looking for opinions on a movie that only tries to entertain than critics. If it's a more serious movie I don't really trust anyone except the critics that introduced me to good movies by way of their praise - these people are usually specific bloggers I've identified as people who I can learn from.

Can't really comment on the rest. I will say that I enjoy it whenever I can make the more educated and mature people here engage comprehensively and respectfully in a discussion, even if I lack proper perspective. In this case, I didn't start forming opinions on things, as such, before the internet was a household item, because of my age.

Don't take my previous comment seriously, it was tailor-made for Ice Diddy - who happens to have praised The Fighter and The Town for their "authenthicithy" and nonsense like that, or at least I think it is.

[Icesickle]

What I said is that compared to "Mystic River," "The Departed" and a lot of other contemporary movies about working class micks in Massachusetts, "The Fighter," and to a lesser extent "The Town," come across as authentic, to me.

I'm sure you've spent some time in the state's ethnic enclaves, or in the state at all, so you have more than enough authority to debase someone's opinion on the authenticity of the characters and settings of the films though...

[Comedy Quaddafi]

I don't need to spend time anywhere to tell that people don't talk to each other like they do in those movies or that the plots progress in autistic rather than authentic ways. Bruv, you called The Town "documentaristic"

[Icesickle]

I don't think I did, holmes.

"The Fighter" is a true story, so I don't know where you're going with that, and my authentic comment has more to do with how true to life each film's (wait for it...) milieu is (and, again, relative to other contemporary films about the same type of worlds), not about how "authentic" their plots are.

[PopeyeJones]

^^^Do you think part of this (not being a dick) is that movies that happen to have mainly poor and working class characters are almost singularly gauged on some bullshit measure of if they're "authentic" or not?

[Gyangsta 4 Life]

Almond White is such a nut.