This week finds the movie blogosphere all hot and bothered over New York Press critic Armond White’s latest jeremiad, “What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Movies.” (If you’re not familiar with Mr. White’s bomb-throwing rhetorical strategies and absurdly contrarian taste in movies, please don your flame-retardant suit before reading.) Among other things, White is concerned that the internet is overrun with know-nothing idiots blathering about film, and of course, we resemble that remark. Glenn Kenny, for one, has had enough. “My friend (well, he was my friend, and then he does this) Aaron Aradillas points me to New York Press critic Armond White's latest 'everybody in the world sucks but me' screed, ‘What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Movies,’ which he kicks off by flexing his disdain for the ‘opinionated throng’ of internet critics who emulate the ‘Vachel Lindsay-Manny Farber tradition.’ That's a great start, given that only a person who has read either Farber, or Lindsay, but by no means both, could possibly conceive of yoking the two together in this way. White then goes on to piss all over the recently-grievously-ailing Roger Ebert...after which he wishes him ‘nothing but health.’ That's awfully sweet of him...Now, White's known for spewing bile at his peers in print, and then turning around and being quite affable to said peers in person—I've experienced it. And I've had it. So: screw you, Armond. Don't say ‘hi’ next time you see me at a screening because you won't get a 'hi' back. You think you're applying some form of moral rigor to your work, but the fact is that you're a bully and a hypocrite, and I don't want to know you.”
At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells doesn’t take it so personally.
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