Oh Armond.....

I haven't seen Toy Story 3 yet but can only imagine the glee Armond White took in ruining the film's shot at a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating. This post is about the most honest thing I've read about White, acknowledging his contrarianism while defending the need for critics who don't fall in line with the blockbuster-of-the-week mentality. (Something Old, Something New)

Most movies, then and now, don't matter that much in the long run. And the ones that do turn out to matter often aren't the ones that get the four-star reviews at the time. That, at least, is something that White keeps pointing out in his own strange way. And while everyone should like what they like, there's a weird sense of entitlement in some of his attackers, the idea that not only did they think Toy Story 3 was great (a perfectly good opinion) but that because it's the biggest movie of the week, everybody must validate this opinion. White's performance art is suggesting that most of these big movies are just the flavor of the week, and it doesn't matter much what critics say about them. I'd prefer this suggestion to be coming from a regular critic who actually discusses the movies, not a distant idea of what they are, but at least he's goading people into questioning some assumptions about what the "important" movies are at a given moment.