New York Press Review: "Pride"

Armond White's review of Pride is the first one by him that we've even partially agreed with in quite a while, but at the risk of coming across as negators we'd like to call attention to its most revealing passage:

Some will dismiss Pride as schmaltz and sentimental, but that diabolical attitude merely prefers noxious, pessimistic fantasies that deny human possibilities.

Whether intentional or not, White has never more clearly stated the parameters of his Manichean cinematic cosmology: schmaltz and sentiment v. noxious pessimism. Those who even question the simplicity of the former brand of filmmaking contain "diabolical attitudes." In the meantime, despite its limitations, a formulaic, oftentimes superficial film like Pride is accorded "uncommon substance."
We understand what White sees in Pride: "It’s the inspirational aspect of Pride that makes it anachronistic now when such lousy films -- Black Snake Moan, I Think I Love My Wife, Dreamgirls and Waist Deep -- reduce the African-American experience to cliches of superstition, licentiousness, minstrelsy and crime." But in getting so excited about the film's "human possibilities" he neglects to mention its rather tame dependence on a host of other cliches. Which invites questions: isn't there a gray area of complexity between sentimental schmaltz and noxious pessimism? And couldn't this area of complexity even exist in the "pop" arena White so loves? Armond's binary logic is critically flawed. It allows for little nuance when he tries to combat the backward cynicism of Hollywood crassness by promoting virtuous films that are equally one-dimensional. His readers, and our movies, deserve better.

New York Press Review: "The Wayward Cloud"

From the very beginning of his confused review Armond White reveals he has no idea how to process the bizarre, provocative experience of Tsai Ming-liang's The Wayward Cloud. First off, he calls it a "porno musical," a misleading term since the film is a musical about pornography -- its participants, its viewers, and the society it influences with its images -- and not a musical featuring actual pornographic material. Then in the second paragraph he offers a series of contradictory statements:

These [musical] numbers occur in unexpected contrast to the humdrum dailiness that is Tsai's specialty. He introduces his characters as they wander the gray, dull, bizarrely empty city; sometimes walking past each other without recognition—almost refusing to communicate. This reticence is the exact opposite of what movie musicals are about.

Characters acting out fantasies in lavish musical numbers that allow them to express what they cannot in their boring, quotidian existences? Sounds in line with a particular strand of the traditional movie musical to us. But maybe we should wait for AW to explain what he means:

When Tsai follows this dysfunctional union with musical numbers, it demonstrates a changed perspective on human relations. Today, even the romantic fantasies of typical movie musicals are infected with pessimism. The Wayward Cloud isn't a deconstructed musical like the great postmodern Pennies from Heaven. Instead, Tsai reconstructs a classical genre to match the desperation of an era that has rejected musicals' implicit outworn utopianism. For some viewers this depersonalization will make Tsai's vision seem new, perhaps even radical, rather than simply depressive. But it's a coherent vision and unafraid of emotional affect. Tsai dramatizes a new approach to anomie. Linking private sexual thoughts is his way of giving shape to a pervasive loneliness.

Very, very odd. Initially White believes that Tsai "demonstrates a changed perspective on human relations." Then, all of a sudden, he doesn't, an idea implied in White's rejection of others' collective misperception of the film: "For some viewers this depersonalization will make Tsai's vision seem new, perhaps even radical, rather than simply depressive." But then, faster than you can say "muddled," Tsai's vision is new again: "Tsai dramatizes a new approach to anomie."
What in the name of watermelon fucking is going on here? Armond's flying contradictions might very well be unconsciously perpetrated, but judging by the next paragraph, they very well might not. After foolishly drawing a comparison between The Wayward Cloud and Three Times (why, because they're both directed by Asian art cinema faves? If so, that's a pretty weak link), White finally expresses his ambivalence about the film in direct terms, calling it "a self-conscious musical about dislocation -- an, at times ingenious, at times, enervating [sic] variation on Tsai's usual unhappy theme."
But why the reservations? Again the comparison to Hou Hsaio-Hsien's empty formalism, and thus this:

Unfortunately, after the heightened emotional quality of Tsai's musical numbers, he also retreats to distanced long shots and detached framing held so long it drains your involvement. The Wayward Cloud culminates in a marathon copulation scene that unites the three protagonists in desolate joylessness. It cannot be the fault of decadent western pop but of Tsai's own preference for pseudo-profundity. His anti-musical is, finally, equivalent to joyless sex.

"Pseudo-profundity"? That's it? That's all White can come up with in his criticism of the film's shortcomings (pun totally intended)? Can we at least get some reasons for this pseudo-profundity more substantial than "distanced long shots and detached framing held so long it drains your involvement"? (Waaaaaah, Armond's bored; Waaaaaah, Armond needs his fix of Hollywood "pop.")
Look, The Wayward Cloud is a difficult film. It's at once silly, beautiful, disgusting, obvious, moralizing, beyond moralizing, and frustrating. And it is most definitely challenging. One can either decline that challenge, as did Nathan Lee of The Village Voice in his (as usual) dismissive review, or accept it, as did David Wilentz of The Brooklyn Rail. Or one can, as did Armond, give equal consideration to the film's failures and successes. If choosing this last route one must be especially clear in describing one's mixed feelings about the film, as well as proving the ability to back up those feelings with insightful analyses and ideas that carefully weigh pros and cons. But Armond's review of The Wayward Cloud is full of ambivalent feeling without much thought behind it. There's no insight in what he has communicated to his readers about this film, just flailing musings and halfhearted praises and disapprovals. Even when limning the film's basic themes and structures AW contradicts himself. "I liked this but not this," Armond seems to be saying, without venturing far enough into what Tsai's trying to do, where he goes right and where he goes wrong. "Pseudo-profundity" indeed.

New York Press Review: "Zodiac"

It's probably fair to say that once you've landed on Armond White's shitlist, it's going to take a solid effort on your part to be removed. This has happened in the past -- Oliver Stone and Todd Solondz come to mind -- but on too many occasions Armond just can't get over the past indiscretions of certain auteurs. David Fincher's Zodiac provides a perfect case, not because it's a sudden masterpiece by an overrated director (AW says he's been wrongly "lionized" even though The Game and Panic Room were deservingly rejected by audiences and critics alike), but because Fincher's doing something different in his latest film and Armond just can't see it. Is the something new successful? Hell, no. But AW should give the man a little more credit than this:

Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt provide no definitive answers to the killer’s mysterious identity, yet that doesn’t hinder their prurience. Fincher’s talent? Knowing that violence not only sells, it thrills.

A strange criticism, in that Zodiac isn't particularly violent (three murder scenes that take up roughly fifteen minutes of a two hour and forty minute film), not in comparison to most Hollywood fare and certainly not in comparison to previous Fincher outings like Se7en and Fight Club. And it's not just the film's quantity of violence but its depiction of it -- Zodiac is in ways a thankful departure from Fincher's other serial killer film, Se7en, in refusing to celebrate the murderer and revel in his misdeeds. By concentrating on the realistic, stage-by-stage investigations of the police and newspapermen in the hunt for the Zodiac, Fincher actually drains the potentially titillating story of much of its tabloid allure. But Armond holds to the opposite, failing to properly distinguish Zodiac from Se7en:

Specializing in lurid stories of violence and madness, Fincher taps the zeitgeist. His 1995 hit Se7en was praised by nihilistic critics for its glorying in modern-day grotesques. Audiences were simultaneously appalled and agitated -- a peculiar mix of fear and excitement that initiated the Fincher cult. Zodiac continues this perverse appreciation through a tedious, numbly-paced police-procedural storyline and contrasting flamboyant digital-video technique. The usual artistic interest in human experience is replaced with Fincher’s almost immoral emphasis on film technology (that’s why he is idolized as a modern-day Kubrick).

If generous, one might actually call Zodiac Fincher's most human film, or the closest thing approaching human. This is where the film fails, however, because without his usual bells and whistles ("immoral emphasis on film technology"? Aside from being shot on hi-def digital video, there's little in Zodiac that's so overly stylized or technically gratuitous) Fincher is lost -- he definitely needs a lesson in how to create compelling characterizations. But, man, Armond can't even hint, or accurately represent, that Fincher's at least trying.
We realize close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades, and Zodiac's effort doesn't excuse it from being bad. But Armond's whining invective is out of all proportion to the failure of this film -- ironically, his obsession with Fincher's ostensible appeal to "fanboys" (feminized by White's suggestion that the director gets them "wet") by creating "nerdy, soft-voiced" on-screen male surrogates stinks of the sort of macho bullying at the heart of Fincher's pseudo-anarchic Fight Club. Our favorite moment, though, and the one that exemplifies AW's inflation of Fincher's cinematic crimes, follows:

Problem is: Fincher’s technique distracts from a resolved mystery or narrative closure; it encourages apathy that suggests resolution and absolution are impossible.

Or it could be that the Zodiac Killer case has never been cracked. But whatever. Fincher can do no good, relatively or otherwise, in White's eyes.

New York Press Review: "Amazing Grace"

"Christianity Trumps History": this should be the headline for Armond White's naive review of "Amazing Grace." Coming only a week after White's review of "Norbit," in which he unforgivably misses the racist overtones of Eddie Murphy's unfunny "comedy," our man's analysis of "Amazing Grace" is remarkable for never addressing the film's noticeable lack of African characters, the very people the film should somehow represent by directly imparting their stories and struggle. For how much time director Michael Apted and screenwriter Steven Knight spend on Pariliamentary procedure and behind the scenes political maneuvering they certainly could have found the room to do so. But instead "Amazing Grace" is a film about the slave trade that features just one African character of any note -- and he's shuttled to the background so that William Wilberforce can stand centerstage in his noble crusade to end the horrible institution in Parliament. Christian ethics fuel that crusade, and White applauds the film's emphasis on Wilberforce's faith. But White should have been clued into the whitewashing of history that supports this Christian hagiography. Whenever an historical film raises its protagonist to the level of infallibilty (see JFK) we're always suspicious. And lo and behold, the story of William Wilberforce and his convictions, it seems, isn't as rosy as the film suggests -- the worst part is that Wilberforce's Christianity contributed to a condescending and dehumanizing understanding of Africans, who were, because of it, only offered partial emancipation. Granted, we don't expect Armond to be an expert on British history (or the history of the slave trade), but just the slightest critical skepticism toward the film's gross negligence of the African experience and/or its halo-crowning portrayal of William Wilberforce might have prevented this lapse. White's desire to champion "Amazing Grace" as a corrective to cynicism -- "What could be bolder than a film that insists upon virtue and dedication today -- an age ruled by political distrust?" -- has fostered in his critical skills yet another blind spot.

New York Press Review: "Norbit" [Vol. 2]

Armond White's recent, seemingly much talked about review of Norbit is dumbfounding in a number of respects. First, White, through critical and rhetorical bullshitting, spins Eddie Murphy's unoriginal, unfunny, and downright offensive caricatures as "explosive," "democratizing," and as existing "on a realistic continuum." What "realistic continuum" would that be? "We laugh at their types since we, in fact, recognize their types," he says. By employing that pseudo-populist pronoun "we," AW suggests that viewers should buy into the lazy offensiveness of Norbit without considering that the characters therein are nothing but hand-me-down stereotypes culled from a brain dead American popular culture. The "freakishness" on display in Norbit isn't a creative response generated from "black comics self-consciously relat[ing] to ideas of normalcy," just lowest common denominator pandering: Murphy-as-Rasputia simply occasions typical fat jokes, from shattered beds to water-emptying splashes in swimming pools to bikini waxes. But from the way he writes, you'd think Armond never saw a director use a wide angle shot to grotesquely distort features: "A perfect illustration of [director Brian Robbins'] buoyant sketch-style is the water amusement park sequence where Rasputia appears in a bikini and mounts a water slide." Didn't Mike Judge recently mock this level of devolved anti-entertainment in Idiocracy? Next up: Armond champions the buoyant artistry of Ow! My Balls!
It should be noted by now that White's tone-deaf sense of humor leads right back to his remarkable inability to call out caricatured depictions of minorities because the two glaring critical blind spots are intertwined. White cites the following as an example of the "sly social commentary" contained in Norbit : "When Mr. Wong querulously says 'Blacks and Jews love Chinese food. Go figure!' it tweaks the anomalies of American habit at which ethnic comics are rightly bemused." This is not social commentary but the weakest, most cliched sort of observation. Read Armond's statement again: Murphy's "joke" doesn't even deserve to be called that. It doesn't provoke laughter or insight or anything at all save dull recognition (get it? Because both blacks and Jews eat Chinese food!) As for Mr. Wong, what can we say? He's only the most insulting Asian caricature we've seen since Fu Manchu (thanks to Mark Asch for directing us to Walter Chaw's terrific review of Norbit: "[Wong] reveals his dream to be a whaler, making him more Japanese than Chinese, but hey, a slant's a slant.") Ironically, in the film Norbit tells Mr. Wong that the latter's quip about African-Americans "running fast" might be racist, and Wong admits as much -- Murphy tries to deflect similar, potential charges against his lampoonery by literally questioning himself on screen, a disingenuous move that, like the Mr. Wong character as a whole, White fails to catch onto. Neither does our man wrestle with the film's misogyny, which comes forth most clearly when Eddie Griffin's trite pimp character invites two women to work for him and instead of receiving a slap in the face is serenaded with their willing pleas to be his "ho." Nor does he investigate Rasputia herself, the butt of most of the film's humor and disgust, let off the hook by AW with this pretentious, circumventing gibberish: "Rasputia herself is an outsized image of the frustrations that fuel obesity and black female stereotypes that turn into (often comical) rage." She's just one of the nearly unanimous face-pulling African-American cartoons crying out self-hatred in nearly every frame of the film. Like Murphy, White doesn't seem to notice, or care.
What White's done with his review of Norbit is destroy the trust of anyone -- from those hanging on his every word to those casting a permanent wary eye -- who reads his work to look to him for incisive, relevant criticism. There are two possibilities here: either White's critical faculties are far less than stellar in understanding cinema -- how films impart meaning and for what reasons -- or else he has other motivations. If it's the latter, then those motivations are transparent. Maybe we're in denial, but to us there's not a single sentence in this review that feels genuine -- as Victor Lazlo describes Rick in Casablanca, White writes "like a man who's trying to convince himself of something he doesn't believe in his heart." White knows his audience, knows the general consensus of the high-minded, left-leaning criticism his readers usually refer to, and frequently goes in the other direction to upset their comfort. This sometimes provides provocative challenges, but more often than not it finds AW taking up positions that seem antithetical to his own intelligence and common sense. That's why in our last post we called attention to excerpts from White's review of Coming to America -- he once could call it like he saw it. But times have changed. When a film like Norbit (see also Napoleon Dynamite, the Farrelly Brothers' atrocities) comes along and provides a perfect opportunity to show he's down with "humanistic" low-brow eye-junk and against the rest of the critical community (and able to name-check Capra and Chaplin in order to do so; remember, he still has to prove his hipster credentials and raise this crap to level of Cinematic Art), Armond takes it. Even though the film, by any serious standard, is hateful. And racist. And unfunny. And shallow. And all the things that would prompt even the most knee-jerk contrarian to confess taste enough to reject it as satire or entertainment. And if our second hypothesis is true, (and we're not sure if it's more or less depressing to imagine than Armond's possible critical ineptitude), then the ramifications are clear: Armond White cares more about how others perceive and react to him than he does about writing incisive, socially and artistically astute criticism. A scary thought.

New York Press Review: "Norbit" [Vol. 1]/"The Resistance": "Who's Coming Out of Africa? The Man Who Lost His Roots!"

Ladies and gentlemen, due to overwhelming popular demand and dependable antagonism: Norbit!
First, some "compare and contrast." Almost two decades ago (July 6, 1988, to be exact) Armond White wrote the following about Eddie Murphy's Coming to America in The City Sun, in a review titled "Who's Coming Out of Africa? The Man Who Lost His Roots!" (later reprinted in The Resistance). Bear with us:

Murphy pretends to bring to pop culture insider details of Black experience: manners and dialects that he dredges up with specious authority, always falsifying or excluding their socio-economic, psychological contexts.
Black politics, Black consciousness, has never figured in the plots of Murphy's movies, but his comic's acumen uses the idea of Black awareness in order to seem truly Black, up to date. Actually, Coming to America is a betrayal of every instance of politics, history, sex, and ethnic culture Black people have ever known. . . .

Obviously, attending an Eddie Murphy movie is nothing like attending a Black awareness rally. There's ethnic self-loathing and humiliation throughout Coming to America. Murphy's consciousness is the kind that is completely detached from political action. He's a casualty, I would guess, of that period of arrested social advancement for Black people -- the aftershock of the civil rights movement -- the 1970s. In that period the predominant Black cultural figure was not a politician or demonstrator but the superficially, stereotypically ethnic icons of Blaxploitation movies and television sitcoms. As part of the TV generation, Murphy doesn't connect being Black with social injustice or political struggle. For him all Black life is vaudeville. . . .

Take this ignorance and insensitivity and add it to Murphy's undeniable talent for mimicry, his comic timing and wit, and what you get is a showbiz atrocity. As a showbiz kid, Murphy has adopted the "Black consciousness" of white ideology: Murphy sees and comments upon Black people, life, and experience in ways and terms that the mainstream readily understands and that, I fear, make Black people tolerable to whites so that they won't be surprised by Blacks and won't have to fear them or respect them.
Unlike Richard Pryor, Murphy does not make humor about how we are all foolish, ambitious, shy, neurotic, horny, greedy, and human. He confirms how Black people really are the stereotypes their enemies have always claimed. This may be New Age Blackness, which accepts denigration by others. After all, one does not make movies that gross an average of $75 million . . . by appealing only to the interests of a minority audience.

And now, only last week in the New York Press:

It’s not the ethnic and gender stunts that prove Murphy’s ingenuity. He has learned (perhaps from Jerry Lewis’ example) to place his gift for mimickry [sic] in an appealing context. Norbit takes place in a fairytale setting, an All-American burg called Boiling Springs that combines the small-town settings of It’s a Wonderful Life, Back to the Future and The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (the name Norbit is no doubt derived from Eddie Bracken’s Norbert) for a spoof on American gentility which Murphy then integrates with explosive caricatures. It’s a democratizing impulse, less hostile than the Wayans Brothers’ satire Little Man but not far from that underappreciated film’s skepticism about American complaisance. Both Norbit and Little Man express how black comics self-consciously relate to ideas of normalcy. Here, Murphy’s gender/ethnic split embraces a sense of freakishness because Norbit, Rasputia and Mr. Wong are all, also, on a realistic continuum. We laugh at their types since we, in fact, recognize their types. . . .

It’s significant that Murphy has moved past the family quandary of The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps (where he was at his most brilliant) into an area of sly social commentary. When Mr. Wong querulously says “Blacks and Jews love Chinese food. Go figure!” it tweaks the anomalies of American habit at which ethnic comics are rightly bemused.
Murphy responds to post-Dave Chappelle self-insult comedy with a better, more experienced sense of self-awareness (that is, self respect). Norbit is the meek part of Murphy, yet he wears a perfectly spherical Afro (like the teens in TV’s “What’s Happening”) that is like a halo of blackness—a nostalgic affection for his own youth. And don’t get angry at Norbit’s attempt to off his ogre-wife; its precedents recall Walter Mitty performing the Martha Rayes scenes of Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux. Not misogynist, just a funny function of a frustrated id. Rasputia herself is an outsized image of the frustrations that fuel obesity and black female stereotypes that turn into (often comical) rage. Dig the name, Rasputia. It’s a satirical ghetto moniker that brilliantly suggests a blinkered awareness of the non-black world; a joke worthy of Murphy’s terrific animated TV series “The PJs.”

How the mighty have fallen, not only in terms of basic sensitivity but in terms of critical insight. And this from the man once considered the leading African-American film and culture critic. Sad, really. If any current Armond White review demonstrates the self-willed blindness he's effected in order to place himself in uncomplicated opposition to the critical majority, no matter how weak his own reasoning or how off the mark his points, this is it. We'll talk more about it later.

New York Press Review: "The Good Shepherd"

We know, we know. We'll talk about it later.
We finally got to see The Good Shepherd, a very good film -- a little too proper for our own personal tastes but still an engrossing account of the CIA and one man's descent into emotional callousness for its cause. Going back to Armond White's review of the film from approximately a month ago we saw that he perfectly describes how Robert De Niro generates empathy for Matt Damon's aware but self-effacing anti-hero while also exploring the complex motivations behind involvement in something as bureaucratic and bizarre as a secret government agency (although AW does skimp on the issue of racial exclusivity, which he barely acknowledges as "privilege.") But for one unforgettable moment Armond succumbs to the temptation for a cheap shot and consequently lapses into classic frothing mode:

This may be the boldest movie characterization of the year because it defies the snarky, anti-American, self-hatred and nihilism and distrust of Bush-bashers, also known as Borat-mania.

Sigh. And you wondered why we were away for so long?

New York Press Review: "Dreamgirls"

Alright. We've now settled in at Armond Dangerous, having answered our backlog of comments (the ones that needed answering, that is), spoken our piece on the Armond White reviews we felt needed a challenge, and even tackled that silly "Better-Than List" that got everyone all in tizzy. Now it's time to get happy. Sorta.
At first we were in complete agreement with Armond's review of the atrocious Dreamgirls but couldn't understand why he was all worked up about it. Then we learned the extent to which people -- friends and co-workers as well as critics -- actually love this piece of garbage. And we were shocked, not so much that anyone could give a pass to the horrendous representation of music and history that Dreamgirls puts forth (if Forrest Gump proved anything it's that the American public will readily pay to view its own belilttlement), but that moviegoers -- you know, people who attend movies -- enjoy the barrage and din that Bill Condon and company pass off as entertainment. In other words, we're flabbergasted that human beings with functioning eyes and ears actually like Dreamgirls.
So this is one of those moments where we fully sympathize with AW's alarmist response to both an individual film and the general state of film culture (especially after seeing a near-double bill of Kansas City and Jazz '34, two films that at least respect the unbreakable bond between life and art.) "Sure," writes White, "Dreamgirls is basically a confection, but its core is soul-rotting." Amen. There's pretty much no moss- and slug-covered stone AW leaves unturned regarding Dreamgirls, so we'll just leave the terrific lashings to his prose except to point out the best line in his review: "Condon zips past the styles of the era without feeling (characters step out of a recording studio into—uh, oh—a race riot)." That's Dreamgirls in a nutshell, probing into the intersections of pop music and social change only as far as it gives itself the appearance of authenticity and a servicable background for the undistinguished, synth-drenched, Broadway-bland numbers that only allude to the feeling of the real-life moments of musical bliss that supposedly provided the film's inspiration. We love that White can point out and mock the Dreamgirls' pretensions in a single sentence -- it's the critical equivalent of a well-rocked solo.

Armond Dangerous Update: The Fast and the Furious/New York Press Review: "Children of Men"

Things here at Armond Dangerous are moving fast and furious. Not only are we receiving more comments than ever before and having a difficult time responding in kind (don't worry, Mark Asch, we'll get to you soon), we're also receiving more notice. Why, just last week The Reeler gave us a major holler and then, with the release of the new Press and Armond White's "Better-Than List" therein, did so again yesterday.
But The Reeler and others (such as GreenCine Daily and Mr. Asch at the L Magazine) who want to hear our say about the "Better-Than List" will have to wait a bit -- we just attended Children of Men for the second time Wednesday evening, and since the film is fresh in our minds we'd rather look at Armond's New York Press review of it. This is one of those cases where we don't quite know what to make of AW's decision to review a film after most critics sent out copy. Of course, critics can write about films whenever they want to (Jean-Luc Godard once suggested -- to Pauline Kael, no less -- that critics might think of reviewing films while they're in production), but Armond does this often, and sometimes we wonder if it's in order to gauge a critical consensus and then form his opinion in reaction to it. This is pure speculation, but we know others have wondered the same. Anyway, White's opening paragraph:

Alfonso Cuarón is not a virtuoso, although his Children of Men style might convince the politically obtuse that a decorative illustration of their social alarm is a visionary achievement. Below the garish surface of this paranoid fantasy lies political antipathy -- not the sort of soulful detritus of Tarkovsky's Stalker tableaux or Spielberg's hallucinogenic War of the Worlds, but Cuarón's cheap specialty: fashion. By distorting contemporary social fears into facile apocalyptic imagery, Children of Men does little more than rework the ludicrous, already-forgotten V for Vendetta.

Just because it stuck out to us, we'd like to address White's use of the word "hallucinogenic." Where were the Press editors on this one? According to the American Heritage Dictionary "hallucinogenic" means "a substance that induces hallucination." Does AW mean to say War of the Worlds causes its viewers to see or hear things that don't exist? We haven't learned of anything like this happening with Spielberg's film, although it would be pretty neat. We're pretty sure Armond meant "hallucinatory," which means "of or characterized by hallucination," instead of "hallucinogenic" -- it's probably a minor mistake, but it says a lot about the Press' editorial overview and White's tendency to play fast and loose with language.
White establishes in this opening paragraph what he thinks of Children of Men's aesthetic: a "style [that] might convince the politically obtuse that a decorative illustration of their social alarm is a visionary achievement," "below the garish surface of this paranoid fantasy lies political antipathy," "fashion," "facile apocalyptic imagery." In other words, shallow filmmaking imparting false ideology. How does this work?

Here, Cuarón uses the canniest youth bait -- focusing on the near-future.

Huh? How's that? We're not sure what age demographic White is referring to with "youth," but we know "near-future dystopia" films like Strange Days and Gattica flopped across the board. And did Spielberg "use the canniest youth bait" by "focusing on the near-future" in Minority Report? Without following through on this statement, AW goes on to explain Children of Men's machinations:

Instead of the cartoon jokiness that vitiated V for Vendetta, Cuarón caters to cynicism about global conditions. Those who felt that the world slipped away from them after the 2000 presidential election and later with the events of 9/11, will see their dread visualized here. Journalist Theodore Faron (caffeine-haggard Clive Owen) embodies their fear and sanctimony as he traverses the trash-strewn, gang-filled streets of Cuarón's London, walking past neo-concentration camps, evoking WWII or Bosnia or the United States-Mexico border—take your pick. He's witness to sly evocations of both al-Qaeda terrorism and Homeland Security crackdowns, and underground rebels abduct him and ex-wife Julian (Julianne Moore)—who may be either illegal-immigrant freedom fighters or fascist henchmen. But then Cuarón adds a sanctimonious twist: a mock virgin-birth by a Third-World woman named Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), whose delivery and protection becomes Theo's neo-white man's burden. You can't get more Lefty sentimental than that.

Ugly ending, echoing the same one-liner that capped the previous paragraph. A good review doesn't necessarily have to be smoothly written, though, and Armond makes some good points. Or does he? We're not sure how Cuaron "caters to cynicism about global conditions" any more than Spielberg (since White's the one comparing Children of Men to War of the Worlds and Minority Report) caters to the public's fear of large-scale catastrophe and of government surveillance. Both filmmakers seek to create cathartic, thought-provoking entertainment inspired by traumatic events and controversial issues, only the latter gets the benefit of the doubt as to his intentions while the former is deemed opportunistic. In fact, the word "cynicism" seems somewhat inappropriate in this context considering one of Children of Men's themes is how "faith" wins out over "chance." Granted, it's a simple theme, not incredibly well-developed, but it still offers a vague hope against the vague cynicism White suggests. The ostensible evidence supporting this suggestion is that Children of Men visualizes the dread of "those who felt that the world slipped away from them after the 2000 presidential election and later with the events of 9/11." Alright, but how? Armond ticks off a list of the film's evocative imagery, making it sound jumbled and not thought-out. Which it very well might be -- a solid case might be made for that -- but AW never spells out how except to throw out the adjective "sly." Earlier another adjective, "sanctimony," was used to describe Theo and, presumably, liberals whose qualities he embodies, but no explanation is made as to how this is so, no examples of Theo's behavior or worldview being provided. The description of the film's blatant Christ symbolism as "sanctimonious" is perfectly apt, however, which got us on Armond's side for a moment until he blew it with that "neo-white man's burden." How is Theo's redemptive heroism any more of a "white man's burden" than Ray's in War of the Worlds? White yet again fails to back up his statements.
Now, we understand that due to space constrictions reviewers don't always get a chance to expand on their ideas. But a little more than half the page on which White's piece ran in this week's Press featured a production still from Children of Men featuring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore -- including the enormous pull-out quote and the margins, White's review takes up only about a quarter of a page. Did the Press force this short review on Armond (who also got a full page spread for the "Better-Than List") or did Armond just phone it in? We'll never know.
And we'll never know -- unless he chooses to elaborate on it elsewhere or at some late date -- what exactly Armond means when he describes Children of Men's aesthetic as "resembling the surreally distanced, uninterrupted viewpoint of a videogame." Which videogames? Certainly not first-person shooter videogames (which Elephant mimics at one moment in order to make a connection to the fps games the teenage killers play at home) because the film's celebrated long takes are not pov shots. The long takes' panoptical surveys -- with action occurring on multiple planes and often disappearing beyond the scope of the lens -- would only resemble videogame aesthetics for the most unsophisticated and -- dare we say -- cynical viewer. For one thing, the moviegoer cannot interact with the image in the same way a videogame player can -- an obvious point that White conveniently ignores. For another, the film maintains spatial integrity in presenting and exploring its realistic environments, an integrity that stands in sharp contrast to the comic book nonsense of V for Vendetta, the film that Armond White compares to Children of Men without properly explaining thier distinctions. It seems to us that Elbert Ventura of Reverse Shot has far more interesting points to make in this regard:

It's somehow telling that two of the best films of the year are defined by death and the long take. Both Children of Men and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu capture man's dilemma eloquently, pinning him to his environment without the respite of a cut. Tracking death—of one man in the former, of the human race in the latter—both movies express with unique power the inescapability of the physical world. This anxiety about the world we live in is further illuminated by a pairing with a natural partner: V for Vendetta. An incendiary piece of agit-pop, that film stages its call for revolution in a recognizable dystopia, much like Children of Men does. Ghosts from our pixilated nightmare populate both: detainees in black hoods, snarling dogs in prison camps, martyrs calling for revolution. V for Vendetta's irresponsible politics finally complicate its critique. Children of Men, on the other hand, charts a path to the future that looks depressingly familiar. Cuarón makes us see how we can get there from here.

The last lines (especially "depressingly familiar") would only seem to confirm Armond's ideas about liberal "sanctimony" even as they go against his point that "Children of Men never explains how the world got this way and so its dread is convincingly sophomoric." In one sense, White is right here: Children of Men's scenario -- that women for eighteen years haven't been able to have babies -- doesn't account for the details of civilization's decline into anarchy and, in Britain, an isolated police state. This insufficient understanding of the causes of "social collapse," one might argue, proves Armond has unmasked "Lefty sentiment" which wants to see its worst nightmares and thus its righteousness about the "exagerrated state of the world" realized and confirmed in the most simplistic cinematic terms. But when Ventura states Children of Men's aesthetic "express[es] with unique power the inescapability of the physical world," he complicates this notion by giving deserved credit to Cuaron's directorial approach. What sort of entertainment is Children of Men? The film's violent and decayed surroundings (the film begins with a terrorst bombing, with a person stumbling out of the wreckage burnt and armless) surely aren't meant to be experienced in the conventionally thrilling way V for Vendetta's superhero fantasy is. If anything, Children of Men has much more in common with a blockbuster like War of the Worlds, a big-budget film steaming with death and despair. If wanting to be honest with oneself, one would recognize that these films, while trafficking in the sort of "thrill-ride" format palatable to mass audiences, sternly question that mass audience's relationship to spectacle by creating a realistic experience of violence, death, and survival. That's a responsible, perhaps even "political" strategy far from the "game" pejorative Armond levels at Children of Men.
But White dismisses this line of inquiry, upset as he is over the film's political iconography:

The political antipathy of Iraq war protestors and War on Terror skeptics is what drives this pretentious action flick. It panders to a decadent yearning for apocalypse as if to confirm recent fear and resentment about loss of political power.

Iraq war protestors and War on Terror skeptics don't corner the market on a "decadent yearning for apocalypse." Audiences of all stripes have for decades been getting their eschatological jollies from films Left, Right, and in between. But if Armond White despises Children of Men because it alludes to contemporary issues from a liberal perspective, that's his business. In failing to critically evaluate the means by which Children of Men boldly does so, however, he not only cheapens the discourse on a genuinely provocative, if compromised, film, he also fails to generate a cogent discussion on the ways in which cinematic aesthetics, politics, and representation actually work.

New York Press Review: "We Are Marshall"

Because his review(s) of The Black Dahlia (coming soon) interest us more, and because his ability to click off the critical radar so as to kiss some red state ass has now reached a career zenith, we have decided to forsake a traditional review in order to quickly but carefully translate and summarize Armond White's review of We Are Marshall paragraph by paragraph:

1. AW: Sports rabble-rousers have been a movie staple ever since the first Rocky flick when Hollywood discovered how easy it is to play on audiences’ emotions: appeal to their proletarian sense of justice and inspire ideas of virtue and, most of all, winning.

Translation: An explanation of the structure and basic meaning of a subgenre a month-old koala can understand. Not quoted above: A classic Armondism coined for this subgenre -- Jock Uplift.

2. AW: We Are Marshall proves that Jock Uplift can provide a pretty good template for dealing with social issues, showing how a person’s individual problems fit into a community model. In other words, demonstrating how ideology works—how people come to share and clarify basic ideas about day-to-day living.

Translation: Because it is pure, unadulterated schmaltz, I will find some sort of rationalization to commend this steaming pile of All-American Conservatism via advanced critical language.

3. AW: Although the specifics of this tragedy describe a local community, there’s no escaping that the large-scale catastrophe parallels 9/11: Average people were forced to bear shock, grief, loss, death and a lingering depression. There’s no disrespect in the filmmakers hiking-up the significance of Marshall’s crisis. They are right to do so—making the audience members share the experience, apply it to their own lives and learn something.

Translation: I am the corniest person alive.

4. AW: This movie does something special: It confronts the problem of America attempting to heal itself.

Translation: Culturally specific ritual of football = The symbolic healing process of the entire United States.

5. AW: Director McG, best known for the Charlie’s Angels pop-fests, uses the colorful emotional shorthand of commercials and music videos—a new lingo. McG has gone from no real emotion to dealing with genuine tragedy, but who’s to say he is any less equipped than the rest of us?

Translation: Who's to say the man responsible for discovering a subtle visual vocabulary to compliment the nuanced music of Smashmouth is unfit to convey real-life tragedy and pain?

6. AW: McConaughey is steadily becoming one of the most reliable and surprising American actors.

Translation: As opposed to unsteadily becoming.

7. AW: Keeping his head bowed, leaning forward when he talks to people, McConaughey combines an egotist’s modesty with Midwestern bonhomie. He’s cadging, attentive and fumblingly seductive—not unlike George W. Bush. McConaughey channels Bush’s deliberateness and stubborn, foolhardy optimism. By offering this idiosyncratic portrait of a local commander-in-chief, We Are Marshall dares present the shell-shocked American public with an alternative idea of leadership. Which public leader myth is true: Giuliani as “America’s mayor” or Bush as America’s coach? And which is the post-9/11 audience willing to accept?

Translation: Simple-minded moral conviction, no matter how calculating or destructive, should be bought as lovable, aw-shucks gumption. Not convinced? Then I'll force you to choose it from the false binary I set up between two uncomplicated media images.

8. AW: By proposing this option, We Are Marshall redefines the body politic in more substantive ways than its pop song soundtrack first suggests. Its restorative sense of nationhood may be unpopular among liberals, but We Are Marshall is good because it’s not propaganda; its regard of healing goes beyond 9/11 to the essence of American character. Listen at the way McConaghey urges a player to “Head-slap the shit” out of an opponent. Beneath its Jock Uplift formula, We Are Marshall is sly, hard-core Americana. It head-slaps the shit out of the divisive Borat.

Translation: We Are Marshall is a 9/11 allegory that's somehow apolitical, ostensibly transcending politics by gathering viewers of all different backgrounds, beliefs, cultures, religions, races, and, yes, political persuasions into its hegemonic fold -- "the essence of American character." See, even though I've refused to qualify what "the essence of American character" is in an attempt to sidestep the ideological ramifications of okaying an elementarily reactionary film's cynical plea to universalism, I nonetheless use it in order to shame anyone who disagrees with me. No propaganda here. No propaganda at all.

New York Press Review: "Apocalypto"

We meant to write this post earlier, but the holiday season and family obligations stood in our way. Yet how appropriate that we should examine Armond White's review of Apocalypto on none other than Christmas Day, considering two years ago actor-turned-director Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ generated a firestorm of controversy regarding its possible anti-Semitic overtones, an issue renewed this past summer when Gibson was caught in an anti-Semitic rant during a DWI arrest. It's difficult, then, to speak of Gibson's work without addressing its critical reception. White does so unabashedly, getting immediately to it and stating his position on Gibson's detractors in no uncertain terms:

Mel Gibson’s press whipping for The Passion of the Christ was like no other movie vilification seen in my lifetime.

AW proceeds to do a couple of interesting things in following up on this bold opening statement. First, he backs his defense of Gibson's films by referring to and quoting extensively from the pro-Passion approval of Quentin Tarantino. Now, if you're familiar with his criticism you know White's not exactly QT's biggest proponent. While there's nothing wrong or hypocritical in agreeing with somebody one usually abhors, given the vehemence of White's judgments of QT this sure makes for one of the more fascinating cases of strange bedfellows, wouldn't you say?
The second tactic is less amusing and more disconcerting. An example:

Only viciously, politically-biased, anti-art pundits can deny that lately, with these two films, Gibson has been thinking in visual terms and putting most American movie directors to shame.

As Armond Dangerous reader Christopher Shinn has astutely written, "This is not thought, this is not exploration; it is a personal attack on those who seek to view Gibson's last two movies in light of his explicit and implicit anti-Semitic remarks. This is inexplicable for a critic who began his career championing the work of the oppressed." What strikes us as most egregious about AW's track is that even if one were to divorce art from politics and champion Gibson's directorial brilliance despite the questionable messages of his films, the work itself doesn't provide the platform to justify such a leap. After finally attending a screening of Apocalypto we saw hints of what White lauds in Gibson's aesthetic: storytelling as nearly pure visual expression. But that's it, just hints. A bit of Griffith and DeMille comes through in Apocalypto's traditionalist moral universe as portrayed in ornately detailed contrasts between decadent urbanity and harmonious naturalism, in finely realized scenes whose parallel editing structures both masters would have surely appreciated. But Apocalypto is also incredibly simplistic narratively (the last third of the film descends into a numbing and predictable chase) and in its understanding of ancient culture -- just as The Passion crudely (although, unlike Apocalypto, ineffectively) described Christ's final hours to cynically pander to the same audience instincts White harangues in his anti-Tarantino tirades, so does he reduce a dead culture to Hollywood cliches to offer the laziest lessons on human nature. Apocalypto is more thematically interesting in what it says about Gibson's worldview -- his obsession with martyred masculinity and the reactionary longing for a civilization uncorrupted by vices he associates with liberalism (that he's offered the tale as an allegory against the Iraq War complicates matters, though we're still suspicious of this claim for now) -- and contemporary audiences' desire to see it enacted in moving pictures. In his review White betrays a realization of these issues. But rather than address them as open to cinematic criticism and, dare we suggest, anthropological discernment, he spins them as wholly positive traits. Words like "simplicity" and "naivete" are associated with "natural phenomena" and "everyman plight" -- the political ramifications of Apocalypto disappear beneath White's awestruck reverence of Gibson's showmanship, just as the director most likely wants it. Or does White not mind? After all, from all evidence Gibson and White's moral and religious views are very much in sync. Since White confuses criticism of Gibson's politics with criticism of Gibson's film's politics, perhaps he also confuses the need to chastise critics (actually, reviews for both The Passion and Apocalypto were mixed, but has the evidence of a complex reality ever stopped this man from bombarding his readers with generalizations?) with the need to overstate Gibson's talents.

New York Press Review: "The Pursuit of Happyness"

One reads Armond White's latest review, of Will Smith's "triumph of the human spirit" plea for an Oscar, The Pursuit of Happyness, and wonders in amazement how this could be the work of the same critic who also defends the conservative, capitalist fantasies of Spielberg and Gibson. But then one thinks back only three posts ago to White's "Places in the Art" article for Film Comment in 1984 and considers that White, like any critic, has his strengths and weaknesses, and that these might be informed by the fact that he's a religious (we're guessing, but pretty sure) homosexual (ditto) African-American. That's certainly not to say, in a stereotypical vein, White's critical reactions are predictable; rather, we can be sure his unique background makes him absolutely sensitive to particular subject matter and its cinematic representation more so than the average white heterosexual secularist (or even the average white attuned liberal film critic). One of those subjects is the African-American experience, and AW's Happyness review provides profound insight into a fellow African-American's misunderstanding of that experience as it pertains to nobody but himself. From what we've seen of Smith's previous efforts (and by the way, we, like Armond, are shedding our auterist skin for a moment to recognize that Smith is of such star power as to be the veritable creative force behind the projects he chooses to produce and act in, as in this case), it's clear the Fresh Prince has easily adapted to the structures and designs of the powers-that-be: if he ever had to adapt at all. We'd list his filmography and its overriding conservative theme, but we don't want to insult you. Unless someone sees it otherwise -- and of course we love debate -- we think most people would agree that Smith's take on the African-American experience is far from representative or progressive. So we agree with White. But unlike our look at his Inland Empire review yesterday, we won't spend as much time on this one, partly because we haven't seen Happyness and don't plan on shelling out eleven bucks to be granted that privilege (the theatrical trailer before Casino Royale gave us more than enough sense of this likely piece of dreck), and partly because it's so much more fun to pick Armond apart than to praise him. Nonetheless, some highlights:

[The Pursuit of Happyness is] yet another product of the Hollywood system, but this time with a personal message: I got mine, get yours.

. . . it has a pre-set, benign vision of privilege and luck -- a capitalist’s notions of grace.

. . . it cleverly sneaks-in [sic] bald-faced capitalist faith (and its concomitant indifference to the history of slavery and institutionalized racism) under the guise of sweetness and willpower.

Will Smith implies that the cities are now conquerable -- the Chris Gardner story is merely a brick in that public monument Smith is building to himself. Worse, The Pursuit of Happyness suggests that the drive for success is what defines Americans. In other words, Smith is no longer merely a figurine fronting the Hollywood institution; he now owns a piece of the plantation.

Damn. Not only insightful, but well-written. Are we dreaming?!
If you noticed that we've included no room for a take on AW's dual review of Bergman Island and My Dad is 100 Years Old, fear not -- we'll be on top of it next week after we've spent time recuperating from a busy week and checking out those films at Film Forum.

New York Press Review: "Inland Empire"

On the eve of the new issue of the New York Press Armond Dangerous will take it upon itself (ourselves?) to not fall too far behind our man's weekly output. We have a whole year and career's worth of reviews to sneak up on, tackle, and pound into tender, black and blue pulp, so our desperate sprint to surprise Armond at the corner of 2006 and 2007 begins now. We still haven't seen Mel "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" Gibson's Armond-approved (we know that much) epic Apocalypto, but we've been familiar with David Lynch's shape-shifting Inland Empire since feasting our eyes on it at the New York Film Festival and are well-equipped to counter AW's muddled review.
Because this take on Inland and Lynch's new artistic direction exemplifies White at his boorish, self-righteous worst. It starts off harmlessly enough, likening the film to a sketchbook -- not a bad comparison given Inland's disparate, fragmented, piece-by-piece assemblage. Then White makes his true critical intentions known:

We've already seen similar sketches in such recent Lynch films as Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway. That means the most fascinating thing about Inland Empire is the degree to which Lynch's personal cosmology (deliberately disturbing, if not off-putting figures and devices) has become an accepted—and expected—part of contemporary film culture.

Ah. As he does so often when confronted with cinematic experiences beyond his reassuring "pop" island, White flips the mirror around to ostensibly gauge a general critical reaction and then position himself in stubborn opposition. As we'll see, that position is incredibly shaky. Onward:

Since Lynch is releasing Inland Empire himself . . . it's clear that he has no shame about repeating himself. Lynch obviously depends on a devoted audience that is interested in his continuing oeuvre and the twisting of his mind. (These viewers are not perturbed by obvious silliness such as the rabbit-like characters who pop up here.) The film's gloomy title is an art-student's invitation to project: Come visit unreachable, far-off places; journey through someone else's egotistical labyrinth. As Dern's Nikki disintegrates into her newest film role as Sue, the adulterous murder mystery may possibly reflect back on Nikki's own professional and private crises. Still, Inland Empire must be taken in a relaxed attitude as Lynch's in-joke, a psychotic, Bosch-like doodle. It seems designed to confound newcomers as much as to delight devotees.

The first warning signs arrive when White states Lynch is "repeating himself." Those who think Lynch is merely treading over the same comfortable ground (if ever comfortable in the first place) with Inland must have, we can imagine, hallucinated a more linear, less experimental narrative while viewing the film so it could compute. Inland's complete disregard for convention is related to but far afield from the Orphic genre-bending nightmares of Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive and a critic that can't spot the former's radical aesthetic departure needs to get his or her (but his, really, we're talking about Armond) eyes examined. As to whether Lynch "depends" on a devoted audience, our cynicism isn't so advanced as Armond's to believe Lynch wouldn't do (as he has done) whatever he wants according to his singular artistic temperament. But are his devoted followers not perturbed by the "obvious silliness" of the rabbit family? We're not sure how obvious it is in the first place, since this very odd -- even for Lynch -- element of Inland seemed to us more unsettling than anything else. And we still haven't gathered a consensus as to what Lynch's fan base collectively thinks about it. But unlike White, who we guess doesn't know himself, we haven't made such presumptions.
The paragraph's worst presumption, however, is that the film "must" not be taken seriously. Why not? Every tactic White has so far used to relegate it to minor status won't wash and, judging by White's inability to meet a work of art on its own terms when it steps outside the boundaries of "pop" (except in special cases, like late Godard), we suspect this a move designed to get the critic off the hook of analytical responsibility.
White's next volley is to charge that Inland's digital video images "[look] like crap." We don't fully agree, although there is something to say about the general inferiority of dv to film, but fair enough. It's the next passage that absolutely kills us:

[Lynch] wants to hijack movie audiences and take them to the lesser realm of gallery installations and home-sketchpad-digital whimsies. But does the willingness of critics to gallery-hop make our film culture more sophisticated than in periods of truly revolutionary and controversial film aesthetics? Are we smarter because we don't question Lynch's confounding mannerisms the way critics once foolishly scoffed at Alain Resnais' magnificent Last Year at Marienbad or Ingmar Bergman's Persona? The real enigma of Inland Empire is how it seduces critics who ignored Julián Hernández's very beautiful and artful Broken Sky; they lack the confidence to see what's wrong when Lynch is simply being wacky as in Wild at Heart, Lost Highway and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

"Hijack." We remember White similarly employing the word "destroy" to describe the objectives of Lars von Trier in his review of The Five Obstructions. Such wild accusations make a name for Armond as a take-no-prisoners flayer of charlatans, but they also make for lousy criticism. Maybe it's our hipster naivete, but we refuse to attach filmmakers we dislike to such insidious aims -- to do so betrays a breakdown in critical skills, substituting finger-wagging for analysis. And again, White supposes readers automatically agree with the values he never qualifies. Even if Lynch does want to take audiences to the lesser realm of gallery installations and home-sketchpad-digital whimsies (just so we're all on the same page, Inland Empire was blown up to film and is being released theatrically), why is that realm necessarily inferior? White never explains his reasoning, so we remain in the dark.
But the main problem regarding the above passage is the confident presumption of an ignorant or short-sighted critical consensus. If you know your Armond, though, you know this sort of presumption is a regular occurrence. The hilarious thing about it apropos Inland Empire is that the film has garnered a host of different reactions and seems headed toward a much more unsure critical fate -- it's far too strange and alienating for the likes of Entertainment Weekly and only just interesting enough for even a Lynch supporter like J. Hoberman. But acknowledging that even devoted fans might be split about the film and the various paths Lynch has taken throughout his career (for example, us: we love Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, the Twin Peaks series and movie, The Straight Story, Mulholland but feel ambivalent about Wild at Heart and Lost Highway for reasons close to, but more complicated than, the ones Armond sets forth) would be to acknowledge an untidy critical landscape (and who says critics who like Inland ignored Broken Sky? Can he name just one?) impossible to make into a hegemonic monster. Instead, it's a veritable windmill.
The next paragraph discloses what has by now been apparent: White wants more pop to compliment Lynch's snap and crackle. That was the beauty of the Twin Peaks series, he says, until it got out of control with the weirdness. Finally, a good point -- we similarly wish that Inland had a bit more to hang onto character- and narrative-wise. But Armond somehow associates Lynch's freak-outs with a harmful artistic direction taken due to the influence of unnamed critical enablers. Let's only in passing call attention to his ridiculous, unsupported claim that The Straight Story and Mulholland were "unpopular" (they were actually his two most critically and financially successful projects since Twin Peaks, but whatever) and highlight this nugget of wisdom:

Lynch’s retreat into the arcane of Inland Empire betrays the revolution he almost started. Having already established his high-art credentials (receiving carte blanche that is denied even Matthew Barney), Lynch doesn’t run into the problem that his surrealist rival Brian DePalma faced with The Black Dahlia. Critics expect DePalma to follow Hollywood narrative conventions despite his constant subversion of them, while Lynch is permitted to make capital-A art. Fact is, Inland Empire’s conceptual obscurities are less enthralling than the latest DePalma and Barney.

Funny that White should bring up the facts. Fact is, we should support all artists receiving carte blanche and being able to follow through on their visions without interference. But the fact that Lynch apparently can (and does so independently, now distributing and marketing Inland himself) has no bearing on de Palma, who still chooses to play the Hollywood game. And critics are not the ones responsible for dolling out money or restricting artistic freedom.
Poor Armond -- his beloved de Palma will always be misunderstood while Lynch shucks about among the gallery-crowd, betraying "pop" principles (he showed so much promise with Eraserhead, which clearly demonstrated his adherence to a conventional visual language) and blocking the appreciation of more deserving filmmakers. In his review's last paragraph White (begrudgingly?) admits Lynch to be of talent and interest, but sees Inland as just falling short:

Here, an overworked Dern walks in and out of corridors, drawing rooms, soundstages, continents and time as if she and the maestro know exactly what they’re doing without divulging their intentions to the audience. It’s moviegoers who must compromise their entertainment standards.

White says "compromise," we say "meet halfway." White, due to a delusional belief in a wrongheaded critical consensus and his need to valantly stand outside it, refuses to walk through the worlds Lynch has created. His is a dishonest position, built on faulty assumptions and leading to nonsensical conclusions. We see through his illogic. And we plan to journey into Inland Empire again and again.