White Fights For His Rights
In light of Armond White's recent difficulties seeing Greenberg, some of his peers have started invoking "film critics' rights" (whatever that means), presumably for fear that they might also pay a price for excessive ad hominem trash talk. But shouldn't critics' rights -- in this case, the chance to hand-pick the advance screening White wants to attend -- be reserved for film critics with a desire to honestly consider and evaluate the film in question?
When a critic -- even one as brilliant (if somewhat mystifying) as White -- starts calling filmmakers "asshole" and suggesting that they should have been aborted, doesn't that critic surrender their right to be taken seriously in relation to that filmmaker? White isn't fighting for his right to express constructive views, he's fighting for his right to make personal attacks on a filmmaker (and his mother!), while still getting perks from the studio releasing his film. He's like an executioner complainging that an inmate won't help him put the noose around his neck. If you want to play hardball (and White always plays hardball... UFC-style), don't play the wronged innocent when the good will dries up. It never looks good when a noble "warrior of truth" turns out to be a thin-skinned cry baby.
The Armond White issue must make for fascinating conversation between Baumbach and friend/frequent collaborator, Wes Anderson. White admires most of Anderson's films, including The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and Fantastic Mr. Fox, in spite of Baumbach's involvement as co-writer on both films. However, White's disdain for Baumbach runs deep -- and he still finds room for the requisite cheap-shots. From his Mr. Fox rave: "Mr. Fox’s misadventures replay The Life Aquatic, re-indulging narcissism (he confesses a priggish need to 'intimidate' that is not charming, which sounds like smug co-screenwriter Noah Baumbach)."
Another strange anomaly: White was enthusiastic about Anderson's use of Georges Delerue's Day For Night score in his American Express ad, but utterly incensed when Baumbach dared to use Delerue's Jules and Jim score eight years earlier in Mr. Jealousy ("for that alone he should have his DGA card ripped"). Is Jules and Jim more sacred than Day For Night? Was the idea of re-purposing a Francois Truffaut score simply too fresh in 1998? Or does Armond White just have a bizarro hate on for Noah Baumbach? Seriously, what did Baumbach do to this guy? -- Jonathan Doyle
