If Armond White Only Knew What a Monster J. Hoberman Really Is...

• Go get laid Armond.. The only reason your readership is high is because it gives people the same thrill as they get when they watch a really crappy reality tv show - the pleasure of being able to snigger at a world where the kind of nonsense you write gets a say. And we don't hate u cuz u r a racist. The fact that you project it that way shows how insecure you really are. I'm sure the blacks are more embarassed of you than we are. You are a cultural shame - a symbol of stupidity that transcends racial and cultural barriers.

• Armond White > J. Hoberman.

• Wow. Best to not say a thing when someone speaks in a vile manner! You sure learned your lesson!

• Who cares about either of them - they're both just critics who wish they were the celebrities they write about --- they get paid to express their opinion on real artist's work

• Honestly, I never knew anyone at all took Armand White seriously as a film critic. (And I didn't know anyone ever read once-great The NY Press anymore.) No stake in this fight, and I don't give a crap about any of the players, but White is a blithering idiot and I've never been able to get all the way through one of his long-winded incoherent reviews. He seems both self-indulgent and deranged. And actually, for reviews I prefer The Onion or The New Yorker. Never cared for most of the Voice critics, no offense Hoberman. (But at least I can get through their reviews!)

• It's much too tedious to rebut all your inanities, aaron, but to the substance re: macabre humor in criticism, just offhand: Try Orwell on Dickens. Try John Simon in almost any review. Try H.L. Mencken's obituary of William Jennings Bryan. You insist on your own personal prohibition of "private" letters, as if Twain didn't always write for posterity, and as if, true to his knowledge, Twain's letters haven't been in the literature for half a century. So try Twain on The Bible. (Yes, published posthumously.) I can't go on, your comment was just too stupid. I repeat: criticism has a long and honorable history of extreme viciousness, often extending into the macabre, the more awful and witty the better. The only response I found insightful/humorous was the one accusing me of accusing White of having a sense of humor. Touch�

• White's piece is not hyperbole, it's fantasy. I'm not sure how seriously to take these defenses of White but White writes at the end of his piece that one shouldn't �get it twisted� and White's backers here are not taking his advice. Here are some attempts at untwisting. 1) Those of you saying that Hoberman is not influential, a joke, a sorry old man, etc. are all saying that White is completely full of shit. White's whole piece is about how Hoberman nefariously rules over all of film culture from internet criticism to the New York Times to the festival circuit. White makes clear in his piece that he believes criticism is a competition, but as Hoberman wryly points out in this blog post White seems to believe Hoberman is so much more powerful than he really is. Folks here called Hoberman "smug" and "smarmy.� While these words perfectly describe White�s style as well as being the very words he seems to use on everything that he feels threatened by, they hardly characterize Hoberman's amusing deflation of the �cult of Hoberman� that White is so desperate to construct. 2) "To me, main point of White's cri de coeur was that critics shouldn't be expected to be influenced by connections or personal feelings when contemplating art." If that's White's point then his piece is a textbook example of performative contradiction. His whiny diatribe is all ad hominem, supplying no facts or aesthetic criticism. His attacks on Baumbach (directed at him as a person as well as his background) seem to derive from his loathing of the filmmaker's mother. In case you missed it, that's why Hoberman posted the review online--not to defend a publicist--but just to offer evidence for something White denied regarding his past attacks on Baumbach and his mother. But who are you going to believe, Armond White or your own eyes? Sure, Brown may be a former colleague and a friend of Hoberman's, but why then shouldn't he have her back? Let's be clear what Hoberman did: He posted online a review White himself wrote and he never said anything on behalf of Focus features or defended disinviting White from a screening. All he did is let White speak for himself as he hilariously does in this blog post as well. And that's considered trying to censor White! White's attack on Hoberman is backed up only by shamelessness but not one shred of evidence. Hoberman reads White and throws it back at him. White has nothing on Hoberman but just slings mud. 3) Ok, evidence: The evidence that other critics give good reviews to Baumbach's films as a favor to his mother does not bear up on under any scrutiny. Why then do some of his films get great reviews (Squid and the Whale) and others poor reviews (Margo at the Wedding)? As for Hoberman himself, I looked up his Top 10s and the only Baumbach film on any of his lists was Squid and the Whale. It came in 9th in 2005. The same year Squid and the Whale came in 7th in the Village Voice poll of 104 critics (including Armond White). Hoberman liked it slightly less than the average critic. 4) The other accusation that Hoberman is asked to take seriously by commenters here is this idea that he avoids films about black people. (Armond White in typically contradictory fashion lobs this accusation at him at the same time as he blames him for promoting Precious.) For starters, look at the Sight and Sound Poll of best films of all time. Number of films by and about black people on Hoberman's list =1; number of films by or about black people on Armond White's list =0. It's not a contest of course and sadly, the percentage of black filmmakers is small. My only point: White trades in the lowest form smear tactics using the fact that he is black to bait readers and in the process undermines genuine issues about film and racism that have nothing to do with his own ego. OK, Hoberman is a favorite critic of mine and to defend him against a writer who compares him to Nazis, Stalinists, calls him a traitor to the American government and suggests that he is leading a racist lynching is unnecessary. I also realize that most of the commenters here defend Hoberman and most people who have heard of Armond White think he is crazy. So I'm sure that White and his supporters will think this comment is another confirmation of their paranoid fantasies. As the man says, don't get it twisted: I'm taking White and co. more seriously than most by ignoring the most outrageous claims and pointing out the contradictions. I have no problem with White�s taste as long as it�s honest--if White's opinions were merely idiosyncratic or provocative and he frequently disliked popular films (as Hoberman does), it would be unlikely that he would be called crazy. The problem I have is not with White�s taste or his politics but his complete lack of integrity and decency. "Crazy" is an easy dismissal but it seems apt only because White is so wildly inconsistent, except to the extent that he seems to repeatedly act out the very things he is railing against. His writing (or this piece at least--I've read a number other things but I can't speak for all of his writing) is slippery, elitist, vain and mean-spirited. So why am I even replying and at such length? I suppose that the sleazy insinuations that Hoberman still has something to answer for really irked me. Hoberman is, in my opinion, one of the only truly insightful, independent-minded critics working today and, as far as I can tell, he does his work quietly with genuine modesty. I know nothing about him even though I read him weekly. I've never encountered him promoting (or even talking about) himself or attacking other critics. If White wants to take on the establishment and the publicity machine with any seriousness, I�m sure Hoberman would be behind him. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong target, not because the sinister all powerful Hoberman will marshal his minions against him but because the example of Hoberman as someone on the side of the powerful against genuine film culture, makes White seem so very far from reality.

• Gene, Calling out someone with handle of "sockpuppet" for being a sockpuppet: Nice job, Sherlock! If you are interested to know why what you write is total nonsense, it may help to be aware that the often quoted lines by Mark Twain about Jane Austen were written in a private letter explaining why he did not like to write criticism so it is not part of a "long-standing tradition in criticism" that you call "macabre humor." Thankfully Hoberman himself does have a sense of humor about White's slanderous, humorless (if unintentionally humorous) cry for help (is that what "cri de coeur" means in English?) and maintains his integrity, never attacking White personally or getting into the muck with him.

• Gene, Calling out someone with handle of "sockpuppet" for being a sockpuppet: Nice job, Sherlock! If you are interested to know why what you write is total nonsense, it may help to be aware that the often quoted lines by Mark Twain about Jane Austen were written in a private letter explaining why he did not like to write criticism so it is not part of a "long-standing tradition in criticism" that you call "macabre humor." Thankfully Hoberman himself does have a sense of humor about White's slanderous, humorless (if unintentionally humorous) cry for help (is that what "cri de coeur" means in English?) and maintains his integrity, never attacking White personally or getting into the muck with him.

• I wished Mr. Hoberman had talked about what it means to be a film critic when there are so many incestuous professional relationships that have the potential influence opinion and analysis. To me, main point of White's cri de coeur was that critics shouldn't be expected to be influenced by connections or personal feelings when contemplating art. What is so wrong with that? I don't care about how White and Hoberman feel about each other, but I do care about the process and DNA of modern film reviewing in New York. That's the fascinating thing about their disagreement and Hoberman isn't interested in delving into that. Sigh.

• Nonsense? You own it, sockpuppet. The only question -- who are you a nonsense-spouting sockpuppet for?

• armond white is a genius and he beat hobbermen down with his geniusness. i am not armond white. to prove it i will say that i don't always agree with white or i have never read him before, but in this case he has a point. and then some nonsense about freedom of speech or macabre humor.

• If I were J. Hoberman, I'd be rolling on the floor quivering with pleasure and giving little spontaneous kicks of joy into the air. A true nemesis can be a mixed blessing -- but to be assailed by one's own personal Bloviating Nincompoop Buffoon -- how glorious! Armond White is a professional writer? -- *low whistling exhalation between teeth* wow. There's hardly a sentence in his Greenberg cri de coeur (which borrows the overweening tone and trying-too-hard stylistics of internet trolls) that isn't an affront either to common sense, language ("heroizes" ?! the word he was looking for was lionizes, I believe) or logic. Yes, White's casting of J. Hoberman as Dr. Evil's Minister of Culture is indeed magical ... but my favorite moment was this one: "Baumbach�s movies pave the way for the elite to pass advantages on to their own progeny, to maintain the status quo..." And here you thought this was tied up in the grand sweep of Human Civilization from the days of the pharaoh's on, didn't you? No! It was Baumbach the whole time: DAMN YOU NOAH BAUMBACH... DAMN YOU! (*while somehow still typing)

• Who wants the truth behind Hoberman's actions? Despite working for a dying, miniscule newspaper, Armond White remains a controversial, influential well-read film critic. Contrary, despite working for the biggest alternative newspaper in NYC (and countless affiliates around the country), Jim Hoberman's byline barely turns heads. I'll be smiling when you're heading to the unemployment office, Jim.

• Originally the dispute was between Armond & the filmakers of Greenberg, having retracted a screening invitation, censorship at its boldest, the filmakers not wanting Armond to review the movie. Hoberman sticks his ugly, lying 2cents in on the filmakers behalf, kissing ass, got exactly what he deserved. What he should have done was fight for the right of his fellow film critic, whether he likes him or not, on the grounds of "Freedom of Speech", trying to be denied to Armond & possibly other film critics in the future. You go Armond!!

• I usually find White's views way, way off, but they are at least admirably heartfelt, honest and conscious of major issues--and even at times thought-provoking and/or right on. Whereas in Hoberman I can find little original insight--virtually nothing that contributes to the conversation. It has always surprised me that the Voice would hold onto this pablum fount. More to the point here, this issue is ridiculous. Macabre humor is a long-standing tradition in criticism. White's jest reminded me of its polar opposite along the pre-post birth-death continuum, Mark Twain's: "Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

• "a number of very important points White brought up.." Please explain what these are. All I read was an unhinged, Red-baiting, immature ad hominem rant.

• Jim Hoberman is a superb critic. Armand White is a long-winded ass clown who can't quite decide if he's a PC Stalinist standard bearer of un-nuanced "uplifting" celluloid dreck a la Spielberg, or a crackpot right wing demagogue incensed by a filmmaker's lack of "patriotism". In his attempts to denigrate Mr Hoberman, he only reveals his own moral cowardice, intellectual bankruptcy, narcissism and utter incompetency as a critic. I imagine his VIP invitation to 'Precious - The 3-D Musical featuring the Jonas Brothers' is in the mail.

• Uh, Jim, you've been pwned.

• sammy doe ringo, i agree, White defintely went upside Jim's head with 2 baseball bats infront of the whole school. I havent seen a smackdown like this since some recent Manny Pacquaio fights.

• How old is Armond White? From his "article" my guess would be a badly behaved, spoilt rotten 10 year old having a temper tantrum. Hoberman's response was perfect and more, really than White deserved. The current head of the New York Film Critics Circle needs to grow up-just a tad.

• White can be strange as a critic but J. Hoberman did not address a number of very important points White brought up and his response was lame. For a man who makes a living with the written word, at the very least he can respond to him properly. Some of what White brings up seems relevant. You can agree or disagree with a critic when it comes to a film but White is simply stating some facts that Hoberman needs to respond to or his credibility will indeed suffer.

• I feel guilty for wanting to read Hoberman's response to White's lengthy rebuttal. I came here looking to satisfy a selfish need for contentious drama, only to find a sorry old man unable muster the energy to guise the awareness of his own defeat. It's like hanging around after a schoolyard fight to witness the loser's shameful vulnerability. It's not that the guy just got the crap kicked out of him; it's that his ego's been destroyed.

• Armond White never should have written that piece. It's that simple. From his side of the argument it only concedes moral authority to those who would denounce him; added to which it makes him look like an arrant fool. I think he's absolutely on point in his criticism of Noah Baumbach and why other critics go weak at the knees for that tabescent mucus he puts on film . . . and there is a question of why J. Hoberman would involve himself in a personal dispute between a fellow critic and a motion picture company (and come out on the side of said motion picture company) . . . but White wrapped his <i>cri de coeur</i> in such insane hyperbole that it's the closest thing we've seen to someone self-destructing in prose since J.D. Salinger's 'Hapworth 16, 1924'. It's also some of the clearest, least congested prose White has ever written . . . which ought to tell us something.

• What a lame repost. Hoberman's a joke and always has been.

• Man, some of you people are so in the sack of White. The guy's a joke, and nothing he said deserved more of a response than what he got. White's a pompous fool who's like a kid trying to get constant attention.

• Armond White can be boorish and self-absorbed and he overextended himself in his extended rant against Hoberman, leaving himself open to looking silly. But Hoberman's smarmy capitalizing on White's missteps doesn't address the substantive points White makes: Hoberman's contemptible slander-by-illiteracy and his amoral, self-interested acceptance of the journalistic shutout perpetrated by the Baumbach camp.

• just noting that the argument in the preceding comment is that Hoberman is being disingenuous by giving his audience credit enough to distinguish between figurative and literal expressions. ie, that it would have been better and somehow more honest (?) if he had treated his readership as unsophisticated morons. how can that possibly be what anyone wants from criticism? also the idea that there are some ignorant masses waiting to whipped into a frenzy is absurd. anybody interested in something this movie-critic inside-baseball has a frame of reference to understand the idea of figurative language.

• "But, Jim, you ARE an 'unprofessional, pro-censorship, illiterate, warped, vicious, calumnious, sneaky, underhanded, self-serving, morally reprehensible, small-minded, vain, corrupt, lying perpetrator.'" Anyone who has read Hoberman's reviews or books or heard him speak knows what twisted bullshit this is. Anyone who could write such slander is as contemptible as White. But Smithey is right. White, who scribbles for a paper best used as catbox liner, is irrelevant.

• <i>White no more suggested that Georgia Brown should have aborted Noah Baumbach than I called for a "virtual fatwa" re the detractors of Malick's "New World."</i> As Roman Polanski said to Woody Allen: "Dude, you're not helping."

• But, Jim, you ARE an "unprofessional, pro-censorship, illiterate, warped, vicious, calumnious, sneaky, underhanded, self-serving, morally reprehensible, small-minded, vain, corrupt, lying perpetrator." In fact, "vain" is worth mentioning twice. White did not literally call for Baumbach to have been aborted, and you are a sophisticated enough reader (one supposes) to know that. Yet you also know that most of the dummies who gravitate to movies (and nothing else but movies) are NOT sophisticated readers; they possess little, if any, any grasp of metaphor, no sense of wit, a propensity for reducing every honest argument to a "rant," and in their literal-mindedness will take White's abortion quip with faces unclouded by thought. What was so meretricious about your blog post last week is that you were feeding on the kind of ignorance that prevails in our post-literate culture. Like a carnival barker, you were whipping the crowd (never mind how small a crowd) into a frenzy with your "proof" that White had unimpeachably called for Baumbach's abortion. It should be obvious to anyone that you were distorting White's jest to retro-fit your own agenda. And yes, such a tactic can justifiably be termed a "witch hunt." White no more suggested that Georgia Brown should have aborted Noah Baumbach than I called for a "virtual fatwa" re the detractors of Malick's "New World." Then as now, your raspberry-blowing insistence that it is so does not make it so.

• Armond White is the biggest Phoebe since LeRoi Jones.

• It's pretty clear that Armond sent around the "anonymous e-mail" attempting to get critics to rally around his pathetic flag. As far as being dis-invited to a press screening--any sane professional would simply pay to see the film when it opened, write up his or her piece, and move on to the next assignment. Enough of Armond White already. His paper is 20-pages long (including front and back covers). New York Press has been running on fumes for the past five years in case anyone bothered to notice. He fully deserves to be blacklisted by every film publicist in town for crap he's pulled. No other "critic" would get away with such infantile shenanigans. Neither should he. I sincerely hope he receives all the rejection he requires. Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com

• Theres an awful lot of good stuff in Armond's writing - notice you didn't take on not reviewing films about Black people.

• Jason: The homogeneity of criticism? Really? Do you mean in style (in which case I suggest you read more film criticism), or White's bogus fantasy that studios regularly conspire with all major critics to buy good reviews (in which case I suggest you take even the most cursory glance at Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic.) Or are you just referring to the sad fact that critics as outspoken and iconoclastic as White are so badly censored that they are banished to mere weekly columns in the New York Post?

• A minimalist response to that insane harangue is the way to go, Jim. You could have gone even further, with a Joe E. Brown shrug, and simply replied, "Nobody's perfect."

• Armond is not 2 be messed with, Jim kinda punking out a little.

• i have 2 say, i am very dissapointed in Holbermans response. Armond White has just gone in crazy hard on him, giving him double barrells, a combination of Takeover and Ether, and Holbermans response is kind of, "erm, er, hey guys, that Armond guy is kinda crazy". Its almost like he dont want it with Mr. White, realising that Armond is not to be f'd with. Give Armond the crown. The new King Of NY ( film criticism).

• Maybe Armond White got confused and was actually addressing Musto?

• Seems to me Mr. White called it: in return he got nothing but smug. It would have been more interesting to get a real debate about the role of media publicists in today's film culture, and the homogeneity of criticism.

• Seems to me Mr. White called it: in return he got nothing but smug. A debate about the role of media publicists' role in film culture would have been far more useful.

• Congrats on rising above the tactics of that contemptible idiot. If he doesn't want the public to know about the ridiculous thoughts that go through his mind, he needs to quit writing them down and publishing them in The New York Press.

• Being called a Mabuse by White is further proof that you're doing something right, J.

• White is a total crank -- a lousy critic and unhinged to boot. Read his review of A Prophet if you doubt me. And he Red-baited Hoberman? "Traitorous praise" for The Green Zone? What an asshole.

• Damn, I wish I could be the scoundrel-czar of contemporary film criticism :( Sounds fun to me. I bet he's jealous.

• Keep up the good work Jim!

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