They See Him Trolling, They Hating: Armond White Hosts NYFCC Awards

Noted film critic and oft-accused real-life troll, Armond White, recently hosted the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. And --surprise!-- people flipped out. White, who is famous for rating films in the exact opposite manner of most critics (i.e. praising Jonah Hex, railing against True Grit), deliberately went out of his way to only address less successful and critically acclaimed films by the actors he was introducing throughout the awards ceremony. Michelle Williams, for instance, was given an introduction pertaining only to her 2004 film, Land of Plenty, to which she reportedly responded, "I'm not going to read any of your reviews of my other work, because you really had to reach."

What a poor, delicate angel! Seriously, I may just be confusing these Hollywood types with hipsters, but shouldn't they have a basic understanding of irony? Managers of several celebrities also went into an offended frenzy after Ricky Gervais' comedy as host of the Golden Globes this past weekend that included digs at Angelina Jolie, Charlie Sheen, and scientologists, among others. Can't these people take a joke? I, for one, was impressed that an awards show actually had good writing, for once.

Everyone needs to calm down, lighten up, and learn to take a joke. I remember when I first learned about Armond White while browsing the boards at Rotten Tomatoes. Several pages of commenters anticipating the release of Toy Story 3 raged about the insolence of White and threatened violence if he prevented the film from a 100% Tomatometer rating. And this was before they had seen the movie. Maybe people should enjoy reading some of his reviews for the humor and appreciate the value of an opposing point of view. And as for the celebrities? They can get over themselves.

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Sophie Perrault can be reached at sgperrault@gmail.com. Currently, she is studying Philosophy and Media Studies at Austin College, but hopes to go to film school in the near future. She enjoys movies, cats, and calling you out.