

Did Roger Ebert Destroy American Film Criticism? - bokonist
http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/08/23/did-roger-ebert-destroy-american-film-criticism/

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siglesias
This is an article bashing Ebert and siding with contrarian "intellectual"
film critic Armond White. Here's what Armond White wrote of Toy Story 3:

"But Toy Story 3 is so besotted with brand names and product-placement that it
stops being about the innocent pleasures of imagination—the usefulness of
toys—and strictly celebrates consumerism."

Let's pick apart his argument. I'm guessing that for White a movie in which
children grapple with adolescence and sentimental value over their childhood
belongings is celebrating consumerism. In my book celebrating consumerism
would be a movie about a child not being able to decide what new toy to buy at
Toys R' Us. Consumerism, at its worst, is about companies convincing you that
your old stuff isn't good anymore and to forget it and to buy the new stuff.
Toy Story is about just the opposite. But you wouldn't think that right away
for the seductive allure of agreeing that a popular movie "celebrates
consumerism."

My point is that Armond White takes big words, in the tradition of French
literary and film criticism, drops them in to troll and get attention, and
then sheepishly backs off when you try to scrutinize what he says. This is the
same school that brought you "the author is dead" and "writing precedes
speech." There's nothing for White to defend here. His way of doing criticism
is a house of cards.

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boredguy8
It's not really picking apart his argument when you "guess" at what he answers
in the review. He writes, "As...Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) tries fitting
in with East Side debutantes, he discovers his toy cowboy pistol in his
estranged father’s trash....evok[ing] childhood, lost innocence and Townsend’s
longing for even imagined potency." That's very much what it is to grapple
with "sentimental value over...childhood belongings." No where does White
accuse that movie of celebrating consumerism. It also seems to me that a 3D
movie is very much about "buy[ing] the new stuff."

That the movie 'endorses' toy recycling and passing on the toys to other
people, does not mean that fundamentally it escapes its consumerist message.
The want of more toys, even if recycled, is still a message of consumerism.
Having one last play with the toys as they're passed on doesn't fix it. That
the film isn't "consumerism at its worst" doesn't mean it's not fundamentally
consumerist. The message isn't "Maybe I didn't need so many toys as a kid
because I'll grow out of them," the message (as it relates to consumerism) is
far more, "As long as I pass things along, I can buy as much as I want."

Whether or not a movie should talk about consumerism responsibly is certainly
an open question. But "guessing" what White thinks when he gives you data, or
saying that because TS3 isn't the WORST consumerism it's not consumerism, is
disingenuous to the argument he makes. And Armond White's criticisms are
useful as a reminder that films, even Dreamworks ones, can aspire to something
higher. Does he sometimes go overboard? Probably sometimes. But the above is
certainly not 'picking apart his argument'.

Ebert most often asks, "Will this film entertain?" White seems to ask, "Is
this film good?" He concludes his TS3 review, "When a movie is this formulaic,
it’s no longer a toy because it does all the work for you." I have to say I
liked TS3 because it did all the work for me, and did so with excellence. But
its excellence at delivering on fundamental plot arcs does not mean we
shouldn't sometimes ask for more from what we watch. And White reminds us to
keep asking.

(To see White displaying his talent more cleanly, check out his review of Eat,
Pray, Love: [http://www.nypress.com/article-21533-pretty-woman-with-an-
ap...](http://www.nypress.com/article-21533-pretty-woman-with-an-
appetite.html))

~~~
siglesias
I don't see how a movie review can be founded an argument so vaguely
articulated. What does it mean to "celebrate consumerism" if not glorifying
the purchase of things while simultaneously discarding the old irresponsibly?
That doesn't happen in the movie! Where is consumerism bring celebrated? Where
is the movie doing a bad thing?

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ryandvm
Ugh. Guys like these are the reason people get drunk at cocktail parties.

Roger Ebert and his peers fulfill a perfectly useful role: telling most people
whether a Friday night movie is worth their limited time and money. He is not
Plato. People will not be reading about him in 800 years. Nobody has ever
suggested as much.

If you want to sit around in the dark, drinking expensive wine and trying to
pick the deepest meaning out of obscure indie films while secretly enjoying
your pervasive superiority, that's fine. But pretending that Roger Ebert has
single handedly destroyed your precious little past-time is utter bunk.

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nhebb
I never understood how Ebert became so popular. I remember (years ago) when he
lambasted Cheech and Chong's "Up in Smoke", thinking that he just didn't get
it. The movie was about two stoners in a van making stoner jokes for a stoner
audience. That's what it set out to do, and that's what it did. You can't
properly critique a movie without taking in context what the goal was -
something he consistently failed to do.

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petrilli
So basically you can be someone who provides insight to 99% of the population
who doesn't want to delve into the neuroses of "film criticism", or you can be
a self-important blowhard who seems to mostly talk to himself in the dark.
Most "film" is not cinema, and not art in a "deep" form. It is entertainment.
To pretend that it contains more meaning than that is nothing but mental
masturbation.

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baddox
That's kind of like saying that Bill Nye the Science Guy delves as deep into
science as 99% of the population can appreciate, so any scientist going deeper
than that is a self-important blowhard. And as for your second sentence to the
end of your comment, I believe that is a statement of an axiom with which
Armond White would adamantly disagree. If you're entering into this discussion
with different axioms, the discussion is pointless.

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dkarl
How many scientists go out of their way to bash Bill Nye as a hack who damaged
American science?

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baddox
That's not analogous because Bill Nye, unlike Roger Ebert, has not become the
public face of pure excellence in his field.

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prodigal_erik
I'm under the impression that most people think "film critic" is a guy who
writes a paragraph for a newspaper saying whether or not a film is
entertaining enough to see, and that was true before Ebert showed up. I don't
think White's field has a public face at all.

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dkarl
I think people who would use the words "film critic" know that Roger Ebert
isn't one. Most people would call him a "movie reviewer."

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philwelch
Ebert's reviews are useful because they relate, roughly, to how normal,
thoughtful people watch a movie. They aren't an academic exercise in
critiquing Art. Most people outside of academics in the field of critiquing
Art aren't interested in that.

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anamax
FWIW, Ebert wrote "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".

[http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19...](http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19700101/REVIEWS/708110301/1023)

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powrtoch
tl;dr: Roger Ebert is undeserving of his success and we're very bitter about
it.

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praeclarum
I couldn't get past the first "sentence". Don't write the way you speak.

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eldenbishop
Not sure why your being down-voted. I had to re-read the first few sentences
at least four times before I could understand what he was trying to say. It
was a horribly constructed opening that almost made me abandon the article.

