As I try to stay away from politics—for now—during this highly contentious election year, I’m going to bring up a subject nearly as controversial: the movie critic, Armond White.

To anyone who doesn’t know him, Mr. White is a movie critic well renowned for his apparently contrarian viewpoints on most popular movies. He even had a brief feud with one of America’s best-loved film reviewers, Roger Ebert. During their brief feud, Mr. White called Mr. Ebert, “the worst thing that’s ever happened to film criticism”, and Mr. Ebert eventually sided with the Internet at large in calling Mr. White a troll.

That aside, there are a number of things fanboys, the Internet, and Armond White haters have wrong about him: he isn’t stupid; he isn’t ignorant; and, he isn’t a troll. He is, in fact, quite intelligent and, unlike the majority of film reviewers on and off the Internet, Mr. White is quite well educated in cinema, having a Master of Fine Arts in film from Columbia University. Unlike most Internet film reviewers, he doesn’t care what other people think about his reviews; his role model was Pauline Kale, who never, ever surrendered to hype.

Because of his education and his passion for film, his sometimes vicious attacks on films and filmmakers that do not meet with his approval are legendary. Additionally, as a consequence of being a black American who does not subscribe to the accepted and expected liberal agenda for journalists and people of color, Mr. White’s opinions often rub people the wrong way, such as his derisive and very public criticism of Twelve Years a Slave and its director, Steve McQueen.

Like him or loathe him, Armond White’s reviews are almost always worth reading because of the unique insight and depth of knowledge he often brings. Unfortunately, he doesn’t bring that insight to all movies. His greatest flaw, I believe, is his growing prejudice. Oh, not anything so crass as racial. But, as he has gotten older, he apparently has selected a number of filmmakers who can do no wrong, and a much larger number who can do no right. It seems as though he decides to love or loathe many movies before he sees them, and spends his time while screening them figuring out how to justify his opinions.

On his “good” list is Stephen Spielberg, one of the finest directors currently working. While I love most of Spielberg’s movies, even he knows he screwed some of them up (he publicly apologized for Temple of Doom). Not according to Mr. White, who not only raves about all Stephen Spielberg’s movies (with a single exception), he also vociferously proclaimed the nearly universally reviled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to be “the best” of the series.

Another filmmaker on Mr. White’s “good” list would seem to be a mystery: Michael Bay is not regarded as a great director by anyone other than Mr. White. It’s clear Mr. White finds Michael Bay’s visual style quite appealing, and so forgives any minor flaws, such as terrible scripts and wooden actors. He even said as much in at least one of his Bay reviews.

Filmmakers he detests include some popular and well-regarded directors such as Christopher Nolan, Stanley Kubrick, and Ridley Scott. While I don’t like everything from any of these directors (and detest at least something from all of them), Mr. White hates everything they’ve produced. He even uses his coined verb “kubricking” to describe a movie ruined in a particular manner.

He also detests output from certain studios. For years, the number one studio on his hate list was Pixar; Mr. White claimed Pixar had “completely ruined animation”. I think Marvel Studios recently has replaced Pixar in Mr. White’s eyes. In fact, since Pixar lost its shine after a few failures, Mr. White actually gave an almost positive review to their most recent original film, Inside Out. Perhaps he really hates studios that are too successful and feels the need to slap them into humility.

My final observation deals with Mr. White’s seeming immunity to stupid plot holes and inconsistencies in movies he approves of, as demonstrated by his strong approval of Michael Bay movies. Most recently, he gave a loving review to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, praising its morality, and how it “brought soul back to superhero movies”. While I was watching BvS, I was annoyed and amazed by plot holes and non-sensical behavior of the characters. However, I was stunned by Batman’s sudden and bizarre switchover, from an enemy who vowed to kill Superman, saving the world from an alien menace with God-like powers, into a friend and partner based on… What? Both their mothers had the same first name? Suddenly, Superman is no longer a dangerous, god-like, alien threat because his mother’s name was Martha?? Neither this, nor any other plot problems were mentioned by Mr. White, because he already planned to love the movie before he even saw it—why he planned to love it is a subject for another time. Inconsistencies and plot caverns were beneath his notice.

Mr. White’s critiques seem most relevant when applied to small films, independent or otherwise. As an example, I read his reviews of ‘Joy’ and ‘Anomalisa’ and found myself agreeing with most of his points on both movies, and he brought up ideas that hadn’t occurred to me.

I will continue to read his reviews. Despite his eccentricities, he has more to say than almost any film critic or reviewer out there. I simply take his reviews with a grain of salt—or maybe the entire shake—depending on the subject of his review.