Re film critic Armond White and the New York Film Critics Circle's expulsion of him.

From Walter Biggins, writing for the late Roger Ebert's website:
And even if you accept that White—or if not White, the tablemates that he failed to control—behaved badly at an awards ceremony, does that offense necessitate an emergency meeting, much less an outright dismissal from a group in which was a three-time president and dues-paying member? Isn't this a behavioral issue that could have been solved by disinviting White and his entourage from future dinners, or perhaps asking the wait staff and security at next year's dinner to keep an eye on White's table and nip any problems in the bud before they had a chance to become problems? 
Even if we agree that rude behavior at awards dinners is unacceptable—and I do—what does it have to do with anything beyond the dinners themselves? 
Nothing. 
White has always lacked decorum, often to his detriment. He can be appallingly childish. But this contretemps exposes a deeper, more systemic childishness, an unwillingness to tolerate dissenting opinion under the guise of promoting "respect" and decorum. Sometimes it is decorum itself that is stifling, that shuts down debate, that maintains a harmful status quo, and that needs to be dismantled so that rigorous, full-bodied, multifaceted criticism can flourish. Isn't that what a critics' circle should be striving toward?

A link to the entirety of Biggins' article:
http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/in-defense-of-armond-white

So David Denby of THE NEW YORKER reviews THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO early...and other ethical crises.

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/12/denby-rudin_exc.php
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/12/12/111212crci_cinema_denby

Not being a professional film critic/reviewer asked to sign a "don't write about this until X date" document, all I can do is provide some unembargoed opinions:
1. NEW YORKER film critic David Denby's mentor Pauline Kael wasn't afraid to take her time getting around to reviewing "new" releases; the haste of the current NEW YORKER regime to lunge for a "you gotta read/log onto this NOW" scoop shows it's a far different era.
2. Note to Scott Rudin: You're blackballing Denby and screaming red-velvet decibels of outrage over, in essence, a film review (and a positive one) running ONE WEEK EARLIER than you've planned (regarding magazine reviews).  Step back from your anger and recognize the silliness of it all.
3. Then again, Denby was a bit of an ass when trying to curry favor with Rudin over a putdown of Cameron Crowe's WE BOUGHT A ZOO--a film that, if reviewed in this week's NEW YORKER, would have likely been smirked to death by alternating NEW YORKER film critic Anthony Lane.
4. The remaining gambit to be played in this film review embargo crisis is whether or not Rudin tries to banish anyone else at THE NEW YORKER (Lane, Richard Brody, etc.) from seeing advance screenings of his other big holiday production EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE.

[UPDATE: David Fincher weighs in with a pro-Rudin, pro-control-media-access comment:
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2011/12/fincher_on_denb.php]