Harvey Weinstein was a major, if not the major, factor in the collapse of independent film by over paying for films and destroying the cost benefit ratio for himself and everybody who tried to compete with him. He was a terrible business man and having sat in a couple of creative meetings with him, a hamfisted moron with a whim of iron when it came to judging the actual creative content of whatever film he had on the butchers block at the moment.

Kieslowski tried to literally take his head of with a truncheon at some film festival. Too bad he never succeeded.

Harvey Weinstein was a major, if not the major, factor in the collapse of independent film by over paying for films and destroying the cost benefit ratio for himself and everybody who tried to compete with him. He was a terrible business man and having sat in a couple of creative meetings with him, a hamfisted moron with a whim of iron when it came to judging the actual creative content of whatever film he had on the butchers block at the moment.

Kieslowski tried to literally take his head of with truncheon at some film festival. Too bad he never succeeded.

Cunnilingus, performed by porn stars, male but especially female, in the late 70's, when it was regularly featured, did as much for feminism as Gloria Steinem.

Sadly young men today seem less and less attuned to it.

You'd be hard pressed to find more than a few fleeting instances of it in most hetero porn.

We all tell ourselves stories to explain what happens in life because life itself isn't enough.

The victim in the Polanski case has created a healing narrative that runs counter to the one furiously concocted by those who would pretend to speak for her. She was raped. They were not. If she forgives Mr. Polanski then let that be the end of it.

Forgiveness between those who know always trumps blind justice. The Bible recommends it. However unusual it may seem.

& that ain't Chinatown.

Ah... for the days when Hollywood's celebrated ID (as in Freud and Identification) went unchecked and the market place was not yet quantified to the lowest common denominator.

I suspect your satyrical parry will probably result in your artistic license being withdrawn by the humorless.

Nevertheless the victim of Mr. Polanski's RAPE has forgiven him.

Ms. (Blow) Harding, and the law (which exists primarily to preserve the balance of justice and is the reason you can DROP a charge) should also just... DROP IT.

Let us not forget Richard Shelby.

Guess what? If two people are really in love then they're prepared to endure anything, especially each other.

No Tarkovsky? They can't be serious! Oh well,... Tarantino at 20... I guess they're not. All those films are good, some very good, some great, but as Norman Mailer once said it's not Bad art that Greatness is the enemy of but Good art.

A distinction mostly lost on these lazy idiots apparently.

I'm sure most probably think Tarkovsky's films are too sloooow.

I truly fear for the future when the good is thought great.

A critical re-examination hailing Michael Bay and his anti-narrative strategies for capturing our hollow zeitgeist.

Why not. The truly Bad get kicked up a notch as well.

One day his films may be regarded as the representative epics of our time and even be thought Good for that reason.

Fifty years from now some lazy critic will place Transformers as one of the 50 greatest films of all time and it will be included onto a microchip implanted in your grand childs brain.

He'll grow up to be as bored with the movie as you are now.

"The vision of Christ thou dost see is my visions greatest enemy."

-William Blake-

"The beautiful but not entirely successful "Nostalghia""

"Nostalghia" is only one of the greatest studies of alienation ever created in any medium. O'Heir you're out of your depth. Show some respect for the master. Speaking ex-cathedra about a giant only makes you seem small.

So you didn't get it. It was the first Tarkovsky film I saw. I left half way through, bored. Walked to the beach. Turned around and came back. I paid again and watched to the end. It changed my life.

I'd recommend seeing it again. Either that or explain your caveat with insight equal to the films intentions.

Norman Mailer (yes, that pompous blowhard) once said that the bad are not the enemy of the great but rather the good are because they are too often mistaken for great. Soderbergh can be good, again I very much liked "Out of Sight". But he has never made a film that comes close to demonstrating the psychological insight of a truly great director.

Even in the realm of independent film he can't hold a candle to Lodge Kerrigan or Jonathan Nossiter, to name just two.

It rankles to hear a critic elevate Soderbergh to the level of legend. Indie or otherwise. He's done nothing to deserve it.

"I've stopped asking why when it comes to things that other people do, because I've realized I just don't know..."

Would be fine if it truly was the beginning of wisdom but unfortunately for Soderbergh and us it's the end of drama and any kind the meaningful catharsis it might entail.

What is present for us in Soderbergh's more ambitious works is the raising of questions a more mature artist would find ways to reconcile.

Mere questioning is not enough.