Responses so far:

A) They can't POSSIBLY be straight if they're able to do the deed. No, no, no, no. The horror.

B) Utah is fer h8ers, mon. You're normalizing homophobia just by being there.

My answers:

A) The movie is much smarter than you think it is, and a whole lot smarter than this kneejerk reaction.

B) Park City would definitely secede from Utah if that were possible. There aren't all that many full-time residents, but I guarantee you Obama carried them, probably 65-35 or better. As I wrote in the piece, they'll be broadcasting the inauguration on a Jumbotron at the end of Main Street. If they could have gay marriage here, no doubt they would.

B1) I don't think that kind of boycott is effective or smart anyway. And definitely not in this case.

It is annoying to be constantly told, at least by implication, that only people who are "flexible" are truly in touch with themselves, blah blah blah.

One more time: Not what the movie is about at all. I think the straight-guy demo (to which I belong, after all) will be pretty impressed with it.

And although this is irrelevant to the film, which isn't really about sexual identity, there's a one word response to your slightly defensive and utterly unsupported assertion that straight is straight and gay is gay and never the twain shall meet. The word is "prison."

Mostly the big US dolphinariums (SeaWorld, the National Aquarium, etc.) do not buy dolphins from Taiji or other Japanese kill zones. But they are sold all over the world and some end up in the US. O'Barry's larger point is that it's all the same economy fueled by the same demand for cute captive Flippers, which is why SeaWorld etc. really really hates him and tries to shut him up. (Discussed in the film.)

He would further argue that it is cruel and inhumane to keep this particular species under these conditions. Dolphins range very widely in the oceans, swimming dozens of miles a day, and we keep them in tanks. They have exceptionally sensitive hearing and can communicate with each other from long distances, and we keep them in incredibly noisy environments, surrounded X times a day by huge throngs of screaming people. In his judgment, and he knows dolphins a hell of a lot better than any of us, this amounts to torturing the second most-intelligent species on the planet (at least) for no beneficial or useful purpose.

Finally, Japanese mostly do not eat dolphin (at least knowingly). It's viewed as a very old-school poverty food -- a little like horsemeat in France -- and has fallen out of favor. That's why most of it is sold as other things. In Japan (as in the US) you can call seafood at the store whatever the hell you want.

how grateful I am to have Salon's diverse, highly engaged and sometimes righteously pissed-off readership.

thanks especially to the african-american readers who checked in to discuss their experiences and how they pertain to jenkins' film. i was reminded of a former co-worker (at a hipsterish magazine, not this one) who had grown up in the Harlem projects, literally, loving Burt Bacharach songs and sugary new-wave pop and quirky indie films. Somehow he had balanced it out, retaining a clear black identity while adapting to an overwhelmingly white cultural sphere. But I always wondered whether he felt really lonely. Maybe having been the kind of glasses-wearing kid who sat alone in his room listening to Brian Wilson records helped with that, I don't know ...

Anyway, thanks to all.

... totally misses the point of what I'm struggling to get at here. Actually, so does arguing that Slumdog = Obama and Dark Knight = Hillary. What?

I didn't like Dark Knight much either, as I have made clear on multiple occasions. Most criticism of its incoherence etc. I would agree with. But as a massive, ambitious picture that made loads of money, it clearly passes the test of Momentous Importance as a film-industry product, which is a test I don't think Slumdog even registers on.

If the Oscars have conventionally meant anything, that's what they've meant: What people in Hollywood thought the most important movies were. Which has often meant the most dull, laborious and earnest movies, to be sure. Unless you choose to believe that *anybody* actually enjoyed "The Life of Emile Zola." Or "Dances With Wolves."

I can get my head around the concept. Yes, it shoulda been nominated, absolutely. So should Waltz With Bashir, while we're on the subject of animation.

Melissa Leo was indeed nominated for Frozen River, whoever brought that up. Surely you didn't expect her to win? Too much to ask.

A Secret was not eligible because The Class was the official French submission. Yes, it's stupid that major filmmaking nations like China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, etc., get only one slot, the same as Kyrgyzstan and the Solomon Islands, but there it is.

Hey, man, I really appreciate your efforts. You're quite right, too; on the evidence available, this Internet thing clearly isn't working out.

I gotta get back to cleaning out my tackle box, but thanks for your pithy summary. Sometimes, or often, I wish I could write that concisely.

Actually, Adam Resurrected has distribution, sort of. Bleiberg Entertainment, the company that produced the film, also served as distributor, and opened it on Dec. 12 in NY & LA. There wasn't much advertising and reviews were mixed, so I'm not sure it ever played in any other cities.

As I mentioned in the article, I did talk to Gavras about his new film Eden Is West (Eden a l'ouest, in French). But it is only now premiering in the US, at the Rendez-Vous With French Cinema festival in NYC, and won't be distributed in theaters for several months at least.