Anyone seen 'Le Cop', also known as 'Le Ripoux' with Phillippe Noiret, about, as I remember it, hilariously corrupt French cops? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088002/

It sounds f***ing genius. Can't wait.

Thinking of Herzog's recent statement, explaining his move to LA, 'This is where I can do things now.' At the time I wondered what he meant. Now I see he meant, inflict total madness on as wide a public as possible. The man is a force of...well, I don't even know what; it's beyond nature, whatever it is.

Nobody in their right mind would want to watch this shit, and if you do, then you are obviously NOT in your right mind.

Aww.

I wanted to see it because I've liked Von Trier's other work, especially ...Waves, The Idiots, Dogville and The Kingdom. I knew about the shocking scenes and I wanted to find out how much of a purpose Von Trier had for using them, judge for myself whether they they were different from the shocks of simply exploitative movies and see what kind of effect they would have on me. (in the end I found them simultaneously horrible and ridiculous – probably not the desired effect). So I had a rational rationale. But according to you, I'm crazy? Weird.

The ending, which I will not spoil, really sticks with you due to, essentially, the director's talent in making the premise work and maintaining the verisimilitude as the hero is drawn toward a fate that in retrospect become inevitable.

In the early 90s, the SAME director made a Hollywood versions with Keifer Sutherland. Other than switching the locale from Holland to the Pacific Northwest, he only made one change -- Keifer is rescued at the last minute.

Oops.

Well yes. It's Sigmund Freud and he wants his psyches back. Von Trier did an interview with the Guardian in which he talked a fair bit about the fact that "He" is a cognitive behavioral therapist and said that he himself sees a CBT practitioner. Since CBT is shown to be woefully, even ludicrously impotent against "She's" mental torments, he suggested, plausibly, that the movie was, in part, a way of ribbing his own therapist. This seems right, if incomplete.

An unconscious film – yes indeed. Von Trier ended the Guardian interview confirming his commitment to his course of therapy, when he's made a movie that looks not like gentle ribbing, but a shout of fury against the idea that the stygian horrors of a disturbed mind can simply be engineered out through twee little role-playing exercises.

Interesting what you say, Andrew, about him not having exerted his usual level of editorial control. It screams out of the film as you watch it. Where all his best films (Waves, Dogville, Idiots) encapsulate extremely tight little philosophical questions, this just sprawls into incoherence and ends up with nowhere to go. It's interesting in relation to the old idea that the raw, rough-hewn first pass at the thing will be the one that delivers truth, whereas if you overwork it, you risk killing it. Actually, as many filmmakers and storytellers will know, the opposite is often the case. As Nicholas Ray said in Lightning Over Water, "I get my ending and from that I know what my movie is." I don't think Von Trier ever found his ending here.

Five of Al Franken's books made the NYT bestseller list. Three, including 'Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot...' made #1.

All three of Michael Moore's books were bestsellers too.