I haven't followed the story closely, but I
assume that's what Robert Novak did -- made a deal.

I didn't get a chance to see _2046_! I have family visiting, and it
conflicts with the film times. Tickets are only available at the
door,
so I expect the film will sell out. I might not have been able to
get in anyway. I'll have to wait until August for _2046_'s
commercial
release.

Sean O'Hara wrote:

The Americanization of Emily with James Garner and Julie Andrews.

DVD for that seems to be 2005.


Yup, part of the Warners' Controversial Classics set.

Paul, which is your favorite Huppert performance? I love her in
_The School of Flesh_, but when I saw it on video recently it wasn't
as impressive a film as on the big screen. She has been mesmerizing
in most recent films she has been in, even the middling ones (_Flowers
of Evil_ and _Les Destinies_). And she's great in _I Heart Huckabees_
too. It's her first U.S. film since Hal Hartley's _Amateur_.

I've been trying to think about to define 'humanism' in the cinema.
It might
be films centered on human values, that emphasize communication or
the need
for communication, where the film develops out of particular human
or social
characteristics or needs or values, and where the director
emphasizes a love for
humanity. It often means a cinema centered on actors. There might
also be an
emphasis on human freedom to some degree -- a humanist can't be a
fatalist.
That's just a first try at a definition. Renoir would be an
exemplary humanist.

I suppose there is a shortage of humanism. There is a lot of sentimentality,
but that's not the same thing.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's films might
qualify as humanist -- someone who's first goal is to understand people.

I wonder whether Ferrara is a humanist. I suppose there could be an interesting
debate on a_f_b on that topic, with Brad Stevens arguing for Ferrara as
humanist and David Ehrenstein arguing that everything Ferrara does is distorted
by his heroin addiction. Who else? Maybe Almodovar? I'm not sure. The list
does seem short; faith in humanity is in short supply these days, maybe.

have turned the opposite direction and enshrine _Time of the Wolf_. Or
_Dogville_. Anything that has (a) artificial and irrelevant
controveries; and/or
(b) voyeuristic delectation of cruelity, humiliation, and
emotional/physical
brutality towards others. (_The Piano Teacher_, anything by von Trier,
_Demonlover_.) When I call it the age of American Idol in cinema,
that's
what I was trying to say.

These days I almost never feel enthusiastic about seeing a film
based on what critics say about it. The last time, believe it or not,
is _Sahara_.

I agree, but it is too tempting for me to claim that humanist films
that I like
are humanist, those I don't like are sentimental, so I won't try to
make the
distinction.

I'm the say way. In the past I've been in online debates with people who
thought that film critics were useless, and I would defend them, but now I find
I ignore critics. They don't play any role in what I see. That's partly because
so few new excellent films appear, and there are so few "reliable" critics.

I'm not sure how to make the distinction either, but it's not so hard to find
sentimentality, especially on televistion.

I'm sure you still get much more out of reading film criticism than I
do.
I'm getting a knee-jerk aversion to much of current criticism. I
watched
_Secret Things_ on DVD recently. It turned out to be quite
interesting.
So I looked through my Film Comment stack to see what was said about
that film. I couldn't understand a word of the review before I saw the
film.
Well, I found the review and still couldn't understand one word of it!
It certainly has the buzz-words "communication" and the like, and I
suppose you string together enough of those you can get anything
published.
I was just deeply disappointed.

I'm not sure how to make the distinction either, but it's not so hard to find
sentimentality, especially on televistion.

I'm even more bothered by the self-righteousness of police procedurals
than sentimentality! Particularly because I know someone wrongly
convicted
of a crime. I wonder if someone has studied the jury conviction rate
since
the advent of all those Law and Orders and CSI's. (For the record, the
latest Law and Order is actually quite well balanced and well done,
like the
early days of the original L&O.)

I don't remember that review. I'll have to look for it. I don't read Film
Comment often, and the critics often have sensibilities I don't particularly
understand. I think I've mentioned that I've spoken with several people
who very much dislike the Film Comment staff. You might have picked that up
from reading a_f_b also.

The change in editorship certainly affected its tone, I think. The
Gavin
Smith era seems to have a lot more foreign correspondents, which is
probably good. But overall it just doesn't excite me anymore. Maybe
that
has more to do with me than the magazine ....