Oscar's Cinema Journal 2005

Hengcs' sole stated reason for finding In the Realms of the Unreal "just an okay movie" is that "it lacks any emotional connection". I thought of posting my comments on his thread but how can I argue with his not being moved. If Darger's memoirs about a childhood of extreme deprivation, and suffering at the hands of institutional authority did not move him, then so be it.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I was somewhat disapointed with this, which I saw at Film Forum during its opening showing in January, and I sense you were somewhat disapointed too.

I'm surprised you were somewhat disappointed because you listed the film among the best docs of 2004. My major objections boil down to: 1) the narration from "The Story of the Vivian Girls..." and the digital animating of the scenes he created to illustrate it were used by Yu past the point of diminished returns, 2) the abuse of the close-up when presenting art works whose major merit is found in their overall composition. Admittedly the size of the paintings posed a challenge to a filmmaker working with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but still, Yu failed to overcome this problem. 3) Once she had accomplished her stated objective of putting the viewer in the place of Lerner, once we had experienced Darger's legacy without intermediaries, I wish she had opened up the film by providing the perspective of those who have studied it, analyzed it, bought it, exhibited it, etc.


You omit mention of the fact that Darger apparently had one dear friend.

I probably forgot to mention him because this obviously dear friend didn't register with me as also a close friend. If I remember correctly they had meaningful contact in Darger's youth and minimal contact during the subsequent decades.

To say that those who knew him had little to report perhaps also understates things.

What was the point of showing interviews with churchgoers about where he sat during Mass? Others basically report that he was a loner who talked to himself using various voices, and once claimed to have been "raped by a 17 year old Italian girl".

I like you was also disappointed in the novel or novels of Darger

I didn't form a firm opinion about the 15,000 page novel based on portions read by Ms. Fanning but I found listening to these excerpts valuable and interesting only up to a point. The film states the novel is a highly derivative work, one that borrows liberally from others. Moreover, its length almost guarantees it's quite redundant and repetitive. I don't rule out the possibility that a good editor could turn it into something rewarding. Not into Burroughs though.

Have not seen Inside Deep Throat and don't want to. The reviews have not been at all favorable, and the subject matter isn't appealing to me.

The reviews have been almost uniformly favorable. Dargis is the one who comes close to a truly unfavorable review. On the other hand, the only truly enthusiastic review I found was on Entertainment Weekly. You know that if I deemed it a must-see I'd be trying to persuade you to watch it. Anyway, I'd predict you're familiar with 3/4 of the material (from other sources).

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Originally posted by oscar jubis
Hengcs' sole stated reason for finding In the Realms of the Unreal "just an okay movie" is that "it lacks any emotional connection". I thought of posting my comments on his thread but how can I argue with his not being moved. If Darger's memoirs about a childhood of extreme deprivation, and suffering at the hands of institutional authority did not move him, then so be it.

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Maybe I am not as well versed in my English (being a non native speaker) and getting my precise message across. Often, I just want to keep my review terse.

Anyway, what I was trying to convey is: I think there is a major difference between "emotional connection" by virtue of what happened to the protagonist versus how a director managed to stir the emotion in its audience. The latter is missing from this movie.

To narrate/depict sad events in any movies is easy. To make the audience feel so is the tough part! In other words, there are many movies that try to tell sad stories -- but not many succeed. Not because there are NO sad/tragic events that happened ... but simply because the director did not succeed in making the audience feel so. It may be too presumptuous to blame the audience for being hard hearted or unemotional ...

Or maybe because I have read too many novels by Charles Dickens ... who did a much much better job at telling sad stories about poor boys ...

Or maybe because my own childhood is just as sad, if not worse ...

Sorry I missed these comments from Oscar addressed to me earlier. Okay, I put the Darger film in my Best List because it's an important -- and unusual -- topic and I think Yu did a good job. I don't believe that I have to love all the movies I put in my Best Lists any more than I think I have to love all the artworks I acknowledge as great in other media. We're pretty much agreed on the shortcomings even if I quibbled with you on a couple of your statements. When I think of recent documentaries that moved or involved me, like Touching the Void, To Be and to Have, My Architect, not to mention the politically involving ones like The Corporation and Fahrenheit 9/11, In the Realms of the Unreal fades out. Documentaries can be moving and wonderful and this one isn't. But it's still worth watching, and a must for anybody interested in the wilder fringes of art. I think by the way that there's enough from the novel to make a judgement and the idea of some poor editor trying to pare it down into something readable makes me shake my head. Better to lock him up for fifteen years like the guy in Oldboy.

Agreed, the animations are overused. But they are welcome. And closeups are also an essential part of bringing art to life on film when it's narrative and figurative. With more abstract art closeups are just showing you the brushwork.

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(Posted by hengcs:)
I think there is a major difference between "emotional connection" by virtue of what happened to the protagonist versus how a director managed to stir the emotion in its audience. The latter is missing from this movie.
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To narrate/depict sad events in any movies is easy. To make the audience feel so is the tough part! In other words, there are many movies that try to tell sad stories -- but not many succeed. Not because there are NO sad/tragic events that happened ... but simply because the director did not succeed in making the audience feel so. It may be too presumptuous to blame the audience for being hard hearted or unemotional ...

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This is a great point and I want to comment. Sometimes Oscar you like some others here seem to think that if the subject matter has a certain significance then we must be moved, but as hengcs is pointing out, it all depends on how the filmmaker molds the material into a film and how interesting a take he has on it. Needless to say, for example, Nathaniel Kahn had a relationship to his father Louis Kahn that he used with great effectivness in molding his portrait of the man and his art. One is moved by the work itself because the images Nathaniel filmed of Kahn's great buildings are lovely and fresh, but one is also moved by all the intensity and complexity of the personal reflections brought out in the voiceover commentary and the interviews with people in Kahn's life.

Come to think of it, Darger himself was a lot like the prisoner in Oldboy. But he never got out of his prison.

*Realms is certainly worth watching. I just wouldn't put it on an alphabetically-ordered best list next to The Corporation because of its numerous shortcomings.
*Hengcs' point you quoted is obviously right. It's my fault he felt he needed to make it. It's my fault my statement was interpreted to mean that given certain content one must be moved. My point is that I cannot argue with a person not being moved by something that had an emotional impact on me.

Sunday April 10th

It's exciting to have a dvd and a film in theatres to recommend.

1984 (1985) on rental dvd
I cannot understand how I could have missed this film during its threatrical run exactly 20 years ago. I had just met Cristi and she would have loved the shit out of it, with memories of totalitarianism still fresh in her memory. Written and directed by Michael Radford (The Merchant of Venice, Il Postino) and starring the perfectly cast John Hurt and Richard Burton (his last perf?). I cannot imagine a more perfect adaptation. As bleak and wrenching as it had to be.

Millions at SoBe Regal.
A PG-rated family movie directed by Danny Boyle from an original script by Frank Cottrell Boyce. You read right. The director of Shallow Grave and Transpotting and the writer of those angst-ridden Michael Winterbottom films (Butterfly Kiss, 24 hour Party People) have teamed up to create an imaginative fantasy full of whimsy and uplift. "One of the best films of..." and comparisons to The 400 Blows and Au Revoir les Enfants are perhaps undeserved . But cool cats sneering at the movie poster with a 7 year old's cute face on it and deciding it's beneath them are truly missing out.

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It's my fault he felt he needed to make it. It's my fault my statement was interpreted to mean that given certain content one must be moved. My point is that I cannot argue with a person not being moved by something that had an emotional impact on me.

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We all have faults and your virtues far outweigh your faults on this site! My point was not so much addressed purely to this remark but more generally to assumptions you sometimes have evidenced over time in defending or attacking films you have seen. I think you like Howard sometimes assume more than I do that the subject matter makes or mars a film whereeas in my own judgements I try to focus more strictly on artistic merit, though my remarks on Sin City might be construed otherwise. Our differing on Ciudade de Deus and Kill Bill might evidence this difference. I see them as artistic triumphs. But I also admit I have actually said recently in the Sin City discussion that violence works well on film. I don't advocate violence. And I'm especially happy and moved when a film that I think has exceptional moral and philoosphical depth like Kurosawa's Ikiru is also an artistic triumph.

*I didnt' know that Michael Radford, whose Merchant of Venice I admire, made 1984 and also that Miramaxical triumph Il Postino! He's all over the map! I watched the film 1984 on video at the time, but don't remember being that charmed by it. However, I knew the book since adolescence, and am sick of it and of that aspect of Orwell's sensibility, so I'm not sure any version would have worked for me.

* "One of the best films of..." and comparisons to The 400 Blows and Au Revoir les Enfants are perhaps undeserved . You can say that again. But I didn't miss out on it. I simply found its organization chaotic, the whole film disappointing. Boyle too is all over the map. Shallow Grave and Trainspotting are good, I should say I think he has gone very slowly downhill for a long time (in each successive film his cinematic IQ seems to drop five points or so), while still engaging us by trying such a variety of projects and handling them each always very much in his own way.

I loved Is Paris Burning?.
It was written by no less than 9 people including Coppola and Gore Vidal, my current hero.

I saw a program on PBS called Masterworks that was an incredible glimpse into a brilliant mind on Fri.

He said something very true:

Interviewer: So if George W. Bush and John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the Republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?

Gore Vidal: No. It would have been better and worse. [laughs]. Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military adminstration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be considered Americans- most Americans would not think of them as citizens.

Interviewer: Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?

Gore Vidal: I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open.
We have a deranged President.
We have despotism.
We have no due process.




Sorry to distract from your landmark thread oscar.
I just felt like throwing some political claptrap in the mix...

*I enjoyed your post thoroughly Johann. I'm glad folks are getting the message that this thread like all others is meant to be interactive and that posts like Johann's are encouraged. What we've created here, gentlemen, is a community of sorts. It's importance is amplified by the fact that a lot of movie-watching nowadays is done in isolation due to technological advances and the nature of film distribution.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
I think you sometimes assume more than I do that the subject matter makes or mars a film whereas in my own judgements I try to focus more strictly on artistic merit, though my remarks on Sin City might be construed otherwise. Our differing on Ciudade de Deus and Kill Bill might evidence this difference. I see them as artistic triumphs.

Not the subject matter but the treatment of its subject, and/or the underlying values a film conveys (consciously or not) and/or the implications of a given film's resolution. This constitutes one aspect of film appreciation, along with other equally important considerations involving aesthetics or artistic merit.
Regarding Ciudade de Deus (City of God): You'll find this title in my best of 2003 list as a runner-up because of its artistic merits (which I've described in detail before). But I would deem any review that fails to address inherent moral/value-ladden issues to be incomplete. I'm certainly not the only one on this site to apply the adjective "exploitative" to qualify it. That doesn't make it a bad film, or necessarily disqualifies it from my year-end list.
There are numerous examples of films of great artistic merit which I have found morally dubious or which go against values I hold dear. These would include: Taxi Driver, A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs, Midnight Express, and many more. Some of these got into my Top 10 films in spite of my views regarding their underlying values. I've discussed most of these films here at filmwurld before.
I try to avoid reading comments/reviews before I watch a movie but I couldn't help reading to find out what all that posting regarding Sin City was all about. Of course I have no opinions yet, but your comments and review seem to me to approach the film in all its pertinent aspects.


I simply found its organization chaotic, the whole film disappointing. Boyle too is all over the map.

Don't forget Millions when compiling your Overrated List at year's end. I liked it very much and audiences seem to be agreeing with most critics. For instance, a third of IMdb voters gave it a "10", and 420 out of 490 rate it a "7" or higher. I'm glad you watched it. If you didn't enjoy it so be it, but I'm afraid a lot of people won't give a "family movie" a chance.

I have been writing stuff and posting stuff about movies for hours and I'm tired, but thanks for taking the trouble to reply to my comments. I think this issue of morality and values versus other aspects of a movie is too subtle and complex for me to deal with it now. I take your point that you rated City of God high even though you disapproved of it. For you, that disapproval was an important part of your viewing experience, even though you somehow came out in favor of it as one of the year's best. I simply did not see the grounds of disapproval. The movie is based on an autobiographhical novel, isn't it? and the novel tells what happened in the life of the author. Are you disapproving of the filmmakers, or of the kind of life the people in the favelas were living during those decades? I assume y ou would consider Straw Dogs, Clockwork Orange, Midnight Express, also superior? I don't know. Clockwork Orange was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael as 'appealing to the worst impulses in the audience,' or words to that effect. But ultimately she took it pretty seriously, as one would anything by a master of the caliber of Stanley Kubrick. Clockwork Orange is based on a novel by Anthony Burgess, which is effectively written in code, but as far as I could tell is pretty much what Kubrick gives us. So should we condemn Burgess? Or merely Kubrick for faithfully adapting a novel in which there is willful violence? Is the presence of violence in a movie a sign that the filmmakers endorse violence, or are they indifferent, or opposed? Do they have to come in and make an overt comment for their disappoval or detachment to be clear, or acceptable? Are we required to make moral judgments of the movies we see? Midnight Express is not such a work or art, but it's a ripping good tale -- so is the book, a true account, which the movie alters toward the end. I guess you are going on record against trying to smuggle hashish out of Turkey. Fine. But how do you feel about Turkish prisons? I find Taxi Driver has not aged well. I am not as big a fan of Scorsese as many are. I'm not a fan of Pekinpah either, even less so. Only A Clockwork Orange I would defend to the death; the others, I would even question the artistic merit of.

But all this would really require a big discussion somewhere else and who has the time?

I was only trying to define your way of evaluating films as different from mine; mine is simply more amoral, I guess.

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Clockwork Orange was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael as 'appealing to the worst impulses in the audience,' or words to that effect. Clockwork Orange is based on a novel by Anthony Burgess but as far as I could tell is pretty much what Kubrick gives us. So should we condemn Burgess?

Kael on A Clockwork Orange:

"The movie follows the Anthony Burguess novel closely yet the meanings are turned around. Burguess is clearly a humanist; his point is that of one horrified by the possibilities of a society turned clockwork orange, in which life is so mechanized that men lose their capacity for moral choice. Stanley Kubrick's Alex is not so much an expression of how this society has lost its soul as he is a force pitted against the society, and by making the victims of the thugs more repulsive and contemptible than the thugs Kubrick has learned to love the punk sadist. The end is no longer the ironic triumph of a mechanized punk but a real triumph. Far from being a little parable about the dangers of soullessness and the horrors of force the movie becomes a vindication of Alex, saying that the punk was a free human being and only the good Alex was a robot.
The trick of making the attacked less human than their attackers, so you feel no sympathy for them is, I think, symptomatic of a new attitude in movies. This attitude says there is no moral difference. Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk who says: "Everything's rotten. Why shouldn't I do what I want? They're worse than I am." The movie's confusing_and, finally, corrupt_morality is not, however, what makes it such an abhorrent viewing experience. It's offensive before one perceives where it's heading because it has no shadings. In Los Olvidados, Bunuel showed teenagers committing horrible brutalities, and even though you had no illusions about their victims_one, in particular, was a foul old lecher_ you were appalled. Bunuel makes you understand the pornography of brutality: the pornography is in what human beings are capable of doing to other human beings"

But all this would really require a big discussion somewhere else and who has the time?

Pleas don't feel obligated to respond if you don't have the time. I am already quite appreciative of the time you've taken to engage me and exchange opinions. I won't go into detail about my objections to each film I mentioned. I could have listed many more films. The issues are complex and different for each movie. I'll just clarify that my issue with Midnight has nothing to do with drugs (when it comes to drugs I side with the Libertarians) but primarily with the implication that the only prisoner that matters is the American, not the thousands of unseen Turks subjected to the same barbaric treatment.

I was only trying to define your way of evaluating films as different from mine; mine is simply more amoral, I guess.

I wasn't trying to generalize about your way of evaluating films. I added a paragraph to my response to the first quote, regarding your take on Sin City, which maybe you missed because you were writing when I added it. I intended to post it earlier but a film on TCM was about to start.

Monday April 11th

Sherlock Jr. (1924) on TCM

Buster Keaton as a movie projectionist fascinated with detective work, but he's clueless when his rival for a girl's affection steals her father's watch, plants the pawn ticket for it in Buster's pocket and so disgraces him. Exiled from her house, he returns to the theatre and falls asleep during the showing of a mystery thriller. A long dream sequence develops in which he walks down the theatre aisle, up on to the stage, and into the picture. What transpires next constitutes the most inventive physical comedy sequences in the history of motion pictures. I have yet to watch the equally respected The General, but otherwise Sherlock Jr. is my favorite Keaton and one of my all-time favorite comedies. Dave Kehr's capsule review: http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movi...HERLOCK_JUNIOR

Does"Kubrick has assumed the deformed, self-righteous perspective of a vicious young punk"? sound like Kubrick to you? This is one of the most dramatic instances of the many ones where Kael, whom I so much admired and still admire -- though she seems to be regarded as passé by younger viewers and readers now, seemed completely off base. Gosh, comparing a movie like A Clockwork Orange with something like Oldboy or Sin City, it seems both incredibly tame and a great deal more moral. Do you buy Kael's interpretation of the differences between Burgess's novel and the movie? It's just her interpretation. I don't buy that Bunuel shows us "the pornograpny of brutality" (a then-hip phrase?) but Kubrick makes brutality somehow neutral or cool; it's clear that the young psychopaths in Clockwork Orange are in a bad way. So much of this is in the eye of the beholder. Pauline disliked Kubrick's movie and went back to the novel by Burgess to use it as a weapon against him -- as was only natural for her to do. What would Pauline say today about some of the violence in cartoon-based films? Perhaps I am becoming Pauline!

About Midnight Express, this is like your siding with Howard on the "limitations" of Zana Briski's excellent documentary of the photography class she gave to children of prostitutes in Calcutta: you damn it for not being a treatise on conditions of prostitutes in India, and you damn Billy Hayes for depicting his experience of a Turkish prison and not the experience of all the Turks who went through it. A man's experience is not invalid because he has come from a relatively priviledged society. I can't see how the account given in the book and movie is immoral, simply because it doesn't focus on the Turks. To tell one's own story is not in itself to imply that all other stories are insignificant; it is simply all that one can do. This is an autobiographical narrative, not a treatise on social conditions, just as Zana Briski's documentary is a description of her experience with children of prostitutes -- though actualy she has accomplished some very positive things for them and continues to work for them, inspired by a religious guru of hers -- and not a treatise on prostitution. Is that the trouble with Taxi Driver, that it isn't a treatise on young prostitutes or homocidal psychopaths?

You may not have been trying to generalize about my way of evaluating films (why not? Is that taboo?), but I was trying to generalize about your way of evaluating films -- only sometimes, obviously; a great deal of the time your descriptions of films are very neutral; though I don't think they tend toward the aesthetic as much as mine do, you do occasionally take a detour from social consciousness to see Pretty in Pink. I saw Guess Who yesterday, by the way. Just a silly comedy, of course, but much nicer than Sin City or Oldboy, and I believe Ashton Kutcher did get involved in the project with the aim of doing some good for race relations, at least he said so in his conversation with Brad Pitt in Interview.

I'm not endorsing Kael's choice of words, but I agree with her argument regarding ACO. She's certainly not the only notable critic who's argued against the film. A contemporary of hers who I consider a better film critic, Dave Kehr, hates it even more (http://onfilm.chicagoreader.com/movi...OCKWORK_ORANGE). I enjoyed McDowell's performance and other aspects, but ACO is, in my opinion of course, Kubrick's sole misstep. The fact that he is one of my favorite directors doesn't mean I have to idolize him and love everything he did. The fact that the adaptation follows the novel closely illustrates the freedom filmmakers have to affect meaning via mise-en-scene, casting, performance,etc.

Midnight Express is a totally different case because Oliver Stone's script, for which he apologized last year during a trip to Turkey, is loosely based on the novel. He excised everything having to do with the homosexual romance in the novel and any positive reference regarding Turkey and Turks. He privileged lines like "For a nation of pigs, it sure seems funny that you don't eat them" over and over. Billy Hayes has stated: "The film depicts all Turks as monsters. I wish they'd shown some of the milk of human kindness I witnessed". He loved Brad Davis's performance though.

We've discussed Taxi Driver and Brothels at length before (you seem to have forgotten my arguments though). But I'll state briefly that the latter fails to address issues that come up within the footage shown and the do-gooder is a bit too self-congratulatory; and the latter makes a hero out of a vengeful vigilante, builds an altar to weaponry, and contains a number of bizarre implausibilities. It's also a lot of fun to watch.

I strongly disagree when you stated that you're way of evaluating films "is simply more amoral, I guess". Your reviews of Spartan and Sin City, to name just a couple, evidence otherwise. It's equally incorrect to try to stuff me into a box that doesn't fit.

Tuesday April 12th

Angano...Angano...Tales from Madagascar (1989) on vhs
Award-winning documentary directed by Cesar Paes from Brasil, a co-production of France and Madagascar that celebrates the oral traditions and rituals of rural Malagasy culture. Angano...'s approach to ethnographic filmmaking is highly evocative and non-interpretative. There's no voice-over, only ancestral tales coming directly from Malagasy elders accompanied by quotidian scenes and lanscape shots, as well as recordings of elaborate rituals. I've had an interest in African music dating back to 1980 so the music produced on screen sounded quite familiar, but the Malagasy belief system and some of their rituals provided an unmediated learning experience. Watched it twice. This is one of many videos dealing with African culture released by a company called California Newsreel located in San Francisco. I hope my library has other similar titles.

I'm obliged to you for informing me about differences between the book and film of Midnight Express, at least as perceived by Stone and Hayes. I read the book and didn't see it as that different from the movie, though the gay sex was obviously airbrushed out of it, but if those differences are significant to others, I must honor that.

I'm not clear why Dave Kehr is deemed superior to Pauline Kael, but I mentioned that she is now out of fashion, and he still flourishes. Perhaps my admiration for Clockwork Orange does finally after all show that I have an amoral pure aesthetics streak as a film critic/fan. The idea that this is Kubrick's "sole misstep" seems to me absurd.

I guess I keep forgetting your arguments about Taxi Driver and Born into Brothels because they don't convince me. "The do-gooder is a bit too self-congratulatory" completely fails to gibe with my sense of the film. You're right on Taxi Driver, I was just stating what the logic of your position earlier seemed to imply you'd hold about the film, not what you had actually said. "Fun to watch"? It was once. As I've said repeatedly, as one who saw it then and has seen it now, I find it very dated, perhaps because there are so much greater terrors and terrorists afoot; the ending is absurd, ridiculously celebrates and excuses violence wihout ironic comment, and is a big success for Scorsese but nonetheless a serious misstep in a career that is almost nothing but blindly lionized missteps.

To go back to Kael and Clockwork Orange, it's rather careless argumentation on your part to say, "I'm not endorsing Kael's choice of words, but I agree with her argument regarding ACO. " Her choice of words is her argument and if you don't endorse it, don't quote it, and rely on your own argument. Since I began by saying this was a place where she particularly went haywire, it's odd that in a debate with me you should reply by quoting that argument of hers -- and then say that you "don't endorse [her] choice of words"! I don't either, nor do I endorse her argument. I recognize that others besides Kael (the admirable Kehr?) find Clockwork Orange to be a celebration of violence. If I admire it, perhaps you've misread my criticisms of Spartan and Sin City. I didn't say Sin City was wicked, I said it was brain dead, and though I commented on the racism of Spartan, my main criticisms were that it's cold, that it doesn't make sense, and that in general Mamet's simplistic techniques work on stage but not in films. I think my comments on Spartan are politically sensitive, but you may have read moral judgments into them that aren't actually there. Nonetheless, I'm not out to type you or to type myself; I'm just trying to make us both more aware of our ways of evaluating films, and how they differ.

You're right, I agree with Kael. It's the sentence of hers about Kubrick assuming the position of a "vicious young punk" that bothers me because it comes close to an attack on the filmmaker. I quoted her because I agree with her argument and because I was prompted to do so by your comment that ACO "was, as I recall, condemned by Pauline Kael...". By the way, Kael saved her strongest words of abject condemnation for Midnight Express (I can't find a more negative review in her collected works). Kehr over Kael is simply a personal preference, and no slight on Kael who was more influential, more widely read, and a good writer. Talking about good writers, I'm currently becoming acquainted with Manny Farber via his "Negative Space: Manny Farber on the Movies", a contemporary of Kael who retired from criticism 25 years ago to do "what comes natural, paint".
Going over my writings (journal, reviews,etc) I realize I only bring up these issues of values endorsed by a given film, or the ethics of its message, on the few occassions when it's relevant. It may seem otherwise because these few films ellicit unforgettable debates/exchanges.

P.S. I'd be interested in having you expand on your Sin City review comment re: the confused morality of its revenge, when is revenge morally sound?, etc. but perhaps it's not the time or the place.