The Firemen's Ball (1967)

Milos Forman: "In the totalitarian system that I lived in the pressure was ideological . . . On the other hand, here in the West, ideological pressure doesn't exist at all, at all. But there is a commercial pressure, because a film is a very expensive undertaking and everybody who puts money into it wants money back."

But isn't commercial pressure ideological precisely because of its non-ideological pretense?

Isn't the allegory of rampant thievery applied to 1960s Communist Czechoslovakia equally applicable to contemporary Wall Street? Instead of the poor stealing from the poor the rich steals from the rich.

And which is the greater crime: pilfering a head cheese for future jellied meat treat or plundering a national treasury to furnish Montana ranch manor, South France coastal villa , 6 car garage of Hollywood Hills home, W Hotel beach front Fort Lauderdale condo and Upper East Side penthouse overlooking 40,000 shelter scramblers, dragging dirt stiffened clothes in punctured plastic bags through streets of outer boroughs? Poor schmucks.

Damnation (1987)

Dreaming CK guides me in a deliberative dolly shot through her top floor flat on Spring Street, "slowly, slowly," she tells me, "let the scene speak."

Lens pulls back to reveal french doored bedroom, sweater sleeve hanging from half open dresser drawer, overcoat from mahogany tree, remains of fifteen year absence from narrow flight.

Give permission to the silence, the anxiety for narrative purpose found in first generation Nyugat poets--Endre Ady, Árpád Tóth, Mihály Babits--broken only by squeak of industrial gondola lift, Bartók inspired sounds of Hungarian avante-garde.

The forced gaze at luscious rain trickling down stucco brings longing for the beauty of a Budapest post-wall rave, where CB--now Bruce-Lee--broke an ankle to hobble on my shoulder after last Metro through streets of le sixième arrondissement.

Dark drenched front legs of black khakis, cotton socks soaked through loafers, side winding water, yard long gutter puddles must be met without nylon pant shell, duck shoes but with eyes of Minnesota's Strand, Minor White: frenzied serenity.

Kicking and Screaming (1995)

Five minutes in, I understood the title's meaning.

Noah Baumbach is to filmmaking what Rod McKuen was to poetry, except that McKuen made me laugh.

The Diamond Arm (1968)

After a hundred viewings, do predictable gags in Revenge of Return of Pink Panther Strikes Again become endearing?

When they are done in Russian do they become great art?

Is a Steve Martin remake really necessary?

Was Steve Martin ever funny?

Was Robin Williams ever funny?

Is Good Morning Vietnam any better than Patch Adams or are they the same film?

Isn't surrealist comedy at its best on television?

Watching Brady Bunch reruns on a black and white box in the late 80s before it was a joke?

A Saturday evening PBS rebroadcast of Lawrence Welk on every screen of a Lakeland, Florida nursing home hosted by the accordionist maestro himself from a golf cart at his Escondido resort?

Green Acres: truly an absurdist cry from the peak of 1960s carnage to our moment in the voice of Reverend Lowery: "When tanks will be beaten into tractors?"

Vengeance is Mine (1979)

Last summer I bought a pair of black flip-flops.

A few days after my purchase, the bus stopped suddenly, and as I fell forward, the force of my right foot pulled the middle strap from its hole. I pushed it back in but had to walk very carefully to prevent the strap from pulling out again because the rubber sole had a tear where the knob punched through. The more I walked, the more frequently it fell apart until I had to limp with one foot bare home.

In my apartment, I tried to repair the tear by sticking a wad of duct tape into it. For a four block trip to the grocery store this seemed to work, but on the way back, as I ran across Colfax, flip-flop flew off.

Next I stretched a wide strip of tape over the opening in the outsole, thinking the knob would stick to it. Cautiously I crept toward the library, gaining confidence with each step, but soon enough, my confidence collapsed.

What about adding a staple? One from the top and one from the bottom, I snapped them through squishy shaft. For several weeks I went boldly forward, a little metal pinch in the ball of my toe an adaptable irritant, my only precaution not venturing beyond a mile from home.

One day, without warning, the grip slips, plug from socket.

Final plan, last chance: duct tape sandwich. Scrub sole clean to prepare for solid binding. Make slice in small piece of tape and press plug through, tacky surface down. Place two large pieces, tacky surface up, wide enough to cover downward facing piece and attach to surrounding sole. Add a couple staples for extra security.

Silver vinyl folding, bunching, sliding exposes flap like a bothersome long toenail that I clip. Months later, a clump of sand-straw-clay, the surface of a Saskatchewan sod hut, has formed a seemingly unbreakable glue.

The Cyclist (1987)

In January 1998, Le Nouvel Observateur asked former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski whether he regretted funding Afghan rebels--future Taliban--priming the Soviets for a disastrous invasion.

His answer: Regretter quoi? Cette opération secrète était une excellente idée. Elle a eu pour effet d'attirer les Russes dans le piège afghan et vous voulez que je le regrette ? Le jour où les Soviétiques ont officiellement franchi la frontière, j'ai écrit au président Carter, en substance : “Nous avons maintenant l'occasion de donner à l'URSS sa guerre du Vietnam.” De fait, Moscou a dû mener pendant presque dix ans une guerre insupportable pour le régime, un conflit qui a entraîné la démoralisation et finalement l'éclatement de l'empire soviétique.

Asked about this response in Our Own Private Bin Laden Brzezinski affirms, "Compared to the Soviet Union and to its collapse, the Taliban were unimportant."

Must toothpicks pin open eyes, buckets of water dowse hand slapped cheeks for us to see Afghans as toys in circular colonial death games?

We are weary. Comfort us with laughter at Carell's 40-year-old bicyclist. Confirm our normalcy in the toxic shadowed mist of motordom's profligacy.

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Not quite Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes but, to paraphrase Babe, "It'll do pig. It'll do."