Some people dream of popcorn and comfortable recliners

I was irritated to discover Richard Roeper and guest host Fred Willard (an actor I like a lot) giving two thumbs down to Michel Gondry's newest and best film, "The Science of Sleep," on Ebert and Roeper's show last weekend. I'm not going to tell you how highly I value this movie, mostly because anything I recommend seems to underwhelm almost everybody else (not because I'm some kind of supercool movie hipster, mostly because I value plot and dollar bills so much less than most, much to my continually frustrating dismay). Fuck it, I'll tell you. It's my favorite thing I've seen in theaters all year. What bothers me about this double thumbs-down is that this particular television show is practically the only mainstream outlet for discussion of non-Hollywood film. Even if a film doesn't "work," and these TV and newspaper guys are obsessed with whether a movie "works" or "doesn't work," shouldn't a film with ambition, honesty, and originality get a recommendation regardless of its success as a cohesive narrative entertainment (never mind that this film is cohesive, entertaining, and a narrative, if you have the patience of a twelve-year-old, most Americans do not). Most Hollywood bullshit crapfests "work," narratively speaking, and are, almost without exception, worthless. A lot of interesting, ambitious, original, and beautiful films don't "work," narratively speaking, but are worth your time if you think movies can be more than what they are. It's a beautiful, largely untapped medium, film, and it deserves better than a couple of guys warning thousands of Americans away from something because they're too fucking lazy to step out of their comfort zones for a couple of hours. "The Science of Sleep" is funny, sad, honest, playful, and just right about the way dreamers struggle at work, the trouble shy people have at kindling romance, and the way couples hurt each other. It has a visual reason to exist, thank god! So many critics go on and on about how important a good "story" is to a movie's success. You just want to slap them and say, "It's a visual medium, you fucknuts! Who gives a fuck about your motherfucking stories? What about visual poetry, you douchebags? What abouut the confluence of sound and image? What about body language and facial expressions? Read your Hardy Boys books and fuck off!" Also, Fred Willard really offended me and gave a backhanded compliment to Charlotte Gainsbourg when he said that "she stops just short of pretty." You have been in Hollywood too long, Mr. Willard, if you don't realize how amazingly pretty Gainsbourg is.
For god's sake, my favorite actor of the week, Timothy Carey, looked like a raccoon who wanted to hug you and light fireworks inside your mother's house. Does that "work" as a narrative for you? Does he "stop short of pretty"?