Greetings.

This is my first ever posting to the list after reading it for several days.

I'm going to have to paraphrase Francois Truffaut, since I don't remember
where I saw this quote.  (If anyone out there knows where to find it, please
let me know.)  He said something to the effect that when a movie becomes a
blockbuster, all questions of artistic merit cease to be relevant and it
deserves to be studied as cultural anthropology.  Because I believe this to be
true, I would like to propose that instead of 'boycotting' *The Waterboy*, all
true film-philosophers should be moving it to near the top of their 'must-see'
list.

I don't understand why the viewing any film should be considered beneath the
dignity of anyone in this group.  (That does seem to be the message: *we all
know* that such a movie is worthless.)  To date, many of the postings to this
list have reminded me of nothing so much as the pronouncements of the Roman
Catholic Church on what films should not be viewed by its members.  Sorry if I
sound a little cranquy, here, but that is my opinion.

Now, *The Waterboy*.  I have not seen it, and honestly hadn't planned to until
it comes out on video.  Maybe I will now, though.  (Some of you have alluded
to the cost of seeing movies.  Don't other Anglophone countries have bargain
matinees which cost about the same as a video rental, or is this like buck-a-
gallon petrol, something only the rat bastard Yanks get to enjoy?)  Lots of
people are laughing their asses off at *The Waterboy*.  Why is this?  I would
like to know.  I suspect it has something to do with the spaz-boy character
that Adam Sandler keeps doing over and over to box office gold.  In a country
where complimenting a woman is sexual harassment and any comment recognizing
racial differences is politically risky, maybe what we all need is a big-
screen Tourette's case with whom to identify.

Bergson wrote, 'Laughter is, above all, a corrective.  Being intended to
humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is
directed.  By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with
it.  It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or
kindness.'  The comedy of Adam Sandler is nothing if not a comedy of cruelty,
and as such, its object is worthy of investigation.  It deserves our full
attention as philosophers, as sociologists, as cultural anthropologists.

Lastly, I would like to jump into the discussion about the remaking of classic
movies, the present case being *Psycho*.  I like the idea of taking the same
script and reinterpreting it every so often as a sort of cultural barometer.
If that were done more often, I think more respect would be given the
screenwriter, and the *politique des auteurs* would at last be seen in its
proper perspective.

Besides, there is no way to pick the bones of Alfred Hitchcock any cleaner
than they have already been picked, and that would fully have been
accomplished even if none of his films had ever been remade.  (I recently
viewed *Strangers on a Train*, which I hadn't seen for about 15 years.  There
is one shot of a group of spectators watching a tennis match--their heads move
left-right-left in unison.  Without any use of close-up, Hitchcock isolates
Robert Walker by showing him as the only 'spectator' whose head doesn't move.
It is chilling, and it reminded me of how truly weird *everything* by
Hitchcock once seemed, but how most of his effects have suffered the entropy
of endless imitation by lesser filmmakers.)

So, Andrew, I agree.  'A bad idea does not necessarily make a bad film.'  I
find the Psycho remake idea amusing because I suspect more money is going to
screw up a basically idiot-proof horror script.  Hitchcock made this movie
somewhat off-the-cuff, comparatively speaking, using resources from his
television series.  I think it has a sort of Val Lewton quality to it, as in,
'Lets throw a bunch of shadows up on the screen and scare people with a lot of
nothing.'  Color seems like a very bad idea, here, but I'll try to keep an
open mind.

As for sequels, some are better than the original, viz. *Huckleberry Finn*,
*Godfather II*, and the New Testament.  Unless you're Jewish.  Like Adam
Sandler.

Bill


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