Specials: "Land of Plenty." Starbucks music, NEA in trouble? Bresson an athiest?

. It's nice to see this film getting some attention, but why can't it find a distributor? And why doesn't O'Hehir even mention one of the most interesting aspects of the film--the fact that it was written by Scott Derrickson, who wrote and directed The Exorcism of Emily Rose?

The Guardian wakes up and smells the coffee-shop-cds.

Armond White defends Bresson's work from the attempts of athiests to drain it of religious significance.

The Passion of the Christ

This attitude is hostile to the fact that Western Christian habit was the basis of Bresson's intense absorption in the toughest, most mystifying human experiences—a disillusioned country priest, an alienated petty thief, a scheming urban sophisticate, provincial girls approaching their first change of life. Each one's personal agony or private passion was shrewdly, cleverly displayed through a highly idiosyncratic composition and editing style that only appeared detached. Bresson unconventionally built direct access to numinous imagery and subtle evocations of the otherworldly. Previous film scholars were right to consider that these movies offered a transcendant viewing experience.