Thank you Keith Crosley for your response. "Enjoyment" always needs to be measured in the context of what's being enjoyed and why--and it's a very complex thing, involving the circumstances of the film's production, form and reception, as well as the circumstances of any given individual viewer. Some time ago, somone cited Manuel Puig's KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN and I recommend that book for its portrayal of the use of Nazi film (as well as the original CAT PEOPLE, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE ENCHANTED COTTAGE) as a touchstone for the character's romanticism. He keeps getting called back to earth by his radical cellmate, imprisoned for his poltical beliefs. (I meant to include a modifying phrase above indicating that the film buff is gay--I have yet to learn how to edit text on this thing). At any rate, it's the synthesis between the need for political commitment and the need for "escape" that is one of the fascinating things about the book--really only broadly drawn out in the movie itself. Everything is political (in the larger, Aristotelian sense, at least). But whether that political edge is the most important or interesting thing about any given film is another matter. Guy, for example, challenges anyone to find anything political about THE FLINTSTONES. OK, let me try: 1. THE FLINTSTONES marginalizes the working classes by depicting them (Fred, Barney and the lodge brothers) as boors and fools, easily gulled by their bosses and the manipulations of the ruling managerial class. Fred's descent into the corporate mentality that results in his firing Barney is then used as a technique to reify his class position and to suggest that wrokers are best off staying in their place. That the Kyle MacLachlan character winds up betraying himself only further reifies class placement and the final triumph of the boss. 2. THE FLINTSTONES also (like THE JETSONS) reifies the values of the nuclear family (a theme common to most of this summer's major films, including THE LION KING, FORREST GUMP and TRUE LIES). Betty and Wilma are happy '50's homemakers, most content to stand by their men and go shopping ("Da-da-da DA da-da! CHARGE it!"). These values are further reinforced by the unspoken bethrothal of Bambam and Pebbles. 3. THE FLINSTONES suggests that the status quo (actually the status quo of the 1950s) is unchanging and eternal. It ignores not only the actual evolutionary development of human beings and human society, but also the concrete historical conditions under which the suburban society of the 1950s evolved. Would the same approach work to depicting the family, even in cartoon form, work in any other era? It has to be the prehistoric past or (in the case of THE JETSONS) the unimaginable future. All of the above is only half-intended as parody. I've not even bothered to bring in the Lacanian placement of the subject. Two points here: 1. Politics can indeed be found in THE FLINTSTONES (and I expect many of you out there can do a much more subtle and sophisticated job of finding it), as in just about anything else. (What about the DEER X-ING sign, someone asked. Well, doesn't that begin to say something about the divorce of nature and technology, the management and mismangement of the environment at the expense of non-human species, u.s.w.?) 2. Politics is not the only thing, nor even the most important. I knocked off the above "analysis" of THE FLINTSTONES in a few minutes. What is more interesting, for me, though, is why the film is bad and boring aesthetically. That's a subject that some were discussing earlier, but there's more to be said. Even better would be to discuss those films that do attempt to do more, as one of the last correspondents suggested. Even small Hollywood films, not just independents, deserve more consideration. (Of course, many of us may be talking about the same thing and through this medium because--like me --we're in relatively small cities with understocked video stores and 2 multiplexes, all showing the same thing.) One more comment about "enjoyment" and then I'll shut up. I do subscribe to the Big Jim McBob-Billy Sol Hurok school of criticism and enjoy watching explosions ("It blowed up good! It blowed up REAL good!"), but if, say, a small child is blown up in the process, I am likely to enjoy it less. I can stomach Arnold in TRUE LIES but draw the line at TOTAL RECALL (not only for "divorce" from Sharon Stone but his random use of innocent bystanders as living shields--this is the good guy?). A couple of years ago, when people asked how I could defend THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER, I pointed to TOTAL RECALL as an example of gratuitous and (to use an old- fashioned word) immoral violence. By comparison, Greenaway's film seems to shine. Anyway, for some perspective on all this, you might look at David Bordwell's MAKING MEANING: THE RHETORIC OF FILM CRTICISM. Enough for now, already. --Don Larsson