Very fresh and clever, but is that saying much?

Rating: Null/10 (4 November 1999)

Art film is dead. That may seem a funny way to introduce a positive review of BJM, but the cleverness and skill of this film are painful reminders that, as good as this is, this is really the best it *can* get anymore. And the best it can get is really not very good.
Twenty years ago, this sort of thing would have been considered a particularly original Hollywood screwball comedy, or weird sci-fi film, kind of like one of Terry Gilliam's outings. But it ain't an art film, and I don't know that I've really seen an art film *anywhere* about *anything* for years.
What is an art film? Last Year at Marienbad was an art film. Picnic at Hanging Rock was an art film. Fitzcarraldo was an art film. Walkabout was an art film. Aguirre the Wrath of God was an art film.
These were original, serious and thought-provoking films.
Arguably BJM is original, serious and thought provoking in technique, even in plot, but really nothing about it is terribly original in concept. The themes are actually pretty hackneyed: stardom, our obsessions with stardom, the nature of individuality, the differences between men and women, etc. Ho hum. How many times have we rehashed those before?
There are no grand themes anymore. Everything is irony and cynicism, irony and cynicism. ARRRGH! Doesn't anyone have anything challenging to say? I'll even take pretentious. Just once I'd like to see an art film that wasn't:
1) a variation on a tried and true hollywood format (Central Station)
2) a "naive", simplistic film about "emotions" (Children of Heaven)
3) a pop-culture, "post-human", self-satisfied genX feature (anything by that Tarrantino monster)
4) technically innovative but intellectually vapid (Blair Witch Project)
Is there a director out there who has the cajones to be an intellectual? Hello? Anybody?