The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

It seems that Terry Gilliam's new film, "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus", will not be distributed in cinemas in the USA (probably not in Europe either), and that it will go straight to DVD. Obviously, the film is too strange and people will not be able to understand it, so no one will actually have the chance to see it and make up their own mind about it.

That's Hollywood for you... As always, "the Industry" is telling people what they like and what they don't, what to watch and what to consider too strange, or rather, too difficult for them to understand. Basically, people ARE idiots, they are mentally "retarded", and have no way of comprehending anything more than "boy + girl = romantic comedy", or "explosions + "cool" characters = action movie of the year", etc...

What about books? Harry Potter series or Franz Kafka? What about Fyodor Dostoyevsky? It's the same with the music industry, they tell "us" what we want, which in the end creates such a consumer culture where every art form has lost its edge, and every creative creation is just another remake of what we've had before, i.e. just another clone of the trend of today.

Entertainment is necessary, of course, but there MUST be place for deviant creations, non-mainstream art, because that is where we can truelly find something special, something deep and thoughtful. What if "A Clockwork Orange" never got distributed? What if that movie with Britney Spears didn't make more money than "Tideland"?

The western world has become nothing else than a pure consumer culture in which there is no room for complicated stories that raise questions. Among other things...

Distributing this film all over the USA wouldn't make it a better film, it most probably wouldn't be a success, because we've already gone this far that we would rather choose "Confessions of a Shopaholic" than "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus".