But I like Alain Delon with a gun!  I liked Melville.  Godard's a funny guy.  Not glib, genuinely funny.  Dallas, ha.  But this was 1982.  I wonder what he thinks today.  I don't think even the most advanced thinker could have foreseen the merging of creating movies for television (HBO, Showtime, etc.) and movies for theatrical release (which seems more like, someone said, promotion for DVD sales).  Nor could he have known how technically beautiful HDTV would be---even my small screen laptop can give me a better picture than anything I've seen in a theater.  It's no longer the little screen.  I just saw No Country in a packed theater this past weekend.  It's fun to share the gasps of the audience.  And it was fun the prior weekend to have half the theater applaud with me at the end of There Will be Blood.  But you know what?  I don't need that part of it.  That shared experience is a very small part of my enjoyment of a movie---people never laugh at what I laugh at anyway!  

What did you mean by your inspiration and obsession Kit?