If the just announced Palme d’ Or winner at Cannes “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” went mano-a-mano at the box office with “Knocked Up,”  Judd Apatow’s new comedy about sexual mores, which do you think would win?

Here’s a hint: the former has been described as “a devastating Romanian film on back-alley abortion and daily despair in the communist era.” The latter as film that “wants you to laugh (but not only laugh, and not in a mean way) about…out-of-wedlock pregnancy?!?”

Obviously I haven’t seen the much lauded Cannes winner yet, but I have seen Apatow’s new film and quite frankly, after the hilarity and seeming integrity of "40-Year-Old Virgin," I was disappointed. It might be the most dishonest movie of the year, cashing in on the hot button topics sensationally suggested by the title and then cravenly refusing to confront them.

In it a 23-year-old career woman has a one-night stand with a loutish pick-up in a bar. She immediately forgets him until a few weeks later when she discovers that she’s pregnant. Does she consider abortion? It’s referred to as the “A-word” in one jokey scene it is never raised again. Instead, she and the now chastened former slacker, a complete stranger mind you, decide to put aside their lives up until then, become a couple and raise the child together.

Okay, I understand that nobody wants to get the Moral Majority on their ass about their picture. And  anyway the film has already made plenty of concessions to the bong, beer and boob crowd with its priapic humor and pop cultural riffs. As Stephen Rodrick notes in his otherwise butt-kissing "New York Times Magazine" profile (the above wacky “out-of wedlock pregnancy?!!” quote was taken from the article's headline), “Both of the films Apatow has directed offer up the kind of conservative morals the Family Research Council might embrace — if the humor weren’t so filthy.”

No, what bugs me more than his evasion of one of the most flagrant issues raised by the film is that Apatow obviously sees how this kind of unthinking social and moral conformity can arouse rage and resentment. But he refuses to come to terms with that issue as well, either comically or dramatically.

Instead, he defuses the tension by posing an alternative couple, the pregnant woman’s sister, a castrating harpy (played by Apatow’s own wife, Leslie Mann) and her husband. The sister's irrational and hateful abuse of her far more sympathetic, and funnier, husband amounts to a co-dependent, sado-masochistic version of domestic bliss, which in the end everyone, nonetheless, seems to embrace.

That and a couple of outbursts of seemingly gratuitous, utterly unfunny and misdirected rage and self-loathing suggest that beneath the film’s hip, scatalogical humor and sentimental acceptance of conservative family values lies unacknowledged doubts and despair about the institutions of marriage and parenthood. Had he been honest about these issues, Apatow might have turned out a darker, funnier, more disturbing comedy. But then he’d have about as much luck at the box office as a prize-winning film from Romania.

I find it very thoughtful of the people at Disney to ask film critics not to reveal the plot of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.” Thoughtful because I doubt if a single critic, myself included, has any idea what the plot is, not just of this installment but the previous two, and their request gives us an excuse not to have to try to explain it. In fact, I suspect that not even the people at Disney or the filmmakers themselves could summarize the story. Instead of a narrative in the classical sense it is an arbitrary series of crises, of tension and release, of inconsequential entanglement and resolution that is ultimately static, circular and repetitive, a vastly elaborated variation on the basic structure it is derived from, the amusement park ride. The film’s genius is not so much in the narrative, but  in the individual episodes, the baroque sight gags, the effects and the visual tropes along the way, worthy of silent comedy classics or surrealist reveries, but if word leaked out about that, “Pirates of the Caribbean” might reach the franchise’s end.

I’d just watched Lars von Trier’s “The Boss of It All” (it opens locally May 25), which is almost Capraesque in its idealism and optimism, at least compared to the Danish director's other perversely nihilistic, black comic works. So I was surprised to learn that the notorious eccentric and prankster had suffered a paralyzing bout of depression so bad that he might quit directing.

It reminds me of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s announcing his retirement from filmmaking back in 1995. Except most people believed him. Turns out he was so true to his resolution that he dropped dead  shortly afterwards of a heart attack.

Von Trier, however, is another story. Peter Bradshaw in his "Guardian" blog expresses doubts. He also points out his reservations about Von Trier’s claims that he shot “Boss” in “Automatovision,” without a cameraman and totally by computer, accounting for its jerky, jump-cutting narrative. Von Trier also claims that the continuity mistakes one can spot in the film actually are a hidden code. Maybe that code will explain whether this depression is real or not, or what it means. Or maybe it’s all a bunch of crap.

Publicity, perhaps, for his next project, “Antichrist,” in which he ponders the possibility that the creator of the world is not God, but Satan. (So the world might be a Von Trier production?)

 “I assume ‘Antichrist' will be my next movie,” Von Trier says. “But right now I don’t know.”

Too bad Frank Capra isn’t alive to fill in.

Film critics are the spotted owls of journalism. They can only survive where people respect subtlety, art, depth, meaning, originality and tradition in movies. The steady progress of million dollar studio marketing machines and the decline in audience taste and patience -- call it Global Dumbing -- have wiped out most such environments. The most recent to succumb was the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution," where veteran critic Eleanor Ringel Gillespie opted for a buy-out. As for the last few artificially maintained refuges for genuine criticism, they will soon be a memory too. Like hapless, toothless polar bears on melting ice floes, film critics are sinking, without comprehension or much resistance, into extinction.

Good riddance, most will say. They deserve it if only for such inexcusable extended metaphors as the one above. One person who will shed few tears will be Peter Bart, erstwhile Hollywood producer and studio head and current editor of “Variety.”  A couple of months ago, noting that films like “300” have made tons of money despite critics saying they sucked, he suggested that the latter “find a new line of work.”

Apparently the line of work he was thinking of was shilling for studio PR departments, as he goes on to say that they should “attempt to tune in to pop culture,” ie, echo the advertising compelling the masses to mindless consumption of movie product. An appreciation for films like “300”, or such memorable Bart productions as “Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise.”

But critics won’t go without a struggle. Take Ronald Bergen’s manifesto in “The Guardian,” “What Every Movie Critic Should Know.” It’s a long list. Here’s a sample:

“They should have seen Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire du Cinema, and every film by Carl Dreyer, Robert Bresson, Jean Renoir, Luis Buñuel and Ingmar Bergman, as well as those of Jean-Marie Straub and Danielle Huillet, and at least one by Germaine Dulac, Marcel L'Herbier, Mrinal Sen, Marguerite Duras, Mikio Naruse, Jean Eustache and Stan Brakhage. They should be well versed in Russian constructivism, German expressionism, Italian neo-realism, Cinema Novo, La Nouvelle Vague and the Dziga Vertov group.”

So much for Hollywood; I would have at least included Alfred Hitchcock and  John Ford, if not “The Three Amigos.” And though I can sympathize with Bergen’s impulse to counter growing irrelevance with intensified erudition, I also suspect Bart might have paid him off to write what sounds like the perfect parody of a pointy-headed critic.

Somewhere between Bart and Bergen, perhaps, lies a happy medium. The “Boston Globe”’s Ty Burr has some useful insights on his movie blog on the subject. What should every critic know? he asks. “How to engage readers. How to make them see the thing afresh, whatever it may, and even more than that the world that contains it.” Or as James Agee wrote about 65 years ago in his first column for “The Nation,” “It is my business to conduct one end of a conversation, as an amateur critic among amateur critics. And I will be of use and of interest only in so far as my amateur judgment is sound, stimulating, or illuminating.”

A conversation, is it? Obviously Agee didn’t have to deal with e-mail (“Dear Splashhead…”). But I get the point. I think the key function for critics is to spur audiences beyond the “white knuckle thrill ride” level of enjoyment, the mindless Pavlovian conditioned response. Maybe get them to watch movies a little more like critics themselves (believe me, it is far more rewarding), and maybe even apply such critical thinking to less important matters, like the upcoming presidential election.

A mini debate has raged of late about the future of film criticism, and the fact that only film critics seem interested in it suggests that the future is grim. Nonetheless I plan to weigh in on the topic in the near future, but before doing so I’d like to point out that behavior like that of John Boonstra, former film critic for “The Hartford Advocate,” does not make that future any brighter. Boonstra was picked up by the Stamford Police Department in a sting operation, charged with soliciting sex with minors. A true professional to the end, Boonstra discussed with the arresting officers his review of “Spider-Man 3.” However, he forgot the film critic’s cardinal rule: with great power comes great responsibility.

I never read Alice Sebold’s  novel “The Lovely Bones” about a 14-year-old girl in Pennsylvania who posthumously observes the progress of the investigation into her rape/murder, but I was intrigued when Lynne Ramsay, the uncompromising Scottish director of “Ratcatcher” and “Morvern Callar" signed up to adapt it.

Apparently she had signed on before the book was finished and before the author had changed its initially dark tone into something more conventional and sentimental, or at least before the published novel became a fabulously successful best seller, but at some point Ramsay’s participation in the project became moot. Stephen Spielberg’s DreamWorks muscled in and bought the rights fromthe financially struggling Film Four Productions, squeezed out Ramsay (she was so demoralized, according to one version of the story, that she wanted to quit filmmaking; at any rate she hasn’t made a film since), and got Peter Jackson to write the script and direct.

So, big deal, you say, and you’d be right, because a movie that would originally would have cost less than a 30 second trailer for “King Kong” was budgeted at $65 million. But I shouldn’t pooh pooh a production simply because it cost big bucks. After all, before he got into the market of draining all the magic and imagination out of one of one of my favorite fantasy epics through overwrought special effects and lumbering, humorless literalism, Jackson made the quite strange and original “Heavenly Creatures.” Could “Bones” be a return to that lost inspiration?

If “New York” magazine’s assessment of the screenplay is any indication, the answer is, probably not. Not that “New York” is any arbiter of taste, but from their description Jackson’s adaptation sounds, well, as if it suffers from overwrought special effects and lumbering, humorless literalism. No doubt Ramsay’s version might have sucked, too, but with Jackson’s budget she’d still have enough money left over to make about a hundred “Morvern Callars” or even lure Roger Clemens away from the Yankees.

I might have been a little harsh in assessing the late former MPAA head Jack Valenti’s legacy a couple of postings ago, but at least I didn’t accuse him of being responsible for the Virginia Tech shootings. We’ll leave that for David Thomson in the Guardian film blog where the esteemed critic and author of "The Encyclopedia of Film" claims Valenti’s favoring violence over sex in the ratings system contributed to the atmosphere of violence that resulted in the murder of 32 people. Valenti was a tool of the studios, and he was their enabler when it came to selling their main products: guns, mayhem and death.

On the other hand, the film industry wouldn’t have pushed this product if there wasn’t already a market for it, so you can’t really say that the violence in films causes the audience’s fascination with violence but that maybe the pre-existing fascination with violence presents a demand that Hollywood, like all businesses motivated by profit, readily supplies. In other words, the violence in film is at worst at symptom and at best a reflection of the pathology and mindset of those who buy it.

Add to that the fact that no scientific study has demonstrated a link between film violence and behavior, and I’d say that, in this instance at least, Valenti is getting a raw deal.

Actually, when you come right down to it, if the film violence/violent behavior link had any substance, shouldn’t critics like Thomson, who have probably seen more movies and acts of film violence than any other group, also be among the most violent and criminal people? I haven’t done the research (I know a couple of local colleagues with outstanding traffic tickets), but I don’t think that’s the case.

Meanwhile, my concern that opportunistic politicians might take advantage of the recent bloodletting to gain political points by yammering for decency and censorship hasn’t quite panned out. Why? Maybe it’s because knee-jerk liberal wimps like Thomson have been doing the job for them. And moviemakers like the usually perverse but suddenly holier-than-thou Mike White. In his guest op-ed in “The New York Times” White again brings up the non-issue of “OldBoy:”

 “Was Seung-Hui Cho inspired by a movie (the South Korean revenge flick “Oldboy”) when he murdered 32 of his classmates and teachers?”

Answer: no.  Or yes, if he could have been inspired by something that he didn’t see, as absolutely no evidence exists that he did except for an image of him holding a hammer (what if he had chosen a different object? A tennis racket? A rolling pin? Would we be blaming Andy Roddick or Rachael Ray?).

Moving from this idle speculation based on no evidence, White surges ahead in his argument by enlisting irrelevant personal anecdotes. He points out how trashy horror movies inspired him when a teenager to become a filmmaker, and how in general

 “for my friends and me, movies were a big influence on our clothes and our slang, and on how we thought about and spoke to authority figures, our girlfriends and one another. Movies permeated our fantasy lives and our real lives in subtle and profound ways.”

Well, “subtle and profound” for the haircut and slang crowd; ie, the smart guys and future filmmakers. But for dummies like Cho, the next stop apparently was loading up at the closest gun shop.

On the other hand, if Cho had, for some reason, like White,  chosen to make movies, might he have sublimated his murderous obsessions? Might violent movies thus serve a cathartic, therapeutic purpose, as they have since Gilgamesh, Greek Tragedy, Shakespeare?

Poppycock!  “The Hills Have Eyes II,” White points out, isn’t Shakespeare.But then, not many movies are, including his. Be that as it may, White goes on to suggest that for every auteur like himself there are probably a lot more bloodthirsty pissants like Cho we must deal with. And for further evidence of that plague spawned by violent movies, it’s back to Mike White neighborhood, where:

 “It’s true nobody ever got shot in the face in my backyard, but there were acts of male bravado performed in emulation of our movie anti-heroes that ranged from stupid to cruel. ... Can we really in good conscience conclude that the violence saturating our popular culture has no impact on our neighborhoods and schools?”

Well, no, though there’s no reason why we should, either.  Can we conclude that the Bible, too much sugar, footage from Abu Ghraib, Boy Scout training, lack of gun control,  or a million other factors don’t have more impact? But none of those is as easy a target as the movies. And we can pretty safely conclude that once the hammer comes down on violence, as White implicitly advocates, it’s not going to stop with the carnage  of “The Hills Have Eyes II” but extend to the “indecency” of his own “Chuck & Buck” and the non-conforming role model of his “School of Rock.”

In conclusion, White writes: “Maybe we’re not responsible for Mr. Cho’s awful actions, but does that abrogate our responsibility to the world around us?”

Indeed. And I think White’s first responsibility is to stick up for the freedoms that he’s cashed in on.