In yesterday’s posting, in listing the cinema giants still alive after the death of Ingmar Bergman, I added, “I’m sure I’ve left some out.” Well, yes. The ignored elephant in the room was Michaelangelo Antonioni, but regrettably that is no longer true. Today he died at the age of 94.

His passing hasn’t been as noted as that of Bergman -- on the CNN website , for example, it’s featured below such more pressing and important news stories as the end of the show “Simple Life,” the final dissolution of the Spears-Federline marriage, and Star Jones admitting, at last, that she had gastric bypass surgery.

In one sense, Ingmar Bergman cheated Death. You might recall that Death himself cheated while playing Max Von Sydow’s Knight for his life in Bergman’s masterpiece “The Seventh Seal.” But even though the grim reaper finally claimed the 89 year-old legend today, Bergman outlived Death, or at least the actor who personified him in his film — Bengt Ekerot, who kicked the bucket in 1971.

One last "Sicko" note. I promise.

The movie’s hosannas to the Cuban health system has brought Moore the most grief, but no one really has taken him to task for his conclusions that given the country’s limited resources, health care in Cuba is a much better deal than ours. “Salud,” a neglected 2006 documentary by Oscar nominee (for “Freedom on My Mind” in 1994) Connie Field, supports Moore’s contentions and examines the system from a different perspective: not as an alternative to that in the US, but to that in other countries in the Third World

I don’t want to get an ass whippin’ ala Wolf Blitzer nor be sued for libel by “Mad” Michael Moore, so let me correct some of the information in the previous posting. Moore’s website denies that he’s going to Tehran. In fact, only his movie “Sicko” is going to the documentary film festival held later this year in the Iranian capital.

A couple of days ago we celebrated our nation’s birthday, and what could be more American than conspiracy theories? Or more Iranian, for that matter. Oliver Stone, no stranger to paranoia himself, met his match recently when his request to film Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandijad for a new documentary was denied.

I’ve already written about the bizarre convergence of Edward Yang, Bob Lobel and myself on a radio talk show in 2000 when I discussed the year’s movies with the popular WBZ sports reporter. Asked by the moderator what my favorite movie of the year was, I bolded pronounced, “Yi Yi.” “'Yi Yi?’” scoffed Lobel, incredulously.