[Glice]

I suppose I'd generally refuse to say anything's pretentious; I can't really justify masses of the art I like if I call anything pretentious. He might be delerious and mis-led, or he might be taking the piss (which is more callous than pretentious). He's probably a total cock. I just don't think that 'pretentious' is an adjective that really sheds any light on anything, and it's the easiest thing to say about something that isn't immediately appealing (or unappealing).

I mean, it looks to be fairly meticulously scripted, and the shots are carefully chosen, as it all seems to be in the same house. 'Carefully chosen' and 'well-chosen' are two different things. There's some sort of filmic self-awareness and a very static sense of satire going on. I didn't watch much, but the lack of an ostensible narrative always strikes me as indicative of a fervent imagination - these aren't simply 'random' shots. It's definitely a low-budget film, but even so, co-ordinating a film like this takes a lot of effort and planning.

This sounds like I'm defending a shit film - I'm not - but the fact that UBU have deigned to put his works on their site suggests that either there's a cabal of people who've co-erced UBU into endorsing it or that there are people out there, for whatever reason, who have decided there's some merit to his work. I know fuck all about film, but I do genuinely feel that pretentious is the worst, laziest criticism of anything.

I'm sure people must've criticised your work as pretentious, and I doubt you care. This isn't me slagging you off, but I just want to say that I think you're much more inclined to say things are pretentious when they operate close to your field(s) of operation than things that are legions away.