I didn't see the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure Jack White won, big-picture-wise.  Maniacal Telecaster-strangling > every other canned, slick performance.

It's on Amazon Prime for like 4 bucks.  Do it,

Wow.  David Lynch meets 80's action.  This movie is really fucking something.

Short answer?  No.  It's not "artistically nil".  The long answer involves a pseudo-infinite number of counterexamples to your little hypothesis there.  If you cared, you already would have discovered them.

This might be my favorite Walken performance.  That little look he gives Frank after he gets caught impersonating his teacher.  Priceless.

Do No Harm looks like a 30 Rock parody of a ridiculous NBC drama.

The problem is, an "F" gives you the sick urge to want to watch it.  Whereas a D- says "Hey, film critics get paid to sit through this shit, and it's just not worth 90-120 minutes of your life".

I'd posit that Tarantino's style is as much inspired by Shane Black as vice-versa.  Love that movie though.

Duke Ellington over here.

What @avclub-c557f539a03d2ed26ee4a509712c4eb0:disqus said.

First off, you're a fucking awesome writer/critic.  I'm honored that you'd respond to my half-hearted, just-saw-the-movie-this-weekend take on it.Maybe it's bullshit, maybe it's not, but movies need protagonists.  She didn't get the satisfaction she wanted, and neither did we.  Such is the nature of revenge.  Is her…

Which the last shot explicitly undercuts.  Nothing was resolved with the murder of this one person.  Her friends weren't brought back.  The victims of 9/11 weren't brought back.  Isn't that the point of the whole movie?

Wow… no, not at all.  It's presented so matter-of-factly, not to mention the crying kids in the background, I can't imagine it actually inspiring catharsis of any kind in anyone.  I half-expected some cheering, and was pleasantly surprised at the dead silence.  Which had to be exactly what Bigelow intended.

I'm not sure what kind of viewer would be titillated by the dog scene, or the Mandingo scene.  I know the packed theater I saw it with was dead silent during those scenes and cackling like banshees during, say, the big shootout at Candieland.  
I finally got to see Zero Dark Thirty, and that's a great companion piece…

You must be a lot of fun at parties.

I feel like music with lyrics takes something away from the whole thing.  My go to is:
Miles Davis: In a Silent Way
In the same vein, anything by Tortoise, Can, Electric period Miles, Herbie Hancock's The Prisoner… if Electronic music is your thing, try some Oval, or Pole.
Bon fortuna.

Hell yeah, Nels is one of my favorite guitar players.  Have let to see him live.

Hell yeah, Nels is one of my favorite guitar players.  Have let to see him live.

"The only thing that stops a rabid cheetah is a rhinoceros on PCP.

"The only thing that stops a rabid cheetah is a rhinoceros on PCP.