On Tuesday, the Motion Picture Academy notified the winners of this year’s honorary Oscars. Actor Eli Wallach, director Francis Ford Coppola, and documentarian Kevin Brownlow all received phone calls, but a fourth recipient proved harder to reach. Jean-Luc Godard, it would seem, is nearly impossible to get a hold of, and as of this writing may still not have heard about the accolade!

One of cinema's most renown directors, Jean-Luc Godard, has brought his most recent (and perhaps final) film, titled Film Socialisme, to the Cannes Film Festival. The early word from critics is that the film is classic Godard: fascinating, brilliant, and somewhat impenetrable. Peter Brunette of Reuters wrote: "[Film Socialisme] is all over the place and (purposely) impossible to follow, but the master is adept at making you feel that if you don't understand it, it's your fault, not his." Roger Ebert said of Film Socialisme, "Jean-Luc Godard's new film is about what you think about when you watch it...some shots...are so beautiful and glossy they could be an advertisement." The film was shot around the Mediterranean sea, takes place largely on a cruise ship, and features stops in Egypt, Israel, Odessa, Greece, Naples and Barcelona. Film Socialisme has been described as a kaleidoscopic mosaic of art, history, and culture. It's a symphonic, non-linguistic triumph. Oh, and it features a mule and a llama living in a garage. Check out the trailer after the break.

Two previously difficult-to-obtain films by Jean-Luc Godard arrive on dvd today, courtesy of The Criterion Collection: 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Made In U.S.A.. If you don’t think this is cause for celebration, you haven’t seen the films. Shot simultaneously (one in the morning, one in the afternoon!) in 1966, they collectively represent one of the more thrilling moments in Godard’s constantly evolving canon. 2 or 3 Things, however, is the masterpiece of the pair, a glossy and discursive riffing on prostitution, accelerated consumer culture, Parisian housing projects, and the limits of language. (It’s also famous for locating the universe in a coffee cup.)