When was the last time a work of art honestly surprised you?

It happens so seldom, we should be able to mark each occasion, for good or ill.

Now, let's be clear: You can enjoy art even when it doesn't surprise you. That's often the appeal of television series and film sequels and musical artists who rarely deviate in style. There's comfort in the familiar, and no need to apologize for wanting that soothing bath of cathode and digital images or digital sounds.

And while some among us can truly find something good to say about every film, song or painting they encounter, most are more selective. In fact, we sometimes go to movies we think will be bad, just so our suspicions are confirmed.

As I pointed out in my blog a couple of months ago, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" will be this year's biggest box-office success, making over $400 million. It outdistances "Up" by more than $100 million.

Yet has anyone who saw the "Transformers" sequel touted its virtues to any friends, co-workers or fellow travelers? Granted, the audience for the film is out of my peer group, but even the fanboys at whom it would have been aimed generally shrugged to me in indifference after seeing it.

So it's reasonable to assume that even the people at whom "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" was targeted knew what to expect and got what they expected.

Sometimes our memories play tricks on us. I remember e-mail after e-mail after phone call after personal confrontation when, in 2004, I had the temerity to point out that I disliked "Ocean's Twelve," saying it was a caper film without a caper. Four years later, when "Ocean's Thirteen" came out, many of those e-mailers, callers and confronters had changed their minds and denied ever liking "Twelve" to begin with.

What I'm talking about is art that confronts you, gets in your face and forces you to think, or at least react in some way. It can bring joy and delight, it can baffle you, or it can cause irritation and aggravation. But you've been drawn in and are reacting.

A couple of years ago, I came across for the first time the work of conceptual artist Jenny Holzer, who creates "truisms" and puts them on display in offbeat places. She's used the sides of buildings via projection, table carvings, T-shirts, street posters, telephone booths, a car in the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans auto race and Twitter.

Her most notable work, including a piece on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, is in LED displays. As I watched a number of phrases scroll by (my favorite was "You owe the world, not the other way around") I was provoked, outraged, entertained and confused.

That was a pretty good bargain.

The music surprises and revelations are harder to come by for me, largely because of the extensive amount of time I spend consuming music. The biggest eye-opener of the decade for me (and again, the one for which I've received the most grief, mainly online and likely from people who never bothered to listen to the album) was Rick Springfield's 2004 album "shock/denial/anger/acceptance." It may end up as my pick for the best album of the decade.

Two films pop to mind as confrontational and unforgettable.

The first is "Moulin Rouge!" Director Baz Luhrmann's romantic, comic and tragic mix of modern music in a late-19th century setting literally left me stunned in my seat for minutes after the film threaded out of the projector. My first words, to a friend who was equally delighted with the viewing, were, "What the (expletive) was that, and can we watch it again right now?"

It's among "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "The Incredibles" as my favorite films of the decade.

The other was a little more troubling. In spite of numerous warnings, I watched "Funny Games," a domestic terror film that doesn't end well.

Enough unexpected things happened in the film to keep me riveted and terrified. I recommended it to a friend who likes scary movies. That friend watched it, hated it, said I would no longer be sought out for film suggestions and - in the best part of the story - my friend's oldest daughter despised the film so much, she put a note in the rental DVD's case, warning subsequent patrons not to waste their time.

At least it got a reaction out of them, too.

timcain@herald-review.com|421-6908