One of the smartest and bravest of my countless ex-bosses, John Podhoretz, says the late Ingmar Bergman had good reason to abandon theatrical films in 1982 — the time for his pretentious, ultra-serious flicks had passed. “For the basic truth is that the critics who described Bergman as the greatest of film artists were people embarrassed by the moviews,” Podhoretz writes today in The Post. “They believed the movies were a low and disreputable art form and that its only salvation lay in offering moral and aesthetic instruction to its audiences about the worthlessness of existence.” Podhoretz sent us a link to this Oscar-nominated 1968 short that hilariously parodies Bergman’s films. I can hardly wait to hear what Podhoretz has to say about Michelangelo Antonioni, who has joined Bergman in that great screening room in the sky.