The Invisible Counterpoint

Nocturnal Animals There is no point in living if you can't quit the feeling you shamed yourself by being weak when you could have been strong to terror -- this is the point of "Nocturnal Animals." In fact, if you die immediately after showing you're not such a hapless fluff after all, just showing you could be strong before your worst tormentor is such a victory that that ostensibly sad fate of your body being slowly besmirched into dust, cast amongst the other wilderness rocks and stones, really doesn't matter so much. Presumably you die with your memories of you as a strong drawn sword, smacking down the threatening dragon, basically determining the nature of your spirit in the hereafter: this is what you surely mostly were deep down the whole time, even if it took this particular moment to buck it out into the open. Okay, I suppose I can sorta accept that... there's nothing like seeing yourself finally as a perpetrator when you've seen yourself ...

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Eddie Redmayne's Newt presents himself as respectful and sometimes even demure, but though there are honest aspects to both of these qualities what he mostly is matches best with the "troublemaker" moniker that was attached to him during his time at Hogwarts. He sees the world as requiring vast improvement  -- foremost, a need to encourage tolerance of strange animals amongst his fellow wizards, but since we also see him advocate against anti-miscegenation laws, really for the whole wallop of progressive causes -- and sees himself as a potential chief agent for change. In New York, he finds himself intertwined with someone who is not exactly his equal. This is Jacob, who unlike Newt never went to any kind of special school, is not pursuing advanced studies in the scientific art of magic creature naturalism, and is, rather, mislaid into a terribly depressing, isolated life working in a canning factory -- a job, a...

Arrival 
When a film starts off with the a lonely lead female character drinking a lot of wine, in a lake house that's diffusely lit and morose in tone but also flatteringly palatial, don't be surprised if aliens show up at the planet's door that she proves the only one who's up to actually communicating with them. She's been abandoned of the love of her daughter, of her husband, and her students don't properly appreciate her genius -- what with their twitter and Facebook and whatnot -- and despite what she would show you of her outward successful academic endeavours, she's mostly a sea of self-involvement. What the aliens do, is show just how wrong the whole planet has been to ignore and deprive her -- even if it hasn't so deprived her of a plush university job (but it's not Berkeley, because mr. know-nothing, so-and-so "big professor" has fooled the world into thinking he's such hot holy shit!), all the career ac...

Diane G writes: (speaking to Jim and myself):  Jim: As someone who spent 16 years as Chief Psychologist in one of the largest prison systems in the country supervising others and directly involved in diagnosing thousands of men with psychopathic and antisocial traits and attempting to treat them,  I can assure you Jim that I know exactly what I am talking about.  In all likelihood, the only way to deal with this man, who unfortunately is at the helm, is to reverse the projection and "lock him up".  But, as I said, this is not about him only.  His entire party in Congress is problematic. And its notions about women's health as well as science and other matters is archaic and self serving.  Your condescending comment to me is emblematic of the helplessness involved in not being able to engage in mutual dialogue without being reduced to ad hominem attack and a need to dominate and control, which rather proves my point re the suppression of women and...