The Invisible Counterpoint

Tim Donovon wrote: There is a demographic group in crisis today, though they’re rarely discussed. Occasionally, they’re used as a foil on conservative cable news shows, where overpaid hosts sneer derisively at their endemic “laziness.” Sometimes, members of Congress will  trot them out as straw men  to drum up support in rural districts. These are not  your struggling baristas with their undergraduate degrees  and mountains of debt, or your  former-newsmen-turned-retail-drones . They’re not “overeducated and underemployed.” No, this demographic group, the  under educated and underemployed, are in far more dire straits. This subset of millennials might not look like the “Gen Y” that’s commonly portrayed in the media — this site included. They aren’t the duck-faced “ Rich Kids of Instagram ,” the Lena Dunhams or the Mark Zuckerbergs that we use as generational stand-ins (rather than, say, wealthy and successful millennials Le...

If I could ever write my perfect response to this film, it would effectively sort through what I think is brilliant and empowering about the emotion in it, and what is foul about it. These were fleshed-out, passionate, brave, good people -- delightful to know, and worth our caring about. Out there, in a way we all need to come -- to allow ourselves -- to be. It's just a pity that Jackson seemed to use this beautiful miracle as a kind of bait to move us this way and that, which can make us feel a bit dependent and used -- in retrospect, fools, for having allowed ourselves to be drawn in -- which, in the end, has served to draw some of those reluctant to allow emotion into the circuitry of their reason, ready reason to retreat back to intelligent but affectless cognizizing. They took him in, are now feeling a bit taken for it, and in recovery, in pay back -- subsequent years of the kind of removed consideration, in film, in art, in mind, of the like we know or at least suspect would ...

Exeunt Peter Jackson, chased by our inner Anthony Lane The more we talk "longish orcish life [. . .] hinted at during the closing of TTT, when Shagrat and Gorbag are . . ." the further confident the Andrew O'Hehir in most of us will be in its inclination to have little to nothing to do with this film, for rather the longish while. Our decade-end sum: For a moment, we kept fellowship with the geeks -- and it speaks well of our humanity for doing so -- but, alas, they are very clearly a breed apart: fiddling with their forever toys, are these lot of unredeemable, squalor boys. One wonders if in fact this article wasn't bait to coat the film-memory well enough in sludge, so that it could be left behind for good, so much more the cleanly. When you want to dump someone, you are inclined to focus on the bad, and conclude that's more of what it...

We know these myths, we encounter them every day embedded in in our language, our culture and our psyches. No matter how beautiful and heartfelt the LOTR trilogy was, nothing new is revealed by them. (ThisMorningofJune, response to post, Dude, where’s my LOTR?,” Salon, 6 January 2010) Exposure to the truly beautiful and heartfelt can very much mean being exposed to something new, something we haven't really known before. There is a lot of heart in LOTR -- a lot of impetus to imagine the preferred psychological state as open, accepting, giving. I think the goodness in this is why we must try for a decade-end push to ensure the memory of this movie isn't stamped over by those who HAD been shut-down but have re-emerged -- now that the film's protectors have flown -- who complain of plot deviations from the book. The feeling now is of the scurried, pissing on the fallen giant. Ever see "Can't buy me love"? -- it's the geek gone star, possibly in position to b...

My list Wall-E Beowulf Rachel Getting Married Wendy and Lucy Step Brothers Lord of the Rings Nick and Norah's Beautiful Mind Observe and Report Transformers There Will Be Blood Incredibles and Ratatouille struck me as films for editors, for they make those who shape and control the rangey (i.e., Buddy), the heroes. Wall-E was the film for artists, those who know it’s about aggressing and going outside the lines, even if it makes you a fool / child / Tom Cruise. (I saw the rat in Auto, and was glad to seem him get his comeuppance.) Personally, I think it's hard not to be super self-conscious/aware right now. I think this is just deadly for art, but great for self-management. Lord of the Rings. I am simply astonished at how infrequently these magnificent films are mentioned. Honestly, I can't figure it out. Were they too popular? Too epic? Too faithful to the source material? Not faithful enough? Too lucrative? I simply don't understand it. ...

— Be Well Leery of the Ring — Remaining true to what you know you’ve just seen, in Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” By Patrick McEvoy-Halston July 2009 I've taken Lord of the Rings out of my film collection several times. With no trepidation. With no dis-ease. I know by this, I think, that it is unlikely to partake of the one and only's inevitable draw. But it may be that it in fact does, but under much better guise. A beautiful, radiant golden ring is good form for an evil essence with intentions of being returned to master, but less than best for convincing anyone at all roughly-hewn that's its "unusual" properties are simply, all-in-all, rather a nice plus. An Oscar-winning "franchise" about good triumphing evil, is, however, a better suited tome to stay long in your hands, without you suspecting its influence might debilitate, worsen, as much as it entertains. How might it worsen? It might well encourage us away from be...