i have seen american beauty and i had the exact opposite reaction to brandt's. i though everything about it was ugly, magnifying all of the most vile and base characteristics of modern life made me queasy, i don't relate to the characters on screen(i suppose that is the point of fiction eh?) and seeing people around me laugh uneasily made me feel miserable? i suppose i am sounding rather pedestrian here, all donna reed even but i didn't care about anyone in the movie, the climax had absolutely no effect on me and the malaise of the movie infected me for days. is this the movie's triumph? the fact that it drags you deep into its dire domain. i am still hoping for a revival of beauty as hope not as simple irony. for the elephant dung/virgin controversy, what is shocking to me is how cheap stunts still ellicit such reactions? public funding is censorship so to claim the threat of refusal of funds is censorship is all a bit redundant. keith 'lovers of the arctic circle' was beautiful, sad that i must cling to it because everything else i have seen this year has made me wilt. anyone have the new moose ep yet? i have only just sent my six dollars off to roy saltwater this evening. ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com. +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+