Parks and Recreation

as the end credits roll, Payne’s fi lm insists on the always in progress nature of our lives, up until that fi nal moment when we take our last breath. This is something the cinema is the perfect art form to convey: when the camera is turned off, a certain kind of death occurs. The magic box has brought people to life by projecting their images on a screen. When the light ceases, the characters cease to exist; for all practical purposes, they die. As much as Mount Rushmore tries to indicate otherwise in monumental granite, the cinema is a machine of the ephemeral, of that which is always in motion, always doomed to incompleteness. In short, the movies are the perfect art form for telling our stories, and some of those tales concern those of us who live and love in between New York and Los Angeles. Walter Metz southern illinois university Carbondale, Illinois