It's an East Coast/West Coast columnist showdown, starring Jon Carroll as 2pac and A.O. Scott as The Notorious B.I.G. Here's Carroll:
So here we have A.O. Scott writing about animated movies, specifically the film "Rango," in the New York Times: "The West has long since ceased to be the wild frontier of anything. It is a region so thoroughly conquered by movies that it no longer exists outside them."
As I understand it, New York City has also been so thoroughly conquered by movies that it no longer exists outside them. You fly into New York and discover nothing but colorful stage sets, Italian mobsters, corrupt waterfront bosses, rapacious billionaires, crafty drug dealers, attractive young people living in very large apartments, and cops, cops, cops. Also: lots of parking places.
Indeed, the entire East has basically ceased to exist. Once it was a mighty dream of forests and mountains and shining river valleys, now it's just a strip mall with unfamiliar chain restaurants. Oh, and I had held such a dream of the East in my breast: land of opportunity, where a man could live in Connecticut and never see another living soul.
