Harmony Korine has returned, and the people whose solemn weekly duty it is to fill magazine column space could not be happier.

This tidbit opened a recent New York magazine profile: “It’s hard to imagine this today, but Harmony Korine was once considered a threat to something besides himself.” Not really—unless playing Groucho to Janet Maslin’s Margaret Dumont at the Times passes for subversive (the article also contains this nostalgic chestnut from Professional Art Personality Ryan McGinley: “Being bad with Harm back then was like shooting dope with Burroughs”—the mind boggles).

Harmony Korine’s masterpiece, to date, has been the creation and maintenance of his own niche celebrity brand, which depends on that bogus “threat.” He entered public life with Larry Clark’s Kids (1995), springing full-formed from a publicist’s wet dreams: “22-Year-Old Skate Rat-cum-Screenwriter Tells Tough Truth About Youth of Today!” It was a hook that had worked before (Françoise Sagan’s Bonjour tristesse) and which has been resorted to since (Nikki Reed’s Thirteen). The public persona he developed is inextricable from his films—it’s difficult to know what’s promoting what—and I’ll not attempt the separation. Click here to read Nick Pinkerton's review of Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely.

Infuriated mjr response in 3... 2... 1...

nice "review," Mister Jealousy.

Nice "comment"... boredom at its boredest, indeed. Yawn.

Nah, the only thing that infuriates me these days is the Mets' inconsistent lineup and their two lame, unreliable starters (as I write this Ollie Perez has let up five runs in six innings and the sole Met to cross home plate was driven in by a 41 year-old).

What can I say? I saw Mister Lonely on Saturday night and I liked it. For all of Korine's immaturity and �fetishizing [of] outlawry, kookiness, the insanely ridiculous and the Not-As-Smart-As-Me Other" (by the way, Armond, "Mister Lonely" is a beautiful song and "You Are Not Alone" is treacle. I mean, there's good MJ and there's bad MJ, and "You Are Not Alone" and its obnoxious PR stunt of a music video constitute wretched MJ. Oh yeah, but you like it unironically so you've proven your moral superiority to the hipster who might actually have at least decent taste. I kneel before thee), for all that, as I was saying, the film contains some genuinely moving moments. When the MJ impersonator and the MM impersonator flirt with each other by the windows -- that's a wonderfully directed scene. So is the aftermath of the "Greatest Show on Earth" -- devastating. And for all of its expected freakish outbursts Mister Lonely is overall a quiet, even tender movie. It clearly displays the limitations of Korine's worldview, but it also offers some fine images and evokes some haunted feelings, which, if you come into it not so troubled by Korine's irritating existence on earth and persistence in celebrity, should make for a worthwhile experience.

I know. We're not supposed to like Korine. He's an embarrassment to us who are supposed to appreciate the truly underground, champion the genuinely subversive, and defend the ignored subtle. I agree with Nick when he says "Korine�s influence on American film culture has been minimal, all told." I also agree that "His role in the broader context of 'hip' culture as a whole is another matter." But since I couldn't care less about the "uncritical worship of 'creativity' marked by coy savantism, Neverland whimsy, and groupthink Kindergarten reinforcement (see: Weird Beard Freak Folk, Lukas Moodysson, galleries full of faux-primitive Magic Marker art)" -- it's taken me 28 years, but at this point I've learned to just tune out such idiocy -- I'll try in my humble way and with my modicum of influence to give American film culture a little nudge not by raising Harmony Korine to the heights of someone like, say, Cassavettes, who he obviously doesn't even come close to approaching, but by pointing out that beyond all the extra-filmic exploits and hype-backlash annoyances, the guy can generate a spark or two on the screen.

Mets lost 5-1.

A film about impersonators seems fitting from Harmony. By turns, he's impersonated Godard, Herzog, and a laundry list of other real filmmakers. The impersonation, not the product, is HK’s "art." If judged solely upon the merits of his films, he would rank somewhere between Todd Solondz and Harold P. Warren – but that would hardly merit this kind of discussion, now would it?