And the cheapest way to dispose of these remains is to create what's called a "tailings pond" - a rather genteel term for a dumping-ground sealed with a dam.

First up: before prestige season starts, we first have to stumble through the dog days of September, with the weird dumping-ground mishmash of films that didn’t rate a release during the blockbuster summer months and don’t entirely fit in with the year-end studio strategy.

In 1903, Judge magazine, a satirical weekly with a Republican bent, published a political cartoon with the caption, “The Unrestricted Dumping-Ground.”

The shuttering of the factory did not spell the end of the pollution, however, as chemicals continued to migrate from the dumping-ground into the local environment.

August is typically a dumping-ground of bad studio movies, but there are several offbeat indies we can recommend strongly: The made-in-the-Northwest comedy "Safety Not Guaranteed," playing at West Seattle's Admiral, Bainbridge Cinemas, Kirkland Parkplace and Sundance Cinemas; the music-documentary "Searching for Sugar Man," at the Harvard Exit; and the relationship dramedy "Robot & Frank," starring Frank Langella, at the Egyptian and Lincoln Square.