The Cobweb

A secluded institution abounding with practical reforms, struggles with its newfound freedoms as competing visions clash.

Responsibility has been encouraged and decision making facilitated, for one learns to productively cooperate by showing respect for individuality.

Two psychiatrists collegially compete to constructively promote level-headed convalescence, their authority granted by a distant board who casually observes on infrequent occasion.

The daily operations are overseen by a self-assured resilient administrator, who's worked there for quite some some time and prefers how things used to be.

At one time management unilaterally decided how to manage and decorate, and freely pursued grand interior design with neither coax nor consultation.

But as democratic reforms have been progressively accepted, patient committees have gained cultural influence, their tastes attempting to diversify integral home decor.

Ms. Inch (Lillian Gish) is restrained yet furious and wishes they could quickly chose then buy new drapes, instead of waiting for collective reckoning to agree upon a course of action.

She also thinks new age liberalities are glibly obstructing bureaucratic efficiencies, and collusively sets about introducing conflict to egalitarian cohesivities uprightly sought.

Thus, as the residents wholesomely discuss the merits of different fashions, the superstructure begins to break down as it tries to coldly reassert itself.

The new age doctor (Richard Widmark as Dr. McIver) stands his ground having devoted his life to his inclusive vision.

Be he spends little time with his family.

And his wife's (Gloria Grahame as Karen) grown rather irritated.

It's a brilliant unaffected microcosm cleverly enacting universal criticism, each character motivated by personal ambition yet frustrated by general resolve.

It's not about making correct decisions although every character maintains unabashed omniscience, but more of an insightful fluid investigation of ideology in political action.

Strengths and weaknesses a chaotic case comedically nurtured and tragically obscured, the perils of professional isolation tasked with self-centred piqued initiative.

The point perhaps may be that if you seek definitive clarification, you'll be frustrated by interpersonal practicality as the level of your commitment increases.

To function you have to go with the flow but to change things you have to innovate, and engrained historical preference will likely resist ethical reforms (even if juxtaposed historical preferences duel in time, as they do in politics).

But if competing ethical intensities become so specified they lose sight of the overarching picture.

People lose faith in the resultant confusion. 

Best to keep general health in mind.

Spock's needs of the many, conversation and dialogue.

*Perfect for political science students. What an animate illustration of work/life balance. 

It Happened One Night

Surrounded by luxury, everything you desire at hand or accessible, no need to work, struggle, justify, elucidate, toot toot, the gravy train, chugs onwards ever after.

Yet within the boundless infinities of grand ostentatious profound torqued hebetude, the imposition of paradigmatic pressure still traditionally refrains, and blasé prim prognostic propriety banally beckons with callous call, as gender roles crafted by ancient custom reemerge to contend and classify.

Ellie (Claudette Colbert) breaks free casts off the bonds of disquieting matrimony, swimming away from her father's yacht to life on the random exuberant road.

Meanwhile, a freespirited journalist castigates his editor's hackneyed rebuke, standing up for the integrity of free-verse, sweetly flowing unfiltered, unpasteurized (they're old friends) (Clark Gable as Peter Warne).

They wind up on the same lively bus heading south through carnivalesque cascades, an understanding reluctantly reached as lacklustre finances briskly balk.

Her father's enlisted the press and manifold detectives to track her down, fellow travellers on their communal steed eventually figuring their story out.

Escape is necessary to actively deconstruct the limits of their sly emancipation, so they vigorously font du puce and have soon procured their own automobile.

Lost indeterminate flux wildly drives their spontaneous momentum.

It's possible they'll never return.

Unless they fall in love.

It's solid rebellious romance firmly frenetic in loquacious languor, earnestly exercised enigmatic ursine, otherwise known, as begrudged true love.

He's not after wealth or prestige and like Lone Starr, he doesn't take the million, yet a kindred and quaint yet quizzical clutch still clasps in clamorous cuddle.  

Even though I love It's A Wonderful Life and watch it every Holiday Season, it never occurred to me to watch something else by the oft lauded sincere Frank Capra. 

And the genuine concern for chillaxed common dignity found in his yuletide yarn, is intriguingly present in rambunctious rapture disgruntled dispute heartfelt happenstance.

Several scenes don't end quite so quickly, they're much longer than one might expect, the cultivation of clandestine character acclimatized patient demonstrative depth.

It must have been a wondrous time when people still believed in dignity beyond wealth or station, when there was perhaps cultural support for public education and widespread constructive activism.

Otherwise, how do you explain the nimble bus scene where its passengers burst forth in song, unconcerned for rank or nobility, simply laidback, relaxing, resting?

And its focus on spirited improbability rooted in frank materialism?

Where things suddenly work out.

As they often do.

Barefoot in the Park

A newlywed couple moves into their first apartment, freely intent on necessitously nest(l)ing.

Their dynamic is somewhat old school inasmuch as Corie (Jane Fonda) doesn't work, yet applies her industrious inclinations to recreation and home decor.

She excels at entertaining and embracing newfound pastimes, her open-minded inquisitive temperament wondrously courting jazzy vigour.

Mr. Bratter (Robert Redford) is a bit more cautious, much less improvisationally disposed, feeling safe within a steady paradigm wherein which everything fits trusted custom and precedent.

He's trying to advance his career or at least make a productive start of it, so he gets used to lively nights intermingling work and conjugal creation.

They live in a provocative building abounding with random curious character, one eccentric neighbour in particular full of vivacious lofty spirit (Charles Boyer as Victor Velasco). 

He invites them out on the town and Corie thinks he may make a good match for her mom (Mildred Natwick), the four of them heading out to a playful restaurant to sample tantalizing ethnic cuisine.

But Mr. Bratter proves less experimental than his enthusiastic wife anticipated, somewhat too sheltered by codes of conduct which don't permit enigmatic alternatives.

A dispute resultantly erupts back at home later on in the evening, which leads to passionate calls for divorce and general flustered mayhem.

It's an endearing amorous investigation of well-matched compassionate opposites, the congenial juxtaposition coaxing clash and conviviality. 

I usually love trying new things especially food from other countries, but I've found this can be just as off-putting as obstinate full-on unbridled dismissals.

I think it's because my traditional embrace of difference conflicts with gender based preconceptions equipped with historical complaint.

That is, it's more endearing to engage in standard arguments derived from habitual expectations, than to wholeheartedly agree on a course of action that doesn't involve varying degrees of intrigue.

I haven't had many relationships, but I've noticed that most people have been having them consistently throughout their lives, and that typical discussions regarding potential actions, are actually rooted in decades worth of stereotypical role play.

When Mr. Batter tries to move beyond his traditional role in Barefoot in the Park, the results are catastrophic, and since he lacks extemporaneous composure, distressing calamity sets in.

But they work things out and forge a consensus as rich with discord as it is cohesive.

A mischievous examination of married life.

Overflowing with constructive wherewithal. 

Cat Ballou

A promising recent graduate heads home to teach school, instructed to read the classics, even if she prefers trendy westerns.

Prone to seek justice yet mischievously enthused, she accidentally aids two ne'er-do-wells in their pursuit of reckless freedom.

Back home on the range her kind-hearted father (John Marley as Frankie Ballou) has enraged his covetous neighbours, who have corruptly engaged a cruel hired gun to dispose of his innate virtue.

She immediately responds in kind after having learned of the disgraceful deception, and hires a renowned gunperson of her own who turns out to lack reliability.

Soon woe melancholically descends with no recourse to lauded panaceas, and her gang of unorthodox misfits has relocated to a forlorn corral.

Yet Cat Ballou (Jane Fonda) is well versed in storied ethically clad adventurous pastimes, and refuses to let impregnability coldly prevent her from reacting non-traditionally.

Her newfound friends see sudden success after embracing strategically sound comeuppance, sincerely kerfuffling entrenched trajectories which presumed to cajole discordance. 

It's blunt and brandished bounteous barm proceeding in sultry sing song, the underprivileged thoughtlessly dismissed as they reimagine communal identities. 

Integrity harnesses spirit and exuberantly coaxes conundrums, which bewilder through sacrificed innocence impenitently reified. 

It's light of heart and rather merry as it confidently elucidates, upholding honest feminine strength through tribulation and testy temperance.

With insightful thoughts about marriage or relationships or plain old courtship or perhaps a fling, Cat deconstructs hardboiled gender bias yet still finds herself falling in love.

The musical accompaniment playfully enlivens crafty clemency cascading, direct yet quaintly coated in enchanted new age charm.

The traditions of the western see lay radical reversal, those oft dismissed their cares remiss enlightened brave dispersals.

Perhaps an oddball comedy like Cat Ballou would make more of an impact than serious drama, as it reaches a wider audience less immutably disposed.

A lot of people prefer absurdity since it more accurately reflects prim daily life, wherein which the application of reasonability sometimes leads to bumptious bedlam.

The immersion of absurdity in the arts anyways, not politics, reliable political leadership is preferable to instinctual madness.

Political leaders who don't toy with global tensions.

Because they respect their power and influence.  

Wander

Like an episode of The X-Files reconstructed through hungover flashbacks, Wander frenetically examines zealous bright shocking psychosis. 

The subject under examination lacks traditional plausibility, and therefore struggles to nurture reason as it's typically pontificated. 

A detective remains obscurely aware of conspiratorial potential, but lacks the reliable focused balance to rationally share his distraught ideas.

Through recourse to the non-linear he follows leads and gathers evidence, disjointed points of clarification eclectically construed.

The circumstances are theoretically sound inasmuch as they construct a translucent narrative, lacking substantiated coherence yet still argumentatively profound.

He has a partner who trusts his instincts and inquisitively tags along, the two attempting to lucidly gather plotted disconcerting memorabilia. 

Wander proceeds through amorphous haze to medicinally materialize malcontent mayhem, the inordinate structure like a swelling head-wound pulsating disproportionately. 

The resultant opaque confused malady grimly transmits wild hypotheses, as a bewildering uncanny impetus interrogates mild obsession.

Validity esoterically stultifies as improbability brazenly baffles, the unpronounced dismayed mélange characteristically scaling scowl.

A private investigator unlike any other detects with comatose import, resultant maligned chaotic diagnoses discombobulating dissonance.

Perhaps Fox Mulder would have ended up like this if he hadn't been supported by the F.B.I, and The X-Files would have seduced in cryptic innocent conjured stupor.

If you're looking for dependable trajectories oft elucidated in detective fiction, you may be somewhat disenchanted with the unorthodox dazed Wander.

A sure and steady sense of sentience has been feverishly forsaken, like you're randomly bushwhacking unhinged through verdant jungle in ancient ruins.

Wander stands out as it employs obfuscation to generate unsettling purpose, if a situation like this indeed existed its revelation would invoke peril.

If you're in the mood for otherworldly exposition crafted through borderline realistic sci-fi, Wander may harrowingly enthuse in seeming barmy batshit blunder.

If you're looking for something more sober you may find it somewhat vague.

I like to promote variety.

Great for a late Saturday evening.

Mank

Coincidentally, I had no idea this film (Mank) existed when I started writing about movies from a different age during the pandemic (different ages), that seemed to me much more daring and literary than 21st century outputs, as the idea applies to mass markets and their obsession with sequels, and not the less commercially oriented laissez-faire narrative scene.

It's difficult to situate Mank within a specific scene since it was released by Netflix (without being too obvious), whose matrices cover a wide divergent spectrum, and often impress when they aren't bewildering.

I would argue that the room for creative endeavour (and have previously) within Netflix (and other online streaming sources) is vast and modestly expanding, it's a different business model less dependent on advertising (as far as I know) and perhaps therefore retaining more vital independence (flush with cash).

I don't see many films like Mank or The Irishman or Marriage Story or Roma on Netflix (that's quite a few good ones come to think of it), but to have thought I would have seen such films on their site 10 years ago would have seemed utterly preposterous.

I shouldn't be too hard on contemporary cinema for lacking my oddball literary qualifications either, its current strengths are fantasy and adventure, not that it's impossible to blend the two (see William Gibson).

Besides I forget ye olde mutations as they apply to unexpected epochs, when suddenly there's a tangible utopian surge that hasn't been calculated through strategic planning (Aliens).

Who knows when it's bound to erupt but I think it's best not to search for it or attempt to cultivate it.

Just hopefully become viscerally aware when it happens (different styles, different tastes, relativity).

While keenly focusing on independent cinema.

Mank heads back to the '30s and '40s to recapture a waylaid aesthetic, eventually abandoned as tastes transformed and the unforeseen reimagined cinematic life.

It follows prominent screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he writes Citizen Kane in alcoholic dismay, and reflects upon the just calamitous social confrontations that motivated bygone days.

A series of flashbacks leading to conflicts with a daring ambitious headstrong Orson Welles (Tom Burke), loves lost and uncompromised confidence spearheading bold mischievous caricatures.

Just think something up and pitch it if you have to come up with something.

In flux to subtly entertain.

People who are tired of boredom.

*Just to be clear, I find strategically planning in the arts to be somewhat dull, or to lack the excitement oft generated by spontaneous endeavours. Not that planning something isn't important, it's just that if the plan is too strict, it may miss out on many thrilling accidental opportunities. I suppose not planning something leads to mistakes, but playful mistakes are so much more fun than preplanned pretensions.

**I do think strategic planning is very important when combatting a pandemic. I'm glad I don't have to make such decisions. Hospitals are being overrun and frontline workers must be extremely stressed. I've never seen a more serious no-win situation. Eventually, a vaccine will be available. Patience and prudence.

Deepwater Horizon

You'd think that if you were about to engage in dangerous intricate underwater oil extraction, you would want to make sure your equipment was running smoothly before enabling workplace operations.

You would just have to run some tests to ensure technological sustainability, to reasonably assess your endeavour's viability in terms of probable dependable reliance.

You've invested hundreds of millions, the project will make billions, it's just a matter of time before the cash starts rolling in.

Why wouldn't you take steps to maximize workplace health & safety simply by testing your multi-million dollar equipment?

It's not just the integrity of your mechanical infrastructure that's at stake, but, much more importantly, the lives of your vital workforce would be imperilled if something went wrong.

Then you lose versatile hands-on resolute practical know-how, knowledge possessed by resilient workers who have actually worked in the productive field.

Life is more important than fluctuating budgets or financial forecasts, more integral than the projected bottom line.

I've never worked in an environment where people didn't take their jobs seriously.

But if you work somewhere where you feel your health is at risk, perhaps it's time to consider forming a union.

In Deepwater Horizon, a worst case scenario chaotically and volcanically presents itself, as managers overly concerned with budgetary delays neglect workplace health & safety.

Other managers contradict them and attempt to proceed according to safety guidelines, but they're unfortunately overruled and extreme disaster strikes.

A true story, it really happened, and many integral lives were lost, their names chronicled at the end of the film, so they'll never be forgotten.

Not to mention the environmental chaos that consequently ensued (and is likely still polluting delicate ecosystems to this day).

Catastrophic coastal confines.

What happened to all that oil?

It's obviously not simply offshore oil rigs that need to manage resilient efficiencies, if you casually apply economic relativity manifold applications effortlessly emerge.

If the company in Deepwater Horizon (BP) had tested their equipment, they would have hopefully found the problem, and many lives would have been saved and their rig wouldn't have been destroyed.

The profits may have started rolling in at a frustrating much later date.

But they would have kept rolling in after that.

And their workforce would have been safe.

The Midnight Sky

What to make of the future?

Some forecasts are incredibly grim.

They've been made by the brightest minds in the business, however, and predict an increasing preponderance of natural disasters.

Judging by the ways in which natural disasters have harrowingly increased in recent decades, and how the planet continues to rapidly warm, it seems likely that they're correct, even if it's rather depressing to consistently think about it.

Steps clearly need to be taken to halt the increasing preponderance of natural disasters (and save koalas), and the last I heard Canada was on track to meet its Paris Accord targets, but what else needs to be done beyond international treaties, and how do we save the planet while keeping people working?

That seems to be the most serious question facing responsible politicians these days, to me anyways, how do we save the planet while keeping people working?, I resolutely want to see the effects of global warming rapidly decrease, but it would also be nice to avoid mass unemployment at the same time.

I don't want to live under totalitarian lockdown conditions until the Earth cools either. I've never experienced anything worse than this necessary lockdown. The sooner vaccinations bring it to an end the better.

Another serious problem we face regards how reliant contemporary infrastructure is on oil. So much of the economy is dependent on oil; how do you suddenly redesign everything?

Factories, cars, toys, houses, industrial equipment, oil, it's mind-boggling how much plastic you take home sometimes when you order takeout, and if you don't like cooking, the problem intensifies.

I personally think industry needs to find a way to transition to an environmentally friendly economy, it has the resources and the means to make such a transition, but seems to uniformly lack the will.

I suppose that will never happen but if it did there would be so much less conflict. And so many people could continue to keep productively working, managing the tectonic shift.

Governments can legislate transitions but it's only a matter of time before the Republicans are elected again. If they miraculously started taking global warming seriously, cultivated hope would significantly increase.

But this is so grim and serious, people still have to go about living and working, and there's a great scene in The Midnight Sky where that's precisely what astronauts do (cool Netflix film).

On one of the coolest spaceships I've ever seen, three astronauts head out into space to fix something, and suddenly find themselves listening to music, to none other than the lively Sweet Caroline. 

At first I was confused by the scene, it seemed bizarre to suddenly take 10 minutes to focus on fixing something, when so many other things were happening, I admit, I was initially skeptical. 

But then I realized it patiently captured the fluid vivacious nature of teamwork, how wonderful it is to work while listening to music, you don't see that focused on too often in film.

Wouldn't industry still own practically everything if it transitioned to a green economy? Is it worried about losing power and influence? Even with all those trillions?

It'll be interesting to see what happens regardless, glad things seem on track in most of Canada anyways.

Even if the vaccinations are taking a while to roll out.

Remember, many countries aren't much bigger than New Brunswick (I imagine).

And how much easier it would be to vaccinate 30-60 million people if they lived together tightly packed into New Brunswick. 

Body & Soul

I wonder what it was like during the early days of cinema, without sound or elaborate effects, just a narrative and intense emotion, gripping unheard of fascination.

Strange to witness the birth of a new art form, the emergence of such grand distinction, whose origins were much less self-evident, much more dependant on study and technology.

The phonograph still amazes me, how did anyone ever figure that out!, to apply sound to a text of vinyl and then play it with an intricate machine.

Camera and film similarly fascinating, abounding with mysterious alternative applications, the resounding capture of jocose fluid movement, exotic presentations of vivacious life.

The captivating leaps and bounds still a matter of clairvoyant conjecture, perhaps these early films generated equivalent degrees of imaginative wonder, even without the brilliant sets and enormous budgets, with much more streamlined visceral accounts.

It must have been fun to provide musical accompaniment, to orchestrate dynamic soundtracks in real time, so much work for versatile musicians (jobs), so much complementary impacting exegesis. 

Films still struggle to depict the multivariable syntheses of books, with much more freedom to postulate the impossible, novels conjure with infinite reckoning, currents taking on lives of their own.

But film brings together so many diverse elements as it symphonically structures less complex ideas, communal abundance ample work mesmerizing texture creative constellations.

It would have been cool I imagine to have been there during film's silent heuristic genesis, as artists sought to inform and entertain while driven by consistent progress.

Was there an emphasis on sequels in the early moments?, series flowing freely unbound, there would have been so much less precedent to work with, futures motivating enthralling pronounced.

It's amazing to see how much sci-fi and fantasy films have progressed in recent decades, special effects having expanded exponentially, it's still mind-boggling what they can currently do.

But the idea of an adventure film made once again with puppets and physical sets, is one that I find quite intriguing which computational scores can't offset.

Perhaps it could also be silent or presented like old school silent film, with modest musical accompaniment, a rather long length, bears, Mark Hamill. 

Body & Soul brings to life silent film with animate spry invention, transformations testaments tracks tribulations, the tantalizing history of film.

There's so much out there beyond the present, so much lying in curious catalyst.

Conflicting epochs, peaks and valleys.

Awaiting reimagined interpretation.