Le Plaisir

 An agéd sophisticated debonair imbroglio, still likes to go out dancing, and equipped with mask and trendy attire he freely joins in at a local club.

But there's a collapse an unfortunate sudden enervating brisk inopportune muddle, and soon he's once again back at his apartment quietly recovering from sporadic plays.

His devoted wife who refused to leave after so many ceremonious years, explains how she came to yield when faced with so many imprecise delineations.

Star-crossed solipsistic synergies familial fetching fervent fermentation, a look at the oft unmentioned social graces as they've matured after so much time.

A small town business stays open late and is generally frequented by the well-to-do, who enjoy alternative flair and characteristic distraction on many an otherwise mundane night.

But on the Saturday evening in question the curious cast is nowhere to be found, which leads to an improvised assemblage of minds eventually provoking headstrong altercation.

Fantasy has set out indeed has gathered in an even smaller town, to celebrate a relative's coming of age without ornate robust discountenance. 

It's thoroughly agreed within the picturesque pastoral pastime, that they add modest cosmopolitan flavour to the reservéd village life.

Soon back across the way and once again settled into the imagination, local animosities swiftly disperse with neither grudge nor recollection.

Peculiar habitual practice efficaciously engendered.

Another time, bewitched bewilder, fancy fortune expression mused.

An upcoming artist finds himself bedazzled by a striking model upon his canvas, so much so he seeks her hand and takes up residence outside the city.

But fleeting passion disrupts his airs and soon he derides domestic life, his young wife driven to mortal explicit moribund feats of declamation.

His arrogance astounds as he responds with dismissal as she attempts to take her own life, yet survives the disparaging doctrine with animate versatile proactive buds.

A happy couple, perhaps, thereafter, as inspiration jukes and jounces.

Age old conceptual reckoning.

The joys of youth.

Venerable wear.

*Written by men. 

Inside Man

A detective gets his shot since he's the only one around when the call comes in (Denzel Washington), his captain less willing to throw work his way after a recent erroneous routine rupture.

But a bank's being robbed and they want to negotiate the robbers taking their forbidden time, many hostages struggling nerve-wracked within, a smooth flowing exchange stretched out stressed suspicion.

Meanwhile, the bank's agéd owner (Christopher Plummer) hires an alternative negotiating team (Jodie Foster), to recover an ancient safety deposit box he's worried the thieves have set in their sights.

She exists in the theoretical ether wherein which higher-ups employ extreme discretion, to tidy up raunchy embarrassing mishaps, or in this lofty case, World War II profiteering.

The detective doesn't like it when she shows up with answers to questions he wasn't considering, but the communicative green light is still freely given and soon it seems the bank owner's fears weren't that off base.

Afterwards, chaos ensues, with emboldened predicaments furtively enabling, the concealment of the hypothetical thieves whose plutocratic endeavours indeed prove fruitful. 

The detective still needs to piece things together with precocious puzzling and reasonable riffs.

Interviews discourse entanglements hyperbole.

Thoroughly reckoned with guttural instinct.

A cool suave exoteric rigamarole effortlessly enriches voltaic vehemence, as the opposite ends of Inside Man's investigative continuums cohort and calumnize courtly contusions.

Critically clasped clandestine camaraderie sincerely conversing cross calculi composites, war profiteering is reckless abuse of a world controlled by volatile wickedness. 

I haven't seen any recent related articles covering political condemnations of war profiteering in Ukraine, but you would think some bureaucrat would have thought up something to passionately critique it in the last couple of weeks. 

Many business have pulled out of Russia and I imagine sanctions are making routine life difficult in the massive country, but weeks into the brutal conflict and it's still raging with destructive frenzy.

If businesses and individuals are profiting from Russia's continued vicious bombardment, it would be nice to know they'll be held accountable with sincere constricting jurisprudent venom.

How to monitor myriad factors multidimensionally mired in mad malfeasance, is hopefully being taken care of at the maniacal moment with exceptional haste and sentient synergies. 

Ride in the Whirlwind

Ye olde bucolic misunderstanding matriculates maniacal madness, as 3 travellers find themselves caught up in volatile jurisprudent pursuits.

A gang of outlaws led by one Blind (Harry Dean Stanton) has just finished robbing a pugnacious coach, only to return to their secluded cabin without much to do but sit back and drink whiskey.

The three travellers are on their way to Waco and happen to pass by 'fore the oncoming night, and manage to negotiate free and safe passage plus a hot meal and ground for the evening.

But soon after sunup a group of armed citizens comes to express their sincere disapproval, and the 3 have no way to innocently distinguish themselves, and are unfortunately assumed to be bloodthirsty bandits.

Ceremonious discussion is not in the cards so they have to slowly try to escape, one of them quickly cut down shortly thereafter, the others too frightened to make their case.

They escape to a local squatter's homestead where they find food and fresh horses and whiskey, but the vigilantes come quickly a' callin' and soon they're terrified back on the trail.

I thought it was clever or at least somewhat different a cool hectic twist on the straightforward Western, while watching I imagined how strange it must have been when they abounded partout, to show up at the cinema and see three or four playing.

Perhaps that number's too high or perhaps there were even times when it was far too low, I grew up watching them with papa in rerun, what I assume was decades after their genuine heyday (when Unforgiven came out critics made a big deal about the return of the Western).

I suppose there's still fertile ground within the Western's well-trodden cinematic soil, but to imagine hundreds if not thousands of Westerns dagnabit just seems like vast frontier overload.

Clearly you should have an endless stream of spaceships visiting new planets in space, however, perhaps at times cultivating amicable relations, at others engaged in intergalactic disputes.

Still kind of cool to see a clever twist in a Western, nevertheless, even if others in the audience asked, why is no one thinking?, it must have been crazy packing up and headin' west back before there were highways or cities or motor cars.

It's still kind of cool to be sure and I happily recommend it even if just for a spell.

Lots of opportunity and different things to do.

Not to mention the wildlife.

Mountainous ranges.   

Ofelaš (Pathfinder)

A tale told for at least a thousand years, composed in the isolated Scandinavian countryside, during winter but past the blinding darkness, domestic peoples meet wild barbarians.

There's nothing romantic about these rogues as they travel the land murdering free people for plunder, with no regard for tradition or livelihood, they make war on those living peacefully.

A gifted young hunter (Mikkel Gaup as Aigin) arrives back at home after they've arrived in gluttonous mass, and is barely able to free himself but still leaves a trail for them to follow.

He quickly makes it to the next village where they agree to pack up and leave, swiftly moving to the mountainous coast, some preferring to stay behind and fight.

But the maniacs prove too much for them and they're struck down with vicious precision, except for the young gifted hunter who reluctantly agrees to function as guide.

At the new sheltered encampment the free people settle in with harmonious accord, anxiously awaiting the return of their kinsfolk in gregarious revel and hesitant longing.

They're theoretically safe because there's only one path that can be followed to find them, through the treacherous unforgiving cliffs, and none of the barbarians knows it.

But unfortunately the young hunter does and one night they suddenly look up in horror.

The covetous belligerents having fiercely appeared.

With little time for them to escape.

You would think we had universally moved past the counterproductive desire for war, from systematically bombarding a free people with missiles for some unknown insane imperial purpose. 

Isn't it enough to simply have your domain and then try your best to flourish within it, celebrating old traditions while developing new ones, polymorphous regenerative imagination.

Imperial aggression means constant worry ubiquitous vigilance inanimate strife, since those your army repugnantly attacked will never stop fighting 'til they see you removed.

How does Russia hope to hold Ukraine for decade after oppressive decade, will Ukrainians not consistently engage in bellicose insurgency every single day of the illegal occupation?

Russians could be sitting at work conducting trade with Ukraine and heading home at the end of the day, to their family and friends a chill film some conversation the laidback curious creative life.

That's what a successful man does he doesn't violently invade another country. And force people to unilaterally listen to him. That's the way of the violent coward.

And as long as Russia occupies Ukraine Russian cowards will have to fear insurgency.

When they could simply be peacefully living at home.

Hopefully it never comes to that.

All Good Things

Traumatized in his youth after witnessing a parent commit suicide, David Marks (Ryan Gosling) struggles to live up to expectations, his family excessively wealthy in possession of sought after prized real estate in Manhattan, he can't make the corporate adjustments, to productive managerial life.

But in his youth he's less concerned with high-end sustainability, and is even somewhat chill as depicted in the film, so much so that he wins the hand of lighthearted freespirited lass (Kirsten Dunst as _____ Marks), the two forging a constructive team, at home in the remote countryside.

At his best he still remains quiet and hesitates to add much to any conversation, but he's still loving and kind and supportive as his marriage passively progresses.

If only the film had ended there, and they'd simply flourished low key down home, but his father (______ Langella) lures him back to the city and packs on tons of stressful responsibility.

He can't deal he flounders can't float and takes his frustrations out on his wife, refusing to agree to raise his own family, eventually turning to violence.

She comes from a much less reserved family and isn't accustomed to resonant gloom, she still applies herself vigorously to education and boldly hopes to one day attend med school.

But her dreams are cut short one evening indeed she suddenly hauntingly disappears.

Her husband likely having played a hand.

In curtailing her resilient progression.

The Fredo factor in lavish expenditure morosely embracing inanimate doom, feeling compelled to richly role play executive constructs for which he's ill-suited.

He clearly needed to do his own thing but his severe father couldn't accept that, and bluntly pushed him into a mindset to which he could not adapt applicably.

But others could and resounding jealousies destructively emerged in sheer despondency, there's no failure if you can't adapt to stilted stratagems that don't fit your personality.

You need to forget the lofty expectations and ignore ill-conceived hypothetical criticisms of your reputation, and find something that suits your mind, North America's great for supplying diversity.

Take Sherlock Homes as a working example as he's imagined on the brilliant Elementary, he falls into a destructive spiral of drug addiction but bounces back with perceptive resiliency.

His father is also well-off and sternly resents his eccentric son.

But Sherlock emphatically defies him.

And leads a strong independent life of his own.

Daylight

Always loved driving through tunnels as a child, and I have to admit, I still do, they're remarkable feats of submerged engineering, and it's fun to drive through them because you're travelling underwater.

But of course, at times, while leisurely passing through them, I consider the possibility of collapse, along with grim forecasts regarding lacking potential escape routes, accompanied by variable prognostications, predicting cumbersome water flows.

Just how my brain works, as I've mentioned before, I'm single for life, it's okay though, so much time has passed and I've yet to hear of a tunnel collapsing, apart from the frenzied fictional fetters, fantasized in Rob Cohen's chaotic Daylight.

Within, a variety of families and individuals suddenly find themselves trapped beneath the Hudson River, with little hope of ever escaping, to the multidimensional world above.

A high-speed chase encouraging an explosion led to their exasperated incarceration, city officials unsure how to pristinely proceed, amidst the conflicting demands of the impetuous rush hour. 

But one person keeps a level-head and refuses to let the survivors drown, taking great risks just to reach their location, where he encounters vehement criticism (Sylvester Stallone as Kit Latura).

For he was once in charge of New York's rescue efforts until one day a unique situation overwhelmed him, after which he was relieved of his command, the story hitting the local newspapers.

But having learned of the enormous disaster while driving around in his daring cab, he heard the call and showed up immediately, like so many brave Ukrainians. 

Given the go ahead rapidly proceeding he strives to save the isolated crew.

They eventually forge a united team.

In the heart of the 1990s.

I imagine improvised united teams are being forged by the resistance across Ukraine, in defiance of fascist imperialism, to save both a country and a way of life.

Hopefully the sanctions the West is imposing make a difference sooner than later.

Although I imagine Putin's hellbent on victory. And won't hesitate to starve and bankrupt his own people to achieve it.

If things had proceeded differently, if Russia hadn't chosen an autocratic path, it might be currently up for admission to the European Union, and enjoying various cultural exchanges with friends in North America.

Too late to focus on conditionals, but not too late to stifle despotism at home.

Do you see what happens when you ignore democracy, and place too much power in individual hands?

When you take complex decision-making procedures away from groups seeking to productively participate? 

Man in the Saddle

Reared in the fledgling West, when cattlepeople came to parlay, begrudging neighbours were taken to task, sometimes deadly, sometimes shortsighted, at times rambunctious, on occasion, rather uptight, making one wonder why anyone ever came to town, if not for supplies, or distraught exposure.

People have gathered once again nevertheless on the day of the wedding of a wealthy rancher (______ Knox as Will Isham), whose bride (Joan ______ as Laurie Bidwell) once loved a less-well-off co-inhabitant (Randolph Scott as Owen Merritt), a man she refuses to ever forget.

The wealthy rancher's no awestruck fool unfortunately he's much too stern and practical, to ever generate genuine feeling from a sensitive creative soul.

And his jealousy slowly boils over with each mechanical passionless exchange, even if it's all he's used to, he can't accept that someone else had something more.

Merritt's ranch is much smaller than Isham's who seeks to monopolize the region, using the only tactics he's ever understood, coldhearted stubborn textbook belligerence.

But even if Mr. Merritt stressfully lacks a gang of rowdy uncouth hired guns, he still has many friends close by, many of whom come quickly a' callin'.

Soon romantic zeal's unwillingly duelling with inanimate calculation.

Ms. Bidwell unsure where she stands.

Neighbouring Ms. Melotte (Ellen Drew) aware trouble's a' brewin'.

Celebrating the raw unbridled frontier spirit with independent imaginative gusto, Man in the Saddle dares drift debonair with honest profound heartfelt discrepancy.

The odds are overwhelming yet the resolve exceptional enough not to doubt precise reliable markspersonship, the classic American home ranging heartache hassled harangued with bellicose brawn.

Trying to sincerely match adoring love with cold stubborn opportunism, may not work out so well if you're looking for content to match the formality. 

Nevertheless, a lot of people seem to make it work in relation to traditional old school arranged marriages, where I imagine resignéd familiarity eventually equates love with solemn observance. 

In my case, can't say I ever did meet a freespirit who would keep busy while I wrote in the park. 😜

So many films, the search for meaning.

Who could have ever have partnered up otherwise? 

The Misfits

Oddly enough, last week I was listening to the Beatles and my mind once again turned to Ringo, who I still think gets a bad rap when you think about the solid backbone he provided the band.

He also cleverly worked his funny personality into the media sensation being built at the time, and refined unique adorable pop character as a matter of reflexive intuitive fact.

Not to mention Octopus's Garden which I was yelled at for liking as a kid (no joke). Love that song to this day (I don't understand the yelling, it made 1967-1970). I'm not saying this blog is like an octopus's garden. I just wish I'd never been yelled at for liking the song.

I mention this because Ringo's legend is brought to life in Renny Harlin's The Misfits with dazzling flair, as the principal Robin Hoodesque phenom assembles a daring altruistic team (Nick Cannon as Ringo).

The intricate individuals started out do-gooding on their own without project or inquiry, yet found things much easier to accomplish when rambunctiously gathered as a stalwart team.

Plus, they could purse loftier objectives like freedom fighting or in this case a prison full of gold, used to buy weapons and finance autocracy around the globe without catch or hindrance.

The prison was built by a man (Tim Roth as Schultz) prone to catching a remarkable thief, who in turn escapes from prison after prison much to his shocked astonishment (Pierce Brosnan as _______ Pace). 

The do-gooding band seeks the escape artist's help to steal the gold from his latest prison.

But they're not sure if he'll freely accommodate. 

So they come up with a multi-point plan.

It's first rate low budget action comedically generating thoughtful ambition, as an agile acrobatic team tumultuously agrees to search and discover.

I've got a lot of respect for low or lower budget action films because it's so hard to take on the behemoths. Not to mention how difficult it is to make a convincing action film to begin with. I appreciate the resonant daring.

I like how The Misfits doesn't blow as much stuff up, it's better for the environment not to destroy so many things.

Computer graphics come pretty close to reality.

Save money, protect the environment.

I've come to terms with my own misfit status although for a while I thought I'd fit in, I thought there must be somewhere I didn't feel odd but it never worked out, plenty of books and films in the meantime.

If you feel like a misfit however swiftly note most assurédly so do I.

Although it generally seems like so many others are strange.

It can make for quite the afternoon outing.

Pickup on South Street

My decision to watch another Samuel Fuller film last week accidentally led me to unfiltered cold war propaganda, wherein which informant and criminal alike dislike communism and when asked to explain why, bluntly state, "we just do".

Pickup on South Street doesn't share many reasons to justify its indiscreet candour, it just keeps returning to a shack by the ocean where a pickpocket's hidden secret microfilm and beer (Richard Widmark as Skip McCoy).

If he's caught breaking the law once again it's off to prison for the rest of his life, but he still can't think of anything better to do, so he commits crimes then entertains the police.

They're none too fond of his tactics and have even been suspended for related frank outbursts, the audacious confidence the unrestrained vigour driving them past stock predictable punishments.

They don't explain what the microfilm depicts but it's plain and clear the communists want it, but the pursuing agent doesn't anticipate his seductive love interest falling for McCoy (Jean Peters as Candy).

It's utterly ridiculous spy drama resoundingly critical of argument and thought, just bellicose guttural vindications of shortsighted impulse inanimate standing.

Not that the communists also didn't employ reckless stereotypical reckoning, but when capitalist realms saw an influx of unions there was much more equality less crime and strife (see The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone and the 1980s).

If the two ideologies vigorously balance their stern opposition through democratic means, they can constructively influence one another by forging compromises and embracing diplomacy (not on contemporary television).

A strong left attempts to ensure the reasonable distribution of goods to the curious many, who in turn respond with less crime and corruption since they don't have to struggle to find basic needs.

If the strong left is clever and thinks to the future it strives to ensure the businesses they work for thrive, to facilitate perennial financial sustainability with as much dependability as can be hoped for in a state of flux.

For proof of a left wing country that looks to the future in the capitalist world, look no farther than resolute Norway and its 16 Olympic Gold Medals.

I've wondered how such a tiny nation could so resiliently dominate the Winter Olympics, and I've concluded that the oil wealth it distributes far and wide means everyone can afford to ski and take lessons.

By enabling the majority of its population to take part in cherished winter pastimes, skiing in Norway is like soccer in Brazil, it's a brilliant way to distribute your wealth.

Eliminating the left from your culture and letting despots slowly take absolute control for decades, may leave your country in ruin, if you decide to take on the rest of the world (it's a common shortcoming of dictators).

Trudeau may be somewhat of a fool at times but he's no despot, no Putin, no Hitler.

Give me leaders like him who love all peoples every day at any moment (and hopefully hate the STASI).

Over the narrow-minded jingoistic alternative.