Au revoir le bonheur (Goodbye Happiness)

What to make of this film.

It concerns a well-to-do family whose father unfortunately passes, leaving his 4 sons to squabble in grief at their cherished home on the Magdalen Islands (which I'd like to visit). 

They own a rather large business which one of them manages somewhat ruthlessly, and even though they earn plenty of scrilla, he's still tightfisted regarding start-ups.

Another brother is a talented artist as regards brilliant culinary manifestation, yet he's somewhat hopeless in tune with everything else to do with commercial affairs.

I suppose it's a heartfelt look at a grieving disputatious family, but it has elements I just can't let slide, I'm not really that familiar with relationships or dating, but I believe Au revoir le bonheur (Goodbye Happiness) goes way over the top.

I don't think having children with 4 separate women all of whom were left for one reason or another (who all still secretly love him), while not paying child support even though your family's loaded, and eventually impregnating a 5th much younger girl by the end of the film, is a humorous subject, that goes way too far.

It's the kind of idea that occurs to you and you dismiss for being far too insensitive (there's a dark side to creativity), I'm not sure how this film was received in Québec, but it seems to have overlooked La révolution tranquille. 

I'm not exactly in touch with prevalent trends and cultural narratives (although I love wildlife and football), but this may be the most tone deaf film that's ever been presented as a merry bellwether. 

In the 1950s, or long ago when westerns dominated the market, in film and television and novel alike, perhaps Au revoir le bonheur would have been well-received.

When men and only men decided everything and the patriarchy adjudicated with irate prejudice. 

I know there are other things happening in the film, but trying to create a loveable endearing cad with absolutely no awareness of consequence or responsibility (even if such things are annoying), even after it's happened twice, three times, four times, who can't even remember his children's names and loses track of them when he's in charge, is a blind horrendous nauseous infantilism that isn't even fit for the worst trash comedy.

I liked Starbuck like many others but that wasn't nearly as definitively offensive. 

It's presented like a Disney movie with challenges and endemic daring.

I like a lot of oddball stuff.

Assuming there's still conscious sympathy. 

*The pandemic's produced worse. 

Arsenault & Fils (Arsenault & Sons)

The patriarchy's up to its old tricks again, this time in Rafaël Ouellet's Arsenault & Fils, wherein which a family of ruthless poachers is thoroughly and counterintuitively whitewashed.

Think of all the families who play by the rules to maintain healthy animal populations. The Arsenault's poach so much that sometimes nothing's left for their neighbours during hunting season. A lot of woodland people can save heavily on their winter grocery bills if they're able to harvest a deer or moose from such a population. But if some rogue family of jackasses shoots everything in the nearby forest (while claiming kinship with nature) including curious bears there's nothing left for thrifty locals to catch. The Arsenault's don't even keep the meat for themselves or distribute it to their community.

They sell it to far off restaurants. 

And when the heat's on they dump it in the forest.

It's basic math, well-meaning bright people have created a system to manage the hunt, and ensure it continues for generation after generation, just as long as you don't fucking kill everything.

As the saying goes, one family poaching for scraps is negligible.

5 million poachers will destroy a forest.

Look at Britain.

What a catastrophe. 

Although a lot of people are bringin' it back.

When we aren't supposed to be falling for the loveable family that's trying to change, while killing innocent bears and moose with high-tech weapons outside of hunting season!, a beautiful lass infiltrates the unit with hopes of bringing them down.

Undercover and at one time conscious of the adorable 4-legged residents of the forest, she witnesses several transgressions and compiles enough evidence to put them away.

But it's classic patriarchy.

In the short amount of time she's spent chillin' with the family, she's unconsciously fallen for them, especially the one who cares little for his appearance (the true patriarch needn't do anything to attract devoted beautiful mates), and she even cares for his nutjob brother.

Worried that they'll die in a confrontation with the cops, she blows her cover and ruins everything.

The writers suggesting she couldn't overcome.

Her natural dependence on lawless men.

I was so angry while watching the production team try to cultivate sympathy for such a way of life, that I thought committing myself to the animal protection squad may just be a great way to live.

I have lots of ideas like that though and I don't know if I'm ruthless enough for the job.

It'd be nice to save animal lives though.

Wish the UN paid more attention.  

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

Geez Louise.

The spirit of the '90s lives on.

It hasn't been replaced by some mad bigoted dysfunctional totalitarian complex.

Writers and directors still seeking a reasonable balance amongst the levels harmoniously sustained with heartfelt respect.

Racist discrimination isn't dominating.

Neither is elitist pretension. 

In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, posthaste, which holds a coveted place within the mass market, and is theoretically quite influential in terms of meaningful intergalactic liberty.

Within an ingenious megalomaniac seeks to reinvent ye olde planet Earth, with genetically modified animals, but the results are not utopian (Chukwudi Iwuji as The High Evolutionary). 

He's such a piece of shit that he doesn't try to fix the ailing society he's created, instead since it isn't ideal, he decides to utterly annihilate it.

He can't accept that the creation of a world has too many variables to cohesively caress, and that manifold multivariable mutations naturally challenge strategic planning.

You can't just destroy tens of thousands of lives if your perfect world lacks ornate distinction, that's tens of thousands of murders on your hands, if you create life, it happens to be living.

That's what he does though, that motherfucker, the Guardians fighting him along the way, while offering glimpses into Rocket's (Bradley Cooper) past, the Evolutionary's most gifted creation.

A ship is self-destructing, everyone must flee and move quickly to avoid oblivion, a voice shouts out to save the higher lifeforms at which point I thought elitism had won the day.

But an alternative voice rich with multilateral concordance soulfully contradicts it with compassionate equipoise. 

And the animals locked down upon the vessel are also freed and led to safety.

In the end, there's an awesome party which looks like it must have been fun to attend, different species from different walks of life exchanging observations and jokes and memories.

We were taught long ago way back when to value life in all its form, and not to condescendingly judge those whose grades lacked brilliant correspondence. 

Not to let them run the show but certainly to give them a salient voice, not everyone fluent in microbiology, but generally aware of ways and means.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 cherishes life and celebrates community, regardless of I.Q or test scores, or biological resiliency.

In a wild unpredictable way that isn't preachy or overwrought.

I may have to pick up a copy.

Along with Avatar: The Way of Water.

🦝🐘🐻🦏🦛🦑🐄

Jules au pays d'Asha (Adventures in the Land of Asha)

It's a shame there has to be so much conflict as different groups try to inhabit the same space, mad insensitive aggrieved prejudice spoiling what could have been mutually beneficial otherwise.

Latent curiosity and shapeshifting definition steering clear of volatile absolutes, can lead to less authoritarian conviction as so many others have noted.

Less authoritarian conviction leads to less violent prescription as possibility proves multivalent and choice radiates concurrently. 

Thus, to be curious about secular orders and different faiths leads to fascination, through noteworthy respectful chronicles inquisitively investigating difference.

It's fun to imagine the divine touch illuminating each distinctive viewpoint, through natural immaterial observances characterizing piece of mind.

The traditions can be appealing as they provide industrious links, stretching thousands of years into the past, direct connections to extant history.

Applicability to cultural mutations and newfound initiatives scientifically spearheaded, perhaps lead to doctrinal adjustments which celebrate difference and transformation.

You wonder why books stopped being added to sacred texts as if the ancient world had monopolized spirituality, suspicious how divine inspiration has been sharply dismissed forever after since then.

Scientific observations of the heating planet do rationally suggest, that sustainable stewardship of global environments will lead to a less disastrous future.

Perhaps thousands of years ago when technology was rather primitive, and the wild was still imposing and seemed like a limitless potent hostility, the desire to cultivate and criticize it predominantly spread across the land, especially noting habitual plagues and many frustrating incurable ailments, nature must have seemed at times quite daunting to ancient researchers. 

Yet there were also thousands of years when people around the world lived harmoniously with nature, and reciprocal symbiosis drove renewable extents!

I suppose if the fossil fuel age comes to a sudden end and no alternative technologies emerge to replace it, the likelihood of an embrace of nature will be nautically necessitated. 

Perhaps with adaptations and a much less wild and reckless impetus, the loss of such a multidimensional society enough to humble even the most self-serving autocrat.

Back to travelling by boat, ye olde steam engines, bikes, and blacksmiths. 

Things are so expensive in Canada and Québec nowadays it's not like there's much opportunity to travel interprovincially anyways.

Cool film.

*It's not just groceries. Let's look at gas that hasn't gone back down to pre-pandemic levels either. 

Blackberry

Don't really know what to make of this film.

I know it was awesome when blackberries were huge and a Canadian company was performing exceptionally well internationally. I know we excel with minerals and potash and maple syrup and wheat, but a huge tech sensation, that was something new for me (more so than the Canadarm). 

I imagine there are thousands of new innovations being made in Canada every year by crafty individuals, blackberry just generated more media attention, and took on companies like Apple.

Could you have had the iPhone without Research in Motion?

Probably. I imagine someone would have invented something similar around the same time regardless, but trying to make something even more impressive than the Blackberry may have driven dynamic creative iPhone progenitors.

The film closely follows the paths of RIM's ambitious CEOs, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) who spearheaded the design, and Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) who was able to market it.

As their prominence grows they both become consumed by power, Lazaridis losing his relatable cool (and cancelling Movie Night!), Mr. Balsillie transforming into a megalomaniac. 

The co-founder who questioned Balsillie's methods gets away with a lucrative sum (Matt Johnson [who also directed] as Doug), and he's right, when you're working insane hours it's things like Taco Tuesday or Movie Night that make the job worthwhile. I don't know how many books and articles have to be written about the subject, it's pizza and jazz that make jobs fun.

And they make you want to work harder, make me want to work harder anyways, it's like working in Montréal, you work super hard during the day to build up the economy, and then prosper after hours with the amazing night life.

I liked how Blackberry the film suggests that sending RIM's manufacturing jobs to China ruined the company. I don't know if that's just something that made the truth based story more coherent, but the more jobs we keep in Canada and Québec the better.

I've heard about companies wanting to set up shop in Canada and Québec precisely because our population's so educated. With mass education you create a bright people that can handle complex tasks and intricate interactions.

Were Balsillie and Lazaridis that brutal, did all power corrupt, perhaps, who am I to say?, the pressures they were under as presented in the film were extraordinary, but that's no excuse for alienating and abandoning your workforce.

I don't like how the film seems to be severely critiquing the company and poking fun about how they're not around anymore, however (I love the CBC, but blackberries didn't have government funding).

I've heard it's 10 times harder to live the American dream in Canada.

For a short time period, RIM made it happen.

Wish Blackberry was still around. Those were cool times.

The more jobs kept in Canada and Québec the better!  

*Heard they had AC/DC at their Christmas party one year. I don't know if that's true. But imagine that. AC/DC at a private party in Kitchener/Waterloo. I wouldn't have believed that could happen in the 1980s. 

Drinkwater

Note: I know they're fun to make fun of, but teachers have an incredibly difficult job.

They may have some time off in the summer, at Christmas, and during Spring Break, but the rest of their time is spent locked-down in a 24/7 hyper-panopticon, where they're under a communal microscope imposed by students, parents, and co-workers alike (having exponentially expanded with social media).

Most jobs have supervisors who monitor your performance, and fellow workers might say something if you have no excuse for having a really bad day, but the scrutiny teachers have to deal with is extreme, and criticisms can be difficult to shake off if ubiquitously intensified.

Not only do you have to show up and work from around 8:30am to 4, after work and on weekends you have to prepare your classes and grade tests and assignments.

All while simultaneously trying in many cases to raise a family and hold a marriage together.

In any given class, you have a variety of learners chillin' out with the A, B, and C's, you can't teach a lesson that's crazy hard, you don't want to make things ridiculously easy, and no matter what you do no matter how skilfully you level the playing field, some people will earnestly complain, but extra work for ambitious students, and compassion for those who have to take things they don't excel at in high school, can go a long instructive way, and is somewhat of an art that takes time to develop.

You also have to be A+ and recognize that you're a role model each and every day, even when you're sick or fatigued, it's an incredibly difficult job.

Easier for extroverts I imagine but not by that much.

If you're raising kids and don't teach I imagine having just one is demanding.

Some teachers are responsible for over 150 (not including their own families).

The gym coach (Alex Zahara as Mr. Babcock) in Drinkwater is presented fairly as he tries to reason with exuberant teens, but the only African American character in the film isn't, when you have limited black characters and you treat them that way, it's racist.

The main character isn't even that appealing, still around three-quarters of the way into the film I wasn't cheering for him, he finally gets it near the end and things improve, but couldn't he have had more amusing uncanny idiosyncrasies?

Sigh.

When the film isn't catering to what the production team assumes is a stock-jock scientific sympathetic market (smart writers dumbing it down by having nerdy characters obsess about beautiful women [for so much of the film]), there are moments of enticing brilliance, especially the credits, and they could make a classic film the next time out if the in-depth contemplations were the main focus of the narrative.

I imagine classic rock staples aren't that expensive to pick up for soundtracks anymore (Drinkwater plays a ton). I freakin' love classic rock and I know it still flourishes outside of Canadian cities (I don't know about the Québecois countryside). Still, there are a lot of cool contemporary Canadian and Québecois musicians as well. The Sheepdogs for instance. 

Is contemporary Canadian and Québecois music that expensive?

*Cool shout out for Penticton, B.C, anyways.

Avatar: The Way of Water

When Avatar: The Way of Water began I was initially confused.

It looked like it was going to focus primarily on revenge and reconstruct the devastating antagonisms that dominated the first film.

Of course these films are cinematic endeavours not nature documentaries, and I have to remind myself to concentrate on the difference at times to avoid sounding even more antiquated.

I was hoping the second film would expand the world presented in the original nevertheless (I didn't know anything about this film going in), and provide more insights into Pandora itself, and I was happy to see that that's what happened, as Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their family go into hiding.

They hide amongst people of the water or a tribe as knowledgeable of the sea as they are of the forest (the Metkayina), just writing that reminds me of how cool these films are, and how amazing it is that blockbusters are genuinely championing nature (I swear there's a dialogue here between Avatar and Ghibli, Kaze no tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) anyways[wish I could write that essay]).

The water people are super intense and highly critical and dismissive of those who don't know their ways, the gauntlet immediate and challenging and demanding as the new recruits adjust to their newfound codes.

The Way of Water may not be a nature documentary but it does excel as it examines tulkan and human relations, the tulkan closely resembling whales back home, I couldn't make it to Tadoussac again this summer, this film went a long ways to compensate. 

It primarily concerns a rogue tulkan who made the forbidden decision to fight back against his hunters, his kind absolutely devoted to peace and unconditionally opposed to taking a life.

Extreme hardship drove him to fight back however and members of his pod were killed in the battle, he survived but was banished forthwith for having fought back against his oppressors. 

He forms a tight bond with Jake and Neytiri's son Lo'ak (Britain Dalton) who also has trouble following rules, and who brings his case to the Metkayina who are none too fond of the outcast.

Later in the film, it's like the coolest moment ever presented in blockbuster cinema, Payakan (the outcast tulkan) joins the concluding battle between the inhabitants of Pandora and the colonizers, and makes a definitive impact.

It isn't over in 30 seconds either, it keeps going and going and going. Scene after scene of nature fighting back. So much thought, time, and care sincerely went into it.

I tell people that the best possible world would be one where there is no war and violence (what people were fighting for for most of my life before Trump), where our social structures are so cohesive that someone like Putin would never arise.

But Hitler's rise in the 1930s makes me worry about such possibilities, i.e, if someone like that does arise and no country has an army to fight them, they could effectively blitzkrieg most of Europe, and leave civilization in bitter ruins.

Thus, I advocate for the creation of potent defensive armies and their continual existence in case of such a development, Putin having proven their unfortunate need, to be kept out of the hands of bloodthirsty tyrants.

Democracy prevailed for many a decade and kept the despotic autocrats at bay.

The rise of the internet has seen them prosper again nonetheless.

These are difficult times.

I suppose that without a defensive army you could wager assimilation might eventually win back your country, like the Chinese used to do with the Mongols (Sinicization), although it takes a lot of frustration and generations to possibly work, and, imagine having to listen to those people for generations (not the Chinese, the fascist colonizers).

Geez Louise, this became far too heavy, note that I really loved Avatar: The Way of Water.

It's a really cool universe and I'm glad it's popular.

Can't wait for my next whale watching excursion. 

*It would be cool to see an Avatar film that was focused primarily on the different interrelations between the inhabitants of Pandora, like an Olympics or something, with less of a focus on colonization. 😎

John Wick: Chapter 4

The world constantly mutating as unforeseen predicaments arise and challenge, the longed for permanent uniform consistency only a computational strategic plan away.

The sure and steady undeniably preferable to intermittent chaos and flagrant eruption, if you value life and inherent stability replete with potential and equal opportunity.

Should the sure and steady contain a flexible matrix designed to multidimensionally incorporate, manifold intricate wide-ranging disciplines, civil society may indeed emerge.

Should there be stimulating opportunities to earn a disposable income and freely spend it, the intense longing for the unattainable will surely fade into jealous oblivion. 

It's difficult to say where things are headed with the rise of the autocrats and the pandemic having changed things, attempts to re-establish a steady routine fraught with haunting manufactured doubts.

Nevertheless, unhinged contemplation remains emancipated within film and books, the freeform embrace of uncanny narrative hopefully still resolute and daunting.

I suppose in my mind there's a distinction between artistic independence and the political, whereas a book that revels in unorthodox imagination doesn't risk economic turmoil.

When I champion alternatives and divergent ways and means of doing things, I'm generally referring to the artistic world where innate novelty exhilarates. 

With politics the provision of affordable food and steady employment seem of the utmost import, variety no doubt a driving force in the playful unpredictability of a diverse culture.

People at work and people at play the harmless facilitation of curious ways, when people routinely introduce chaos to the political scene because they find dynamic variety threatening, it's indeed most unfortunate, the results playing out in various stages.

It's like John Wick (Keanu Reeves) fights for respect the unwritten codes many people abide by, having been sincerely disrespected himself he introduces the chaotic element.

He just wanted to be left alone and enjoy his retirement in genuine peace.

But he possessed incomparable skill.

Worth too much to far too many.

A king without a kingdom a CEO with no business plan, just pure impeccable authentic resiliency flourishing within a democracy.

In a democracy you can disagree without being sent to prison or a re-education camp.

Respect dutifully leading to traditional argument.

Totally love this franchise.

Along with Clancy Brown cameos.

The Locksmith

The paramount temptation to freely secure fast endurable easy money, fuelling stock exotic daydreams universally across the land.

So many things to buy so many dreams so many relentless advertisements, the tantalizing independence driving meticulous freeform stacked endeavours.

We learned about advertising in school and through communal discussions way back when, and it seemed like its inherent trickery was generally acknowledged by the critical populace.

And that knowledge was leading to prudent decision making or less rash impulsive purchases, as illuminating logic cut through the uproar and exposed the dispossessing illusion.

It does seem puzzling nevertheless that ads seem to hold more sway now than ever, that even with so much education the fascinating allure can't be seen through.

Therefore, is it education's responsibility to provide a more compelling entertaining alternative, that offers a more appealing cultural collective thoroughly enhanced by constructive minds?

Entertainment has indeed been highly sought after throughout the multifarious ages, whether through discus or sculpture or car racing people have striven to find distraction.

But do they find distraction within the established narratives spearheading impossibility, or within well-reasoned objective impeti cleverly crafted through a sense of fair play?

Rationality can broker enlightenment should cynicism or sarcasm be put down, and a bonafide chill embrace of equality effectively resonate within a community.

But does rationality create more jobs and lead to a more productive impacting workforce, or is it indubitably ludicrous sweet nothings that efficiently devise economic stratagems? 

The uncertain need for ridiculous knick-knacks ephemerally available to be freely disposed of, seems rather insufficient considering, but are they more appealing to the austere alternative?

Perhaps an inquiry should be led to decide the question for ever after, does the cultivation of spontaneous shenanigans outweigh judicious practical life?

Don't countries wherein which life is much more practical and strictly governed, with less nonsense and much more reasonability, have less robust economies?

Is it possible to stop global heating while engaging in carefree initiatives?

Questions for a later hour.

Such a shame to be so serious.