The Holdovers

As Christmas approaches, a severe depressed teacher is suddenly stuck with a pressing burden, to monitor the activities and structure the days of a small group of children at a private school.

The children were left behind for unfortunate reasons their grief somewhat turgid, and to make things worse the ornery prof gives them lengthy flush days full of challenge and study.

Instinctive rebellion athletically simmers as the taut strict injustice wholeheartedly incapacitates, alcoholic coherence and ancient civilizations acerbically mustering seditious resolve. 

When the surprising introduction of chill unexpected adventurous pastimes makes itself freely known, and a former dismissive and angst-ridden parent turns a bucolic leaf and picks up his son. 

He also takes three of the other kids leaving only one student to be chastised and disciplined, the student desperately trying to contact his mom but she can't be reached at the resort where she's staying.

The resident cook still performs her duties as the Holiday Season ominously howls.

Helping the instructor try to loosen things up.

As the frustrated teenager dismally exfoliates. 

It's a traditional woeful bitter look at hard-boiled excessively critical regulations, as they gradually let go of their uptight ceremony and warmly embrace something much more public.

It reminded me of A Christmas Carol (1951) and how Scrooge had to once spend Christmas at a boarding school, until his adoring sister finally convinced their father to let him come home to celebrate together.

Imagine Scrooge the child, bright and decent, despondently stuck at school for Christmas, with Scrooge-the-elder, jaded and unfeeling, scheduling his activities throughout the day.

Scrooge vs. Scrooge the malignant metastases overtly arrayed through pomp and circumstance, slowly learning to get along as the stilted teacher incrementally lets go.

Perhaps if he'd been sent to the military academy he would have wound up more like Ebenezer, the Scrooge-like prof through an act of kindness embracing lithe spirits and altering his destiny.

Much more serious than many a light happy-go-lucky convalescent Christmas film.

That may find a lasting audience amongst the people who listen to the people whom no one ever bothers to care to listen to. 😎

Downsizing

Diseases, viruses, contagions, and plagues, having become much less common in the Western World in recent centuries, the afflicted often living long productive lives regardless, a Canadian even having recently found a way to stop cancer cells from spreading, it seems that either humanity is soberly outwitting its microbacterial/. . . foes, or they've used stealth to regroup so that they can one day deliver an unsolicited crushing biological blow, which will significantly reduce unselected populations, and make trivial obsessions seem much less monumental.

Havoc unleashed as the misperceived threat pounces.

Desperation disseminated as no cure can be found.

Heroic scientists combatting the pestilence in experimental pharmaceutical conclaves.

Subterranean realms geothermally flourishing with the spontaneous agility of a holistic labyrinthine avant-garde.

Global warming is undeniable, and taking steps to fight it paramount, and when people argue that it's too late, that we can't reverse what's already been done, I tend to think they've embraced gross ignorance to cover up their lack of transformative imagination.

Alexander Payne's Downsizing is ripe with metamorphic creativity however, even if its cute and cuddly miniaturizations wind up satirically reinstating the status-quo, the idea itself applied and collectivized literally, without much savage elaboration.

A bird attack?

Tame the ants!

I like to overlook the irrational, or find related metaphorical justifications, especially while viewing films who seem to be ironically catering to realistic pretensions which seem out of place in the prognosticative fantastic, so although the sea voyage from the airport was stretching it a bit, and could have been less dry, they were towing vodka, it still suggests that a wild credulous embrace of the unknown can generate blissful compensations, at peace in distilled waters, the compensations themselves rich inasmuch as they bask in surprisingly unfathomable depths, wherein unforeseen variables constantly tempt at play.

If you can simultaneously keep a level-head while somehow getting caught up with them.

Nothing like that happens in Downsizing though, it's more of a laid-back chill examination of how a good natured individual stoically deals with distress, his composed self-sacrifices fraught with cumbersome repercussions, which he patiently ignores with resigned saintly composure.

And humour.

A remarkable look at humble moderation and the seemingly preordained aspects of random belittling chance, Downsizing wasn't as energetic as I thought it would be, but still excelled at fomenting fortunes rich in communal longevity.

Who knows for how long?

Add more ridiculousness, harvest sequels and/or televisual applications.

A bird wouldn't actually be ridiculous I suppose.

It would seem sensational but would actually be realistic.

Restrained genius?

With Udo Kier (Konrad).

Nebraska

Stark patient self-sacrificing unconditional love idealizes David Grant's (Will Forte) compassion in Alexander Payne's laid-back Nebraska.

A road trip.

Family bonding.

Grievances aired.

Irrationality, coddled.

The film contrasts sympathetic understanding with grotesque blatant greed to generate a gentle hardboiled eccentric microbrew whose earthy hops boisterously blend with its down-home sense of whispered wonder.

Drenched reprieved latent reactive emotion.

It takes a good look at honesty as several close family members state that Woody Grant's (Bruce Dern) misguided claims lack sanity, yet due to their enriched aggrandizing interests they're treated as cold hard facts regardless nonetheless.

These interrelations produce a series of depressingly comic wisps.

The aesthetic modestly criticizes while humbly elevating aspects of rural life and formulates a fecund quaint sterility which gymnastically disables pretentious categorical judgments.

The film seems laid-back and calm even while characters express themselves aggressively but you don't achieve this kind of distinct reflective vacant simplicity without meticulously focusing upon its underlying romance.

Great ending.

Great film.

The Descendants

An Hawaiian lawyer's textbook life is adulterously disrupted after his wife has a boating accident rendering her comatose and their eldest daughter reveals the secrets of her infidelities. Her coma forces him to take an active role in the rearing of their two daughters to whom he has remained patriarchally aloof for most of their lives. His family is incredibly wealthy however his relatives have squandered most of their fortune and hope to sell off 25,000 acres of coastal land holdings in order to continue to support their lavish lifestyles. He is the sole trustee of the family trust which controls the land and has the final say in how it is managed.

Alexander Payne's The Descendants follows him closely as he gets to know his children, seeks to meet his wife's love interest, and decides what to do with his family's inheritance. As much of an exploration of shock as it is an examination of improvisation, the knowledge Matt King (George Clooney) relies upon to ensure his success in the legal realm finds itself curiously deconstructed when confronted with that of the domestic.

As he struggles to comprehend.

Acknowledging that the cookie-cutter approach to living has its share of unforeseen non-transmissible calisthenics, he still finds a means through which to visualize permanence. Less a reflection on the self-absorbed behaviour that results in partners seeking attention elsewhere than a thorough elevation of frugality, void of risk, The Descendants offers scene upon scene of pristine Hawaiian imagery without making them seem beautiful.

Not turning 25,000 acres of coastal land into a resort because you believe some wilderness areas should be protected from commercial development for future generations would be beautiful. Not turning 25,000 acres of coastal land into a resort because you believe its permanence represents your smug superiority is not beautiful.