The Flash

If I could travel through time I know precisely where I'd go. I'd find the name of the Captain who found the secret ocean hideaway of the eels, and discover a way to steer his ship off course, before the fateful day when he ecstatically fractured.

Before then, eels had a great thing going on, who would have guessed anyone would ever find them, far off in the middle of the ocean, their realm safe for thousands of millennia (it's technically more like salmon if I remember correctly, they return to a spot in the Atlantic every year where they breed, and then head out once again). 

However, the Flash discovers he can travel through time in a recent film bearing his name, and after he voyages to the past to save his mom, the world he once knew is changed forever.

Not technically changed forever, he can continue to travel through time to fix it, but it's kind of like the Kurtwood Smith two part episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Year of Hell, you can constantly alter time, but never find a perfect match for what you once knew (it's a cool episode).

It's also kind of like Marvel's Spider-Man: No Way Home where the different franchises merge as one, as the Flash enters an alternate reality where Michael Keaton still plays Batman.

For those of us who are rather annoyed when studios find new actors to play familiar characters, rather than sticking with the favourites their fans know and love, this mélange is quite intriguing, or at least it is to me anyways. 

Perhaps in an alternate timeline eels themselves have superpowers, and are capable of breathing on land, a defensive armada sinking any ship which approaches their lair!

With the Flash D.C takes on the Multiverse as well in death-defying multilateral fashion, as they also did in Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Star Trek: The Next Generation's Parallels.

I've started to wonder about stray thoughts about the bizarro contemplations that occur from time to time, it's okay because they're just random thoughts right?, but what if they exist in another dimension!?

Contemporary science seems a long ways off from definitively answering that question, although I have stumbled upon another cool book idea, without ever having meant to do so.

Are coincidences like The Flash's special moments which occur regardless in every single timeline, a point that doesn't make much sense when logically scrutinized, especially considering intuitive mutation.

The multiverse makes for compelling fiction nevertheless disputed points harnessing its synthetic prowess.

To narrativize exponentially.

Without losing limitless oceanic sights.  

*I actually had two coincidences on a walk today. I was thinking about how it was nice to see a fisher last year, but how I would have rather seen chipmunks and red squirrels regularly (they were absent from the forest for much of the year). Then I suddenly saw a red squirrel, which was cool. Around here I don't see them that often. Then I was thinking about making a smoothie and my thoughts strayed to ye olde Booster Juice. After which I immediately saw a Booster Juice bottle on the path. I was surprised, arrived home, made a smoothie.

Black Moon

If you're wondering how old school independent filmmakers used to envision alternative realities without computerized special effects, Louis Malle's Black Moon is a stunning working example.

Unless you want something lighter.

Cherished freedoms have been ravaged by fanatical elements violently spreading wanton destruction, as a terrified individual drives through the countryside intent on discovering sanctuary.

(I do not mean that the quarantine is something negative that is taking away freedoms. People are fighting a war in Black Moon. The quarantine is necessary to stop the spread of a virus that is killing thousands around the world. It's hard to spend so much time at home, but by staying at home you're saving lives).

To avoid the rage of trigger happy goons, she quickly swerves off the road, emerging in cloistered environs, fully-equipped with a grouchy unicorn.

Things seem real enough, or as if reality is traditionally composed, but as she spends more time freely exploring, things become more and more wild and creepy.

It's as if her perceptual awareness is attuned to the wrong potent frequency, unaccustomed to bizarro differences, which the residents clearly perceive.

She reacts with energetic confusion as she attempts to reasonably comprehend, acclimatizing to non-verbal communications, learning to speak with animals.

Perhaps Louis Malle rather disliked Disney's Alice in Wonderland, for Black Moon lacks its childish wonder, or at least depicts it somewhat obtusely, like it's been left outside in the cold.

Then again, perhaps Disney's Alice was frightening to many of the children who saw it, it does abound with inherent conflict, and phantasmagoric foundations.

From my middle-aged 21st century perspective, I don't find Black Moon that frightening, or at least not as haunting as Audition or Midsommar, it's not as intent on terrifying.

But if I had been raised in the fifties it may have indeed promoted despair, as Lily (Cathryn Harrison) encounters baleful beasties, and embraces disorientation.

I'm not sure if it should be classified as horror although the designation could snuggly fit, but it's perhaps beyond classification, as it transforms every time you view it.

It certainly lacks romance, or isn't enchantingly disposed, intertextual bedtime bedlam, like a fable without moral or lesson.

It tells its tale without ornate orchestration, without much statistical entitlements, creating unique innovations thereby, that leave a lasting impact.

With no concern for uplifting spirits, apart from an ethereal classical soirée, it by no means seeks happy endings, and seems to absurdly inter them.

Perfect for Halloween.

For considerations of low budget sci-fi.

Unorthodox strange elementals.

Acts of inspired independence.