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.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Seemingly eccentric fey dissimulated nuances underscore the symphonically seminal seductive Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his offbeat orchestrations xylophonically zephyring crazed ritzy zigzags, since, you see, he's aware, he's aware, he's aware of woebegone wizarding wilt as stern and dismissive as ridden-stricked guilt, stilted passionless unyielding observant trusts, where difference remains shunned, locked-up in cuffs, hufflepuffed heart a beating in menagerie, secreting repleting so dissidently, to see attitudes change having decoded blunders, a transmuted sideline's reformed as a wonder!

In thunderous.

Zoology.

I doubt Queen Hatshepsut encountered such disdain.

And don't really know if he hopes to start a zoo. Or, a, magizoo.

Sigh.

Nonetheless, globe trotting in search of versed beasties, Scamander lands in New York heading west.

But his briefcase disappears, is accidentally switched with another, some of its residents escaping into feisty urban playgrounds.

He's also arrested by a disgraced auror (Katherine Waterston as Tina) with whom he eventually strikes up a friendship along with her nurturing sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) and a curious flabbergasted muggle (Dan Fogler as Kowalski).

Before he can stun the wizarding world with his dashing discoveries however, he must first find his tacit treasures and prevent a newfound obscurus (Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone)(a destructive force created when a magical child's gifts are violently suppressed) from joining forces with a wicked exclamation (Colin Farrell as Graves).

All the while NewYork's magical community manoeuvres to hide their existence from suspecting No-Mages (American muggles), who are afraid of their tremendous gifts, and hope to see them enervatingly exposed.

A bit of a pickle.

Spiked X-Men style.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them impresses as it expands Harry Potter lore.

Demonstrating that Rowling and Yates can keep delivering fresh thoughtful and entertaining narratives which provide hungry fans with fertile feasts even if they don't involve Harry Potter, it enticingly develops new characters with innocent depth and capably composes multilevelled meritorious measures (ethics, politics, the individual, the general, the new, the newt . . .).

Apart from the ruminations regarding war between muggles and magicians.

That is way way X-Men and seemed somewhat too grandiose, too tacked-on for a story about Newt Scamander.

These are epic times!

And the collective mindwash is so Jupiter Ascending.

Eddie Redmayne may currently be my favourite actor, his commanding poise and dignity subtly electrifying animated eccentricities.

Undeniably.

Note: I would have added at least 10 minutes to the exploration of Scamander's domain and an additional cheesy scene near the end where he romantically shows Tina his life's work, possibly with Queenie and Kowalski courting within as well.

Probably being saved for a sequel.

I wanted more fantastic beasts, less armageddon!

Can someone cast the independent Newt Scamander American Honeyesque spell?

Quickly, before there are 6 more big budget end-of-the-world blowouts!

Is working at a University really that tumultuous?

For heaven's sake!

Django Unchained

Easy to write about this film it is not.

I heard Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) quoting Nietzsche during an episode of The Big Bang Theory the other night, and his point considered morality to be a barrier which prevents truly 'great' persons from attaining their full potential, since it requires that they conform to the standards adopted by common people. I tend not to see it that way myself. It seems to me that morality is often denied common people, depending on their financial circumstances, and, due to the significant economic advantages attained by the überwealthy, and the accompanying capitalistic social reverence, that morality is reserved for plutocrats and oligarchs, at least in terms of settling legal disputes (I don't know which thinker to attribute this idea to so I'm going with Leonard [Johnny Galecki]). There's a lot more to it than that, but this can obviously be frustrating and it's within this disenfranchised brutal frustrating ethical frame that Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained cataclysmically reacts, his undeniable parageneric ingenuity once again limitlessly unleashed, although not as consistently as it has been in the past.

The same incomparable skill for creating iconic heroes and villains is at work, and since nothing is held back, both sides accumulate plenty of critical ammunition, accentuated by his requisite offbeat sensational ludicrous treacherous altruistic asymmetrical logical arsenal, although some of the (crackpot) theories, phrenology for instance, could have possibly been left out altogether.

Giving a voice to such ugly historical phenomenons and making that voice extremely detestable causes the theories themselves to come across as reprehensibly as they should, and it's not like racist lunatics don't still blindly believe in them; and applying restraints to the exhibition of ideas is anti-democratic, although such ideas themselves are extremely anti-democratic and are still being virtuosically displayed.

It's a bit unsettling.

The resultant graphic constant death also unsettles while begging a comparison to several prominent cartoons which regularly use such devices.

Organized fighting and sports are obviously going to be violent and provide a necessary supervised outlet for such tendencies.

It's the constant graphic choreographed extended hopeless brutality that sets Django Unchained (and Archer and South Park) apart from these realities, offering a sadistic carnal sick ostentatious fantasy, for those who regularly act according to social conventions, yet often feel as if or are deprived of moral compensation.

I love Quentin Tarantino's films but it's tough to watch enslaved grown men fight to the death, then see another torn apart by dogs, and another almost undergo castration.

The film's lighthearted comedic dimension complicates things further.

Seven Pounds

Seven Pounds is a touching examination of the human condition. Gabriele Muccino's text speeds things up and then flattens them out in order to capture the tenderly mysterious movements of a couple falling in love. It's a film about loss as much as it is about sacrifice and Ben Thomas (Will Smith) does his best to make the most of a dire situation. Both tragic and romantic (with Woody Harrelson demonstrating unprecedented emotional depth), Seven Pounds isolates an excruciatingly painful kernel of life and gently transmits it from dimension to another.