Penguin Bloom

Tragedy strikes a loving family on an adventurous trip to foreign lands, as a wooden railing suddenly breaks and then leads to partial paralysis.

Mrs. Bloom (Naomi Watts) is none too impressed and struggles to adjust to immobile life, her husband and children also uncertain as to how to convalescently proceed.

One day at a time piecemeal slowly developing compensating characteristics, the shocking disheartening unknown tumultuously traversed resiliently reconciled.

But there's a long natural stasis throughout which catalyzed incentives fail to materialize, ineffable qualms maddening frustrations routine resignation nihilistic necessity.

Until one day little Noah (Griffin Murray-Johnston/Essi Murray-Johnston) brings home an injured bird, who was in the sights of a hungry lizard before he was miraculously saved.

The magpie is criticized at first due to its wild habitual shenanigans, but as time passes his industrious resonance endearingly charters soulful serenity.

Mrs. Bloom grows less weary and even takes on kayaking, and as her children joyously revel in her recrudescence, the magpie gradually learns to take flight.

It's a charming heartfelt enlightened illustration of resurgent life, a family coming to terms with calamity as newfound hope rapturously reckons.

It doesn't whitewash the depression nor overlook the corresponding despondency, the resultant gritty reanimate life all the more compelling in its vital complexity.

The fam is patient and understanding and they progress as a supportive team, friends stopping by to altruistically aid through the art of cohesive community.

Penguin Bloom also excels at heuristically highlighting the tender benefits of resplendent pets, who spiritually heal downtrodden fortunes as they effortlessly bark, mew, and wag.

Or chirp in this airborne instance in Penguin's caring awkward stride, how did they accumulate so many cute scenes?, at times I thought Penguin was a robot (say "no" to pet robots!).

Cool to see Naomi Watts back at it she shows up in so many cool films, an impressive diverse array of characters snuggly embowered in eclectic environs. 

I think she deserves more recognition, she's performed so well in so many films, unless she's happy doing the independent thing, throw in Hawke and Dern imagine the Criterion!

Penguin Bloom's pretty cool too, Netflix is rockin' it, so good to see.

Nice to see hopeful family films sometimes, especially when they integrate animal friends. 

O necem jiném (Something Different)

A housewife struggles with a dull routine fully equipped with ceaseless labour, her husband lacking natural empathy as he plays a traditional role.

Her son's a handful and makes things worse as he tries to assist throughout the day, his habitual playful headstrong mischief encouraging disillusion.

Another woman constantly trains to remain the world's preeminent gymnast, her resilient daring in/flexibility haughtily admired by her earnest trainer.

Her life is sheltered and strictly focused driven by determined excellence, lacking holistic variety yet irrefutably established. 

Director Vera Chytilová juxtaposes their lives to examine distraught vigour, each path overflowing with poise but only one rich in reward.

The husband's a piece of work who stubbornly applies unimaginative blueprints, which structure everything to his advantage as he consistently ignores her.

He's having an affair but so is she, she breaks free from the callous bondage.

Her lover rather frustrated.

As she thoroughly disregards him.

Different extremes converge and complement as feminine strength consults, contends, no rest and relaxation, no sympathetic trends.

It seems to me that if you're lucky enough to have someone who supplies you with meals and a tidy pad, you should at least listen and pay attention to them at the end of the working day.

They rigorously do the work for you out of love and devout commitment, is it that hard to engage in conversation or acknowledge the heartfelt effort?

Isn't it important to get to know someone you're spending that much time with, to develop multiple open-ended narratives that creatively transform throughout your life?

They probably love you too which makes conversation so much easier, something that doesn't require earnest effort or careful planning or years of study.

Love isn't something to be dismissed or ignored or taken for granted, shouldn't it be evocatively cultivated through wondrous warmth and passion?

It isn't in O necem jiném (Something Different) and the results are generally bland (not the film itself), a life devoid of pith or colour controversial blasé strands.

Make life a beach just by caring and perhaps something epic will emerge.

Throw on the gear for a feisty dip.

BBQ.

Frolic.

Domicile conjugal (Bed & Board)

A young married couple creatively engages with their community, who's as lively as they are entertaining, fluid interactive inquisitive high spirits.

The film's set in a chill inner-city neighbourhood wherein which personality abounds, and characters work in alternative disciplines, as nothing passes by unnoticed.

Everything's intriguingly unorthodox inasmuch as the characters aren't career oriented, and are still living active productive lives, rich in constantly shifting locomotion.

The story's focused on the young married couple and their struggles to continuously cohabitate, both partners verbosely articulated, capable of aptly uplifting what have you.

It's a remarkable script overflowing with compelling detail and multiple swift nuanced characters, it's so quick and thoughtful it commands your complete attention, critically assailing if you should ever turn away.

The subject matter's refreshing and captures flourishing discourse in motion (book titles, staircases, loans, parking tickets), comments and observations emphatically resound, with random pertinent reflective ebullient life, interlocked through versatile direction.

The plot does steer into sleaze at times and I think the film would have been stronger without the affair, but it seems like Truffaut sought to stultify infidelity, I'm not sure if the results are Me Too.

I wonder what it would have been like if there had been no controversial drama, no traditional plot elements, just communal reverberations?

Can't a multifaceted collection of comical characters and situations just co-exist without something drastic, working and conversing and living without serious game changing invention?

The thoughts and ideas can diversify themselves without having to alter their terrain.

They keep flowing perspicaciously throughout.

But slowly take on a specified logo.

Domicile conjugal (Bed & Board) isn't a grad school seminar, loosely based on a fluctuating theme, but I'd argue it starts out that way, and may have been more impressive if left unrestrained.

Perhaps having multiple conflicting yet complimentary points judiciously interspersed throughout dialogue in flux can make a more meaningful impact, insofar as so much expression cultivates serendipity, which can generate romantic syntax?

If having a predominant point is oft presumed as a crucial essential, when so much life unwinds at random, perhaps manifold eclipsed ideas reflect something more realistic, that boldly suggests je ne sais quoi?

It seems like so much life's a case study where you have to find the principal cause.

This is very important when developing vaccines.

But not as integral to the arts or cinema.

Domicile conjugal's still a masterpiece of urban intensity which brings an irresistible community to life.

Do filmmakers ever go one step further?

Slacker!

Slacker immediately comes to mind!

*Perhaps when developing vaccines you have to search for contemporaneous elements? I don't know much about vaccine development.

Roma

I don't think I've ever seen a film with so many long scenes depicting active lives lived enriched with such vivid detail.

They aren't as multifaceted as those found at the beginning of Truffaut's La Nuit Américaine or Robert Altman's The Player or Orson Welles's Touch of Evil, but they continue to illustrate throughout the entire film and create a visually stunning communal aesthetic thereby, without moving, without moving hardly at all.

It's like Roma has thought provoking characters but they're secondary to the scene, the setting, the environment, like they're a part of a larger world, something much more subtle than that they're enveloped within, subtle yet pervasive, its predicaments and accidents adding pronounced depth without diagnosing psychology, as if their personalities are changing and growing within a fluid diverse realm whose endemic features encourage comment sans judgment, like the world's too vast to be analytically classified, and laissez-faire semantics breach like relaxed ontologies.

Living within.

Held together by a family's nanny (Yalitza Aparicio as Cleo) and the difficulties that arise after she discovers she's pregnant, a support network securely in place which is severely contrasted by blunt negligence, Roma follows her as she takes care of a family while trying to start one of her own, chaotic embodiments of structure ignoring her gentle inquiries.

The urge to classify, to make definitive political sense of life so that one can practically attach theoretical logic to their behaviour and be consequently rewarded or punished, depending on how virtuously they're deemed to have acted, functions like haunting destructive shackles within, inasmuch as it's speculatively associated with dogma, dogma which attempts to clarify, curtail, and control, violently, rather than existing symbiotically in peace.

Cleo's love interest Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) is therefore given an extended self-absorbed scene where he demonstrates his prowess, its stark lack of detail, its animated ferocious thrusts, bluntly contrasting the otherwise curious more robust less volatile shots, as if to intimate shocking austere extremities.

It's not the codes themselves that ironically produce chaos, it's the rigid discriminate attempts to puritanically follow them, even in situations where they clearly don't fit, and make others follow them, or classify others who don't follow them as undesirable, monitoring everyone at all times to make sure they're following them, bellicosely asserting them when faced with opposition, that make extremist variations on composed ethical themes like the ones found in Roma so terrifying.

Roma's a patient thoughtfully cultivated poised undulating ethos, whose undefined compassionate caresses humbly lament tragic imagination.

Calmly blending the search for meaning with unrehearsed existence, it finds purpose through improvisation, and critiques determinate codes.

Reminded me of Solaris.

Juliet, Naked

A long-term relationship, once overflowing with amorous bounty, has fallen into a state of blind extraction, one partner remaining guiltless as the other pans and prospects, crass dismissive routine having disenchanted glib absorption.

Duncan Thomson (Chris O'Dowd) is quite successful for someone who's become even more enamoured with the music of his youth as he's aged, a rare highly-specialized peculiarity who's found both stimulating employment and an irresistible mate without having to adjust his lifestyle, at all, like an uncompromised established radical nerd god I suppose, who may have been diagnosed autistic if he hadn't learned to tame distracting obsessions, level-headed if not unique, examining non-Dickensian media pedagogically throughout the day.

Annie Platt (Rose Byrne) is also a success yet puts up with more bullshit than most women I know would for five minutes. She's spent too many years acquiescing and it's unfortunately resulted in stalemate.

When suddenly, as if a rival divinity decided to mystify his or her earthly spiritual contemporaries, she writes a critical review of the artist Duncan fetishizes, and shortly thereafter, that very same singer/songwriter, one Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), makes first intuitive contact.

Crowe's soon visiting town after attending an hospitable family reunion close by (he's from the States and Annie lives in Britain), and the two hit it off even though/because they're both rather charmingly unsure of themselves.

Multiple characters offering myriad commentaries accompany them as they exchange goods, stewing an atypical bourgeois pot roast of sorts which narratively generates free-flowing conceptual sustenance.

From Annie's worldly lesbian sister (Lily Brazier as Ros Platt) to her town's mayoral sensation (Phil Davis as Mayor Terry Barton) to the subject of an old school photograph (Ninette Finch) to Tucker's thoughtful son Jackson (Azhy Robertson), an active international urbanely pastoral assertive inoffensive multigenerational cluster thoughtfully protrudes, constant flux radiating concerted solitude, domestic clutches loosening vows seized.

Unmarried vows.

Whatever.

The main characters aren't one-dimensional pin-ups either, evolving crises and resurgent settlements interrogatively finagling initial semantic outlines, as a matter of psychological flexibility openly conciliated, in spite of pretence recalled.

Tucker Crowe isn't ideal or anything, but he's changed and is much more responsible than he used to be.

Breakdowns still regularly accompany his daily regimen, often brought on by legitimate grievances cunningly wielded by jaded yet prosperous former lovers.

Wives, partners, fans.

Children he's never met.

Duncan is a bit of a douche but you still feel for him when Crowe bluntly and insensitively ignores his questions, even if from Crowe's point of view he's that guy.

Juliet, Naked is a laidback multilayered serious comedic piece of exceptional screenwriting (Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins), convincing personalities innocently/frankly/charitably/maturely/helplessly/judiciously observing otherworldly circumstances, while remaining committed to personal affairs which romanticize anaesthetic sensation.

Dozens of cool little ideas and points of view expertly weaved into a funny unconcerned profound teacup tapestry.

It doesn't acknowledge how ridiculous it all sounds.

Adroitly so.

I'll keep coming back to the hospital scene again and again, which was much too short.

Perfectly timed ending though.

Birthmarked

Two brilliant scientific lovebirds decide it's time to prove, once and for all, that the strategically planned nurturing of children can void natural dispositions, three unsuspecting young ones deliberately chosen for their experiment, unaware of their historical familial traits, ready to grow up embowered in predetermined invariability, secluded in the country far away from constant distraction, homeschooled with amorous calculation, in Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais's Birthmarked, wherein science observes with religious fervour.

A family blooms within the carefully constructed unabashed bucolic laboratory, as two brothers and a sister innocently contend with that which remains unknown, mom and dad stubbornly sticking to the prepped script, hilarity ensuing, as youth spontaneously intervenes.

Malheureusement, if the desired results are not obtained, Catherine (Toni Collette) and Ben (Matthew Goode) must reimburse their patron for every dollar he's spent financing them, and everything that's taken place has been meticulously recorded by live-in Nanny Samsonov's (Andreas Apergis) weekly summaries, and another family from Portugal seems close to publishing their comparable results first, thus, as the pressure exponentially aggrandizes, psychological stabilities contiguously implode.

Bizarro intellectual contraceptive schematics.

Yet also an endearing comedy.

Nourished in a state of nature.

Disciplined in/sincere curiosity.

The parents aren't horrible or anything, but they do use questionable methods as time runs out.

Raising someone in isolation doesn't prove anything anyways.

In regards to living, you have to let complex organisms develop immersed in the unexpected to obtain results that have even the remotest chance of being spread far and wide.

Or so I've thought.

A tiger is generally a ferocious animal.

If you remove it from the jungle and beat it mercilessly it will either die or start to perform tricks for you.

But if you monitor it in the jungle throughout its life you can obtain untainted results.

The tiger left alone to its own devices.

Natural and free.

Unencumbered by prediction or shock therapy.

Birthmarked isn't about tigers, it's about science gone wrong in its quest for objective truth.

Fortunately, it's generally okay if a scientific experiment doesn't achieve miraculous results.

It goes without saying that science is about the slow and steady application of generally agreed upon principles which are constantly scrutinized themselves in order to maximize the universal applicability of its discoveries.

Funding scientific experiments which must produce results is bullshit.

Birthmarked recognizes this and therefore doesn't seem insane while focusing too intently on the adults at the expense of the children.

Novel to see such a narrative reflected through a comedic lens which elevates independent scientific research with no strings attached, since its subject matter so easily applies itself to drama, fantasy, and horror.

Yet by proceeding comedically, the other three genres still generate critical combustions, as formal narrative diversification examines experimental contents.

Strange film.

Tully

Exhaustion complicates a dedicated mother's life as neverending chores, responsibilities, and appointments demand too much of her limited time.

It's tough to pay attention, secondary tasks remain unfinished, it's difficult to swiftly recall precise details, and sleep beckons with tempting uncompromised reverie.

She takes care of business, she's tough, creative, dependable, reliable, Tully empathetically and realistically characterizing resilient motherhood while emphasizing that Marlo (Charlize Theron) could use a break without suggesting she can't take care of it.

Then, as the clouds disperse and the heavens burst forth with luminous starlit magnanimity, a nanny is hired to manage her household during the night, reprieved, so that she can catch up on that sleep, clad in peaceful angelic dreams cheerfully composed with reflective serenity.

Or, pyjamas, love that word, the industrious Tully (Mackenzie Davis) still fully charged by the carefree energy unconsciously sustained throughout one's twenties, seemingly effortlessly excelling beyond Marlo's highest expectations, agilely working throughout every nocturnal moment, mindfully crafting with spontaneous endearing glee.

It's win-win-win-win.

The best character I've seen introduced midway through in a while.

Tully.

Rich with thought compelling interpersonal detail convincingly narrativized with multitudinous emotional commitment, like an unpretentious bourgeois folk band reflecting upon family life, it intergenerationally synthesizes to produce joyous rhythms, before unfortunately succumbing to dire judgmental decree.

I suppose a lot of storytelling tends to include a traumatic ending which hauntingly calls into question everything that has previously taken place, in Tully's case it seems as if the story is saying that it's fine for Tully to imagine a role she might play in the future, but foolish for Marlo to decide to revisit her past, but it was such an uplifting film before the final fifteen minutes or so, so uplifting I don't see why things suddenly became morbidly intense.

They could have just kept chillin'.

Still a wonderful film though, my favourite moments condemning a school that would harshly judge a child so young (solid John Hughes), and discussing the checks and balances occasionally associated with socializing post-29, Mackenzie Davis and Charlize Theron work well together and their conversations are full of lively invention, several deep characters diversify a shallow pond with flora and fauna and sun and shade that tantalizingly makes you wish you could symbiotically camp nearby, a thoughtful well-written, directed and acted comedic drama that I'd love to see again, bold print brainiac style.

Pioneering off the beaten track.

Huggable.

The Girl on the Train

Woebegone coy wailing whispers, loves lost unavailing misters, crescents incoherent past, conjuring disclosed the tracks exacting causal punishments, the unignored passions hellbent mystery steeping pains in bellowed seemingly surficial celloed, instinct buried deep beneath each crushing dipsomanic beat, could she clue in expressly solve and vindicate romantic sprawls?

Wherewithal.

Consensual adulterous ramifications haunting Tom (Justin Theroux) and Anna's (Rebecca Ferguson) marriage, his ex-wife Rachel (Emily Blunt) obsessively views the putters of the wealthy suburb where she once happily lived as she passes by on the train every morning, like a saturated classics scholar trying to piece together the activities of an ancient civilization based solely upon tantalizingly loose scattered fragments, it soon becomes apparent that she has seen something, although it will take some fecund fogcutting to find out if she has indeed taken note.

Panoramic puzzling.

Cross worded deluge.

Tate Taylor's The Girl on the Train sounds comedic but is in fact deadly serious.

Tensions gradually increase as the baffled slowly fit the pieces together, jilted jigsawing jousts in stark rendition, autumnal auspicious reminiscence, engendered through firm resolve.

Acrimony.

Tenderness.

The film's well-structured, deftly integrating seemingly innocuous lives to suspensefully prepare you for myopic innocence with scenes that prevaricate in probability.

Multiple characters skilfully intertwined as Rachel's ride proceeds bush tag.

Hokey at points and Rachel's conclusion could have been lengthier.

Traditional comments on marital infidelity chimed.

Infatuated caprice.

Destructive blind ceremony.

Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising

Ambience.

New beginnings.

The Radner family continues to shed light on erroneous child rearing trials, practices, reflexively adapting to unpredictable circumstances with cohesive charm and salacious whimsy.

But another flock of rambunctious young adults is intent on wantonly expressing themselves next door, a blossoming sorority playing by their own rules to un/consciously break new emancipatory ground, unconcerned with the fact that Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) are trying to sell their home, convivially coached by arch rival Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron).

Who's let go shortly thereafter.

Conflicted and forlorn, finding solace on the opposing team.

The result is a rushed collection of combative criticisms, relationship constructs, implausible rationalizations, and bold active dreams, dreams clashing as they seek definitive realization, the film heavy on good intentions, light on aerobic integrations.

Sloppy sequel.

On the one hand, there's a progressive element which depicts young women trying to succeed by asserting themselves using non-traditional means (that's cool), unfortunately relying on a man to start things up, on the other there's the typical sophomoric approach that utilizes tried and true marketable probabilities to sell the film, although sex isn't one of the main selling points.

The opposition doesn't blend well.

Like reading the newspaper on the toilet, Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising doesn't really progress even if moving forward's built into the narrative and it never slows down to encourage reflection, conflicting lifestyles producing some laughs, but still lacking the lubricants that irritably fuelled the original.

Even if it's a carbon copy.

Efron steals the show.