Malone

Endurance.

Strength.

Confidence.

Reliability.

The airtight Malone sees the introduction of a hard-boiled trusted dependable soldier, who's worked covert operations for many a year and finally decided it's time to retire.

But it's a job you can't walk away from he knows too much and is much too valuable, his old school no-nonsense management team unwilling to simply let him go.

He's been in the service for decades and has finally started to find murder distasteful, even if he's taking out scurrilous atrocities he's no longer thrilled to surgically discombobulate. 

Unfortunately his car breaks down in a beautiful small town as he tries to disappear, a town which is slowly being bought up by a jingoistic millionaire with fascist dreams.

The people were initially glad when he arrived because they thought he would reopen the mine, but after he pushed so many off their land grand disillusion distressingly set in.

Malone just tries to peacefully exist but the plutocrat's goons try to push him around.

Even after they realize they're far outmatched.

Bring on the classic 1980s ending.

Malone offers an entertaining case study in different conceptions of the man's man, the one brutal and monopolizing, the other fierce but kind at heart.

With good intentions, the well-meaning man seeks integration within his community, and to peacefully exist alongside others generally seeking communal development.

He's confident and trustworthy but can still be hurt if caught off guard, diligent and steady, rigorous and bold, but not full-on invincible.

Thought to potentially be a huge dickhole by people worried he'll seek absolute control, but more attuned to mutual cooperation and the democratic rights of the individual.

Not such a bad ideal to live up to if you ever consider tempestuous codes.

A cool old school traditional action film.

Modest and endearing.

Inherently wild.

King Richard

Sheer uncompromising confidence proactively proceeds with undaunted integrity, as a father is so sure his daughters are peerless, he ignores countless established conventions as they train.

The best in the business lay it down to haplessly explain the traditional course, if you want to excel in the world of tennis, you play what are called "juniors" to prepare for the pros.

They're a series of tournaments for tenacious young players who want to improve their skills through competition, and it's through their heuristic happenstance professional aptitude efficiently emerges.

But Mr. Williams thought differently it's really remarkable what he did, he found the junior circuit so demanding and overbearing that he decided to take his girls out of it.

He was so certain that they could turn pro without competing throughout their youth, he drove some of the most knowledgeable coaches nuts as he consistently refuted their industrious know-how.

I applaud his sublime logic, he wanted his girls to have a childhood and do well in school, he didn't want them to only have tennis to look back on by the time they retired should they turn pro.

Imagine ignoring so many tried and true methods while hoping to do something even the best find next to impossible.

And have everything work out.

Your unprecedented courage rewarded.

It's like a real-life Disney film where inherent miracles nurture impeccability, where a family's guts and raw determination overcome incredible odds to become the world's best.

A parenting team aware of their potential prowess never taking no for a definitive answer, even when dozens of people tell them it's simply impossible and constantly dismiss them with words of wisdom.

So devoted to their family so aware of their unmatched talent, they persevere above and beyond even the most daring unorthodox methods.

But at the same time they want their kids to have a childhood they can pleasantly remember, one where they still chilled out and did fun things while still training to redefine the superlative.

I have to admit, I like these parenting methods, they're very holistic and reasonably balanced.

And Venus and Serena Williams did go on to become the best in the world.

This story's outstanding.

The American dream. 

*Not to mention an Oscar for Will Smith!

Holiday Camp

I'm not sure if families still engage in collective activities such as these, but in Ken Annakin's Holiday Camp, dozens of peeps gather to vacation.

They head to what is/was known as a resort where they share their accommodations, while friendly festive ceremonious synergies earnestly envelope emergent mischief.

The resort in Holiday Camp coordinates activities for its visitors, and every day new engaging experiences tempt the diverse and curious clientele. 

The Huggetts aren't immune to the celebratory serendipitous surfeits, and take the time to bask instinctually within the hyper-reactive cavalcade. 

Young adults frisk through fancy, felicitously reckon and rambunctiously fathom, attuned to the old school patriarchal discipline at one time widespread with stern imposition.

But good times could still be had within the rather more severe limitations, and romance was indeed approved of in order to propagate the next generation.

Eventually, however, not perhaps quite so intently, people at this time still awaiting what's often referred to as "marriage" before diversifying the species. 

Alternative amorous shenanigans were still amicably encouraged through habitual experimentation.

The vast majority of guests indeed quite inquisitive.

Dancing, dining adored.

There's no doubt there was once a time when the rule of men was culturally assured, and their inclinations and intuitive tendencies effectively governed beyond key or code.

Should individuals engage in scandal they were still reprimanded, respective relational responsibilities still promoted and practically conditioned.

How strange would it indubitably be to suddenly be transported to the postmodern age, and negotiate a less one-sided sociocultural continuum wherein which multifaceted peculiarities complement?

And the traditional duel or the steadfast altercation no longer held ubiquitous sway?

Would it be easier for someone from the present to transport back to the ecstatic post-war Huggett era (if not invisible), or for someone from back then to randomly materialize within contemporary Manhattan?

The answer perhaps can be found in Star Trek: The Originals Series's Mirror, Mirror.

The Huggetts still put on a good show.

Startling semantics.

Transitional tides. 

Here Come the Huggets

A different age, an alternative set of technological gizmos exalting newfound creative freedoms, a family's first concocted telephone begetting recourse grand undisciplined. 

Could it have been that there was once such a time when the queue breathtakingly persisted, and excited peeps tantalizingly awaited the heartfelt call of a friendly admirer?

Imagine the profits made in recent decades with the advent of the cellular phone, whereas families used to have one monthly bill per household they may now have one for each individual family member!

Back in the eighties (or 40s in the Huggett's case), there was usually one bill per household anyways, and if you used your minutes and long distance wisely, it wouldn't wind up costing too much.

But now if you have two or three children along with trusted cells for you and your spouse, you could be paying for many a bill indeed perhaps 5 times as much as used to be spent!

That equals astronomically higher profits for reliable service providers, throw in the requisite internet as well and the resultant sums seem theoretically absurd.

Nevertheless, Meet the Huggetts takes us back to a less interconnected day, wherein which people weren't immersed in the cheshire panopticon, assuming not everyone vigilantly kept track of the comings and scandalous goings of their surrounding inquisitive neighbours back then.

'Twas a time endearing indeed when the pressures of work and play abounded, but with jolly good resilient cheer inherent progression was outfitted accordingly.

However, one had to pay strict attention to the robust means through which incomes were generated, and toe the line with saccharine candour while at times sharing contradictory advice.

Without doing any research I'd wager Meet the Huggetts caused quite a stir in its day, and was indeed known as pervasively popular throughout what has come to be known as Great Britain.

In fact the couple, the titular Mr. Joe (Jack Warner) and Mrs. (Kathleen Harrison) Huggett both found themselves roles in Brian Desmond Hurst's A Christmas Carol (1951) shortly thereafter, and there's even a unique scene where Mrs. Harrison shares a bundle with a character named Joe. 

Back in the film, Mr. Huggett's forced to take debilitating lumps after having stuck his neck out for distant relations, the resonant injustice of determinate blame countermanding innate and temperate self-sacrifice.

An able couple notwithstanding the fluid tribulations of athletic life.

Sometimes it's fun to see cultural codes in action.

Transmitted by a film that never sought preservation.  

Shaft

Shaft (2019) presents a more traditional depiction of its iconic lead (Samuel L. Jackson), much more bellicose than that envisioned in 2000, perhaps more reminiscent of the original character.

He's moved far beyond rules and regulations, and lives according to his own proper procedure, as he investigates crime with blunt condemnation, making ends meet with radical ease.

But this time the son he left behind comes calling hot on a case (Jessie T. Usher), a daring analyst working for the F.B.I who's mild-mannered, sincerely reserved.

The endearing odd couple scenario is flexibly enhanced by bemused paternalism, as sustained stark and improvised indiscretion wildly mingles with uptight pretension. 

Shaft Jr. is trying to discover who murdered his friend after he returned from Afghanistan, his methods leading to few results while laying the groundwork for inspired investigation.

Paps turns things up a notch while thoroughly shocking his incredulous son, the danger chaotically increasing as they approach concrete definition.

Mom's none too impressed upon hearing about the unexpected rapprochement (Regina Hall as Maya Babanikos), nor by her ex's ensuing repartee on a random evening which swiftly follows.

Reunited as a family they freely dispute while fighting crime.

Even after Jr.'s kicked out of the Bureau.

John Shaft Sr. (Richard Roundtree) happy to oblige.

Shaft boisterously blends distraught anarchy with technological presumption, intergenerationally melding paradigms with impassioned deconstructive pleas.

Much more raw than Shaft (2000), I wondered how thoroughly it impressed, not that its predecessor isn't also complex, it just lacks awkward contentious fidelity.

Are action heroes like Shaft and John McClane fading into the pre-online background, as cyberspatially savvy considerate sleuths prefer brains to brawn in unprecedented shifts?

Or will a new style of clever private eye still duke it out when their favourite apps fail them, the resultant extant absurdity as ahistorically fashionable as gold or astronomy?

It's fun to watch as emergent generations productively mutate traditional varieties. 

The same family achieving similar goals.

Working together, throughout the centuries. 

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Alternative dimensions, co-existing in immaterial symbiosis, parallel narratives unconsciously confabulating interdimensional repartee, no first contact, no apparent links, nothing organically orchestrating symphonic resonance, yet conceptual substance fantastically resides, even though manifold possibilities disenchant synthetic theses, corresponding primordial corporealities existing in fluid gurgle, perhaps by accident, perhaps extrajudicially, although their ontological synergies suggest otherwise, as if they're ethereally co-dependent envirosketches.

They're clearly independent inasmuch as each realm reverberates with distinct novelty, complimentary orthodoxies stretched out like multilateral scripture, naturalistic pretensions conflicting in universal bewilderment, as dogmas that seem tried and true are virtually lost in emancipating infinities.

Multivariability.

Emphatically groomed.

But they're clearly dependent insofar as each distillation is characterized by the same peculiarities, compelling factors from each resembling one another, even though their matrices may be innately avant-garde, from the outside looking in, they're still inhabited by the same constituents, still constructed with the same schematics.

What incorporeally organic material binds them?

What's responsible for their biodiverse resolve?

Star Trek examines the concept from different angles, Inception taking a more introspective approach.

If people hear voices who's to say they weren't multilaterally conceived by invisible ecological beings whom they're capable of phantasmagorically translating?

As if physical constructs like iron could be spread like Nutella, as if they could see and transform matter with tectonic credulity, crafting portals out of thin air with geological finesse, like aged astronomical alchemists, intergalactically demure yet cheeky.

Vortex.

Multiple alternative dimensions wildly present themselves in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, some of them demanding their own agile features, in unacknowledged tantalizing Grindhouse.

And as one Spider-Person perishes, another must heed the call, although he's somewhat shy and  bluntly nervous, and distrusting of his coveted newfound gifts.

Spider-Peeps make for a rambunctious roll call, as diabolical technological largesse seeks to cheat mortal temporality.

Paradigms of popularity dynastically converge in the superheroic postmodern, grating the spice mélange, blending ye olde everything.

So so love film noir Spider-Man.

Plus anime Spider-Woman.

And jaded middle-aged Spider-Man.

A cool collection of Spider-People.

*Still no Mirai no Mirai.

A Wrinkle in Time

A brilliant mind obsessed with unlocking physical secrets of the universe suddenly completes his work.

And vanishes into the unknown.

His family is overcome with grief and 4 years later daughter Meg (Storm Reid) remains maladjusted.

Falling grades and fights at school are causes of concern for mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), even if Meg was standing up to bullies, even if depression prevents her from concentrating.

Her toughness earns her the respect of classmate Calvin (Levi Miller), however, before three mysterious women show up, who claim to know the whereabouts of her dad (Chris Pine).

Rational disbelief proliferates as impossibility is slowly deconstructed while the plausible conversely engenders hope anew.

Yet Meg must truly believe if she is to both battle The It with the fortitude required to earn her father's freedom, and daringly become the warrior Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) knows she can be.

Perhaps saving little genius brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) thereby, while achieving beyond the limits within which she's terrestrially confined.

The It remains ill-defined but one of the scenes which takes place within its domain depicts unconcerned families enjoying delicious treats seaside stretched-out on the beach.

Meg can tell it's a trick for when she tries the food it indeed tastes like sand.

Perhaps then The IT governs the realm of illusion wherein which the wonderful is in fact nothing more than specks of dust, wherein which insubstantial reversals transform independence into servitude and integrity into humiliation, one ruler commanding all who share in its false pretensions.

Meg sees through this for she unconsciously grasps and stands up for the truth, no matter what situation she finds herself within.

Thus, like an academic, she is less concerned with the limelight or sensational accolades than humbly pursuing a devoted life of studious contemplation.

Like her father who leapt into pure discovery alone.

A Wrinkle in Time salutes the truth by polarizing the fantastic with remarkably realistic composure, as if being honest with yourself verifiably creates purest imagination.

Not as wild and enrapturing and unpredictable as I thought it might be, but still an illuminating journey wherein which courage vanquishes doubt to individualistically uphold something greater than oneself.

Critical.