Love Streams

Dashing delirium wurlitzer wishbone Kanata construct generous fusion, nebulous nightlife exotic elegance curious candidate finagled foment.

Bohemian research acute acquisition novel expenditure cozy collective, gossamer gathering improvised quota koala carousel visceral verse.

Ambivalent anchor Cervantes sash maladroit mosey articulate ramble, sugarfree solace direct illusion whippoorwill twirl evocative whirlwind.

Sombre divorce resigned declarations strict conclusion unforeseen outcome, calamitous critique tear-jerking jostle filial exclusion atemperate coda.

Atypical advice convivial counsel popinjay potash refurbished loom, constituent cavalier chortling kombucha salient sojourn vehement vase.

Sudden imposition reified reunion elusive child-rearing Nantucket nurture, inspired fraternal mischievous play intuitive revolt bold indiscretion. 

Occasional warmth paternal cohesion charming invention agile imagination, insouciant bearings rebellious burnish PTA nightmare artistic garb.

Disconsolate accident knick-knock-ninjitsu blatant bamboozle distressing fold, latent aggression habitual angst concrete folly baffled intentions.

Symphonic siblings chaotic orchestration swelling libretto compelling surges, dutiful company familial frittata sincere compassion eloquent strobe.

Distillate jubilee innocent clay unrehearsed remodelling campy admixture, soulfulbright aggregate domestic misfortune damning austerity discerning girth. 

Constructive teamwork contiguous clasp itinerant commune sporadic libra, jungle gymnastics dynamic dogme evergreen forest pyjambalaya. 

Bivouac browse menagerie mending auspicious adorable animal friends, in/variable groupings deciduous drumbeat invaluable semblance kettlecorn clan.

Undaunted optimism hastening grace laidback congregation fortuitous present, affable ancestry tumbledown tangents ludicrous license carnival crescents. 

No sense at all what's going to come next.

What does come encourages anticipation. 

Inherent romance.

Love Streams.  

Mrs. Doubtfire

Over the years times tragically change and stilted realities resonate objective, inspired spontaneity less pressingly urgent as prudent planning meticulously sways.

One dad isn't caught up with the firm glad handing notwithstanding, and routinely goes too far with a lack of understanding for conjugal limits (Robin Williams as Daniel Hillard).

Thus, one exuberant birthday kinetically overflowing with freeform merrymaking, Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) is furious when she returns home to find their house in borderline ruin.

It would have been an amazing time but perhaps was too unrestrained and shocking, the middle-ground isn't that schoolmarmish, just don't wreck the freakin' house!

Divorce soon looms lugubrious and the custody battle proves rather unfair, Mr. Hillard may be too freely accommodating, but there's no doubt he's an upstanding dad.

He would never hurt his kids or not be there for them if they needed help, he doesn't drink and wants to work, he just applies ethics to his lasting calling.

But the application of ethics begets realities the court can't comprehend, why he quit his job doing voices for cartoons doesn't factor in to his unemployment.

He has a gift for acting nevertheless and soon responds with stealth and cunning.

By applying for his ex-wife's housekeeping job.

As a British nanny named Mrs. Doubtfire.

Some say a gift for acting or that of taking on different personas, betrays fugacious foundations lacking lone substantial balance.

Although I find people that say that often aren't the greatest actors, and acting's one of those jobs so many people want, that if it doesn't work 'cadabra: envy.

It seems like if you were living with someone who could consistently shift personalities to suit the occasion, soirées would no doubt remain lively in consistent multivariable mettle.

I'm kind of habitually introverted so the desire to constantly engage eventually drives me nuts, but if I'm given time to relax in isolation I tend to bounce back far eager for more.

Mrs. Doubtfire's a tender film actively embracing pervasive creativity, as applied to youthful and mature perspectives, with no concern for gender bias.

How to sort through the different expectations various folk so readily apply?

I find it helps if they work to live.

And respect the arts post-27. 

Holiday in the Wild

A daring mom (Kristin Davis as Kate) is happy to see her only son (John Owen Lowe as Luke) head off to college, no doubt somewhat sad to see him go, but still abounding with hope, goodwill.

She's planned a second honeymoon in the wilds of feisty Zambia, and hopes her husband will be surprised by the sudden festive calling.

There's just one problem, he's decided to leave her, no debate, no negotiation, he just ends their marriage lickety-split, and leaves her confused and rather frustrated.

So it's off for a jaunt on her own to give herself time to think, why not still take the vacation?, better than moping about it back home.

Shortly thereafter, while sitting back to dine, she meets a stranger who seems like he's up to no good, drinking alone and preparing for a night of gambling, she still answers all his questions truthfully.

And the next morning she swiftly discovers that he's her aeronautic guide, as she sets out in search of wildlife focused ready for wild adventure.

Unfortunately, a tragic sight is soon to dampen her lively spirits, as a baby elephant is found, his mother having been shot by poachers.

But she trained to be a vet before marriage and family lead her down a different path, and she's soon moved into an elephant sanctuary, to keep track of baby elie.

Rugged Derek (Rob Lowe) lives there too, in fact he pops up everywhere she goes, the two playfully hitting it off, as she joins the dedicated team.

It's a cheerful lighthearted romance that proceeds at an athletic pace, hectic motion moving things along from bewildered state to state.

It isn't overflowing with detail or reflection or questions or alternatives, but its surface level concentration still lightly generates frisky fervour.

I loved Holiday in the Wild's sincere concern for the plight of elephants, whose numbers have plummeted in recent decades, a consequence of thoughtless poaching.

Elephants are wonderful creatures who add so much distinction to our biodiverse planet, loved by children around the world, and most adults too I'd reckon.

Isn't the world a more wondrous and thrilling place with an abundance of carefree elephants, don't they add so much distinction to a vibrant planet on which they too have freely evolved?

Every animal adds global distinction, it's not a matter of rank and file, but some animal populations bounce back much more quickly if they're hunted from time to time (deer for instance).

Bears, whales, lions, rhinos, tigers, leopards, and elephants (and others), take a long time to reestablish their numbers if they're hunted without concern.

I recommend they be left alone, they offer us so much more if they live, they enrich countless imaginations as they curiously exist.

We've evolved along side them and shouldn't leave them behind simply because we're more advanced.

What does it mean to be more advanced anyways?

If you're so often reckless and cruel?

L'amour en fuite (Love on the Run)

The lighter side of romantic inhibition comically elaborates (through flashback) in Truffaut's L'amour en fuite (Love on the Run).

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) once again finds himself pursuing the irresistible shortly following his divorce after love interest Sabine (Dororthée) punishes him. 

Driven by genuine liberated invention, his expositions know no bounds, and proceed posthaste wholeheartedly, zephyristic zounds. 

I suppose this goes without saying if you're familiar with the narrative thread, which becomes much more endearing with each instalment frisked and fled.

Indomitable infatuation regal flush disposed curiosity, multivariable assumed inconstant freeform precious jocose romance.

In L'amour en fuite so prone to accident he rediscovers love lost forgotten, who's just purchased the sultry novel he's been writing from film to film.

He takes inquisitive note and seeks rapprochement upon a train, where the details of his book encounter critical acclaim.

He generates appeal beholden flourishes notwithstanding, but can't escape the legal shrewd exotic reprimanding.

Even though he's just incapable of remaining honest, loyal, and true, his partners still adore him unabrasive through and through.

Not to the point where they'll let him get away with it but they still can't deny their feelings, and the lack of boredom he freely generates as he ascertains impulsively.

There's no doubt that creative explanations are his supple imaginative forte, nor that if one enjoys a passionate argument he graciously accommodates.

If so much of life's caught up with routine I suppose there's excitement in experimentation, although it's by no means a general rule but how else to explain the reality?

I'm uncertain as to how feminists or Me Too would respond to the charming Antoine, is he to be condemned for his indiscretions or upheld through honest light?

His inexhaustible enthusiasm demonstrates a thorough love of women, and he isn't forceful or mean or brutal, he's rather quite innocent, inquisitive, enamoured. 

Rascally. 

Is such genuine affection preferable at times to duty and is this why feminists don't condemn him (in fiction), or has Truffaut simply gotten away with it scandalous film after scandalous film?

Antoine certainly means well as he honestly follows his instinct, and doesn't lack ideal sincerity in his explorations of l'amour.

Perhaps just a childish fantasy exaggerating infidelity, to lighten the austere mood that proliferates at times?

Either way it's a funny ending to a story that went way too far.

Not as much depth as Domicile conjugal.

But still traditionally entertaining.  

Marriage Story

The slow patient cultivation of specific general roles, patterns emerging as time passes becoming more rigid while still considered ill-defined, dynamic environs creatively encouraging unpredictable professional growth, but within their fluid energetic exciting jazzy continuums lies one person directing, and another following established codes, their lives constantly shifting reimagined as inspiration strikes, but the thought of doing something else never so much as remotely materializes, even though passive hints are presented until years have past and it seems like every decision's made without sincere consultation, even though he thinks he's listening and they're making joint discoveries, as fluctuating intensities eagerly fascinate, and everything's cast anew.

Perhaps a stunning aid for couples who have been married for quite some time, inasmuch as Marriage Story makes so much lucid sense, yet Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) and Charlie (Adam Driver) still can't understand one another.

Noting the errors Charlie makes may save similar marriages, I've always thought working together (jobs) is a bad idea, although some couples do seem to work well together (at jobs).

Case by case.

But it's perhaps more probable that in Marriage Story nothing can be done, since one partner's too caught up with too invested in a particular way of life, which can't suddenly change to fit new circumstances, circumstances which demand he abandon everything altogether.

Nicole no longer wishes to live in New York, which leaves Charlie without much room to work with, in a bit of a pickle as divorce proceedings commence, and he has to prove he resides in L.A.

While directing a play in New York.

He was just too immersed in the limelight to notice that something was going wrong, or that the passive suggestions were actually serious, and required full-on responsive note.

I don't know how to sift through the suggestions myself, I've never really had a deep relationship, but in theory I'd try to sift through them by listening for those that were presented more than two or three times, if my partner was passive. If a suggestion popped up that many times I would take note that it was indeed much more than a suggestion, and would adjust my busy schedule accordingly, if forgiven for having taken my sweet time.

Charlie and Nicole get along so maturely you wonder why they're getting a divorce?, until it becomes clear Nicole needs something less ubiquitous, and doesn't like the constant direction.

Even if her husband's brilliant and nice.

I think she grows tired of him always finding a solution.

And perhaps finds her life's become a novel case study.

I'm probably incorrect, as Marriage Story points out in passionate detail with great supporting performances from Laura Dern (Nora Fanshaw), Alan Alda (Bert Spitz), and Ray Liotta (Jay Marotta) (loved the Julie Hagerty [Sandra] and Wallace Shawn [Frank] too!), women really understand what women are going through, and men generally understand all things bro.

It's a wonderful film examining a complicated multivariable couple trying to keep a hectic life simple as things unravel at their marriage's end.

It begins with touching characterizations they've both written about each other (a ruse) that provide in-depth accounts of the time they've spent together, with literal poetic resplendency.

Reasons.

Multiple compelling reasons.

The caring insights written into every observation prepare you for clever thoughtful storytelling that keeps it real the whole way through.

It isn't particularly light nor overwhelmingly dark, but chillin' and anger both expound within, each scene enacting free flowing difference sustained within a modest versatile frame (except for divorce court), as if the characters may actually exist, and have something irresistible to say.

Nice intelligent successful people who for some reason find themselves married, clashing with cold cruel realities with which they'd both rather not contend.

Artists hiring lawyers.

There's so much thought in this film it's like reading a good book, you wait for years to see dramas as good as this one.

The scenes last for much longer than 30 seconds.

Multiple reasons are provided to explain something neither partner wishes to fully comprehend.

Nice to see Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in something without intergalactic conflict.

Noah Baumbach's made so many great films.

This is his first masterpiece (I never saw The Squid and the Whale).

Even when it slips up it just seems like it's his youthful innocence shining through, like an historical trope, like he hasn't forgotten a randier style, here transformed into something more aged, the present and the past blended like well crafted gritty red wine, that's been maturing for fruitful decades, and's finally ready for bold presentation.

Wish I'd seen it in theatres.

Netflix can no longer be denied (by me).

St. Vincent

Concealed tender attachments, buried beneath a gruff miserable parched exterior, foul to the uninitiated, frozen finicky finesse, a babysitter, Bukowski shorn and shackled, providing advice, caring for the next generation, a single mother's compensation, working as duty requires, loving and trusting yet unsuspecting, situation confronted, solution, agreed upon, he will care for my child, I will work and have faith in benevolent common decency, the grip and the gristle, asserted hardboiled exactitude.

Opportunity hasn't knocked for struggling Vincent MacKenna (Bill Murray) for some time, then one day it bounds and pounces, his skills and acquired knowledge valuable once again, a sympathetic listener, there, to learn from his life's lessons.

Sleaze and pettiness have taken root over the years, but within their ornery sizzles, character and sacrifice still remain.

Bullies therefore are confronted.

Harrying fortunes assay.

I didn't think St. Vincent would be so well done, but it slowly and slyly reaps inversed inventive concessions, atlantic rapscallions, an impounded sense of goodwill and understanding, hanging on the edge, making ends meet, taking necessary risks, combusted communal curmudgeons.

It's not too cheesy, it's not too perverse.

Melissa McCarthy (Maggie Bronstein) takes a secondary role within and I thought an extended scene with her and Murray mutually fuming, both of them possibly throwing things, would have worked well.

They interact a number of times, but their encounters are too short and sweet, too openly one-sided.

Murray is fantastic though.

So's the kid (Jaeden Lieberher as Oliver).

Naomi Watts too.

Nice to see her showing up in films again.

Complex.

The Lucky One

Don't really know what to say about The Lucky One.

Lead character Logan (Zac Effron) certainly is lucky.

While fighting in Iraq, he discovers the picture of an enticing woman lying in the wreckage and keeps it close to his heart thereafter. Having safely returned to Colorado, he then decides to find her and sets out on foot, showing her picture to people he meets. He eventually finds her (Taylor Schilling as Beth Clayton) in a small town in Louisiana and she gives him a job working in her kennel.

Against her better judgement.

Her jealous manipulative ex-husband (Jay R. Ferguson as Keith Clayton) is a smug policeperson, the son of a wealthy mayoral candidate, and a secure member of the local petty bourgeoise.

He takes none to kindly to Logan.

But Logan isn't afraid, and boldly refuses to play ball, trusting instead in the power of love and the genuine incorruptibility of his good intentions.

And the fact that lonely Beth starts wanting a piece.

The film would have been stronger had Logan encountered other labourers who had run afoul of Mr. Clayton's coercive tendencies and formed a resistance of sorts to counteract his abusive privilege.

Old Testament justice is thunderously administered, but a different solution, one galvanizing the resolve of mistreated workers, would have provided The Lucky One with a collective edge, thereby intensifying the fluidity of its amour.

Burn After Reading

The Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading presents another tangled mess of lovesick lechers, vitriolic vixens, and hapless half-wits, with problems, which become worse, as time passes.

It's really well done.

The plot follows Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) after his quasi-dismissal from the CIA (his boss being played by Sledgehammer lead David Rasche). His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with fun-loving-sex-crazed Treasury Agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), who has never fired his gun. A copy of Cox's memoirs accidentally ends up in the hands of Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand), who, with the help of fellow Hardbodies Gym employee Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), decides to blackmail Cox based upon the information inside. In between, a lot of awkward, lonely, gentle, and narcissistic people end up in one embarrassing situation after another, often confused, occasionally, dead. Me found it to be preferable to No Country for Old Men and the Coen brothers' best since O Brother, Where Art Thou? However, as a pair, Burn After Reading and No Country for Old Men show the best of both sides of their oeuvre, one illustrating the conniving manners in which they amusingly nuance their tragedies, the other demonstrating the bitter, helpless mediocrity that dramatically distills their comedy.

I'm not sure if this was the intent in casting Brad Pitt and George Clooney, but note how within their opening scenes they each struggle to play a role that differs from those they've generically rendered in films such as the Ocean's 11 trilogy. However, as their screen-time increases, Clooney's character falls back into his traditional trajectory, but Pitt's becomes more and more endearing, tantalizingly reminiscent of his True Romance cameo. Note how Burn's plot structurally provides an outlandish portrait of Clooney's ego with unconscious retributive satisfaction (in regards to Pitt's multi-dimensional diversity), thereby covertly explaining why he received top billing, when it should have obviously gone to Malkovich.

A lot of people want to make a quick buck, but can't, and still try too anyways, all the time. A lot of people with authoritative positions don't really know what's going on, and, probably never will, yet, they have important decisions to make, many of which end up being wrong, yet are remembered with reverence. And if some people spent more time thinking about environmentally friendly ways of boosting the economy than they do about sex, we'd probably have a hell-of-a-lot less pollution, and really cheap clean-running fuel efficient cars (in which to have sex).

Think about it.

Persepolis

The film adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel series Persepolis is bold, challenging, touching, and full of life. Growing up in Iran during the 70s and 80s, Satrapi bears witness to the effects wrought upon her culture by the Islamic Revolution and Iran's war with Iraq. Difficult choices must be made: Satrapi's parents decide to stay in Iran rather than move away and find menial work; parties must still be attended to maintain some semblance of sanity, although being caught drunk or in possession of alcohol leads to severe punishment; upholding one's beliefs when they oppose the government's doctrines leads to imprisonment, torture, death and/or exile; and absurd rules develop governing the public relationships between women and men, one of which tricks Satrapi into a hasty marriage. She spends much of her childhood isolated while studying in Vienna and eventually returns home. But after a number of years back in Iran, her national spirit is crushed by an absurd brand of patriotism, and she leaves for France once and for all.

Directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnoud, Persepolis presents an enormous number of poignant insights regarding life as one tries to live it. For instance, dating can be problematic, attempting to promote your ideals when they differ from those of the dominant regime, difficult, international political realities which colonially structure your culture's post-revolutionary life, shitty, living as a boarder in a foreign country where you have no finances, complicated. Fortunately for Satrapi, she has a loving supportive family and a feisty independent Grandmother who help her along the way, assisting her spirits in overcoming the bitterness.

The realities Persepolis presents are harsh but the manner in which they are presented is tranquil, playful, passive (the animation is very cute and homely). At first glance, it seems as if the form employed by Persepolis directly contradicts the subject matter, but I'm convinced that this form is used in order to promote the 'don't-lose-hope-and-become-bitter' message that can also be found within Paradise Now. Even when faced with harsh political realities, it is important to continue to notice the sublime, whether it's the sun's rays striking through an unusually corrugated cloud formation, or a soldier willing to bend the rules, letting you off for some minor malfeasance (carrying a particularly unproportional penalty). Of course, this is very, very, hard, to do. Thus, as Satrapi's scrappy grandma states, you must be strong, and can't let the judgments of your surrounding community destabilize your confidence.

Persepolis also does what few films (apart from Goodbye Lenin) currently do: it employs a subtext which places socialism in a positive light. It’s refreshing to see a film which doesn't shy away from socialist politics, astutely reminding the public that capitalists cannot function without your labour.

A surprisingly acute examination of what it's like to mature on the Iranian left, Persepolis reminds us that going about this business of living requires a firm constitution that can absorb various contradictory actions as new circumstances challenge and reconstruct its integrity. Ignore the stereotypes, critically challenge, live, love, laugh, subvert, grow. Who knows, certainly not Satrapi, but she is curious enough to try and find out, which makes her adventure worth discovering.