Settai

Writer John Mahendran has packed a plethora of modest jocose sensationalizations into Settai's script, subtly and frankly working within while deconstructing what I'm assuming are Bollywood tropes, the singing and the dancing, always with the singing and the dancing, while intricately laying the foundations for an alternative journalistic cultural outlet, practically yet scatologically introducing capitalistic sentiments (the scoundrel of the film's triumvirate of struggling unmarried young male professionals knows how to find money but suffers from recurring bowel disruptions throughout), as well as a host of additional interconnected motivations.

The film is deep.

Fidelity, friendship, professional integrity, authenticity, keeping up with the Joneses, love, economics, other things, all of these concurrent psychological influences are mischievously intertwined, made to seem ridiculous yet pertinent, in an attempt to encourage change from within.

I think.

For instance, one of the first scenes shows a song about to be sung by gaudy performers equipped with robotic tigers but we then discover that it's just being played on a television screen in an airport and has nothing directly to do with the film.

Hence, I thought there would be less singing and dancing.

There is still a lot of singing and dancing but one number does include flaming sitars.

They're not really flaming, it's more like gigantic electric sparks are shooting forth from their instrumental breadth, but still, a nice touch.

The distinction between quality and quantity appears again and again as mistakes introduce obstacles the surmounting of which proves empowering.

Reminded me of my idea to start a new National monthly periodical, 25% First Nations, 25% Francophone, 25% Anglophone, 25% Allophone.

Something like Multicultural Mayhem.

Not really the title I'm thinking of.

I don't have a title.

Just need some capital.

And some contacts.

And some colleagues.

And a market.

And a title.

Looks like I may have to learn to sing and dance.

Cool flick.

Kret (La Dette)

Familial misfortunes beget treacherous tenements whose paranoid genuflections produce pernicious pensions.

The issue of guilt permeates a media sensation whose adherence to the sacred threatens the individual liberties it upholds.

Key players in a pivotal Polish event scramble to defend their prevarications.

And trust is brought to the fore as Rafael Lewandowski thoroughly upends what it means to syndicate.

The film keeps a level head.

Life goes on.

Appointments are kept. Business is transacted. Most friendships remain warm and friendly. Social value appreciates.

Kret's (La Dette's) lack of emotion represents both its greatest strength and most serious weakness as its logic reaches ascetic heights while its emotional depth is stiffly squandered.

Like legal spirituality.

Death at a Funeral

Everything that possibly can go wrong will go wrong.

Bring on the airing of grievances.

Take a walk in the park, take a Valium pill.

Nothing brings a family closer together than a little blackmail.

A father has died and a funeral has been arranged. Friends and family are scheduled to arrive. Personal motivations have piqued ambitious interests. The reverend hopes to depart at 3 o'clock sharp.

Hallucinogenic drugs have accidentally been introduced. An affair has been brought to light. An appropriate time to express one's romantic longings is passing by. Solutions are expediently distilled.

Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral lightly presents intergenerational tensions, sibling rivalries, progressive structures, and scatological sentiments. Historical details are used sparingly to support present actions. The principle subject lies motionless and rarely becomes the object of analysis. Anxiety and awkwardness brazenly duel as an afternoon's solemnity is feverishly deconstructed.

Indirectly suggesting that without the influence of one man's protective guise a family's prosperity is in pedantic jeopardy, thereby functioning as a formulaic exemplar of transition, Death at a Funeral symbolically externalizes emotions such as grief and gives them plenty of room to transmute. Consistently juxtaposing the petty and the poignant while delegating comedic insight with a sober intensity, it will certainly cause you to shake your head more than once as you helplessly and cheerfully ask the question, "why?"

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.