Nightmare Alley

How far should someone go when seeking abundant easy money, where to clearly draw the line between entertainment and ecstatic despair?

People actively seek to believe in mystic supernatural antics, in worlds beyond the concrete material physically composing so much life.

How much of this is healthy or how much goes much too far, are manifest questions which consistently go unanswered, but if your belief in the afterlife provides you comfort, and doesn't cost you a fortune, and you don't make political decisions because a bee landed on your ice cream, and you don't force other people to believe, and you realize it might all be bullshit, I really don't see much of a problem, comfort's an important aspect of life.

Claudius's relationship with the Oracle of Delphi remains mysterious, but who knows how much was true, and how much conjured for dramatic flair?

I've often thought that renowned "oracles" or "fortune tellers" were students of history from the future, who somehow managed to fit in with the past without being locked up for witchcraft or heresy.

If genuine clairvoyants exist today, why aren't they world renowned?

Perhaps they've been sequestered by the highest bidder.

And are lavishly tucked away.

I play the sign game because that's how my mind's always worked, ever since I was but a wee lad, I remember playing the sign game.

But it's off a lot, it's sometimes correct, but isn't reliable enough to make wagers.

Plus, when people realize you're like this they constantly try to trick you. So it's difficult to detect anything that's genuine. Not that it isn't still fun trying.

Nightmare Alley may be a solid horror film but that doesn't mean it isn't revolting, do we really have to see an unfortunate soul bite the head off a live chicken (with special effects)?

Sick in the head, no holding back.

If you want a celebration of the most miserable aspects of existence, hopelessly wrapped up in abhorrent ethical decay, you may indeed prosper from a viewing of Nightmare Alley, which presents harsh lessons for light of heart ambitions.

Don't try to swindle the rich and famous, the brightest lights, don't take things too far.

Life's too precious and worth much more.

There's more value in a dragonfly's existence than overflowing riches.

The Shape of Water

An ancient unfathomed independent environmental consciousness is captured and brought back to the United States, in chains, clandestine military operations responsible for its incarceration, it actively expresses its discontent oceanically, stuck within a container in a back room of a forgotten corridor in a decrepit building, wondering why a similar species would proceed so callously, when so much more could be learned under respectful mutual examination?

Others humanistically understand this point, immediately recognizing the unjustness of the circumstances, and unaccustomed to viewing such sincere pain and suffering, decide it's time to uncharacteristically encourage sneaky boat-rocking initiatives.

Introspectively speaking, it's really the brainchild of a lone sweet cleaning person who discovers the aquahumanoid (Doug Jones) throughout the course of her daily labours, tries to make friends, and eventually realizes she cares enough to save him.

With a little help from the ethically inclined.

Her heartstrung horizons.

Symphonically submerged.

Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water might not be the best film I've seen this year, but that doesn't mean it isn't my favourite.

It's still incredibly good, and thought provokingly entertains while crossing comedic, dramatic, romantic and sci-fi streams, the resultant energy discharge composed of purest raw loving artistic soul, the delicately distracted uniting to outwit a nuclear family man, in possession of everything people are supposed to desire, accept for his personal accompanying douche baggage.

The film's so well nuanced.

And casted (Robin D. Cook).

So many spoilers.

I have to mention these things.

There's just too much cool in one film.

Like characters from Ghost World decided to take on the army, there's a struggling painter who's lost his cash cow (Richard Jenkins as Giles), a conscientious Russian spy who's more scientist than commie, more concerned with promoting life than objectifying ideals (Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Robert Hoffstetler), a splendiferous local cinema that can't find an audience, Michael Shannon (Richard Strickland), Octavia Spencer (Zelda Fuller), multiple cats, pie slices to go, a potent critique of exclusive diners, amorous eggs hardboiled, hilarity ensues as positive thinking bemuses, even the douchiest character makes a reasonable plea for sympathy (he's used to lampoon by-any-means-necessary so well), dialogue heartwarmingly places the "human" back in "humanistic", Nigel Bennett (Mihalkov) seriously impresses in Russian, fellow Canadian actor David Hewlett (Fleming) burnishes the brash bumble, prim cold war ridiculousness with a taste for culinary excess, a bit of gore here and there, Hamilton Ontario's city hall plus the CFL Hall of Fame, methinks, good people given a chance to do something good which they overcome rational fears to do, a sense that everyone loved working on the film, yet didn't let the good times detrimentally effect their performances.

With the incomparable Sally Hawkins (Elisa Esposito) tenderly stealing the show; she has an endearing knack for showing up in the simply awesome.

The plot elements and cool criticisms and situations aren't just a smattering of amazing either, del Toro brilliantly blends them together into a startlingly clever narrative that keeps you acrobatically positioned to appreciate virtuous leaps and bounds, that seem to be vivaciously drawing you into a fantastic day in your life, during which you make a remarkable difference, during which you are the change.

Looking past racially motivated sensation.

Discourses of the huggable.

Like perennial blossoming unassailable fountains of youth.

Spontaneous trips to candy stores.

Artistically crafted vegan ice cream.

Crimson Peak

I think Crimson Peak was meant to be funny, to be a dis/possessed take on an old style of filmmaking that used to relish in its mediocrity before succumbing to mass alterations in taste.

If this is the case, I didn't get it, and although it might have been paying tribute to a bygone era of gaudy enterprise, it doesn't change the fact that this film suppresses.

It's hard to write that, I usually love Guillermo del Toro's films, larger than life macabre matriculations fluidly dictating realities of the fantastical.

Crimson Peak's production design is on par with his earlier work but the story and its associated devices are uniformly unexceptional and consistently dull.

It seems to be taking itself seriously throughout, that's its greatest shortcoming.

And the intermittent bursts of graphic violence taken out on historical paradigms, the stricken aristocrat avenging herself on the rise of the bourgeoise for instance, seem out of place in a horror film that's so resoundingly not scary.

If it had seemed comic, like it was seriously making fun of itself, it may have corrosively triumphed.

It didn't seem that way to be me though, not, not, at all.

Jessica Chastain (Lucille Sharpe) does put in a great performance however.

She's got talent, and commands every scene she's in.

Pacific Rim

Can't decide if this film was brutal, interdimensional, or exceptional, meaning it was fun, if not ludicrous, to watch.

And write about.

A rift has opened up in the Pacific Ocean from which giant monsters from another dimension (Kaijus) emerge to wreak havoc on various coastal cities, displaying a ferocious universal contempt for diplomacy.

They're difficult to stop, so governments around the world pool their resources to create massive 'robots' known as Jaegers, the ultimate Jaeger Bombs, to combat them.

But bureaucracy intervenes, it's decided that the Jaeger program isn't effective, and its funding is cut off, leaving its proponents forced to find alternative revenue streams, so, when a Kaiju is defeated, its body is sold to opportunistic entrepreneurs, one, named Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman), his alias chosen from the Carthaginian military commander Hannibal, and the name of his second-favourite Szechuan restaurant in Brooklyn.

It is also decided that giant walls should be built to keep the Kaijus out, but the walls can't withstand Kaiju impacts, they're extremely dangerous to create, and desperate workers are forced to compete for the limited number of perilous positions which result in their construction.

By wasting enormous amounts of money constructing walls to keep out hostile entities while demonstrating that the jobs created thereby are rather life threatening, Pacific Rim suggests that the construction of giant walls is pure and simply a bad idea.

The Kaijus remain a threat, however, but they threaten everyone, so practically everyone unites around the military to fight them.

Whatever the case, the message is clear, a threat to the planet's sustainable security could unite the world, different Jaegars from different countries still possessing a flair for the local (or at least culturally specific theme music).

After a scene focusing on the plight of the workers, a beautiful Asian heroine is introduced (Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori), and one of the workers, the one provided with a chance to once again partially command a Jaegar (Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket), Jaegar's requiring two pilots functioning as one conscious unit, through drifting, also speaks an Asian language.

Don't know what Pacific Rim's trying to say there.

An oddball scientist and Kaiju enthusiast (Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler) eventually drifts with a disembodied piece of preserved Kaiju brain to discover that the Kaijus are planning to colonize the Earth because global warming has ruined our environment to such an extent that it's become a perfect match for Kaiju physiology.

Nice touch.

Possibly the best Godzilla movie ever, taking Real Steel to the next level, charming cheese infused with bellicose brawn, where time is a potent factor and group dynamics require a reluctant resilient cohesivity, Pacific Rim seeks no forgiveness for its action, and exfoliates a bombastic, brilliant, banality.

Quotable lines abound.