The Adventures of Mark Twain

Mark Twain elaborately concocts a unique imaginative flying machine, upon which he chases Halley's Comet with three fortunate literary stowaways. 

Tom, Huck and Becky are unsure as to how to proceed, and never really settle into the versatile invention, inquisitively searching for structure and meaning while instinctually absorbing the bountiful narratives.

Stories within yarns within tales within legends creatively emerge with theoretical whimsy, presented through curious lighthearted exploration as the kids heuristically investigate away.

A ship much more like a mind its multivariable elements cascading, through trial and error and riveting hypotheses its temporal comportment ahistorical.

Perhaps part of the paradigm shift which led to much less severe religious interpretations, wherein which the literal executions lost their prominent cultural influence.

A move away from exacting obsessions with extremely precise uptight rules and regulations, to a more open-hearted freeform compendium liberally composed through manifold alternatives.

Twain himself struggles with the dutiful recognition of a regenerative constituent bipolar renaissance, within which his psyche proactively duels while realistically resonating rationales less ideological.

Difficult to suppress the reflections at times while ethically composed and poignantly accentuated, the active latent indissoluble antipodes habitually insistent with reckless remonstrance.

Thus, the importance of laidback comedy from pent-up time to pent-up time, not the new obsessive violent variety but the less destructive impulses of Twain and Chaplin. 

Twain's ideas and clever witticisms are seductively sprinkled throughout the script, his observant well-timed well-crafted comments judiciously diversifying tact and treatise.

Not often a public figure is so universally commended without crude accompaniment, when do you ever here anything negative critically mentioned about the old school phenom?

The Adventures of Mark Twain may have passed under the radar way back in my youth I admit I had never heard of it, at least until around this time last week when it suddenly seemed like a cool film to see.

Definitely a chill film for children interested in reading and bizarro imagination, a claymation gateway to a world of books poetically awaiting at the local library. 

Twain's insights make the film fun for grouchy adults who might not want to watch another kids film at the same time.

Perhaps overlooked due to its harmless unorthodox reflections on religion.

Which I thought were charmingly displayed.  

Wilson

I often love it when I meet people like Wilson (Woody Harrelson).

Feisty and self-taught, they're often up to date with what was popular in the past and can describe many scenes from their favourite films in playfully obnoxious detail.

Extroverted by nature, Wilsons talk and talk and talk about whatever pops into their heads, they have no filter at all and no ability whatsoever to discursively blend with different demographics.

I'm quite introverted and I'm used to navigating fussier domains where you have to watch what you say while people encourage you to speak freely, so it's always refreshing when I encounter free-spirited autodidacts who are flush with alternative phrases and expressions, even if I can only hack it for short periods before returning to my regenerative lair.

They're like conspiratorial sages, blending the hackneyed and the probable with instinctual brazen whiplash, blindly imagining that their interlocutors don't mind being consistently insulted, as they apply their cynical observations to whatever detail those with whom they are conversing are friendly enough to share.

They don't seem to understand that they've caused offence nor that the knowledge they've acquired may on occasion lack truth value.

But they proceed with the unabashed confidence of Olympian gods as they try to create a better world, casually interjecting fact with fiction to elucidate grizzly ideals, practical premonitions, while dis/harmoniously doing whatever they feel like at all times.

Impoverished Joes with aristocratic psychologies.

Try listening a bit longer the next time you meet one.

I usually find it's worth it.

Craig Johnson's Wilson mischievously speaks his mind and loves to talk to strangers as he travels about in search of company.

It isn't the greatest film, in fact the only other person watching it with me in the theatre left halfway through, sort of like St. Vincent's rusty doppelgänger, a valiant effort lacking sustained momentum.

But it does improve about halfway through, shortly before Wilson winds up in prison, and from that point onwards unreels with captivating vulgarity.

When I consider the first half I keep thinking, "that should have been funnier, it's fun to think about what happened anyways, even if the actual dialogue wasn't that funny and lacked any condemned cohesivity."

Harrelson's performance is great but he couldn't turn the bland dribble into something you'd recommend to someone you don't like.

Even if it had been great the whole way through, it would still be glibly satisfying to know someone you don't like, someone who probably doesn't like Wilsons, will have to put up with Wilson for 90 odd minutes.

Could have been better.

Still, don't shut it down midway.

Toni Erdmann

The unexpected smile, the medium coffee spontaneously upgraded, surprise Thai food, microbrasserie du Lac St-Jean, discourses of extemporaneity startling and surprising with lighthearted charm and velvety enchantment, extracurricular cuddles, subtlety delicately embraced, yet it doesn't have to be so cozy, so huggable, the art of introducing mild-mannered bizarre yet keenly shocking escapades to a routine having been disruptively cultivated by a few, mischievously mutating manifestations genuinely juggling various psychologies in sundry situations to produce desired wtfs?, perfecting their grasp over a lifetime, to pluck up and stack anew.

Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann addresses such potential by placing a loveable creative comic within a corporate crucible, his goal, to cheer up his successful yet sad daughter, who's living the high life yet shovelling the coal.

She's none too impressed, but dad (Peter Simonischek) keeps showing back up equipped with alternative personality.

She can't deny that he's funny.

Nor that he radiates goodwill.

But it's not really a comedic film, not really a drama either, Toni Erdmann's more like a brilliant presentation of the seriously awkward which patiently and articulately synthesizes different lifestyles to hilariously and sensibly simplify choice.

Films that are almost three hours long which cleverly clasp your attention the whole way through are a rare treat, especially ones which realistically examine so many different aspects of the human predicament without directly moralizing, judiciously justifying scenario after scenario instead which simultaneously intensify while lightening lives lost and lounging.

Material taken on the road.

There's a chill extended shot which builds Erdmann's character early on. He's sitting next to an elegant stone wall which resembles aspects of a wild ocean that's been thoughtfully tamed.

Throughout the film he playfully interjects harmless doses of character to sharply strung financially volatile vectors, character which appears wild at first, but he does so with such well-timed respectful controlled im/precision that nothing ever wantonly swerves out of control.

Chaotic stability critically conditioned.

The script reflexively blends hierarchical configurations with nimble finesse and stressed out soul.

The last 25 minutes are so freakin' good.