Beast

A bit lost, torn up, unsure of yourself, bored, appointments still kept, job held down, favourable impressions made, rules followed, suddenly an X-Factor chants out unassumingly, confident and determined to whisk you away, parental disapproval augments the intrigue, raw wild magnetism beckons, rugged unscripted romance unconsciously makes waves, formless indefinite turmoil, voluptuously forbidden.

Imaginative frontiers.

Realistically crushed.

Small town sociology, all nighters and country clubs, stratified daylight reckonings, prohibited ambiguity, tight collars buttoned down, assertive adolescent angst, high fives and pats on the back, phantasmagorically crossed streams, courting conspicuous challenge.

Once thought to be deconstructed.

Not that long ago.

Still are of course, there might even be someone conducting a widespread statistical analysis of global openminded sociopolitical economic constructs right now, more than one person, complementary tributaries crafting poems and plays, cartographies and lexicons, flourishing partout beyond one-dimensional obsessions, where youthful hearts still maturely animate wise non-violent pastures, radiating shifts accrued, soaking up the great beyond.

Just gotta look for it.

Beast contemplates in the intermediary zone, two lovers sticking together regardless of class based prejudices, their path fraught with judgemental blockades, and it still remains unclear if one of them is a vicious murderer.

Jessie Buckley (Moll) delivers a remarkable performance showcasing variable emotions with versatile authentic command. Multiple distinct scenarios enable her talent to luminescently blind, a raw spirit full of self-generated harnessed energy.

Sturdy yet flexible.

Calisthenically driven.

She's bluntly situated with Beast's cold narrative trauma, a member of an well-known family irresistibly drawn to a heartthrob with no name (Johnny Flynn as Pascal), one who doesn't mind the snobbery but won't back down either, a resilient freespirit who's been knocked around, both lovers mistrustful of codes, both reactive when confronting injustice.

Yet one remains level-headed and focuses their rage directly upon the foolish perpetrator in question (civilization), the other, unable to strike back at those who hurt them, takes their pain out randomly upon the world (madness).

A tragic comment on a class based state which gives no quarter to the unestablished.

In this case, however, they must be punished, the first two-thirds of the film unreeling like a profound psychological thriller, the rest descending into typical stereotypes high and low, a surprisingly stark ending, for an otherwise stunning film.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek, born again.

Was a bit disappointed that Star Trek was born again with the crew from The Original Series, but it's not like there aren't manifold versions of Hamlet out there, Batman will likely live to see another day, Hawaii Five-O is back (I've never seen either of the series), and Beatles and Rolling Stones cover bands will likely continue to sing for centuries to come. 

I was hoping to see the Rolling Stones in Montréal next month but the cheapest seat I could find near the rafters costs over 200 hundred dollars. I paid 34 dollars to see them in 1994.

Bring on the cover bands.

Star Trek Into Darkness confidently gambles that the success of its predecessor paved the way for it to take greater liberties with Star Trek's most sacred moments, and I'm assuming every Trekkie has already seen the film twice, and are already dividing into different fastidious factions, each with their own take on the reintroduction of Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), and the pastiche of Star Trek II's classic ending, so I'm discussing related plot details.

In my opinion, the new cast and crew of the Starship Enterprise were ill-equipped and unready to incorporate this classic ending, nor the famous Khan scream, and their sophomoric attempts to do so, more concerned with travelling at warp speed than taking the time to generate genuine emotion, even though the trap they fall into justifies this dependence, and within the film the new cast and crew is ill-equipped and unready to confront their adversaries, were, still, disheartening.

The cameo from Leonard Nimoy didn't suck me in. 

Giving Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Sulu (John Cho) expanded responsibilities while leaving them primarily in the background heightened the tension.

The who-should-be-captain dialogue between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) was played out in the last film. 

And McCoy's (Karl Urban) all wrong (no offense to Karl Urban, he does his best with the material).   

Still though, if they hadn't touched Star Trek II's ending, and classic Khan scream, Into Darkness could have been quite different. 

And it's not that I didn't think the fight between Khan and Spock was awesome. It's always awesome when Spock suddenly fights in a Star Trek moment, since you suddenly remember that not only is he one of the phenomenon's smartest humanoid characters, he's also one of the toughest.

Giving Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) a strong supporting hopefully continuous role was a great idea. 

Introducing consequential conflict amongst the senior staff, Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Kirk, went beyond the professional dynamics found in the films featuring the cast of The Original Series, and since this consequential conflict sees constructive results, it fits nicely with contemporary conflict management theories, while directly encouraging freewill.   

Benedict Cumberbatch impresses as Khan. 

Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock's relationship reappears but isn't focused upon, rather, it comically ameliorates an otherwise typical shuttlecraft descension, accentuating the difficulties of sustaining romantic ties to people with whom you work, while giving Spock a memorable opportunity to advance his coherent logic. 

Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) provides a pestiferous dimension rarely seen within the Federation, thereby diversifying Star Trek's internal cohesions, while preempting a sequel, sigh, where there's a war with the Klingons. 

This seems more like Picard territory, where there's a possible war, but Picard finds a way to negotiate a peaceful settlement. 

Much too early for Picard however.

Perhaps the Borg will attack midway resulting in a sudden pact between Klingons and the Federation.

Kirk never fought the Borg.

Please don't revisit the Nexus. 

But a different ending. Something radically different. This would have lessened the cheesy kitsch factor and not caused me to immediately remove my 3D glasses. 

The Wrath of Khan is the only Star Trek film that can stand on its own outside the Star Trek parallax. 

Discourses of the sacred. 

Khan!