Ride in the Whirlwind

Ye olde bucolic misunderstanding matriculates maniacal madness, as 3 travellers find themselves caught up in volatile jurisprudent pursuits.

A gang of outlaws led by one Blind (Harry Dean Stanton) has just finished robbing a pugnacious coach, only to return to their secluded cabin without much to do but sit back and drink whiskey.

The three travellers are on their way to Waco and happen to pass by 'fore the oncoming night, and manage to negotiate free and safe passage plus a hot meal and ground for the evening.

But soon after sunup a group of armed citizens comes to express their sincere disapproval, and the 3 have no way to innocently distinguish themselves, and are unfortunately assumed to be bloodthirsty bandits.

Ceremonious discussion is not in the cards so they have to slowly try to escape, one of them quickly cut down shortly thereafter, the others too frightened to make their case.

They escape to a local squatter's homestead where they find food and fresh horses and whiskey, but the vigilantes come quickly a' callin' and soon they're terrified back on the trail.

I thought it was clever or at least somewhat different a cool hectic twist on the straightforward Western, while watching I imagined how strange it must have been when they abounded partout, to show up at the cinema and see three or four playing.

Perhaps that number's too high or perhaps there were even times when it was far too low, I grew up watching them with papa in rerun, what I assume was decades after their genuine heyday (when Unforgiven came out critics made a big deal about the return of the Western).

I suppose there's still fertile ground within the Western's well-trodden cinematic soil, but to imagine hundreds if not thousands of Westerns dagnabit just seems like vast frontier overload.

Clearly you should have an endless stream of spaceships visiting new planets in space, however, perhaps at times cultivating amicable relations, at others engaged in intergalactic disputes.

Still kind of cool to see a clever twist in a Western, nevertheless, even if others in the audience asked, why is no one thinking?, it must have been crazy packing up and headin' west back before there were highways or cities or motor cars.

It's still kind of cool to be sure and I happily recommend it even if just for a spell.

Lots of opportunity and different things to do.

Not to mention the wildlife.

Mountainous ranges.   

Office Christmas Party

Overwhelming pressures voraciously complicating the everyday affairs of a hardworking bunch at play, it soon becomes apparent that a lucrative deal must be struck in order to keep the sultry spice flowing, the troubling news being delivered in überScroogelike fashion, the high-end players responding with executive precision.

There's no other option.

It's time to party.

Festivities of epic proportions are therefore precipitated, the celebrations, ecstatically fuelled.

But as the good times roll, will Josh Parker (Jason Bateman), Clay Vanstone (T. J. Miller), and Tracey Hughes (Olivia Munn) be able to convince Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) that their research and development should move beyond the experimental phase?

Will Clay's uptight sister Carol (Jennifer Aniston) shut them down to right misperceived childhood wrongs?

Will human resources rep Mary (Kate McKinnon) engage in merrymaking regardless of penitent restrictions?

And will the prostitute (Abbey Lee as Savannah) Nate (Karan Soni) hires successfully pass as his supple theoretical girlfriend?

Before her psychotic pimp (Jillian Bell as Trina) shows up to destroy everything?

Wildly engaging in dishevelling shenanigans, Office Christmas Party educates as it embroils.

Through the magic of Christmas, Clay and Carol stop fighting and come together as a family, while several hilarious subordinates find the partner they've been so shyly seeking.

Lumps are taken, yet necessary risks ridiculously refine surefire stabilities, and remarkably steady technologies cyberspatially save the day.

Dionysian balance.

Brainiac mirth.

Certainly an adult themed Christmas film that sets a bizarro example, Office Christmas Party still excels at letting loose just in time for the holiday season.

Some scenes could have been cut, and a bit more time could have been spent editing the script, but the highs olympianly outweigh the lows, and it's definitely worth checking out.

With so many supporting voices delivering strong orations, it must have been tough for Jillian Bell to outshine them all.

But that's exactly what she does.

Second place going to Randall Park (Fred).

Rob Corddry (Jeremy) needs better material!

The Hateful Eight

*This one's kind of gross. The rules. A different set of rules.

It's difficult to take an exacting intellect capable of exotically yet haphazardly envisioning distinct pulsating shocks and successfully apply it to situations which often import stark congenital gravity.

You have to seem bright without seeming intelligent, unconcerned while meticulously managing the minutia.

In an enlightened stupor.

If you seem too intelligent it's too intelligent; if it's too bland, it's too bland.

You see Tarantino trying to intelligently craft visceral mundane irresistibly kitschy constellations throughout The Hateful Eight but the result is more like a blunt racist ultraviolent unappealing dust bowl.

That's not what you're supposed to do!

It's not that he doesn't have his own thing happenin'.

It's quirky and bizarre enough to make you want to see what's going to happen next, and his confident grizzly backwoods characters hold your attention with outrageously dispassionate abrasive machismo, bullshit, bullshit, more bullshit, mendaciously striking with cold hard-hearted disparity.

It's just, you keep seeing what happens next and it isn't that great, some of it's kind of cool, but there's an extended back-in-time sequence that serves little purpose but to depict a lively happy frontier family being slaughtered, there's torture and rape, the main female character's face is regularly covered in blood because her captor keeps punching her in the mouth, and the races are irrepressibly at odds as the hatred viciously intensifies.

I suppose if you want to indulge in gratuitous gratuity, sleaze for sleaze's sake, that's okay, I guess, I don't know why you would want to do that but it's done all the time, I don't want to be too politically correct here, The Hateful Eight firmly giving the finger to pc everything and it should be examined on its own terms judiciously.

Like, scatological synergies.

Claustrophobic acrimony.

Renegade nausea.

Hemorrhoid puke stink.

One of the first things I thought when I saw the trailer for The Revenant was, "this is what Quentin Tarantino could be doing, he could be making films like this."

But then I thought, it's annoying when people are like, you should be doing this, so I was like, I'm not going to be like that.

Inglourious Basterds is an incredible film that I love watching again and again. It succeeds on so many levels and even has valuable life lessons to learn worked into its frames.

I'm not getting that from Django or The Hateful Eight and think Tarantino should move away from exploiting race relations.

He could give the serious yet comedic unconsciously pliable western one more try, but like I think I've said before, it's extremely difficult to do.

In danger of being eclipsed by Robert Rodriguez.

Troublemaker studios.

Heuristic halcyon.