L'Écume des jours (Mood Indigo)

Assembly lines randomly recite a literary legion of improvisationalists who immediately harness their impressions ensemble with the goal of creating a tale of romantic note.

As the awareness of being written gesticulates limitless extraneous sensual amenities suddenly enlighten, becoming subjects of study or being callously yet festively disregarded, foreshadowing the genesis of love's interest.

The amenities coalesce with a practical and ingenious array of irresistible logical displacements whose metaphoric merits urbanely defy any sense of symmetrical cohesion.

What a world, what a world.

A tragic plot does take shape however whose voluminous sorrows, intricately and in/tangibly elaborated upon and refined, bear witness to the indoctrination of the real, whose vice-like grip expedites decay, within.

It's pointless to say that L'Écume des jours (Mood Indigo) should have been more surreal due to its experimental necessarily incoherent design, since its residual plot provides enough relational factors to make its aesthetic accessible, truly as a subject of beauty, and, if I'm not mistaken, Michel Gondry's saying that a minimum layer of consistency and logic enables radical indulgence to support its erratic spontaneity, although the internal despondency was disquieting as the film progressed.

Don't think I'll ever think of indigo again without thinking about this film, or stop searching in vain for a neat pianocktail.

Terraces in the afternoon.

Nothing but time.

The Green Hornet

Can a spoiled good-natured exceedingly wealthy party animal suddenly turn his life around and combat the forces of evil with unerring alacrity and formidable strength? Definitely not without the help of his ingenious barista, and within Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet this is sort of what happens, although the exploits of Britt Reid (Seth Rogan) and Kato (Jay Chou) do not proceed as smoothly as aforementioned. It's a film more about cool gadgets, sophomoric dialogue, and stunning automobiles than battling bad guys and dispensing justice, a different sort of super hero film, if you can call it that, where the villain (Chudnofsky [Christoph Waltz]) has the best lines and the most integrity (ala Frank Booth [note the gas mask]), and the hero is a jealous, ineffectual schmuck (your reaction to Chudnofsky's identity crisis could make or break the film for you [I only saw one Green Hornet ad showcasing Chudnofsky and I'm not surprised; the jokes only work well in context]). A lot of superheroes lack the confidence to engage in superheroic acts until that special moment when they realize they've possessed what it takes to superhero all along. In The Green Hornet, Reid has the confidence to engage in superheroic acts and it's not until that special moment where he realizes he's a douche bag, one who seriously needs his support network, that he discovers the necessary skills. The film's well written insofar as it develops intriguing ingenuous and devious characters full of frustration and weakness who are relatable and comedically tragic and places them within off-beat game-changing big-picture situations (Reid equals fantasy, Kato, reality). The structure's somewhat suspect however inasmuch as more screen time is spent exploring the friendships/relationships between Reid, Kato, and Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz) than developing legitimate underground crime fighters (this would have worked more successfully in a graphic novel). Nonetheless, they do fight crime, and near the end we watch as a socially-conscious American floats through the sky seated beside a brilliant Chinese self-made-person, their livelihood sustained by an incisive woman, existential yet practical as they have made a difference.

Mehopes this image bears fruit in the 21st Century.

Be Kind Rewind

In Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, two down on their luck eccentric individuals decide it's time to sabotage a local power plant. Jerry (Jack Black) is convinced that the government is using that power plant to manipulate minds, and, ironically enough, after Mike (Mos Def) abandons him during the act, a bolt of electromagnetic something or other blasts him, magnetizing his brain. Which wouldn't be all that bad, but Mike works at Be Kind Rewind, a struggling video store in New Jersey which only has two months to bring its building up to code and avoid demolition. Jerry's new brain erases all of Be Kind's inventory, leaving them with only one way to get around bothering vacationing store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) with the bad news: create their own home videos as quickly as they can and supply them to their customers as alternative versions (what they call "sweded") of their favourite films. At first the idea seems ludicrous, but as Ghostbusters, Robocop, and Rush Hour II come off without a hitch, their revolutionary idea pulls ahead full-throttle.

Be Kind Rewind seems ridiculous but its intellectual salute to forms of disenfranchised discourse demonstrates how the poor can take back the means of production and forge for themselves a dignified existence, where their insights and means of expression matter (a manifestation of what Žižek refers to as 'The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime'). It’s slightly off-beat but ludicrously effectively, emphasizing the value of friendship and the benefits of creativity.