You've Got Mail

Well, it looks like way back when, when giant bookstores starting taking over, an adorable romantic comedy was made to help soften the corporate blow.

I remember the old school crisis and how it effected the local markets, not that independent bookstores disappeared entirely, but I certainly don't see them as much as I used to.

I suppose I don't really know who financed You've Got Mail, but it looks like a traditional piece of propaganda, that makes for a much more pleasant hostile takeover, complete with big business male conquering small business female.

I wonder how it was received at the time.

There's no doubt it's clever.

The internet was just starting up and people were just beginning to use email. 'Twas a fledgling monumental paradigm shift in the ways in which the entire world operates. The people at You've Got Mail clearly understood this, and went about crafting a related narrative.

Which was inherently endearing. 

If not ominously inevitable. 

I do rather like Chapters/Indigo, it is a cool place to look for books, each individual store having to pass the Proust and Dickens test, before definitively delineating its classical authenticity. 

Stick a Starbucks in there.

What a brilliant idea.

A Christmas bonus to whoever thought that one up.

It was a shame to see so many independents go under though, they had character and savvy and weren't quite so freakin' imposing.

My favourite bookstore will always be the local bookshop from my youth, a cool little place where I found my first volume of Proust (after watching Little Miss Sunshine) and many other cool books over the years, the owner used to even feature photos of raccoons in winter, and even took the mayor of Hamilton to court (and won if I'm not mistaken [long before Andrea Horwath who I imagine is doing a great job])!

25 years after the release of You've Got Mail I find myself dreading another paradigm shift, where Chapters/Indigo and bookstores everywhere go out of business, and one's forced to shop online.

That's all I've been doing since the pandemic hit and I have no idea how those stores have coped. All I know is that books used to feature prominently in the mainstream narrative (see You've Got Mail or The NeverEnding Story), and I never really see them mentioned anymore.

There should be money for prestige films that might win Oscars that focus on books. Obviously, I love film. But books and music still feature heavily in my life.

Perhaps I'm just being anxious, and nothing's really wrong, but I keep hearing bad restaurant tidings, and my laundry alarm went off while I was editing this sentence. 

I worry because I don't know many people who read books.

But I never really have come to think of it (outside of University).

Good thing Dad made sure I read as a child.

That was one thing he sincerely pushed. 

Honestly, when I was really young illiteracy still existed in the mainstream mind, and learning to read was regarded as a great thing, like we really had evolved. 

Another step in the wrong direction?

Getting my COVID booster soon. 

Green Grow the Rushes

And a country persisted for centuries and its history expanded tenfold, gradually transforming from a feudal to an industrial society, incrementally balanced by royals and parliament.

But the impetus to transform various codes lacked immutable ubiquity, and while some regions emphatically adapted, others simply couldn't be bothered. 

At one time such regions perhaps adapted a more nationalistic ceremonious fervour, calling about grand chivalric dignity to unquestionably praise exalted decorum.

But as time passed, the inherent labour became too strenuous for many inhabitants, and the uproar which once fiercely extolled farming gave way to a somewhat less traditional occupation.

Less traditional?, who's to say?, some jurisdictions were settled millennia ago, and perhaps still unconsciously embrace the same engrained habits as their resourceful forefathers.

Thus, who's to say when Anderida started bootlegging and generally relying on the bounty of the sea, it seems that at one time they at least thought of farming, although over the years it lost local prominence.

Outlaw liquor from the forbidden continent steadily arrives on the shore meanwhile, which is brought throughout the region then perhaps transported all over England. 

A trio of government reps come preaching duty and responsibility, reminding the townsfolk that land must be cultivated according to 20th century guidelines.

But they've had their own laws in the region for many an indifferent decade, enjoying unconcerned jocose seclusion along with its incumbent grey lackadaisics. 

They try to be as hospitable as they can but find the outsiders most invasive, fortunately thanks to tradition and law they have alternative means at their public disposal.

But when a wild storm suddenly lands a large trusted ship in someone's backyard, their ability to jurisprudently deal is somewhat landlubbed by grandiose conspicuity. 

Trusted figures swiftly move into action and soon the 3 customs agents are locked down in court, while local legions dispose of the booty imaginatively inclined with Dionysian wherewithal. 

Just one scant example amongst thousands quietly delineating a nation each day, as its ancient interconnected paths see the onset of newfound desires and traditions.

Caught within a propitious vortex eschewing embracing various codes of conduct, individualistic poised prompt personality instigating schema forthright characteristic.

Why bother seeking downcast monotony, as long as there's inherent equal opportunity?

Uniformity lays bare extremes.

Amidst such litigious frolic. 

Into the Forest

Isolated ingenuity, embowered seclusion, 2 sisters living together in the West Coast woods far from town must learn to survive after the North American power grid suddenly shuts down, permanently, in Patricia Rozema's Into the Forest.

Feminine fortitude.

There's no fear, no frequent unprovoked breakdowns, in fact the film seems too sober and logical after their father (Callum Keith Rennie as Robert) dies and the grieving ends after a brief period of intense sorrow.

It's a matter of timing, the film divided into temporal segments which narrativize specific incidents yet leave out inquisitive aspects which leave you wondering why they chose to stay in the woods and why they weren't more curious about was happening in the world?

Such questions are entertained but they aren't examined at length, as they would have been if the story didn't jump ahead so often, which I found odd considering their circumstances and the massive destabilizing continental paradigm shifts enveloping them.

They can't find any information and there's no one else to talk to besides a partner (Max Minghella as Eli) who arrives for a short stay to state that no one really knows anything in town either, and game changing decisions are behind made based on conjecture, which moderately heightens end of the world tensions by acknowledging that communication networks and associated cross-references no longer exist, but the film remains deep in the woods so none of these convolutions can be explored.

Nevertheless, Into the Forest challenges gender stereotypes as Nell (Ellen Page) and Eva (Evan Rachel Wood) pioneer it hardcore.

Their survival skills were actually significantly enhanced precisely at the moment where I started to think the film was going to ignore such progressive potential.

If you've ever worked in the bush you know women can do anything men can, often with less complaining, and more team building enthusiasm.

Nell learns to hunt, forage, use ropes to hide food in trees so bears have a much harder time getting at it, and Eva learns to chop wood.

Eva's raped while doing so, a terrifying moment which speaks to the worst in men, i.e., as women begin to prove that they are capable of doing the work stereotypically ascribed to men, the worst men violently assault them to belittle and degrade their genuine badass accomplishments.

As Nell and Eva slowly realize they don't want to live their lives botanically bushwhacking, their dwelling gradually collapses, the last sign of the postmodern world, reclaimed once again by environmental inevitabilities.

Thought the film shouldn't have skipped Winter, left out some relevant discussions, and missed out on incredible cinematographic opportunities (see Sleeping Giant), but Into the Woods still aptly disintegrates gender stereotypes with regenerative pluck and expedient resiliency, transitioning from one epoch to the next, wherein every moment defines adventure.

Risk.

Synergistic sisterhood.

The nebulous sublime.

Straight Outta Compton

I may have just focused on N.W.A if I had written this script.

The group interactions are strong.

Characters enigmatically blossom and come together as a cohesive whole, an act, risks are taken then rewarded, popularity brings the pain, along with the elements, with honest explicit expressions, dynamically forging new artistic ground.

It works, but as the band breaks up and Straight Outta Compton begins to follow Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) and Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) separately, we're provided with more of a brief general overview than an exacting intricate thesis, celebrated historical events from their lives understandably ingratiating, still sacrificing substance for sentimentality, the incisive for the broad.

It works like well researched entries for Who's Who, not as a magnetic work of hard-hitting brazen fiction.

Due to the rapid pace, a lot of facets that could have built more cultural depth carefreely float away, such as the death of Dr. Dre's brother, the artistic paradigm shifting exhilaration of N.W.A's work, Ice Cube's method, a closer examination of the pressures they faced from the F.B.I, and a more intricate look at the politics of the groundbreaking.

These facets could all function as separate films, turning Straight Outta Compton into a fountainhead of sorts, perhaps.

It covers police brutality well, which would seem exaggerated if it weren't based on fact and backed up by myriad contemporary examples.

I support free artistic expression in most forms, it's only those that eagerly promote hate speech that I question, just remember, racism, violence and misogyny are often more closely aligned with America's Republican Party, with candidates like Donald Trump anyways, the Party who generally squashes minorities and caters to an oligarchic elite.

If you're speaking out against police violence in your music to make a point about how corrupt and unfair it is, that's one thing.

If you're writing songs that glorify misogyny and violence for fun, you're doing the work of the Republican Party for them, saving and making them millions.

You have a choice not to express yourselves in such ways.

And you're free to make that choice.

Moneyball

Brad Pitt must have loved Moneyball's script at first glance. He's given the majority of screen-time and only one other actor is provided with the lines to contend a memorable performance. The film's about a baseball general manager's (Pitt as Oakland's Billy Beane) struggles to introduce a new style of management/recruitment/strategizing in order to field a playoff contender with a limited budget, the style being based on sabermetrics, the specialized objective analysis of baseball statistics gathered from actual game-time activities, notably a player's on-base percentage. Pitt lectures, wheels, trades, demotes, admonishes and deals while throwing things around and confidently battling formidable egos. The film effectively demonstrates what it's like to champion the new within a set of firmly established guidelines that have been unquestionably governing the order of things since they were set in place and consequently naturalized through the act of unconscious repetition. Risks must be taken. It all must be laid on the line. A number of unanticipated factors and potential points of diversification must be calmly and patiently ignored/incorporated as their rational characteristics challenge or correspond to the plan in question.

The film's a lot easier to watch if you're a baseball fan whose interested in the trials of an innovative general manager. Lotta baseball goin' on and your response to the predictable trajectories may be more enthusiastic if following a team's condensed unheralded controversial season interests you.

Or maybe it won't, I don't know.

The relationship between Beane and his daughter (Kerris Dorsey as Casey Beane) offers a distraction and adds a familial dimension to his professional predicaments. Apart from his relationship with his daughter, he definitely lives and breathes baseball 24/7 each and every day always. Was impressed with Jonah Hill's reticent yet incisive performance, exemplifying the possibilities which occasionally exist for recent graduates who aren't afraid to challenge the establishment.