Cold Dog Soup

An uptight sheltered individual (Frank Whaley as Michael Latchmer) unaccustomed to the underground flow finds himself suddenly embracing l'amour in Alan Metter's Cold Dog Soup.

His flirting skills clock timidity and uncertainty regarding self-worth, yet an act of daring assertion generates shocking relational mirth.

He's soon out for dinner at a love interest's (Christine Harnos as Sarah Hughes) with residing inquisitive mom (Sheree North as Mrs. Hughes), but as they begin to pass around victuals the family dog acrobatically passes.

He's tasked with the objective of burial and sets forth to find a chill park, but the cab in which he accelerates suggests alternative dispositions.

It's piloted by affirmation inclusively metering knowledge freewheeling (Randy Quaid as Jack Cloud), the chauffeur believing a commercial exchange may be more apt than confidential interment. 

Latchmer is ill-at-ease with the proposed moribund scenario, yet lacks the backbone required to refuse and soon attempts to fetch a fair price.

He does briefly escape then swiftly return to Sarah's apartment, but Cloud frenetically follows and enthusiastically enlists her.

They travel together far and wide in search of an appealing price, even contacting the frisky afterlife, learning lessons along the way.

Cold Dog Soup presents a voyage of discovery improvisationally attired, pursuing unorthodox financial goals through the heart of robust intrigue.

Worry and courage conflict throughout as it critiques austere pretensions, or vast categorical dismissals in relation to free-flowing life.

(I recommend taking it easy on the free-flowing these days. The virus isn't disappearing. I'm masking up and remaining cautious).

You could easily replace "worry" with "prudence" and "courage" with "recklessness" at times, but to do so would spoil the fun, which celebrates jazzy absurdist meaning.

It does so well, you'll be surprised by the budget, there's so much going on in this film, the trick is to acknowledge the latent realism without being fully subsumed.

It's sort of like The Warriors but instead of a gang fighting its way back to Coney Island throughout the night, you have a trio attempting to conduct business with different clients till the wee hours.

It's much more clever than it initially seems, the overt ridiculousness cloaks sly observation, beyond predictable commercial conceptions, at wild interactive free play.

A must see if you like independent filmmaking and the joys of why-did-they-make-this? cinema.

So many hilarious scenes.

Lampooning traditional discourse.

Witness

A young Amish child (Lukas Haas as Samuel) on his first trip to the big city, finds himself immersed in high level corruption, after witnessing a brutal murder, while waiting for his train to depart.

As unaware of the repercussions as the honest cop who takes his statement (Harrison Ford as John Book), he's soon revealed the identity of the killer, and it's indeed one of New York's finest (Danny Glover as McFee).

Book soon transfers the knowledge to his supervisor, but he's placed his trust in the wrong elite cop, shots fired shortly thereafter, moments later he's on the crazed run.

To Amish country.

Where no one will find him.

If he can keep that yap shut.

And refrain from scandalous endeavours.

Work abounds in the old school surroundings, as does temptation, and orthodox rules.

Surveillance haunts disputed emotion.

There's no quarter, no frank ergo sum.

Long before cellphones guaranteed law enforcement could ubiquitously monitor the population, public movements were still often scrutinized, private pastimes uprightly presumed.

In tight-knit communities anyways, and at work, and at home, the concept of privacy still had much more meaning, and could at least be theoretically conceived.

Without vast resources.

Headstrong individualism meets its panoptic particulars in Peter Weir's forbidding Witness, as a trustworthy by the book policeperson closely follows established rules.

Having once taken procedure for granted, he struggles to meticulously adjust, his genuine goodness guiding the way, his bold temper begetting comeuppance.

A sympathetic depiction of the Amish unreels within, beyond sociopolitical constructs, a simple existence with nothing to hide, harmless living for strict rule followers.

The disruption may indeed be controversial, but it's integrated without fuss or alarm, peaceful ways still cognizant of justice, willing to aid distraught virtue in peril.

L'amour.

Restraint.

Confinements of the hypothetical.

Urban tempers so feisty condoned.

An odd mix that could have been more controversial.

Wolfe

Summations surmised in shock smothered sick suffering scorn.

Pronounced pertinent enriched bewilderment interrogative analytics revelations inconclusive.

Serial addendums.

Emotions recollected quixotic exhilaration scarlet iris peerless pathways authentic articles embraced innate pandemonium.

Mutual affection tempestuously tantalized whispers whirlwinds bliss.

Substitutions recitals realignments electrolysis solutes snickers flow, spastic momentum definitive increments narratively isolating cloyed vignettes.

Fortunes resentments antecedents exclamations.

An artist observing amongst them.

Discerning apt poetic reflections in pitched photogenic verse.

Much younger ignored pushed aside.

Still generating pith, catharsis.

Still secreting verdant environs.

Friends struggle to understand why a confidant takes her own life as an outsider questions them in Francis Bordeleau's Wolfe.

It unreels like less of a search for meaning than an attempt to obscure guilt.

It's like there was significance but they couldn't comprehend it and in a tragic attempt to provoke lucidity everything became much less clear.

Until an individual possessing true feeling honestly presented unabashed sincerity.

Wolfe subtly criticizes instinctual unreflective existence through experimental elucidation.

Unable to find resolutions, it suggests a lack of purpose can be overcome through artistic witness.

The violence the artist faces in the beginning fades as he befriends the two spirits also affected by its presumption.

A less depressing film might have solely focused on the good times, celebrating carefree creative progression as opposed to stark misfortune.

Presenting sundry outputs from local artists within.

Like a xylophone.

A soundboard.

A rainforest.

A café.

Puzzle

You've played the video game thousands of times.

You're good at it.

You know the secrets for every level.

But you've played it over and over and over again to the point where it seems like you're stuck on an easy level forever, with no hope of playing something more challenging or diversifying your agile technique 'til the unforeseeable corked end of time.

Others don't seem to understand.

They like their levels.

They don't mind the routine.

But one day an unexpected diversion suddenly reignites cognitive passions which then exhilaratingly intensify an otherwise typical afternoon.

The predictable structure which has been forlornly upheld for what seems like eons finds itself briefly reinvigorated with novel motivational amelioration.

Harmless enough, additional challenges are sought the pursuit of which reveals hidden wonders complexly layered with alternative options, the new game's design possessing limitless imagination stretched across borderless frontiers inhabited by seemingly infinite individualities stressing nothing indistinct in particular.

The thrilling rush of discovery.

Invaluably articulated.

Marc Turtletaub's Puzzle adventurously fitting these pieces together to modestly celebrate romantic parentheses, each partner a redefined wilderness slowly homesteading unfurnished habitations.

Inexhaustible permutations.

Storylines, respect abounding and although some characters could be less rigid, none of them are presented angelically or monstrously.

Choice is vindicated, Puzzle's like an innocent investigation of manifold worlds the characteristics of which envelope varying degrees of boredom or fascination while taking factors like mood, time, compatibility, and eccentricity into account, leaving abundant room for interrogative developments, catalysts and breadcrumbs, Easter eggs and fireworks atmospherically blending, what's different today?, what can be creatively stitched and spooled?

With a brilliant ending.

Emerging in timeless craft.

En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove)

A routine lifetime, sturdy crystalline productive disciplined rigour, shocks and surges and synergies refreshed and reconstituted, dis/ingenuous gravitas, im/pertinent shallows, crises, crucibles, cubicles, companionship, curmudgeony coca, grumpy old bear, shattered inveterate disrepair, friendly yet fiendish, stubborn yet understanding, a bleeding heart with no tolerance for stupidity, a prognostic paradigm, tired of living alone.

An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.

Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.

In search of aid.

Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?

To unburden.

I should have just called him an aging romantic.

Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.

Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.

From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.

Captivatingly so.

There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.

According to Ove's incisive summaries.

But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.

I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.

Sort of like hot chocolate.

Points to make, style to consider.

Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.

Occasionally expressing road rage.