The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The recreational impulse to tell lively tales improvisationally immersed in exotic wonder, effectively drives so much interactivity as days slowly pass and nights stall and linger.

There are so many rules to strictly follow that sensational stories encourage emancipation, being able to fly or breathe under water miraculously motivating agile daydreams.

For children ensconced in unknown consistently reimagined otherworldly lessons, many of which wildly champion imagination the fledgling instincts to revel cathartic. 

Yet balanced with practical reasoning the traditional realities corresponding to our species, birds fly and fish breathe under water while chipmunks and squirrels don't want to be pets.

Distressing unsettling to be sure as one soulfully seeks corporeal independence, to leave the confines of the body behind and transform into pure energy like they do on Star Trek.

Evolution acclimatizing piecemeal as centuries pass and eons articulate, the gradual biological attunements so subtle and microscopic they matriculate unnoticed.

Atemporally speaking still like fresh miracles the remarkable adaptations made to environments over time, many of which seem to have been accompanied by desires to collectively transform and easily acquire nutrients.

The slow passage of time ingenious in its bearings logically enables evolutionary traction, diverse environments habitually gathering sly multivariable communal constructs.

It's not to say to let dreams slowly fade and stoically embrace painstaking millennia, at night and on weekends the transmission of narratives creatively subsists to generate pause.

To fruitfully exercise unorthodox peculiarities through artistic invention and ludic lullaby, makes for less dull invigorating pastimes as things progress, revert or stagnate.

To recklessly play with constructed reality with poorly thought out alternative designs, if in a position of power and gaudy influence has destructive abrasive effects.

The disastrous ways in which the Second World War cacophonously devastated so much of the world, effortlessly critiques ambitious yearnings which ruthlessly seek what isn't for sale.

To remember the difference between fantasy and reality upon embarking on mature expeditions, doesn't mean the former can't be referenced but also encourages logic and reason.

Logic and reason are much more preferable day in and day out as the seasons pass by.

And cooler heads manage things through fact and instruction.

Without worrying about comment and headlines. 

The Fisher King

A headstrong shock jock preaches polarities with assertive recourse to immutability, as his dedicated listeners tune in (Jeff Bridges as Jack), in search of tactile calamitous clarity.

But he goes way too far one impassioned evening and bitter criticisms lead to mayhem, as a devout fan takes what he's saying too seriously, and expresses himself with violence thereafter.

Jack may be rather confident and determined but he isn't made of stone, and after hearing about the mass shooting, he's overwhelmed with penitent distress.

Years pass and he's moved into his partner's (Mercedes Ruehl as Anne), working at times in her video rental store, woebegone motionless remorse having destabilized his once strident potency.

He's out and about one befuddled evening where he's drunk too much unfortunately, when some ne-er-do-wells lay into him, having mistaken him for a homeless man.

But homeless people quickly rise to his defence and he outmaneuvers the scurrilous rogues, awakening the next morning in a basement dwelling, accompanied by a fallen school teacher (Robin Williams as Parry).

He soon learns that that very same teacher's respected love interest was outrageously cut down, by the very same disgruntled individual whom he incensed with his improvised vitriol. 

Cosmic forces seeming to be at play he eagerly befriends his troubled saviour, the two forging a dynamic friendship, with mutual convalescence perhaps intuited.

But can Jack save his troubled soul by bringing Parry back from the depths of madness?

Or will traumatic resonance harrowingly consume him, as the shock proves too much to overcome?

Laidback mysticism and hardboiled angst creatively mingle ensemble within, bewildered conscience and integral redemption evocatively articulating the tragic bromance.

But Terry Gilliam isn't solely concerned with the interactions of the two wayward men, for the gals in their lives add so much spice (plus Amanda Plummer as Lydia) that it's well-balanced through fluid cohesivity. 

Magical realism constructively resides within the narrative's hands-on grizzly contagion, a leap of faith inexplicably necessitated to rejuvenate dormant animate spirits. 

The application of truth or utilitarian practicality may have led to a lack of change, for if there had been no sense of guilt, there would have been no need to assail cynicism. 

Even if it isn't practically sound doesn't it make for a more gripping tale, something less banal more out of the ordinary to transcend trusted paramount stability?

In works of literature and film anyways, perhaps not every day at work or in politics.

It's a mistake to categorically deny it.

And so much more boring in the long run. 

*With John de Lancie (TV Executive), David Hyde Pierce (Lou Rosen),  and Michael Jeter (Homeless Cabaret Singer). 

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Intermixing fate, superstition, religion, individuality, gambling, dreams, ethics, history, economics, showmanship, temptation, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus provides a phantasmagorical panoramic synthesis of parapsychological proportions. A religious guru (Christopher Plummer) makes deal after deal with the devil (Mr. Nick played by Tom Waits) only to fall further and further into his demonic clutches. When we first meet the immortal Doctor Parnassus, his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) is days away from becoming the exclusive property of Satan, and, due to his lacklustre antiquated bush-league performance values, the Doctor has no hope of reversing her fate. But shortly thereafter, his travelling troupe discovers a man hanging from a bridge (Heath Ledger as Tony), and, after saving his life, benefit commercially and ontologically from his gifted oratorical skills. So a new wager must be made which the Prince of Darkness generously conceives, the first one to capture 5 souls receiving sole access to Valentina's future, souls being captured after they enter Doctor Parnassus's Imaginarium, which is the Doctor's imagination physically manifested, the dimensions of which are cultivated according to the imagination of whomever happens to enter (the souls have to decide whether to travel the high or low road within, those flying high becoming the Doctor's possession, those not, Satan's). As Valentina falls for Tony, and Tony's credibility deconstructs itself, Anton (Andrew Garfield) falls by the wayside, and the Doctor must come to terms with immortality. The past and the future then destructively present themselves without recourse to binary oppositions or stable, enduring dispositions. One part romance, two parts tragedy, three parts reality, four parts fantasy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus competently delegates intergenerational gesticulations, while mysteriously emphasizing transcendental transmutations. Plus two.