8-Bit Christmas

A different time known by many only through festive fable and resolute reanimation, during which new technological developments proliferated, along with the age old tried and true.

In fact inherent resonant syntheses at times harmoniously hastened, newfound revelatory reckoning hitherto unheard of in sundry millennia. 

With such abundant novelty elucidating ingenious spirits habitually distilled, random fluid intermittent auspices risibly attuned to salient synergy.

Within this unsurpassed decade, 8-Bit Christmas shares its tale, with laudable attempts to appear authentic, throughout the incumbent childhood reminiscence.

For one youngster within the neighbourhood has received every newly released toy, and his surrounding covetous playmates seek to be chosen to actively play.

They longingly gather en masse while young Mr. Keane (Chandler Dean) treats them contemptuously, his haughty dismissive cheeky flaunting generally tolerated with tranquil reticence. 

But 'lil Jake Doyle (Winslow Fegley/Neil Patrick Harris) has had enough and after a haunting disturbing incident, sets out to buy a Nintendo of his own to freely accommodate nimble gaming.

The initial plan involves the Scouts and the accumulation of commodities sold, wreathes indeed to communal stalwarts ceremoniously accustomed to symbolic tradition.

If his sales reverberatingly reach sought after insurmountable superlatives, it is thought he will receive a new Nintendo gaming system.

But something's not quite right and his friends may have been misinformed.

Thus inspiring strategic improvisation. 

With the aid of friends and family.

Not merely a history lesson for contemporary enthusiasts intent on study, but also a blueprint for high-stakes shenanigans as once conceived sans online technologies. 

For there was indeed a time when intricate detail was interactively worked into thoughtful recreation, and playful meetings were held in person to freely negotiate what lay outside.

It was called conversation wherein which curious peeps expressed different points of view, and if the answer remained uncertain what were known as books were readily consulted.

I really enjoyed this film and will likely check it out again next Holiday Season (along with works by Raymond Briggs [I have a huge list of shows and films to watch every year {and it just keeps growing!}]). 

It has a classic Christmas ending (love you dad).

Applicable throughout the ages.

*Happy Holidays from Everyone here at Film Reviews! All the best in everything in 2023!

The Wizard

An autistic youth struggling to comprehend the sudden passing of his twin sister, buckles down and heads out on the road (Luke Edwards as Jimmy Woods), both sets of parents rather unsettled by his departure, he's swiftly located, and brought back home.

It's a pattern, so he heads out again this time with the aid of an older brother (Fred Savage as Corey Woods), who doesn't want to see him committed to a psychiatric institution which is where he would have wound up.

The two travel unfettered undisciplined until they reach an accommodating bus station, where they meet Haley (Jenny Lewis) who's on her way home and discover Jimmy has a knack for video games.

Not just a knack, he's exceptionally talented, so much so that Haley suggests they head to Los Angeles, and enter the "Video Armageddon" competition taking place a few days away.

But they're being tracked by two separate sleuths one a father and brother team (Beau Bridges as Sam Woods and Christian Slater as Nick Woods respectively), the other a slimy weaselly reptilian eager to make a quick opportune buck (Will Seltzer as Mr. Putnam). 

Jimmy may have a natural gift for video game playing but he's still unfamiliar with many exemplars, so Corey and Haley take him to "Nintendo School" so he can practice, prepare, and prognosticate. 

Will they reach their sought after destination in time for the vigorous showdown, or will parental responsibility assert immobile lockdown?

Families split on how to proceed.

Competing diagnoses clashing best practices. 

The Wizard imagines adventurous purpose to pursue quizzical unorthodox therapy, ie., rather than place the child who keeps wandering away in therapy, why not try to find out where he's going?

Their trip could have more closely resembled a video game in its resilient collegial questing, insofar as a more calamitous test of endurance would have been more reminiscent of something like Zelda.

But it's lighthearted and free and easy less concerned with hardship or tribulation, not that obstacles don't present themselves, they're just not so intense and at times rather comic.

If you love video games I reckon The Wizard may provide ample lackadaisical endearment, as several characters including Jimmy's father embrace unheralded electronic inspiration.

The games focused upon may perhaps provide historical import as well, an examination of ye olde old school to function as an instructive comparison.

I never made it very far with video games myself, I just didn't see the point after I reached a certain age.

I've missed out on quite a lot of conversation consequently.

And the occasional not-so-subtle reference.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One takes Game Night to the next level by presenting a world within which every waking moment characterizes free play.

Arguments lauding the values of physical existence having been virtually refuted, the Oasis intergenerationally supplies invigorating imaginary agency to anyone curious enough to enroll.

It's the ultimate online experience, manifold worlds within worlds abounding with purpose and challenge and leisure and romance, astounding variability thematically applied with visionary intertextual synergies slash infinite individual accommodations, instantaneously accessible, intravenously mounted.

Created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance/Isaac Andrews), a brilliant pop culture enthusiast with a propensity to articulate architecturally, its ownership enters a period of flux after he passes, only those clever and skilful enough to find the 4 keys he's hidden within having the chance to become its new guardians, and since it's valued at half-a-trillion, and its riddles are next to impossible to solve, only a select few possess the talent required, although all and sundry compete by all means.

And then it happens, after years of clueless endeavour, two diametrically opposed groups seemed poised for victory.

One, an accumulation of indentured gamers coerced into working for colossal douche Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), sheer numbers intended to overwhelm the opposition even if they instinctually lack any genuine personal revelation.

They invade the Oasis en masse, intimidating everyone they can to cheat their way to the finals.

Reminding me of ye olde deflategate thereby.

The other, a bucking homegrown organic dedicated team in the process of formation, possibly lead by a modest competitive young superfan who also possesses innovative interpretive intuition.

Will the 5 of them combine their strengths to outperform the corporate world, thereby preventing it from transforming the Oasis into a heartless tiered unimaginative conglomerate, as if both B.C's coastline and its interior were contaminated by millions of gallons of oil, or the internet itself, was regulated like cable television?

The odds would be stacked highly against them.

If they weren't so exceptionally gifted.

Like indomitable lamda kitshatz haderached omega particles, never pausing to adjust for wind resistance, near wild heaven trucking through the danger zone, they keep goin' mobile as the labyrinthine adventure begins.

Ready Player One playfully unites myriad awe inspiring protocultural constellations like an enigmatic enlightenment transisting renaissance.

Spielberg still possesses the youthful wonder that has helped him to create stunning films for decades, Ready Player One clearly proving that he hasn't lost touch with his incomparable artistic genius, nor his undeniable love of cinema.

I'm betting that whatever decade you grew up in, this film will help you feel like you're back at home in your youth.

A remarkable cohesion of multigenerational inter and independence, it reifies the North American cultural spirit, without losing sight of its cool.

Why wasn't it released in July?

Elle

It doesn't get much darker than Elle.

A great companion piece for The Lobster if you're craving an evening of total anarchy.

This January.

In the film, a highly functioning potentially psychotic successful businessperson conducts her affairs with extreme emotional detachment, unless her ex-husband's involved, she's trying to help her emotionally abused son (a bad relationship with another potential psycho), or hoping her mother won't marry a coddling gigolo.

Even as she's raped at home and then thoroughly humiliated at work, at her own company, which produces sexually explicit video games, she still generally proceeds as if nothing's wrong and manages to accomplish an extraordinarily diverse number of tasks, pure robotic efficiency, as if she's been there and done that for every possible scenario, stoic impeccability existentially exonerated.

Unfortunately, in her youth, she accompanied her father as he proceeded to murder most of their neighbours, the story becoming a nationwide sensation, her life quite strange at all times forever after.

That's not all, it's even more dysfunctional, the eclectic cast of diverse oddballs even congregated for Christmas dinner, a scene that could have transported Elle into unapproachable contemptuous infinities, had it been even more sinister, had it sought after true infamy.

Therein lies a play for someone else to write.

Adam Reed? Mitchell Hurwitz?

Sadomasochistically submerged in ineffable grotesque hypotheticals, Elle's bourgeois community still must interrelate, it can't help it if that was how it was written.

Like pure misogyny masquerading as a caring caricature of feminine strength, Elle is as undefinable as it is cold and direct, its unmuzzled licentious agency, its pristine putrefaction, calculated to deafeningly depreciate, in gross inherent disillusion.

Not to say that it isn't well done.

It's quite well done in fact.

A sensation.

Pathologically speaking.

Hardcore Henry

Apocalyptic awakening, immediately thrust into omnipresent annihilation, or birth in a fascist realm, unable to speak, cyborg awareness, the necessity of inductively coming to terms with what that means as a legion of minions attempts to obliterate you, escape from the blimp, follow the bread crumbs, instinctively strategize each and every incendiary reaction, awestruck athleticism, magnanimous masquerade, keep bursting with blunt obstinacy, survive to Frankenstein your creator, smash crunch dash ditch, pernicious reflexivity, maniacally coming into being.

Too insane.

Too psycho.

The opening credits suggest Hardcore Henry's parodying James Bond and is therefore supposed to be comedic, but if that's the case, it's a sick sense of humour that doesn't particularly impress.

The film's like a video game, like Henry's your character and you're trying to frenetically fight your way to the end, the unnerving celebration of violence perhaps meant to critique blitzkrieg obsessions, found in many a video game, less pronounced in Bond, still there, James Bond.

I don't think that's the case though, the opening credits also festively revelling in graphic death, Hardcore Henry consequently seeming like an elevation of violence for violence's sake rather than a reticent vituperative censor.

The audience is Henry as he fights his way to the top, always following his point of view.

Compliments for trying something different, but whereas this technique worked in Son of Saul, perhaps here suggesting that focusing too strongly on individuality leaves you suffering under constant threat, it's disorienting in Hardcore Henry.

The quasi-novelty wore off after 5 minutes and I quickly grew tired of the obscured frenzied panic.

Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) and his avatars provide comic relief but they also die brutally every time they provide information, as James Bond's contacts often do.

Way too much violence without much of a point.

I like raw bohemian unconcerned films, when they're done well, but Hardcore Henry just seems to be exploiting subconscious malevolence, like cockfighting or racism.

It's too easy.

Rash thoughtless elevations.

Scripted chaos.

Roller Town (Fantasia Fest 2012)

Rollin' along; roller skatin' down that road.

Bringing disco, back to life.

Haligonian comedy troupe Picnicface insert their distinct brand of hypertense laissez-faire creepy yet ingratiating socio-cultural commentary into their first full-length film, Roller Town, overflowing with the same cerebral mix of nostalgic innocence and nauseous necromancy that nauticalized their television show, ironically transmitted through a vicarious fundamental frequency, which fetishistically elevates the construction of a permanent sense of psychological well-being, localized and qualified by an irresistibly naive belief in the eternal values of pop culture, avatarized with direct access to the divine, while criminally agitating its impending neuroses.  

A lot of the jokes/situations have an immediate impact (are funny) while many of them seem like they were deliberately set up to just be as inane and I-don't-give-a-fuck as possible. But when you think about them afterwards it's these inane moments that lacked depth that make you laugh and want to see it again.

Which isn't that easy to do.