Belfast

I've always loved the scene in Doctor Zhivago when Yuri Andreyevich is asked how he'll live within the newly formed Soviet Union, and he simply states something like, "[I'll] just live".

You see he isn't seriously interested in politics or religion or ideology or revolution, but rather just in simply living a quiet life with friends and family.

Such peaceful ambitions in volatile times permeate much of Belfast's learning, as it generally focuses on three generations of a loving family from Northern Ireland.

It's sweet and tender, wild and forthright, innocent and wise, confused yet earnest, as its characters attempt to simply live surrounded by shortsighted religious tension.

If you've ever wondered how life persists when dangerous idiocy turns culturally violent, I'd argue Kenneth Branagh's heartfelt Belfast is a superlative exemplar.

Plus, if you happened to have watched Branagh's Henry V when you were in high school, and felt cool when after 15 minutes or so you generally understood the language, and then thought he was one of the coolest directors around, and then waited for years, while generally enjoying his films, for that one that stood out as a genuine artistic masterpiece, unconcerned with status or popularity, just overflowing with artistic soul, look no further than his brilliant Belfast, a potential companion piece for Doctor Zhivago.

I guess I never mentioned that my father was a religious man, who attended mass practically every Sunday of his life. It gave him a general sense of peace and calm and when the pandemic prevented him from going, he lost his life.

My father was a religious man but he wasn't strict or nutty or ridiculous, he still believed in medical science and evolution and even loved great writing and argument (like other friends I've known who are religious).

Unlike austere religious people, he made you feel welcome within the church, and didn't judge or critique or fear you because you were different or strange or inquisitive.

I think about the church at times but apart from dad, there's been a lot of disillusion, and I generally prefer how things are done in Québec, where science actually makes prayers happen.

That's just me though, I'm not here to judge, but I really don't get it when religions start fighting, especially different denominations within the same religion, it seems incredibly foolish, not to mention, totally nuts.

So many productive lives ruined.

In the name of saviours who preached peace.

I'm old enough to accept that it happens but I'll never make peace with such reckless idiocy.

Belfast is a must see film.

The pursuit of life beyond disparate violence. 

We the Animals

A creative child, impoverished and sensitive, hesitant and withdrawn, immersed in domestic violence explosive tempers rigid flair, bipolar ontologies practically conditioning tempestuous mindsets artistically grained and fractured, love amorously swathing, freedom recklessly improvising, a lack of consultation disputatiously igniting frayed conscience, with striking elementary animosity, fell off the deep end, woe heartaches disbelief, still anchored constitutionally, to sights sounds preached ruptures too familiar.

Tough life for the little guy.

The love's there, no question, but paps doesn't get that he's just not the type of kid who learns to swim if you unexpectedly let go.

A budding young illustrator, painter, designer, architect, explicitly classifying the chaos as unconfrontationally as he can, attaching meaning to the inexplicable with tactile ambassadorial artifice, a collection accrued amassed, grotesquely misinterpreted upon discovery.

He finds it thrown away.

Learns to keep his head above water.

There's no support network overflowing with concerned expertise.

Just actions, reactions, patterns, nature.

A lack of understanding.

Existence.

We the Animals relies more on emotion than rational discourse as it presents itself, a stunning array of carefully selected snapshots delicately scolding in volatile willow.

There's nothing easy about this film, the characters patiently move from hardship to hardship supporting themselves as they frenetically endure, or become accustomed to livid passionate embraces, some people learn to thrive on conflict, a strange inhospitable disposition divisively characterizing sullen negotiation.

Odd habitual inadmissibilities.

An excellent film regardless which pulls you in with unassuming composure, not to be taken lightly even if endearment shines through, not to be bluntly dismissed even if scenes are strictly brutal.

When you see her sleeping on the couch one morning surrounded by mischief you think that must be something exceptionally adorable to wake up to.

But a lack of both resources and community services, and a strong desire to make their own way, lead to violent emotional outbursts which make their situation haunting and desperate.

Papillon

Entrenched plutocrats, none too pleased with having been fooled, frame a specialized romantic thief with most scandalous murder.

As lucrative sums casually discern culpability, a bright future slowly fades into unimaginative oblivion.

Banished from France and sent to live in an isolated penal colony, Henri 'Papillon' Charrière (Charlie Hunnam) sets his aggrieved broken heart on escaping.

Fellow less pugilistic prisoner Louis Dega (Rami Malek) provides financial backing in exchange for loyal security, having been rightfully convicted for counterfeiting, the proceeds of which he's partially brought along.

But careless plans, foolish declarations, inclement weather, and treacherous saviours incrementally spoil their impromptu soliloquies, extended time in solitary confinement awaiting, for as long as an excruciating non-negotiable 5 years.

Many spent in total darkness.

Yet Papillon will not forget his cherished homeland (or Québec perhaps [it doesn't come up {would it have been that hard to include a scene where he considers settling in Montréal?}]) nor curtail his efforts to one day return.

As stubborn and incorrigible as he is death-defying, he embraces the unknown with devout frenzied reverence.

If only a love of nature had been inculcated at a young age, the jungles of French Guiana no doubt would have overflowed with tropical sustenance.

But as things would have it, or rather as this somewhat bland account would present them, Papillon continues to trust the small closely-knit members of his colonialist enclave's upper echelons, rather than the bounty of the forbidden wild, only to see severe punishments increase as time lugubriously passes by.

Papillon's somewhat too light for such grave subject matter, too bare, too superficial.

I wanted to learn more about its fascinating characters and listen as they plotted while getting to know one another, but the film only develops one individual diminutively, and it's not even Papillon, the resultant blunt dialogues leaving little room to manoeuvre, even though for decades they must have had nothing but conversation to console themselves.

The crafty Rami Malek effortlessly steals every scene he's in, adding multifaceted flourishes throughout which prove his voice would extoll first rate animation.

But he's like the gold particles in a dull textbook slab of cinematic ore, brilliantly shining through before fading as it's lit up explicitly.

With possibly the least surreal dream sequence I've ever seen.

Hardened inmates innocently greeting one another like they're at Summer camp.

Hardly any time spent actually planning their escapes.

Even less considering the outside world.

Papillon's much more like a caterpillar, covering far too long a period without managing to produce much depth.

Lots of fighting though, nobility of spirit versus basic instinct and such, and even if they dependably relied on one another, it still seems as if they were simply chugging along.

Shizam.

Red Sparrow

Extreme deception bluntly orchestrating maddeningly corrupt initiatives, coldly addressing severe characteristics with the flippant admiration of vanity in bloom.

Emaciated modus operandi, secretively adjusted objectives, flirtatiously plummeting pirouettes, applauding emotionless utilitarianism.

Innate degeneracy opulently upholding volatile foundations meticulously irradiated.

Occupational hazards phantasmagorically posturing with the resigned duplicitous elegance of nouveau riche ostentation, spread so delicately thin that one's senses aspirationally swoon with treacherous wonder.

Dissimulated.

Prevaricated.

If you can figure out what lies beneath a question's seeming innocuous simplicity as it's delivered with clumsy sincerity by someone who has no respect for you, it's easy to lie and give them the answer they expect to hear, the poorly concealed sarcastic nuances of their tone having betrayed their vicious intentions, their misguided readymade conclusion (along with what they intend to do with it), and after providing the answer for which they search which is easy enough to detect, you'll hopefully never hear from them again, calico.

Red Sparrow.

Wherein incomparable poise is wounded then theoretically transformed into a solicitous unimaginative reflection exalting spirited disillusion, commandeered to effortlessly seduce while never questioning executive artifice.

She does seduce effortlessly and you wonder how an undercover operative could have let his guard down so obliviously, but it does save time in a film that's already considerably lengthy.

For good reason.

It patiently follows resourceful Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) from career ending catastrophe to harrowing rebirth, accentuating her helplessness piecemeal before considering an alternative only awkwardly presented hitherto, thus enabling multidimensional character development within the strictest confines.

Pigs at the trough beware, Egorova is comin' to get 'cha.

The Americans are generally presented as trustworthy agents while the Russians betray their government with cause, a comment on the price of bearing petty grudges, one disloyal American voraciously bisecting the cultural stereotypes.

Not as intricate as some spy films, but Lawrence's stark brutal portrayal of a coerced fledgling homegrown psychopath still brazenly holding on to her innocence, as accompanied by a feisty Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a reserved General Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons), and a fierce Matron (Charlotte Rampling), situated within a clever direct script whose subject matter is uncannily relevant if Icarus and Russia's other international relations woes are interwoven, still helps Red Sparrow stand out, the groundwork for an outstanding sequel having been provocatively laid.

Perfect February release.

Mind-bogglingly coincidental.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Martin McDonagh cranks up Sympathy for the Devil and holds nothing back in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, as an abusive bigoted homophobic policeperson does the right thing for once after a lifetime of gross civil indecency.

The schematics.

A grieving mother (Frances McDormand as Mildred), whose daughter was brutally murdered, rents three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, to boldly call out the local police chief (Woody Harrelson as Chief Willoughby) for having made no progress on the case months later.

Her fury is justified and her disobedience sincere, even if members of the local constabulary don't see it that way, members who no longer take the case seriously.

An individual's reasonable observations therefore conflict with statistics and precedents, the police having handled similar cases before, and done relatively little after their initial investigation led nowhere.

Did complacency brought about by years of cold routine cause them to simply ignore the case?

Possibly.

Spoiler.

The police chief, who is dying of cancer, does commit suicide not long after the billboards go up.

This isn't Mississippi Burning.

Even if Ebbing's blunt righteous inspirational indignation generates hardboiled perdition, wherein which everyone is scorched in the flames, including James (Peter Dinklage), unwittingly, who's introduced to critique Mildred, or to reflect upon a culture so saturated with stereotypical thinking that no one's done anything genuine for decades, until the three billboards go up, after which people who don't have much experience feeling suddenly find themselves culturally enraged, unprecedented emotions wildly seeking semantic clarification, it's no Mississippi Burning, a film that doesn't present the racist pretensions of the local police force so lightly.

But the Feds aren't called in in this one, and even though I'm a forgiving man, and love a story that sees the hardboiled ethical transformation of a character like Dixon (Sam Rockwell), a grizzly tale that doesn't shy away from gruesome cultural codes, he still brutally assaults people and the law doesn't hold him to account, apart from taking his badge away, and I don't see why the metamorphosis of the brutally violent police officer is being celebrated with awards, when Wind River, another dark film that examines stark polarized realities, which is also well-written and compelling, was released in 2017, and ignored by the Golden Globes.

That's called white privilege, I believe.

Was The Revenant too soon?

Detroit

Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit examines a horrific event from America's past that took place during the explosive Detroit riots.

As the twitterverse and the video technology built into postmodern cellphones vigilantly documents contemporary life, providing unburnished blueprints of power being abused, the prolonged illustration of police brutality found in the film seems shocking yet all too familiar.

How do you bring these two groups together, African American communities targeted by the police and the trustworthy police officers committed to treating them fairly?

If one group targets another for decades and becomes more like a bully than a protector, it's difficult for the victims to trust that group or assist them when their help is needed.

That targeted community deserves the same protection other communities enjoy and it would be terrifying to think that the very people hired to ensure public safety were in fact hostile and unwilling to assist.

The positive forces of progressive change are often overlooked within a sensationalized frame that predominantly focuses on violence.

They must be working together behind the scenes to fight both crime and police brutality, with stricter penalties for police officers who shoot first and ask questions later.

It must be difficult to trust if you see innocent members of your community killed by the police, and then the offending officer is set free with a slap on the wrist.

It must be difficult to trust if the authorities generally think you're troublemaking.

Decade after decade, no respite in sight.

Despair contending with animosity, historically nuanced to permeate strategic plans.

The African Americans I've worked with were first rate, working hard throughout the day while relaxing and having thoughtful and fun conversations during lunch and breaks, like the other people I've worked with over the years.

There's no difference unless you ignorantly approach the situation with destructive preconceived notions that turn a typical interaction into an eggshell extravaganza.

Detroit realistically and bluntly presents a racist tragedy perpetrated by those who blindly consider violence to be an effective tool.

Hemorrhaging and monstrous, it openly investigates that which remains unimagined, hopefully teaching confused individuals and communities just how horrendous miscommunication can be.

I suggest never pulling a prank on the police, rather, it's best practice to listen and do what they say.

Even if it makes no difference when they do that in Detroit.

There are thousands of police officers out there who care and are there to protect and serve.

Hopefully they can surely remove the racist motivations from the force, which encourage unrelenting tension, and replace trust and friendship with contempt and conflict.

Free Fire

There's something different about this pointless indolent thrashy debacle, an art to not caring at all that transcends the actual output and haphazardly generates an irradiating flame.

Like the rebellious walrus who spontaneously decides to find new lodgings, or the lackadaisical raccoon who still outwits grandpa every Sunday, Ben Wheatley's Free Fire accidentally harnesses that wild raw pulsating energy that is undeniably up to no good, yet still mercilessly elucidates congenital deviant awe.

Resignedly.

It's not really that funny, the points it makes aren't particularly profound, the action sequence/s lack hyper-reactively intricate multivariable momentum, and none of the characters possess enigmatic appeal.

It's sort of like riding the métro late at night and watching while someone who drank too much vomits, and then penitently slips and falls into that vomit while his or her friends recklessly cheer.

Or when you're sitting in class and someone farts and you can tell that they're embarrassed but it's a stinker and the stink doesn't fade and soon the teacher can smell it but they wind up counterintuitively smirking to the culprit's chagrin.

They may have been hoping their lack of a plan, their free fire, would extemporaneously implicate jarring vindicated chartreuse, correct, yet, instead, the backlash ends up courteously refining clumsy awkwardness astern, collegially asking their audience to digest pestilent penpersonship in order to stentoriously belch, gaseously unscrew, or squeamishly bellow, as a matter of loyalty to the director and cast under examination.

It's like a struggle, a struggle to achieve that which they never intended to accomplish, to not do anything, a nihilistic neologism necromantically jaded and spry.

As it succeeded at doing next to nothing blandly, I couldn't help but think its murky blend of flash and crash was more refreshing than similar more engaged comedies, form cacophonously duelling with content, to circuitously disappoint while chugging back another 6.

Tally-Ho.

Incendiary inanity.

Moonlight

Locked-down in isolation but technically free, young Little (Alex Hibbert/Ashton Sanders/Trevante Rhodes) moves between drug abusing mother (Naomie Harris) and violently dismissive classmates as gracefully as he can, finding refuge with a childless local dealer (Mahershala Ali as Juan) whose guilty conscience and ironical good nature suggest he accommodate the boy.

An oasis helplessly haunted, Little still attends school, and the bullies still bully as he ages, as he grows, as he matures.

One way to stop bullying is to fight back but they travel in packs in Barry Jenkins's Moonlight.

Cowardice.

Little (now Chiron) does bash the most vicious of them in one day with a chair after which the police take him away, suffer in silence or respond and go to prison, not much of a childhood for the peaceful gay fatherless African American kid.

Moonlight is a sad film, a resilient film, a crucial film, a sophisticated film.

A simple story on the surface which fluently presents coy critiques of cultural codes without recourse to sentiment while patiently blending in focus, asking why is difference so frightening?, why do so many instinctively suppress it?

Difference spices things up to add alternative flavours which merge and diverge with eye-opening wonder.

Adventure.

It's as simple as bread.

Different types of bread.

White bread tastes good but one day you might try brown, then rye, then pumpernickel, then multigrain.

Then you have 5 options rather than one for making a sandwich, and can experiment to find out what tastes best, for you, on each different type.

If you have to prove you're tough by forming a group to violently suppress another or an individual, you aren't tough, you're pathetic.

If you're afraid of difference ask yourself why?, and try something new, something startling, like blue cheese or a strawberry shake.

Overcoming fears is what Men and Women do.

Took me a while to start loving olives and hot peppers.

Now I eat them all the time.

A lot of the gay people I've met are chill with a great sense of humour.

It makes for good conversation.

Not many films make as serious an impact as Moonlight while just simply presenting a story.

It's profoundly chill considering the tale it's telling.

The highs and lows.

The emptiness.

Crack ruins communities, ruins lives, makes a sewer of superlatives, which otherwise may thrive.

There's no simple solution.

Besides giving up crack.

And refusing to sell it.

If that's the economy something's seriously wrong.

It does not have to be that way.

And takes courage to turn things around.

Bravery.

Dedication.

Understanding.

Will.

In the great wide open.

Moonlight states this without saying a word.

Blessed.

Le Pacte des anges

Emancipating encounter, alternative exemplars of cyclically violent circumstances serendipitously clashing in conversations clipped enraged, experiential gruel fuelling uncaged frustrations ala coerced skittish getaway, recklessly bold, blends young, old, unscolded harsh penalties discussed, erupting, penitential precarious predicament, absolving on the run, conscience (quaint) in crucible, materialized beyond the grave, ironic peaceful relations, past lives sunlit shade.

Fates or fortunes fittingly exfoliating to strive lost in longing together for a few.

Mourning steeped in bitters.

Total feminine absence.

Stark cruel loneliness momentarily fades in Richard Angers's Le Pacte des anges, as a man's anger comes back to poetically assault him, surreal justice mischievously at play, a chance for redemption desperately diagnosing rigour, labour, pith, intent, ubiquitous laments, for regenerative heartache.

Grim and bleak origins gradually building towards something beyond destitute survival, materialism buckling under imaginative pressures which environmentally enliven a soul left for dead.

Ungulated indents.

Candlelit coyote.

It's a great film which tenderly examines impoverished spirits to enlighten lively reckonings with fleeting thermal grace.

The accidental and the predestined metaphorically aligning to shelter abstract thought, generations abashed to rebalance conceptions, dialogues taut and trending, traversing wild uncertainties.

Moose really are beautiful when they're dashing through the woods.

It looks like they might collapse with each outstretched hoof, but they know exactly where they're going and precisely where they've been.

I almost fell down the stairs today.

Not really.

Could of though, I suppose.

Smile.

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.

The Dark Horse

A gentle soul plagued by mental illness finds himself caught between brother and nephew in James Napier Robertson's The Dark Horse.

Solemnity.

Mana's (James Rolleston) father (Wayne Hapi as Ariki) survived by joining a violent gang.

It's the life he knows and he wants his son to become a member so that he can feel safe as he dies believing he'll be taken care of.

His son loathes the senseless brutal thuggery however and doesn't want to live a life of crime.

His uncle Genesis (Cliff Curtis) is a brilliant chess player who also possesses an exhaustive understanding of his culture's mythology but may have never held a job and can hardly take care of himself.

Nevertheless, as he finds purpose helping to manage an after school club for disadvantaged youth, telling them stories and teaching them chess in preparation for a tournament, his nephew gravitates towards his civility as his father's partners become increasingly aggressive.

Ariki has told his brother to stay away from his son, and their ensuing dialectic, brashly shy and modestly brave, disputatiously contends for Mana's future, both of them eventually accepting that they need to acknowledge his own individualistic dreams.

The Dark Horse beautifully elevates the constructive art of teaching while harshly contrasting it with stark economic bellows, Olympian highs and devastating punishments masterfully articulated with naive bracing culpability.

Life without opportunity can be eviscerating so I don't stubbornly fault people for making desperate decisions, although I do commend those who struggle in different ways, creating something durable and friendly in a culture of bitter cynicism.

You feel bad for all the participants involved accept Mutt (Barry Te Hira) who's clearly evil.

Building a community from nothing, nurturing hope and togetherness through board games and puzzles as opposed to drugs and alcohol; something to think about.

Genesis is a character who sticks with you, clearly ill-equipped to deal with the quotidian yet exceptionally gifted at enlivening the imaginary.

An artist you know.

Perhaps the best kind.

Legend

Underground prestige, the lure of the incorrigibly irascible, sophisticated in its blunt obstinacy, thrilling in its inexhaustible excess, a young girl, fascinated by the criminal underworld, scooped up by a smooth talking gangster, lives the life of an espoused sensation, freed from her drab impoverished prospects, shackled by overwhelming instabilities.

Fears.

The Kray twins (Tom Hardy) dialectically indoctrinate with either a suave well-groomed authenticity or an insatiably psychotic rage, depending on which one is in prison or who commands more clout, Leslie Payne (David Thewlis) efficiently bookkeeping as Ronald's hatred for him slowly grows.

Ronald's indiscretions multiply erratically as time passes and his violent caprice threatens their organization's fundamentals.

Frances Shea (Emily Browning) marries Reggie who has the restrained brains to keep afloat but can't shyly tread while Ronald is intent on drowning.

Active invincibility mortally wounded.

Frances suffocated by the madness.

The Legend, boldly applying a feminine conscience through narration to a gangster film in order to examine chaotic crime through the oft overlooked perspective of an observant non-combatant.

It doesn't work very well, the film struggling to assert itself as either a corrupt frenzy or a righteous indignation, the polarized dialogue thereby generated between both the Krays themselves and the Krays and Frances resultantly muddled and incoherent.

It's possible to successfully pull something like that off but I would argue it requires a less straightforward approach, one which utilizes formal cerebral charm to artistically blend fraternal factions.

Legend's so focused on differentiating the Krays (which it does well) that the secondary material, that which would have transported it to another level, staggers in stagnant inadmissibility.

There are several minor characters of note and the script is quite diverse but hardly any of them develop much personality as the Krays engage in reckless gangstering.

Still, there's a great line equating the underworld and the aristocracy.

A strong effort from the filmmaking team, flush with future potential.

Sicario

Revenge.

Obsession.

Law.

Order.

The big picture, international intrigue, drugs smuggled in from Mexico to the United States, 20% of the American population consuming them while the profits fuel domestic violence south of the border, the number of sequestered kingpins having expanded in recent decades, too many to control, too deadly to ignore.

Stats and info provided by Sicario.

The film indirectly comments on ISIL, on Saddam Hussein, the theory that he was the strongperson who kept the extremists in check, who maintained Iraqi order regardless of his methods, the vacuum created after his removal having led to ISIL, who is currently seeking to control much more than Kuwait.

Plutocratic blunders.

It's the same thing in Sicario, the Americans having had more success monitoring/controlling the drug trade when there was only one kingping narcotically nesting, according to the film, a multidimensional marketplace full of alluring alternatives working well for the sale of computers or jeans, but not for the trafficking of drugs.

Wolves eating wolves.

Victims menaced and menacing.

Sicario fictionalizes tough decisions, capital gains, as Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) seeks to assassinate a leading man, and Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) idealistically monitors his actions, the masculine and the feminine conflicting thereby.

A Mexican policeperson, a father, enters the narrative to ask the question "do Alejandro's methods justify his results, do his means justify his ends"?, the violent violently infernalizing social spheres, do as you're told or you'll never grow old, dig in deep and try to exist, extreme unlicensed ego, upheld by any means necessary.

No exceptions.

No limits.

No humour.

Behind the scenes kings and queens.

À la carte.

I liked the film; thought that it could have been more menacing.

Shades of Zero Dark Thirty. 

Black Mass

Deadly and daunting, impenitent punishment, organized crime teamed up with the F.B.I., seduce the sociopath and secure the judgment, the incarcerations, the quid pro quo legitimizing his wrath, a potentially greater threat emerging in the flames, consolidating, stifling and murdering away, paranoid, wild and wrenching, James 'Whitey' Bulger (Johnny Depp) and John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), kids from the hood, severe yet sloppy.

Lavish lesions.

Like I, Claudius's Tiberius, when the restraints are removed, Bulger becomes increasingly morose, as Connelly begins to think he's an immaculate golden boy, beyond the reach of bureaucratic suspicions.

Earlier on Bulger's more like a loveable gangster, brutal yet principled, a caring family man.

Depp's performance is brilliant, I don't recall him ever playing a similar character, redefining himself after decades of invention, a salute to dynamic vision, to exotic escapades.

Keeping things local.

Black Mass works, simultaneously building tensions both above and under ground.

Loyalty tragically begets oblivion, living the high life neutralizing survival instincts.

Bulger's insanity malevolently menaces over steaks at Connolly's during one potentially enduring sequence, as he toys with the unsuspecting John Morris (David Harbour), and indirectly acknowledges Marianne Connolly's (Julianne Nicholson) foreshadowed contempt.

Bulger's brother is a senator (Benedict Cumberbatch as Billy Bulger) and the fallout of having a criminal brother is oddly overlooked until the end.

You occasionally see Bulger working or discussing his business but his organization still never seems like it's growing, there aren't any scenes that show him managing a dozen or so people for instance, but we know it has grown because he moves into gambling and buys weapons for the I.R.A.

Perhaps the idea was to make him seem small throughout regardless, thereby formally critiquing his actions.

Life and death, the perseverance of a team, Black Mass celebrates good times while hemorrhaging their foundations, improvised expansions, unsettling impermanency.

La isla mínima (Marshland)

Fastidious expediency, Mississippi's burning, clenched vicious smouldering license, eagerly applied, kept in check by stolid capacity, a team, an investigation, creepy crawlies eviscerating the night, extinguishing flames, chomping chomp chomp, youth and innocence curiously explore to their horror, the aged preying on them like craven vampiric necrocities, their tracks covered, their pastimes grim, flouting respectability with mechanized chagrin.

The monstrous hunting the monstrous by employing monstrosities to covet the truth.

Concealment.

Parthenon.

La isla mínima (Marshland) uses a sombre criminal text, employing politics and professionalism to smoothly and steadily increase local tensions, thereby critically examining post-fascist Spain, the survival of perplexing methodologies blended with contemporary romance to question means and bitter ends, crucially constructed, like hardboiled lucid dreaming.

Restraint abounds.

You get the sense that it could have been much darker, but level heads kept things neat to rely more on integrity than sensation.

It presents an ethical dilemma in terms of using violent policing methods to bring about social democratic ends.

I think what's happening in the film needs to be considered as a case, working within a system functioning on a case by case basis, still possessing many remnants of a society that applied such methods to every case, many of the cases likely involving peaceful people who simply didn't like Franco.

I want to see criminals such as the ones depicted in La isla mínima in prison.

But that doesn't mean I want to see every movement of the entire population monitored and scrutinized.

Pejorative panopticon.

Panoramically percolating.

If you monitor and scrutinize the entire population's movements then freedom itself becomes a prison.

If people can function on a case by case basis, while obviously still looking for recurring patterns of behaviour that forge a logical connection between crime and culprit, without employing them dogmatically inasmuch as each case is unique and individual, they will likely still catch many such villains, and learn to appreciate the distinction between reaction and restraint.

Isn't that what they often do already?

Know need for the CyberStasi.

If cooler heads prevail.

Mad Max: Fury Road

Accelerated omnipresent pressurized pulsation, strict violent fanatical allegiance, the strongest suffocating to prosper penultimately, commanding the collective will, autocratic anarchy, order established where there was only suffering, fierce frantic fallout, old world technologies mechanistically motivating, the power to recreate them exhausted in the flames, control what survives, post-apocalyptically yield and burn.

Tyrannically.

Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), ruler of his domain, is challenged by the free thinking Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who audaciously seeks escape, from his unleashed sands of thine.

The film irresistibly functions on a need-to-know basis.

Little is directly explained, it's a filmic theorist's broadbanded El Dorado, compelled to advocate and wager, within absolutism's clutches.

While enjoying a chaotic chase which minimalistically yet compellingly develops multiple marooned mindsets, simplicity functioning on a complex sociological level, artistic in its expansive brevity, enhanced by stunning complementary visuals.

The people, the elite, the executive, their competitors.

You get a sense of what the film will be like early on, when Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) attempts to flee his captors, boldly leaping to what would represent freedom in so many action films, only to fail in his attempt, and be overcome by the frenzied horde.

He could be the most unfocused upon heroic figure I've seen in a strong action film, he's not the main character, rarely says anything, his actions have beneficial repercussions for those claiming individuality, but so do those of others involved in the same blind maddening quest.

Direct absolutism, indirect social democracy, levelled out blunt mysterious jagged character development mired in an unending conflict which intuitively yet intellectually assaults tyrannical preconceptions.

I'm placing Mad Max: Fury Road on my list of favourite action films, with Aliens, Robocop(1987), and Terminator 2.

There's no need to impose rank.

It demands that you find the definitions.

Immersing you in its world thereby.

Providing clues.

Le sel de la terre (The Salt of the Earth)

The cultivation of astonishment, the realization of a vision, concerned dedicated multifaceted compassion takes on the most heartbreaking commitments with a tender immediacy humanistically begetting loyalty and awe, Sebastião Salgado, born on a farm in Brazil, spending his life directly embracing the tumultuous and the taciturn, having given up a prosperous career as an economist to do so, in isolated forgotten lands, to create the most stunning collection of photographs I've ever seen.

Famine, war, genocide, helplessness, poignantly captured to reveal true horror, life still attempting to flourish amidst the carnage, herculean patience, aphroditic ascendency.

Taking great personal risks and sacrificing familial leisure and comfort to dodge helicopter gunfire and shed humanitarian light, offering a voice to the downtrodden and the dispossessed, celebrating their courage and resiliency, their unshaken resolute cries, as a matter of conscience, a pact with will, he modestly proceeds, and fascinatingly portrays.

While also visiting remote geographical locations to illuminate unmitigated terrains.

Innocence.

Passion.

Regrowing a forest, battling wits with a polar bear, suffering as his subjects suffer, living, growing, evolving, Sebastião inspires through his erudite humility, naturalistic charm, incomparable humanity, and consummate sagacity.

Transcendency.

Wim Wenders makes the perfect directorial companion to Sebastião's son Juliano.

Le sel de la terre (The Salt of the Earth) is a must see for aspiring artists, for students, for anyone.

To see again and again.

Life force.

Genesis would make an excellent wedding gift.

The Riot Club

Into the bleakness.

Excessive wealth descends upon an unsuspecting family restaurant in Lone Scherfig's The Riot Club, debauched plutocrats at play, members of an exclusive enclave celebrating to excess in order to excrete authoritative postulates, rancid ribald raunch, the pecking order coaxing adroitly, a vaporous shroud, puffing up the smoke.

The club, the Riot Club, has been devoted to unfettered hedonism for centuries, but in this instance their antics are viciously nuanced, thereby vilifying their freedoms and demonizing their lust.

For chaos.

A lone voice criticizes the calumny, a new member of the club, but his opponent picks up on his indignation, and instigates the reckless in turn, consequently augmenting his rank.

The bourgeoisie holds fast to its integrity, refusing to perform like enslaved sycophantic drones.

The Riot Club plays a dangerous game; it seemed to me that abuse was encouraging latent sentiments of class consciousness within in order to deride the truly wicked, but it could be seen as a festive carnal salute to elitist angst, flagitiously large and in charge, seeking to practically express itself.

The film diversifies several characters, examines responsibility from multiple perspectives, uses its characters to make side comments on issues such as ethnocentricity and belonging, before igniting an inflammatory controversy which makes a sensational yet memorable impact.

Co-existence never seemed like much of a problem to me, you learn from different perspectives, take into account alternative points of view, make related choices.

If group dynamics aggressively seek to enlarge themselves through physical and/or psychological violence, and this behaviour is culturally normalized, a different standard of social etiquette reemerges, whose focus on threats and preemptive strikes significantly pollutes social spheres.

Replacing respect with animosity burgeons tyrannical dividends.

Controversial film.

Chappie

Violent aggravating hierarchical threats competitively embark in Neill Blomkamp's volatile Chappie, as a success story attempts to enhance his marketability through the creation of something beautiful, through the rearing, of robotic young.

It's not happenin'.

His child is quickly hijacked and then alternatively reared by desperate criminals intent on paying off 20 million in debt.

Instead of delicately nurturing his nascent creativity, Ninja (Ninja) prefers to ignite a trial-by-fire, consequently introducing him to a band of troubled youths, who then proceed to throw rocks at him and actually light him on fire.

The youth think he's a police robot, because his creator, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel), uploaded a humanesque consciousness into a broken down police robot, a part of a robotic police force he also created, young Chappie (Sharlto Copley), who remains unaware of these facts, and defencelessly terrified.

He does learn from his experiences though.

Which leads to a memorable science-fiction comedy.

The script's multifaceted (written by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell), consisting of criminal and professional diversifications which populate the film with myriad characters at different socioeconomic levels, each of them given plenty of screen time to develop, as they pursue various goals before meeting for a ludicrous showdown in the end.

Solid science-fiction/action series are intertextually woven in, Robocop being the most obvious, but Chappie also acknowledges Die Hard, The Terminator, Predator, Alien, and Transcendence to name a few.

Ninja says, "Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker!," at one point.

Chappie fires at the Moose in the same way Sarah Connor fires at the T-1000 in the final moments of Terminator 2.

When the hunt is on, movements are robotically tracked as if a Predator is stalking prey.

It's co-starring Sigourney Weaver (Michelle Bradley).

And human consciousnesses are uploaded to computers like in Transcendence. 

Transcendence wasn't so solid.

As Chappie comes of age in less than a week, a naive innocent caregiving sense of blossoming chaotic youth awkwardly contrasts the social horror show, the dynamics of which are simultaneously shocking and instructive.

The script has all of these elements but it still fails to impress on some fronts.

There are several characters given the chance to develop but they never really move past their first impressions, apart from Ninja, Chappie, and Yolandi (Yolandi Visser), who do change a bit.

And Deon buys a gun.

Ninja easily goes about acquiring the 20 million he needs to pay off Hippo (Brandon Auret), there's no sense that something could go wrong.

The thugs escape the police near the beginning even though it seems obvious they'll be captured.

Catch 'em. Let 'em break out. Make their escape seem plausible.

Cars are easily stolen and it seems like there's no possibility the thieves could be caught.

All this with a robotic police force patrolling the streets.

It's like hardwired explosive emancipated desperate largesse, highly structured to joyously refute the logical, with a thin layer of predictable rationality sensationally stitching things together.

It's campy.

So campy.

Sort of awful.

But still a must see.

You get the sense that there aren't a lot of public funds available to level things out a bit in Johannesburg, from Chappie.

The people on the bottom have no institutional means of moving up and earning a respectable living.

And the people on top have no means of preventing them from excelling at crime.

And are just as ruthless at pursuing their own respectable livings.

Nice to see fallible robot cops. I for one would prefer not to see robots in uniform.

It's possible that the lack of character development in the film directly relates to Blomkamp's brutal depiction of life in Johannesburg, meaning that there's only one dominating personality available, and if you don't embrace it, you won't survive.

Dog eat dog.

Unless you're brilliant like Deon.

Who ends up becoming a robot.

Because he disobeyed his weapons manufacturing boss.

Social safety net people. Public funds.

It's also possible that they partied way too hard while making this film.

Who knows!

Escobar: Paradise Lost

The tranquilities of a peaceful life living on a beach teaching surfing unexpectedly mutate in Andrea Di Stefano's Escobar: Paradise Lost, as love magnetically draws a couple together, and a Canadian romantic is suddenly thrust into the world of cocaine exportation.

Tectonic shifts.

Alternative outputs.

The couple is quite young and Nick (Josh Hutcherson) somewhat ill-prepared for his newfound corruptly honourable daily transactions, their relationship fervid and flourishing, his responsibilities, a discombobulating mind fuck.

Kingpin Pablo Escobar (Benicio del Toro) takes religion quite seriously.

He distributes wealth to the people.

He takes care of friends and family.

Requiring strict obedience.

And no nonsense.

The film embraces its haunting naive blossoming recourse to sound polarized youthful degeneration with multidimensional popularized efficiency, almost tumbling off a cliff, the established and the entrepreneur coming together as family, age inspecting its curious new fledgling, love securely blanketing the stage.

The crimes.

A chilling if not formulaic examination of familial stress and stipulated largesse, competing ethical constabularies cauterized in political inflammations.

Nick is forced to adapt as the authorities move in and Escobar downsizes.

To fight back.

To survive.

Solid career move for Hutcherson.