The Covenant

A group of old world families clandestinely co-habitates with the world at large, keeping to themselves at secretive times while patiently awaiting their time of ascension.

Their families escaped the Salem Witch Hunt way back when fear drove men mad, the anxiety igniting bland social pressures to despotically embrace austere absolutism.

The children attend a local prep school lucidly administered by ye olde Windom Earle (Kenneth Welsh), awkwardly anticipating their spry eighteenth birthdays when their otherworldly powers will magically emerge.

Their powers aren't to be taken lightly their chaotic use has mortal consequences, and if used too often through frivolous indulgence will unnaturally age and ruin their bodies.

Difficult to share such wisdom with lads ebulliently awaiting the passionate moment, when more or less anything they put their minds to will instantaneously manifest.

Especially when it becomes distressingly evident that an unknown 5th student possesses the power, and is recklessly using it for retched misdeeds with no working foreknowledge of truth or consequence.

A showdown ominously looms within the sleepy oblivious trajectory.

Agéd chronicles proving noteworthy.

For the well-read adventurous sorcerers.

The Olympics no doubt a suitable time to celebrate unique and novel abilities, and the remarkable ways they fluidly enrich the humdrum malaise of routine existence. 

No doubt categories and hierarchies and levelling peculiarly mingle in spherical continuums, the definitive dispersal of surrealist fact gracefully lauded through festive ephemera.

In so doing, for some the cheeky sitcom may represent insouciant brilliance, while others seek romantic unions melodramatically arrayed with maladroit im/probability, still others embracing the tragic distinction absurdly characterizing incumbent banality, crime and horror schlock and mayhem, not to mention robust documentaries.

Should the people in primordial possession of rare bizarro traits and talents, not be welcome in villages and towns in order to promote less stealthy isolation?

Weren't the heroes from religious texts in commensurate possession of similar gifts?

Does not celebrating specific historical examples to the obscuring of the present not foolishly generate a stasis none of them would have tolerated? 

The Green Knight

Born of lofty rank yet lacking bold chivalric industry, King Arthur's nephew lounges and carouses as the dolorous days pass by in Camelot.

Age has greeted the King with kind and pleasant noteworthy grace, his deeds admired and celebrated his rule enduring just unchallenged. 

His days of colloquially questing have fondly passed into history however, yet he still considers ornate pageantry when congenially conversing with younger generations. 

His nephew's mother grows weary of the reckless ill-composed dissolute inconsiderate debauchery, and embraces witchcraft to conjure a trial which may bring honour and widespread renown. 

The King recognizes the stately spirit of bygone days in the cynosure sorcery, and grants his nephew torrential tidings illustriously reckoned with regal resonance. 

Thus, when an agéd knight of ancient legend arrives in court on Christmas day, and courageously challenges the solemn round table to a mystic exchange of bombastic blows, Arthur tasks his unproven nephew with urgently responding to the murky mischief, and uncertain of his honourable objective, he proceeds to cut off the Green Knight's head. 

But the challenge indeed firmly stated that that very same blow would be returned the next year.

At which point Gawain must head to the countryside.

And seek the Green Knight alone.

It's classic mismatching temperaments resoundingly radiating obscure elasticity, as a profound misjudgment unwittingly leads to upright disillusion and serpentine sentiment. 

Bravely challenged in front of the council whose habitual deeds had been highly praised, Gawain thought it wise to respond in epic fashion and diabolical display.

Nervous regarding his status and intuitively seeking his uncle's regard, he reacts with far too much ferocity to awkwardly fit in with ill-suited surroundings. 

Had he wisely announced that he had no quarrel with the mischievous knight, and refused to thrash him or exchange blows his humble recognition may been rewarded, he would have risked the gawking discredit of the emboldened nobles within the room, but many others would have noted how brave it indubitably was to refuse the challenge.

That wouldn't have been much of a film nevertheless I sedately and sensationally suppose, although it would have snuggly fit his reliable personality as it had been cast.

A maladroit meander through the surreal bewildering lands of legendary England therefore awaits, the knight becoming more and more distressingly confused with each passing unassuming spirited day. 

Pay close attention and make sure to catch the extant grizzly amidst the whale bones.

Mirthful macabre mayhem. 

A comedic foil in the superhero age. 

Bell, Book & Candle

*Cool to see this film has a remake in the mix! Not that the original isn't up to snuff, I'd just love to see what contemporary writers would make of such a snug fit as this (fitting in terms of the abundance of fantasy films being released these days). 

I suppose I've never quite understood why biblical religions are consistently at odds with paganism and magic, and while getting into even more trouble, I've always thought peeps should blend the two.

Should the services of witches and warlocks along with those of the animal kingdom, not be spiritually enlisted to complement mainstream religion?

Does mainstream religion not seek to ecumenically envelope everything, within a multifaceted conglomerate discursively transmutating throughout the world?

And if seeking to envelope everything mustn't exceptions be made at times, to facilitate enriching understanding and mutually respectful supernatural accords?

Did the biblical God not create the animals and also ensure they could prosper throughout his lands, would it not also make sense that he created gifted loving people who could ingeniously communicate with them?

If people were able to interact and fluently communicate with animals, would harmony not flourish throughout the land if they weren't persecuted for their difference?

Much like the dominion of The Biggest Little Farm beings could constructively co-exist, and generally work together to pursue cultivated productivity.

I imagine the cosmopolitan afterlife, effortlessly blended with naturalistic reckoning, accepts people and animals from every religion, assuming they haven't lived the lives of vicious a-holes.

It doesn't make sense that spiritually prosperous influential people unaffiliated with any religion, should suffer the eternal torments of hell after having lived virtuous lives.

Thus, major figures like Christ and Nanabush likely share in heaven's abundance, infinitely spreading their vivid alternatives with gregarious communal friendly import.

As they've gotten to know one another over the course of recent millennia, would they not also have become more familiar with different ways to live a life?

Would they not also have become more tolerant of abounding un/orthodox difference, or the application of ethical goodwill to manifold chillin' grassroots initiatives? 

Should paganism and the biblical religions not therefore come to terms this Holiday Season, to ensure more bountiful multilateral refinements throughout the fertile verdant Earth?

So much knowledge to share and integrate.

With zoological enlightenment.

Released shortly thereafter the old school enigmatic Vertigo.

What a year for Stewart and Novak!

Ésimésac

If you like community focused films that celebrate the strength of tightly knit towns without hesitating to unabashedly and wholeheartedly melodramatize their conflicts, you'll likely enjoy Luc Picard's Émisésac. 

If you like social democratic allegories which charmingly utilize the magically real to critically examine the affects of economic risks and their associated dreams primarily through the social interactions of an innocent, unworldly, inspirational protagonist, you should check Émisésac out.

If you like romantic resolutions that emphasize the human as opposed to the mathematical factors worked into strategic financial planning, Émisésac is for you.

And if you're looking for a film to inaugurate your cinematic holiday season, it's a total must.

Thoroughly enjoyed Émisésac's ample simplified multidimensional spirit, as well as its humble humanism.

Could have used some more multicultural material.

Mirror Mirror

Possessing a self-aware mischievous aloofly focused reflexivity which takes interpretive postures narratively to heart, Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror playfully reimagines Snow White and infuses it with lighthearted billowing charm. The Queen (Julia Roberts) is certainly wicked, the princess (Lily Collins), beautiful. Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) bumbles along unwittingly thrust between the two and the seven dwarves provide voyeuristic commentary and transformative benignity which constructively pluralizes the action by creating an audience within an audience.

It's totally web 2.0.

Economic matters haunt the film as the Queen brutally taxes her subjects to pay for her ostentatious whims. The dwarves have taken to robbing those who pass through their section of the forest due to the fact that they were expelled from the village because the Queen found them ugly. The villagers didn't stand up for the dwarves which has lead to resentment. When they rob a royal coach carrying funds obtained through taxation they therefore have no desire to return them. But Snow White sees things differently and returns the levies and gives the dwarves the credit.

Thus we have a situation where a capricious exception was made which divided the struggling populace. Feeling helpless and seeing no way of securing a lasting productive solution on their own, this exception lapsed into criminal activity. Then, after taking into their care a royal outcast, a solution presents itself necessitated by the underhanded activities they were forced to engage in.

Unfortunately, this solution was brokered by the outcasted royal rather than the people themselves. Had they remained united, perhaps they could have taken steps to frustrate the villainous Queen and would not have had to rely upon accidental august interventions.

Season of the Witch

After willingly and directly embracing the vicious profits of an unrelenting crusade, knights Behman (Nicolas Cage) and Felson (Ron Perlman) desert to find their way home. But representatives of the church are none to happy when they discover them passing through their land, and they quickly have them thrown in the dungeon. Freedom is offered with a price: transport a witch (Claire Foy) who has been blamed for a plague to a remote monastery where she will receive her trial. The knights begrudgingly accept, and, aided by a cast of individuals seeking virtue, or clemency, depart on their most treacherous and psychologically destabilizing journey yet.

Dominic Sena's Season of the Witch is an exercise in bipolarity. Many of Nicolas Cage's lines attempt to sound insightful and wise but come across as questionably delivered hokum. At the same time, he seems to be aware of this as does Sena and at times it seems as if Season of the Witch is subtly lampooning itself. But during other moments its seriousness is genuine which results in a cloying, frustrating affect (occasionally mitigated by Ron Perlman). Everyone within is frustrated however so this affect, albeit irritating, does correspond to the film's internal dynamics. At first, the opening scene seemed rushed and hasty, causing me to fear for the fate of the movie. But as it dragged on, its ridiculousness, qualified by a priest's undying commitment to his calling's principles, had a certain irresistible flair, insofar as it wasn't cut off willy nilly and was given time to grow. The next scene depicts a lacklustre religious figure mundanely yet confidently rallying his troops to combat a group of recalcitrant 'heathens.' The figure lacks the bold, energetic, lively characteristics I've come to identify with those filmically delivering a war cry, and the following scenes do nothing to generate greater sympathy. Hence, one priest is valiant in his fight against evil, another religious figure banal; religion is upheld as just and benevolent and then immediately depicted as rapacious. The dialogue throughout casts doubt on the church's legitimacy as it relates to the hunting of witches, yet witches exist within and logically should therefore be hunted. An over-the-top sensational battle between the forces of good and evil seems ready to be showcased during the conclusion yet instead we receive a brief, run-of-the-mill, laid back encounter which reminded me of Eddie Murphy's The Golden Child. Season of the Witch attempts to play to fans of low budget intelligent horror yet mixes in so many mainstream compromises that its diluted product, once again, occasionally remixed and spiced up by Ron Perlman, who should have been given the leading role, suffocates beneath the weight of its bewitching disorder.

I generally like films which play with conventions and offer a broad taste of ambiguous potential to a wide audience, but Season of the Witch's steady reliance on unimaginative proclamations, unless these proclamations are seen as Behman's unconscious absorption of his crusading leader's disproportionate dialogue, distorts its edge and sickly sentimentalizes its grit. Sena does a lot with his script and there's certainly much to discuss but it lacks the less disheartening developments found in a film like Christopher Smith's Black Death, and falls far short of its intellectually entertaining goals.