Insurmountable trauma, disturbingly deconstructing any stable sense of self, recurring, regenerating, relapsing, biding its time, crocodiling in crucible, beyond sublimatic recourse, entrenched and ravenous, purloined to renew, its helpless, caustic, blight.
Eric Lomax (Colin Firth/Jeremy Irvine) survived systematic torture in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II to return to Britain a free man, yet the horrific memories have left him sealed and solitary.
Love's invigorating warmth can't help him overcome, and his desperate wife Patti (Nicole Kidman) seeks the aid of his comrades of war to find a sustainable solution.
As luck would have it, the whereabouts of one of his assaulter's accomplices have been discovered, such knowledge providing him with the potential to pursue a just cause.
Hesitant and confused, The Railway Man struggles with this burden, before submitting to the inevitable, and retributively withstanding.
It jumps between the present and the past, the length of the wartime scenes compounding Mr. Lomax's illness, suggesting that he is capable of circumventing its madness for a time, before its destabilizing will pathologically lurches.
I prefer it when filmmakers regularly intercut psychologically debilitating lesions but Jonathan Teplitzky's method speaks to Mr. Lomax's strength, and brilliance.
The Railway Man is a rational film, examining the affects of war on a highly logical mind.
It therefore lacks the emotional depth I'm used to seeing in films exploring the aftershocks of war, triumphing in its temperance, resolving through reason.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Transcendence
Transcendence is kind of a flop.
But it is fun to think about what happens in the film.
It explores the possibilities of uploading one's consciousness online and then existing cyberexistentially.
Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) and his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) are conducting the research.
An underground organization fears their pursuits and launches a strike with the goal of obliterating them.
They hit Mr. Caster with a poisonous bullet which will kill him if he can't find a way to put said research into action.
Which he does, uploading himself, becoming a socially conscious superbeing thereafter.
His might, strength, reach and power then alarm law enforcement agencies previously dedicated to preserving his life.
Identity becomes an issue: is this superbeing Will Caster or a different person altogether?
Law enforcement reps begin to work with the still determined underground organization to break through the impregnable infrastructure Caster has created.
He's found a way to use nanotechnology to both regenerate physical material almost immediately after its bombardment/disintegration and save the lives of terminally ill individuals.
Whose minds he then enters and whose bodies he can then control, turning them into his loyal zombie soldiers.
Loyal zombie soldiers are his undoing; he never should have interfered with his patient's abilities to think and act freely.
He does though, and doesn't bother to share his plans to use his power to solve manifold environmental issues, an objective brought about by his love for Evelyn, who feels guilty for having worked with the resistance after discovering this fact, and its unfortunate benevolent despotism.
Transcendence suggests that unlimited secretive superpower may unite institutional and rebellious forces since they will likely both be frightened by its omnipresence, and will therefore, try to stop it.
There are a lot of great ideas in the film, and some great lines, but this one's a definite rental, that can be paused from time to time to acquire additional snacks.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Only Lovers Left Alive
Utilizing a peculiar rhetorical strategy, Jim Jarmusch romanticizes cynicism and satisfaction through naturalistic, artistic, appetitive, and historical entanglements, engendered and coded by the discussions of an aged vampire couple, a perennially rebellious scamp, and a literary legend, the men weary and woeful, the women full of life, united in their unyielding craving, for fresh, universal, blood.
Living in Tangiers, L.A., and Detroit.
Exploring the depths of sundry melodic intersections for centuries while observing disenchanting impacted awakenings have led Adam (Tom Hiddleston) to orchestrate various funeral arrangements, thereby expressing his enduring distaste, intravenously harmonizing his scrutiny.
Partner Eve (Tilda Swinton) remains more upbeat, still observing the world with an urbane reconnaissance, versatile and prim, eruditely beaming.
One's resounding disaffection materializes the novel, while the other's fascination with the unexpected, the appearance of a skunk for instance, impresses it more literally.
More could have been done with Ava's (Mia Wasikowska) character.
The script interrogates pretension by calling into question time's passing to the point where ego and redirection become facets of a limitlessly cloyed perpetuity.
Brothering a thrust.
With recourse to the enviable.
Living in Tangiers, L.A., and Detroit.
Exploring the depths of sundry melodic intersections for centuries while observing disenchanting impacted awakenings have led Adam (Tom Hiddleston) to orchestrate various funeral arrangements, thereby expressing his enduring distaste, intravenously harmonizing his scrutiny.
Partner Eve (Tilda Swinton) remains more upbeat, still observing the world with an urbane reconnaissance, versatile and prim, eruditely beaming.
One's resounding disaffection materializes the novel, while the other's fascination with the unexpected, the appearance of a skunk for instance, impresses it more literally.
More could have been done with Ava's (Mia Wasikowska) character.
The script interrogates pretension by calling into question time's passing to the point where ego and redirection become facets of a limitlessly cloyed perpetuity.
Brothering a thrust.
With recourse to the enviable.
Monday, May 5, 2014
Uvanga
A single mother and her son travel from Montréal to Igloolik, Nunavut, after the passing of his father, so that young Tomas (Lukasi Forrest) can meet said father's extended family for the first time.
The midnight sun illuminates their visit as familial expansiveness and jealous grudges acquaint him with a different set of cultural codes.
He's curious and chill, open-minded and active, these factors enabling a productive immersion in the North's différence, supportively kindled by his loving relatives.
And problematized by hostile trouble makers.
Uvanga frankly blends the harsh with the heartwarming, synthesizing the fearful and the awestruck in a diverse communal intergenerational resiliency.
Tomas's father's death is a subject of controversy.
His mom's (Marianne Farley as Anna) decision to leave is questioned.
Her return instigates adversarial purges.
A curative step, for the advancement of healing.
At first, I thought the scenes were passing-by too quickly, but this technique allows Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu to densely pack their multifaceted narrative with a varied cast from different walks of life, motivations and realities resultantly receiving accentuated depth, thereby directly rebuking any claims of oversimplification.
Situating a mother's grief and a son's acculturations within a lively mosaic of piquant reach.
To-the-point easy to comprehend consistently sharp conversation.
That's not so easy to pull off.
The midnight sun illuminates their visit as familial expansiveness and jealous grudges acquaint him with a different set of cultural codes.
He's curious and chill, open-minded and active, these factors enabling a productive immersion in the North's différence, supportively kindled by his loving relatives.
And problematized by hostile trouble makers.
Uvanga frankly blends the harsh with the heartwarming, synthesizing the fearful and the awestruck in a diverse communal intergenerational resiliency.
Tomas's father's death is a subject of controversy.
His mom's (Marianne Farley as Anna) decision to leave is questioned.
Her return instigates adversarial purges.
A curative step, for the advancement of healing.
At first, I thought the scenes were passing-by too quickly, but this technique allows Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu to densely pack their multifaceted narrative with a varied cast from different walks of life, motivations and realities resultantly receiving accentuated depth, thereby directly rebuking any claims of oversimplification.
Situating a mother's grief and a son's acculturations within a lively mosaic of piquant reach.
To-the-point easy to comprehend consistently sharp conversation.
That's not so easy to pull off.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Trailer Park Boys: Don't Legalize It
New plans.
New destinations.
New living arrangements.
Classic Trailer Park Boys.
Going back to the show's roots, writers Mike Clattenburg and Mike O'Neill craft an hilarious instalment, with some of the series's best lines, and enough fresh material to keep things going for the foreseeable future.
Some of the absurdities that drive the narrative, notably how often the boys end up in jail, are playfully referred to, which adds a touch of the gritty galvanized real, a fablelike finesse, and a modest cheeky awareness.
At the same time, said absurdities pleasantly abound, the drive from Moncton to Montréal passing-by rather quickly, Bubbles (Mike Smith) having spent 2 years living under J-Roc's (Jonathan Torrens) porch, Julian's (John Paul Tremblay) latest money making scheme soaked and surgical, Lahey's (John Dunsworth) rampage, beyond anything seen before.
Touching moments subtly romanticize the film, Ricky (Robb Wells) breaking down as Bubbles considers moving to Kingston, the tear Randy (Patrick Roach) sheds for Lahey augmenting their torn troubled trust.
Bubbles's struggles hold the film together.
He's usually the level-headed moral knot tying things together, but he's fallen on tough times, and his friends don't know what to do, because he's the one who normally solves these kinds of problems.
Great plot device.
Dean Soltys's editing reminded me why I fell in love with the show over a decade ago, perfectly timed cocky commentaries acting like sharp snarky visceral strikes.
I wasn't sure if they'd be able to pull-off a road trip far to the West, but they do, and they do it so well.
Outrageous.
New destinations.
New living arrangements.
Classic Trailer Park Boys.
Going back to the show's roots, writers Mike Clattenburg and Mike O'Neill craft an hilarious instalment, with some of the series's best lines, and enough fresh material to keep things going for the foreseeable future.
Some of the absurdities that drive the narrative, notably how often the boys end up in jail, are playfully referred to, which adds a touch of the gritty galvanized real, a fablelike finesse, and a modest cheeky awareness.
At the same time, said absurdities pleasantly abound, the drive from Moncton to Montréal passing-by rather quickly, Bubbles (Mike Smith) having spent 2 years living under J-Roc's (Jonathan Torrens) porch, Julian's (John Paul Tremblay) latest money making scheme soaked and surgical, Lahey's (John Dunsworth) rampage, beyond anything seen before.
Touching moments subtly romanticize the film, Ricky (Robb Wells) breaking down as Bubbles considers moving to Kingston, the tear Randy (Patrick Roach) sheds for Lahey augmenting their torn troubled trust.
Bubbles's struggles hold the film together.
He's usually the level-headed moral knot tying things together, but he's fallen on tough times, and his friends don't know what to do, because he's the one who normally solves these kinds of problems.
Great plot device.
Dean Soltys's editing reminded me why I fell in love with the show over a decade ago, perfectly timed cocky commentaries acting like sharp snarky visceral strikes.
I wasn't sure if they'd be able to pull-off a road trip far to the West, but they do, and they do it so well.
Outrageous.
Friday, April 25, 2014
Enemy
Well, if David Lynch is frustratingly not going to make films anymore, I suppose other directors may as well work within his domain, expanding its carnal lethally chipper metamorphosis to absolve instinctive claims, encouraging their characters to experimentally confront themselves as curative acts of regenerative p/haze, immersively diversifying degenerative converse sights, for the love of a beautiful woman, for the transience of a femme fatale.
Denis Villeneuve prospers.
Enemy is too stark for direct comparisons with Lynch's work, but penetrating transverse inveteracies still construct its obsessed will, a trembling fearful confrontation with an other,
forsaken withdrawal, fey iron amplitudes.
Isabella Rossellini (Mother) inhabits.
Sarah Gadon (Helen) resembles Patricia Arquette.
A clandestine group internally promotes coveted exclusive performances.
Identity crises clarify.
Challenging co-existence.
The reality the protagonist cohorts ambiguously disdains its materialistic shell, swapping seductions for synergies, intimately, with standing.
A web based conjugal convection rallies Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the next internment, the closing credits befouling his rise, follow the sentient bread crumbs, to unlock a foresighted rendez-vous.
In plume.
Denis Villeneuve prospers.
Enemy is too stark for direct comparisons with Lynch's work, but penetrating transverse inveteracies still construct its obsessed will, a trembling fearful confrontation with an other,
forsaken withdrawal, fey iron amplitudes.
Isabella Rossellini (Mother) inhabits.
Sarah Gadon (Helen) resembles Patricia Arquette.
A clandestine group internally promotes coveted exclusive performances.
Identity crises clarify.
Challenging co-existence.
The reality the protagonist cohorts ambiguously disdains its materialistic shell, swapping seductions for synergies, intimately, with standing.
A web based conjugal convection rallies Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the next internment, the closing credits befouling his rise, follow the sentient bread crumbs, to unlock a foresighted rendez-vous.
In plume.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm)
The importance of observing traditional checks and balances can be psychotically nurtured if oppressive horrific novelties ironically pasteurize love's volatile abandon.
To tenderly sympathize with incarnate cruelty is to harvest oneself a baleful dereliction.
A surprise can self-awarely compromise a narrative's prim and proper puerility if its imaginary facts have not been uniformly concentrated.
Awkward evasive perplexities.
Undisciplined counterstrikes, will be willfully punished even if their unexpected serenities instigate lasting calm.
Assuredly.
The madness associated with a cultural code's disavowed diversions creates sickeningly compelling bonds of trust in Xavier Dolan's brilliantly disturbing Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm), awestruck incredulous bereft terror, to submit, penalize, collapse, love's dedicated time honoured insurgencies, incomparably construct an orderly trespass.
There's no need to introduce his face firsthand, just driven concrete crazed malevolency.
Violently obscuring.
Before the resurrection of sound.
Editing by Xavier Dolan.
To tenderly sympathize with incarnate cruelty is to harvest oneself a baleful dereliction.
A surprise can self-awarely compromise a narrative's prim and proper puerility if its imaginary facts have not been uniformly concentrated.
Awkward evasive perplexities.
Undisciplined counterstrikes, will be willfully punished even if their unexpected serenities instigate lasting calm.
Assuredly.
The madness associated with a cultural code's disavowed diversions creates sickeningly compelling bonds of trust in Xavier Dolan's brilliantly disturbing Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm), awestruck incredulous bereft terror, to submit, penalize, collapse, love's dedicated time honoured insurgencies, incomparably construct an orderly trespass.
There's no need to introduce his face firsthand, just driven concrete crazed malevolency.
Violently obscuring.
Before the resurrection of sound.
Editing by Xavier Dolan.
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Bears
Ebulliently emerging from their cavernous Winter's den, finding themselves scampering behind their ardent Mother, Sky, Scout and Amber, born atop an imposing majestic mountain, must quickly learn what it means to bear, to survive the threatening upcoming months, and ensure that they're fit for their next torpid slumber.
While trying to have a little fun along the way.
Imitating mom is well within their natural dexterities, but precisely duplicating her actions proves difficult, seeing how they may be having a better time revelling in their mischief, adorably exploring this and that, coming to terms with their brief bounding youth.
Sky does her best, nevertheless (Amber's more aware of the danger), teaching them the ancient ways of Alaskan grizzlykind, patient, observant, nurturing, ready to protect at all costs, doing everything she can, to stimulate their growth.
While food is scarce, tensions run high, and finding what would otherwise be a colossal seasonal feast, is fraught with competitive angst, those not possessing the requisite weight impounded, forced to keep searching, until Valhalla dawns.
Disneynature's Bears offers family friendly insights into the lives of young grizzlies, not without moments that may cause you to think not another Bambi, this is the harsh world of bears, beautifully euphemized, alluringly prohibitive.
The film's primary focus is, correct, bears, and it predominantly examines bearkind, which is both a strength and a weakness, clearly evidencing a variety of behaviours for curious audiences, while perhaps not focusing enough attention on surrounding flora and fauna.
I'm curious to know if the filmmakers had a plan for the Bambi scenario?
Mandatory viewing for jurisdictions considering hosting a Spring bear hunt.
How many Scouts and Ambers end up orphaned every year because of such hunts?
How many?
Narrated by John C. Reilly.
Hoping there's a sequel.
While trying to have a little fun along the way.
Imitating mom is well within their natural dexterities, but precisely duplicating her actions proves difficult, seeing how they may be having a better time revelling in their mischief, adorably exploring this and that, coming to terms with their brief bounding youth.
Sky does her best, nevertheless (Amber's more aware of the danger), teaching them the ancient ways of Alaskan grizzlykind, patient, observant, nurturing, ready to protect at all costs, doing everything she can, to stimulate their growth.
While food is scarce, tensions run high, and finding what would otherwise be a colossal seasonal feast, is fraught with competitive angst, those not possessing the requisite weight impounded, forced to keep searching, until Valhalla dawns.
Disneynature's Bears offers family friendly insights into the lives of young grizzlies, not without moments that may cause you to think not another Bambi, this is the harsh world of bears, beautifully euphemized, alluringly prohibitive.
The film's primary focus is, correct, bears, and it predominantly examines bearkind, which is both a strength and a weakness, clearly evidencing a variety of behaviours for curious audiences, while perhaps not focusing enough attention on surrounding flora and fauna.
I'm curious to know if the filmmakers had a plan for the Bambi scenario?
Mandatory viewing for jurisdictions considering hosting a Spring bear hunt.
How many Scouts and Ambers end up orphaned every year because of such hunts?
How many?
Narrated by John C. Reilly.
Hoping there's a sequel.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
In/directly contextualizing striking pre-emptive phenomenons, Captain America: The Winter Soldier bravely condenses controversial polarities, from which it extracts a democratic essence, sentimentally sublime in its naiveté.
Perhaps beating Transcendence to the punch.
The issue of brilliant Nazi war criminals finding sanctuary in the United States after World War II is acknowledged, diabolical agents of HYDRA having nested themselves within S.H.I.E.L.D, whose limitless technological resources have given them free reign to menace.
They hope to take out millions of enemies in one extremely precise swoop, the ultimate pre-emptive strike, internationally derailing syndications of law and order, egregiously ignoring the global human factor.
The infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D partially vindicates Eric Snowden and Julian Assange as their methods are proactively defended by Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).
Radiantly representing today's youth.
The key to the relationship between these plot threads and the film's subconscious depiction of America's current identity lies in the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) himself, who has no identity, who was revived to serve HYDRA and serve HYDRA alone, the memory of who he once was having been shattered into oblivion.
He is recognized by Captain America (Chris Evans), however, who is also having identity issues, yet he remembers why America (and Canada) fought during the second World War, thereby earning the trust of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).
Like Thor: The Dark World, Winter Soldier struggles to find itself during its first 40 minutes or so, although in this case such disappointments fit perfectly.
It's important to remember that when great actors aren't performing at the top of their game, it's okay to ask them to do additional takes.
I don't know how you'd go about doing this.
Just don't go Godard on them (see Richard Brody's Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard).
What follows is a thrilling politicized retrocrazed rush, Steve Rodgers outshining Themistocles, another captivating Marvel film, oh what a world what a world.
Perhaps beating Transcendence to the punch.
The issue of brilliant Nazi war criminals finding sanctuary in the United States after World War II is acknowledged, diabolical agents of HYDRA having nested themselves within S.H.I.E.L.D, whose limitless technological resources have given them free reign to menace.
They hope to take out millions of enemies in one extremely precise swoop, the ultimate pre-emptive strike, internationally derailing syndications of law and order, egregiously ignoring the global human factor.
The infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D partially vindicates Eric Snowden and Julian Assange as their methods are proactively defended by Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson).
Radiantly representing today's youth.
The key to the relationship between these plot threads and the film's subconscious depiction of America's current identity lies in the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) himself, who has no identity, who was revived to serve HYDRA and serve HYDRA alone, the memory of who he once was having been shattered into oblivion.
He is recognized by Captain America (Chris Evans), however, who is also having identity issues, yet he remembers why America (and Canada) fought during the second World War, thereby earning the trust of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).
Like Thor: The Dark World, Winter Soldier struggles to find itself during its first 40 minutes or so, although in this case such disappointments fit perfectly.
It's important to remember that when great actors aren't performing at the top of their game, it's okay to ask them to do additional takes.
I don't know how you'd go about doing this.
Just don't go Godard on them (see Richard Brody's Everything is Cinema: The Working Life of Jean-Luc Godard).
What follows is a thrilling politicized retrocrazed rush, Steve Rodgers outshining Themistocles, another captivating Marvel film, oh what a world what a world.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Dabba (The Lunchbox)
The hearty provision of delicious nourishment slowly melts Saajan's (Irrfan Khan) frozen exterior in Ritesh Batra's Dabba (The Lunchbox), Ila (Nimrat Kaur) enraptured as someone finally takes note, Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) benefitting from the frosty fallout.
As depicted in the film, Indian lunch delivery is a complicated procedure, providing employment for many, their services applauded by Harvard.
Lunch, potentially homemade, is cooked, picked-up, dropped-off at a central location, then distributed to hungry workers, as the day's labour approaches its extended period of rest.
In Ila's case, the lunch she prepares for her husband is delivered to the wrong person.
Curmudgeony Saajan revels in his good fortune even if his bouncy inquisitive replacement (he's retiring) Shaikh continuously annoys him with his enthusiastic go-getting.
Ila discovers that her husband isn't receiving his lunch and begins sending Saajan letters, the two slowly developing a fledgling romance thereafter, Saajan gently mending her broken heart.
Hesitantly yet tenderly unreeling, Dabba quotidianly explores the thoughts of two modest upstanding hard working subjects, their difficulties with the im/moral dimension of their love lettering, or the joys/hardships associated with transgressing cultural codes.
The film required something else to hold it together, and Shaikh's presence, youth contending with age, adds flavourful ingredients to its recipe, rounding out its amorous intentions with related thoughts concerning integrity, friendship, and saturated job markets.
Ila's relationship with her Auntie (Bharati Achrekar) achieves similar ends albeit from a domestic standpoint.
The lotus.
As depicted in the film, Indian lunch delivery is a complicated procedure, providing employment for many, their services applauded by Harvard.
Lunch, potentially homemade, is cooked, picked-up, dropped-off at a central location, then distributed to hungry workers, as the day's labour approaches its extended period of rest.
In Ila's case, the lunch she prepares for her husband is delivered to the wrong person.
Curmudgeony Saajan revels in his good fortune even if his bouncy inquisitive replacement (he's retiring) Shaikh continuously annoys him with his enthusiastic go-getting.
Ila discovers that her husband isn't receiving his lunch and begins sending Saajan letters, the two slowly developing a fledgling romance thereafter, Saajan gently mending her broken heart.
Hesitantly yet tenderly unreeling, Dabba quotidianly explores the thoughts of two modest upstanding hard working subjects, their difficulties with the im/moral dimension of their love lettering, or the joys/hardships associated with transgressing cultural codes.
The film required something else to hold it together, and Shaikh's presence, youth contending with age, adds flavourful ingredients to its recipe, rounding out its amorous intentions with related thoughts concerning integrity, friendship, and saturated job markets.
Ila's relationship with her Auntie (Bharati Achrekar) achieves similar ends albeit from a domestic standpoint.
The lotus.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Jodorowsky's Dune
A filmmaker possessing the highest possible artistic intentions, for whom film is a sub/conscious pyrotechnic visceral emulsion, wildly jettisoning extracted reified ideological peaks, capable of concretely delineating multilaterally deconstructive minutia, their testaments clasping your hands and mine, distinct explosive intraoperative trysts, persuasive incipient confounding strips, Alejandro Jodorowsky almost made Dune, and his crushing curtailment still resonates to this day.
The cast and crew he assembled would have possibly been the coolest ever.
That voice which obsesses about disabling degrees of practicality was non-existent, pure unabashed committed expansive insurgence, unconcerned with what actually takes place in the novel which he hadn't even read before embracing it as his next project, motivated by perceived interpretive fortuitous pacts, the universe having opened-up and provided him with chance integral reprieved constituents, like an intergalactic curvaceous onslaught, or the ultimate Proustian daydream.
The Blueberry.
Not that his dreams weren't practical, if anything, they represented the apotheosis of practicality, a spiritual conception of teamwork seeking superlative aesthetic collegial partnerships who were to be given hands-off inspirational direction, united in their pursuit of memorializing a trance, abstraction, attraction, refraction.
Jodorowsky's son Brontis trained intensively for 2 years with a martial arts master to prepare to play Paul Atreides.
Salvadore Dalí may have made 100,000 a minute to play Shaddam Corrino IV.
Orson Welles could have gorged himself ad infinitum.
I don't want to say too much about the film, it's better if you see Jodorowsky and companions explain it themselves, the Dan O'Bannon recording fitting perfectly.
Possibly the most influential film never made, transisting semantic transcendence.
Jodorowsky envisioned a groundbreaking universal consciousness expanding waking delirium.
Too much for one film alone, its manifold parts have arguably become greater than those initially conceived.
Still like aspects of David Lynch's version.
The cast and crew he assembled would have possibly been the coolest ever.
That voice which obsesses about disabling degrees of practicality was non-existent, pure unabashed committed expansive insurgence, unconcerned with what actually takes place in the novel which he hadn't even read before embracing it as his next project, motivated by perceived interpretive fortuitous pacts, the universe having opened-up and provided him with chance integral reprieved constituents, like an intergalactic curvaceous onslaught, or the ultimate Proustian daydream.
The Blueberry.
Not that his dreams weren't practical, if anything, they represented the apotheosis of practicality, a spiritual conception of teamwork seeking superlative aesthetic collegial partnerships who were to be given hands-off inspirational direction, united in their pursuit of memorializing a trance, abstraction, attraction, refraction.
Jodorowsky's son Brontis trained intensively for 2 years with a martial arts master to prepare to play Paul Atreides.
Salvadore Dalí may have made 100,000 a minute to play Shaddam Corrino IV.
Orson Welles could have gorged himself ad infinitum.
I don't want to say too much about the film, it's better if you see Jodorowsky and companions explain it themselves, the Dan O'Bannon recording fitting perfectly.
Possibly the most influential film never made, transisting semantic transcendence.
Jodorowsky envisioned a groundbreaking universal consciousness expanding waking delirium.
Too much for one film alone, its manifold parts have arguably become greater than those initially conceived.
Still like aspects of David Lynch's version.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Meetings with a Young Poet
A gifted writer's successful poetic publication emboldens his desire to meet his favourite author, Samuel Beckett (Stephen McHattie), and a letter is sent, a reply is crafted, the two meeting thereafter to see if they can keep collegial compatibility in check, incandescentally enacting a enduring competitive discussion throughout, which gradually foments a spry friendship.
A gifted performing artists seeks the rights to stage one of Beckett's plays, the rights belonging to the poet, hoping to modify an aspect which some consider prescribed, her illuminated life-force agilely advocating.
Their dialogues actively overcome an empty silence whose initial poetic flourish debilitatingly became a literal reality (his love of Beckett prevented him from writing for many years).
Meetings with a Young Poet troubled me.
At points its pretensions made me feel ill while at others I was humbly affected to the teardrop, like reading Mr. Dickens, or a poem lacking rhyme and/or rhythm which still vindicates delicate ethereal reminiscences, simultaneously jealous of Paul Susser's (Vincent Hoss-Desmarais) good fortune and cognizant of why Beckett recommended to run from Proust and Joyce, his obvious love for people and the lighter side of life crushing me like waxed ephemeral wicker, two sides of the haughty intellectualized niche contending, one bound to a forlorn pincushion, the other overflowing with grace.
Carole Thomas's (Maria de Medeiros) role, her constantly revitalized cascading flora, this presence generously transmitted to her subjects of desire, thereby simultaneously transferring to them what they need to reboot while obtaining her sought after intention, infuses the film with a bounding effervescence, every bubble's balance beneficially accrued.
Character driven.
A gifted performing artists seeks the rights to stage one of Beckett's plays, the rights belonging to the poet, hoping to modify an aspect which some consider prescribed, her illuminated life-force agilely advocating.
Their dialogues actively overcome an empty silence whose initial poetic flourish debilitatingly became a literal reality (his love of Beckett prevented him from writing for many years).
Meetings with a Young Poet troubled me.
At points its pretensions made me feel ill while at others I was humbly affected to the teardrop, like reading Mr. Dickens, or a poem lacking rhyme and/or rhythm which still vindicates delicate ethereal reminiscences, simultaneously jealous of Paul Susser's (Vincent Hoss-Desmarais) good fortune and cognizant of why Beckett recommended to run from Proust and Joyce, his obvious love for people and the lighter side of life crushing me like waxed ephemeral wicker, two sides of the haughty intellectualized niche contending, one bound to a forlorn pincushion, the other overflowing with grace.
Carole Thomas's (Maria de Medeiros) role, her constantly revitalized cascading flora, this presence generously transmitted to her subjects of desire, thereby simultaneously transferring to them what they need to reboot while obtaining her sought after intention, infuses the film with a bounding effervescence, every bubble's balance beneficially accrued.
Character driven.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
The Grand Budapest Hotel
One of the most well-written/presented films I've seen, Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel eclectically and photogenically entices his audiences to cerebrally strap themselves in, inexhaustibly affixing literary liaisons to his rambunctious gentleman's club, scriptual guardrails, amphetamines, and incisors distilled then disseminated, meticulously tidy and neat, lead character and director functioning as one, the details, the details, the details, affluence aplombed, in a duty-bound celestial amazement.
To serve is to rectify.
Young love, friendship, greed devotion admiration jealousy deflection prison-breaks swathed in a flame forsworn to its adversaries.
Retreat.
Contours convened on a swollen strap eased into vertical environed retinal eschews.
Pause.
Consented entrapping pursuant cavalcades.
Mentors and mendicants flossed in the grip.
Critical high-level catered expenditures.
Horizons harassed and danubed.
Treachery, intransigence, vertigo.
Withstanding any attempts to halt its progression, The Grand Budapest Hotel epitomizes g(u)ilded prestige, hostages lacking ransom, taste without snobbery.
Envisioned, exercised, and executed, I hesitate to say, it's my favourite Wes Anderson film yet.
To serve is to rectify.
Young love, friendship, greed devotion admiration jealousy deflection prison-breaks swathed in a flame forsworn to its adversaries.
Retreat.
Contours convened on a swollen strap eased into vertical environed retinal eschews.
Pause.
Consented entrapping pursuant cavalcades.
Mentors and mendicants flossed in the grip.
Critical high-level catered expenditures.
Horizons harassed and danubed.
Treachery, intransigence, vertigo.
Withstanding any attempts to halt its progression, The Grand Budapest Hotel epitomizes g(u)ilded prestige, hostages lacking ransom, taste without snobbery.
Envisioned, exercised, and executed, I hesitate to say, it's my favourite Wes Anderson film yet.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Bad Words
Goals.
Objectives.
Means.
The will to live.
Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) must be crowned national spelling bee champion at age 40 in order for his unerring orthographical prowess to be forthrightly recognized, his youthful competitors and their parents somewhat infuriated by his choice, the drive to accelerate concocting regardless, asinine assiduity acrimoniously idealized, congruent considering, the rules of the game.
Friendship and romance are cumbersomely nuanced with playful degrees of sharp insouciant admissibility, jaded alcoholic weariness slowly transforming into infinitesimal merriment, as trashy transgressions legitimate their inclusivity.
Bad Words is a solid mix of pejorative eccentricity and misanthropic mirth.
The friendship between Guy and young Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand) tenderly transitions the tempered tailspin.
Was going to use some of the challenging words from the film in this review but they're simply too much.
It's subtly hilarious when some of the irate parents can't hide how impressed they are with Guy.
Rollin' with the punches.
Spelt infinitesimal wrong while writing this out.
Loved the spelling bee antics.
Wonder if writer Andrew Dodge (great script), who at least justifies his use of the stubborn ass, ever saw the episode of Get a Life where Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott) discovers he's a genius after consuming toxic waste and then decides to win as many spelling bees as he can, episode 9, season 2, Chris' Brain Starts Working.
Objectives.
Means.
The will to live.
Guy Trilby (Jason Bateman) must be crowned national spelling bee champion at age 40 in order for his unerring orthographical prowess to be forthrightly recognized, his youthful competitors and their parents somewhat infuriated by his choice, the drive to accelerate concocting regardless, asinine assiduity acrimoniously idealized, congruent considering, the rules of the game.
Friendship and romance are cumbersomely nuanced with playful degrees of sharp insouciant admissibility, jaded alcoholic weariness slowly transforming into infinitesimal merriment, as trashy transgressions legitimate their inclusivity.
Bad Words is a solid mix of pejorative eccentricity and misanthropic mirth.
The friendship between Guy and young Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand) tenderly transitions the tempered tailspin.
Was going to use some of the challenging words from the film in this review but they're simply too much.
It's subtly hilarious when some of the irate parents can't hide how impressed they are with Guy.
Rollin' with the punches.
Spelt infinitesimal wrong while writing this out.
Loved the spelling bee antics.
Wonder if writer Andrew Dodge (great script), who at least justifies his use of the stubborn ass, ever saw the episode of Get a Life where Chris Peterson (Chris Elliott) discovers he's a genius after consuming toxic waste and then decides to win as many spelling bees as he can, episode 9, season 2, Chris' Brain Starts Working.
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Maïna
Intertribal relations bellicosely deteriorate as a restless megalomaniac seeks control of his clan, the Nearly Wolves, the aftermath of his ambush of the Men of the Land of Ice leaving Maïna caught between Innu and Inuit worlds, wherein misunderstandings and revelations communally mingle, devastatingly enlightening in turn, chasing the wind, in the land without trees.
The unknown presents an invigorating sense of bewilderment as Maïna (Roseanne Supernault), daughter of the Nearly Wolves's Chief Mishtenapeu (Graham Greene), protecting young Nipki (Uapshkuss Thernish), must join a group of Inuit travellers on their voyage home, one of them, bold Natak (Ipellie Ootoova), known to Maïna through her dreams, a new language, new customs, new lands, viscerally vivifying, as she adventurously comes of age.
Natak and Maïna fall in love but challenges face their union as she acquaints her new neighbours with the traditions of the Innu.
At a critical moment, her continuing survival having been jeopardized, Nanook embodies the unknown's extreme malevolency, understanding and support being required to integratively overcome the hunger, and peacefully initiate the flowering of difference.
Maïna comprehensively blooms love's emotional omniscience, artfully blending the confrontational with the mesmerizing, navigating clasped distances, flourishingly mused.
Petulance and prejudice challenge its tumultuous tranquility, as Maïna demonstrates that she too can hunt, and Natak must balance divergence and docility.
Cinematography by Allen Smith.
The unknown presents an invigorating sense of bewilderment as Maïna (Roseanne Supernault), daughter of the Nearly Wolves's Chief Mishtenapeu (Graham Greene), protecting young Nipki (Uapshkuss Thernish), must join a group of Inuit travellers on their voyage home, one of them, bold Natak (Ipellie Ootoova), known to Maïna through her dreams, a new language, new customs, new lands, viscerally vivifying, as she adventurously comes of age.
Natak and Maïna fall in love but challenges face their union as she acquaints her new neighbours with the traditions of the Innu.
At a critical moment, her continuing survival having been jeopardized, Nanook embodies the unknown's extreme malevolency, understanding and support being required to integratively overcome the hunger, and peacefully initiate the flowering of difference.
Maïna comprehensively blooms love's emotional omniscience, artfully blending the confrontational with the mesmerizing, navigating clasped distances, flourishingly mused.
Petulance and prejudice challenge its tumultuous tranquility, as Maïna demonstrates that she too can hunt, and Natak must balance divergence and docility.
Cinematography by Allen Smith.
Monday, March 24, 2014
The Monuments Men
To enter a war zone with inadequate training and hardly any ground support with the goal of retrieving precious works of art from Nazi thugs, risking everything to return them to their rightful owners, this is how George Clooney's The Monuments Men proceeds, decadently daring and cluelessly clever, exoterically unreeling, with far too strong a sense of invincibility.
It's a great idea but it's difficult to treat Monuments Men like a serious war film.
War films need to be serious.
World War II's more of an afterthought than an omnipresence within and although the high spirits of the tangential team are endearing, in war films the war needs to be present in each and every nanoframe, every aspect scrutinizing the terror.
True, such films often include moments where the struggling combatants think of home or let loose for a while, but their despair still ominously flows.
Monuments Men sort of reverses this standard, the film occasionally focusing on the war while it seems like the combatants never left home, and, while it's noteworthy that the film doesn't play by the book, it falls flat throughout.
I applaud what it sets out to do however.
It's simple and easy to follow, providing a clear sensible message: great works of art chronicle and catalogue a people's historical and contemporary conditions, and any attempts to pilfer this aspect of a culture is universally unacceptable, to be resolutely fought against even if the impracticality of fighting against it directly during an actual war is daunting, that fight being artistic in its pursuits nevertheless.
By stating this message in terms that can be easily understood, Monuments Men will hopefully encourage many latent art lovers to cultivate their interests more actively.
One scene is commendable too, when James Granger (Matt Damon) returns a stolen painting to the house where it once belonged, even though the homeowners may never return, this scene defining a post-war rebuilding stage's genesis, highlighting how difficult it must be to know where to begin.
It passes by far too quickly.
Loved the Granger.
It's a great idea but it's difficult to treat Monuments Men like a serious war film.
War films need to be serious.
World War II's more of an afterthought than an omnipresence within and although the high spirits of the tangential team are endearing, in war films the war needs to be present in each and every nanoframe, every aspect scrutinizing the terror.
True, such films often include moments where the struggling combatants think of home or let loose for a while, but their despair still ominously flows.
Monuments Men sort of reverses this standard, the film occasionally focusing on the war while it seems like the combatants never left home, and, while it's noteworthy that the film doesn't play by the book, it falls flat throughout.
I applaud what it sets out to do however.
It's simple and easy to follow, providing a clear sensible message: great works of art chronicle and catalogue a people's historical and contemporary conditions, and any attempts to pilfer this aspect of a culture is universally unacceptable, to be resolutely fought against even if the impracticality of fighting against it directly during an actual war is daunting, that fight being artistic in its pursuits nevertheless.
By stating this message in terms that can be easily understood, Monuments Men will hopefully encourage many latent art lovers to cultivate their interests more actively.
One scene is commendable too, when James Granger (Matt Damon) returns a stolen painting to the house where it once belonged, even though the homeowners may never return, this scene defining a post-war rebuilding stage's genesis, highlighting how difficult it must be to know where to begin.
It passes by far too quickly.
Loved the Granger.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises)
The dreams of a modest principled hard working youth patiently materialize in Hayao Miyazaki's Kaze tachinu (The Wind Rises), an animated account of a brilliant Japanese aeronautical engineer whose poetical mathematics helped remodel Japan's aviation industry.
The frame insulates a wise psychological stratagem for growing and changing during tumultuous times, within Jirȏ Horikoshi's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) mind, and provides him with the strength to go-with-the-flow as hardships, sicknesses, and political aggressions challenge his strong sense of self.
He grew up in the years leading up to World War II and had to helplessly sit back while his designs were co-opted by the military.
The film doesn't shy away from exploring technological testaments to militaristic miscues.
Horikoshi has to hide for a time as jingoistic agents grow suspicious of his activities.
This aspect of the film fades without receiving enough attention.
I'm supposing the pre-war years were quite oppressive as indicated by Horikoshi's attempts to converse with less fortunate citizens who are frightened by his humble offering of sponge cake.
Research and development processes and workplace pastimes are a recurring feature as his dreams become a reality through the application of diligent trials and errors.
Love fills-out the creative cure, as a respectful romance energizes his designs.
Kaze tachinu offers innocent industrious insights into a dedicated upright life of work and study whose successes and failures are stoically articulated.
Romance, rewards and retinues refine his tragic pursuit of innovation, his revered reveries, seek, search, discover; apply; install.
The frame insulates a wise psychological stratagem for growing and changing during tumultuous times, within Jirȏ Horikoshi's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) mind, and provides him with the strength to go-with-the-flow as hardships, sicknesses, and political aggressions challenge his strong sense of self.
He grew up in the years leading up to World War II and had to helplessly sit back while his designs were co-opted by the military.
The film doesn't shy away from exploring technological testaments to militaristic miscues.
Horikoshi has to hide for a time as jingoistic agents grow suspicious of his activities.
This aspect of the film fades without receiving enough attention.
I'm supposing the pre-war years were quite oppressive as indicated by Horikoshi's attempts to converse with less fortunate citizens who are frightened by his humble offering of sponge cake.
Research and development processes and workplace pastimes are a recurring feature as his dreams become a reality through the application of diligent trials and errors.
Love fills-out the creative cure, as a respectful romance energizes his designs.
Kaze tachinu offers innocent industrious insights into a dedicated upright life of work and study whose successes and failures are stoically articulated.
Romance, rewards and retinues refine his tragic pursuit of innovation, his revered reveries, seek, search, discover; apply; install.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Stay
The baby factor plays a crucial role in Stay's conceptual christening, the key sociological stitch practically tying the abstractions together.
Aging Dermot (Aidan Quinn) reacts none to supportively upon discovering that partner Abby (Taylor Schilling) is carrying his unborn child.
Content to live out his life quietly with minimal responsibility, the shock halts his settled steady stride.
He's a bit of an ass.
Abby leaves Ireland to visit her family in Montréal where her father (Michael Ironside as Frank) is thrilled by the news, yet troubled by her questions about her own mother, who left their family when she was 6.
Back in Ireland, Dermot strikes up acquaintances with a teenager who's skipping school to work and a single mom, their conversations causing him to reconsider his dismissive attitude regarding child rearing.
He also goes out of his way to irritate a fellow community member looking to sell a piece of property close to his own, disrupting his hopeful plans, even though he needs the money to save his struggling business.
He's a total ass.
Although his shenanigans do unearth a rare archaeological find.
The pints must flow.
Weathered and worldly, Abby and Dermot's relationship stubbornly and pensively communicates realistic fears concerning the introduction of youngsters, the upheaval of a stable set of solidifiers, the ground changing announcements of birth.
Communal and familial observations and traditions supply down-to-earth accidental supernatural provisions, fortune or fate?, interactive antecedents.
Aging Dermot (Aidan Quinn) reacts none to supportively upon discovering that partner Abby (Taylor Schilling) is carrying his unborn child.
Content to live out his life quietly with minimal responsibility, the shock halts his settled steady stride.
He's a bit of an ass.
Abby leaves Ireland to visit her family in Montréal where her father (Michael Ironside as Frank) is thrilled by the news, yet troubled by her questions about her own mother, who left their family when she was 6.
Back in Ireland, Dermot strikes up acquaintances with a teenager who's skipping school to work and a single mom, their conversations causing him to reconsider his dismissive attitude regarding child rearing.
He also goes out of his way to irritate a fellow community member looking to sell a piece of property close to his own, disrupting his hopeful plans, even though he needs the money to save his struggling business.
He's a total ass.
Although his shenanigans do unearth a rare archaeological find.
The pints must flow.
Weathered and worldly, Abby and Dermot's relationship stubbornly and pensively communicates realistic fears concerning the introduction of youngsters, the upheaval of a stable set of solidifiers, the ground changing announcements of birth.
Communal and familial observations and traditions supply down-to-earth accidental supernatural provisions, fortune or fate?, interactive antecedents.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Miraculum
Flight plans, guilt-ridden, felicitous, miserable, and emancipating flight plans, desperately intermingle differing degrees of shock, immersed in Daniel Grou's Miraculum, as risks deteriorate familial stabilities, and the concept of vice, is multifariously de/moralized.
Synoptic suffering.
A weary outcast attempts to make amends through profits earned from drug smuggling.
An affair crushes and/or enlivens the members of two elderly couples.
Distant addictive empty partners seek to rejuvenate their marriage.
A struggling Jehovah's Witness is tempted by secular advancements (blood transfusions).
The four stories downtroddenly unfurl within and without (like Babel or Tian zhu ding), lucidly pinpointing vectorized vertices, occasionally peaking ensemble, dedicating a despondent deconstructive density to open-minded conscientious plights, which resists clear and distinct binding generalizations, to materially matriculate the mundanely divine.
Although communal belonging is fluidly challenged as unforgiving bulwarks fortify their positions.
Wherein resistance is rather futile.
Miraculum isn't like pastis, milk, and honey, more like a caressing melancholic ideological tempest, compelling in its whirlwinds, tight, multifaceted, challenging.
Editing by Valérie Héroux.
Written by Gabriel Sabourin (Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne consulting).
It breathes difficult distinct tetralectics into profound ethical quotients, corrugating crisp conceptions of the beautiful, rationally masterminded, exacting, composed.
Keeping you focused at full attention.
Built to multilaterally stimulate.
Synoptic suffering.
A weary outcast attempts to make amends through profits earned from drug smuggling.
An affair crushes and/or enlivens the members of two elderly couples.
Distant addictive empty partners seek to rejuvenate their marriage.
A struggling Jehovah's Witness is tempted by secular advancements (blood transfusions).
The four stories downtroddenly unfurl within and without (like Babel or Tian zhu ding), lucidly pinpointing vectorized vertices, occasionally peaking ensemble, dedicating a despondent deconstructive density to open-minded conscientious plights, which resists clear and distinct binding generalizations, to materially matriculate the mundanely divine.
Although communal belonging is fluidly challenged as unforgiving bulwarks fortify their positions.
Wherein resistance is rather futile.
Miraculum isn't like pastis, milk, and honey, more like a caressing melancholic ideological tempest, compelling in its whirlwinds, tight, multifaceted, challenging.
Editing by Valérie Héroux.
Written by Gabriel Sabourin (Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne consulting).
It breathes difficult distinct tetralectics into profound ethical quotients, corrugating crisp conceptions of the beautiful, rationally masterminded, exacting, composed.
Keeping you focused at full attention.
Built to multilaterally stimulate.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
300: Rise of an Empire
I'm not sure if 300: Rise of an Empire is supposed to be taken seriously or rather should be treated as a healthy cerealized kitschtastic crack, its graphic epic historic amplitude hilted, jacked, and drawn, battle-ready and menacing in its entirety, strategically frothing, an implicated grind.
Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) and Artemisia's (Eva Green) nocturnal knockings knit like necromanced kerosene, enriching yet servicing quinoa, while Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) gracefully prances about like an impregnable prophesied faun, mystically captivating, ornate and commandeering.
There isn't really that much happening in the film besides battling and preparations for battling.
The majority of the battles taking place on water.
The Persians insist on invading Greece and go rather multitudinously about it, which necessitates constant inspirational speech making from Themistocles, a plain everyperson possessing ingenious gifts for fighting and strategizing, whose experiential wherewithal infuses his speeches with spry rallying rectitude, democracy under siege, his fellow citizens, pressurized and proverbed.
According to my tastes, many of the speeches fell flat, but since I realized that Themistocles's gifts were for warfare, not rhetoric, and his legend demanded that he set out to unite Greece, a soldier shepherding a synergy, I could forgive the fact that the words he chose didn't resonate with me, strictly focusing on their underlying message.
A relationship between father and son familializes both the preparations for and the acts of battling.
Heavy on the gore.
At several points it seems like the reasons for battling are secondary to the battling itself, blood spurting from hacked-off limbs the motif which occurs most often.
Which adds a mischievous quality to the design.
Which perhaps should be taken seriously.
Themistocles (Sullivan Stapleton) and Artemisia's (Eva Green) nocturnal knockings knit like necromanced kerosene, enriching yet servicing quinoa, while Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) gracefully prances about like an impregnable prophesied faun, mystically captivating, ornate and commandeering.
There isn't really that much happening in the film besides battling and preparations for battling.
The majority of the battles taking place on water.
The Persians insist on invading Greece and go rather multitudinously about it, which necessitates constant inspirational speech making from Themistocles, a plain everyperson possessing ingenious gifts for fighting and strategizing, whose experiential wherewithal infuses his speeches with spry rallying rectitude, democracy under siege, his fellow citizens, pressurized and proverbed.
According to my tastes, many of the speeches fell flat, but since I realized that Themistocles's gifts were for warfare, not rhetoric, and his legend demanded that he set out to unite Greece, a soldier shepherding a synergy, I could forgive the fact that the words he chose didn't resonate with me, strictly focusing on their underlying message.
A relationship between father and son familializes both the preparations for and the acts of battling.
Heavy on the gore.
At several points it seems like the reasons for battling are secondary to the battling itself, blood spurting from hacked-off limbs the motif which occurs most often.
Which adds a mischievous quality to the design.
Which perhaps should be taken seriously.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Rhymes for Young Ghouls (Rimes pour revenants)
A systematically brutalized culture's subjugated displacements resiliently assert themselves in Jeff Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls (Rimes pour revenants), a hardboiled look at a Mi'kmaq reserve (Red Crow) oppressed by a cruel vindictive Indian Agent and laws requiring children to attend residential schools.
There's friendship, family, camaraderie, language, culture, belonging, humanity.
But the gang of authoritative thugs who govern the place still do everything they can to impoverish.
The film's violent.
It's fight-back or fuck-off as a might-is-right philosophy confronts resistance, ubiquitous altercations, outrageous regulations (no boats on the lake for starters).
Alia (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs) knows how to fight.
Left to be raised by her deadbeat uncle after her father was sent to prison and her mother committed suicide, she establishes a flourishing business which earns her enough cash to pay off the Indian Agent.
Thereby freeing her from the residential school.
But his abusive grip squeezes tighter and tighter, necessitating a potent counterstrike, sounding the call of the warrior.
Rhymes for Young Ghouls isn't shy.
It starkly lays out a ravaged set of institutionalized sterilizations while demonstrating how the victims remain elastically fertile.
Many of the characters are young and their tragic innocence exacerbates the tyranny.
Accentuates the acrimony.
While their communal bonds reify the transcendent life.
Love the analogous relationship between the wolf and the mushroom story and the bloodthirsty pursuit of capital.
There's friendship, family, camaraderie, language, culture, belonging, humanity.
But the gang of authoritative thugs who govern the place still do everything they can to impoverish.
The film's violent.
It's fight-back or fuck-off as a might-is-right philosophy confronts resistance, ubiquitous altercations, outrageous regulations (no boats on the lake for starters).
Alia (Kawennahere Devery Jacobs) knows how to fight.
Left to be raised by her deadbeat uncle after her father was sent to prison and her mother committed suicide, she establishes a flourishing business which earns her enough cash to pay off the Indian Agent.
Thereby freeing her from the residential school.
But his abusive grip squeezes tighter and tighter, necessitating a potent counterstrike, sounding the call of the warrior.
Rhymes for Young Ghouls isn't shy.
It starkly lays out a ravaged set of institutionalized sterilizations while demonstrating how the victims remain elastically fertile.
Many of the characters are young and their tragic innocence exacerbates the tyranny.
Accentuates the acrimony.
While their communal bonds reify the transcendent life.
Love the analogous relationship between the wolf and the mushroom story and the bloodthirsty pursuit of capital.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Stalingrad
Improbabilities abound in Fedor Bondarchuk's oddly sentimental Stalingrad, my first look at a Russian blockbuster, just as grandiosely sensational as their American counterparts, so it seems, dazzling and heartbreaking, modestly skewed.
The film concerns one of the Second World War's Battle of Stalingrad's myriad crazed territorial trespasses wherein the Russians possess a building the Germans covet, hoping to win it back, their opposing forces exchanging ample audacities.
A beautiful young Russian ingénue still lives in the building (Mariya Smolnikova as Katya) and 5 hardened comrades fall for her as the fighting intensifies.
The situation's dire and the soldiers are countering inestimable odds with neither supplies nor reinforcements.
Katya offers a fleeting escape from the surrounding horrors, reminding the men that they're fighting for a greater purpose, substituting radiance for perdition, dignity for misery.
Even if what I've read about Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union makes it sound like hell on Earth.
It's difficult to determine whether or not the film is simply celebrating the sacrifices of courageous persons thrust into an abyss whose maddening pressures necessitated the emergence of heroism, the overwhelmed and underfunded Russians forced to bravely ignite their internal flames (one of the best scenes depicts this), or if it's glorifying the war itself, the scene where two would-be lovers sit back and watch the artillery light up the night sky like a fascist/communist fireworks display functioning as a romantic yet too distracting display, although had I been in a similar situation I too would have likely watched in wonder.
Focusing on the inherently deadly and ruinous nature of the display rather than any secondary futuristic aesthetic qualifications no doubt.
The deadly and ruinous nature of the display isn't referred to, discipline is brutal as a Russian sailor is shot for presenting an alternative point of view, Stalin isn't mentioned with loathing, the best speech is reserved for the enemy German captain (Thomas Krechmann/Kretschmann)(it reminded me of Robert Graves's description of Julius Caesar's pre-battle motivations in I, Claudius), in short, the discourses of the Left are largely absent (one Russian soldier is reprimanded for using the word retarded and there's a conciliatory frame whose presence is dismissible), which I was hoping would not be the case in a film celebrating Commie heroes, even if I'm (now) aware that it was mass-produced in Putin's Russia.
It's not necessarily that improbabilities abound, but when I watch these films and think, "this is a life or death situation and that's what tricked you?", I tend to use words such as improbable to describe what happens.
A must if you want to see your first Russian blockbuster, even if it's one of the worst movies you'll ever see.
I was naively hoping it would be similar to Elem Klimov's Come and See (all I knew about the film going in was that it was called Stalingrad and made in Russia).
Here's hoping Putin doesn't become any more Hitleresque.
The film concerns one of the Second World War's Battle of Stalingrad's myriad crazed territorial trespasses wherein the Russians possess a building the Germans covet, hoping to win it back, their opposing forces exchanging ample audacities.
A beautiful young Russian ingénue still lives in the building (Mariya Smolnikova as Katya) and 5 hardened comrades fall for her as the fighting intensifies.
The situation's dire and the soldiers are countering inestimable odds with neither supplies nor reinforcements.
Katya offers a fleeting escape from the surrounding horrors, reminding the men that they're fighting for a greater purpose, substituting radiance for perdition, dignity for misery.
Even if what I've read about Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union makes it sound like hell on Earth.
It's difficult to determine whether or not the film is simply celebrating the sacrifices of courageous persons thrust into an abyss whose maddening pressures necessitated the emergence of heroism, the overwhelmed and underfunded Russians forced to bravely ignite their internal flames (one of the best scenes depicts this), or if it's glorifying the war itself, the scene where two would-be lovers sit back and watch the artillery light up the night sky like a fascist/communist fireworks display functioning as a romantic yet too distracting display, although had I been in a similar situation I too would have likely watched in wonder.
Focusing on the inherently deadly and ruinous nature of the display rather than any secondary futuristic aesthetic qualifications no doubt.
The deadly and ruinous nature of the display isn't referred to, discipline is brutal as a Russian sailor is shot for presenting an alternative point of view, Stalin isn't mentioned with loathing, the best speech is reserved for the enemy German captain (Thomas Krechmann/Kretschmann)(it reminded me of Robert Graves's description of Julius Caesar's pre-battle motivations in I, Claudius), in short, the discourses of the Left are largely absent (one Russian soldier is reprimanded for using the word retarded and there's a conciliatory frame whose presence is dismissible), which I was hoping would not be the case in a film celebrating Commie heroes, even if I'm (now) aware that it was mass-produced in Putin's Russia.
It's not necessarily that improbabilities abound, but when I watch these films and think, "this is a life or death situation and that's what tricked you?", I tend to use words such as improbable to describe what happens.
A must if you want to see your first Russian blockbuster, even if it's one of the worst movies you'll ever see.
I was naively hoping it would be similar to Elem Klimov's Come and See (all I knew about the film going in was that it was called Stalingrad and made in Russia).
Here's hoping Putin doesn't become any more Hitleresque.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
RoboCop
Didn't think they should remake RoboCop, the original being one of the best action films I've seen, up there with Die Hard and Aliens, but they did, it exists, I obviously couldn't resist seeing it, and tried not to spend too much time comparing it to the original while watching, even though my efforts proved futile.
The first RoboCop's much more gritty, a different degree of debauched desperation. Pre-internet, its world is much more local, focusing on criminal thugs, corporate power struggles, and terrorized police forces more than international paradigms and their relationship to the United States, a raw frantic highly organized pedigree, wherein RoboCop's (Peter Weller) identity and family aren't primary to the structure of the narrative.
The internet-era RoboCop deals with multiple big-picture issues. The ways in which multi-billion dollar companies agitate to infringe upon integral civil liberties. Maintaining a humanistic identity while constantly embracing eclectic electronic onslaughts. Media personalities and their institutionalized agendas. Scientific ethics, parenting, global politics, cyborgs.
Cyborgs don't really seem like far-fetched highly aggressive airy-fairy daydreams anymore.
There's a Fido-like script involving a cyborg possibly starring Matt Damon waiting to be written.
Co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Sally Hawkins.
Like Archer, I still fear cyborgs however, and as RoboCop (Joel Kinnaman) loses his identity in the new film, fears regarding consciousness altering technocrats are rebelliously voiced, their counterparts receiving plenty of airtime as well in the movie's dialectic (the sequel's set up well).
More polished than the original, lacking its wild conditioned sense of experimental zealotry, the relationship between the two films reflects the potential maturation of the original's fan base, much like the first three Terminator films, while making me think today's youth must be hyperactively aware (Michael Keaton's [Raymond Sellars] presence perfectly establishes this transition [casting by Diane Kerbel and Francine Maisler]).
Perhaps they didn't like it.
I did meet a youngster who enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness however (co-starring Peter Weller).
The first RoboCop's much more gritty, a different degree of debauched desperation. Pre-internet, its world is much more local, focusing on criminal thugs, corporate power struggles, and terrorized police forces more than international paradigms and their relationship to the United States, a raw frantic highly organized pedigree, wherein RoboCop's (Peter Weller) identity and family aren't primary to the structure of the narrative.
The internet-era RoboCop deals with multiple big-picture issues. The ways in which multi-billion dollar companies agitate to infringe upon integral civil liberties. Maintaining a humanistic identity while constantly embracing eclectic electronic onslaughts. Media personalities and their institutionalized agendas. Scientific ethics, parenting, global politics, cyborgs.
Cyborgs don't really seem like far-fetched highly aggressive airy-fairy daydreams anymore.
There's a Fido-like script involving a cyborg possibly starring Matt Damon waiting to be written.
Co-starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Sally Hawkins.
Like Archer, I still fear cyborgs however, and as RoboCop (Joel Kinnaman) loses his identity in the new film, fears regarding consciousness altering technocrats are rebelliously voiced, their counterparts receiving plenty of airtime as well in the movie's dialectic (the sequel's set up well).
More polished than the original, lacking its wild conditioned sense of experimental zealotry, the relationship between the two films reflects the potential maturation of the original's fan base, much like the first three Terminator films, while making me think today's youth must be hyperactively aware (Michael Keaton's [Raymond Sellars] presence perfectly establishes this transition [casting by Diane Kerbel and Francine Maisler]).
Perhaps they didn't like it.
I did meet a youngster who enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness however (co-starring Peter Weller).
Monday, February 24, 2014
Jimmy P.
Unidentified debilitating head trauma leads Blackfoot war veteran Jimmy Picard (Benicio Del Toro), his Blackfoot name meaning Everybody Talks About Him, to seek medical aid, which congenially yet professionally presents itself in the emergence of Georges Devereux (Mathieu Amalric).
Devereux's carefree ways have established himself a controversial reputation whose negative aspects are ignored by the Topeka Military Hospital's hiring committee.
His interests in Aboriginal cultures and easy going yet penetrating style endear him to Jimmy, whose living full-time at the hospital and has learned from experience to distrust people of European descent.
Jimmy's trauma runs deep, and the two establish a patient constructive healing dialogue which drives the film's therapeutic cerebral inclusivity, diagnosis didactic, arguably becoming friends.
There's still some patient/therapist distance structuring their relations, so whether or not a true friendship blossoms is up for debate.
While Devereux is devoid of prejudice, Jimmy still confronts varied systemic social dismissals.
The film convalescently analyzes and/or refers to dreams throughout, these practical surreal revelations serving to meritoriously mystify its compelling inductive rationality, extracting conversational results and applying them to the world at large, proactively deconstructing its habitually ethnocentric subconscious.
The fire in the pines.
Stigmatic catatonics.
Devereux's carefree ways have established himself a controversial reputation whose negative aspects are ignored by the Topeka Military Hospital's hiring committee.
His interests in Aboriginal cultures and easy going yet penetrating style endear him to Jimmy, whose living full-time at the hospital and has learned from experience to distrust people of European descent.
Jimmy's trauma runs deep, and the two establish a patient constructive healing dialogue which drives the film's therapeutic cerebral inclusivity, diagnosis didactic, arguably becoming friends.
There's still some patient/therapist distance structuring their relations, so whether or not a true friendship blossoms is up for debate.
While Devereux is devoid of prejudice, Jimmy still confronts varied systemic social dismissals.
The film convalescently analyzes and/or refers to dreams throughout, these practical surreal revelations serving to meritoriously mystify its compelling inductive rationality, extracting conversational results and applying them to the world at large, proactively deconstructing its habitually ethnocentric subconscious.
The fire in the pines.
Stigmatic catatonics.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Gloria
The world of post-divorce adult dating releases a sombre upbeat frustrated flow in Sebastián Lelio's Gloria, as risks are taken in her (Paulina García as Gloria) search for a partner, unleashing fresh currents of desire, tormented by encumbering egotistical eddies.
She ebbs.
She flows.
But deception and non-committal petulancies provoke circularities of their own, pinpointed purchased prolific paddlings, pensively oriented, destination, cued.
The film champions a vital sense of heightened self-appreciation in the face of unsolicited undeserved shame, staying afloat after having been cast adrift, eventually docking on a jaunty friendly shore.
Look at how she comports herself.
Brought back to life by the power of pop music, suppressing her instincts so she can still give it a shot.
Why not eh?
Beautifully bouncing back.
From stranger tides.
She ebbs.
She flows.
But deception and non-committal petulancies provoke circularities of their own, pinpointed purchased prolific paddlings, pensively oriented, destination, cued.
The film champions a vital sense of heightened self-appreciation in the face of unsolicited undeserved shame, staying afloat after having been cast adrift, eventually docking on a jaunty friendly shore.
Look at how she comports herself.
Brought back to life by the power of pop music, suppressing her instincts so she can still give it a shot.
Why not eh?
Beautifully bouncing back.
From stranger tides.
Devil's Knot
Seemingly criminal investigative buffoonery is exactingly exposed yet authoritatively dismissed in Atom Egoyan's Devil's Knot, the lives of three teens dependent on said revelations, the law more concerned with either fabricating or submitting to superstition.
The evidence which Egoyan vets cannot lucidly resolve resulting legal tensions.
Dedicated altruistic private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth) resolutely prowls to defend, analyzing the facts exhaustively and judiciously, earning trust where none has ever been granted, proceeding directly, from a sense of justice.
But his team is held back by insurmountable time constraints and predetermined sentences, foregone conclusions belittlingly arresting, narcoleptic networks, propagandized anew.
The film harrowingly spawns a persisted enveloping remittance, a sublime sense of optimism institutionally dismayed, helplessness, the beautiful, the dissolute, the scapegoating of difference, a purloined procedural penitentiary.
Nothing can be proven.
Fights against overwhelming odds.
The knot represents the ways in which authorities sometimes outlaw/vilify/demonize a bohemian perspective then rely on their sanctified laurels while using the strategies of that perspective to illegitimately act.
It happens in the film anyways.
And in Foucault.
Oddly, I've been wondering recently if there's ever been a documentary film made about duty counsels and/or legal aids.
Appropriately timed thought even if Lax isn't a lawyer.
I've noticed a negative stereotype associated with the work legal aids perform which a solid documentary film and accompanying book could help destabilize.
Something like Duty Counselled.
Or something else.
The evidence which Egoyan vets cannot lucidly resolve resulting legal tensions.
Dedicated altruistic private investigator Ron Lax (Colin Firth) resolutely prowls to defend, analyzing the facts exhaustively and judiciously, earning trust where none has ever been granted, proceeding directly, from a sense of justice.
But his team is held back by insurmountable time constraints and predetermined sentences, foregone conclusions belittlingly arresting, narcoleptic networks, propagandized anew.
The film harrowingly spawns a persisted enveloping remittance, a sublime sense of optimism institutionally dismayed, helplessness, the beautiful, the dissolute, the scapegoating of difference, a purloined procedural penitentiary.
Nothing can be proven.
Fights against overwhelming odds.
The knot represents the ways in which authorities sometimes outlaw/vilify/demonize a bohemian perspective then rely on their sanctified laurels while using the strategies of that perspective to illegitimately act.
It happens in the film anyways.
And in Foucault.
Oddly, I've been wondering recently if there's ever been a documentary film made about duty counsels and/or legal aids.
Appropriately timed thought even if Lax isn't a lawyer.
I've noticed a negative stereotype associated with the work legal aids perform which a solid documentary film and accompanying book could help destabilize.
Something like Duty Counselled.
Or something else.
Monday, February 17, 2014
La Grande Bellezza
Intricate spiralling ornately orchestrated unconcerned lavish spectacular ornamentations lushly yet temperately adorn La Grande Bellezza's sensuous immersions, crystalline socially interactive penetrating steps daring the bold to convivially counter, impeccable introductory multilayered intensities, celebrating for the urge of heights, shear polished expressive intertextual presence, the slightest movement, calm overwhelming culturally accumulated propensities, days within months within years within decades within millennia, to actively exist within contemporary a/temporalities, to discuss, persuade, to pressure, the hubris, the risk, the meticulous structure, deconstructing the meticulous by agilely removing any sense of the contritely overbearing, genius and beauty united in harmony, its form/s finessing the flaneur, complete distinct exploratory vignettes lacking borders or delineations, smooth seductive sequential synergies, emotive yet provocative, the mention of Proust, if ever there was a film that made me momentarily feel the same way I do while reading Proust, it's Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza; I thought this was an impossibility; flourishing forbearance, imparted, gentle.
Cinematography by Luca Bigazzi.
Idea, conversation, melody.
Jep Gambardella's (Toni Servillo) introduction is the best introduction of a character I've ever seen.
See this one in theatres.
Like 12 Years a Slave, it demands multiple viewings.
Par excellence.
Cinematography by Luca Bigazzi.
Idea, conversation, melody.
Jep Gambardella's (Toni Servillo) introduction is the best introduction of a character I've ever seen.
See this one in theatres.
Like 12 Years a Slave, it demands multiple viewings.
Par excellence.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Saving Mr. Banks
Artistic visions begrudgingly meet, in a story whose timelines derail the discreet, innocent childlike paternal love, textually flexed, romantically shoved into glittery glistening bedazzled shapes, affably born through divergent tastes, differing cultural curtailed conceptions, tenacious tempests, animate tensions, the question of ownership reputedly trusts the picture's polarity's pulsating thrush to sustains which wisely and playfully stray into micro and macro cosmetic brays, the genuine article exists in flashbacks, tragic addiction, familial shellacs, heartbreaking integrity guides P. L. Travers (Emma Thompson), a commitment unwavering forthrightly flatters, a confident stubborn unyielding resolve which Disney (Tom Hanks) respects, having been there installed, yet he's also a father taking care of the kids, a promise was made, indentured votives, but trifles and mercantile paraphernalia, can't loosen the grip of Ms. Travers's regalias, her steady inflexible inspiring song, betwixt the mercurial commercial throng.
Saving Mr. Banks presents a fun lively look at creative expression, uniting two revered works from different domains while managing to apply its own historical take on the narrative's competing geneses.
A poignant picturesque blush of the abrasive, empathetic yet covetous, principled, and cherished.
Saving Mr. Banks presents a fun lively look at creative expression, uniting two revered works from different domains while managing to apply its own historical take on the narrative's competing geneses.
A poignant picturesque blush of the abrasive, empathetic yet covetous, principled, and cherished.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Whitewash
Bland mundane blunt verisimilitudes cordially plow absurd fail-safes in Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais's campy Whitewash.
It's not that it's bland.
The characters and situations are somewhat bland but the ways in which they mitigate predetermined discourses of the sympathetic hyperstylizes their cerebral forthcomings.
A down-to-earth puzzling routine pervasively co-opts its miscalculated immersions but Bruce's (Thomas Haden Church) struggle to legitimize his poorly executed attempts to avoid the truth apply a lively coat of untarnished wherewithal.
During his discussions with Paul (Marc Labrèche), and others, he tries not to be blunt, but lacks the finely tuned verbal veneers necessary to convivially cloak his to-the-point observations, although he doesn't have many alternatives when interacting with Paul, whose death may not even be as accidental as it appears.
He remains cordial while hiding-out in the wilderness but guilt and fear infiltrate his interactions, causing him to appear awkward and creepy, loneliness, indulgence, bad luck.
He has to pick up supplies from time to time.
He drives a snow removal machine.
The more I think about it, the film seems less and less absurd, as if it's trying to trick you into thinking it's absurd by exfoliating the unexceptional.
Which makes for some constructive camp.
The previews were pleasantly misleading.
I've wanted to see this since I heard Thomas Haden Church was being paired-up with Marc Labrèche.
Brilliant.
Casting by Margery Simkin.
If you're thinking, this winter's been long and harsh, go see this film.
Not only is it worth seeing, it's perfect for a long harsh winter's February.
On par with Premier Amour and Vic + Flo ont vu un ours.
It's not that it's bland.
The characters and situations are somewhat bland but the ways in which they mitigate predetermined discourses of the sympathetic hyperstylizes their cerebral forthcomings.
A down-to-earth puzzling routine pervasively co-opts its miscalculated immersions but Bruce's (Thomas Haden Church) struggle to legitimize his poorly executed attempts to avoid the truth apply a lively coat of untarnished wherewithal.
During his discussions with Paul (Marc Labrèche), and others, he tries not to be blunt, but lacks the finely tuned verbal veneers necessary to convivially cloak his to-the-point observations, although he doesn't have many alternatives when interacting with Paul, whose death may not even be as accidental as it appears.
He remains cordial while hiding-out in the wilderness but guilt and fear infiltrate his interactions, causing him to appear awkward and creepy, loneliness, indulgence, bad luck.
He has to pick up supplies from time to time.
He drives a snow removal machine.
The more I think about it, the film seems less and less absurd, as if it's trying to trick you into thinking it's absurd by exfoliating the unexceptional.
Which makes for some constructive camp.
The previews were pleasantly misleading.
I've wanted to see this since I heard Thomas Haden Church was being paired-up with Marc Labrèche.
Brilliant.
Casting by Margery Simkin.
If you're thinking, this winter's been long and harsh, go see this film.
Not only is it worth seeing, it's perfect for a long harsh winter's February.
On par with Premier Amour and Vic + Flo ont vu un ours.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Monumental shifting shocks born on the strings of unexplored imaginary rifts, celestial seasoning, rhizomatic reveries, driven by the emergence of an affective resonance, accelerated paramount experiential zeitgeists, their heights represented by the pursuit of the elusive snow leopard within the Himalayas, upon which Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) meets the legendary Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn), whose carefree incomparable precision counters Ted Hendricks's (Adam Scott) callous downsizing, impromptu communal exercise, a spirited abounding break.
This is more than just a journey of discovery.
It's a sudden apprehensive full-throttle embarkation, synthesizing the subjective, the romantic, the practical, and the abstract in a hesitantly audacious leap of faith in oneself, the amorous tenacious logic of risk, a quasi-archivist in search of a lost record, love, adventure.
The excursion assists in the development of his eHarmony profile.
Individualistic styles contrast corporate bottom-lines through the art of naturalistic photographic bewilderment, patiently awaiting the arrival of a highly sought after enigmatic boon, having meticulously yet not fastidiously set-up the shot, while remaining somewhat aloof, interruptions noted but welcome, the evidence secondary to the ensconcement, a mature modest chime hallowing the apprenticeship of bliss.
And freedom.
For a windswept mellow-set Béla Flecked rougir.
Loved the discussion of Bowie's Space Oddity.
This is more than just a journey of discovery.
It's a sudden apprehensive full-throttle embarkation, synthesizing the subjective, the romantic, the practical, and the abstract in a hesitantly audacious leap of faith in oneself, the amorous tenacious logic of risk, a quasi-archivist in search of a lost record, love, adventure.
The excursion assists in the development of his eHarmony profile.
Individualistic styles contrast corporate bottom-lines through the art of naturalistic photographic bewilderment, patiently awaiting the arrival of a highly sought after enigmatic boon, having meticulously yet not fastidiously set-up the shot, while remaining somewhat aloof, interruptions noted but welcome, the evidence secondary to the ensconcement, a mature modest chime hallowing the apprenticeship of bliss.
And freedom.
For a windswept mellow-set Béla Flecked rougir.
Loved the discussion of Bowie's Space Oddity.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Captain Phillips
Different worlds collide in Paul Greengrass's objective Captain Phillips, one wherein multiple possibilities exist yet the competition to obtain them is intense, the other, qualified by extremely limited options, life threatening and treacherous, suffocatingly sane.
Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) rose through the ranks according to a different historical set of his world's cultural economic indicators, which he describes early on during a conversation with his wife (Catherine Keener as Andrea Phillips).
Muse (Barkhad Abdi) then appears in present-day Somalia, a person competing as Phillips had in his youth, but within a market in which standing-out requires fire power, and impacts are made through violent confrontation.
The film doesn't judge.
Both Phillips and Muse have jobs to do and they do them.
Phillips's probing hard-hitting questions boldly challenge the ways in which Muse earns his living, but Muse competently defends his volatile endeavours, redefining impoverishment in the process.
Neither of them concedes.
Neither of them backs down.
The film's a realistic open-minded level-headed examination of how individuals from different nations go about putting food on the table.
Muse does what he can to be Captain Phillips.
Captain Phillips offers constructive recourse.
Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) rose through the ranks according to a different historical set of his world's cultural economic indicators, which he describes early on during a conversation with his wife (Catherine Keener as Andrea Phillips).
Muse (Barkhad Abdi) then appears in present-day Somalia, a person competing as Phillips had in his youth, but within a market in which standing-out requires fire power, and impacts are made through violent confrontation.
The film doesn't judge.
Both Phillips and Muse have jobs to do and they do them.
Phillips's probing hard-hitting questions boldly challenge the ways in which Muse earns his living, but Muse competently defends his volatile endeavours, redefining impoverishment in the process.
Neither of them concedes.
Neither of them backs down.
The film's a realistic open-minded level-headed examination of how individuals from different nations go about putting food on the table.
Muse does what he can to be Captain Phillips.
Captain Phillips offers constructive recourse.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Her
Permissive inquisitive supple algorithms congenially contravene age-old courting rituals to ambiguously nurture an amorous electronic aesthetic in Spike Jonze's Her, wherein the app deluge is convivially levied, romanticized as a crush, and poetically prorated.
Her offered me new insights into romantic films.
It's not just that they provide heartfelt diagnoses regarding the ways in which different people express their feelings, it's that they can also take contemporary cybernetic enclosures, themselves revealing significant structural shifts in practical cultural interpersonal relations, and affectively normalize them, an extended divergent 21st century version of Data (Brent Spiner) hooking up with Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), without utilizing monsters or excessive stubbornness, while still examining issues of be/longing and fidelity, and conscientiously theorizing about what it means to be in love.
That's totally romantic.
Simultaneously virginal and promiscuous, Her socially demonstrates the resonant festive frequency of an open-minded ceremonial cooperative, broken up into jaunty quotidian workplace conversations, support networks, and intuitive streamlines.
It asks, is it odd that Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) doesn't let himself go, or would his life have been more fun if he had more intently, or is he right to embrace a more traditional lifestyle, preferring the contact of person-to-person multiplicities?
Thereby challenging its viewer's conceptions of in/formality.
Subjective principalities, digitized, anew.
What are those Belle & Sebastian lines from The Model, "the vision was a masterpiece of comic timing, you wouldn't laugh at all"?
They fit quite well with Her.
Although the perfect mom video game made me laugh.
Surprised Joaquin Phoenix wasn't nominated for best actor.
Her offered me new insights into romantic films.
It's not just that they provide heartfelt diagnoses regarding the ways in which different people express their feelings, it's that they can also take contemporary cybernetic enclosures, themselves revealing significant structural shifts in practical cultural interpersonal relations, and affectively normalize them, an extended divergent 21st century version of Data (Brent Spiner) hooking up with Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby), without utilizing monsters or excessive stubbornness, while still examining issues of be/longing and fidelity, and conscientiously theorizing about what it means to be in love.
That's totally romantic.
Simultaneously virginal and promiscuous, Her socially demonstrates the resonant festive frequency of an open-minded ceremonial cooperative, broken up into jaunty quotidian workplace conversations, support networks, and intuitive streamlines.
It asks, is it odd that Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) doesn't let himself go, or would his life have been more fun if he had more intently, or is he right to embrace a more traditional lifestyle, preferring the contact of person-to-person multiplicities?
Thereby challenging its viewer's conceptions of in/formality.
Subjective principalities, digitized, anew.
What are those Belle & Sebastian lines from The Model, "the vision was a masterpiece of comic timing, you wouldn't laugh at all"?
They fit quite well with Her.
Although the perfect mom video game made me laugh.
Surprised Joaquin Phoenix wasn't nominated for best actor.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
August: Osage County
The loss of a family member begets inconsolable griefs and vitriolic censure as three generations representing different familial traditions gather in mourning.
Character development is dynamically and interactively adhered to as historical ideological super(e)latives contend.
Edges are sharpened.
Balance obliterates.
Pharmaceuticals fuel a tumultuous tirade whose sneering strikes and belittling gripes nurture a bellicose backlash whose ominous offensive jeopardizes a solemn ceremonial meal's digestion.
Rancour.
Heartache.
Cast iron confederacies.
August: Osage County isn't that concerned with subtlety, although the family depicted have spent their lives refraining from using direct forms of communication, and the symbolism in the background of the sequence where Charlie Aiken (Chris Cooper) greets his son (Benedict Cumberbatch) highlights this forthcoming transformation, this move from eggshells to shrapnel.
Early on there's a shot depicting Charlie and Little Charlie within their environment at large and you can see the profile of a Native American Chief in the background.
Subsequent shots zero-in-on the two but the profile of the Chief remains.
I thought the inclusion of the profile would have been stronger if it had been left out of the subsequent shots, until I noticed how it related to the film's greater purpose.
The film subtly and not so subtly examines contemporary and historical perspectives regarding relations between Native Americans and those descended from Europeans.
By first keeping the profile of the Native American Chief in the background, the tragic nature of the dismissive attitudes concerning these relations are reflected.
But keeping the profile in the following shots reflects the empathetic attitudes as well since the profile doesn't disappear, while also foreshadowing the film's overt move from reserved ornamentation to full-on acrimonious onslaught.
The film's embattled matriarch (Meryl Streep as Violet Weston) has fallen apart partially because the traditions she held dear in her troubled childhood have dramatically changed, and her children and grandchildren abide by different cultural codes.
Her last scene shows her seeking comfort from her Native American nurse Johnna Monevata (Misty Upham), whom she's bigotedly dismissed at points, who proceeds to comfort her, possibly understanding what she's going through, painstakingly living on higher ground, higher ground which has been generationally transformed and preserved by some, through an immaculate application of the golden rule.
It's a brilliant synthesis.
Written by Tracy Letts.
Character development is dynamically and interactively adhered to as historical ideological super(e)latives contend.
Edges are sharpened.
Balance obliterates.
Pharmaceuticals fuel a tumultuous tirade whose sneering strikes and belittling gripes nurture a bellicose backlash whose ominous offensive jeopardizes a solemn ceremonial meal's digestion.
Rancour.
Heartache.
Cast iron confederacies.
August: Osage County isn't that concerned with subtlety, although the family depicted have spent their lives refraining from using direct forms of communication, and the symbolism in the background of the sequence where Charlie Aiken (Chris Cooper) greets his son (Benedict Cumberbatch) highlights this forthcoming transformation, this move from eggshells to shrapnel.
Early on there's a shot depicting Charlie and Little Charlie within their environment at large and you can see the profile of a Native American Chief in the background.
Subsequent shots zero-in-on the two but the profile of the Chief remains.
I thought the inclusion of the profile would have been stronger if it had been left out of the subsequent shots, until I noticed how it related to the film's greater purpose.
The film subtly and not so subtly examines contemporary and historical perspectives regarding relations between Native Americans and those descended from Europeans.
By first keeping the profile of the Native American Chief in the background, the tragic nature of the dismissive attitudes concerning these relations are reflected.
But keeping the profile in the following shots reflects the empathetic attitudes as well since the profile doesn't disappear, while also foreshadowing the film's overt move from reserved ornamentation to full-on acrimonious onslaught.
The film's embattled matriarch (Meryl Streep as Violet Weston) has fallen apart partially because the traditions she held dear in her troubled childhood have dramatically changed, and her children and grandchildren abide by different cultural codes.
Her last scene shows her seeking comfort from her Native American nurse Johnna Monevata (Misty Upham), whom she's bigotedly dismissed at points, who proceeds to comfort her, possibly understanding what she's going through, painstakingly living on higher ground, higher ground which has been generationally transformed and preserved by some, through an immaculate application of the golden rule.
It's a brilliant synthesis.
Written by Tracy Letts.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
The Wolf of Wall Street
What to make of this one.
Comparing Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street to Oliver Stone's Wall Street could generate some compelling comparative data, in regards to their historical censures.
Has this particular epoch enabled Scorsese to direct without limits, to go beyond Seth MacFarlane and Adam Reed, to freely proceed with neither caution nor complaint in an excessive wanton capitalistic cynosure, to gratuitously salute the golden age of sleaze?
He tests you within.
He bombards you with luscious images of in/accessible voluptuous beauties, interspersing tips on illegally playing the stock market, and then asks you whether or not you're capable of following the lecture, playing with the process of narrativization throughout.
Tantalizing tutelage?
He takes a group of guys who grew up together, installs one as leader after he learns how to make enormous sums of money, they all then make enormous sums of money, and they basically never leave high school for the rest of their lives, and not one of them even so much as ends up in the hospital.
There are funny moments.
But why they needed 180 minutes to retool this tale is beyond me.
There's just no Gravity in this film.
That's arguably the point, and it's presented as a best case example of raunchy sophomoric absurdity.
But there's too much exploitation for me.
It is fun getting to know smart women.
There's one female stockbroker who succeeds but her role's tacked-on, she's belittled in the end, and is initially dependent on the generosity of men.
However, like American Hustle, it's filled with tips on how to avoid being scammed.
Comparing Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street to Oliver Stone's Wall Street could generate some compelling comparative data, in regards to their historical censures.
Has this particular epoch enabled Scorsese to direct without limits, to go beyond Seth MacFarlane and Adam Reed, to freely proceed with neither caution nor complaint in an excessive wanton capitalistic cynosure, to gratuitously salute the golden age of sleaze?
He tests you within.
He bombards you with luscious images of in/accessible voluptuous beauties, interspersing tips on illegally playing the stock market, and then asks you whether or not you're capable of following the lecture, playing with the process of narrativization throughout.
Tantalizing tutelage?
He takes a group of guys who grew up together, installs one as leader after he learns how to make enormous sums of money, they all then make enormous sums of money, and they basically never leave high school for the rest of their lives, and not one of them even so much as ends up in the hospital.
There are funny moments.
But why they needed 180 minutes to retool this tale is beyond me.
There's just no Gravity in this film.
That's arguably the point, and it's presented as a best case example of raunchy sophomoric absurdity.
But there's too much exploitation for me.
It is fun getting to know smart women.
There's one female stockbroker who succeeds but her role's tacked-on, she's belittled in the end, and is initially dependent on the generosity of men.
However, like American Hustle, it's filled with tips on how to avoid being scammed.
Tian zhu ding (A Touch of Sin)
Both the wealthy and the impoverished receive their fair share of unexpected comeuppances in these loosely intertwined grotesquely plighted a/morality tales, presented en masse as Zhangke Jia's Tian zhu ding (A Touch of Sin), guilty, of having sacrificed.
After the first two vignettes, requisite apprehensions immobilize one in regards to phases 3 and 4, which have the potential to be just as satirically maniacal, just as starkly im/balanced.
Questions of right and wrong atmospherically attire the violence with cold dreaded ethical extinctions, some of the characters not necessarily lacking options, yet inimically immersed in their own substantive slather.
Despair.
Foraged feelings fostered.
Values obliging concomitant abst(r)ains.
Nebulous nuts and bolts.
Complicit chaotic cankers.
Dissonant diabolic docility.
Interactive entropy.
So many reactions.
Consequences aplenty.
My eyes.
Tian zhu ding's so very unhappy.
Nothing's easy in this one.
After the first two vignettes, requisite apprehensions immobilize one in regards to phases 3 and 4, which have the potential to be just as satirically maniacal, just as starkly im/balanced.
Questions of right and wrong atmospherically attire the violence with cold dreaded ethical extinctions, some of the characters not necessarily lacking options, yet inimically immersed in their own substantive slather.
Despair.
Foraged feelings fostered.
Values obliging concomitant abst(r)ains.
Nebulous nuts and bolts.
Complicit chaotic cankers.
Dissonant diabolic docility.
Interactive entropy.
So many reactions.
Consequences aplenty.
My eyes.
Tian zhu ding's so very unhappy.
Nothing's easy in this one.
Monday, January 13, 2014
American Hustle
Serious sustained elusively sentimental cirrhosis, soberly conceived and symptomatically executed, the established bland underground beacon coerced into serving an opportunistic senseless gold digger, retentively reliant yet arrogantly exploitative, the combination's blinds leaving him susceptible to implosive cracks, their fissures directly proportional to their aggrandizements, seismically de/centralizing, corpus allumé.
Feminine elements complicate and complement the messy procedure as pressures coruscate emotional embers, and logical jealousies prevaricate relational rationalities.
Should this film be taken seriously?
On the one hand, as Irving Rosenfeld's (Christian Bale) character, the intelligent flexible streetwise devoted husband scam artist, suggests, we definitely should be, as his livelihood and familial security depends on it, even though he's a criminal.
On the other, as Richie DeMaso's (Bradley Cooper) character, the brash insubordinate wild-eyed FBI agent, suggests, we definitely should not be, as his reckless and life threatening decisions are simply too preposterous to take, even though he's enforcing the law.
The hilarious repeated transitional scene which sees the camera shoot the ground floor of American Hustle's FBI headquarters and then rapidly shift its focus to the top, suggests that David O. Russell is seriously playfully shining (editing by Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy, and Crispin Struthers).
His beams brightly illuminate upright politician Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), a true person of the people and loving family man, tricked into accepting bribes.
Ethically, I find it highly problematic when politicians take bribes to stimulate economies through casino construction since casinos can and have ruin/ed the lives of many a low-income worker.
Real worldly, a lot of people don't seem to care about these realities anymore and think being exploited is great.
Rosenfeld doesn't like being exploited although he earns a living exploiting people.
He feels guilty for his actions in relation to Polito's eventual arrest, because even though casino creation is exploitative, Polito is acting on the people's behalf, according to the film's cavalier combustion.
Great film on many levels.
But in terms of bribing politicians to achieve specific ends, it fails to reflectively hustle.
A suave sensational scam?
Not persuasive enough of a play.
But it does offer effective indirect advice on how to avoid being scammed and the script's excellent (written by David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer).
Which works.
Feminine elements complicate and complement the messy procedure as pressures coruscate emotional embers, and logical jealousies prevaricate relational rationalities.
Should this film be taken seriously?
On the one hand, as Irving Rosenfeld's (Christian Bale) character, the intelligent flexible streetwise devoted husband scam artist, suggests, we definitely should be, as his livelihood and familial security depends on it, even though he's a criminal.
On the other, as Richie DeMaso's (Bradley Cooper) character, the brash insubordinate wild-eyed FBI agent, suggests, we definitely should not be, as his reckless and life threatening decisions are simply too preposterous to take, even though he's enforcing the law.
The hilarious repeated transitional scene which sees the camera shoot the ground floor of American Hustle's FBI headquarters and then rapidly shift its focus to the top, suggests that David O. Russell is seriously playfully shining (editing by Alan Baumgarten, Jay Cassidy, and Crispin Struthers).
His beams brightly illuminate upright politician Carmine Polito (Jeremy Renner), a true person of the people and loving family man, tricked into accepting bribes.
Ethically, I find it highly problematic when politicians take bribes to stimulate economies through casino construction since casinos can and have ruin/ed the lives of many a low-income worker.
Real worldly, a lot of people don't seem to care about these realities anymore and think being exploited is great.
Rosenfeld doesn't like being exploited although he earns a living exploiting people.
He feels guilty for his actions in relation to Polito's eventual arrest, because even though casino creation is exploitative, Polito is acting on the people's behalf, according to the film's cavalier combustion.
Great film on many levels.
But in terms of bribing politicians to achieve specific ends, it fails to reflectively hustle.
A suave sensational scam?
Not persuasive enough of a play.
But it does offer effective indirect advice on how to avoid being scammed and the script's excellent (written by David O. Russell and Eric Warren Singer).
Which works.
47 Ronin
Unjustly cast out and stripped of their rank, forced to quibble for crumbs, scrap for sustenance, and transcend for trifles, Carl Rinsch's 47 Ronin patiently wait to seek vengeance, the pressures of time motivationally closing in.
Their Lord was betrayed through bewitching and forced to take his own life to maintain his family's honour.
A humble troubled outcast who renounced his demonic tutelage possesses the forbidden knowledge necessary to arm their ascent.
Composed as a group, they unite forthwith, entrusting enlivened artists with their plans, prognosticating as a matter of necessity.
In absolute domains.
Liked what happens in 47 Ronin which takes place in 18th-century Japan more than the film itself, but I respect what it delivers.
It provides a traditional story steeped in loyalty, overflowing with injustices, told in a traditional way, for audiences respectful of said traditions.
It's a true exercise in modesty considering that it doesn't play-up Kai's (Keanu Reeves) demonic abilities even though such a feature may have increased its salutations.
Form working hand-in-hand with content.
Even the mythical beast isn't shown-off.
Restraint.
Their Lord was betrayed through bewitching and forced to take his own life to maintain his family's honour.
A humble troubled outcast who renounced his demonic tutelage possesses the forbidden knowledge necessary to arm their ascent.
Composed as a group, they unite forthwith, entrusting enlivened artists with their plans, prognosticating as a matter of necessity.
In absolute domains.
Liked what happens in 47 Ronin which takes place in 18th-century Japan more than the film itself, but I respect what it delivers.
It provides a traditional story steeped in loyalty, overflowing with injustices, told in a traditional way, for audiences respectful of said traditions.
It's a true exercise in modesty considering that it doesn't play-up Kai's (Keanu Reeves) demonic abilities even though such a feature may have increased its salutations.
Form working hand-in-hand with content.
Even the mythical beast isn't shown-off.
Restraint.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Inside Llewyn Davis
Inside Llewyn Davis you'll find a staggering conflicted troubadour torn apart by the loss of his musical partner, problematically fazed.
This guy's a bit of a jerk, depicted as an oddball within folk music culture, gifted and heartwarming while performing, troubling and disruptive while doing anything else.
It's like he's a jaded cynical holier-than-thou 90s caricature surrounded by congenial 1960s good spirits, frustrated by his lack of success, overconfident to the point of paralysis.
He always has to be in control.
It's as if the Coen Brothers are playing a joke with Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), presenting a character reminiscent of Five Easy Pieces's Robert Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson), assuming their audience will be unconsciously sympathetic, while making him as unsympathetic as possible, hoping people will still refer to him as tragic.
He's given opportunities.
And unlike Dupea, his community has merits to which he can relate.
His loss perhaps prevents him from noticing these merits.
But his attitude suggests that he may have been directly responsible for his loss (which is likely augmenting his malaise).
Jerry Seinfeld's (Jerry Seinfeld) interactions with Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner) offer a constructive parallel, Kenny functioning as the 1960s good spirit living in the 90s, as if Inside Llewyn Davis primarily concerns itself with this comedic dialogue, with elements of The Master's Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) intermixed.
I was hoping he would take off to the Northern wilderness near the end like Dupea in Five Easy Pieces.
Perhaps he did.
John Goodman (Roland Turner) delivers another exceptional performance.
This guy's a bit of a jerk, depicted as an oddball within folk music culture, gifted and heartwarming while performing, troubling and disruptive while doing anything else.
It's like he's a jaded cynical holier-than-thou 90s caricature surrounded by congenial 1960s good spirits, frustrated by his lack of success, overconfident to the point of paralysis.
He always has to be in control.
It's as if the Coen Brothers are playing a joke with Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac), presenting a character reminiscent of Five Easy Pieces's Robert Eroica Dupea (Jack Nicholson), assuming their audience will be unconsciously sympathetic, while making him as unsympathetic as possible, hoping people will still refer to him as tragic.
He's given opportunities.
And unlike Dupea, his community has merits to which he can relate.
His loss perhaps prevents him from noticing these merits.
But his attitude suggests that he may have been directly responsible for his loss (which is likely augmenting his malaise).
Jerry Seinfeld's (Jerry Seinfeld) interactions with Kenny Bania (Steve Hytner) offer a constructive parallel, Kenny functioning as the 1960s good spirit living in the 90s, as if Inside Llewyn Davis primarily concerns itself with this comedic dialogue, with elements of The Master's Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) intermixed.
I was hoping he would take off to the Northern wilderness near the end like Dupea in Five Easy Pieces.
Perhaps he did.
John Goodman (Roland Turner) delivers another exceptional performance.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
Justin Chadwick offers a selective charismatic altruistic account of Nelson Mandela's (Idris Elba) life in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Significant events from Mandela's heroic trials are qualitatively condensed then narratively harvested.
It unreels at a fast pace but Elba's calm committed confrontational resolve surreally subdues the passage of time, tantalizingly transforming 30 seconds into two-minutes-forty, proactively producing captivating capsules.
A good companion piece for 12 Years a Slave in terms of the differing approaches adopted to biographically elucidate, McQueen cultivating a shifting pyrodactic panorama, Chadwick proceeding more traditionally.
Chadwick doesn't shy away from presenting the difficulties associated with actively pursuing disenfranchised political agendas, and the toll Mandela's sublime idealism takes on his wives and children are dis/comfortingly displayed.
His first wife leaves him but his second never yields in her championing of his cause while he's imprisoned, suffering jail-time and countless indignities consequently.
Their breakup after he's released is perhaps the most unfortunate disengaging of amorous affections I've ever come across.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Naomie Harris) kept the fire burning brightly throughout his 27 years in prison and seeing them part is tragic if not earth shattering.
But Mandela believed in a non-violent working solution and when provided with the opportunity to politically enact one, engaged.
Taking the resultant monumental fallout in stride.
Not a saint, perhaps, but definitely, a person of steel.
Significant events from Mandela's heroic trials are qualitatively condensed then narratively harvested.
It unreels at a fast pace but Elba's calm committed confrontational resolve surreally subdues the passage of time, tantalizingly transforming 30 seconds into two-minutes-forty, proactively producing captivating capsules.
A good companion piece for 12 Years a Slave in terms of the differing approaches adopted to biographically elucidate, McQueen cultivating a shifting pyrodactic panorama, Chadwick proceeding more traditionally.
Chadwick doesn't shy away from presenting the difficulties associated with actively pursuing disenfranchised political agendas, and the toll Mandela's sublime idealism takes on his wives and children are dis/comfortingly displayed.
His first wife leaves him but his second never yields in her championing of his cause while he's imprisoned, suffering jail-time and countless indignities consequently.
Their breakup after he's released is perhaps the most unfortunate disengaging of amorous affections I've ever come across.
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Naomie Harris) kept the fire burning brightly throughout his 27 years in prison and seeing them part is tragic if not earth shattering.
But Mandela believed in a non-violent working solution and when provided with the opportunity to politically enact one, engaged.
Taking the resultant monumental fallout in stride.
Not a saint, perhaps, but definitely, a person of steel.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Oldboy
Much lighter than Chan-wook Park's demented bitter construct, Spike Lee's Oldboy is still illicit enough to provoke degenerative thoughts of decay, bathed in a regenerative yet psychotic ludic lotion, like a transgressive pantomime, cauterizing ruin.
Suppose this particular narrative inevitably comes across as dark.
Even if you throw in Ron Burgundy and his chipper news team.
The vindictive carousing of an insatiable werehyena.
A leather apron.
And a codified shield.
The game plan's the same.
Asshole. Locked in a room for more than a decade for no apparent reason. Suddenly released. Abounding tension. A set of clues. The diagnostic hammer.
Seismic atrophy.
The tension abounds but it lacks the all-encompassing sense of discombobulated dread cultivated by Park.
But I did prefer the new ending.
So dismal it brought a tear to me eye.
Why do people excel at imploding such vivid monstrous moral vivisections?
Vision. Goal. Cyanide.
The discipline of the Real.
Suppose this particular narrative inevitably comes across as dark.
Even if you throw in Ron Burgundy and his chipper news team.
The vindictive carousing of an insatiable werehyena.
A leather apron.
And a codified shield.
The game plan's the same.
Asshole. Locked in a room for more than a decade for no apparent reason. Suddenly released. Abounding tension. A set of clues. The diagnostic hammer.
Seismic atrophy.
The tension abounds but it lacks the all-encompassing sense of discombobulated dread cultivated by Park.
But I did prefer the new ending.
So dismal it brought a tear to me eye.
Why do people excel at imploding such vivid monstrous moral vivisections?
Vision. Goal. Cyanide.
The discipline of the Real.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
Ron Burgundy lead an extraordinary extracurricular promotional campaign leading up to the release of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, thereby suggesting that it must be an exceptional film, surpassing its comedic predecessor in varying degrees of hilarity, while stretching the boundaries of both ridiculousness and applicability, a voluminous viscosity, asinine yet chaste.
I'm used to seeing American comedies that are around 90 minutes in length but Anchorman 2 comes in at 119 according to its IMDB surrogate.
An out of the ordinary promotional campaign.
An extra 29 minutes.
Released a week before Christmas.
And Anchorman 2 delivers.
Ron Burgundy proves himself to be a sturdy bumbling honest easily upset independent intellectually discordant emotionally secure visceral champion for the everyperson, continuously and undauntedly moving forward, apart from when he decides to hang himself after a randy exhibition at Seaworld (see Blackfish).
He has his own polite style and definition of appropriateness which lead to conflicts when expressing himself within unknown vectors, yet he confidently bounces back and keeps focusing on the positive, action, reaction, proactivation, thereby inspiring his loyal news team.
Some team members function as reps for some somewhat revolting tendencies towards violence, but these tendencies are made to appear ludicrous, kind of, as Burgundy consistently outwits them.
The bats were a brilliant idea. The scorpions, the bowling balls, the bra covered in cats, the details, it's like every line and every scene were eruditely vetted by comedic veterans dedicated to making the best American comedy in years, many of the scenes appearing as if they were haphazardly thrown together, but you don't achieve this level of rowdy unconcerned reckless jocularity without patiently reviewing and editing every aspect of the production, while keeping in mind the havoc of the finished masterpiece simultaneously.
Film editing by Melissa Bretherton and Brent White.
Should I mention the battle?
The greatest most unexpected battle I've ever seen in an American film, with the Minotaur and a werehyena, that's right, a werehyena, plus a Canadian news team, introducing a fantastic sporty religious scientific historical mélange of postmodern acrobatic intensity, Alterius, Maiden of the Clouds (Kirsten Dunst) commencing the romp with her exclamatory horn, Vince Vaughn (Wes Mantooth), arriving at a pivotal, game changing moment.
Or Dolby? His song?
The figure skating?
The parenting?
Never really liked car chases but I do love animal stories.
Even better than Machete Kills.
Written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.
I'm used to seeing American comedies that are around 90 minutes in length but Anchorman 2 comes in at 119 according to its IMDB surrogate.
An out of the ordinary promotional campaign.
An extra 29 minutes.
Released a week before Christmas.
And Anchorman 2 delivers.
Ron Burgundy proves himself to be a sturdy bumbling honest easily upset independent intellectually discordant emotionally secure visceral champion for the everyperson, continuously and undauntedly moving forward, apart from when he decides to hang himself after a randy exhibition at Seaworld (see Blackfish).
He has his own polite style and definition of appropriateness which lead to conflicts when expressing himself within unknown vectors, yet he confidently bounces back and keeps focusing on the positive, action, reaction, proactivation, thereby inspiring his loyal news team.
Some team members function as reps for some somewhat revolting tendencies towards violence, but these tendencies are made to appear ludicrous, kind of, as Burgundy consistently outwits them.
The bats were a brilliant idea. The scorpions, the bowling balls, the bra covered in cats, the details, it's like every line and every scene were eruditely vetted by comedic veterans dedicated to making the best American comedy in years, many of the scenes appearing as if they were haphazardly thrown together, but you don't achieve this level of rowdy unconcerned reckless jocularity without patiently reviewing and editing every aspect of the production, while keeping in mind the havoc of the finished masterpiece simultaneously.
Film editing by Melissa Bretherton and Brent White.
Should I mention the battle?
The greatest most unexpected battle I've ever seen in an American film, with the Minotaur and a werehyena, that's right, a werehyena, plus a Canadian news team, introducing a fantastic sporty religious scientific historical mélange of postmodern acrobatic intensity, Alterius, Maiden of the Clouds (Kirsten Dunst) commencing the romp with her exclamatory horn, Vince Vaughn (Wes Mantooth), arriving at a pivotal, game changing moment.
Or Dolby? His song?
The figure skating?
The parenting?
Never really liked car chases but I do love animal stories.
Even better than Machete Kills.
Written by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.
Friday, December 27, 2013
12 Years a Slave
Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is an outstanding film, cautiously yet confidently condensing over a decade's worth of lesions into a cruel, wicked, sensitive, combative humanitarian analysis of slavery's perverse apocalyptic logic, without simply establishing stock polar oppositions but still proceeding unambiguously enough for good to be clearly distinguished from evil, this willowing contrast patiently woven by a perceptive painstaking piecemeal punctuality whose periods and com(m)as aren't definitely placed, but rather gradually appear and fade as the years pass, flowing into one another while delineating crescents, conscious of the a/temporal confines of progressive thoughts shortsightedly dominated by racist hierarchical sludge, wherein Christian principles lie in ruin yet are ignorantly and emphatically pontificated nonetheless, this oppressive static systematic abuse inevitably engendering madness, this sustained a/temporal madness captured again and again by the unforgiving sadistic capricious misery inflicted on the suffering, McQueen's morose humble vicious living characters defining slavery's hopeless absolute perfidy, and the monstrous affects of its cultural applications.
12 Years a Slave unreels like a biographical film, but is anything but a simple chronological serialization of events.
Each sequence rather develops an affect of its own, united by the general tragedy, but separate animate pieces still, as if McQueen took the extra time and care to consider each component's vital individuality while crafting it, in order to formally elevate freedom's fluctuating fervours, a voice of protest unconsciously applied, for characters facing the whip for minor transgressions.
Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) has a small role but she stands out, having delivered the best supporting performance I've seen this year.
She doesn't appear often but when she does she affectively commands every desperate beaten nanosecond, as if, for a brief moment, the entire film solely concerns her, and will only make an impact if she performs second to none.
She also diversifies Solomon Northup's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) character by making a reasonable request which the memory of his former freedoms and hopes to one day regain them disables him from granting.
Thereby further intensifying the madness.
Acting as if it's nothing out of the ordinary.
12 Years a Slave unreels like a biographical film, but is anything but a simple chronological serialization of events.
Each sequence rather develops an affect of its own, united by the general tragedy, but separate animate pieces still, as if McQueen took the extra time and care to consider each component's vital individuality while crafting it, in order to formally elevate freedom's fluctuating fervours, a voice of protest unconsciously applied, for characters facing the whip for minor transgressions.
Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o) has a small role but she stands out, having delivered the best supporting performance I've seen this year.
She doesn't appear often but when she does she affectively commands every desperate beaten nanosecond, as if, for a brief moment, the entire film solely concerns her, and will only make an impact if she performs second to none.
She also diversifies Solomon Northup's (Chiwetel Ejiofor) character by making a reasonable request which the memory of his former freedoms and hopes to one day regain them disables him from granting.
Thereby further intensifying the madness.
Acting as if it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The quest to reclaim the treasure stolen then hoarded by the accursed dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch) continues, one hobbit and thirteen dwarves audaciously adventuring away.
Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) steady unerring quick-witted agility saves them from many interminable ends.
Humanistic politics and economics enter the fray as they meddle in Lake-Town (Esgaroth), the pragmatic and the opportunistic squaring off in a heated debate concerning the potential fallout from pent-up dragon wrath.
Parochial wood-elve rulers are critiqued for occupying their thoughts too exclusively with the safety of their own domain, even though the forces of evil threaten neighbouring lands as well.
One of his subjects, the stunning Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), with long flowing red hair, breaks with tradition, and seeks the affections of Jacob rather than Edward, thereby securing a sacred trust, in pristine, alluvial pastures.
A new instalment in The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings narrative could focus primarily on her relationship with Kili (Aidan Turner), as the two are shunned by their respective cultures, eventually finding refuge with the skin-changing Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt).
(He changes into a bear).
Bilbo, in possession of the ring of power, could stop by to spy on them from time to time.
The Desolation of Smaug is a fast-paced thoughtful energetic sequel.
Loved how Thorin (Richard Armitage) dematerialized the imposing gold statue in his attempt to defeat Smaug, thereby symbolizing his own surmounting of the Scrooge-like pretensions akin to the acquisition of limitless wealth.
Kind of cheesy in the final moments.
Nice cliffhangers nevertheless.
Bilbo's (Martin Freeman) steady unerring quick-witted agility saves them from many interminable ends.
Humanistic politics and economics enter the fray as they meddle in Lake-Town (Esgaroth), the pragmatic and the opportunistic squaring off in a heated debate concerning the potential fallout from pent-up dragon wrath.
Parochial wood-elve rulers are critiqued for occupying their thoughts too exclusively with the safety of their own domain, even though the forces of evil threaten neighbouring lands as well.
One of his subjects, the stunning Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), with long flowing red hair, breaks with tradition, and seeks the affections of Jacob rather than Edward, thereby securing a sacred trust, in pristine, alluvial pastures.
A new instalment in The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings narrative could focus primarily on her relationship with Kili (Aidan Turner), as the two are shunned by their respective cultures, eventually finding refuge with the skin-changing Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt).
(He changes into a bear).
Bilbo, in possession of the ring of power, could stop by to spy on them from time to time.
The Desolation of Smaug is a fast-paced thoughtful energetic sequel.
Loved how Thorin (Richard Armitage) dematerialized the imposing gold statue in his attempt to defeat Smaug, thereby symbolizing his own surmounting of the Scrooge-like pretensions akin to the acquisition of limitless wealth.
Kind of cheesy in the final moments.
Nice cliffhangers nevertheless.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Out of the Furnace
Direct multilayered sociocultural oppositions contend, contrast, and coalesce as unpredicted vilified variables resuscitate/implement ancient/contemporary retributive, abysmal, and vindictive plaques, steady as she goes, reap the whirlwind, orderly disciplined straight and narrow paths, wild wanton adventurous tracts, unambiguous bucolic depth, heartbreaking rules, honourable clefts, Scott Cooper's Out of the Furnace, reasonably welding an ethical framework for subverting the law, according to a specific social set of incendiary standards.
The key to my interpretation comes from the fact that Russell Baze (Christian Bale) may lose his job at the mill, the very same mill where his father worked for his entire life, due to management's decision to move operations to China.
The film's villain, Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), has lived off-the-grid selling narcotics in the hills throughout his life, as his father presumably did before him.
DeGroat's survival suggests that an income can be earned out of the furnace, characterized by an alternative set of non-traditional denominators.
Should the mill close and no alternative well-paying job not requiring an education present itself, Baze will still have to earn an income.
Taxes from such well-paying jobs can be used to create sustainable public schools, hospitals, and transit systems.
If well-paid jobs not requiring an education continue to disappear and aren't replaced, and prices don't suddenly decrease significantly, the tax base required to support public schools, hospitals, and transit systems will decrease significantly as well, thereby increasing public deficits.
Food, shelter, and automobiles will still be sought after, however, and DeGroat's character demonstrates that they can indeed be gathered.
Now, Baze outwits DeGroat in the end, and likely doesn't go to prison, thereby suggesting that if North American workers who find themselves regrettably jobless must embrace underground economics to continue to provide for their families, then they can adopt the strategies but not the methods generationally applied for centuries by DeGroat's contemporaries and descendants, potentially replacing their narcotic provisions with more wholesome contraband goods and services, divergent ecotours catered by moonshine for instance, using portions of their profits to fund schools, hospitals and transit systems, as respectable industrialists (the good bourgeoisie) find ways to once again supply strictly legal employment, at home as opposed to somewhere in Asia.
From one Christmas to the next.
Incisive film forged with coruscating interpretative flames.
Disposable incomes that won't result in jail-time build thriving communities.
It's an old idea, I know.
But it still steeps an effervescent collective brew.
The key to my interpretation comes from the fact that Russell Baze (Christian Bale) may lose his job at the mill, the very same mill where his father worked for his entire life, due to management's decision to move operations to China.
The film's villain, Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), has lived off-the-grid selling narcotics in the hills throughout his life, as his father presumably did before him.
DeGroat's survival suggests that an income can be earned out of the furnace, characterized by an alternative set of non-traditional denominators.
Should the mill close and no alternative well-paying job not requiring an education present itself, Baze will still have to earn an income.
Taxes from such well-paying jobs can be used to create sustainable public schools, hospitals, and transit systems.
If well-paid jobs not requiring an education continue to disappear and aren't replaced, and prices don't suddenly decrease significantly, the tax base required to support public schools, hospitals, and transit systems will decrease significantly as well, thereby increasing public deficits.
Food, shelter, and automobiles will still be sought after, however, and DeGroat's character demonstrates that they can indeed be gathered.
Now, Baze outwits DeGroat in the end, and likely doesn't go to prison, thereby suggesting that if North American workers who find themselves regrettably jobless must embrace underground economics to continue to provide for their families, then they can adopt the strategies but not the methods generationally applied for centuries by DeGroat's contemporaries and descendants, potentially replacing their narcotic provisions with more wholesome contraband goods and services, divergent ecotours catered by moonshine for instance, using portions of their profits to fund schools, hospitals and transit systems, as respectable industrialists (the good bourgeoisie) find ways to once again supply strictly legal employment, at home as opposed to somewhere in Asia.
From one Christmas to the next.
Incisive film forged with coruscating interpretative flames.
Disposable incomes that won't result in jail-time build thriving communities.
It's an old idea, I know.
But it still steeps an effervescent collective brew.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Violette
The drive for publication, honest controversial fearless prose, risks taken, contacts established, unerring syntactic strides, desires unfulfilled, sacrifices, tormenting, longitudinal allusive reins, interactive bucolic strains, prohibited friendships lamented, unsettled confrontational muse, pluralizing her stricken sentence, substantive, and disobeyed.
Didn't think Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain) would like Proust.
Perhaps she did momentarily.
Making the short-film in the middle broke up the traditional chronological categorizing well, hilariously lightening while intensifying the sombre desperate elegance.
Tough life decisions.
Rewarded.
The countryside provides a nourishing wellspring of seductive solitude whose tranquil rhythms encourage profuse flourishes.
Difficulties associated with maintaining prolonged professional literary acquaintances are amorously and quasi-hierarchically socialized.
She just does what comes naturally, boldly sharing her relevant thoughts which create intellectually diverse yet accessible cultural markets for millions who were otherwise forced to unconsciously contemplate the patriarchal.
Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos).
Groundbreaker.
Innovator.
Writer.
Didn't think Simone de Beauvoir (Sandrine Kiberlain) would like Proust.
Perhaps she did momentarily.
Making the short-film in the middle broke up the traditional chronological categorizing well, hilariously lightening while intensifying the sombre desperate elegance.
Tough life decisions.
Rewarded.
The countryside provides a nourishing wellspring of seductive solitude whose tranquil rhythms encourage profuse flourishes.
Difficulties associated with maintaining prolonged professional literary acquaintances are amorously and quasi-hierarchically socialized.
She just does what comes naturally, boldly sharing her relevant thoughts which create intellectually diverse yet accessible cultural markets for millions who were otherwise forced to unconsciously contemplate the patriarchal.
Violette Leduc (Emmanuelle Devos).
Groundbreaker.
Innovator.
Writer.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Philomena
An out-of-work atheistic professional journalist teams up with a devout confident assertive mother to write his first human interest story in Stephen Frears's Philomena.
The two work well together.
I wouldn't be able not to say that (lol) because Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope's script has created two wonderful characters, one with elite qualifications, the other comfortable within the kitschy continuum, the kitschy elite and elitist kitsch notwithstanding, both successes in their respective domains insofar as they've groomed themselves well over the years, brought them together to conduct investigative research, and given them both enough humanity to be able to work as an effective team, both partners listening to one another and making related adjustments throughout which demonstrate facets of humble active listening, snide though it may occasionally be, their power relations not being strictly governed by a master/slave dichotomy, but rather a constructive allied argumentative breach, which playfully and dismissively gives and takes on both sides.
Martin Sixsmith's (Steve Coogan) intellectual capacities are higher than Philomena's (Judi Dench) and he has trouble refraining from expressing this fact, especially before 9 am (why do you have to pretend to be in a good mood before 11 am?), which is to be expected, but they're also high enough to recognize their own particular shortcomings, their exclusive ornate prejudices, which helps Martin learn to accept Philomena's difference, her loves, her passions.
Philomena doesn't shy away from defending her values and even though she's likely never studied advanced rhetoric nor frequently schmoozed in realms where it's condescendingly applied, she holds her own when Sixsmith criticizes her beliefs, breaking through his sound observations (with which I tend to agree) with cold hard forgiving faith.
How she could continue to believe after what certain religious authorities put her through is beyond me but she does and justifies her position coherently enough.
The metaphorical extract (the breach) distilled from their colourful exchanges is a fluid effervescent bourgeoisie, competent mediator of the clashes, comprehensive, cogent, chill.
First time I've briefly forgotten it was Judi Dench acting for awhile, her divergent performance creatively testifying to her dynamic multidimensional strengths.
Not that I've seen most of the films she's been in.
The two work well together.
I wouldn't be able not to say that (lol) because Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope's script has created two wonderful characters, one with elite qualifications, the other comfortable within the kitschy continuum, the kitschy elite and elitist kitsch notwithstanding, both successes in their respective domains insofar as they've groomed themselves well over the years, brought them together to conduct investigative research, and given them both enough humanity to be able to work as an effective team, both partners listening to one another and making related adjustments throughout which demonstrate facets of humble active listening, snide though it may occasionally be, their power relations not being strictly governed by a master/slave dichotomy, but rather a constructive allied argumentative breach, which playfully and dismissively gives and takes on both sides.
Martin Sixsmith's (Steve Coogan) intellectual capacities are higher than Philomena's (Judi Dench) and he has trouble refraining from expressing this fact, especially before 9 am (why do you have to pretend to be in a good mood before 11 am?), which is to be expected, but they're also high enough to recognize their own particular shortcomings, their exclusive ornate prejudices, which helps Martin learn to accept Philomena's difference, her loves, her passions.
Philomena doesn't shy away from defending her values and even though she's likely never studied advanced rhetoric nor frequently schmoozed in realms where it's condescendingly applied, she holds her own when Sixsmith criticizes her beliefs, breaking through his sound observations (with which I tend to agree) with cold hard forgiving faith.
How she could continue to believe after what certain religious authorities put her through is beyond me but she does and justifies her position coherently enough.
The metaphorical extract (the breach) distilled from their colourful exchanges is a fluid effervescent bourgeoisie, competent mediator of the clashes, comprehensive, cogent, chill.
First time I've briefly forgotten it was Judi Dench acting for awhile, her divergent performance creatively testifying to her dynamic multidimensional strengths.
Not that I've seen most of the films she's been in.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Nebraska
Stark patient self-sacrificing unconditional love idealizes David Grant's (Will Forte) compassion in Alexander Payne's laid-back Nebraska.
A road trip.
Family bonding.
Grievances aired.
Irrationality, coddled.
The film contrasts sympathetic understanding with grotesque blatant greed to generate a gentle hardboiled eccentric microbrew whose earthy hops boisterously blend with its down-home sense of whispered wonder.
Drenched reprieved latent reactive emotion.
It takes a good look at honesty as several close family members state that Woody Grant's (Bruce Dern) misguided claims lack sanity, yet due to their enriched aggrandizing interests they're treated as cold hard facts regardless nonetheless.
These interrelations produce a series of depressingly comic wisps.
The aesthetic modestly criticizes while humbly elevating aspects of rural life and formulates a fecund quaint sterility which gymnastically disables pretentious categorical judgments.
The film seems laid-back and calm even while characters express themselves aggressively but you don't achieve this kind of distinct reflective vacant simplicity without meticulously focusing upon its underlying romance.
Great ending.
Great film.
A road trip.
Family bonding.
Grievances aired.
Irrationality, coddled.
The film contrasts sympathetic understanding with grotesque blatant greed to generate a gentle hardboiled eccentric microbrew whose earthy hops boisterously blend with its down-home sense of whispered wonder.
Drenched reprieved latent reactive emotion.
It takes a good look at honesty as several close family members state that Woody Grant's (Bruce Dern) misguided claims lack sanity, yet due to their enriched aggrandizing interests they're treated as cold hard facts regardless nonetheless.
These interrelations produce a series of depressingly comic wisps.
The aesthetic modestly criticizes while humbly elevating aspects of rural life and formulates a fecund quaint sterility which gymnastically disables pretentious categorical judgments.
The film seems laid-back and calm even while characters express themselves aggressively but you don't achieve this kind of distinct reflective vacant simplicity without meticulously focusing upon its underlying romance.
Great ending.
Great film.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Delivery Man
If you loved Ken Scott's Starbuck, you may not appreciate his Delivery Man as much (the contents of the films are too similar), although Vince Vaughn (David) reimagines the character well enough, in classic screwing-up while excelling Vince Vaughn fashion, putting in another great performance, confident personality generally unconcerned with consequences, überfatherhood thrust upon him, a life changing salacious shock, a languid lecherous illustrious lighthouse.
(Still prefer Patrick Huard's performance).
Not going to read what I wrote about Starbuck until finishing this review, for curiosity's sake (I did duplicate the tags however since the film's are so similar).
The narrative is a treasure for those adhering to discourses of hereditary multiplicities, even if it's fictional, since David's offspring possess sundry talents and seemingly limitless flexibilities, when considered as a whole.
I'm assuming there's a group who adheres to discourses of hereditary multiplicities.
I mean, what would happen if you had 534 children with 534 different women and then set them loose on the streets of New York or Montréal?
They aren't all going to end up in the same profession.
They aren't all going to look the same.
They will likely react to various stimuli differently.
Some of them, may even listen to, Tigermilk followed If You're Feeling Sinister followed by The Boy with the Arab Strap then Aladdin Sane after their favourite CFL team loses the Grey Cup.
534.
It could happen.
It's tough for me to write that critically about Delivery Man because, as I mentioned earlier, the film's too similar to Starbuck, which is why I didn't want to see it in theatres but I woke up too late that day to see Heli at EXCƎNTRIS.
It was a late night.
Great translation.
Just too familiar with the story so my reactions were always mitigated by encumbering memories which prevented me from being surprised by the sequences.
Surprise is important.
Good surprises.
Screw-off sadists.
Marshmallows.
(Still prefer Patrick Huard's performance).
Not going to read what I wrote about Starbuck until finishing this review, for curiosity's sake (I did duplicate the tags however since the film's are so similar).
The narrative is a treasure for those adhering to discourses of hereditary multiplicities, even if it's fictional, since David's offspring possess sundry talents and seemingly limitless flexibilities, when considered as a whole.
I'm assuming there's a group who adheres to discourses of hereditary multiplicities.
I mean, what would happen if you had 534 children with 534 different women and then set them loose on the streets of New York or Montréal?
They aren't all going to end up in the same profession.
They aren't all going to look the same.
They will likely react to various stimuli differently.
Some of them, may even listen to, Tigermilk followed If You're Feeling Sinister followed by The Boy with the Arab Strap then Aladdin Sane after their favourite CFL team loses the Grey Cup.
534.
It could happen.
It's tough for me to write that critically about Delivery Man because, as I mentioned earlier, the film's too similar to Starbuck, which is why I didn't want to see it in theatres but I woke up too late that day to see Heli at EXCƎNTRIS.
It was a late night.
Great translation.
Just too familiar with the story so my reactions were always mitigated by encumbering memories which prevented me from being surprised by the sequences.
Surprise is important.
Good surprises.
Screw-off sadists.
Marshmallows.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Book Thief
A struggling family adopts a young girl (Sophie Nélisse as Liesel) in pre-World War II Germany as the fascists's political agenda rapidly spreads throughout the country.
Ideological indoctrination confuses intelligent youth who can't understand its narrow-minded discipline.
The focus is on the good Germans, the ones who were simply trying to make ends meet during difficult economic times and were forced to come up with survival strategies ad hoc as repugnant discourses gained social traction, followed by war.
The Book Thief unreels from a child's point of view and the film is primarily geared towards children.
I'm used to finding more depth in children's films, meaning that they're sometimes more engaging for adults, but that's not necessarily a criticism, insofar as the kids in the audience were likely fully engaged, and it was made for children.
Still, it accentuates the senses of fear and helplessness conscientious citizens feel when trying to express themselves within oppressive environments dominated by violence, but in an oddly inconspicuous way that leaves the impression that nothing could possibly go seriously wrong, even while war breaks out and the hunted desperately seek shelter.
This explains Death's (Roger Allam) avuncular yet cumbersome narration.
The importance of reading is at the forefront, an individual's desire to expand her mind contrasted with what happens when highly fanatical aggressive groups who never had any desire to expand theirs suddenly control the military.
Nazi Germany was responsible for destroying Europe in the first half of the 20th century, but, according to practically every article I read about the European Union, they're currently saving Europe from total financial disaster, playing a much stronger role than either France or Britain, no doubt due to the strength of the good Germans depicted in The Book Thief, their environmental concerns, and resolute calm.
Viewing The Book Thief in this way helps to detach unconscious direct correlations between Germany and Nazism, which, after you've seen around 100 World War II films and read many books on the subject, is an unconscious direct correlation that's tough not to make (like Mexico and drug cartels [more {some?} American films with Mexican characters who aren't labourers or members of a drug cartel would be nice]).
These correlations can then be replaced by less volatile caricatures, as Germany's contemporary status suggests it deserves.
Thus, when you think of Germany, try not to immediately think, Nazis, a period of their history that more or less ended in 1945, but think, getting rid of nuclear power, focusing on green technologies, economy remains strong even after the integration of East Germany, saving the European Union, fiscal responsibility, which are aspects of what's happening now.
Not so easy to do, I know.
But I've done it. So I know that it is possible.
Ideological indoctrination confuses intelligent youth who can't understand its narrow-minded discipline.
The focus is on the good Germans, the ones who were simply trying to make ends meet during difficult economic times and were forced to come up with survival strategies ad hoc as repugnant discourses gained social traction, followed by war.
The Book Thief unreels from a child's point of view and the film is primarily geared towards children.
I'm used to finding more depth in children's films, meaning that they're sometimes more engaging for adults, but that's not necessarily a criticism, insofar as the kids in the audience were likely fully engaged, and it was made for children.
Still, it accentuates the senses of fear and helplessness conscientious citizens feel when trying to express themselves within oppressive environments dominated by violence, but in an oddly inconspicuous way that leaves the impression that nothing could possibly go seriously wrong, even while war breaks out and the hunted desperately seek shelter.
This explains Death's (Roger Allam) avuncular yet cumbersome narration.
The importance of reading is at the forefront, an individual's desire to expand her mind contrasted with what happens when highly fanatical aggressive groups who never had any desire to expand theirs suddenly control the military.
Nazi Germany was responsible for destroying Europe in the first half of the 20th century, but, according to practically every article I read about the European Union, they're currently saving Europe from total financial disaster, playing a much stronger role than either France or Britain, no doubt due to the strength of the good Germans depicted in The Book Thief, their environmental concerns, and resolute calm.
Viewing The Book Thief in this way helps to detach unconscious direct correlations between Germany and Nazism, which, after you've seen around 100 World War II films and read many books on the subject, is an unconscious direct correlation that's tough not to make (like Mexico and drug cartels [more {some?} American films with Mexican characters who aren't labourers or members of a drug cartel would be nice]).
These correlations can then be replaced by less volatile caricatures, as Germany's contemporary status suggests it deserves.
Thus, when you think of Germany, try not to immediately think, Nazis, a period of their history that more or less ended in 1945, but think, getting rid of nuclear power, focusing on green technologies, economy remains strong even after the integration of East Germany, saving the European Union, fiscal responsibility, which are aspects of what's happening now.
Not so easy to do, I know.
But I've done it. So I know that it is possible.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Kill Your Darlings
John Krokidas's Kill Your Darlings enlivens the fortuitous meeting of a group of experimental writers including Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), and William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) in New York City during their youth.
Not sure how much of the film is based on rhythmic verge (the facts).
That doesn't really matter.
It offers generalized insights into their introductory methods and innocently stylizes a literary ethos of sorts.
It focuses primarily on Ginsberg's infatuation with fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), whose being pursued by an obsessed thinker (Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer) who simply can't detach and withdraw.
Ginsberg grows and changes over time, Burroughs and Kerouac do not.
Kerouac's stasis is quite lively.
The film itself is sort of like a lively stasis, like a successful Not Fade Away.
The main problem's formal.
While wild moments and coming of age initiations are present, it's still easy enough to follow, like a crazy countercultural clutch, a warm and fuzzy bourgeois blanket.
More like the classes Ginsberg stops attending than something by Godard or Cassavetes.
Had high expectations. Loved reading most of these authors in my early twenties. Thought the filmmakers would have taken a more poetic approach.
Radcliffe excels as Ginsberg, reminding me at times of a younger Joaquin Phoenix, moving beyond the Harry Potter persona, establishing greater depth and personality.
That's good.
Not sure how much of the film is based on rhythmic verge (the facts).
That doesn't really matter.
It offers generalized insights into their introductory methods and innocently stylizes a literary ethos of sorts.
It focuses primarily on Ginsberg's infatuation with fellow student Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), whose being pursued by an obsessed thinker (Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer) who simply can't detach and withdraw.
Ginsberg grows and changes over time, Burroughs and Kerouac do not.
Kerouac's stasis is quite lively.
The film itself is sort of like a lively stasis, like a successful Not Fade Away.
The main problem's formal.
While wild moments and coming of age initiations are present, it's still easy enough to follow, like a crazy countercultural clutch, a warm and fuzzy bourgeois blanket.
More like the classes Ginsberg stops attending than something by Godard or Cassavetes.
Had high expectations. Loved reading most of these authors in my early twenties. Thought the filmmakers would have taken a more poetic approach.
Radcliffe excels as Ginsberg, reminding me at times of a younger Joaquin Phoenix, moving beyond the Harry Potter persona, establishing greater depth and personality.
That's good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)