An undisciplined approach to scholastic endeavours leaves young Miron (Robert Naylor) locked-down in homeschool.
His reserved yet open-minded parents understand that teenagers like to experiment, but are still adamant that their boy should definitively finish high school.
Therefore, their family rents a home in the countryside where it is believed there will be less distractions, and Miron sits down with mom to soberly cast procrastination aside.
Things go well.
The plans seems to be working.
But little do mom and dad know that their son is cut from the purest romantic egalitarian inclusivity, and soon finds himself enamoured of their rebellious widowed neighbour next door.
Florence (France Castel/Emilie Carbonneau) is a daring freespirit who elastically makes ends meet, and while Miron's parents (Patrice Robitaille as David and Julie LeBreton as Thérèse) sympathize with such an approach, at the end of the day they're better acquainted with orderly inflexible routines.
They aren't ogres or anything, they're actually much cooler than many parental units depicted in romantic comedies, yet they still authoritarianly attempt to shut love the fuck down, which thoroughly annoys their son, who effortlessly finds it wherever he goes.
As a side effect, David's increasing strictness revitalizes his wife's latent passions, and their marriage is consequently saved.
Yet their son is much more resourceful than they think, and an idea is generated through pseudo-televisual leisure studies, which just might represent, the apotheosis of truest free love.
Excavated from the heart of despair.
It's been awhile since I've seen such a remarkable Québecois comedy, which outperforms its American counterparts with a scant fraction of their operating budgets.
No doubt because Excentris went under.
A well-written story vivaciously brought to life, cognizant of the ways in which utopian dreams must confront disengaging realities, yet illustrative of the ingenuity which enables them to variably thrive amongst different generations, Quand l'amour se creuse un trou (When Love Digs a Hole) beautifully celebrates love and living, from multiple philosophical perspectives argumentatively voiced and respected.
It ends with perfect timing.
It's important to strive for the utopian but you still have to live meanwhile.
The trick is to do so without becoming cynical, a mindset which dismally breeds decay, if it takes over one's unconscious.
Don't get me wrong, I think finishing high school (and university or college) is very important, especially when you're young and don't have to work all the time, and it does open up doors and lets you expand your mind with cool challenges that the real world rarely offers.
Quand l'amour se creuse un trou makes a stunning case for disorderly reckonings however, undoubtably mischievized after categorial rules were far too dismissively applied.
Digs in deep.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Hotel Artemis
High level underground healthcare, malfeasant exclusivity monopolizing bedside manners, a doctor whose son was lost surgically suturing round the clock, strict codes of conduct sustaining improbable decorum with the efficient composure of inoculated propriety, an indispensable service for those who require it, an oasis, a criminal miracle, aliases supplied sanctuary granted, personality condoned within but who's to say what'll happen on the outside, a father and son at odds, expertly timed assassignations, steadfast fraternal devotion, prescribed in/discriminate patience, getaways, gumption, gallantry and gunshot wounds, grotesquely favoured, securely synchronized, playfully humoured, abruptly inundated.
Riots raging in Los Angeles, the result of soulless ambitions to privatize water realized, ubiquitous disorder generating pandemonium, within which even the outlawed superelite feel helpless with nowhere to hide.
Forgotten past misdeeds ravenously salivating.
The drool an elixir.
The drip a commandant.
Escape through delirium manifested in the labyrinthine.
Plain sight stealth.
Unorthodox risk management.
Hotel Artemis has the makings of a cult classic perhaps dependent upon the preferences of a younger generation.
I enjoyed the film and the ways in which it openly orchestrates alternative subterranean postures, its imaginative non-compliance circumnavigating electroshocks, boisterously treading the turbulent mainstream, exuberantly bolting nutty necromance.
But I couldn't help wondering if I would have loved it thirty years ago, or if alternative alternative formats have unconsciously redefined the underground, with the same subtle corporate polish that led to so many unremarkable Johnny Depp films.
Have I simply grown older, or have statistical calculations transformed wild narratives into more family friendly pieces of civil disobedience, a sign of a more hesitant restrained contemporary artistic approach, saturated with widespread perennial job insecurity?
Perhaps the form of the underground films that hit theatres in the 80's have become the contents of similar early twenty-first century films, the form of the latter now representing the content of the former, to reflect how political engagements have changed due to a lack of progressive organization, dating from the unfortunate release of Mortdecai?
That makes more sense.
😌
Riots raging in Los Angeles, the result of soulless ambitions to privatize water realized, ubiquitous disorder generating pandemonium, within which even the outlawed superelite feel helpless with nowhere to hide.
Forgotten past misdeeds ravenously salivating.
The drool an elixir.
The drip a commandant.
Escape through delirium manifested in the labyrinthine.
Plain sight stealth.
Unorthodox risk management.
Hotel Artemis has the makings of a cult classic perhaps dependent upon the preferences of a younger generation.
I enjoyed the film and the ways in which it openly orchestrates alternative subterranean postures, its imaginative non-compliance circumnavigating electroshocks, boisterously treading the turbulent mainstream, exuberantly bolting nutty necromance.
But I couldn't help wondering if I would have loved it thirty years ago, or if alternative alternative formats have unconsciously redefined the underground, with the same subtle corporate polish that led to so many unremarkable Johnny Depp films.
Have I simply grown older, or have statistical calculations transformed wild narratives into more family friendly pieces of civil disobedience, a sign of a more hesitant restrained contemporary artistic approach, saturated with widespread perennial job insecurity?
Perhaps the form of the underground films that hit theatres in the 80's have become the contents of similar early twenty-first century films, the form of the latter now representing the content of the former, to reflect how political engagements have changed due to a lack of progressive organization, dating from the unfortunate release of Mortdecai?
That makes more sense.
😌
Friday, June 29, 2018
Incredibles 2
A family of adorable lovingly unique superheroes flexibly recommences its eternal struggle against evil, judiciously reimagining traditional gender roles along the way, as the older kids age, and the youngest multidimensionally explodes.
In Brad Bird's Incredibles 2.
Superheroics having been outlawed, a clever plan is hatched to see them jurisprudently reevaluated.
And as Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) steps up to bravely duel the wicked Screenslaver (Bill Wise), Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) learns that raising young is quite demanding indeed.
Violet (Sarah Vowell) hopes to date schoolmate Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird) for instance, yet said love interest's amorous memories have dis/enchantingly disappeared.
Little Dash (Huck Milner) is struggling with math in school, and the methodologies once used to solve standard problems have bewilderingly mutated, or so it seems, as Mr. Incredible digs deep to decode them.
And it's discovered that baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) has more gifts than the entire family combined, and doesn't know how to cautiously control them, meaning that at any moment their roof might cave in, if order is not improvisationally substantiated.
As Elastigirl (is there anyone like her in Marvel?) spontaneously adjusts to Screenslaver's mesmerizing theatrics, balance reestablishes itself on the eccentric homefront.
Yet petty grudges against superhero kind continue to frustratingly manifest themselves, and an even more diabolical plan is revealed, one so insidious it maliciously promotes fastidious spectacular ruin.
Forever and ever.
Till the end of time.
Thus, extremist uncompromising villainy once again attempts to delegitimize the genuine, fantastic forces independently existing beyond its limits fuelling it as a matter of uptight principle.
Technology is employed to overcome naturalistic endowments as entrenched ne'er-do-wells continue to malign the do-gooding.
The Incredibles just want to modestly raise a family while thwarting genius crime, that's it, and since they're in possession of what it takes to lock down the ignominiously inclined, why not enable their enviable goals, while simultaneously encouraging a healthy bourgeoisie?
A middle-class?
An everglade?
An engine?
Conan.
A long time ago, when I was obsessed with the films I had been forbidden to view in my youth, one night I saw this cool looking cartoon called The Incredibles, and I rented it, and thoroughly enjoyed watching it.
I'm therefore happy to see Incredibles 2 released so many years later, and find that it fits well with postmodern superheroism.
It distinguishes itself by realistically yet humorously introducing a relatable familial dimension, thereby functioning like a Maverick doubling down within the heavens.
Like Switzerland.
Or the Toronto Blue Jays once they start winning.
Blue Jays.
Chirp chirp.
In Brad Bird's Incredibles 2.
Superheroics having been outlawed, a clever plan is hatched to see them jurisprudently reevaluated.
And as Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) steps up to bravely duel the wicked Screenslaver (Bill Wise), Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) learns that raising young is quite demanding indeed.
Violet (Sarah Vowell) hopes to date schoolmate Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird) for instance, yet said love interest's amorous memories have dis/enchantingly disappeared.
Little Dash (Huck Milner) is struggling with math in school, and the methodologies once used to solve standard problems have bewilderingly mutated, or so it seems, as Mr. Incredible digs deep to decode them.
And it's discovered that baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) has more gifts than the entire family combined, and doesn't know how to cautiously control them, meaning that at any moment their roof might cave in, if order is not improvisationally substantiated.
As Elastigirl (is there anyone like her in Marvel?) spontaneously adjusts to Screenslaver's mesmerizing theatrics, balance reestablishes itself on the eccentric homefront.
Yet petty grudges against superhero kind continue to frustratingly manifest themselves, and an even more diabolical plan is revealed, one so insidious it maliciously promotes fastidious spectacular ruin.
Forever and ever.
Till the end of time.
Thus, extremist uncompromising villainy once again attempts to delegitimize the genuine, fantastic forces independently existing beyond its limits fuelling it as a matter of uptight principle.
Technology is employed to overcome naturalistic endowments as entrenched ne'er-do-wells continue to malign the do-gooding.
The Incredibles just want to modestly raise a family while thwarting genius crime, that's it, and since they're in possession of what it takes to lock down the ignominiously inclined, why not enable their enviable goals, while simultaneously encouraging a healthy bourgeoisie?
A middle-class?
An everglade?
An engine?
Conan.
A long time ago, when I was obsessed with the films I had been forbidden to view in my youth, one night I saw this cool looking cartoon called The Incredibles, and I rented it, and thoroughly enjoyed watching it.
I'm therefore happy to see Incredibles 2 released so many years later, and find that it fits well with postmodern superheroism.
It distinguishes itself by realistically yet humorously introducing a relatable familial dimension, thereby functioning like a Maverick doubling down within the heavens.
Like Switzerland.
Or the Toronto Blue Jays once they start winning.
Blue Jays.
Chirp chirp.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Beast
A bit lost, torn up, unsure of yourself, bored, appointments still kept, job held down, favourable impressions made, rules followed, suddenly an X-Factor chants out unassumingly, confident and determined to whisk you away, parental disapproval augments the intrigue, raw wild magnetism beckons, rugged unscripted romance unconsciously makes waves, formless indefinite turmoil, voluptuously forbidden.
Imaginative frontiers.
Realistically crushed.
Small town sociology, all nighters and country clubs, stratified daylight reckonings, prohibited ambiguity, tight collars buttoned down, assertive adolescent angst, high fives and pats on the back, phantasmagorically crossed streams, courting conspicuous challenge.
Once thought to be deconstructed.
Not that long ago.
Still are of course, there might even be someone conducting a widespread statistical analysis of global openminded sociopolitical economic constructs right now, more than one person, complementary tributaries crafting poems and plays, cartographies and lexicons, flourishing partout beyond one-dimensional obsessions, where youthful hearts still maturely animate wise non-violent pastures, radiating shifts accrued, soaking up the great beyond.
Just gotta look for it.
Beast contemplates in the intermediary zone, two lovers sticking together regardless of class based prejudices, their path fraught with judgemental blockades, and it still remains unclear if one of them is a vicious murderer.
Jessie Buckley (Moll) delivers a remarkable performance showcasing variable emotions with versatile authentic command. Multiple distinct scenarios enable her talent to luminescently blind, a raw spirit full of self-generated harnessed energy.
Sturdy yet flexible.
Calisthenically driven.
She's bluntly situated with Beast's cold narrative trauma, a member of an well-known family irresistibly drawn to a heartthrob with no name (Johnny Flynn as Pascal), one who doesn't mind the snobbery but won't back down either, a resilient freespirit who's been knocked around, both lovers mistrustful of codes, both reactive when confronting injustice.
Yet one remains level-headed and focuses their rage directly upon the foolish perpetrator in question (civilization), the other, unable to strike back at those who hurt them, takes their pain out randomly upon the world (madness).
A tragic comment on a class based state which gives no quarter to the unestablished.
In this case, however, they must be punished, the first two-thirds of the film unreeling like a profound psychological thriller, the rest descending into typical stereotypes high and low, a surprisingly stark ending, for an otherwise stunning film.
Imaginative frontiers.
Realistically crushed.
Small town sociology, all nighters and country clubs, stratified daylight reckonings, prohibited ambiguity, tight collars buttoned down, assertive adolescent angst, high fives and pats on the back, phantasmagorically crossed streams, courting conspicuous challenge.
Once thought to be deconstructed.
Not that long ago.
Still are of course, there might even be someone conducting a widespread statistical analysis of global openminded sociopolitical economic constructs right now, more than one person, complementary tributaries crafting poems and plays, cartographies and lexicons, flourishing partout beyond one-dimensional obsessions, where youthful hearts still maturely animate wise non-violent pastures, radiating shifts accrued, soaking up the great beyond.
Just gotta look for it.
Beast contemplates in the intermediary zone, two lovers sticking together regardless of class based prejudices, their path fraught with judgemental blockades, and it still remains unclear if one of them is a vicious murderer.
Jessie Buckley (Moll) delivers a remarkable performance showcasing variable emotions with versatile authentic command. Multiple distinct scenarios enable her talent to luminescently blind, a raw spirit full of self-generated harnessed energy.
Sturdy yet flexible.
Calisthenically driven.
She's bluntly situated with Beast's cold narrative trauma, a member of an well-known family irresistibly drawn to a heartthrob with no name (Johnny Flynn as Pascal), one who doesn't mind the snobbery but won't back down either, a resilient freespirit who's been knocked around, both lovers mistrustful of codes, both reactive when confronting injustice.
Yet one remains level-headed and focuses their rage directly upon the foolish perpetrator in question (civilization), the other, unable to strike back at those who hurt them, takes their pain out randomly upon the world (madness).
A tragic comment on a class based state which gives no quarter to the unestablished.
In this case, however, they must be punished, the first two-thirds of the film unreeling like a profound psychological thriller, the rest descending into typical stereotypes high and low, a surprisingly stark ending, for an otherwise stunning film.
Friday, June 22, 2018
Birthmarked
Two brilliant scientific lovebirds decide it's time to prove, once and for all, that the strategically planned nurturing of children can void natural dispositions, three unsuspecting young ones deliberately chosen for their experiment, unaware of their historical familial traits, ready to grow up embowered in predetermined invariability, secluded in the country far away from constant distraction, homeschooled with amorous calculation, in Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais's Birthmarked, wherein science observes with religious fervour.
A family blooms within the carefully constructed unabashed bucolic laboratory, as two brothers and a sister innocently contend with that which remains unknown, mom and dad stubbornly sticking to the prepped script, hilarity ensuing, as youth spontaneously intervenes.
Malheureusement, if the desired results are not obtained, Catherine (Toni Collette) and Ben (Matthew Goode) must reimburse their patron for every dollar he's spent financing them, and everything that's taken place has been meticulously recorded by live-in Nanny Samsonov's (Andreas Apergis) weekly summaries, and another family from Portugal seems close to publishing their comparable results first, thus, as the pressure exponentially aggrandizes, psychological stabilities contiguously implode.
Bizarro intellectual contraceptive schematics.
Yet also an endearing comedy.
Nourished in a state of nature.
Disciplined in/sincere curiosity.
The parents aren't horrible or anything, but they do use questionable methods as time runs out.
Raising someone in isolation doesn't prove anything anyways.
In regards to living, you have to let complex organisms develop immersed in the unexpected to obtain results that have even the remotest chance of being spread far and wide.
Or so I've thought.
A tiger is generally a ferocious animal.
If you remove it from the jungle and beat it mercilessly it will either die or start to perform tricks for you.
But if you monitor it in the jungle throughout its life you can obtain untainted results.
The tiger left alone to its own devices.
Natural and free.
Unencumbered by prediction or shock therapy.
Birthmarked isn't about tigers, it's about science gone wrong in its quest for objective truth.
Fortunately, it's generally okay if a scientific experiment doesn't achieve miraculous results.
It goes without saying that science is about the slow and steady application of generally agreed upon principles which are constantly scrutinized themselves in order to maximize the universal applicability of its discoveries.
Funding scientific experiments which must produce results is bullshit.
Birthmarked recognizes this and therefore doesn't seem insane while focusing too intently on the adults at the expense of the children.
Novel to see such a narrative reflected through a comedic lens which elevates independent scientific research with no strings attached, since its subject matter so easily applies itself to drama, fantasy, and horror.
Yet by proceeding comedically, the other three genres still generate critical combustions, as formal narrative diversification examines experimental contents.
Strange film.
A family blooms within the carefully constructed unabashed bucolic laboratory, as two brothers and a sister innocently contend with that which remains unknown, mom and dad stubbornly sticking to the prepped script, hilarity ensuing, as youth spontaneously intervenes.
Malheureusement, if the desired results are not obtained, Catherine (Toni Collette) and Ben (Matthew Goode) must reimburse their patron for every dollar he's spent financing them, and everything that's taken place has been meticulously recorded by live-in Nanny Samsonov's (Andreas Apergis) weekly summaries, and another family from Portugal seems close to publishing their comparable results first, thus, as the pressure exponentially aggrandizes, psychological stabilities contiguously implode.
Bizarro intellectual contraceptive schematics.
Yet also an endearing comedy.
Nourished in a state of nature.
Disciplined in/sincere curiosity.
The parents aren't horrible or anything, but they do use questionable methods as time runs out.
Raising someone in isolation doesn't prove anything anyways.
In regards to living, you have to let complex organisms develop immersed in the unexpected to obtain results that have even the remotest chance of being spread far and wide.
Or so I've thought.
A tiger is generally a ferocious animal.
If you remove it from the jungle and beat it mercilessly it will either die or start to perform tricks for you.
But if you monitor it in the jungle throughout its life you can obtain untainted results.
The tiger left alone to its own devices.
Natural and free.
Unencumbered by prediction or shock therapy.
Birthmarked isn't about tigers, it's about science gone wrong in its quest for objective truth.
Fortunately, it's generally okay if a scientific experiment doesn't achieve miraculous results.
It goes without saying that science is about the slow and steady application of generally agreed upon principles which are constantly scrutinized themselves in order to maximize the universal applicability of its discoveries.
Funding scientific experiments which must produce results is bullshit.
Birthmarked recognizes this and therefore doesn't seem insane while focusing too intently on the adults at the expense of the children.
Novel to see such a narrative reflected through a comedic lens which elevates independent scientific research with no strings attached, since its subject matter so easily applies itself to drama, fantasy, and horror.
Yet by proceeding comedically, the other three genres still generate critical combustions, as formal narrative diversification examines experimental contents.
Strange film.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Ocean's 8
Alone in prison, with nothing but time on her hands, Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) masterminds a plan to steal over a hundred million in diamonds, immediately acted upon after her release, old and new contacts forging a daring team assembled, multiple components carefully coaxed and compacted, efficient intricate undaunted elasticity, subtly stretched to briskly bounce back, executing envisioned flawless features exfoliated, requiring patient expertise, and cultivated spurned suspicion.
She also plans to see her ex who betrayed her incarcerated for her crimes, her uncompromised love having been outrageously cast aside, her scorn left with abundant time to exhaustively scheme and cypher.
Meticulously so.
The team's an eclectic mix of independent spirits each existing beyond the clutches of patriarchy, thriving individually with highly specialized skills, collectively blended to secure legendary salutations.
As Debbie explains her plan.
Enormous risks taken to facilitate freespirited acclimations.
Proceeds to be evenly split amongst them.
Exacting details.
A group of friends.
Ocean's 8 takes this group of remarkably skilled individuals and lets them intelligently showcase with care.
Seductive they may be, but the film focuses on brains rather than beauty and doesn't sexualize its crafty heroines.
It's strictly business.
It moves at a fast pace as the plan dispassionately pursues its objectives, everything smoothly falling into place without much strain or fallout.
The plan's clever and it's fun to watch but if there had been more conflict throughout it would have been grittier and edgier, even if it's still appealing as it stands.
Could have used more Constance (Awkwafina) too.
She doesn't get much screentime.
Precise and polished yet somewhat too perfect, Ocean's 8 outwits expectations with crystalline charming tact.
Keeping a level head as it executively chills, it puts theory into practice with brilliant regenerative exclamation.
She also plans to see her ex who betrayed her incarcerated for her crimes, her uncompromised love having been outrageously cast aside, her scorn left with abundant time to exhaustively scheme and cypher.
Meticulously so.
The team's an eclectic mix of independent spirits each existing beyond the clutches of patriarchy, thriving individually with highly specialized skills, collectively blended to secure legendary salutations.
As Debbie explains her plan.
Enormous risks taken to facilitate freespirited acclimations.
Proceeds to be evenly split amongst them.
Exacting details.
A group of friends.
Ocean's 8 takes this group of remarkably skilled individuals and lets them intelligently showcase with care.
Seductive they may be, but the film focuses on brains rather than beauty and doesn't sexualize its crafty heroines.
It's strictly business.
It moves at a fast pace as the plan dispassionately pursues its objectives, everything smoothly falling into place without much strain or fallout.
The plan's clever and it's fun to watch but if there had been more conflict throughout it would have been grittier and edgier, even if it's still appealing as it stands.
Could have used more Constance (Awkwafina) too.
She doesn't get much screentime.
Precise and polished yet somewhat too perfect, Ocean's 8 outwits expectations with crystalline charming tact.
Keeping a level head as it executively chills, it puts theory into practice with brilliant regenerative exclamation.
Friday, June 15, 2018
The Seagull
I've never given much thought to creating new dramatic forms.
I figured I'd just keep going and if something remarkably different popped into my head one day I'd share it and see what happens.
The Seagull examines an eager son's desire to impress his dismissive mother whose highly regarded literary partner has fallen for a would-be ingenue.
Her son loves her as well but the world is set to injure.
He writes an innocent play involving animals and the devil and boasts of having created a revolutionary form which is ridiculed thereafter.
The daughter of the family who manages their farm loves him, although he never notices, and an enthusiastic yet dull schoolmaster loves her, and she could sincerely care less.
An admirable doctor and a wise aged uncle (Brian Dennehy as Sorin) provide colourful commentaries throughout the film, which is based on the play by Chekhov, and contains characters who are generally engaging even if they're somewhat hedged-in.
He's a cad, she's a diva, he's seen better days, she's a dreamer, he's optimistic, etc.
But most (or all) plays lack the thousands of pages Proust had to consider his characters as they grew over the course of a lifetime, so I can't categorically fault an artist for introducing individuals prone to one trait or another, especially when they have so many clever and passionate things to say during so many meaningful exchanges.
Imagine no one ever spoke their mind or shared their point of view, their silence an attempt to preserve a sense of authoritative detachment when observing a discussion held between friends and relatives (they aren't bored), which often expresses either a lack of courage or adventure, if they truly have something valuable to say.
Someone could write a play where a modest youth consistently presents novel insights and ideas while surrounded by established personalities who refute everything he or she says through recourse to stereotyped vitriol and name it after The Logical Song.
Or call it Canonized.
The Seagull tragically blends innocence and maturity to warn artistic youths to beware of popularity and its influence as it unconsciously recasts everything it can control in its own marketable image.
It promotes novelty and difference but situates them within a covetous frame that scathingly materializes naive spirited dreams.
To mock itself, perhaps.
Perhaps not.
I figured I'd just keep going and if something remarkably different popped into my head one day I'd share it and see what happens.
The Seagull examines an eager son's desire to impress his dismissive mother whose highly regarded literary partner has fallen for a would-be ingenue.
Her son loves her as well but the world is set to injure.
He writes an innocent play involving animals and the devil and boasts of having created a revolutionary form which is ridiculed thereafter.
The daughter of the family who manages their farm loves him, although he never notices, and an enthusiastic yet dull schoolmaster loves her, and she could sincerely care less.
An admirable doctor and a wise aged uncle (Brian Dennehy as Sorin) provide colourful commentaries throughout the film, which is based on the play by Chekhov, and contains characters who are generally engaging even if they're somewhat hedged-in.
He's a cad, she's a diva, he's seen better days, she's a dreamer, he's optimistic, etc.
But most (or all) plays lack the thousands of pages Proust had to consider his characters as they grew over the course of a lifetime, so I can't categorically fault an artist for introducing individuals prone to one trait or another, especially when they have so many clever and passionate things to say during so many meaningful exchanges.
Imagine no one ever spoke their mind or shared their point of view, their silence an attempt to preserve a sense of authoritative detachment when observing a discussion held between friends and relatives (they aren't bored), which often expresses either a lack of courage or adventure, if they truly have something valuable to say.
Someone could write a play where a modest youth consistently presents novel insights and ideas while surrounded by established personalities who refute everything he or she says through recourse to stereotyped vitriol and name it after The Logical Song.
Or call it Canonized.
The Seagull tragically blends innocence and maturity to warn artistic youths to beware of popularity and its influence as it unconsciously recasts everything it can control in its own marketable image.
It promotes novelty and difference but situates them within a covetous frame that scathingly materializes naive spirited dreams.
To mock itself, perhaps.
Perhaps not.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
RBG
It's strange when you realize the law is much more complicated than simply feeling hot or cold throughout the day, and that advanced texts don't have clearly defined meanings which snuggly fit every case with cozy semantic lucidity.
The same logic applies to simpler texts as knowledge is obtained and interpretive methods are codified, reified, modified, exemplified, as others have noted, but that moment when you're sitting there reading dense material and you realize it can be read and applied from multiple different perspectives dependent upon the task at hand is simultaneously thrilling and chilling, inasmuch as it obscures the genuine while concurrently romanticizing its pursuit.
Example.
Take an equal wage paid for equal work done. If two equally qualified people are doing the same job and they started at the same time and they both perform their tasks competently they should be paid the same wage regardless of creed, race, ethnicity, appearance, or gender.
If opportunities for advancement exist they should be given to the person who is performing their tasks consistently well with the most precision as long as they aren't loathsome to deal with or incapable of managing staff diplomatically enough to prevent them from quitting or causing internal discord.
It makes perfect sense to me that men and women working the same job should therefore be paid the same wage and be given equal opportunities within their respective working environments if their employers are genuine.
It's clear that laws should support such a conclusion, yet it's chilling to read article after article, decade after decade, about how men and women are paid unequal wages for doing equal work, which makes the pursuit of creating a legal framework wherein which men and women are actually paid the same wage for equal work romantic, insofar as you need to simplify complicated codes of conduct which have diversified labour forces without applying fair work practices.
Actually doing this, actively changing the law so that one gender can't reflexively delegitimize the work of another in order to silently uphold gender based biases institutionally must be thrilling, and I imagine, in my limited way, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has found her lifework to be quite thrilling, many of its compelling achievements nimbly presented in Betsy West and Julie Cohen's documentary RBG.
Not to say she isn't highly logical.
I suppose she eruditely comprehends the thrills of logical construction.
She's made many game changing arguments throughout her career while working as a lawyer and has delivered many landmark judgments as part of the American Supreme Court, while also raising a strong family with the aid of her remarkable husband (now passed).
A real world Marvel superhero.
A powerful living breathing example of an individual who worked within the system to peacefully change things while earning the respect of her peers, a dedicated activist who changed many laws to legalize social justice, I hope thousands of young and not so young people see this film and discover what can be realistically gained by working hard within a system that isn't necessarily broken.
RBG and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the best real world examples which can be used to challenge the cynicism culturally propagated by the right that I've come across in years.
As they've inspirationally proven, the fight isn't hopeless and gender equality is a possibility.
You just have to find the fight thrilling.
And make sure you're a genuine romantic.
The same logic applies to simpler texts as knowledge is obtained and interpretive methods are codified, reified, modified, exemplified, as others have noted, but that moment when you're sitting there reading dense material and you realize it can be read and applied from multiple different perspectives dependent upon the task at hand is simultaneously thrilling and chilling, inasmuch as it obscures the genuine while concurrently romanticizing its pursuit.
Example.
Take an equal wage paid for equal work done. If two equally qualified people are doing the same job and they started at the same time and they both perform their tasks competently they should be paid the same wage regardless of creed, race, ethnicity, appearance, or gender.
If opportunities for advancement exist they should be given to the person who is performing their tasks consistently well with the most precision as long as they aren't loathsome to deal with or incapable of managing staff diplomatically enough to prevent them from quitting or causing internal discord.
It makes perfect sense to me that men and women working the same job should therefore be paid the same wage and be given equal opportunities within their respective working environments if their employers are genuine.
It's clear that laws should support such a conclusion, yet it's chilling to read article after article, decade after decade, about how men and women are paid unequal wages for doing equal work, which makes the pursuit of creating a legal framework wherein which men and women are actually paid the same wage for equal work romantic, insofar as you need to simplify complicated codes of conduct which have diversified labour forces without applying fair work practices.
Actually doing this, actively changing the law so that one gender can't reflexively delegitimize the work of another in order to silently uphold gender based biases institutionally must be thrilling, and I imagine, in my limited way, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has found her lifework to be quite thrilling, many of its compelling achievements nimbly presented in Betsy West and Julie Cohen's documentary RBG.
Not to say she isn't highly logical.
I suppose she eruditely comprehends the thrills of logical construction.
She's made many game changing arguments throughout her career while working as a lawyer and has delivered many landmark judgments as part of the American Supreme Court, while also raising a strong family with the aid of her remarkable husband (now passed).
A real world Marvel superhero.
A powerful living breathing example of an individual who worked within the system to peacefully change things while earning the respect of her peers, a dedicated activist who changed many laws to legalize social justice, I hope thousands of young and not so young people see this film and discover what can be realistically gained by working hard within a system that isn't necessarily broken.
RBG and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the best real world examples which can be used to challenge the cynicism culturally propagated by the right that I've come across in years.
As they've inspirationally proven, the fight isn't hopeless and gender equality is a possibility.
You just have to find the fight thrilling.
And make sure you're a genuine romantic.
Friday, June 8, 2018
Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti
Irrevocably restless, never satisfied, constantly searching for sober novel inspiration with inexhaustible molten severance, erupting in fits of doubt and displeasure, encamped in violable abandon, glacial patience laboriously un/restrained, deep freezes and heat waves embryonically articulated, searching for radical bewilderment, impecuniously torn and strained, ambidextrous ambitions quotidianly qualified, seaside simplicity, inconspicuous nebula.
There wasn't anything else Gauguin (Vincent Cassel) could have done, although realizing this he likely should have embraced celibacy.
He seems to have been responsible inasmuch as he constantly worked to improve his art, dedicated to his personal tasks, resolved to carry on, but his wives and children were left destitute, as was he for much of his life, I suppose his family could have gone with him to Tahiti, although if I had several children and my partner was an artist who had never sold anything and was approaching 40 I likely would have moved on even if it would have crushed me.
Details.
Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti doesn't present many details from his life, apart from the fact that he left his family behind in France to find inspiration in Tahiti where he met another woman whom he treated brutishly while painting.
The film condenses various aspects of his life into short scenes that depict him working, loving, playing, breaking down, scenes which infantilize his social relations while romanticizing his artistic stagger, the scene where a doctor notices that he isn't painting anymore adding sympathy and concern, the scene where he locks his wife Tehura (Tuheï Adams) up while he goes to work accentuating his callous desperation, as he realizes he has nothing else left, and is aware that must seem unappealing.
A bit of a scoundrel I suppose, base instincts overpowering free spirits at times as nagging hopelessness engendered cantankerous decay.
You still have to imagine you're Gauguin, you're a struggling dismissed talented artist with nothing to hold on to later in life besides works that aren't selling and intense stubborn commitment, no one recognizing your talents besides yourself, students prospering while you struggle, you have to situate yourself within his rugged composure, while remembering that you may have been less lascivious had you no steady income in the age before birth control, to take something enduring away from the film.
You could probably learn more about him from reading 5 pages of a biography.
But would you be able to imagine you were there, struggling as he struggled, toiling as he toiled, watching as everything he risked and loved slipped away, with as much doting dour devotion?
Voyage de Tahiti presents vivid impressions lacking in substance but full of rich emotion.
The other side of the world.
Lost in love at play.
There wasn't anything else Gauguin (Vincent Cassel) could have done, although realizing this he likely should have embraced celibacy.
He seems to have been responsible inasmuch as he constantly worked to improve his art, dedicated to his personal tasks, resolved to carry on, but his wives and children were left destitute, as was he for much of his life, I suppose his family could have gone with him to Tahiti, although if I had several children and my partner was an artist who had never sold anything and was approaching 40 I likely would have moved on even if it would have crushed me.
Details.
Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti doesn't present many details from his life, apart from the fact that he left his family behind in France to find inspiration in Tahiti where he met another woman whom he treated brutishly while painting.
The film condenses various aspects of his life into short scenes that depict him working, loving, playing, breaking down, scenes which infantilize his social relations while romanticizing his artistic stagger, the scene where a doctor notices that he isn't painting anymore adding sympathy and concern, the scene where he locks his wife Tehura (Tuheï Adams) up while he goes to work accentuating his callous desperation, as he realizes he has nothing else left, and is aware that must seem unappealing.
A bit of a scoundrel I suppose, base instincts overpowering free spirits at times as nagging hopelessness engendered cantankerous decay.
You still have to imagine you're Gauguin, you're a struggling dismissed talented artist with nothing to hold on to later in life besides works that aren't selling and intense stubborn commitment, no one recognizing your talents besides yourself, students prospering while you struggle, you have to situate yourself within his rugged composure, while remembering that you may have been less lascivious had you no steady income in the age before birth control, to take something enduring away from the film.
You could probably learn more about him from reading 5 pages of a biography.
But would you be able to imagine you were there, struggling as he struggled, toiling as he toiled, watching as everything he risked and loved slipped away, with as much doting dour devotion?
Voyage de Tahiti presents vivid impressions lacking in substance but full of rich emotion.
The other side of the world.
Lost in love at play.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
Deadpool 2
I returned to my apartment around 2am a year or so ago and decided to throw on Deadpool, having loved it so much the first time I saw it.
I was tired and gaseous and distracted and a bit tipsy and wound-up shutting it off after only having viewed the first half-hour.
I figured it was unfair to judge the film because fatigue and flatulence were both likely preventing me from adoring its paramount trash talk, yet, due to the nature of Deadpool's reckonings, I also thought it appropriate to cast judgment based upon ludicrous criteria ingenuously articulated, as if such inanity was more in tune with the film's blunt charisma, as if in doing so I was being rashly genuine.
Thus, I never watched it again, and even though I still cherish the memories I have of loving it around Valentine's Day as I watched it in theatres à tout seul, and I arrived to see Deadpool 2 in energetic spirits calisthenically adjudicated, I was still worried that it would fail to impress and leave me bewildered and shocked as if I had aged to a point where I no longer got it, where I had become too stilted and bloated, where I had lost touch with the insouciant modes of expression I had studied lackadaisically in my youth, and could no longer intuitively access the mischievous spirits that once characterized so much harmless interrogative free play, like no longer enjoying hot dogs from street vendors in Toronto, even if I only eat vegetarian exemplars of the notorious snack these days, covered in pickles, onions, and corn relish, they're still quite tasty, and fill you up for under $5.
I wasn't disappointed.
The first viewing was a mind-blowing pristine cacophonous array of non-stop well-timed inappropriately pertinent comments unleashed with the untameable fury of well-educated individuals who lack the trust fund to perennially compete in the internship top-heavy elitist postmodern corporate world.
There's no lull, no pause, no moment where gifted writers Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds couldn't come up with another hardboiled multilayered remark that obliterates as it coddles or simply celebrates courageously embracing disenfranchised incredulity.
Asserting agency while confronting meaninglessness.
About a week before I saw Deadpool 2 I was wondering what happened to self-referential metaforecasts which critically examine their own narrative threads while simultaneously building them up with paradoxical discursive assertion.
Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) keeps getting better with age, does anyone play the grizzly sarcastic ferociously charming nerd better?, or has there ever been a better foolish romantic determined endearing smart ass contemplating pan-fried cultural conundrums with cold brazen provocative expertise?
Not that he isn't part of remarkable team that holds Deadpool 2 together, expressing individuality collectively to overcome shortsighted institutionalized supernatural miscalculations.
Like you're watching duty counsels in action.
There's so much more to the film than what I've presented here.
Boom.
Damn it's good.
I was tired and gaseous and distracted and a bit tipsy and wound-up shutting it off after only having viewed the first half-hour.
I figured it was unfair to judge the film because fatigue and flatulence were both likely preventing me from adoring its paramount trash talk, yet, due to the nature of Deadpool's reckonings, I also thought it appropriate to cast judgment based upon ludicrous criteria ingenuously articulated, as if such inanity was more in tune with the film's blunt charisma, as if in doing so I was being rashly genuine.
Thus, I never watched it again, and even though I still cherish the memories I have of loving it around Valentine's Day as I watched it in theatres à tout seul, and I arrived to see Deadpool 2 in energetic spirits calisthenically adjudicated, I was still worried that it would fail to impress and leave me bewildered and shocked as if I had aged to a point where I no longer got it, where I had become too stilted and bloated, where I had lost touch with the insouciant modes of expression I had studied lackadaisically in my youth, and could no longer intuitively access the mischievous spirits that once characterized so much harmless interrogative free play, like no longer enjoying hot dogs from street vendors in Toronto, even if I only eat vegetarian exemplars of the notorious snack these days, covered in pickles, onions, and corn relish, they're still quite tasty, and fill you up for under $5.
I wasn't disappointed.
The first viewing was a mind-blowing pristine cacophonous array of non-stop well-timed inappropriately pertinent comments unleashed with the untameable fury of well-educated individuals who lack the trust fund to perennially compete in the internship top-heavy elitist postmodern corporate world.
There's no lull, no pause, no moment where gifted writers Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds couldn't come up with another hardboiled multilayered remark that obliterates as it coddles or simply celebrates courageously embracing disenfranchised incredulity.
Asserting agency while confronting meaninglessness.
About a week before I saw Deadpool 2 I was wondering what happened to self-referential metaforecasts which critically examine their own narrative threads while simultaneously building them up with paradoxical discursive assertion.
Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) keeps getting better with age, does anyone play the grizzly sarcastic ferociously charming nerd better?, or has there ever been a better foolish romantic determined endearing smart ass contemplating pan-fried cultural conundrums with cold brazen provocative expertise?
Not that he isn't part of remarkable team that holds Deadpool 2 together, expressing individuality collectively to overcome shortsighted institutionalized supernatural miscalculations.
Like you're watching duty counsels in action.
There's so much more to the film than what I've presented here.
Boom.
Damn it's good.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Solo: A Star Wars Story
There's a lot to love about Solo: A Star Wars Story.
True love drives a cocky youth to make bold romantic decisions which aeronautically diversify his portfolio even if she's regrettably moved on.
A sassy droid (Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37) that takes Dot Matrix up a notch adds homely elfish character that ruggedly protests as it swiftly confides.
The quotidian nuances outlandish improvised decisions with real world grit that's intergalactically localized.
The dangers as well as the thrills of risking everything for a cut make wild endeavours seem appealing yet threatening inasmuch as improbability mortally beckons.
41/38 years later fans finally get to see Han (Alden Ehrenreich) meet Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) then Lando (Donald Glover).
It's co-starring Woody Harrelson (Beckett).
The kessel run is both defined and showcased.
Emilia Clarke impresses as Qi'ra.
And audacious reckoning munificently makes for a gripping spine-tingling finale.
Non-stop action, exuberant spirits, phenomenal fusions, surefire soul.
If only it had been a little less hokey.
A little more dreadful.
A lot more Chewbacca.
It's missing the bone-chilling malicious sense of resilient desperation that realistically held The Last Jedi, Rogue One, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and The Wrath of Khan together.
The characters are desperate, and undeniably resilient, but the film's still so confidently assured that nothing could go wrong that I never truly felt worried or fearful or oppressed.
It's like Solo was written for young kids and the aged simultaneously, those who were around 20 when A New Hope was released now being around 61 years of age.
Thus there are myriad sequences that demand your full attention, but it's so formulaic that it seems like nothing could possibly go wrong.
I may have cut the opening 10-15 minutes.
Turned them into a series of flashbacks.
Han and Qi'ra's love story isn't even featured throughout the film.
It never feels like they'll eventually get together.
It doesn't matter that fans know they don't get together.
When it wasn't released at Christmas I figured something was up.
I still confuse Thandie Newton (Val) and Zoe Saldana.
True love drives a cocky youth to make bold romantic decisions which aeronautically diversify his portfolio even if she's regrettably moved on.
A sassy droid (Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37) that takes Dot Matrix up a notch adds homely elfish character that ruggedly protests as it swiftly confides.
The quotidian nuances outlandish improvised decisions with real world grit that's intergalactically localized.
The dangers as well as the thrills of risking everything for a cut make wild endeavours seem appealing yet threatening inasmuch as improbability mortally beckons.
41/38 years later fans finally get to see Han (Alden Ehrenreich) meet Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) then Lando (Donald Glover).
It's co-starring Woody Harrelson (Beckett).
The kessel run is both defined and showcased.
Emilia Clarke impresses as Qi'ra.
And audacious reckoning munificently makes for a gripping spine-tingling finale.
Non-stop action, exuberant spirits, phenomenal fusions, surefire soul.
If only it had been a little less hokey.
A little more dreadful.
A lot more Chewbacca.
It's missing the bone-chilling malicious sense of resilient desperation that realistically held The Last Jedi, Rogue One, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and The Wrath of Khan together.
The characters are desperate, and undeniably resilient, but the film's still so confidently assured that nothing could go wrong that I never truly felt worried or fearful or oppressed.
It's like Solo was written for young kids and the aged simultaneously, those who were around 20 when A New Hope was released now being around 61 years of age.
Thus there are myriad sequences that demand your full attention, but it's so formulaic that it seems like nothing could possibly go wrong.
I may have cut the opening 10-15 minutes.
Turned them into a series of flashbacks.
Han and Qi'ra's love story isn't even featured throughout the film.
It never feels like they'll eventually get together.
It doesn't matter that fans know they don't get together.
When it wasn't released at Christmas I figured something was up.
I still confuse Thandie Newton (Val) and Zoe Saldana.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Disobedience
I remember hearing years ago that when Amish children reach a certain age they're given the opportunity to leave their religious community to see if they prefer the alternative ways of the secular world.
If they do, they're free to leave their community without bitterness or regret, but if they don't they're free to return and live their lives according to their people's traditions.
I'm not sure which Amish sect utilizes this strategy or how closely its guidelines are adhered to.
Or if they're still in place.
It seemed like a fair way to religiously raise children, however, a method that doesn't force them to live a certain way but rather gives them the chance to choose that lifestyle for themselves.
Judicious and sustainable.
I'm not sure whether or not the children who choose to live a secular lifestyle can return and visit their families from time to time.
And I'm not writing about Kingpin.
Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience presents the return of a daughter who chose to live independently to the religious community that no longer acknowledges her.
The religion in question makes no difference.
There are Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other religions who all have sects that function as conservatively I'm sure.
This isn't a scholarly article.
I need a research assistant.
A loved one has passed whom she loved dearly, and she has returned to pay her heartfelt respects.
The last words of the deceased emphasized that God had given humans the ability to choose, had given us free choice, whereas animals and angels had been constructed to unalterably follow predetermined rules.
Regardless of the evidence that demonstrates that many animals don't exclusively follow their instincts, or proceed with some degree of variability according to their natures, after uttering these words he passed and his freethinking daughter returned shortly thereafterwards to express her genuine grief.
I don't know how communities strictly living according to ethical codes should proceed when such codes are challenged, but I do know that many such codes were written thousands of years ago when the world was a remarkably different place.
I've always found it suspicious that the New Testament ends like a novel.
Did God stop speaking to Christians thousands of years ago?
Did he or she decide it was time to start working on another project?
I wish I hadn't seen this film.
It was a terrible week for movies and it seemed like the best option until I sat down in the theatre and realized what it was about.
I find it's best not to talk about religion. Religious people can be very touchy when you start asking questions. What I learned from Christianity was that Christ loved and forgave and loved and forgave again and again and was a remarkable person whose example is worthy of the highest respect.
But when I see the warlike ambitions of so many of his followers continuing to flourish in whatever century I don't understand the point.
Religion for me is supposed to be about love, like the line from David Bowie's Soul Love, "and how my God on high is all love," but different religions who preach about love and kindness, as many others have mentioned, often violently confront one another, and that just plain sucks, period.
Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is a wonderful person who made an extremely difficult decision and was left with no support afterwards while she struggled to make a place for herself in the world.
If she had been able to continue her relationship with Esti (Rachel McAdams) without judgment, they likely would have added many wonderful nuances to their community and become strong contributing members.
Didn't happen that way, but some prominent patriarchs did seriously reflect upon their loving logical difference nevertheless, boldly taking a humble stand.
Heavy subjects that will only get me into trouble.
If God didn't create Ronit and Esti, who did?
Didn't God create everything?
Aren't Ronit and Esti also his or her children?
If they do, they're free to leave their community without bitterness or regret, but if they don't they're free to return and live their lives according to their people's traditions.
I'm not sure which Amish sect utilizes this strategy or how closely its guidelines are adhered to.
Or if they're still in place.
It seemed like a fair way to religiously raise children, however, a method that doesn't force them to live a certain way but rather gives them the chance to choose that lifestyle for themselves.
Judicious and sustainable.
I'm not sure whether or not the children who choose to live a secular lifestyle can return and visit their families from time to time.
And I'm not writing about Kingpin.
Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience presents the return of a daughter who chose to live independently to the religious community that no longer acknowledges her.
The religion in question makes no difference.
There are Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other religions who all have sects that function as conservatively I'm sure.
This isn't a scholarly article.
I need a research assistant.
A loved one has passed whom she loved dearly, and she has returned to pay her heartfelt respects.
The last words of the deceased emphasized that God had given humans the ability to choose, had given us free choice, whereas animals and angels had been constructed to unalterably follow predetermined rules.
Regardless of the evidence that demonstrates that many animals don't exclusively follow their instincts, or proceed with some degree of variability according to their natures, after uttering these words he passed and his freethinking daughter returned shortly thereafterwards to express her genuine grief.
I don't know how communities strictly living according to ethical codes should proceed when such codes are challenged, but I do know that many such codes were written thousands of years ago when the world was a remarkably different place.
I've always found it suspicious that the New Testament ends like a novel.
Did God stop speaking to Christians thousands of years ago?
Did he or she decide it was time to start working on another project?
I wish I hadn't seen this film.
It was a terrible week for movies and it seemed like the best option until I sat down in the theatre and realized what it was about.
I find it's best not to talk about religion. Religious people can be very touchy when you start asking questions. What I learned from Christianity was that Christ loved and forgave and loved and forgave again and again and was a remarkable person whose example is worthy of the highest respect.
But when I see the warlike ambitions of so many of his followers continuing to flourish in whatever century I don't understand the point.
Religion for me is supposed to be about love, like the line from David Bowie's Soul Love, "and how my God on high is all love," but different religions who preach about love and kindness, as many others have mentioned, often violently confront one another, and that just plain sucks, period.
Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is a wonderful person who made an extremely difficult decision and was left with no support afterwards while she struggled to make a place for herself in the world.
If she had been able to continue her relationship with Esti (Rachel McAdams) without judgment, they likely would have added many wonderful nuances to their community and become strong contributing members.
Didn't happen that way, but some prominent patriarchs did seriously reflect upon their loving logical difference nevertheless, boldly taking a humble stand.
Heavy subjects that will only get me into trouble.
If God didn't create Ronit and Esti, who did?
Didn't God create everything?
Aren't Ronit and Esti also his or her children?
Friday, May 25, 2018
Tully
Exhaustion complicates a dedicated mother's life as neverending chores, responsibilities, and appointments demand too much of her limited time.
It's tough to pay attention, secondary tasks remain unfinished, it's difficult to swiftly recall precise details, and sleep beckons with tempting uncompromised reverie.
She takes care of business, she's tough, creative, dependable, reliable, Tully empathetically and realistically characterizing resilient motherhood while emphasizing that Marlo (Charlize Theron) could use a break without suggesting she can't take care of it.
Then, as the clouds disperse and the heavens burst forth with luminous starlit magnanimity, a nanny is hired to manage her household during the night, reprieved, so that she can catch up on that sleep, clad in peaceful angelic dreams cheerfully composed with reflective serenity.
Or, pyjamas, love that word, the industrious Tully (Mackenzie Davis) still fully charged by the carefree energy unconsciously sustained throughout one's twenties, seemingly effortlessly excelling beyond Marlo's highest expectations, agilely working throughout every nocturnal moment, mindfully crafting with spontaneous endearing glee.
It's win-win-win-win.
The best character I've seen introduced midway through in a while.
Tully.
Rich with thought compelling interpersonal detail convincingly narrativized with multitudinous emotional commitment, like an unpretentious bourgeois folk band reflecting upon family life, it intergenerationally synthesizes to produce joyous rhythms, before unfortunately succumbing to dire judgmental decree.
I suppose a lot of storytelling tends to include a traumatic ending which hauntingly calls into question everything that has previously taken place, in Tully's case it seems as if the story is saying that it's fine for Tully to imagine a role she might play in the future, but foolish for Marlo to decide to revisit her past, but it was such an uplifting film before the final fifteen minutes or so, so uplifting I don't see why things suddenly became morbidly intense.
They could have just kept chillin'.
Still a wonderful film though, my favourite moments condemning a school that would harshly judge a child so young (solid John Hughes), and discussing the checks and balances occasionally associated with socializing post-29, Mackenzie Davis and Charlize Theron work well together and their conversations are full of lively invention, several deep characters diversify a shallow pond with flora and fauna and sun and shade that tantalizingly makes you wish you could symbiotically camp nearby, a thoughtful well-written, directed and acted comedic drama that I'd love to see again, bold print brainiac style.
Pioneering off the beaten track.
Huggable.
It's tough to pay attention, secondary tasks remain unfinished, it's difficult to swiftly recall precise details, and sleep beckons with tempting uncompromised reverie.
She takes care of business, she's tough, creative, dependable, reliable, Tully empathetically and realistically characterizing resilient motherhood while emphasizing that Marlo (Charlize Theron) could use a break without suggesting she can't take care of it.
Then, as the clouds disperse and the heavens burst forth with luminous starlit magnanimity, a nanny is hired to manage her household during the night, reprieved, so that she can catch up on that sleep, clad in peaceful angelic dreams cheerfully composed with reflective serenity.
Or, pyjamas, love that word, the industrious Tully (Mackenzie Davis) still fully charged by the carefree energy unconsciously sustained throughout one's twenties, seemingly effortlessly excelling beyond Marlo's highest expectations, agilely working throughout every nocturnal moment, mindfully crafting with spontaneous endearing glee.
It's win-win-win-win.
The best character I've seen introduced midway through in a while.
Tully.
Rich with thought compelling interpersonal detail convincingly narrativized with multitudinous emotional commitment, like an unpretentious bourgeois folk band reflecting upon family life, it intergenerationally synthesizes to produce joyous rhythms, before unfortunately succumbing to dire judgmental decree.
I suppose a lot of storytelling tends to include a traumatic ending which hauntingly calls into question everything that has previously taken place, in Tully's case it seems as if the story is saying that it's fine for Tully to imagine a role she might play in the future, but foolish for Marlo to decide to revisit her past, but it was such an uplifting film before the final fifteen minutes or so, so uplifting I don't see why things suddenly became morbidly intense.
They could have just kept chillin'.
Still a wonderful film though, my favourite moments condemning a school that would harshly judge a child so young (solid John Hughes), and discussing the checks and balances occasionally associated with socializing post-29, Mackenzie Davis and Charlize Theron work well together and their conversations are full of lively invention, several deep characters diversify a shallow pond with flora and fauna and sun and shade that tantalizingly makes you wish you could symbiotically camp nearby, a thoughtful well-written, directed and acted comedic drama that I'd love to see again, bold print brainiac style.
Pioneering off the beaten track.
Huggable.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Knock
Having escaped the clutches of ne'er-do-wells who seek to vengefully discipline and punish, a resourceful medically inclined entrepreneur finds work in an isolated village.
Referred to locally as the doctor, his remarkable skill and charm soon has everyone salubriously enamoured, renowned beauties cherishing his companionship, established families appreciative of his foresight.
Even if a fussy priest remains suspicious.
Yet although Dr. Knock (Omar Sy) is sought after and desired, being of a romantic disposition, he spiritually manages his appetites, with the hopes of cultivating a platonic friendship in bloom.
Plus sérieusement.
But will desperate old acquaintances suddenly appear, intent on ruining his newfound communal engagements?
And will those who passionately resist the excitement generated through change blindly vilify its cheerful plaudits, focusing too strictly upon precise definitions, as discursive alternatives prosper fluidly and amuse?
Magnanimous mountaineering?
Perhaps not.
Lorraine Lévy's Knock playfully asks if imaginative innovations are more substantial than concrete calculations?, as bounding life in action flowers with postured prestige.
If the diagnoses exist yet specific corollaries are lacking, is motivational sustainable spirit preferable to austere vitality?
In politics, childhood and fiction, yes, in medicine, Knock presents a strong controversial localized case.
It celebrates the positive impacts alternative initiatives can have on environments grown static over time while championing the ways in which outsiders can fruitfully benefit the new places they come to call home.
Should they choose to call it home one day.
The secular is depicted fantastically while the religious coldly straddles the real, their fictional dialectic not as profound as it could have been, but Knock is a lighthearted comedy whose rigorous emotion naively contemplates creatively exalted difference.
Like having an ice cream instead of boxing.
Preconceptions slowly melting away.
Referred to locally as the doctor, his remarkable skill and charm soon has everyone salubriously enamoured, renowned beauties cherishing his companionship, established families appreciative of his foresight.
Even if a fussy priest remains suspicious.
Yet although Dr. Knock (Omar Sy) is sought after and desired, being of a romantic disposition, he spiritually manages his appetites, with the hopes of cultivating a platonic friendship in bloom.
Plus sérieusement.
But will desperate old acquaintances suddenly appear, intent on ruining his newfound communal engagements?
And will those who passionately resist the excitement generated through change blindly vilify its cheerful plaudits, focusing too strictly upon precise definitions, as discursive alternatives prosper fluidly and amuse?
Magnanimous mountaineering?
Perhaps not.
Lorraine Lévy's Knock playfully asks if imaginative innovations are more substantial than concrete calculations?, as bounding life in action flowers with postured prestige.
If the diagnoses exist yet specific corollaries are lacking, is motivational sustainable spirit preferable to austere vitality?
In politics, childhood and fiction, yes, in medicine, Knock presents a strong controversial localized case.
It celebrates the positive impacts alternative initiatives can have on environments grown static over time while championing the ways in which outsiders can fruitfully benefit the new places they come to call home.
Should they choose to call it home one day.
The secular is depicted fantastically while the religious coldly straddles the real, their fictional dialectic not as profound as it could have been, but Knock is a lighthearted comedy whose rigorous emotion naively contemplates creatively exalted difference.
Like having an ice cream instead of boxing.
Preconceptions slowly melting away.
Friday, May 18, 2018
The Rider
A rider, a force, a whirlwind.
A contendor.
In possession of very select skills applicable to one dangerous sport specifically, the wild lure of the bedlam, the thrill of each imprecise buck, exhilarating unpredictability loosely tamed and codified, potent threat Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) deals with a formidable head wound, which cruelly jeopardizes his bright future, yet opens up worlds previously nailed shut.
Quietly withdraw?
Unwillingly walk away?
One more ride could kill him.
But what's life without one more ride?
The Rider sharply examines the mid-West's razor's edge.
People let people be to make there own decisions, and even if casual advice is offered, they remain their decisions to make, alone.
Respectfully so.
Carefully crafted tight scenes reservedly using every meaningful syllable to generate patient thought, the act of riding functioning like a release from the maturity, like a tumultuous counterbalance to the engrained composure, innocent, blunt, affected, and observant characters discuss life and their unique approach to living, gathered together in wide open terrain, soul searching without judgment or pretence.
Tough lives lived by tough people making tough decisions accepting harsh consequences.
Authority challenged with respect hence the challenge to authority is respected.
A decision to be made that's not like buying new jeans or signing a mortgage, one that calls into question Brady's raison d'ȇtre without presenting transformative solutions, less appealing responsibilities beckoning meanwhile, while troubling precedents set make known dire convictions.
The Rider rustles up existence without bearing its soul, friends and family supportive yet concerned, a rewarding way of life boldly tempting a gifted steed, while responsibility contends with resolve, and retirement dreams haunt and hustle.
There's nothing easy about this film, nothing fluffy, no lullabies.
Harbingers of mortality crushing the carefree.
As resilience reflects upon life.
Immersed in restrained adoration.
A contendor.
In possession of very select skills applicable to one dangerous sport specifically, the wild lure of the bedlam, the thrill of each imprecise buck, exhilarating unpredictability loosely tamed and codified, potent threat Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) deals with a formidable head wound, which cruelly jeopardizes his bright future, yet opens up worlds previously nailed shut.
Quietly withdraw?
Unwillingly walk away?
One more ride could kill him.
But what's life without one more ride?
The Rider sharply examines the mid-West's razor's edge.
People let people be to make there own decisions, and even if casual advice is offered, they remain their decisions to make, alone.
Respectfully so.
Carefully crafted tight scenes reservedly using every meaningful syllable to generate patient thought, the act of riding functioning like a release from the maturity, like a tumultuous counterbalance to the engrained composure, innocent, blunt, affected, and observant characters discuss life and their unique approach to living, gathered together in wide open terrain, soul searching without judgment or pretence.
Tough lives lived by tough people making tough decisions accepting harsh consequences.
Authority challenged with respect hence the challenge to authority is respected.
A decision to be made that's not like buying new jeans or signing a mortgage, one that calls into question Brady's raison d'ȇtre without presenting transformative solutions, less appealing responsibilities beckoning meanwhile, while troubling precedents set make known dire convictions.
The Rider rustles up existence without bearing its soul, friends and family supportive yet concerned, a rewarding way of life boldly tempting a gifted steed, while responsibility contends with resolve, and retirement dreams haunt and hustle.
There's nothing easy about this film, nothing fluffy, no lullabies.
Harbingers of mortality crushing the carefree.
As resilience reflects upon life.
Immersed in restrained adoration.
Tuesday, May 15, 2018
Origami
The present still reverberating with past conjugal shocks, a traumatic life temperamentally tasked and torn, David (François Arnaud) discovers he can intermittently travel through time, yet the sought after pivotal moment eludes his troubled psyche, as breakdowns and estrangements enervatingly obscure.
Conceptions clasped concordant.
The drama.
A caring Japanese author (Milton Tanaka as Yamane) of a helpful instructive text, mnemonic tectonics, atemporal literature, periodically comes to his aid, inquisitively providing techniques, tracks, and testaments, aware of calisthenic applications, like a sci-fi avatar, graciously expending.
David's father (Normand D'Amour as Paul) assists with daily living, bearing the future in mind as his son interdimensionally convalesces.
But can he locate that lost definitive truth and act to assert its veracity?
Thereby restoring conscious equilibrium.
And revitalizing soulful decay.
Like psychoanalytic treatises fluctuating within continuums of space-time, Patrick Demers's Origami's self-diagnostic transhistorical warps cerebralize therapeutic cyphers.
The act of creating distinct mature variations of manifold temperate classifications envisioned as a recrudescent conciliator, he sorrowfully deconstructs his mind's disconcerting revelations.
Prognostic perseverance inversely composed through the passage of time, subjective objectives manifest artistic calligraphy.
To patiently meditate upon fact and fiction, like newborn bear cubs curious at play, chasing butterflies while closely following mom, learning secrets while serendipitously strategizing, is to blend innocence and refinement with vinous uncategorized anthropomorphism, distilled like having time to nap, syncopated in spiritual daydream.
Transitioning from one precipice to another.
Chasing, investigating, challenging, shying away.
Clarifying.
Speculating.
Conceptions clasped concordant.
The drama.
A caring Japanese author (Milton Tanaka as Yamane) of a helpful instructive text, mnemonic tectonics, atemporal literature, periodically comes to his aid, inquisitively providing techniques, tracks, and testaments, aware of calisthenic applications, like a sci-fi avatar, graciously expending.
David's father (Normand D'Amour as Paul) assists with daily living, bearing the future in mind as his son interdimensionally convalesces.
But can he locate that lost definitive truth and act to assert its veracity?
Thereby restoring conscious equilibrium.
And revitalizing soulful decay.
Like psychoanalytic treatises fluctuating within continuums of space-time, Patrick Demers's Origami's self-diagnostic transhistorical warps cerebralize therapeutic cyphers.
The act of creating distinct mature variations of manifold temperate classifications envisioned as a recrudescent conciliator, he sorrowfully deconstructs his mind's disconcerting revelations.
Prognostic perseverance inversely composed through the passage of time, subjective objectives manifest artistic calligraphy.
To patiently meditate upon fact and fiction, like newborn bear cubs curious at play, chasing butterflies while closely following mom, learning secrets while serendipitously strategizing, is to blend innocence and refinement with vinous uncategorized anthropomorphism, distilled like having time to nap, syncopated in spiritual daydream.
Transitioning from one precipice to another.
Chasing, investigating, challenging, shying away.
Clarifying.
Speculating.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Final Portrait
"What was that?"
"No, that was months ago."
"What happened to, yes, no, hold on, it was, underneath this!"
"Damn it."
"Oh wait, that's it, I moved it over, here, haha, hey, whatever, got it, alright, focus, what was your question?"
"Oh, minutia."
"You expect me to remember precise details that I didn't even care about at the time or about people I never met or subjects I never studied?"
"I'm like a big freckle."
"I found this last week, try it, it's delicious and only costs $2.99."
"Have you ever had a readymade store bought sandwich with or without meat that tastes this good?"
"There's no one around, you don't have to pretend, you can lie and say you were humouring me later. If word gets out."
"Come on, it's sunny and +23."
"Nah, it's blends, mixes, swamp water, iridescence."
"I like that cats have whiskers."
"He was a golden-haired Adonis. A conversation with him was like going to a play. Logical too, a natural stream of unedited fact-checked sense, like you imagine a conversation with your favourite artist might be like except that he was less random."
"Look, I couldn't say anything, he knew everything I was going to say before I said it. To stand out I had to be vulgar and that doesn't work."
"'Fair weather frisk', no, 'gilded gambit'? Not quite. What about, 'jaded orchid'?"
"Impartial?"
"You don't like swimming?"
"Milk and sugar, no lemon."
"No."
"I've been meaning to do that."
"With an S."
"I always like that they played even when it was raining or snowing or foggy or freezing."
"It's not like that here, the same categories exist but they're less rigid, less determinate."
"It lasts a long time. Everything's blurry late-March early April."
"It's the little birds. That's where you find nature's best colouring."
"Well, a huge section of downtown is opened-up for free shows from local and international artists for two months in the Summer."
"I met one guy who could do a crazy Chewbacca."
"Learn a bit everyday, try to apply it."
"If you spend too much time worrying about negatives, you might never do anything. Just don't leap too quickly."
"No, that was months ago."
"What happened to, yes, no, hold on, it was, underneath this!"
"Damn it."
"Oh wait, that's it, I moved it over, here, haha, hey, whatever, got it, alright, focus, what was your question?"
"Oh, minutia."
"You expect me to remember precise details that I didn't even care about at the time or about people I never met or subjects I never studied?"
"I'm like a big freckle."
"I found this last week, try it, it's delicious and only costs $2.99."
"Have you ever had a readymade store bought sandwich with or without meat that tastes this good?"
"There's no one around, you don't have to pretend, you can lie and say you were humouring me later. If word gets out."
"Come on, it's sunny and +23."
"Nah, it's blends, mixes, swamp water, iridescence."
"I like that cats have whiskers."
"He was a golden-haired Adonis. A conversation with him was like going to a play. Logical too, a natural stream of unedited fact-checked sense, like you imagine a conversation with your favourite artist might be like except that he was less random."
"Look, I couldn't say anything, he knew everything I was going to say before I said it. To stand out I had to be vulgar and that doesn't work."
"'Fair weather frisk', no, 'gilded gambit'? Not quite. What about, 'jaded orchid'?"
"Impartial?"
"You don't like swimming?"
"Milk and sugar, no lemon."
"No."
"I've been meaning to do that."
"With an S."
"I always like that they played even when it was raining or snowing or foggy or freezing."
"It's not like that here, the same categories exist but they're less rigid, less determinate."
"It lasts a long time. Everything's blurry late-March early April."
"It's the little birds. That's where you find nature's best colouring."
"Well, a huge section of downtown is opened-up for free shows from local and international artists for two months in the Summer."
"I met one guy who could do a crazy Chewbacca."
"Learn a bit everyday, try to apply it."
"If you spend too much time worrying about negatives, you might never do anything. Just don't leap too quickly."
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Avengers: Infinity War
Seeing this film made me wish I had been around 7 years old when the first Iron Man movie was released.
And I had been allowed to watch it.
I still loved watching Avengers: Infinity War, and there were moments when I looked on with the uncompromised emotional intensity that rapturously flourished in my youth, but if I had watched every Marvel film with commensurate innocent intensity and then suddenly sat back to watch Avengers: Infinity War around the age of 17, the film that brings them all together, unites them with wild improvised spontaneous universal synergies, the energy from a star even harnessed within for manufacturing purposes, I think it would have seemed like 149 minutes of pure unadulterated joy, even if so much distress accompanies its beloved characters.
I don't mean to argue that there isn't a lot of brilliant television out there, or series is perhaps a better word to use these days, I love The Frankenstein Chronicles, Star Trek: Discovery, and Myths & Monsters for instance, and I'm hooked on Zoo and Frontier, but television is usually trying to be as good as film, whereas exceptionally bad films seem like they should have been released on television, creative mixes of the 2 mediums notwithstanding, Netflix currently attempting to bridge the gap.
But it's like the geniuses at Marvel asked themselves, "what if we create multiple films, always bearing in mind that we're creating films specifically, yet envision their totality like an incredible television series, patiently stitched together over the course of a decade?
That might bear ecstatic fruit.
And simmer the ultimate cliffhanger."
To be young and see so many cherished characters packed into one epic syntheses may have been both shocking and overwhelming, but would it not have also been mindbogglingly awe inspiring, like having millions of recordings from around the world available on your computer for $9.99 a month?
Perhaps I misjudge the intensity of the theoretical emotion.
I'm looking back and imagining what it would have been like if the pop cultural coordinates of the early 21st Century had been superimposed on the late 20th, but if they had been alternatively superimposed before I had acquired knowledge of both timelines, I may not have noticed a difference, and may have assumed frequent loosely unified instalments from a thoughtfully orchestrated pyrotechnic colossus were as natural as Sam falling for Diane, or George moving back in with his parents, since I wouldn't have known that I was taking an alternative timeline for granted, and therefore would have assumed my foundations were unilaterally temporal.
If Marvel is like Star Trek squared, what the heck is Star Trek cubed?
Avengers: Infinity War, if Orwellianly titled, malheureusement, worked for me.
There's the inevitable cheese associated with bringing so so many distinct characters into one film, but the cool smoothly devours it, grates it into an exhilarating intergalactic artisanal soirée.
I especially loved how Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) immediately decides to just stow away on an alien spacecraft in order to surprise attack the universe's most threatening villain.
Classic amelioration.
Star-Lord's (Chris Pratt) ideas also impress.
As do those of the Wakandans.
Not to mention the inherent self-sacrifice built into the script.
And pairing-up Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with feisty Rocket (Bradley Cooper).
I'm sure there's a plan for the intervening years, but Infinity War boldly erases billions in profit in order to make a more realistic film.
That's damn commendable.
I've been watching a groundhog eat grass for the entire time I've been writing this.
It keeps running back to his hole when people walk past.
And then comes back shortly thereafter.
He'll probably be shyer in Summer.
So I'm lucky I chose this spot for today.
And I had been allowed to watch it.
I still loved watching Avengers: Infinity War, and there were moments when I looked on with the uncompromised emotional intensity that rapturously flourished in my youth, but if I had watched every Marvel film with commensurate innocent intensity and then suddenly sat back to watch Avengers: Infinity War around the age of 17, the film that brings them all together, unites them with wild improvised spontaneous universal synergies, the energy from a star even harnessed within for manufacturing purposes, I think it would have seemed like 149 minutes of pure unadulterated joy, even if so much distress accompanies its beloved characters.
I don't mean to argue that there isn't a lot of brilliant television out there, or series is perhaps a better word to use these days, I love The Frankenstein Chronicles, Star Trek: Discovery, and Myths & Monsters for instance, and I'm hooked on Zoo and Frontier, but television is usually trying to be as good as film, whereas exceptionally bad films seem like they should have been released on television, creative mixes of the 2 mediums notwithstanding, Netflix currently attempting to bridge the gap.
But it's like the geniuses at Marvel asked themselves, "what if we create multiple films, always bearing in mind that we're creating films specifically, yet envision their totality like an incredible television series, patiently stitched together over the course of a decade?
That might bear ecstatic fruit.
And simmer the ultimate cliffhanger."
To be young and see so many cherished characters packed into one epic syntheses may have been both shocking and overwhelming, but would it not have also been mindbogglingly awe inspiring, like having millions of recordings from around the world available on your computer for $9.99 a month?
Perhaps I misjudge the intensity of the theoretical emotion.
I'm looking back and imagining what it would have been like if the pop cultural coordinates of the early 21st Century had been superimposed on the late 20th, but if they had been alternatively superimposed before I had acquired knowledge of both timelines, I may not have noticed a difference, and may have assumed frequent loosely unified instalments from a thoughtfully orchestrated pyrotechnic colossus were as natural as Sam falling for Diane, or George moving back in with his parents, since I wouldn't have known that I was taking an alternative timeline for granted, and therefore would have assumed my foundations were unilaterally temporal.
If Marvel is like Star Trek squared, what the heck is Star Trek cubed?
Avengers: Infinity War, if Orwellianly titled, malheureusement, worked for me.
There's the inevitable cheese associated with bringing so so many distinct characters into one film, but the cool smoothly devours it, grates it into an exhilarating intergalactic artisanal soirée.
I especially loved how Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) immediately decides to just stow away on an alien spacecraft in order to surprise attack the universe's most threatening villain.
Classic amelioration.
Star-Lord's (Chris Pratt) ideas also impress.
As do those of the Wakandans.
Not to mention the inherent self-sacrifice built into the script.
And pairing-up Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with feisty Rocket (Bradley Cooper).
I'm sure there's a plan for the intervening years, but Infinity War boldly erases billions in profit in order to make a more realistic film.
That's damn commendable.
I've been watching a groundhog eat grass for the entire time I've been writing this.
It keeps running back to his hole when people walk past.
And then comes back shortly thereafter.
He'll probably be shyer in Summer.
So I'm lucky I chose this spot for today.
Friday, May 4, 2018
Lean on Pete
A first job suddenly presents itself after a regenerative run through town, good fortune having granted knowledge and opportunity to a curious unconnected youth, his eagerness to impress well-suited to his employer's bustle, a crash course in low-end horse racing following, with long days and nights spent learning the ropes on the road.
His grizzled boss (Steve Buscemi as Del) still knows a few tricks that keep him one step ahead.
But he misjudges Charley's (Charlie Plummer) love for old school grinder Lean on Pete, and doesn't realize how far he'll go to boldly prevent him coming unglued.
Soon the two are headed North through lands unknown in search of Charley's only remaining relative, an aunt whom his father (Travis Fimmel) lost touch with years ago.
A kind-hearted waitress, some vets, and a troubled homeless trickster await, off the beaten track trudged with neither supplies nor know-how, random commentaries on hardboiled living manifested, improvised action, spontaneously guiding the way.
Lean on Pete bluntly juxtaposes innocent open-minds with worldly calculation then roughly blends them just before the mild homestretch.
Like a fledgling existentialist learning to take flight, different gusts intensifying principled individualistic spirits, experientially gliding, diving, riding, swooping, the new flexibly adjusts with crafty aeronautical awareness, balancing ethics and expediency on the fly, before lightly merging with the breeze.
Harrowingly examining lawlessness while considering when to forgive, Charley maximizes his advantage in every situation, having been extemporaneously confronted with stricken mortality, having lost the foothold that taught him to love.
Thereby functioning like a classic Western.
Will Charley age to become like the man who murdered his father?
Does the elevation of tax-free individualism create a world within which ethics are solely applied to different personal conflicts composed of duelling participants each trying to instinctually endure, like self-preservation in the state of nature, or is there a cultural rule of objective law which socially coincides?
Like Candide crowned Leviathan, Charley outwits responsibility.
A patient thought provoking solemn coming of age tale, complete with mischievous characterizations diversifying hardboiled scenes, Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete philosophically ponders life unbound, through an unexpected impulsive trek into the heart of wild humanistic existence.
His grizzled boss (Steve Buscemi as Del) still knows a few tricks that keep him one step ahead.
But he misjudges Charley's (Charlie Plummer) love for old school grinder Lean on Pete, and doesn't realize how far he'll go to boldly prevent him coming unglued.
Soon the two are headed North through lands unknown in search of Charley's only remaining relative, an aunt whom his father (Travis Fimmel) lost touch with years ago.
A kind-hearted waitress, some vets, and a troubled homeless trickster await, off the beaten track trudged with neither supplies nor know-how, random commentaries on hardboiled living manifested, improvised action, spontaneously guiding the way.
Lean on Pete bluntly juxtaposes innocent open-minds with worldly calculation then roughly blends them just before the mild homestretch.
Like a fledgling existentialist learning to take flight, different gusts intensifying principled individualistic spirits, experientially gliding, diving, riding, swooping, the new flexibly adjusts with crafty aeronautical awareness, balancing ethics and expediency on the fly, before lightly merging with the breeze.
Harrowingly examining lawlessness while considering when to forgive, Charley maximizes his advantage in every situation, having been extemporaneously confronted with stricken mortality, having lost the foothold that taught him to love.
Thereby functioning like a classic Western.
Will Charley age to become like the man who murdered his father?
Does the elevation of tax-free individualism create a world within which ethics are solely applied to different personal conflicts composed of duelling participants each trying to instinctually endure, like self-preservation in the state of nature, or is there a cultural rule of objective law which socially coincides?
Like Candide crowned Leviathan, Charley outwits responsibility.
A patient thought provoking solemn coming of age tale, complete with mischievous characterizations diversifying hardboiled scenes, Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete philosophically ponders life unbound, through an unexpected impulsive trek into the heart of wild humanistic existence.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
Eye on Juliet
Love blooms in the North African desert as two romantics meet in the hills surrounding a sleepy town.
Uninterested in following the paths prudently yet sterilely groomed for them, they agree to spend everything they have on secret passage to Europe.
A lonely American, who just broke up with the love of his life, remotely observes them from a small surveillance robot he's tasked with operating, their innocent devotion saliently touching his heartfelt grief.
He decides to do everything he can to help them.
Yet trials belittle their imagination as knowledge of their plans reaches Ayusha's (Lina El Arabi) parents, who have already made arrangements for her to marry another.
She's locked up and forbidden to protest, austere calculation, in full-blown concerned restriction.
Kim Nguyen's Eye on Juliet playfully sculpts traditional and technological raw materials to present a passionate tragic embrace which caresses love requited.
Revitalizing age old themes with clever contemporary contents, it celebrates choice without mocking tradition, and risks that resiliently bloom.
Myriad abstractions block amorous integrities from ascending within, yet belief in oneself matched with mutual warmhearted understandings generates spiritual synergies which strictly transcend obedience.
By confidently wielding the spontaneous, it critiques cynicism while dismissing naivety, offering emotional appeals to the mind which stimulate soulful thought.
Tragedy does indeed strike after which responsibility makes amends, mistakes generating amicable relations, alternative options creating something new.
Loved the blind man in the desert (Mohammed Sakhi).
*That makes 1000 film reviews on this blog.
Uninterested in following the paths prudently yet sterilely groomed for them, they agree to spend everything they have on secret passage to Europe.
A lonely American, who just broke up with the love of his life, remotely observes them from a small surveillance robot he's tasked with operating, their innocent devotion saliently touching his heartfelt grief.
He decides to do everything he can to help them.
Yet trials belittle their imagination as knowledge of their plans reaches Ayusha's (Lina El Arabi) parents, who have already made arrangements for her to marry another.
She's locked up and forbidden to protest, austere calculation, in full-blown concerned restriction.
Kim Nguyen's Eye on Juliet playfully sculpts traditional and technological raw materials to present a passionate tragic embrace which caresses love requited.
Revitalizing age old themes with clever contemporary contents, it celebrates choice without mocking tradition, and risks that resiliently bloom.
Myriad abstractions block amorous integrities from ascending within, yet belief in oneself matched with mutual warmhearted understandings generates spiritual synergies which strictly transcend obedience.
By confidently wielding the spontaneous, it critiques cynicism while dismissing naivety, offering emotional appeals to the mind which stimulate soulful thought.
Tragedy does indeed strike after which responsibility makes amends, mistakes generating amicable relations, alternative options creating something new.
Loved the blind man in the desert (Mohammed Sakhi).
*That makes 1000 film reviews on this blog.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Indian Horse
The legacy of the residential school system which afflicted generations of First Nations children still reverberates today.
A problem with taking religion too seriously, as noted by many others I'm sure, with institutionalizing it and using it to guide governmental policy, is that the people operating within such a bureaucracy don't think they derive their power from fallible mortal men and women, they believe it comes from an all-knowing supreme being, and if they think that they are correctly acting in the interests of a supreme being, that somehow they logically figured out what that being actually wants them to do, it's a completely different kind of managerial ego, because everything they do is sanctioned by perfection, and if their interpretation of his or her omnipotent designs is legally and politically considered to be nothing less than perfect, they tend to believe their actions are irrefutably just.
No matter how cruel.
The residential school presented in Indian Horse doesn't even teach the students real world skills like mathematics or logic, rather it focuses on meticulously studying the bible as if its compelling stories will help them learn how to become accountants or lawyers or doctors.
Thus, as multiple other sources have noted, many students didn't have the skills to find any job whatsoever after graduating, and since many of them had been systematically abused throughout their formative years, many fell into a dire cycle of drug addiction and alcoholism on the streets.
And were plagued afterwards by uninformed cultural stereotypes which developed.
It's not something you just shake off and forget about.
Indian Horse examines a colonized people doing their best to play with a deck stacked against them.
Racism ubiquitously assaults them as they boldly compete, as they regularly face daunting challenges.
One student is gifted athletically and seems poised to make a name for himself in the NHL (Sladen Peltier, Forrest Goodluck, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul).
But he faces internalized demons and mass cultural characterizations that turn the most thrilling time of his life into a harsh struggle.
He would have made a huge difference for any team that had signed him.
If the goal is to win hockey games, why does anything other than one's ability to help teams win matter?
A problem with taking religion too seriously, as noted by many others I'm sure, with institutionalizing it and using it to guide governmental policy, is that the people operating within such a bureaucracy don't think they derive their power from fallible mortal men and women, they believe it comes from an all-knowing supreme being, and if they think that they are correctly acting in the interests of a supreme being, that somehow they logically figured out what that being actually wants them to do, it's a completely different kind of managerial ego, because everything they do is sanctioned by perfection, and if their interpretation of his or her omnipotent designs is legally and politically considered to be nothing less than perfect, they tend to believe their actions are irrefutably just.
No matter how cruel.
The residential school presented in Indian Horse doesn't even teach the students real world skills like mathematics or logic, rather it focuses on meticulously studying the bible as if its compelling stories will help them learn how to become accountants or lawyers or doctors.
Thus, as multiple other sources have noted, many students didn't have the skills to find any job whatsoever after graduating, and since many of them had been systematically abused throughout their formative years, many fell into a dire cycle of drug addiction and alcoholism on the streets.
And were plagued afterwards by uninformed cultural stereotypes which developed.
It's not something you just shake off and forget about.
Indian Horse examines a colonized people doing their best to play with a deck stacked against them.
Racism ubiquitously assaults them as they boldly compete, as they regularly face daunting challenges.
One student is gifted athletically and seems poised to make a name for himself in the NHL (Sladen Peltier, Forrest Goodluck, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul).
But he faces internalized demons and mass cultural characterizations that turn the most thrilling time of his life into a harsh struggle.
He would have made a huge difference for any team that had signed him.
If the goal is to win hockey games, why does anything other than one's ability to help teams win matter?
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
La Bolduc
During tough economic times, a soulful voice emerges, writing hit pop singles like butter on toast, performing with a voice that streams as it schmoozes, transforming birch and bustle into jive and pith and pluck, abreast with no time to think about it, writin' it all down, exhaling rhythm with raw crisp feeling, instinctually creating carefree nimble blooms.
A different time characterized by traditional roles and religious sentiment, the resourceful Mary Travers-Bolduc (Debbie Lynch-White) didn't set out to become a musician.
She stayed home to raise a family while her husband worked, nurturing several children with scant means at her disposal, the strength of their bonds helping them through tough times, love flourishing amidst economic hardship as a result of unnerving trials.
They tried moving to the States, had to get groceries on credit, there wasn't much/any time for rest, and laws prevented women from voting or working.
Yet Mme. Travers-Bolduc suddenly found herself with a huge disposable income after her songs caught fire and she turned into a star.
Her sympathetic producer clarified a loophole which enabled her to hold on to her earnings, and her foolish husband, overcome by his reduced position in their household, and a lack of work, unfortunately turned to drink instead of celebrating their good fortune.
Their example highlights a peculiar feature of religion.
If God is monitoring the world (doubtful), and a woman suddenly finds herself enriched within a patriarchal cultural construction, isn't it God's will that that woman should be enriched, and isn't he or she saying that women should be able to work and support themselves just as reliably as men?
If a patriarchal conception dominates sociopolitical life and derives its authority from earthly conceptions of God, when a woman is successful within such a system isn't God trying to say that there's something wrong with strict patriarchal religious conceptions?
Does God's will only apply to men?
Rubbish.
Québec isn't like that anymore, and its current composition functions as an example for jurisdictions looking to redefine themselves after periods of restrictive patriarchal obsessions.
Mary Travers represents a strong female voice excelling within a male dominated society, even if she succumbed later in life to the logic she had been bombarded with since birth, and prevented her talented daughter (Laurence Deschênes and Rose-Marie Perreault as Denise Bolduc) from following her dreams.
After having experienced massive head trauma.
A different time characterized by traditional roles and religious sentiment, the resourceful Mary Travers-Bolduc (Debbie Lynch-White) didn't set out to become a musician.
She stayed home to raise a family while her husband worked, nurturing several children with scant means at her disposal, the strength of their bonds helping them through tough times, love flourishing amidst economic hardship as a result of unnerving trials.
They tried moving to the States, had to get groceries on credit, there wasn't much/any time for rest, and laws prevented women from voting or working.
Yet Mme. Travers-Bolduc suddenly found herself with a huge disposable income after her songs caught fire and she turned into a star.
Her sympathetic producer clarified a loophole which enabled her to hold on to her earnings, and her foolish husband, overcome by his reduced position in their household, and a lack of work, unfortunately turned to drink instead of celebrating their good fortune.
Their example highlights a peculiar feature of religion.
If God is monitoring the world (doubtful), and a woman suddenly finds herself enriched within a patriarchal cultural construction, isn't it God's will that that woman should be enriched, and isn't he or she saying that women should be able to work and support themselves just as reliably as men?
If a patriarchal conception dominates sociopolitical life and derives its authority from earthly conceptions of God, when a woman is successful within such a system isn't God trying to say that there's something wrong with strict patriarchal religious conceptions?
Does God's will only apply to men?
Rubbish.
Québec isn't like that anymore, and its current composition functions as an example for jurisdictions looking to redefine themselves after periods of restrictive patriarchal obsessions.
Mary Travers represents a strong female voice excelling within a male dominated society, even if she succumbed later in life to the logic she had been bombarded with since birth, and prevented her talented daughter (Laurence Deschênes and Rose-Marie Perreault as Denise Bolduc) from following her dreams.
After having experienced massive head trauma.
Friday, April 20, 2018
Ready Player One
Ready Player One takes Game Night to the next level by presenting a world within which every waking moment characterizes free play.
Arguments lauding the values of physical existence having been virtually refuted, the Oasis intergenerationally supplies invigorating imaginary agency to anyone curious enough to enroll.
It's the ultimate online experience, manifold worlds within worlds abounding with purpose and challenge and leisure and romance, astounding variability thematically applied with visionary intertextual synergies slash infinite individual accommodations, instantaneously accessible, intravenously mounted.
Created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance/Isaac Andrews), a brilliant pop culture enthusiast with a propensity to articulate architecturally, its ownership enters a period of flux after he passes, only those clever and skilful enough to find the 4 keys he's hidden within having the chance to become its new guardians, and since it's valued at half-a-trillion, and its riddles are next to impossible to solve, only a select few possess the talent required, although all and sundry compete by all means.
And then it happens, after years of clueless endeavour, two diametrically opposed groups seemed poised for victory.
One, an accumulation of indentured gamers coerced into working for colossal douche Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), sheer numbers intended to overwhelm the opposition even if they instinctually lack any genuine personal revelation.
They invade the Oasis en masse, intimidating everyone they can to cheat their way to the finals.
Reminding me of ye olde deflategate thereby.
The other, a bucking homegrown organic dedicated team in the process of formation, possibly lead by a modest competitive young superfan who also possesses innovative interpretive intuition.
Will the 5 of them combine their strengths to outperform the corporate world, thereby preventing it from transforming the Oasis into a heartless tiered unimaginative conglomerate, as if both B.C's coastline and its interior were contaminated by millions of gallons of oil, or the internet itself, was regulated like cable television?
The odds would be stacked highly against them.
If they weren't so exceptionally gifted.
Like indomitable lamda kitshatz haderached omega particles, never pausing to adjust for wind resistance, near wild heaven trucking through the danger zone, they keep goin' mobile as the labyrinthine adventure begins.
Ready Player One playfully unites myriad awe inspiring protocultural constellations like an enigmatic enlightenment transisting renaissance.
Spielberg still possesses the youthful wonder that has helped him to create stunning films for decades, Ready Player One clearly proving that he hasn't lost touch with his incomparable artistic genius, nor his undeniable love of cinema.
I'm betting that whatever decade you grew up in, this film will help you feel like you're back at home in your youth.
A remarkable cohesion of multigenerational inter and independence, it reifies the North American cultural spirit, without losing sight of its cool.
Why wasn't it released in July?
Arguments lauding the values of physical existence having been virtually refuted, the Oasis intergenerationally supplies invigorating imaginary agency to anyone curious enough to enroll.
It's the ultimate online experience, manifold worlds within worlds abounding with purpose and challenge and leisure and romance, astounding variability thematically applied with visionary intertextual synergies slash infinite individual accommodations, instantaneously accessible, intravenously mounted.
Created by James Halliday (Mark Rylance/Isaac Andrews), a brilliant pop culture enthusiast with a propensity to articulate architecturally, its ownership enters a period of flux after he passes, only those clever and skilful enough to find the 4 keys he's hidden within having the chance to become its new guardians, and since it's valued at half-a-trillion, and its riddles are next to impossible to solve, only a select few possess the talent required, although all and sundry compete by all means.
And then it happens, after years of clueless endeavour, two diametrically opposed groups seemed poised for victory.
One, an accumulation of indentured gamers coerced into working for colossal douche Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), sheer numbers intended to overwhelm the opposition even if they instinctually lack any genuine personal revelation.
They invade the Oasis en masse, intimidating everyone they can to cheat their way to the finals.
Reminding me of ye olde deflategate thereby.
The other, a bucking homegrown organic dedicated team in the process of formation, possibly lead by a modest competitive young superfan who also possesses innovative interpretive intuition.
Will the 5 of them combine their strengths to outperform the corporate world, thereby preventing it from transforming the Oasis into a heartless tiered unimaginative conglomerate, as if both B.C's coastline and its interior were contaminated by millions of gallons of oil, or the internet itself, was regulated like cable television?
The odds would be stacked highly against them.
If they weren't so exceptionally gifted.
Like indomitable lamda kitshatz haderached omega particles, never pausing to adjust for wind resistance, near wild heaven trucking through the danger zone, they keep goin' mobile as the labyrinthine adventure begins.
Ready Player One playfully unites myriad awe inspiring protocultural constellations like an enigmatic enlightenment transisting renaissance.
Spielberg still possesses the youthful wonder that has helped him to create stunning films for decades, Ready Player One clearly proving that he hasn't lost touch with his incomparable artistic genius, nor his undeniable love of cinema.
I'm betting that whatever decade you grew up in, this film will help you feel like you're back at home in your youth.
A remarkable cohesion of multigenerational inter and independence, it reifies the North American cultural spirit, without losing sight of its cool.
Why wasn't it released in July?
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
Game Night
The weekly game night.
An unsung celebration of the studious and the knowledgeable during which sundry eclectic caprices heroically achieve cultural redemption, every foolishly frowned upon trivial impulse suddenly validated as if their mass accumulation was as generally admired as owning a car or playing a sport, nachos and salsa haphazardly served up raw or baked while crucially captious considerations undauntedly contend within diminutively prescribed limits, immediate artistic delineations and divinations juxtaposed with lexicographical ease, Pennsylvania Avenue, the spur of the moment strategic themes of the adorably innovative inculpable thesauri, trivially lounging, cloaked fissures, fonts, forays.
An uptight observant redheaded enforcer banished from their midst.
Past infidelities accidentally exposed introducing argumentative contention.
Reversed roles confounding traditional mating rituals as a perceptive relativistic ingenue inquisitively examines her date for the evening.
A couple struggling to bear young finds romantic sustainability as one representative demonstrates unconditional love.
For her reliable steed's unconscious trauma is preventing his troops from conceptually mustering.
The source of said trauma having just reappeared.
To recommence belittling and outperforming.
After having superciliously commanded: a change of venue.
Game Night brings family and friends together to diabolically transform team-based knowledge quests into mortal streetwise altercations invading private spaces intent on supersonically hedging fraternal marigold combat.
Not necessarily like that, however it does have an edge, and its insightful journeyperson script does delicately tread tightropes uniting bourgeois romance with impoverished plutocratic proclivities, in a homely horrorshow, fearlessly exonerating conjugal endeavour.
Did anyone notice Kyle Chandler's (Brooks) solid Leonardo DiCaprio pastiche (Inception)?
Is Rachel McAdams (Annie) the new Meg Ryan?
Limbrous isn't a word.
So I'll stick with almost mind-blowing.
An unsung celebration of the studious and the knowledgeable during which sundry eclectic caprices heroically achieve cultural redemption, every foolishly frowned upon trivial impulse suddenly validated as if their mass accumulation was as generally admired as owning a car or playing a sport, nachos and salsa haphazardly served up raw or baked while crucially captious considerations undauntedly contend within diminutively prescribed limits, immediate artistic delineations and divinations juxtaposed with lexicographical ease, Pennsylvania Avenue, the spur of the moment strategic themes of the adorably innovative inculpable thesauri, trivially lounging, cloaked fissures, fonts, forays.
An uptight observant redheaded enforcer banished from their midst.
Past infidelities accidentally exposed introducing argumentative contention.
Reversed roles confounding traditional mating rituals as a perceptive relativistic ingenue inquisitively examines her date for the evening.
A couple struggling to bear young finds romantic sustainability as one representative demonstrates unconditional love.
For her reliable steed's unconscious trauma is preventing his troops from conceptually mustering.
The source of said trauma having just reappeared.
To recommence belittling and outperforming.
After having superciliously commanded: a change of venue.
Game Night brings family and friends together to diabolically transform team-based knowledge quests into mortal streetwise altercations invading private spaces intent on supersonically hedging fraternal marigold combat.
Not necessarily like that, however it does have an edge, and its insightful journeyperson script does delicately tread tightropes uniting bourgeois romance with impoverished plutocratic proclivities, in a homely horrorshow, fearlessly exonerating conjugal endeavour.
Did anyone notice Kyle Chandler's (Brooks) solid Leonardo DiCaprio pastiche (Inception)?
Is Rachel McAdams (Annie) the new Meg Ryan?
Limbrous isn't a word.
So I'll stick with almost mind-blowing.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Foxtrot
And an exemplar was disseminated, wherein which individuals expressed themselves extemporaneously even though they had observed strict routines throughout much of their bourgeois lives, tradition and structure briefly withdrawing as overwhelming desires to alternatively communicate built up deep inside and triumphantly exhaled, a fluid gesture of harmless defiance joyously reverberating across uninhabited terrain, passing by unremarkably, the absurdity of his post and its accompanying limitless wastelands failing to generate correspondingly desolate emotions as underdeveloped independent curiosity refuses to acknowledge the austere, revellers brazen enough to pass by in good cheer suddenly transforming codes that had been youthfully displaced into bloodshed, paranoid precedents instantaneously shocking generally carefree lives, the error rapidly covered up thereafter, buried for archaeological posterity, denoted with novel graphic agency.
The drawing generating metaphorical comment.
As mourning subsides.
And love reemerges.
Making light of solemnities has sombre consequences for the denizens of Samuel Maoz's Foxtrot, as if the temptation to relax one's guard is as dangerous as it is emancipating.
The natural world countermands privileged influence within, as tensions between freedom and discipline maddeningly shock obliged quotidian necessities.
The commodification of ancient heirlooms disastrously curses the present, as tantalizing postmodern accessories addictively dominate the senses.
Extreme grief is benevolently replaced by joy before the utmost cruelty coincidentally descends.
Historical repercussions infinitely bewildering.
Combative contiguities.
Subjective cries.
The film excels at presenting free spirits tormented by regulations that must be upheld, accentuating the blasé to manifest torrential tears while cosmically suggesting there is no reasonable alternative.
The conjugal rapprochement which characterizes its concluding moments abound with blissful acquiescence.
Nevertheless.
As a couple audaciously expresses itself by sharing truthful thoughts.
What they still have rich in wonder.
Integrity, variability, mystery.
Adventure imaginatively narrativizing.
Mindfully.
After work finishes up.
The drawing generating metaphorical comment.
As mourning subsides.
And love reemerges.
Making light of solemnities has sombre consequences for the denizens of Samuel Maoz's Foxtrot, as if the temptation to relax one's guard is as dangerous as it is emancipating.
The natural world countermands privileged influence within, as tensions between freedom and discipline maddeningly shock obliged quotidian necessities.
The commodification of ancient heirlooms disastrously curses the present, as tantalizing postmodern accessories addictively dominate the senses.
Extreme grief is benevolently replaced by joy before the utmost cruelty coincidentally descends.
Historical repercussions infinitely bewildering.
Combative contiguities.
Subjective cries.
The film excels at presenting free spirits tormented by regulations that must be upheld, accentuating the blasé to manifest torrential tears while cosmically suggesting there is no reasonable alternative.
The conjugal rapprochement which characterizes its concluding moments abound with blissful acquiescence.
Nevertheless.
As a couple audaciously expresses itself by sharing truthful thoughts.
What they still have rich in wonder.
Integrity, variability, mystery.
Adventure imaginatively narrativizing.
Mindfully.
After work finishes up.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
A trip, an excursion, an itinerant vocation, dazzling and wooing, inspiring and enticing, at the actor's discretion, exuberantly, around the globe, a marriage a liaison a fling, an assignation, redefined convergence impertinently penetrating curious hearts and minds with interpretive variability and starstruck quivers, paramount mercurial mischief seductively invested and tantalizingly outfitted, a song bird, a siren, fervid fledgling sweetly swooning, hesitantly marooning, eternal embraces jockeying for illumination lightly treading chaotic chasms with resplendent divination, resting, nesting, flocking, guilty pleasures routinely exonerated, a cue, applause.
Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) finds herself in England in Paul McGuigan's Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, dating an aspiring local actor (Jamie Bell as Peter Turner) while reimagining herself on the British stage.
She's sick however, no one knows that but her, and her secret confuses young Pete as he tries to romantically conjure.
The film compassionately reveals an agile professional resiliently refining her art, continuously seeking new challenges to sustain hardboiled momentum, brilliantly unaccustomed to the demands of routine structures, suddenly forced, to withdraw bedridden.
Flashbacks.
There's a wonderful scene where her and Mr. Turner authenticate on a beach beneath a cavalier sky, discussing life and love and fortune, as fish begin to frolic in the nearby sea.
Another which captures her radiantly celebrating a performance.
She seems like she must have been fun to hang out with until you got too close or demanded too much attention.
Peter must have meant something, but his expectations clashed with her carefully hidden secrets, which were concealed to promote her career, to ensure she would never have to stop working.
She knew that, not him, she knew what she had to do to maintain her image, her mystique, her fame, Pete does eventually acknowledge this, even if it unintentionally tears him up deep down.
I read an article the other day/month/year which stated that love was like an addiction and people require medical aid after breakups.
This article.
Not the most romantic way to examine loves lost.
Proust's Fugitive may function as a literary counterbalance.
Which proves the scientific point.
Without sterilizing the poetic dysfunction.
Good film.
Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) finds herself in England in Paul McGuigan's Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, dating an aspiring local actor (Jamie Bell as Peter Turner) while reimagining herself on the British stage.
She's sick however, no one knows that but her, and her secret confuses young Pete as he tries to romantically conjure.
The film compassionately reveals an agile professional resiliently refining her art, continuously seeking new challenges to sustain hardboiled momentum, brilliantly unaccustomed to the demands of routine structures, suddenly forced, to withdraw bedridden.
Flashbacks.
There's a wonderful scene where her and Mr. Turner authenticate on a beach beneath a cavalier sky, discussing life and love and fortune, as fish begin to frolic in the nearby sea.
Another which captures her radiantly celebrating a performance.
She seems like she must have been fun to hang out with until you got too close or demanded too much attention.
Peter must have meant something, but his expectations clashed with her carefully hidden secrets, which were concealed to promote her career, to ensure she would never have to stop working.
She knew that, not him, she knew what she had to do to maintain her image, her mystique, her fame, Pete does eventually acknowledge this, even if it unintentionally tears him up deep down.
I read an article the other day/month/year which stated that love was like an addiction and people require medical aid after breakups.
This article.
Not the most romantic way to examine loves lost.
Proust's Fugitive may function as a literary counterbalance.
Which proves the scientific point.
Without sterilizing the poetic dysfunction.
Good film.
Friday, April 6, 2018
The Death of Stalin
It seems like for every 100 films which vilify Nazism, 0 are made to condemn its Soviet counterpart.
Perhaps releasing 10 to 20 films a year which accentuated Soviet atrocities would have increased hostilities with Russia, currently or during the official cold war, and increasing hostilities with a proud heavily armed powerful nation is usually a sign of imprudent planning, unless they're taking out spies in broad daylight in parks on your home turf, even if sundry artists would have been free to define themselves thereby.
But leaving the communists out of the master narrative means that narrative focuses exclusively on the fascists, there's no counterbalance, no secondary ideological agenda, and even if World War II films bluntly emasculate Nazi ideals they still constantly manifest them, and keep them widely circulating within mass consciousnesses.
Even though Nazism is condemned it's still present, year after year, film after film, the war ended 73 years ago and its impact is still threatening, not just as a reminder of past horrors, it should always be there to remind new generations of its horrors (see The Lord of the Rings[there are still a ton of World War II films released every year]), but as a formidable subject that many directors (I imagine) feel compelled to characterize.
Communism isn't there and its absence is curious.
If you want a populace to forget or at least not focus on something you don't advertise it constantly, obviously enough, although, obviously again, it will certainly persist in the underground, or above ground with notable sympathetic academic and unionized groups.
Plus continental Europe.
So why did the capitalists want the masses to remember fascism and forget about communism?
The question isn't as absurd as it sounds, even if Nazis and Soviets were equally destructive.
With the rise of extreme comedy, Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin recasts fascist psycho humour with practical communist applications, by making light of Soviet purges and terrors, as the highest ranking CCCP leaders connive following the tyrant's death.
Time and care is taken to make them look mediocre, except for Field Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), who defeated Germany, and while watching the film I couldn't help thinking how embarrassing it would have been if one of them had sent me to the Gulag.
Or executed me.
With the number of corpses that pile up throughout it's clear that it's meant to be ridiculous, although I suppose their exaggerations are the contemporary byproduct of a system that did routinely butcher its own citizens, and living in such circumstances would make one instinctually paranoid and vindictive as if every day you weren't exiled or shot was indeed a horrifying secular blessing.
As the public sphere becomes more sensational, the White House discrediting porn stars in recent weeks for instance, I suppose the ridiculous becomes less absurd and monstrosities pass without comment because the simple act of acknowledging them will imperil your life.
So perhaps The Death of Stalin's not as ridiculous as it seems.
Perhaps it uses an abandoned method of expression to indirectly and ironically comment upon the rise of right wing populism in order to subliminally trash its misguided cynical optimism?
Either that or it's cashing in on misery.
Strange epoch, this insincere period of time.
Perhaps releasing 10 to 20 films a year which accentuated Soviet atrocities would have increased hostilities with Russia, currently or during the official cold war, and increasing hostilities with a proud heavily armed powerful nation is usually a sign of imprudent planning, unless they're taking out spies in broad daylight in parks on your home turf, even if sundry artists would have been free to define themselves thereby.
But leaving the communists out of the master narrative means that narrative focuses exclusively on the fascists, there's no counterbalance, no secondary ideological agenda, and even if World War II films bluntly emasculate Nazi ideals they still constantly manifest them, and keep them widely circulating within mass consciousnesses.
Even though Nazism is condemned it's still present, year after year, film after film, the war ended 73 years ago and its impact is still threatening, not just as a reminder of past horrors, it should always be there to remind new generations of its horrors (see The Lord of the Rings[there are still a ton of World War II films released every year]), but as a formidable subject that many directors (I imagine) feel compelled to characterize.
Communism isn't there and its absence is curious.
If you want a populace to forget or at least not focus on something you don't advertise it constantly, obviously enough, although, obviously again, it will certainly persist in the underground, or above ground with notable sympathetic academic and unionized groups.
Plus continental Europe.
So why did the capitalists want the masses to remember fascism and forget about communism?
The question isn't as absurd as it sounds, even if Nazis and Soviets were equally destructive.
With the rise of extreme comedy, Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin recasts fascist psycho humour with practical communist applications, by making light of Soviet purges and terrors, as the highest ranking CCCP leaders connive following the tyrant's death.
Time and care is taken to make them look mediocre, except for Field Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), who defeated Germany, and while watching the film I couldn't help thinking how embarrassing it would have been if one of them had sent me to the Gulag.
Or executed me.
With the number of corpses that pile up throughout it's clear that it's meant to be ridiculous, although I suppose their exaggerations are the contemporary byproduct of a system that did routinely butcher its own citizens, and living in such circumstances would make one instinctually paranoid and vindictive as if every day you weren't exiled or shot was indeed a horrifying secular blessing.
As the public sphere becomes more sensational, the White House discrediting porn stars in recent weeks for instance, I suppose the ridiculous becomes less absurd and monstrosities pass without comment because the simple act of acknowledging them will imperil your life.
So perhaps The Death of Stalin's not as ridiculous as it seems.
Perhaps it uses an abandoned method of expression to indirectly and ironically comment upon the rise of right wing populism in order to subliminally trash its misguided cynical optimism?
Either that or it's cashing in on misery.
Strange epoch, this insincere period of time.
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Red Sparrow
Extreme deception bluntly orchestrating maddeningly corrupt initiatives, coldly addressing severe characteristics with the flippant admiration of vanity in bloom.
Emaciated modus operandi, secretively adjusted objectives, flirtatiously plummeting pirouettes, applauding emotionless utilitarianism.
Innate degeneracy opulently upholding volatile foundations meticulously irradiated.
Occupational hazards phantasmagorically posturing with the resigned duplicitous elegance of nouveau riche ostentation, spread so delicately thin that one's senses aspirationally swoon with treacherous wonder.
Dissimulated.
Prevaricated.
If you can figure out what lies beneath a question's seeming innocuous simplicity as it's delivered with clumsy sincerity by someone who has no respect for you, it's easy to lie and give them the answer they expect to hear, the poorly concealed sarcastic nuances of their tone having betrayed their vicious intentions, their misguided readymade conclusion (along with what they intend to do with it), and after providing the answer for which they search which is easy enough to detect, you'll hopefully never hear from them again, calico.
Red Sparrow.
Wherein incomparable poise is wounded then theoretically transformed into a solicitous unimaginative reflection exalting spirited disillusion, commandeered to effortlessly seduce while never questioning executive artifice.
She does seduce effortlessly and you wonder how an undercover operative could have let his guard down so obliviously, but it does save time in a film that's already considerably lengthy.
For good reason.
It patiently follows resourceful Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) from career ending catastrophe to harrowing rebirth, accentuating her helplessness piecemeal before considering an alternative only awkwardly presented hitherto, thus enabling multidimensional character development within the strictest confines.
Pigs at the trough beware, Egorova is comin' to get 'cha.
The Americans are generally presented as trustworthy agents while the Russians betray their government with cause, a comment on the price of bearing petty grudges, one disloyal American voraciously bisecting the cultural stereotypes.
Not as intricate as some spy films, but Lawrence's stark brutal portrayal of a coerced fledgling homegrown psychopath still brazenly holding on to her innocence, as accompanied by a feisty Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a reserved General Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons), and a fierce Matron (Charlotte Rampling), situated within a clever direct script whose subject matter is uncannily relevant if Icarus and Russia's other international relations woes are interwoven, still helps Red Sparrow stand out, the groundwork for an outstanding sequel having been provocatively laid.
Perfect February release.
Mind-bogglingly coincidental.
Emaciated modus operandi, secretively adjusted objectives, flirtatiously plummeting pirouettes, applauding emotionless utilitarianism.
Innate degeneracy opulently upholding volatile foundations meticulously irradiated.
Occupational hazards phantasmagorically posturing with the resigned duplicitous elegance of nouveau riche ostentation, spread so delicately thin that one's senses aspirationally swoon with treacherous wonder.
Dissimulated.
Prevaricated.
If you can figure out what lies beneath a question's seeming innocuous simplicity as it's delivered with clumsy sincerity by someone who has no respect for you, it's easy to lie and give them the answer they expect to hear, the poorly concealed sarcastic nuances of their tone having betrayed their vicious intentions, their misguided readymade conclusion (along with what they intend to do with it), and after providing the answer for which they search which is easy enough to detect, you'll hopefully never hear from them again, calico.
Red Sparrow.
Wherein incomparable poise is wounded then theoretically transformed into a solicitous unimaginative reflection exalting spirited disillusion, commandeered to effortlessly seduce while never questioning executive artifice.
She does seduce effortlessly and you wonder how an undercover operative could have let his guard down so obliviously, but it does save time in a film that's already considerably lengthy.
For good reason.
It patiently follows resourceful Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) from career ending catastrophe to harrowing rebirth, accentuating her helplessness piecemeal before considering an alternative only awkwardly presented hitherto, thus enabling multidimensional character development within the strictest confines.
Pigs at the trough beware, Egorova is comin' to get 'cha.
The Americans are generally presented as trustworthy agents while the Russians betray their government with cause, a comment on the price of bearing petty grudges, one disloyal American voraciously bisecting the cultural stereotypes.
Not as intricate as some spy films, but Lawrence's stark brutal portrayal of a coerced fledgling homegrown psychopath still brazenly holding on to her innocence, as accompanied by a feisty Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a reserved General Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons), and a fierce Matron (Charlotte Rampling), situated within a clever direct script whose subject matter is uncannily relevant if Icarus and Russia's other international relations woes are interwoven, still helps Red Sparrow stand out, the groundwork for an outstanding sequel having been provocatively laid.
Perfect February release.
Mind-bogglingly coincidental.
Friday, March 30, 2018
A Wrinkle in Time
A brilliant mind obsessed with unlocking physical secrets of the universe suddenly completes his work.
And vanishes into the unknown.
His family is overcome with grief and 4 years later daughter Meg (Storm Reid) remains maladjusted.
Falling grades and fights at school are causes of concern for mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), even if Meg was standing up to bullies, even if depression prevents her from concentrating.
Her toughness earns her the respect of classmate Calvin (Levi Miller), however, before three mysterious women show up, who claim to know the whereabouts of her dad (Chris Pine).
Rational disbelief proliferates as impossibility is slowly deconstructed while the plausible conversely engenders hope anew.
Yet Meg must truly believe if she is to both battle The It with the fortitude required to earn her father's freedom, and daringly become the warrior Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) knows she can be.
Perhaps saving little genius brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) thereby, while achieving beyond the limits within which she's terrestrially confined.
The It remains ill-defined but one of the scenes which takes place within its domain depicts unconcerned families enjoying delicious treats seaside stretched-out on the beach.
Meg can tell it's a trick for when she tries the food it indeed tastes like sand.
Perhaps then The IT governs the realm of illusion wherein which the wonderful is in fact nothing more than specks of dust, wherein which insubstantial reversals transform independence into servitude and integrity into humiliation, one ruler commanding all who share in its false pretensions.
Meg sees through this for she unconsciously grasps and stands up for the truth, no matter what situation she finds herself within.
Thus, like an academic, she is less concerned with the limelight or sensational accolades than humbly pursuing a devoted life of studious contemplation.
Like her father who leapt into pure discovery alone.
A Wrinkle in Time salutes the truth by polarizing the fantastic with remarkably realistic composure, as if being honest with yourself verifiably creates purest imagination.
Not as wild and enrapturing and unpredictable as I thought it might be, but still an illuminating journey wherein which courage vanquishes doubt to individualistically uphold something greater than oneself.
Critical.
And vanishes into the unknown.
His family is overcome with grief and 4 years later daughter Meg (Storm Reid) remains maladjusted.
Falling grades and fights at school are causes of concern for mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), even if Meg was standing up to bullies, even if depression prevents her from concentrating.
Her toughness earns her the respect of classmate Calvin (Levi Miller), however, before three mysterious women show up, who claim to know the whereabouts of her dad (Chris Pine).
Rational disbelief proliferates as impossibility is slowly deconstructed while the plausible conversely engenders hope anew.
Yet Meg must truly believe if she is to both battle The It with the fortitude required to earn her father's freedom, and daringly become the warrior Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) knows she can be.
Perhaps saving little genius brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) thereby, while achieving beyond the limits within which she's terrestrially confined.
The It remains ill-defined but one of the scenes which takes place within its domain depicts unconcerned families enjoying delicious treats seaside stretched-out on the beach.
Meg can tell it's a trick for when she tries the food it indeed tastes like sand.
Perhaps then The IT governs the realm of illusion wherein which the wonderful is in fact nothing more than specks of dust, wherein which insubstantial reversals transform independence into servitude and integrity into humiliation, one ruler commanding all who share in its false pretensions.
Meg sees through this for she unconsciously grasps and stands up for the truth, no matter what situation she finds herself within.
Thus, like an academic, she is less concerned with the limelight or sensational accolades than humbly pursuing a devoted life of studious contemplation.
Like her father who leapt into pure discovery alone.
A Wrinkle in Time salutes the truth by polarizing the fantastic with remarkably realistic composure, as if being honest with yourself verifiably creates purest imagination.
Not as wild and enrapturing and unpredictable as I thought it might be, but still an illuminating journey wherein which courage vanquishes doubt to individualistically uphold something greater than oneself.
Critical.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Pacific Rim: Uprising
The mighty Jaegers have slain their Kaiju foes.
And the world is at peace once again.
Jaeger legends still equip Earth's global master narrative with sublime exemplars of self-sacrifice and heroism, nevertheless, a technological behemoth has found a way to automate their gallantry.
Yet co-creator Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) doesn't know that a former global saviour, one Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), has fallen for the Kaiju brain he infiltrated 10 years ago, and keeps in his apartment, and as a result of their secretive romantic mind-melding, has betrayed humankind, and placed homegrown Kaiju brains within each and every hard-driven robot.
Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of warrior Stacker Pentecost, and Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), son of Clint Eastwood, are unaware of this development as they drift once more, their friendship still persisting, even if conflict once dealt it a crippling blow, world security having brought them together again, to save the planet from Kaiju attacks, round 2.
The Kaiju-brain-led-Jaeger-automatons (sort of like Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) maliciously situate themselves at strategic points round the Pacific Ocean, and thunderously begin generating new breaches.
Before loyal Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) can shut them down, 3 Kaiju ascend from interplanetary oceanic depths, eventually merging to form, a monstrous ÜberKaiju.
The fate of the world may rest in the hands of one orphaned girl (Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani), who builds her own Jaegers, and may find herself kicked out of the Jaeger training program.
For actions prohibited.
One cataclysmic day.
Pacific Rim: Uprising may lack the jaw dropping ridiculous blend of kitsch and sophistication that frankly yet elegantly adorned the original unheralded masterpiece, yet if you loved number 1 it's certainly a must see, for its characters battle Kaiju once more, and the stakes are just as high, if not even more catastrophic.
Disappointments, second chances, ingenuity, treachery, motivational speeches, teamwork, rivalry, love.
Positive attributes abound within, yet it's still quite rushed, rather impatient, like its crafters wanted a finished product as soon as humanly possible, and didn't take the time to add the refinements that made the first instalment so appealing.
Still fun though.
Much better than Independence Day 2.
Immediacy can generate a lot of compelling narratives, but it shouldn't be used to rashly justify wildly improbable scenarios, unless they're delicately timed and patiently brewed.
Another thirty minutes may have helped.
Looking forward to round 3.
Rich with inherent intergalactic instabilities.
And the world is at peace once again.
Jaeger legends still equip Earth's global master narrative with sublime exemplars of self-sacrifice and heroism, nevertheless, a technological behemoth has found a way to automate their gallantry.
Yet co-creator Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) doesn't know that a former global saviour, one Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), has fallen for the Kaiju brain he infiltrated 10 years ago, and keeps in his apartment, and as a result of their secretive romantic mind-melding, has betrayed humankind, and placed homegrown Kaiju brains within each and every hard-driven robot.
Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of warrior Stacker Pentecost, and Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), son of Clint Eastwood, are unaware of this development as they drift once more, their friendship still persisting, even if conflict once dealt it a crippling blow, world security having brought them together again, to save the planet from Kaiju attacks, round 2.
The Kaiju-brain-led-Jaeger-automatons (sort of like Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) maliciously situate themselves at strategic points round the Pacific Ocean, and thunderously begin generating new breaches.
Before loyal Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) can shut them down, 3 Kaiju ascend from interplanetary oceanic depths, eventually merging to form, a monstrous ÜberKaiju.
The fate of the world may rest in the hands of one orphaned girl (Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani), who builds her own Jaegers, and may find herself kicked out of the Jaeger training program.
For actions prohibited.
One cataclysmic day.
Pacific Rim: Uprising may lack the jaw dropping ridiculous blend of kitsch and sophistication that frankly yet elegantly adorned the original unheralded masterpiece, yet if you loved number 1 it's certainly a must see, for its characters battle Kaiju once more, and the stakes are just as high, if not even more catastrophic.
Disappointments, second chances, ingenuity, treachery, motivational speeches, teamwork, rivalry, love.
Positive attributes abound within, yet it's still quite rushed, rather impatient, like its crafters wanted a finished product as soon as humanly possible, and didn't take the time to add the refinements that made the first instalment so appealing.
Still fun though.
Much better than Independence Day 2.
Immediacy can generate a lot of compelling narratives, but it shouldn't be used to rashly justify wildly improbable scenarios, unless they're delicately timed and patiently brewed.
Another thirty minutes may have helped.
Looking forward to round 3.
Rich with inherent intergalactic instabilities.
Friday, March 23, 2018
Annihilation
A temporal psychological symbiotic extraterrestrial expanse embraces the American West Coast in Alex Garland's Annihilation, those who pass through its translucent iridescence finding themselves immersed within a conscious environment, which absorbs and transforms everything residing within, to fluidly engender biological impossibility.
Imagine you could take a dialectical creation and lay it out horizontally, every line of the text stretching across the floor.
The gridiron.
Then take thousands of other such creations and randomly lay them out beside, on top of, across, within the original line of argumentation, the resulting accumulated mass united by a common method, like a planet's indigenous gene pool, yet continuously birthing previously unconsidered parallels, blends, synergies, oppositions, microanalytics experimenting with infinite, their purpose to remain curious, purely synthesizing theory and practice.
But then imagine the extraterrestrial zone was mashing and recombining genes in a similar way, physical genes plus incorporeal thoughts, thought and speech forming biological components of its transformed lifeforms, not only the thoughts of humans, but those of plants and animals as well.
The poetic mind.
Ceaselessly creating.
Like in so many films investigating the inexplicable, heavily armed personnel are soon sent in, but there's no real physical threat to face, the enemy is more like a lack of civility, dismissals of the unfamiliar, an inability to holistically adapt, psychologically and physically, within manifested spirit, as bewilderment anticipates.
Did the bear get it?
The crocodile?
Herbaceous exponents mesmerizingly fertilizing vast deserts of composed meticulously orchestrated routine.
Habituated happenstance reconceptualizing imagination as if the northern lights were the organic lifeblood of imperceptible ubiquitous transmutation.
Sit back for awhile.
In the woods.
Parc Jean-Drapeau.
Soak it in.
Steep it.
Feel it.
Annihilation moves past devoting yourself to another and anomalously conjures multicultural mystification.
As if it were searching for something it hoped it would never find.
As would an artist.
A detective.
Imagine you could take a dialectical creation and lay it out horizontally, every line of the text stretching across the floor.
The gridiron.
Then take thousands of other such creations and randomly lay them out beside, on top of, across, within the original line of argumentation, the resulting accumulated mass united by a common method, like a planet's indigenous gene pool, yet continuously birthing previously unconsidered parallels, blends, synergies, oppositions, microanalytics experimenting with infinite, their purpose to remain curious, purely synthesizing theory and practice.
But then imagine the extraterrestrial zone was mashing and recombining genes in a similar way, physical genes plus incorporeal thoughts, thought and speech forming biological components of its transformed lifeforms, not only the thoughts of humans, but those of plants and animals as well.
The poetic mind.
Ceaselessly creating.
Like in so many films investigating the inexplicable, heavily armed personnel are soon sent in, but there's no real physical threat to face, the enemy is more like a lack of civility, dismissals of the unfamiliar, an inability to holistically adapt, psychologically and physically, within manifested spirit, as bewilderment anticipates.
Did the bear get it?
The crocodile?
Herbaceous exponents mesmerizingly fertilizing vast deserts of composed meticulously orchestrated routine.
Habituated happenstance reconceptualizing imagination as if the northern lights were the organic lifeblood of imperceptible ubiquitous transmutation.
Sit back for awhile.
In the woods.
Parc Jean-Drapeau.
Soak it in.
Steep it.
Feel it.
Annihilation moves past devoting yourself to another and anomalously conjures multicultural mystification.
As if it were searching for something it hoped it would never find.
As would an artist.
A detective.
Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Thoroughbreds
A maladjusted teen, recently expelled from boarding school, despises her severe step-father, a man's man who would rather command than converse and instantly turns brutal if you question his decisions.
Another maladjusted teen, a sociopath in fact, is tutored by the aforementioned, although Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) has really been hired to function as only friend and confidant, a well-meaning parental decision, that may vindictively prove fatal.
They don't consider killing each other, but after Amanda (Olivia Cooke) encourages Lily to honestly express her contempt, the dark side descends with maniacally pure unaccountability, the two revelling in their vicious designs with cold calculated temerity, proceeding ever more closely towards their goal, absolutely unconcerned with ethics or fatigue.
Malicious young Sith.
Irreverently resolved.
The planning of the murder works well.
It's difficult to generate sympathy for their adversary (Paul Sparks as Mark) and their plans themselves are rich with cinematic intrigue.
The music and settings add contemplative depth which harrowingly develops a computerized sensitivity thoroughly lacking in emotional connections, apart from mutual desires to talk with others, and a base instinct to punish anyone who restricts freedoms.
There's no well reasoned opposition to their plans, however, except for an isolated moment during which the subject of their murderous rage logically expresses his concerns, after placing them within an historical context.
The douchiness fades for a brief sharply contrasting moment.
Before stubbornly returning.
The sociopath even acknowledges his rationality although that doesn't mean she's not still prepared to savagely orchestrate his demise.
Okay, their both sociopaths.
Mark's likely a sociopath too.
With a more well-reasoned opposition to their plans, some doubts at least, the second half of the film would have been more compelling.
The first skilfully lures you in with a chillingly haunting mix of psycho comedy and dark psychology, like Thoroughbreds was crafted to flip the bird to raunchy teen melodramas like American Pie.
It does this well.
But without the alternative voice during the second half, apart from flailing Tim (Anton Yelchin [what a tragedy]), who seems to have been proactively included to remind adolescents to stay in school, the psycho is laid on too thick, and although it's still well done, a great film, more well rounded argumentation may have transformed it from an indie nightmare into a crucible of malevolence.
They should have gone through with it either way.
If an alternative viewpoint had been substantially introduced, and they hadn't gone through with it, it would have been much lamer, most of its shocking edge having been dulled.
Preferred it to Compulsion (1959).
Another maladjusted teen, a sociopath in fact, is tutored by the aforementioned, although Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) has really been hired to function as only friend and confidant, a well-meaning parental decision, that may vindictively prove fatal.
They don't consider killing each other, but after Amanda (Olivia Cooke) encourages Lily to honestly express her contempt, the dark side descends with maniacally pure unaccountability, the two revelling in their vicious designs with cold calculated temerity, proceeding ever more closely towards their goal, absolutely unconcerned with ethics or fatigue.
Malicious young Sith.
Irreverently resolved.
The planning of the murder works well.
It's difficult to generate sympathy for their adversary (Paul Sparks as Mark) and their plans themselves are rich with cinematic intrigue.
The music and settings add contemplative depth which harrowingly develops a computerized sensitivity thoroughly lacking in emotional connections, apart from mutual desires to talk with others, and a base instinct to punish anyone who restricts freedoms.
There's no well reasoned opposition to their plans, however, except for an isolated moment during which the subject of their murderous rage logically expresses his concerns, after placing them within an historical context.
The douchiness fades for a brief sharply contrasting moment.
Before stubbornly returning.
The sociopath even acknowledges his rationality although that doesn't mean she's not still prepared to savagely orchestrate his demise.
Okay, their both sociopaths.
Mark's likely a sociopath too.
With a more well-reasoned opposition to their plans, some doubts at least, the second half of the film would have been more compelling.
The first skilfully lures you in with a chillingly haunting mix of psycho comedy and dark psychology, like Thoroughbreds was crafted to flip the bird to raunchy teen melodramas like American Pie.
It does this well.
But without the alternative voice during the second half, apart from flailing Tim (Anton Yelchin [what a tragedy]), who seems to have been proactively included to remind adolescents to stay in school, the psycho is laid on too thick, and although it's still well done, a great film, more well rounded argumentation may have transformed it from an indie nightmare into a crucible of malevolence.
They should have gone through with it either way.
If an alternative viewpoint had been substantially introduced, and they hadn't gone through with it, it would have been much lamer, most of its shocking edge having been dulled.
Preferred it to Compulsion (1959).
Friday, March 16, 2018
Black Panther
A hidden civilization, majestically secluded in death-defying mountainous impeccability, technologically adept environmental symbiosis relying on ancient traditions to guide contemporary initiatives, a brilliantly constructed unparalleled postmodern wonder, Africa's colonial history having left it reasonably wary of the unknown, yet a new Wakandan leader has wisely arisen who is concerned with his community's global reputation, and may break with the past to encourage sustainable growth, generously nurtured, and cultivated worldwide.
His community at large.
Leaders, I should say.
One was abandoned and left to fend for himself in the U.S, the other grew up amongst his culture's elite within which he occupied a leading position.
Not to say the latter's life wasn't also filled with demanding challenges, challenges of a different kind, but finding food was likely less of a struggle, and the world's most advanced technological resources were readily available to be used at his discretion.
Yet to become King he must combat those who oppose him with raw brute strength alone, and when his streetwise exceptionally skilled cousin controversially lays down the gauntlet he's been running his entire life, T'Challa's (Chadwick Boseman) imposing prowess can't endure.
He's callously tossed.
Into the healing waters below.
As King, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) seeks to move Wakanda in new directions.
Bitterly aware of how his culture has been marginalized in many domains, he's ready to fight his way to respectability, and use Wakandan technology to achieve vengeful ends.
Once again differing conceptions of how best to pursue communal objectives conflict, as civility is cast aside, and tradition is torn asunder.
Indubitably so.
Age old political stresses.
Wakanda may be a fictional creation, but its realistic metaphorical value can be seen in strong African communities across the globe, communities that continuously prove their cultural worth when often surrounded by savage persecution.
Wakandan seeds are globally developing and flourishing amidst sustained idiotic cultural devaluations, ignorantly born of jealousy and fear, and raised by systematic institutionalized stupidity.
Live well.
Ignore the hate fuelled poison and use wealth acquired to promote and facilitate education and commerce (Boyz n the Hood).
I don't know what to do if outsiders are flooding communities with hard drugs to destroy them.
I don't know what to do if bigots continue to hate even though they watch films like Hidden Figures and love the game of football.
I do know that studying, working hard, and respecting other respectful people is a rewarding way to live, especially if you share what you've l(e)arned with your community.
And if communities do this worldwide you've got a pretty chill and cool planet to live on, raise families on, flourish on.
Thrive on.
It's like Marvel's becoming a global conscience of sorts.
With all that cash, there's no telling how much cool they can do.
Loved Black Panther.
His community at large.
Leaders, I should say.
One was abandoned and left to fend for himself in the U.S, the other grew up amongst his culture's elite within which he occupied a leading position.
Not to say the latter's life wasn't also filled with demanding challenges, challenges of a different kind, but finding food was likely less of a struggle, and the world's most advanced technological resources were readily available to be used at his discretion.
Yet to become King he must combat those who oppose him with raw brute strength alone, and when his streetwise exceptionally skilled cousin controversially lays down the gauntlet he's been running his entire life, T'Challa's (Chadwick Boseman) imposing prowess can't endure.
He's callously tossed.
Into the healing waters below.
As King, Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) seeks to move Wakanda in new directions.
Bitterly aware of how his culture has been marginalized in many domains, he's ready to fight his way to respectability, and use Wakandan technology to achieve vengeful ends.
Once again differing conceptions of how best to pursue communal objectives conflict, as civility is cast aside, and tradition is torn asunder.
Indubitably so.
Age old political stresses.
Wakanda may be a fictional creation, but its realistic metaphorical value can be seen in strong African communities across the globe, communities that continuously prove their cultural worth when often surrounded by savage persecution.
Wakandan seeds are globally developing and flourishing amidst sustained idiotic cultural devaluations, ignorantly born of jealousy and fear, and raised by systematic institutionalized stupidity.
Live well.
Ignore the hate fuelled poison and use wealth acquired to promote and facilitate education and commerce (Boyz n the Hood).
I don't know what to do if outsiders are flooding communities with hard drugs to destroy them.
I don't know what to do if bigots continue to hate even though they watch films like Hidden Figures and love the game of football.
I do know that studying, working hard, and respecting other respectful people is a rewarding way to live, especially if you share what you've l(e)arned with your community.
And if communities do this worldwide you've got a pretty chill and cool planet to live on, raise families on, flourish on.
Thrive on.
It's like Marvel's becoming a global conscience of sorts.
With all that cash, there's no telling how much cool they can do.
Loved Black Panther.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Abacus: Small Enough to Jail
Men and women who go beyond and take risks to help their community get through difficult times, who care enough to try and set hardworking impoverished people up with the loans they need to simplify complicated cashflow problems, people like Thomas Sung, who saw that his community needed a bank, a bank which he then went about creating, as chronicled in Steve James's Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, Sung spent a huge chunk of his life assisting struggling immigrant families who had been rejected elsewhere, innovative families, whose loans rarely defaulted.
That's what statistics presented in the documentary precisely state, although they didn't prevent the Abacus Federal Savings Bank from being indicted for fraud.
After the 2008 financial crisis.
None of the gigantic American banks were tried in the fallout, instead, one small bank from New York's Chinatown was presumed guilty, and the government didn't even have much of a case.
Had crimes been committed at the bank?
Yes.
As the bank grew, Sung and members of his family eventually became executive managers, a reward for years of dedicated service, and their higher ranking positions slowly cut them off from ground level employees, as the years passed by.
They could monitor the bank's activities from higher up, but since they had less direct contact, it became easier for the unscrupulous to cheat them.
And a popular employee named Ken Yu did just that, along with many of the people for whom he secured loans.
As soon as his crimes came to light he was fired, but the damage had already been done.
Were the crimes committed at the bank significantly less serious than those committed by major American financial institutions?
Yes.
And whereas many of the loans approved by those institutions defaulted, only an extremely small statistically significant number of those approved by Abacus did as well.
Was there an attempt to scapegoat a small bank catering to an immigrant community for crimes committed by more formidable opponents?
It certainly looks that way, especially when you consider that none of the bigger banks were prosecuted, none, as in ye olde not a single one.
Who is Thomas Sung if not a first rate American who devoted his entire life, a life filled with countless self-sacrifices, to making the United States even greater?
Damaging his reputation and humiliating him and his family and his community in court was a cowardly act perpetrated by a lack of imagination.
It's as if he was targeted for his integrity by those who had none, The Dark Knight's Harvey Dent factor coming into play.
Fortunately he unyieldingly faced the charges and diligently proved his innocence.
One tough hombre.
An inspirational American.
That's what statistics presented in the documentary precisely state, although they didn't prevent the Abacus Federal Savings Bank from being indicted for fraud.
After the 2008 financial crisis.
None of the gigantic American banks were tried in the fallout, instead, one small bank from New York's Chinatown was presumed guilty, and the government didn't even have much of a case.
Had crimes been committed at the bank?
Yes.
As the bank grew, Sung and members of his family eventually became executive managers, a reward for years of dedicated service, and their higher ranking positions slowly cut them off from ground level employees, as the years passed by.
They could monitor the bank's activities from higher up, but since they had less direct contact, it became easier for the unscrupulous to cheat them.
And a popular employee named Ken Yu did just that, along with many of the people for whom he secured loans.
As soon as his crimes came to light he was fired, but the damage had already been done.
Were the crimes committed at the bank significantly less serious than those committed by major American financial institutions?
Yes.
And whereas many of the loans approved by those institutions defaulted, only an extremely small statistically significant number of those approved by Abacus did as well.
Was there an attempt to scapegoat a small bank catering to an immigrant community for crimes committed by more formidable opponents?
It certainly looks that way, especially when you consider that none of the bigger banks were prosecuted, none, as in ye olde not a single one.
Who is Thomas Sung if not a first rate American who devoted his entire life, a life filled with countless self-sacrifices, to making the United States even greater?
Damaging his reputation and humiliating him and his family and his community in court was a cowardly act perpetrated by a lack of imagination.
It's as if he was targeted for his integrity by those who had none, The Dark Knight's Harvey Dent factor coming into play.
Fortunately he unyieldingly faced the charges and diligently proved his innocence.
One tough hombre.
An inspirational American.
Friday, March 9, 2018
Peter Rabbit
A daring ingenious mischievous rabscallion meets his earnest stuffy fastidious match in Will Gluck's Peter Rabbit, as the new Mr. McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson) grumpily takes up residence in the country, and young Peter (James Corden) still covets his family's stock victuals.
Nepotism has brought about McGregor's downfall, for after a decade of meticulous loyal service at Harrod's toy store, his sought after promotion was given to another.
A layabout relative of the owners in fact.
Yet after suffering a frantic breakdown, communal sympathy for his fellow untitled Brits doesn't take root in his furious consciousness, and rather than sharing his overflowing bounty with Peter and his hungry friends and family, he does everything he can, to keep them locked out.
But Peter is clever.
An intuitive understanding of electricity helps him to paternalistically galvanize McGregor's temper, although the desired therapeutic benefits are overwhelmed by fits of rage.
Nevertheless, McGregor conceals his antipathy for Peter from love interest Bea (Rose Byrne), who cherishes every moment she spends with the bunnies, and paints them adoringly when unconcerned with abstraction.
She likes McGregor.
And Peter knows it.
So after their mutually destructive shenanigans, many of which are excessively violent for children (McGregor has to stab himself with an epipen at one point), explosively fell a tree, which comes crashing through Bea's studio, Peter must decide if his selfish jealousy is worth more than a friend's happiness, after McGregor gives up, and quietly heads back to London.
By coming to terms with his former adversary, Peter outshines the vast majority of his much older contemporaries, and McGregor learns to share his bourgeois abundance, and embrace serendipitous succulence.
Thus, Peter Rabbit sticks it to ultraconservative Brit oligarchs who would still rather see the brightest most advanced commoners flailing in obscurity, than have their years of devoted service justly rewarded.
I suppose it's less confusing than seeing Peter hook up with Bea, even if it metaphorically suggests the British still frown upon bohemian romantic couplings.
Audacious artistry?
There's still work to be done.
The number of jabs delivered at France's expense suggest some French rabbits might show up for the sequel.
Une portée de lapins français?
If there is a sequel.
Who let Peter's allergy tirade into the film?
Bit of a shocker.
In serious bad taste.
Nepotism has brought about McGregor's downfall, for after a decade of meticulous loyal service at Harrod's toy store, his sought after promotion was given to another.
A layabout relative of the owners in fact.
Yet after suffering a frantic breakdown, communal sympathy for his fellow untitled Brits doesn't take root in his furious consciousness, and rather than sharing his overflowing bounty with Peter and his hungry friends and family, he does everything he can, to keep them locked out.
But Peter is clever.
An intuitive understanding of electricity helps him to paternalistically galvanize McGregor's temper, although the desired therapeutic benefits are overwhelmed by fits of rage.
Nevertheless, McGregor conceals his antipathy for Peter from love interest Bea (Rose Byrne), who cherishes every moment she spends with the bunnies, and paints them adoringly when unconcerned with abstraction.
She likes McGregor.
And Peter knows it.
So after their mutually destructive shenanigans, many of which are excessively violent for children (McGregor has to stab himself with an epipen at one point), explosively fell a tree, which comes crashing through Bea's studio, Peter must decide if his selfish jealousy is worth more than a friend's happiness, after McGregor gives up, and quietly heads back to London.
By coming to terms with his former adversary, Peter outshines the vast majority of his much older contemporaries, and McGregor learns to share his bourgeois abundance, and embrace serendipitous succulence.
Thus, Peter Rabbit sticks it to ultraconservative Brit oligarchs who would still rather see the brightest most advanced commoners flailing in obscurity, than have their years of devoted service justly rewarded.
I suppose it's less confusing than seeing Peter hook up with Bea, even if it metaphorically suggests the British still frown upon bohemian romantic couplings.
Audacious artistry?
There's still work to be done.
The number of jabs delivered at France's expense suggest some French rabbits might show up for the sequel.
Une portée de lapins français?
If there is a sequel.
Who let Peter's allergy tirade into the film?
Bit of a shocker.
In serious bad taste.
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