Spy

Feet stompin' fist poundin' head boppin' finesse, dodgin' unlodgin', deke death's caress, the test swerving strenuous random incisions, athletic acumen, jocose renditions.

Cro-Magnon.

I wasn't expecting Spy to be so consistently funny.

Apart from the first 15 minutes or so, the comedy cleverly entertains, a study in rapid-fire instantaneous comebacks, mellifluous mouthpieces, agilely exchanging feints.

Channeling Archer.

It follows the emergence of a multidimensional spy, Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy), as she leaves command headquarters and heads into the field for the first time.

She's the only one capable of successfully completing the mission because her organization's adversaries are familiar with all of their active agents.

Rick Ford (Jason Statham) doesn't trust her and hilariously errs critically, his outlandish tales providing ludicrous added depth, hardboiled yet klutzy, stumbling the whole way through.

Casting by Zsolt Csutak.

Modestly audacious, Spy blends the wholesome and the crude to frenetically fry and sensationally sizzle.

Cloaked like a reborn marbled masquerade, it excels at enlivening, while mischievously poking fun at gender.

Heartfelt.

Phoenix

Resplendent devoted unassuming submission, longing to be lovingly reunited with her heart's treasured panacea, her horizons leavened after having survived an incomparable hell, having survived to live once more, to return home, to rebuild.

World War Two has left her former life in ruins, a mad state of affairs, and after fortunate reconstructive surgery, her husband can no longer recognize her.

She plays it safe, overflowing with desperate joy, which she attempts to express, patiently waiting for the ecstatic moment of truth.

But he's a boor, and she can't accept it, a stubborn fool who refuses to listen, to logic, to reason, providing insights into the gender discriminations that likely played a part in lobbying for the war's eruption, played a part, in setting the world on fire.

A faithful information professional spiritedly stands by her side, but she's too familiar with the facts, and realizes they're beyond forgiveness.

She succumbs to the horror.

The war claiming yet another victim.

Christian Petzold's Phoenix is well done, a dark sombre juxtaposition of innocence and cowardice gracefully moving towards an abysmal redemption, the beginnings of a future, previously unbeknownst.

It's ending is exactly what I was looking for from Ex Machina and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, powerful closure, constitutional in its rebirth.

I had no sympathy for the husband who turned quisling when he could have countered.

But who knows what one would do amidst such savagery?

Death seems preferable.

Love & Mercy

Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy takes a touching look at gentle brilliance and the jealousy it unwittingly incites, the vindictive and the voracious perched to pounce, asserting themselves through dismissive abrasive cynicism.

Preying on the gifted.

The film romanticizes Brian Wilson's (John Cusack/Paul Dano) stealth, his steady patient creative orchestrations, the insights, the voices, the exacting yet understanding care playfully attached to his work, the fun humble spontaneous personality that nurtured love in those that could see his beauty, childlike wonder and awe maturely mastered to crystallize ecstatic movements, multifaceted maestro, coy imaginative visionary.

He faces three main challenges in his personal life, one that isn't too serious, another Beach Boy trying to (boringly) keep things simple, to move away from the experimental yet relatable path his force was cultivating (Brian writes everything so it's easy for him to ignore him although he becomes increasingly hostile), his father, who can't accept his exceptional success, who goes out of his way to brutally put him down, thinking he's regained control of the family by doing so, he can't let go, and a psychiatrist who traps him in a hellhole, controlling every aspect of his life, treating him like a spoiled two-year-old child, as opposed to a musical manifest.

There's a lot of pressure when it comes time for him to write.

A loving woman, Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), then enters his life and seeks to turn things around.

The legalities are daunting.

But she's full of angelic zeal.

It's a solid film, entertainingly profound, smoothly mixing the provocative and the popular, paying tribute to Wilson's legend in both form and content.

Examining his trials, his genius, his humanity, elevating the individual, critiquing the callous and the cumbersome.

He wrote everything.

He added layers upon layers of complementary sounds.

His genius still shines like seductive sweltering serenity.

And he was rewarded with contempt and isolation because of a mental illness.

That makes no sense.

None at all.

*I'm no genius, but I always did well in school when I applied myself and like what I come up with a lot of the time.

Although there's always room for improvement.

It's cheesy, but the trick to avoiding the destructive influences of jealousy is to love what you have, what you're doing, while still looking to change and grow, at different speeds, governed by circumstance, and be happy when you see that your friends like what they're doing too.

Works for me most of the time anyways.

Popsicles.

Jurassic World

The miraculous theme park envisioned by John Hammond has become a reality, and profits are steady, but their future is theoretically in jeopardy, or they at least may not continue to increase, hence, a new carnivorous force of immaculate magnetism is required, the product, the indominus rex, a creature so malevolent it makes the fearsome tyrannosaurus look like a fluffy pillow, bred to dominate, severely shackled.

But it's highly intelligent and soon tricks its creators into setting it free, proceeding to rampage thereafter, as hundreds of tourists unsuspectingly stride.

Enter one Owen (Chris Pratt), adventurous pulsar, intimately aware of danger, his knowledge essential, his strategies, ignored.

His relationship with the velociraptors he trains forges the film's ethos in relation to the ways in which it examines the phenomenon of control.

He maintains a respectful attitude, looking at their relationship symbiotically, he controls aspects of their dynamic but only because he respects the team, and treats it with corresponding assertive humility.

He's indirectly compared with Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan), who also finds freedom in letting go, a constructive truth in my opinion, variations on a theme, but he made the mistake of authorizing the indominus's creation without applying either oversight or foresight, for which he pays an incendiary penalty.

Too much progress.

You see a number of the park's features throughout and wonder how its profits could ever be called into question.

It looks mind-blowingly amazing.

How driving a spherical vehicle through a field of dinosaurs could ever become boring doesn't make sense to me.

Even the petting zoo could never become boring.

But future profits are called into question and the aforementioned apex predator is the solution, treated with foolhardy disrespect, and then hunted as it threatens their very existence.

Bad decision.

Small aggressive dogs can be difficult to control.

But aside from the appealing critique of the poor decisions that can be made when obsessing about profits that are already stable, and team leaders who apply too much or too little oversight to their vitalities without taking into consideration the agencies of their networks, found in Jurassic World, it's generally a chaotic enough blockbuster, romance blooming amidst the carnage, reckless youth suddenly coming of age.

B.D. Wong (Dr. Henry Wu) makes a welcome reappearance in the franchise; I always wondered what happened to him in the original.

My favourite character was Lowery (Jake Johnson), who likes to think of his working space "as a living system, with just enough stability to keep it from collapsing into anarchy." 

Nice line.

There are some other nice lines.

Too much oversight is provided by Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), who wants to turn Owen's velociraptor team into a militaristic fighting force. 

His ideas are fast-tracked. 

Menacing progressions are critiqued, although their devastations develop character.

Those that survive anyway. 

Aloft

Isolated helpless superstitious promise, the only hope for a mother's incurable child resting in the hands of a weathered witch doctor, desperation, the unknown, an attempt to reach into wild undiscovered mystic knowledge potentially hosting scientific truth/s, cures, poetic miracles, gifts, afflictions, a reliance upon the yet to be explained medical hardware built into environmental consciousnesses, humanistic crucibles, penicillin in a beam of light, tactile chemotherapy, the mother refuses to believe only to find she has what it takes, tragedy tearing her family apart, a reluctant, crippling, emotional commitment.

To belief.

Trust.

The event's shocks leave her other son permanently withdrawn, difficult but stable, cultivating an archaic art.

The consequences of a devastating decision lay waiting North of 60, forlorn forgiveness, buried beneath the ice.

It's an incredibly dark film, Claudia Llosa's Aloft.

Well done though.

A depressing desperate joyless aesthetic meticulously matriculated like the resin of pure hopelessness.

Not very cheery.

Well acted, Jennifer Connelly (Nana Kunning) and Cillian Murphy (Ivan) given more room to manoeuvre than I'm accustomed to seeing, not that I've seen all their films.

Well structured.

It challenges you to believe or condemn, take a side, consider, which is always a huge risk, commendable in its execution.

I don't deny the existence of miracles, things that can't be explained.

I do believe they can't be explained because our knowledge still lacks the means to comprehend them however.

It may, always.

Trying to intuitively reproduce them is a sketchy calling.

They can't be explained.

That's why they're so fascinating.

Motivating.

The Age of Adaline

Coyly acquiescing to time passing, chronicling cultural rhapsodies like timid mellow echoes, epochs merging and diverging like predetermined burgeoned whiplash, photo luminescent filaments, spurned inchoate cracks, immortality strikes in The Age of Adaline, and with it comes frayed responsibilities, the importance of remaining impersonal, hesitant refusals to love.

Aloof highlander.

She can't get close, watch while others develop, like physically disinclined incandescence, engaged in lifelong learning, observant, patient, withdrawn.

But a suitor emerges who will not yield, and temptation entices her dormant romantic desires.

Euphoria exfoliates before fate steps in, a cosmic interpersonal strike, socializing sequestered surveillances, interdisciplinary constructs, radiance mesmerized in bloom.

Like father like son.

Maddening immersed fraternities.

A beautiful film, saliently capturing the awestruck, the in/visible, historically intensifying inflamed conjugal passions, a universal library, modesty in timeless curation.

I thought it was odd that the FBI eventually stopped searching for Adaline (Blake Lively), because it would have been so easy to find her by following her daughter, although, in hindsight, continuing with that plot thread would have added an irritating sense of oppression, whose lingering aftershocks haunt the film regardless, as it wisely focuses on romance, delicately arranging an iridescent jaunty bouquet, from securely self-imposed isolation.

Distant, tragic, torn.

Good decision.

Une nouvelle amie (The New Girlfriend)

A loved one passes, leaving distressed feelings of emptiness in her wake, both her best friend and husband struggling to cope, united one afternoon by an accidental revelation.

Puritan codes of conduct initially confuse grieving Claire (Anaïs Demoustier), who's somewhat shocked by her sudden discovery.

But curiosity and understanding soon replace her dismissive state, as she forges a playful friendship with David (Romain Duris), and the two embrace the wonders of exploratory gender identification.

Mischievously masquerading, prim intimacies sewn.

Une nouvelle amie (The New Girlfriend) seeks to expand consciousness, to normalize what is often regarded as a taboo subject.

I don't think it's taboo, but many still do, and the film recognizes this peculiarity through the expression of Claire's reservations, as mentioned previously, and the odd looks they receive au centre-ville.

Her husband has no reservations however, and represents the chill inclusive bourgeois mindset, a normalizing force in the film, even if he does make awkward statistical observations.

The opening moments reminded me of Mommy, and I wonder if Ozon was giving a nod to Xavier Dolan.

The film struggles for the next 45 minutes or so though, choppy editing covering too much subject matter in too little a space of time, like you're watching a film on Sunday afternoon in 1987, until Claire and David take a trip to the countryside, after which it opens up and excels, although the accident near the end was a bit overdone.

I think it's a device filmmakers use when trying to appeal to both sides of the political spectrum when investigating controversial material that shouldn't be controversial.

The exploration appeals to the left.

Negative outcomes appeal to the right.

That's somewhat too basic.

Still, what a world, what a world.

Welcome to Me

Individualized destabilizing pent-up regressive rage, vanity spiked with lavish tear-jerks, revenge, pretence, Sardaukar, like white water rafting while having an enema, serendipitously skydiving into reckless raw sewage, a tropical vacation during a hurricane, horseback riding through an excrement infused mine field, or effervescent diarrhea, stuck in the washroom with the runs for 90 minutes with a good book after having drank a glass of Johnnie Walker Red, laughing your ass off while occasionally glancing at what's written on the walls, it's well done, solid dark comedy, poignant pointless improvised puttering, septic serenity, caw, caw, caw.

86 million squandered insanity.

There's a raw sense of guiltless innocence that destructively vibrates like a ludic chaotic cello, devoid of any constructive purpose, strict subjectivism, too independently inclined.

Like Immortan Joe, Alice (Kristen Wiig) rules, although her domain isn't post-apocalyptic, yet remains symptomatic of what leads to Fury Road.

Welcome to Me isn't hastily thrown together, they took their time to apply added depth, simultaneously enthusiastic and ghastly, it smoothly maintains its aesthetic the whole way through.

Reminiscent of World's Greatest Dad.

Possibly funded by the pharmaceutical lobby.

Decadence.

Mega Maid.  

Poltergeist

I know I saw the original Poltergeist film, starring coach Craig T. Nelson, a bunch of times when I was a kid, and I'm not a kid now, so comparing my youthful impressions to those I currently prescribe isn't a viable option, but there was one scene from the original that still sticks out, near the end, when a hallway is featured and then its length hauntingly extends to augment the sense of desperation, there's nothing like that in the new film, nothing that memorable, although if I had been 8 while watching it I might have found it more shocking, more real.

I may have also found it not so shocking.

There seems to be a formula that's being followed here, which is adhered to too strictly, like they have i's to dot and t's to cross rather than innovations to disseminate and paradigms to shift.

They just seemed to spend more time building up tension in the original, it's patiently disorienting, which explains the switch from otherworldly supernatural investigator Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) to rough and tumble Carrigan Burke (Jared Harris), the best feature of the film, due to his comic exchanges with glasses wearing ex-wife Dr. Brooke Powell (Jane Adams), and charismatic audacity, like he's running for 1,500 yards a season, which suggests that contemporary horror is more immediate than that dispensed in the 1980s, although I don't watch enough mass produced contemporary horror films to be able to make that claim with legitimate certainty.

It's a tough claim to make with legitimate certainty no matter how many horror films you watch.

That's what makes making such claims so much fun.

The other aspect of the film that I liked was its focus on the struggles of middle-class American families, represented by the Bowens, credit card debts without regret, no other choice, the poltergeists functioning like manufactured socioeconomic pressures, subconsciously harrowing burdensome manifestations.

They also wrapped up this Poltergeist film too quickly, which fits with what I'm saying, one of the strengths of the original being the shattered sense of calm explosively annihilated in the end.

Perhaps it was a warning that bourgeois economic prosperity was about to start facing tough times in America?

A precursor to the first Terminator film.

It probably wasn't that.

I like that the new Poltergeist film didn't duplicate the original's ending, but would have liked to have seen it replaced with something different.

They just abruptly end it.

Bivouacs.

Although it has some solid characters and themes, I remain loyal to the original.

The original sequels weren't that great though.

The new Poltergeist 2 could exponentially improve on The Other Side.