Les mauvaises herbes (Bad Seeds)

An unlikely trio of mismatched screw-ups ironically discovers health and well-being after one of them forces the other two to help him cultivate his marijuana crop, alone in isolation, on a rural Québecois farm.

The low down.

Simon (Gilles Renaud) has an estranged son with whom he wishes to make amends by leaving him land after he dies. He's been hired by bikers to grow weed to make this dream a reality.

Jacques (Alexis Martin) has crippling gambling debts due to an uncontrollable slot machine addiction and although he lives the life of a cultured actor, has little knowledge of rough impoverished mannerisms.

Francesca (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) is much younger than Simon and Jacques and prone to passionate outbursts of justifiable rage. She's lesbian and her parents no longer talk to her and she has trouble relating to others. Her youth dynamically contrasts Jacques and Simon's odd older couple and the film is at its best when her wrath is unleashed.

Les mauvaises herbes (Bad Seeds) is like watching your favourite sports team struggle to win a game. In the end, victory is achieved, and some outstanding plays are made, but there's a fumble here and there, blown coverage, a break away, 12% shooting for half a quarter, a run walked in, calico.

It unreels with two sensibilities, one naive, innocent, and unsuspecting, the other harsh, vindictive, and punitive, like its three principal characters, misfits who haven't had the best of luck (their innocence has led to harsh reprisals which in turn has caused them to be somewhat harsh when they aren't seduced by naivety).

It's funny at times, the introduction of the barn for instance, or Jacques running through the countryside dressed like a French aristocrat, but stalls at points, especially when Simon and Francesca start developing their bond, or when Jacques and Simon are initially juxtaposed (Renaud and Martin don't have much chemistry[Martinez compensates]).

Eventually, after Simon becomes Francesca's surrogate father, and she his lost child, it does work, pulls at the heartstrings without seeming contrived, but the process of getting there has some hiccups, like a running game that doesn't take off till the 4th quarter.

The two sensibilities are sharply contrasted when thug Patenaude (Luc Picard) comes to collect his debts. He's in the barn with Simon searching for Jacques and at first it's too light, he doesn't seem threatening, but then after discovering him hiding beneath a table, it takes a wicked turn and is suddenly frightening, the film becoming more dramatic thereafter.

I still don't see why Patenaude drove the stolen snow mobile over the ice instead of hitting the road, but that's just me.

Jacques makes huge plays in the film's final moments, generating an affective harsh innocence.

He courageously applies his acting skills to the real world to make a deal with bikers before meeting Simon's son (Patrick Hivon as Alexandre).

Some of it comes up short, but Les mauvaises herbes still thoughtfully provides its misfits with room to gently or furiously explain themselves, even Patenaude, its tender moments like spoonfuls of cookie dough, its fury like animated hellspawn.

It blends the immiscible with bizarro good cheer while detonating its intersections with genuine self-righteousness, in the oddest of situations, bad attitudes slowly fading.

There's also a great shot of falling snow.

El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent)

Serpentine seductions, recoiled recollections, imposed civilization, the Amazon, stratus immemorial.

A German ethnologist (Jan Bijvoet as as Theodor Koch-Grunberg) falls ill in the jungle and only one man knows the plant that can cure him.

He's reluctant to help however due to the ways in which Europeans have invaded and ravaged his lands.

Indigenous knowledge, they hadn't created firearms or printing presses, but their wisest knew everything about the land, the creatures and plants and seasonal harmonies, symbiotic symmetries, psychoencyclopedic utility, what to use and what not to use, how to co-exist for millennia, neither stewards nor supplicants, living with nature as one.

From their point of view, European culture may have resembled a serpent, a massive anaconda, sanctimoniously suffocating their people, with intent monstrous gluttony.

From that of the European, the serpent may have been symbolized by the Amazon river itself, terrifyingly labyrinthine, spiritual yet unaware of the Christian God.

These inadequate reflections haunt Theodor and Karamakate's (Nilbio Torres and Antonio Bolivar) hostile interactions as a Christianized Indigenous person (Yauenkü Migue as Manduca) mediates, fully aware of rubber plantation horrors, with the scars on his back to prove it.

There's a powerful scene where a crippled Indigenous rubber labourer begs to die after he's discovered alone by them, their dialogue affecting divergent moralities, as acculturation marches on.

The three travel through the jungle in search of a sacred plant (yakruna) and Karamakate's lost people whom he thought were dead, encountering the destructive path of progress along the way.

Old and new worlds clash as they struggle to forge an understanding, another plot following their path decades later, as a young admirer of Koch-Grunberg's work enlists Karamakate's aid to find yakruna after having read Theodor's diaries.

Throughout this plot thread, Karamakate worries that he's become a chullachaqui, an empty shell, a void, as his memories slowly start to return.

El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent) values environmental wisdom, culture, immersion, gradually heightening colonialist tensions, as they move closer and closer toward medicinal convalescence.

Progress itself is Ciro Guerra's unwilling target, as the dark side of rapid commercial expansion clashes with the remnants of holistic worlds.

A cautious pace lures you into the narrative and lets its unveilings speak for themselves, while mesmerizingly intuiting dreamlike fascination and cultivated dread, a wild consciousness, harnessed, revitalized, exclaimed.

What a world it must have been.

The moon and the sun coaxed interactive eternity.

Blessed embowered succulence.

Transcendent joyful sorrow.

Concussion

Knowledge can be dangerous.

Scientific truths can shatter cultural conceptions with unpalatable clarity, the digestibility of which can be shockingly disorienting, necessities altruistically spiced to inaugurate alternative conventions, innocently diagnosing with undeniable evidence based cohesion.

The relationship between such truths and the world of commerce is often fraught with antagonism, bees dying, artificial dyes triggering hyperactivity, polarized further by differing religious convictions, journalists debating pros and cons, politicians commentating and legislating, the propriety of the popular, late breaking news.

There's nothing like NFL Football.

There's no other league that compares in terms of ambitious astonishment and electric excitement, of epic contrasts, of sheer will and impeccability.

Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith), an exceptionally educated man, was born in Nigeria, and didn't know that the NFL was the vigorous pulse of the sporting United States after moving there.

Even if he had known, it wouldn't have stopped him from discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition acquired from severe head trauma that chokes the brain and leaves its victims incapacitated for life.

A brilliant man, he published his results hoping to change the NFL for the better, to provide players with more knowledge so that they could be more aware of the game's dangers, and encourage the league to conduct further research to find ways to take better care of its athletes.

The league responded oddly, worried that knowledge would harm future prospects, and I say oddly because they must have been aware that they were the most popular sport nationwide, the toughest and most dynamic, and could therefore take a slight hit to their image to support player safety.

But even the seemingly invincible worry about their mortality, and don't always make the decisions you would expect them to given their unprecedented success.

Concussion rationally presents Dr. Omalu's case and coherently proceeds to validate his work.

It celebrates the NFL and its players, recognizing its achievements while striving to help them achieve more. It's neither too sentimental nor too self-righteous and uses a trio of strong individuals (Omalu, Alec Baldwin as Dr. Julian Bailes, Albert Brooks as Dr. Cyril Wecht) who took serious risks to convincingly tell its story.

Smith delivers an outstanding performance, as do Brooks and Baldwin. I've never seen this character from Smith before and it's nice to see him diversifying his tenacity.

I don't see how you take big hits out of the game. If someone has the ball and they're trying to score and you don't hit them hard enough they will score and your team might lose.

There are only 16 games in an NFL season and each one is critical.

The ways in which the defensive and offensive lines interact can't change much either.

Penalties and fines for unnecessary or flagrantly violent excesses could perhaps be tougher, especially for repeat offenders.

The NFL is the toughest sport out there, although the NHL is also quite tough and has an 82 game season, with the strongest athletes who endure the most significant punishments.

If a player thinks that his future may be in jeopardy because he has received repeated blows to the head, it's a tough decision to retire when he could possibly play for 5 or 6 more multi-million dollar years.

There shouldn't be a stigma attached to choosing to retire should such a player choose to do so due to multiple head injuries.

That's one way perhaps to prevent some of the tragedies revealed in Concussion, recognizing that not only do you have to be extremely tough to play in the NFL, but that you also have to be extremely tough to walk away from the game.

A community of athletes that respects such a point prospers inasmuch as it upholds tough decisions made by its members while remembering the contributions they emphatically made to their teams.

Enduring the pain.

Any given Sunday.

Triple 9

A system established to maintain law and order unable to fascinate despondent impoverished crime, unemployment and ethnocentricity leaving generations mired in conflict, comatose, incendiary lesions, verbosely segregating consensus.

Violence and combat, strict hierarchical discipline, the police and the gangs aware of respective rubrics, alcohol and drugs lubricating the malaise.

A darkness, the light shining through with jaded poignancy, a vague uncompromising chaotic fluency masterfully stylizing Triple 9's streetwise ambivalence, audience and characters alike captivatingly lost in the foundationless congestion, wherein knowledge contends with principle, loyalty confides through betrayal, a job well done receives no recompense, longings to escape clash with professional competencies, the coerced crushed and pessimistic, the dedicated withdrawn yet conscientious, financial versus spiritual freedom, skilfully blended in enticing multidimensional haze.

One last job.

A covert team including law enforcement personnel forced to take it.

Triple 9's diverse, its complicated script examining international and local crime with members of the aforementioned team playing different roles for opposing sides.

Multiple plot threads with minor characters make lasting impressions thanks to the clever yet chill synthesis of performance, script, editing and direction.

It doesn't have to make statements about why a less violent sociopolitical climate would be more beneficial, it lets its hardboiled yet relatable characters and situations speak ethical volumes, progression in presentation, dynamic sociocultural c(l)ues.

Like Mad Max: Fury Road, there's no centre of attention, no leading role(s), instead it capably assembles more than a dozen strong actors and gives them room to construct a team, thereby formally advocating for inclusivity by demonstrating how reliable a group of self-sacrificing multiracial teammates can be.

Neither sentimental nor sensational.

Love the John Hillcoat.

Mei rén yú (The Mermaid)

A trillion dollar corporation has purchased land off China's coast and placed invasive devices within the surrounding oceanic depths to dissuade dolphins from congregating at play.

However, unbeknownst to them, mermaids and an octopus-person also called said shores home, and have somehow found a way to locate the offending plutocrat.

Having infiltrated one of his exclusive soirées, the unimaginable hybridly heartbeats, as the plutocrat in question is starstruckly enamoured with his would-be mermaid assassin.

Both octopus-person and a wealthy covetous bombshell are none too happy with the ensuing romance, and do everything they can, to hasten its bitter ruin.

Riddle me tryst.

If the mermaids are thought of as representing elephants or lions or the mighty panda, then proactive progressions can be initiated utilizing the mischievously ludicrous reels of Stephen Chow's bizarro Mei rén yú (The Mermaid).

For in its final moments, scientists rush in, armed to the teeth, to brutally force the ancient luminaries to heel (see Farley Mowat's Sea of Slaughter).

To, fluke.

Barraging them with machine gun fire, many of the endangered clan are lost, the others forced to flee to more hospitable domains.

From time to time, I read about the markets established within China for things like bear paw soup and tiger bone wine, and that China's bourgeoise, with their corresponding disposable incomes, is now roughly the size of the United States.

Europe and North America made significant efforts (while coming up short) to stop the rapacious killing of rhinos, lions, elephants, and endangered bears when scientific research demonstrated that their populations could not bounce back from continued sustained ravenous hunting.

Such populations remain low but could also remain stable if steps are taken to crush the markets facilitating their extinctions.

I plead with the people of China, stop the systematic slaughter of exotic animal populations. They deserve to live and thrive upon this planet just as much as we do, and if we can take steps to ensure their continuing survival we should take them immediately.

With a population as large as China's with vast economic resources at its disposal and cultural traditions that encourage the killing of elephants and rhinos etc., beings such as these don't stand a chance, unless powerful concerned movements are created or enhanced to save them.

I'm hoping these animals will always continue to exist, that the world will always be populated by these majestic incomparable crucial wild beasts.

As do millions of people in China I imagine.

Make it happen!

There are plenty of other ways to earn a living.

The Lady in the Van

Lickety-script, parlourized parlay, respective reflections respondents embrayed, a guest, a neighbour, interrupting the labour, coaching a fabler, ultrasounding enabler.

The savour.

A lady moves in in her van, parking on the street then in the driveway, a compassionate suburb, she becomes a distinct curiosity, troubled yet pluminescent, in her wayward harmless upbraid.

Alright, there's this writer who talks to himself, splits it between literary and day-to-day preoccupations, the imaginative side earning the scratch, the other forced to handle bills, conversation, too sympathetic to turn the lady away, too conflicted to stop thinking he should, writing the story as it unreels, thought unified in action.

It works, fussy yet comfortable comedic communal kerfuffles, both characters lost in transition diversifying their conditions to mutually suspend, mystery driving Alex Jennings (Alan Bennett) to understand Miss Shepherd's (Maggie Smith) past, tragedy romantically polishing its unveiling.

Warmhearted comedy you know, strong communities, not so obsessed with sleaze, such obsessions perhaps indicating decadence, yet still, often, hilarious.

I like these stories that write themselves without trumping everything up to exercise extreme bravado.

It does drag for 15 minutes or so but then picks up and limberly compensates.

Heart, it's great to see films with heart that aren't tearjerkingly sentimental, or, if they are like that, say in the final moments, they at least recognize such indulgences with ecstatic free-spirited self-deprecating smarm.

Gradually revealing Shepherd's past while contrasting it with current circumstances generally keeps the pace moving at a productive contemplative putter.

Assembling this and that.

Rascals.

A film that's being written while it unreels that can't get past the first 5 minutes due to all the conflicting voices might work.

It's probably been done.

A Perfect Day

The wild, the unknown, a war torn zone suffering the ravages of ethnocentric sterility walking the line between recovery and recidivism as peace talks rapidly progress.

A simple plan to find some rope and remove a dead body from a well, thereby providing the thirsty local populace with a free water supply, is bogged down in bureaucratic constipation while an independent team asserts their variability.

Mines, prejudices, flags, haunting uncertainties destabilizing the region.

But some citizens still know how to laugh.

Which influences A Perfect Day too seriously, as it comes across more like a buddy comedy than an illustration of bitter violence, like an episode from the 10th season of M*A*S*H, or friends sitting around a campfire having happy-go-lucky conversations while war pejoratively rages.

I like the characters, the situations, notably the cows who know how to navigate around land mines, but the hokey dialogue and purposive posturing (there's always a point someone's trying to make) wears thin after 15 minutes, or seconds, depending on your capacity to forgive.

It does stick it to overarching pretensions and legalistic technicalities that prevent people from doing simple things to achieve important goals, too many by-the-book applications occasionally hindering generally progressive initiatives.

But it's too much like The Monuments Men or what I imagine Whiskey Tango Foxtrot will be like (best title I've seen in years), local horrors eclipsed by cute and cuddly outsider shenanigans insufficiently solemnizing the inherent gravity of conflict, like showing up to play in the NFL without wearing pads, a warm fuzzy giraffe, not an omnivorous black bear.  

Hail, Caesar!

Film production, the magnification of dreams and ambitions, pluralizing heroism and gallantry with clear and precise occasionally ambiguous envisioned dexterity, precipices and pageants promulgating objectivity and sentiment with equally concise provocations, the contemporary and the historical rivetingly aligned, mischievously extracting, the im/pertinence of our times.

A film set.

A star.

A gathering of observers. 

Identity in flux.

Hail, Caesar! converses with Trumbo, a comedic counterpoint to its tragic pen, wherein communists have infiltrated Hollywood and are engaged in criminal activities directly undertaken to support the Soviet Union, only a hardboiled behind-the-scenes gruff steady executive and his up-and-coming Western foil standing in their way, laughs consistently produced amidst the touching absurdity, which seriously suggests it's inherently ridiculous, without failing to shrewdly present itself as a matter of unconcerned dazzle, denoted connotations covertly overted, not the Coen Brothers best comic material but it passes, Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum) and his little dog, Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), defender of the dialectic.

It's a compelling tool, this, dialectic, oppositions and syntheses you know, but using it to predict the future with dispassionate inevitability is where it errs, the end of history functioning like a religious utopia (a 19th century form fused with secular content) which foolishly casts out history and religion, people are never going to stop remembering the past or believing in the fantastic, and attempts to laud a future which does so is a naive waste of critical resources.

Although, I suppose, in my mediocre understanding of the concept, in an egalitarian society things are, oddly enough, much more equal, and due to the equality of opportunity and resources people would be less willing to bear grudges, and less concerned with what happened hundreds of years ago, because they aren't labouring at all times for peanuts, make things more equal, more comfortable, and such grudges could decrease in severity because it's easier to let go of a grudge when you have free time and a disposable income, things to do, goods to acquire.

It's kind of like a generational thing though, if that theory is still taken seriously (it should be), new generations rebelliously critiquing whatever happens to be the norm, movements generated by boredom, generations growing up in a culture based on equality still seeking to define themselves by rallying against the system, even if it was that system that gave them the opportunity to rally against it, its opposite having no such recourse, taking it apart so their grandchildren can rebuild it.

I don't think you can eliminate the desire to change things and stand out through change no matter how perfect a system you create unless you can somehow materialize the affects of the adversarial without promoting stagnation and decay.

Sports do this well.

But the dialectic in terms of momentary observation, observances of historical mutations, brief narrative evaluations rather than definitive prognostications, is a constructive tool, fun to play with, there are plenty of oppositions out there to note, many of which haven't been thought up to strategically condition the future.

Maybe they should have been, maybe not, doesn't change my thoughts that Hail, Caesar! is funny and worth seeing, a lighthearted yet brash take on life, a minor film in the Coen Brothers's oeuvre. 

With Clancy Brown (Gracchus), Robert Picardo (Rabbi), Wayne Knight (Lurking Extra #1), Dolph Lundgren (Submarine Commander), Patrick Fischler (Communist Writer #2), and Christopher Lambert (Arne Seslum).

Where to Invade Next

Not as hard-hitting as some of Michael Moore's other documentaries, Where to Invade Next still reverberates with conscientious humble social democratic charm, as he invades Europe and Tunisia in search of reforms to bring back home.

He makes it clear early on that he's looking for flowers, not weeds, so the film generally overlooks postmodern day European civil unrest, to its advantage, its progressive assemblage of socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and sociocultural innovations blossoming within the cheeky comedic collage, modest comparisons with corresponding realities in the U.S understated in their unsettling disparities.

Some of the bewildering institutional civilities he shares include the lunch breaks and vacation times enjoyed by many Italian workers, the healthy options available daily at an average school cafeteria in France, conversations with the thrivingly productive German middle-class, interviews with facilitators of learning in Finland who have managed to create the world's no.1 educational system by eliminating homework, the accessibility of Slovenian higher education, differing attitudes regarding the treatment of convicts in Norway, the decriminalization of marijuana in Portugal, and the ways in which women are making significant and progressive impacts in Iceland and Tunisia.

He points out how Iceland prosecuted members of its financial sector after the 2008 crisis.

How the elimination of private schools brings people together throughout life by encouraging the growth of friendships between persons from different economic backgrounds by having them attend school with one another where they playfully learn that they're really not that different from an early age.

How the only financial institution in Iceland to survive the economic crisis was run by women.

How Italian managers and owners don't mind paying their workers more because they care about the health and quality of their lives.

How German workers often make up significant portions of German boards of directors because their culture recognizes the impacts workers make and genuinely respects them as a humanistic economic competence.

How Norway took the punishment out of its rehabilitation centres (prisons) to teach its inmates how to live a respectable life rather than resolutely humiliating them for living a problematic one.

After viewing a film about rehabilitative techniques years ago, and trying to understand why a culture wouldn't punish violent criminals severely, it occurred to me that if you live a desperate life, surrounded by desperate people who can't find good jobs and have been scraping by living meagre paycheque to paycheque for years, pissed-off because they never get anywhere, filled with anger, while watching images of how wonderful it is to be wealthy on television and in films regularly, that violence becomes normal, that if you've never known calm or respect of friendship and you have to push back all the time to avoid being abused, then a criminal justice system that serves to punish you severely if your actions become criminal only serves to replicate the miserable situation you were pushing back against to begin with, replaying the role of the oppressor, and one which suddenly treats you with respect, teaches you to be calm, respectful, and to make friends, does a better job at preparing you to be civil, a break from the ubiquitous bedlam, especially if society doesn't dismissively exclude you after your release.

And takes steps to reduce the poverty that creates such desperation by sincerely caring for its fellow citizens as part of its civil responsibilities.

One of my favourite features from Where to Invade Next is Moore's interview style, his questions, where he warmly asks various people from different countries where their cultures came up with the ideas for their reforms and they continuously answer, the United States of America.

The United States is therefore making Europe and Tunisia much nicer places to live, where people aren't excluded for having a conscience and can enjoy a productive work/life balance.

Perhaps it's time, as Moore consistently suggests, to bring some of these ideas back home?

Donald Trump will not bring these ideas home; it's superhighly doubtful anyways.

His public persona has been crafted by firing people, he's openly racist, has no political experience, and reacts abrasively to criticism.

Is this the person you want controlling the world's largest military?

No, no it is not.

Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders will also fight ISIL and make terrorists pay.

They'll also likely take steps to truly make the United States the greatest country in the world again, the country Michael Moore hopes it can be, a great country for someone from any cultural background, a great country, for everyone.

You shouldn't have to be excessively wealthy to have a voice, to take a vacation, to speak freely, if you live in a democratic country that values human rights.

Thinking as in individual is important. It's important to develop your own specific way of living to gain inner-strength and learn to confidently express yourself.

But thinking as a member of a group is important as well. If you truly want reform, if you want to bring the things Michael Moore presents in Where to Invade Next back home to the United States, you need to think collectively and take collective action.

A collective composed of strong individuals can achieve great things with someone like Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders at the helm.

High-paying jobs and 40 hour work weeks are not bad things. Having more time to spend with your family is not a bad thing. Vacation time to relax during the Summer is wonderful. Atmospheres of mutual respect promote well-being.

In the greatest country in the world, these things should be omnipresent, these things, should be everywhere, not simply reserved for an exclusive elite, some of whom oddly don't care about the plight of their fellow citizens, but readily available for each and every American.

Why not seek to enjoy your life outside of work, even at work, when a working day isn't that serious?

Why be at each other's throats constantly?

That's no way to individually live.

That's no way to collectively progress.

You do have to work hard at work, your company has to turn a profit.

But when 95% of that profit is shared with 4% of the workforce, that's odd.

Especially as the cost of living increases.

Love Michael Moore's films; hope we don't have to wait 6 years for the next one.

He really does care you know.

As do Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.