Speculation.
Strategic planning.
Cold calculation.
The human factor.
A peaceful Kenyan family who loathes yet fears extremists lives day to day in a militarized zone, embracing their loving routine while terrorists plot suicide attacks in the compound next door.
The British military has waited years to either capture or eliminate these fanatics and is ready to strike but requires direct authorization.
At the perfect moment, extraordinarily complicated and dangerous steps having been taken to ensure legalistic legitimacy, the adorable daughter (Aisha Takow as Alia Mo'Allim) of the family begins to sell bread within the proposed airstrike's targeted area.
Eye in the Sky hierarchically examines the politics and ethics of proceeding with the mission, humanistically stylizing the decision making process at executive, legal, operational, and civilian levels, internationally evaluating torrents and tributaries to disputatiously justify the repercussions of its actions, debate clad in detonation, textbook points on cue.
Interrogating the greater good.
The crucial unknown.
Millions have likely been spent leading up to the moment and preventing suicide attacks which will result in dozens of casualties seems like the logical decision.
But the peaceful family, if their daughter is killed, may then turn to extremism, convincing friends and relatives to join in the call.
I'm surprised this point wasn't mentioned in the dialogue which otherwise intellectually explores several hypothetical perspectives.
Conditionally, there are too many variables to confidently predict certain outcomes, and it is known that the terrorists are preparing to launch suicide attacks, and that dozens of deaths are more serious than one.
Painstaking steps are taken to ensure the girl's survival and a brave clever conscientious objection is even made by the soldier responsible for launching the strike.
Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), eager to terminate her target, eventually takes matters into her own hands and lies about the girl's survival odds in order to secure the right to annihilate.
The audience is left to decide whether or not she made the correct decision.
The concluding moments, reminiscent of speeches made by Jean-Luc Picard, suggest director Gavin Hood thinks she did not.
War laid bare.
Unforeseen probabilities.
Possibility obscured.
Eye in the Sky rationally supports opposing viewpoints with argumentative clarity yet is somewhat too neat and tidy and at points I thought I was watching television.
It still boils down incredibly complex structures and their inherent departmental checks and balances to an accessible narrative replete with critical controversies.
Open-ended investigations.
Well thought out yet too polished at times, Eye in the Sky materializes the imaginary components integral to the ethics of fighting the war on terror, to lament both conscience and innocence, while statistically analyzing bursts of compassion.
Pleasantly lacking in sensation.
Loved the Alan Rickman (Lieutenant General Frank Benson).
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
Money Monster
Televisual luminosity, the centripetal cynosure dazzlingly captivating your attention for a sensationally scripted surefire thirty slash sixty, making all the right moves, gimmicky ingratiation, applying the research so you don't have to, don't have to do anything, besides bask in his or her cardiovascular charisma, as he or she blows off your steam, and insulatingly ensures you make the correct decision.
But correct decisions are not always made, and if the viewer has not cultivated a cogent degree of critical awareness, tragedy can strike leaving bitter grievances pending.
Jodie Foster's Money Monster exorcizes such a scenario as Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) loses his life savings following the guidance of Lee Gates's (George Clooney) networked investment extravaganza, and vengefully responds by taking his outputs hostage.
Live in real time.
Yet, as it becomes apparent that foul play may have been involved in the dealings of the company Gates lauded (IBIS Global Capital), the two begin to forge an investigatory friendship, hoping to reveal the truth, thereby saving both their good names.
Both!
The result is an entertaining heartwarming yet woeful examination of fraud, the broadcasters functioning like bourgeois intermediaries between the penniless and the plutocrats, impoverished angst voicing its anguish, malevolent miscalculations haunting the residue.
It had the opportunity to elaborately interrogate the dire financial predicaments many Americans find themselves in but only really touched the surface, focusing more of its attention on Gates's shock.
At one point you see Budwell passionately pleading on camera but you don't hear what he's saying as Gates's reaction is martyred.
Budwell has gone way too far but he could have been evidenced as more of a victim than a miscreant.
Should Chomsky have been consulted?
Most definitely yes.
The audiences watching Budwell's stand don't add much either. If individual members had been given personalities throughout, additional layers of reflective commentaries would have been added, like a web 2.0 factor.
Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) and Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) do add level-headed managerial insights however, holding things together, interactively mediating and sleuthing.
Not as hard-hitting as I thought it would be, but still creatively conscious of economic crises.
Solid ethical entertainment.
But correct decisions are not always made, and if the viewer has not cultivated a cogent degree of critical awareness, tragedy can strike leaving bitter grievances pending.
Jodie Foster's Money Monster exorcizes such a scenario as Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) loses his life savings following the guidance of Lee Gates's (George Clooney) networked investment extravaganza, and vengefully responds by taking his outputs hostage.
Live in real time.
Yet, as it becomes apparent that foul play may have been involved in the dealings of the company Gates lauded (IBIS Global Capital), the two begin to forge an investigatory friendship, hoping to reveal the truth, thereby saving both their good names.
Both!
The result is an entertaining heartwarming yet woeful examination of fraud, the broadcasters functioning like bourgeois intermediaries between the penniless and the plutocrats, impoverished angst voicing its anguish, malevolent miscalculations haunting the residue.
It had the opportunity to elaborately interrogate the dire financial predicaments many Americans find themselves in but only really touched the surface, focusing more of its attention on Gates's shock.
At one point you see Budwell passionately pleading on camera but you don't hear what he's saying as Gates's reaction is martyred.
Budwell has gone way too far but he could have been evidenced as more of a victim than a miscreant.
Should Chomsky have been consulted?
Most definitely yes.
The audiences watching Budwell's stand don't add much either. If individual members had been given personalities throughout, additional layers of reflective commentaries would have been added, like a web 2.0 factor.
Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) and Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) do add level-headed managerial insights however, holding things together, interactively mediating and sleuthing.
Not as hard-hitting as I thought it would be, but still creatively conscious of economic crises.
Solid ethical entertainment.
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
The Messenger
I've been thinking that if you possessed the ability to identify sundry song birds while walking through the woods, that walk would be a much more rewarding experience.
There are so many.
I've always loved seeing bears and raccoons, deer and foxes, skunks, chipmunks, minks, but learning more about song birds now seems like the best way to expand my knowledge of the forest, which is in need of expansion, in the interests of lifelong learning.
Because there are so many of them, it's difficult to notice if species are declining if you no longer hear the song you can't identify; there are still plenty of other songs being sung, so it still seems like song bird populations aren't threatened or decreasing every year.
But according to Su Rynard's documentary The Messenger, song bird populations have been decreasing every year for at least 40 years, windows, cats, habitat loss, climate change and chemical insecticides thought to be largely responsible.
I know the inclusion of cats sounds odd.
Aren't cats and birds just interacting as they always have, like lions and zebras or wolves and deer?
It's not quite that simple, as The Messenger suggests, by lucidly pointing out that house cats are actually invasive species, brought with humans wherever they go.
If house cats are thought to be lions and song birds zebras, it's like North America had billions of zebras and no lions until domestic cats showed up on the scene, stealthily silencing many bird songs.
It's recommended that cat owners keep their cats indoors for longer periods of time, or all the time, for even if it may seem like your cat doesn't eat many birds, cats are annually responsible for 1.4 billion bird deaths, and 32 song bird species are now extinct because of cats.
The Messenger also points out how the bizarro French practice of eating ortolans whole, possibly other song birds as well, needs to stop. It's like hunting elephants for ivory. Ortolan numbers have plummeted and people are continuing to eat them, as poachers continue to kill elephants, extinction looming on the horizon, it's disgusting, plain and simple.
It's not just a trifling matter when a species disappears; ecosystems can be harshly effected.
The Messenger mentions how Mao's ludicrous campaign to kill all the tree sparrows in China because they ate grain resulted in 30 million human deaths. The tree sparrows also ate insects that ate crops and without the tree sparrows to eat them, thirty million people starved to death.
It's thought that ariel insectivores are declining in Europe and North America, song birds that live around farms and grasslands, because farmers are using neonicotinoids to kill insects. It's believed that these chemicals have no effect on the aquatic environments they saturate, but this may not be the case, and they may be killing additional insect populations in said environments which aerial insectivores eat to survive.
If farmers can find ways to encourage song birds to live on their farms, perhaps they wouldn't need chemical insecticides. Song birds and bats. According to The Messenger, song birds also excel at distributing seeds and pollinating plants, while forming links with other species that cultivate a healthy ecosystem. It's also nice having them around, hearing them sing, watching them perch and scavenge about.
Windows and lights are also responsible for prematurely ending the lives of many a song bird. Many of them can't see windows and fly straight into them. There are ways to adjust windows to make them bird friendly, notably placing distractions on them that help song birds to see that they're flying into a window rather than continuing on a safe path. Lights being left on at night near windows often attract song birds as well, who often migrate at night.
Climate change.
On the plus side, Icarus Technology allows people to track song birds as they migrate around the world. It must be fascinating following their flight paths as they travel from one continent to the next.
If song bird populations have been decreasing for decades, it's a sign that the phenomenon isn't cyclical, and something can be done about it.
The Messenger travels across the globe interviewing passionate song bird enthusiasts to help people better understand these oft overlooked naturalistic wonders.
Their songs have inspired and are inspiring great musicians. Their colouring is stunning. They play productive roles in nature. And these tiny creatures the size of one's hand travel back and forth from continent to continent to the same precise seemingly impossible to find location year after year.
If millions of people kept their cats inside for longer hours, adjusted their windows to make them bird friendly, and kept lights out when they're not using them, billions of song bird lives may be saved.
Ecotourism is flourishing here and there.
Why not apply that concept to suburban and urban environments?
The ecoburbs?
Bet they're already doing it in Germany . . .
There are so many.
I've always loved seeing bears and raccoons, deer and foxes, skunks, chipmunks, minks, but learning more about song birds now seems like the best way to expand my knowledge of the forest, which is in need of expansion, in the interests of lifelong learning.
Because there are so many of them, it's difficult to notice if species are declining if you no longer hear the song you can't identify; there are still plenty of other songs being sung, so it still seems like song bird populations aren't threatened or decreasing every year.
But according to Su Rynard's documentary The Messenger, song bird populations have been decreasing every year for at least 40 years, windows, cats, habitat loss, climate change and chemical insecticides thought to be largely responsible.
I know the inclusion of cats sounds odd.
Aren't cats and birds just interacting as they always have, like lions and zebras or wolves and deer?
It's not quite that simple, as The Messenger suggests, by lucidly pointing out that house cats are actually invasive species, brought with humans wherever they go.
If house cats are thought to be lions and song birds zebras, it's like North America had billions of zebras and no lions until domestic cats showed up on the scene, stealthily silencing many bird songs.
It's recommended that cat owners keep their cats indoors for longer periods of time, or all the time, for even if it may seem like your cat doesn't eat many birds, cats are annually responsible for 1.4 billion bird deaths, and 32 song bird species are now extinct because of cats.
The Messenger also points out how the bizarro French practice of eating ortolans whole, possibly other song birds as well, needs to stop. It's like hunting elephants for ivory. Ortolan numbers have plummeted and people are continuing to eat them, as poachers continue to kill elephants, extinction looming on the horizon, it's disgusting, plain and simple.
It's not just a trifling matter when a species disappears; ecosystems can be harshly effected.
The Messenger mentions how Mao's ludicrous campaign to kill all the tree sparrows in China because they ate grain resulted in 30 million human deaths. The tree sparrows also ate insects that ate crops and without the tree sparrows to eat them, thirty million people starved to death.
It's thought that ariel insectivores are declining in Europe and North America, song birds that live around farms and grasslands, because farmers are using neonicotinoids to kill insects. It's believed that these chemicals have no effect on the aquatic environments they saturate, but this may not be the case, and they may be killing additional insect populations in said environments which aerial insectivores eat to survive.
If farmers can find ways to encourage song birds to live on their farms, perhaps they wouldn't need chemical insecticides. Song birds and bats. According to The Messenger, song birds also excel at distributing seeds and pollinating plants, while forming links with other species that cultivate a healthy ecosystem. It's also nice having them around, hearing them sing, watching them perch and scavenge about.
Windows and lights are also responsible for prematurely ending the lives of many a song bird. Many of them can't see windows and fly straight into them. There are ways to adjust windows to make them bird friendly, notably placing distractions on them that help song birds to see that they're flying into a window rather than continuing on a safe path. Lights being left on at night near windows often attract song birds as well, who often migrate at night.
Climate change.
On the plus side, Icarus Technology allows people to track song birds as they migrate around the world. It must be fascinating following their flight paths as they travel from one continent to the next.
If song bird populations have been decreasing for decades, it's a sign that the phenomenon isn't cyclical, and something can be done about it.
The Messenger travels across the globe interviewing passionate song bird enthusiasts to help people better understand these oft overlooked naturalistic wonders.
Their songs have inspired and are inspiring great musicians. Their colouring is stunning. They play productive roles in nature. And these tiny creatures the size of one's hand travel back and forth from continent to continent to the same precise seemingly impossible to find location year after year.
If millions of people kept their cats inside for longer hours, adjusted their windows to make them bird friendly, and kept lights out when they're not using them, billions of song bird lives may be saved.
Ecotourism is flourishing here and there.
Why not apply that concept to suburban and urban environments?
The ecoburbs?
Bet they're already doing it in Germany . . .
Friday, May 20, 2016
Captain America: Civil War
Infused with regenerative contemplative crucibles, Captain America: Civil War reflectively considers its own mortality, reinvigorating its lifeforce thereby, with abundant earthen pyrotechnic implosions.
Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Civil War doesn't focus primarily on one or two characters, preferring to simultaneously develop several of its bracing recruits, while introducing new additions and a brilliant mild-mannered villain (Daniel Brühl as Zemo).
The super villain is usually larger-than-life, obviously enough, and it was nice to see this tendency altered with a subtle human touch.
Vision (Paul Bettany) points out how the activities of the Avengers have served to encourage antithetical tyrannical histrionics, the challenge of defeating them too irresistible for megalomaniacs to ignore, power mad lunatics who might have remained inert in their absence, inimically keeping themselves in check.
Makes sense.
But Civil War is mainly concerned with civilian casualties (like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), with decision making and oversight, Falcon (Anthony Mackie) reminding Captain America (Chris Evans) that the wicked are shooting at him too, the United Nations stepping in to neuter their independence.
It follows the Captain America storyline closely as Cap continues to try to save his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), but I'd argue it's the 3rd Avengers film. Some of them are missing, but Civil War examines the dynamics of the Avengers much more closely than Captain America's, slowly breaking down their chummy conviviality, as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Cap bitterly establish opposing factions.
The UN believes the Avengers should be held accountable for their future actions and seeks to establish a committee to decide when and where to deploy them should the forces of evil contend.
Generosity not being solely an impulse of the guilty, Stark still feels regret for the innocents who have died on his watch, and agrees that the Avengers's actions should be legally sanctioned to prevent further loss of life.
Captain America disagrees, thinking their startling efficiencies will be unnecessarily disillusioned by bureaucratic finagling and polemical delays.
The Avengers consequently divide and even battle one another as immediacy demands their intervention once more.
When they do intervene, do they do so too quickly, without applying enough thought to the side-effects of their engagements, ignoring local, national, and global laws as they save the world from imminent destruction?
Are they justified in responding instantaneously, since their enemies are usually universally threatening?
Early on in the film, a split-second decision almost releases a deadly biological agent into an urban environment, which would have likely killed thousands.
They are capable of managing such scenarios, but a slight miscalculation and they would have been responsible for the deaths.
Yet if Loki invades again with another bloodthirsty army intent on enslaving the planet, then it makes sense that the Avengers should charge in head on.
If a committee was responsible for authorizing such a defence they most likely would if they were indeed thinking clearly.
But as the aura of the Avengers intensifies and their enemies expand exponentially, how will they deal with concurrent attacks launched from different locations around the world?
Does it make sense that they each train their own specialized forces to be ready to defend different domains at the same time, the United Nations providing their counterstrikes with a centralized governing authority, with members of the Avengers advising them as needs be?
But HYDRA has undoubtably infiltrated the UN (and are perhaps working with Loki in a Vichyesque fashion) and would likely attempt to use its influence to frustrate the Avengers therewithin.
If the Avengers are guided by the UN it clears their conscience of responsibility, unless they're prevented from acting which may augment crushing pangs of guilt afterwards (I'm thinking Superman II).
The Avengers have entered the political realm, wherein most actions are polarized, no matter how many times you apologize, and a resultant stoic ambivalence enables its representatives to constructively cope with the fallout.
The best Marvel film thus far, making good on its Empire Strikes Back reference (the audacity), Captain America: Civil War cerebrally moves the franchise forward, sacrificing sensation for revelation, spry self-aware matriculation.
The action's secondary to the thought.
Big time character development.
Scenes that could have been cut are left in to the film's advantage.
It's more like solid drama than fantasy.
Blown away.
Note: sarcasm is often employed by intelligent people but watch for the person who isn't intelligent yet picks up on the fact that if you respond to something someone says sarcastically you can often win over the crowd without having to explain why you're responding sarcastically. Some people realize that all you have to do is employ the sarcastic tone without offering further explanation to win arguments without ever actually saying anything. It's just repetition. A troublesome bunch.
Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Civil War doesn't focus primarily on one or two characters, preferring to simultaneously develop several of its bracing recruits, while introducing new additions and a brilliant mild-mannered villain (Daniel Brühl as Zemo).
The super villain is usually larger-than-life, obviously enough, and it was nice to see this tendency altered with a subtle human touch.
Vision (Paul Bettany) points out how the activities of the Avengers have served to encourage antithetical tyrannical histrionics, the challenge of defeating them too irresistible for megalomaniacs to ignore, power mad lunatics who might have remained inert in their absence, inimically keeping themselves in check.
Makes sense.
But Civil War is mainly concerned with civilian casualties (like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), with decision making and oversight, Falcon (Anthony Mackie) reminding Captain America (Chris Evans) that the wicked are shooting at him too, the United Nations stepping in to neuter their independence.
It follows the Captain America storyline closely as Cap continues to try to save his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), but I'd argue it's the 3rd Avengers film. Some of them are missing, but Civil War examines the dynamics of the Avengers much more closely than Captain America's, slowly breaking down their chummy conviviality, as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Cap bitterly establish opposing factions.
The UN believes the Avengers should be held accountable for their future actions and seeks to establish a committee to decide when and where to deploy them should the forces of evil contend.
Generosity not being solely an impulse of the guilty, Stark still feels regret for the innocents who have died on his watch, and agrees that the Avengers's actions should be legally sanctioned to prevent further loss of life.
Captain America disagrees, thinking their startling efficiencies will be unnecessarily disillusioned by bureaucratic finagling and polemical delays.
The Avengers consequently divide and even battle one another as immediacy demands their intervention once more.
When they do intervene, do they do so too quickly, without applying enough thought to the side-effects of their engagements, ignoring local, national, and global laws as they save the world from imminent destruction?
Are they justified in responding instantaneously, since their enemies are usually universally threatening?
Early on in the film, a split-second decision almost releases a deadly biological agent into an urban environment, which would have likely killed thousands.
They are capable of managing such scenarios, but a slight miscalculation and they would have been responsible for the deaths.
Yet if Loki invades again with another bloodthirsty army intent on enslaving the planet, then it makes sense that the Avengers should charge in head on.
If a committee was responsible for authorizing such a defence they most likely would if they were indeed thinking clearly.
But as the aura of the Avengers intensifies and their enemies expand exponentially, how will they deal with concurrent attacks launched from different locations around the world?
Does it make sense that they each train their own specialized forces to be ready to defend different domains at the same time, the United Nations providing their counterstrikes with a centralized governing authority, with members of the Avengers advising them as needs be?
But HYDRA has undoubtably infiltrated the UN (and are perhaps working with Loki in a Vichyesque fashion) and would likely attempt to use its influence to frustrate the Avengers therewithin.
If the Avengers are guided by the UN it clears their conscience of responsibility, unless they're prevented from acting which may augment crushing pangs of guilt afterwards (I'm thinking Superman II).
The Avengers have entered the political realm, wherein most actions are polarized, no matter how many times you apologize, and a resultant stoic ambivalence enables its representatives to constructively cope with the fallout.
The best Marvel film thus far, making good on its Empire Strikes Back reference (the audacity), Captain America: Civil War cerebrally moves the franchise forward, sacrificing sensation for revelation, spry self-aware matriculation.
The action's secondary to the thought.
Big time character development.
Scenes that could have been cut are left in to the film's advantage.
It's more like solid drama than fantasy.
Blown away.
Note: sarcasm is often employed by intelligent people but watch for the person who isn't intelligent yet picks up on the fact that if you respond to something someone says sarcastically you can often win over the crowd without having to explain why you're responding sarcastically. Some people realize that all you have to do is employ the sarcastic tone without offering further explanation to win arguments without ever actually saying anything. It's just repetition. A troublesome bunch.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Sleeping Giant
Rest and relaxation, worry free contemplation blended with spirited solace and imaginary blunders, tranquility, wandering here and there to curiously explore, observing this, defining that, revelry and romance serendipitously replenishing, merrymaking mischief immersed in mirth and candour, spontaneous wit and jocose gentility, a Summer celebrated in the woods at bay, fellowships fermenting, in rowdy eccentric arbor.
I wish it could have been like that throughout Andrew Cividino's Sleeping Giant, just scene after scene of amazed revelation accompanied by stunning imagery and various fauna, a study of freewill rambunctiously investigating its surroundings, but I suppose films often have points, points to make, and conflicts, morals, tragedies, resolutions.
They're prominent features of story telling ;).
Sleeping Giant examines three young adult friends with nothing to do all Summer but soak up the rays.
Adam Hudson (Jackson Martin) is intelligent and shy, less interested in fighting, theft, booze, and drugs, but willing to go along for the ride.
Riley (Reece Moffett) is confident and direct, easy to get along with, chill, cool, breezy.
Nate (Nick Serino [Serino's like a younger Brad Dourif]) is a jealous vindictive punk who compensates for his lack of booksmarts with abrasively striking observations.
He finds out that Adam's father (David Disher as William Hudson) cheated on his wife (Lorraine Philp as Linda Hudson) after hours which frustrates things as their friendship slowly breaks down, sort of like 1er amour but Mrs. Hudson never finds out.
Adam's family is groovier than Riley and Nate's.
Riley don't care but Nate takes exception.
The narrative boils down to extroverted boorishness interacting with introverted contemplation, Riley caught between Adam and Nate as the latter becomes increasingly hostile.
Since Adam gets along well with Riley but poorly with Nate, Sleeping Giant isn't necessarily narratively characterizing demographic stereotypes, although Nate does wind up dead in the end, perhaps suggesting that when envious aggressive not-so-smart blowhards try to take control the results can be disastrous, and insects are featured throughout, one burned alive.
Did Cividino love Joe's So Mean to Josephine in his youth?
I was super impressed with the film regardless. Cividino's not as wild as Xavier Dolan but his thoughtful illustrations and gentle delineations reminded me of his films, environmental encapsulations, im/permanence in jest.
Forested.
Didn't like seeing the insect burned alive though.
I think I should have been a buddhist.
Enchanting woe.
Extracurricular.
Cinematography by James Klopko.
I wish it could have been like that throughout Andrew Cividino's Sleeping Giant, just scene after scene of amazed revelation accompanied by stunning imagery and various fauna, a study of freewill rambunctiously investigating its surroundings, but I suppose films often have points, points to make, and conflicts, morals, tragedies, resolutions.
They're prominent features of story telling ;).
Sleeping Giant examines three young adult friends with nothing to do all Summer but soak up the rays.
Adam Hudson (Jackson Martin) is intelligent and shy, less interested in fighting, theft, booze, and drugs, but willing to go along for the ride.
Riley (Reece Moffett) is confident and direct, easy to get along with, chill, cool, breezy.
Nate (Nick Serino [Serino's like a younger Brad Dourif]) is a jealous vindictive punk who compensates for his lack of booksmarts with abrasively striking observations.
He finds out that Adam's father (David Disher as William Hudson) cheated on his wife (Lorraine Philp as Linda Hudson) after hours which frustrates things as their friendship slowly breaks down, sort of like 1er amour but Mrs. Hudson never finds out.
Adam's family is groovier than Riley and Nate's.
Riley don't care but Nate takes exception.
The narrative boils down to extroverted boorishness interacting with introverted contemplation, Riley caught between Adam and Nate as the latter becomes increasingly hostile.
Since Adam gets along well with Riley but poorly with Nate, Sleeping Giant isn't necessarily narratively characterizing demographic stereotypes, although Nate does wind up dead in the end, perhaps suggesting that when envious aggressive not-so-smart blowhards try to take control the results can be disastrous, and insects are featured throughout, one burned alive.
Did Cividino love Joe's So Mean to Josephine in his youth?
I was super impressed with the film regardless. Cividino's not as wild as Xavier Dolan but his thoughtful illustrations and gentle delineations reminded me of his films, environmental encapsulations, im/permanence in jest.
Forested.
Didn't like seeing the insect burned alive though.
I think I should have been a buddhist.
Enchanting woe.
Extracurricular.
Cinematography by James Klopko.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Keanu
Can a ridiculous plot supported by an irresistible gimmick cast aside its kitschy credulity to generate a quivering constellation which instructively calibrates curricula of its own?
The cutesy.
The adorable.
Keanu does demonstrate how one can go about teaching struggling lost disadvantaged youth after bourgeois nice guy Clarence Goobril (Keegan-Michael Key) infiltrates a drug trafficking gang to help his depressed friend Rell Williams (Jordan Peele) recover his beloved kitten, using the music of George Michael to elucidate the art of communication, skills which they hilariously apply during the film's rambunctious climax.
Immersed in reckless carnage.
Said climax pulls together the best aspects of the film and was fun to watch but the build up consistently stalls since it's painfully apparent that these two suburbanites could never have tricked anyone.
The uneducated aren't that dumb you know.
It's too light.
Because it's too light, the situations Clarence (Smoke Dresden) and Rell (Oil Dresden) find themselves within lack the threat of death, even when they're almost killed, which is what Keanu required to transform into something other than a cute cat movie.
Yet, if they had just kept reintroducing Keanu, the sought after kitten, throughout, making him an integral part of the story rather than losing sight of him for prolonged periods, I probably would have thought, this makes no sense, it's a great nonsensical idea, and this incredibly loveable kitten's frequent appearances at least acknowledge the incoherency, highlighting its inherent encumbrances, while reminding me not to take it too seriously.
Instead I was stuck taking it seriously as it tried to be serious, Keanu having indeed plucked its lilies, to be crushed by the weight of its praiseworthy gambit.
Short-term prison sentences awaiting the heroes in the end.
Keanu!
Keanu!
The cutesy.
The adorable.
Keanu does demonstrate how one can go about teaching struggling lost disadvantaged youth after bourgeois nice guy Clarence Goobril (Keegan-Michael Key) infiltrates a drug trafficking gang to help his depressed friend Rell Williams (Jordan Peele) recover his beloved kitten, using the music of George Michael to elucidate the art of communication, skills which they hilariously apply during the film's rambunctious climax.
Immersed in reckless carnage.
Said climax pulls together the best aspects of the film and was fun to watch but the build up consistently stalls since it's painfully apparent that these two suburbanites could never have tricked anyone.
The uneducated aren't that dumb you know.
It's too light.
Because it's too light, the situations Clarence (Smoke Dresden) and Rell (Oil Dresden) find themselves within lack the threat of death, even when they're almost killed, which is what Keanu required to transform into something other than a cute cat movie.
Yet, if they had just kept reintroducing Keanu, the sought after kitten, throughout, making him an integral part of the story rather than losing sight of him for prolonged periods, I probably would have thought, this makes no sense, it's a great nonsensical idea, and this incredibly loveable kitten's frequent appearances at least acknowledge the incoherency, highlighting its inherent encumbrances, while reminding me not to take it too seriously.
Instead I was stuck taking it seriously as it tried to be serious, Keanu having indeed plucked its lilies, to be crushed by the weight of its praiseworthy gambit.
Short-term prison sentences awaiting the heroes in the end.
Keanu!
Keanu!
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
The Dark Horse
A gentle soul plagued by mental illness finds himself caught between brother and nephew in James Napier Robertson's The Dark Horse.
Solemnity.
Mana's (James Rolleston) father (Wayne Hapi as Ariki) survived by joining a violent gang.
It's the life he knows and he wants his son to become a member so that he can feel safe as he dies believing he'll be taken care of.
His son loathes the senseless brutal thuggery however and doesn't want to live a life of crime.
His uncle Genesis (Cliff Curtis) is a brilliant chess player who also possesses an exhaustive understanding of his culture's mythology but may have never held a job and can hardly take care of himself.
Nevertheless, as he finds purpose helping to manage an after school club for disadvantaged youth, telling them stories and teaching them chess in preparation for a tournament, his nephew gravitates towards his civility as his father's partners become increasingly aggressive.
Ariki has told his brother to stay away from his son, and their ensuing dialectic, brashly shy and modestly brave, disputatiously contends for Mana's future, both of them eventually accepting that they need to acknowledge his own individualistic dreams.
The Dark Horse beautifully elevates the constructive art of teaching while harshly contrasting it with stark economic bellows, Olympian highs and devastating punishments masterfully articulated with naive bracing culpability.
Life without opportunity can be eviscerating so I don't stubbornly fault people for making desperate decisions, although I do commend those who struggle in different ways, creating something durable and friendly in a culture of bitter cynicism.
You feel bad for all the participants involved accept Mutt (Barry Te Hira) who's clearly evil.
Building a community from nothing, nurturing hope and togetherness through board games and puzzles as opposed to drugs and alcohol; something to think about.
Genesis is a character who sticks with you, clearly ill-equipped to deal with the quotidian yet exceptionally gifted at enlivening the imaginary.
An artist you know.
Perhaps the best kind.
Solemnity.
Mana's (James Rolleston) father (Wayne Hapi as Ariki) survived by joining a violent gang.
It's the life he knows and he wants his son to become a member so that he can feel safe as he dies believing he'll be taken care of.
His son loathes the senseless brutal thuggery however and doesn't want to live a life of crime.
His uncle Genesis (Cliff Curtis) is a brilliant chess player who also possesses an exhaustive understanding of his culture's mythology but may have never held a job and can hardly take care of himself.
Nevertheless, as he finds purpose helping to manage an after school club for disadvantaged youth, telling them stories and teaching them chess in preparation for a tournament, his nephew gravitates towards his civility as his father's partners become increasingly aggressive.
Ariki has told his brother to stay away from his son, and their ensuing dialectic, brashly shy and modestly brave, disputatiously contends for Mana's future, both of them eventually accepting that they need to acknowledge his own individualistic dreams.
The Dark Horse beautifully elevates the constructive art of teaching while harshly contrasting it with stark economic bellows, Olympian highs and devastating punishments masterfully articulated with naive bracing culpability.
Life without opportunity can be eviscerating so I don't stubbornly fault people for making desperate decisions, although I do commend those who struggle in different ways, creating something durable and friendly in a culture of bitter cynicism.
You feel bad for all the participants involved accept Mutt (Barry Te Hira) who's clearly evil.
Building a community from nothing, nurturing hope and togetherness through board games and puzzles as opposed to drugs and alcohol; something to think about.
Genesis is a character who sticks with you, clearly ill-equipped to deal with the quotidian yet exceptionally gifted at enlivening the imaginary.
An artist you know.
Perhaps the best kind.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Criminal
Shockingly discarded as an infant, an incarcerated sociopath is given a second chance to live, but in order to do so the consciousness of another must be creatively grafted onto his soul, so that he can discover the whereabouts of an unwilling terrorist, and terminate the dictations of armageddon.
Does the soul have anything to do with consciousness? Does it exist? Is it an eternal regenerative quintessence that innocently survives death regardless of the ways in which an individual lived his or her life, radiating thereafter in a transitory state able to embrace different forms of illumination with permanent subjective clarity?
No clue.
Bill Pope's (Ryan Reynolds) soul/consciousness becomes an integral part of Jericho Stewart's (Kevin Costner) in Ariel Vroman's Criminal however, enabling him to feel for the first time, as he's covetously hunted for instinctively seeking freedom.
There were aspects of Criminal I would have changed had I been given final edit, but I loved the film's laid-back sensationalism.
An anarchist seeking global rule can unleash the apocalypse if he gathers the information he seeks.
But the film's lack of stunning visuals, Kevin Costner's chill performance (even if he's constantly fighting), and unconvincing poorly written villain (Jordi Mollà as Xavier Heimdahl), deflate its grandiose pretensions while smoothly levelling-out the inherent absurdity.
I would have changed the beginning and ending even if they celebrate redemption (there must have been another way to do this), Jericho does remember highly advanced details at times that seem at odds with his brief sudden visual intuitions, and when he's on his way to take on Heimdahl, I would have cut the scene where Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) asks him to stop (hardcore cheese).
Nonetheless, it's like watching a film from the 90s, direct and to the point, kinetically intermingling the unapologetic and the angelic with wholesome rash rage, I actually felt like it was the 90s while viewing, well done well done.
Criminal blends the violent and the gentle with dramatic comedic indifference that leaves you anticipating what's to come in terms of the consciously conscientious.
The world could end if an unrepentant criminal doesn't act on lessons internalized from a disparate personality living inside him and challenge those responsible for his eclectic demise.
It uses the surveillance techniques revealed by Snowden to disable a mad terrorist yet keeps George Orwell in the loop to critique those very same surveillance techniques, slyly playing a clever double game.
If you take the film seriously, it seems like it's naturalizing ubiquitous surveillance.
If you appreciate the ludicrousness, it's like it's championing Orwell.
Jericho was under constant surveillance but in the end he's a free man, potentially with both job and family.
Thought provoking.
Bunch of great actors delivering modest performances that help procreate the film's unconcerned momentum (apart from Gary Oldham [Quaker Wells]) who has to be livid).
I think it's pastiching The Terminator. The villain wants to be responsible for Judgment Day. Jericho is like a Terminator. And someone says, "get out," at one point.
There's a great shot from the top of a stairwell looking down on Jericho as he looks up, the shot accompanied by a platter of apples on the first floor.
Solid character names.
Does the soul have anything to do with consciousness? Does it exist? Is it an eternal regenerative quintessence that innocently survives death regardless of the ways in which an individual lived his or her life, radiating thereafter in a transitory state able to embrace different forms of illumination with permanent subjective clarity?
No clue.
Bill Pope's (Ryan Reynolds) soul/consciousness becomes an integral part of Jericho Stewart's (Kevin Costner) in Ariel Vroman's Criminal however, enabling him to feel for the first time, as he's covetously hunted for instinctively seeking freedom.
There were aspects of Criminal I would have changed had I been given final edit, but I loved the film's laid-back sensationalism.
An anarchist seeking global rule can unleash the apocalypse if he gathers the information he seeks.
But the film's lack of stunning visuals, Kevin Costner's chill performance (even if he's constantly fighting), and unconvincing poorly written villain (Jordi Mollà as Xavier Heimdahl), deflate its grandiose pretensions while smoothly levelling-out the inherent absurdity.
I would have changed the beginning and ending even if they celebrate redemption (there must have been another way to do this), Jericho does remember highly advanced details at times that seem at odds with his brief sudden visual intuitions, and when he's on his way to take on Heimdahl, I would have cut the scene where Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) asks him to stop (hardcore cheese).
Nonetheless, it's like watching a film from the 90s, direct and to the point, kinetically intermingling the unapologetic and the angelic with wholesome rash rage, I actually felt like it was the 90s while viewing, well done well done.
Criminal blends the violent and the gentle with dramatic comedic indifference that leaves you anticipating what's to come in terms of the consciously conscientious.
The world could end if an unrepentant criminal doesn't act on lessons internalized from a disparate personality living inside him and challenge those responsible for his eclectic demise.
It uses the surveillance techniques revealed by Snowden to disable a mad terrorist yet keeps George Orwell in the loop to critique those very same surveillance techniques, slyly playing a clever double game.
If you take the film seriously, it seems like it's naturalizing ubiquitous surveillance.
If you appreciate the ludicrousness, it's like it's championing Orwell.
Jericho was under constant surveillance but in the end he's a free man, potentially with both job and family.
Thought provoking.
Bunch of great actors delivering modest performances that help procreate the film's unconcerned momentum (apart from Gary Oldham [Quaker Wells]) who has to be livid).
I think it's pastiching The Terminator. The villain wants to be responsible for Judgment Day. Jericho is like a Terminator. And someone says, "get out," at one point.
There's a great shot from the top of a stairwell looking down on Jericho as he looks up, the shot accompanied by a platter of apples on the first floor.
Solid character names.
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
L'Hermine (Courted)
As it began, I was worried.
The subject matter, the trial of a man from the projects accused of killing his baby, seemed sterile, like there was nothing more to it besides the trial itself, mundane fictionalized courtroom drama, too direct, too pinpointed, polished and shrewd yet textbook and obligatory, like actual courtroom drama, a trip to the laundry, baking soda, antiseptic concrete diction.
But L'Hermine (Courted) slowly builds President Racine's (Fabrice Luchini) determined objective character with understated incisive mature solemn clarity, his courtroom strategically managed with only one goal in mind, the discovery of the truth, or, in light of insufficient evidence, the nurturing of a level-headed atmosphere within which the evidence can be clearly and concisely adjudicated.
The trial in question stands out since Racine is in love, was in love, with a member of the jury, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret (Sidse Babett Knudsen), and considering that he has a reputation for being obstinately punitive, her enlightening presence functions like a meditative emancipating regenerative balm, not distracting him from his work, but rather enabling him to approach it with warm hearted vigour as opposed to cold calculated formality.
True love?
In L'Hermine, it's true love, that true love igniting a spark of youthful innocence rarely embraced by an aging criminal court judge/President, who has spent decades in ignorance of the revelations of joy.
What I've just written is ten thousand times more sentimental than the film itself.
L'Hermine masterfully builds Racine and Lorensen-Coteret's relationship with modest narrative maturity, a total lack of sensation or antiquation, like a slowly building intellectually sustained crescendo, supported by multiple minor characters who each add melodic nuances of their own.
If someone asked the question, "can we take a routine legal drama and use intellect to illuminate the vitality of true love while keeping things plausible during a traditional criminal trial?", I would now respond by saying, "yes, yes you can."
Offering insights into the French legal system while proving that logic can amorously shine, L'Hermine keeps things professional to cleverly stylize contemporary bourgeois love.
Give it a chance.
Rawly refined.
Medium rare.
The subject matter, the trial of a man from the projects accused of killing his baby, seemed sterile, like there was nothing more to it besides the trial itself, mundane fictionalized courtroom drama, too direct, too pinpointed, polished and shrewd yet textbook and obligatory, like actual courtroom drama, a trip to the laundry, baking soda, antiseptic concrete diction.
But L'Hermine (Courted) slowly builds President Racine's (Fabrice Luchini) determined objective character with understated incisive mature solemn clarity, his courtroom strategically managed with only one goal in mind, the discovery of the truth, or, in light of insufficient evidence, the nurturing of a level-headed atmosphere within which the evidence can be clearly and concisely adjudicated.
The trial in question stands out since Racine is in love, was in love, with a member of the jury, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret (Sidse Babett Knudsen), and considering that he has a reputation for being obstinately punitive, her enlightening presence functions like a meditative emancipating regenerative balm, not distracting him from his work, but rather enabling him to approach it with warm hearted vigour as opposed to cold calculated formality.
True love?
In L'Hermine, it's true love, that true love igniting a spark of youthful innocence rarely embraced by an aging criminal court judge/President, who has spent decades in ignorance of the revelations of joy.
What I've just written is ten thousand times more sentimental than the film itself.
L'Hermine masterfully builds Racine and Lorensen-Coteret's relationship with modest narrative maturity, a total lack of sensation or antiquation, like a slowly building intellectually sustained crescendo, supported by multiple minor characters who each add melodic nuances of their own.
If someone asked the question, "can we take a routine legal drama and use intellect to illuminate the vitality of true love while keeping things plausible during a traditional criminal trial?", I would now respond by saying, "yes, yes you can."
Offering insights into the French legal system while proving that logic can amorously shine, L'Hermine keeps things professional to cleverly stylize contemporary bourgeois love.
Give it a chance.
Rawly refined.
Medium rare.
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