Star Trek Beyond

Loved Star Trek Beyond.

I see a lot of adventure, superhero, sci-fi etc. films, obviously enough, but it's rare when that long forgotten voice, still residing deep within, innocently pleads, "how are they going to get out of this one?"

The crew of the Enterprise is betrayed and their ship destroyed, early on, the survivors forced to regroup on a hostile planet below, most of them quickly captured by their ruthless enemy.

A desperate situation, overwhelming odds, a profound delineation of devastating loss, the immediacy of it all shocking in its sudden mass destruction.

The Enterprise usually isn't destroyed near the beginning of a Star Trek narrative, in fact, I think it's unprecedented.

Resolute dividends.

The principal characters continue to diversify their personalities within the new timeline, Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) given prominent roles that they often didn't receive in the early Star Trek films.

And McCoy (Karl Urban) finally takes centre stage.

The last two films focused too much attention on Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) while forgetting that McCoy was also a driving force behind the franchise's success.

He's back in Star Trek Beyond with a huge part to play complete with several feisty confrontations with an injured Spock, the classic Spock/McCoy logical vulcan versus emotive human arguments, observations, distillations, providing the cherished thoughtfully humorous dialogues that were responsible for polarizing so many compelling Star Trek moments.

Delicatessen.

Scotty (Simon Pegg [who also co-wrote the script]) rocks it too, a true miracle worker in this one, as the crew requires multiple extremely precise intricately detailed technological synchronizations to escape from the planet and challenge the monstrous Krall (Idris Elba).

The situation is grim and the odds catastrophic but resilient professionalism responds with formidable yet down to earth distinction that inspirationally guides their enduring competence.

The humour isn't as lighthearted as the earth scenes from Star Trek: First Contact. That's one of the best Star Trek films, but at points it loses sight of the fact that their goal is to prevent the future of humanity from being obliterated.

Jaylah (Sofia Boutella).

Like Saavik, Lily, and Anij, Jayla adds contemplative depth to Star Trek Beyond, in the tradition of introducing new supporting characters which nimbly diversify the story.

Plus, often in films rich with hand-to-hand combat, the female characters fight other women while the men fight men.

Jaylah takes on the powerful Manas (Joe Taslim) in an honourable testament to strength and athleticism, her brains backed up by both brawn and beauty, excellent addition to the Star Trek pantheon.

With no amorous attachments.

It is girl power year in anglo cinema.

The script also examines the corrupted soldier who was never able to learn to live peacefully after all of his or her battles were fought, the individual so immersed in violence that the progressive union of different planets devoted to living amicably with one another is an everlasting insult, for they see foes and treachery everywhere, and, unfortunately, due to the nature of their combative character development, can never learn to trust anyone, preferring to recreate a universe steeped in death and despotism than play a game of cards or head out to a local cinema.

Merciless.

Nevertheless, it must be incredibly difficult for soldiers to suddenly turn it off upon returning to civilian life, especially if governments who profited from their sacrifices don't adequately provide them with the support structures they might need.

Emphasizing ingenuity in the face of stark impoverishment, and teamwork as comprised by extracurricular resource, each of them making game changing plays, Star Trek Beyond respirates to succeed while remaining calm and collected.

I was surprised that Krall's compound wasn't more heavily guarded considering how many pilots were needed to launch his smothering swarm.

There are some wonderful moments that accentuate the biodiversity of the planet they find themselves upon, moments which could have been increasingly intensified as the film progressed.

Old technologies are relied upon to achieve contemporary goals which made me think of the ending of T-3.

A homosexual couple raising a family is lovingly introduced.

Upon the Yorktown station, there's a wonderful sense of metropolitan communal collegiality that captures the best moments one experiences living in cities.

The final moments were quite similar to those from Into Darkness.

Sad to think that Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin have passed on.

The impossibility factor of the crew's victory is extremely high but I suppose that's what makes for good science-fiction.

The dialogue in the opening scene is super corny.

And I loved that the story was completely new, a new story with new villains and characters I've never seen before, like classic Star Trek boldly exploring and contending, with the opening lines from the original series's credits recited by Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty in the end, further augmenting their versatile collective, not in the apian or Borg sense, but with humble self-sacrificing semantics, unique to the federation.

Prosperous.

Ghostbusters

I don't see anything wrong with casting women as the new ghostbusters.

That's the fun thing about remakes, you switch up the story and the genders and the races or ethnicities to ensure that the reimagination comments on contemporary issues, rather than just presenting a facsimile of the original, whose origins themselves are likely hotly debated, thereby keeping the narrative fresh, while jump starting sociocultural synergies.

There's something to be said for respecting traditions as well, but as the centuries pass these liberal and conservative vice versa visualizations forge a compelling multiplicity that encourages vibrant critical controversies.

Liked the film.

The script lacks at least one feature that ironically made the original so realistic, the fact that the ghostbusters took huge risks to start their business, and then proceeded to take steps to in/flexibly run it, affectively pulling you into their audacious exterminating antics with hectic supernatural commercial conviviality, the new one focusing less on entrepreneurial aspects and more on interpersonal relationships, a different approach, but it still never seemed like their business could fail, or make any money either, although it did seem like friendships could be re/built through the productive art of constructive team building.

The interpersonal relationships of the four hilarious heroines do draw you in with kinetic displacements and undulating sorority, they're written quite well and engagingly invigorate the active material with knowledgable grit and practical pugnacity, the best of the best living up to the challenge, impressive, conducive, calico, they had an incredibly tough act to follow and at times even take the lead, regenerative calisthenic conversations, tally-ho, which remain loyal to the franchise's republican origins.

Grrr.

There's contempt for different levels of academic rigidity within, obviously the supernatural is real, the principal villain values the dedicated impeccable labours of hard working honest Americans, when African American ghostbuster Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) jumps off a stage no one catches her, the ghostbusters hire their secretary solely because he's good looking, the ivory trade is unforgivably referred to nonchalantly, nuclear energy is highly valued as an available technology ripe for non-regulated experimentation, ethnic slurs are callously dished out, and none of the brilliant perspicacious female ghostbusters has been able to find a partner.

Classic form, alternative Ghostbusters.

What else, yes, they slowly encounter different ghosties as the narrative unreels and during the climax end up battling those very same ghosties.

Different ghosts people, different ghosts, a cataclysmic apocalyptic (Hollywood's big on the Apocalypse this Summer) fissure has opened up in New York City unleashing thousands of ghosts and the ghostbusters end up fighting the same ones they fought earlier in the film.

Laziness, especially considering the remarkable creative opportunity the writers and special effects peeps had there.

Nevertheless, the film's worth checking out.

If you like strong comedy executively executed by leading American comics, I don't see why you wouldn't like this film.

It's not the gender that matters, but how well the individuals play their respective roles, and how well those roles are resoundingly written.

Kirsten Wiig (Erin Gilbert), Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon (Jillian Holtzmann) perform remarkably well.

And deserve total respect.

The BFG

The crafters of dreams, inaugurators of imagination, humbly humanizing heaven and earth with tragic humour and comedic complaint, magically transforming the mundane and the mechanical into mirthful exhilarations of sprightly cerebral rustic metropolitan whimsy, intergalactic anchovies, pepperoni principalities, the promotion of laughter, cheek, good luck and fortune, legendarily discrediting desperation and doubt, the blending of sundry scintillating elements, diversifying banalities, with intergenerational honeysuckle, and iridescent eclectic salience.

Giants!

There be giants in Steven Spielberg's The BFG and one has taken a shine to slumbering humanity (Mark Rylance as BFG).

He literally gathers dreams and then chooses to altruistically share them.

Smaller than the other giants however, his knowledge an insult to their blunt aggressive disdain, when he encounters others of his kind punishments must be endured, and humiliations ritualistically accommodated.

A young orphan girl (Ruby Barnhill as Sophie) spots him one night as he travels through London and is kidnapped shortly thereafter so that he can avoid detection (an odd way of going about things).

In order to save her from his invasive famished brethren (there aren't any female giants) back in giant land, he must employ stealth and dissimilitude, while she teaches him to be more confident, and to be proud of his clever achievements.

Innocent in its elevations and timid in its temerity, The Big Friendly Giant shyly sticks it to bullying while invigorating artistic expression.

Aside from some peculiar structural elements, it enlightens while it entertains and elucidates while it underscores.

Hey, I read Nicholas Nickleby way back when in school.

Loved that book.

I took flack for reading the whole thing.

And almost produced tears while reading aloud the chapter where _______ dies.

Recommend The BFG for children and adults alike.

Bullying really is the worst.

Peer pressure.

I thought these encumbrances would disappear during adulthood but they remain, oddly enough.

Not in my current job or social life, but I read about them regularly enough to remain intermittently flabbergasted.

Sigh, I could never pretend to love soccer or roller derby.

Or not complain when asked to do something unsafe.

A strange state of affairs this 21st Century.

Not so bad with JT at the helm though.

He doesn't seem like he possesses any bullying instincts whatsoever.

I keep agreeing with the things he says.

It's unprecedented. Uncharted. Uncanny.

Agreeing.

Peppermint.

Free State of Jones

Raw recruits hopelessly unprepared for military service, the people starving to support a lost cause, reprisals and punishments suffocating the countryside, whispers of emancipation enflaming formerly despondent fuels, a small racially mixed group of men and women set out to constructively challenge confederate rule, imagining a state where everyone profits from the fruits of their labours, during the American Civil War, in Gary Ross's Free State of Jones.

Odd to see a film that investigates militaristic insurrection as opposed to strict cohesive unified martial ubiquity, concerned citizens attempting to establish concrete constitutional reforms, exercising intellectual abstractions, with communal dignity, and auspicious flumes.

Eventually declaring their own fundamental principles.

Their group itself still fraught with internal discord.

The film has a progressive message inasmuch as it promotes racially diverse communities working together to flourish and succeed.

It was obviously shot in haste though.

Matthew McConaughey (Newton Knight) eclipses the other participants and delivers a great performance (bit overwrought at times), excelling in the lead as pivotal protagonist with the most critical speeches, but since no one else really stands out, Free State of Jones's formal aspects are at odds with its content's focus on diversity.

There can be more than one.

Not enough takes blended with sloppy editing that covers a lot of time and space without generating any visceral momentum.

There is a valuable subplot however that takes place in a not too distant future where one of Knight's descendants is on trial for marrying a caucasian woman even though he may have African blood, mixed race marriages being ridiculously illegal at the time.

By jumping back and forth between past and present, Free State of Jones coaxes its audience into critically examining contemporary racial injustices, which unfortunately continue to abound with incendiary abusive flagrancy.

A clever move, manifesting the present while remaining situated in the past, backgammon.

It's sad to think that the American Civil War ended 151 years ago and the same bigoted preconceptions still disharmoniously complicate the daily lives of so many people.

Do you remember when you were really young and there weren't black, white, Asian, Arab, Native . . . . . peoples, there were just people, living in communities together?

Those were great times.

Chill you know.

Peaceful.

Swiss Army Man

Languishing in loneliness lugubrious in doubt, hangin' high the penetrating suicidal shouts, when suddenly upon the beach betwixt the waves and sand, a body flatulent in thrust emerges ampersand.

Friendship fervid moribund enriching live decay, frolicking within the flora ursine twitchy craze, batteries a slowly pining loves lost intercepted, consummate stardust inverted glacial verdant 'spectives.

Lessons lounging lynchpins gouging finch the new companion, eagerly consumes the trust with gaseous abandon, launch relight ignite insights the leveraged absentia, automatic crisp erratic exercised 'fluenza.

Visitors a challenging courteous ebbs and flows, calisthenic plights endemic rockets robins hoe, curious the interactions surely socialized, tricks refastened sparred Sebastian glimpsed etherealized.

Caught up in surfin' chagrin like dismal diuretics, forward movement grooved attunements exiled resurrected, burly bitchin' swift restitchin' crucial conversation, wild restyled agile nubile explicit intonations.

Back within the suburbs thinly overwrought disguise, aware the stare lays bare the madness cruising lunar tides, imbued exotic dues hypnotic cloistered campy crystal, jostlin' prim the seraphim bewildered glistenin' gristle.

Loved Swiss Army Man.

What an idea.

Great performance from Radcliffe (Manny).

I've been waiting to see something different from him for awhile.

I don't see everything he does.

The Neon Demon

Authentic unawareness, a genuine ingenue, immediacy pressurizing the social with vindictive amorous jealousies she neither comprehends nor contemplates, august angelic agency, harpies heaven sent, an agonizing struggle having hawkishly conditioned their credence, as innocence mingles with disillusion, naivety nascently nocturnalized.

A young model whose natural beauty crushes her competitors suddenly reaches the heights they seek, forever and ever, without even having coquettishly furrowed, finding herself virulently enveloped in invariable viscosity shortly thereafter.

Unapologetically resigned.

To psychotic desire.

The Neon Demon starkly examines discourses of purity with venomous brevity and blunt exactitude.

Mortality.

Ostentation.

The hypnotic hallucinations impress as does the soundtrack and the scenes at the hotel (music by Cliff Martinez).

Director Nicolas Winding Refn pays homage to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch and at times seems as if he may possess a similar sense of maniacal eccentricity.

The Neon Demon's hit and miss though, some scenes pulling you into a dark carnal frothing extremity which skilfully blends the opulent and the oblivious, others just sort of hangin' out and dipsy-doodling like those you often find in generic horror.

Perhaps this approach is meant to reflect young Jesse's (Elle Fanning) shock, the uplifting yet haunting psychosocial affects of elegant effortless ascendence.

A larger budget may answer this question, one which gives Refn more time to cohesively structure a sustained chaotic incrimination, a more visceral sense of bleak wanton menace, like that which you often find in both Kubrick and Lynch's darker texts.

Wave upon wave.

Liked Jena Malone's (Ruby) performance.

Jubilance.

Now You See Me 2

There's a lot of potential for this film/subgenre.

Magic's wicked awesome, and taking a bunch of slick magicians and hypnotists and troublemakers and having them Robin Hood their way into the international slipstream, ultimate performance magnetizing the ephemeral everlasting, works well as an idea, an hypothesis, a vision, like Harry Potter sailing Ocean's Eleven, tricks, concentric metrics, the benevolent bedazzle, the wisecracking wherewithal, elevated conceptual catharsis, it would be fun if this style of film caught on, like kung fu or biker movies, seriously, don't you think?

Nevertheless, although Now You See Me 2 sets out to viscerally mesmerize and existentially impress, it doesn't really move past its age 8-14 target audience.

I wanted to love this film, I tried to love this film, a compelling premise brought to life by many of my favourite actors, enjoying themselves and revelling in their dissimulations, so loving, so caring, but the action isn't multidimensional enough (too slow), and, unfortunately, the accompanying social interactions are far too stitched and corny.

If I was still 12, I would have loved it however.

I kept thinking, that was almost really cool, that nearly transcended what's taken place so far, that could have been mind blowing, I was close to applauding that, only to be unable to sublimate a reverberating no no no no, no no no, no no no no no no no that was generated deep down within.

Hoping no. 3 adjusts for its target audience's change in age as did Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

But is there another subgenre at play in Now You See Me 2, of which Ex Machina and Criminal might also be exemplars?  

I know you've got it, the contra-Snowden scripts have been given the green light, the counterconscience is prevaricating, time to forget, time to let go, don't worry about the cyberstasi, sit back and enjoy the show.

Order some cheesecake.

Collect some minted coins.

It's kind of neat how America introduces critical controversy if the aforementioned theory has any applicable validity.

It doesn't tell you to believe something and threaten you with imprisonment if you should speak out against it.

Mistake!

Rather, it slyly establishes an alternative narrative within select films and lets the subconscious subtlety generate its own in/credulity.

The power of being tapped into every cellphone and computer on the planet.

The knowledge.

You used to have to laboriously sift through mail, establish an intricate network of loyal spies (an hydra), or apply for warrants to learn someone's intimate private secrets.

Now they're all readily available in a tantalizing format that's impossible to stop using due to its inherent multifunctionality.

Omniscience.

It's like the ring of power (consider the invisibility factor), so powerful no government would ever give it up, ever stop using it, ever sacrifice their resounding advantage, ever refrain from accessing its invincibility.

Bizarre.

In terms of linguistic diversification, the development of complex undecipherable codes, it could perhaps be a golden age.

Unless, I don't know, a hobbit can arise, and, say, cast this ring into molten hot magma, thereby giving up the greatest advantage any government in history has ever had, in turn reinvigorating a civil society which respects an individual's legal privacy.

Is there, out there somewhere, an extremely hip and cool politician who would do this, someone so beloved of everyone they would remember the ways of the 1980s and decide that constant eavesdropping, even if picturesquely packaged with impressionable pizzazz, is invasive and undesirable, afterwards promoting old school law enforcement techniques to guarantee the preponderance of justice, and maintain order with discreet compact impregnable luminosity?

Is there, can there be, is it still possible to believe, that one day, in the not too distant future, we will meet, and come to love, an honest and exceptional charismatic leader who lives according to the principles his or her government upholds, and therefore doesn't choose to spy on each and every one of its citizens?

In the ether, amidst the flotsam and jetsam, perhaps already elected, perhaps already triumphing daily, is this man or woman enlivening the globe with his or her eclectic charm and undeniable whimsy déjà, and can this man or woman, this colossus, this supernova, be thought of, herein and forever after, in the annals of interstellarosity . . .

. . . as Prime Minister Frodo?

As Prime Minister, Frodo, Baggins?

It could happen you know.

It could!

*Loved the eye staircase. Cool staircases also in Criminal.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Transcendently calculating with pure artistic spirituality, rarefied inspiration, crystalline caricatures, an East Indian genius leaves loved ones behind to study mathematics abroad, challenging racial and cultural stereotypes to do so, undeniably unique and innocent, picturesque prognostic in plume.

A gift beyond reason, like Proust, Shakespeare, Dickens or Joyce, he miraculously finds a patron at Trinity College, who sets out to formalize his spry romantic methods.

Malheureusement, academic rigour has its own contentions, and G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and his jealous colleagues initially distrust/dismiss Srinivasa Ramanujan's (Dev Patel) revelations.

Obsessions with the genuine.

Could he be the one?

There is no one, but mathematical proof is required (Ramanujan writes mathematical formulas at the highest level like squirrels climb trees or cheetahs swiftly accelerate), but would Srinivasa have written more profusely had Hardy sat back to obtain those proofs himself, giving his correspondent more freedom to think, thereby preventing the sterilization of genius?

Training Ramanujan to become an academic would have transformed him from dust devil to tornado, but in terms of both knowledge and refined intuitive creativity, it may have been better to leave him be, with a stipend, to maximize his unaccounted for mystifications.

These thoughts loosely reflect conversations held between Hardy and Prof. Littlewood (Toby Jones) as The Man Who Knew Infinity examines detections of the exceptional.

I thought it was a great film, comfortably blending brilliance and banality with modest poise and tenacious dignity.

Even at that level, amongst what Bowie called the elite and first, racist attitudes still obscure understandings, enviously orchestrating a fermented xenophobic squelch, as opposed to idealizing grand authentic freedom. 

Curious this 1729.

A modest proposal?

*Saw Alfred everywhere in this film.

Sunset Song

A clever girl, a brutal father, a stubborn son, confines of the quotidian bleak and unforgiving, the young at heart, the adventurous, callously beat down and kept in line with fierce despotic reckoning, patriarchal severity, but Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), a rapturous sight transmitting kinetic tranquility, relieves the threatening pressure, disseminating fortune with unembellished felicity, tensions be damned, as she inherits impassioned posterity.

Heuristic horizons.

Sunset Song, as bountifully bucolic as fireside chats or blueberries burgeoning, directly laying bare every insight and ramification with clearly defined wayward hesitance, too modest to overtly proclaim yet confident enough to quaintly criticize, enlivening the imagination while seductively steering, confidence in motion, as steady as she goes.

Cruel men jealousy asserting their authority are under fire within, John Guthrie (Peter Mullan) never having once listened to a feminine voice, his insensitive influence slowly transforming into World War I.

A rigid clock overwhelmed with propriety wherein youth struggle to entertain wonder.

To love in health and in spirit.

Express themselves.

Radiate.