Pete's Dragon

A child's imagination can limitlessly prosper as it infinitely expands if pedagogically nurtured like a flourishing free spirit.

In David Lowery's Pete's Dragon, we find a young child (Oakes Fegley as Pete) who has been living in the woods for several years under the watchful eye of a caring dragon.

Elliot's the beastie's name.

His existence is undeniable in the film, but, if he is thought of as representing limitless imagination and Pete has developed limitless imagination while growing up on his own in the wild, then after he is discovered by humankind, what becomes of that imagination in terms of future potential?

In terms of the options available in town?

Two brothers are presented, one (Wes Bentley as Jack) who owns a logging company and abides by the law when extracting timber, and another (Karl Urban as Gavin) who manages the company on the ground and breaks those laws in order to earn higher profits.

Either way Pete's imagination will have to adapt to human civilization, since both options extract wood from the forest.

Jack takes Pete in while waiting to hear from child services, after Pete befriends his daughter Natalie (Oona Laurence), and for the first time since the fatal car accident in the film's opening moments, Pete is surrounded by and immersed within nourishing comforts, comforts that can lovingly engage his imagination.

Meanwhile Gavin, having learned of Elliot's existence, hunts down and viciously traps him, thereby attempting to turn Pete's imagination into an estranged exploited sideshow.

Cunning and ingenuity, no doubt the reflexive byproducts of that imagination, enable Pete and his friends to free tethered Elliot, who is then chased by his would be oppressor, and forced to unleash incendiary objections.

Foes defeated and stability secured, in the end we see Elliot and Pete reunited, Elliot having found companions as well, or Pete having developed an in/dependent artistic/commercial sensitivity, nurtured by a disposable income.

Perhaps not the most well rounded layer of metaphorical interactivity, but if relativity is applied to expand upon the definitions of stability and comfort, as it should be if Elliot is taken into consideration, and these definitions proliferate within the realm of free choice, it's possible that everyone could have their own community of dragons, loveable in their specialized elasticities, curious to energetically explore.

Why the heck not?

As Summer is applied to the upcoming scholastic year?

It's a wikithing.

I can be cheesier.

Anthropoid

Penetrating im/pounding extremes, every micromovement scrutinized, every act commanding pressure, evasion, occupying hostility, bestial barbarous butcher, the Czechoslovakian resistance responds with succinct furtive gravity, a clandestine mission necessitating collective stealth, probable reprisals hauntingly staggering, the goal inter/nationally paramount, assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, and deliver a devastating blow to Nazi Germany.

Expedient precision.

Resilient nerve.

Sean Ellis's Anthropoid is a serious war film.

In fact it's the best war film I've seen in years.

There aren't any chummy exaggerated shenanigans, no consistent bombastic explosions, the soldiers barely have any resources, they're organized but years of grotesque repercussions have left them divided, there's a complicated objective requiring superhuman strength but its subjects are realistically afraid and hesitant, which inculcates sage humanity, cool heads still prevailing to keep things discreet enough to avoid despotic detection, ordinary people making extraordinary sacrifices like the recruits described by Saint-Loup, almost every character given a crucial role, courageous exceptional multifaceted desperation, like they really are fighting a war, and proceeding with requisite solemnity.

Heads kept level even as love's warm embrace lightens the tension, loss still generating overwhelming emotion, kindred spirits who would have otherwise been at play.

Goals motivating ubiquitously.

The different ages of the characters are written remarkably well.

Imperfect markspersonship.

Horrifying punishments.

Maturity comes of age.

Poise.

Un homme à la hauteur (Up for Love)

Instantaneous infatuation, irreducible desire, a cell phone forgotten, a cell phone returned, diminutive size coaxing plaudits and spurns, but this little man has true rapture at stake, and callous dismissals don't exacerbate, her love lies a pleading in tense social fashions, observations of others conscripting her passions, but perhaps love indeed will outwit prejudice, and two trusty love birds will clashin' outfit.

Marrow.

Bequeathed in leisure roam.

Lol!

An architectural man with a soul enriched by secular seraphim courts an ethereal beauty while redesigning an opera house.

She's enamoured but his size leads others to stultify their secretions.

Caught between thriving abundance and lowly bigotry, Diane Duchȇne (Virginie Efira) must decide where she stands.

 Alexandre (Jean Dujardin) has been there before and knows all to well the follies of love pending.

Not this time?

Laurent Tirard's Un homme à la hauteur (Up for Love) examines the best and worst of the social to serendipitously purolate illustrations of fettered romance.

As a thoughtful reflection on love flourishing as it's surrounded by stupidity, Un homme à la hauteur works, but the mechanics, the scenes and sequences required to sturdily uphold its positive vision, lack stamina, and at times the film seems like it's more concerned with awkwardly depicting Alexandre as a little person than crafting long lasting memorable situations.

Well, I am remembering a lot of the film right now, but because it's cheesy, not striking.

I suppose its blend of the superlative and the shallow claustrophobically stifles as it seeks to astoundingly uplift.

Some people are like that though, it doesn't shy away from enervating realities, but if Diane had dealt with these realities with more strength Clos la Coutale they would have been less enervating themselves.

Although the transformative aspect might have been lost as well, along with its corresponding polished grit/redemption (better to have a character succumb them overcome or simply strum?).

Aegis reciprocated mellotron.

So so.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

A self-sacrificing angel emerges from the voluminous depths of contempt and disregard to unite two trouble making misfits in her overflowing celestial bounteous embrace.

Bucolic style.

Yet cruellest fate seismically disillusions their blossoming intimacy and the two are left unsheltered and forsaken as child services demands young Ricky's (Julian Dennison) return, and he would rather dwell in the forest than suffer neverending urban severance.

So to the forest they go, where Hec's (Sam Neill) scrappy knowledge cantankerously ensures they avoid capture, until what begins as a minor local disturbance becomes a nationwide media sensation, every detail wildly blown out of proportion, unknown contingencies, flexibly furbishing controversy.

Endured.

Respiration.

With neither plans nor provisions they prosper in plight.

Tangential tandem.

The film's hilarious.

Taika Waitit's Hunt for the Wilderpeople slowly and patiently ruffles fecund empiric feathers, the kind of film which might have flounced in less capable hands, but, rather, continuously stylizes lighthearted yet hard-hitting situations which leave you eagerly anticipating the next fundamental improbability, interest compactly impacting, like a tumbledown tapestry with auriferous attitude.

Two people who can't fit in anywhere are hunted down like British fox as they begin to forge a friendship which the Man instinctively seeks to tear asunder, the irony a profound critique of the system hoping to otherwise civilize them.

The soundtrack backs this up.

Some cool Terminator references.

A film the whole family can watch, even family members who dislike watching films the whole family can watch.

Lol!

Music by Lukasz Pawel Buda, Samuel Scott, and Conrad Wedde.

Evidently.

Café Society

Maybe, some more thought could have been put into Café Society.

Perhaps Woody Allen should take some time off, regroup, refresh, relax, recalibrate.

It's possibly a classic exemplar of hubris, of a feeling of invincibility.

You can tell the script is shrewdly written with a diverse variety of characters set up in micro and macro familial oppositions, but it's still sort of superficial, depth is lacking, like reputation rather than intellect is guiding each energetic expression.

The script is more like a first draft than a polished masterpiece.

The elements that might have been transformed into something Oscar worthy are there but it's like Allen forgot to spruce things up, so that rather than vigorously devouring a hearty multidimensional thought provoking eccentricity, parts of his audience are stuck with the stock, and remain famished as the closing credits role.

I think he liked writing this one.

The characters don't really develop apart from Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) and just predictably interact with one another blandly as the film prattles on.

Casting off hubris to enlighten modesty which slowly and painfully crystallizes as the barrage of counterarguments inquisitively adjudicate checks such tendencies.

Or not, maybe he's just on a bit of a losing streak, he has made 46 films, they can't all be Annie Hall or Midnight in Paris.

Some of them are bound to be not so great.

Although, ahem!, In Search of Lost Time rarely errs, Proust having possessed that inextinguishable everlasting implausibility that hardly ever accepted anything less than pure genius, and he proceeded the entire time as if he was a witless fool.

Wes Anderson?

Alejandro González Iñárritu?

Solid cinematography (Vittorio Storaro) and Kristen Stewart (Vonnie) impresses.

The narration could have been left out or seriously cut back.

The music's too Woody Allen.

It's worse the second time.

Who am I to critique Woody Allen?, doubt I could consistently come up with wonderful films year after year, decade after decade, 46 of them so far, that's freakin' nutso.

I fast incarcerated.

Suicide Squad

Villains.

The expansion of the DC Extended Franchise.

Slowly approaching Marvel proportions, Suicide Squad introduces several fresh faces and forces them to apocalyptically annihilate.

The gods themselves.

Their insouciance is malevolently matched by their expertise and as ridiculous as it sounds, they're grouped together as an elite special task force to take on even more ruthless antagonists because government reps are worried the next Superman may be dictatorial in his humanistic approach.

It sounds counterintuitive but I like the idea, assemble a Deadpoolesque unit and send them forth to enforce the global security they once so contemptuously menaced.

But Deadpool has stolen Suicide Squad's thunder with its discombobulating array of hyperreactively loquacious lightning strikes.

I suppose it's easier to take one character and electrify his cheeky vitriol than it is to take a bunch and do the same as they're coerced into acting against their wills, but Deadpool's script still erratically eclipses Suicide Squad's and provides writers of its sequels with a tumultuous target to shoot for.

"For which to shoot" just doesn't work.

Suicide Squad also expands upon DC's encroachment into X-Men territory, the volatile vanguard, perhaps lacking in versatile prerequisites.

There's so much happening in Suicide Squad and so many new characters being written, that the story suffers from oversimplification, although the individuals within it make for some memorable malfeasance.

It's all about the particulars.

Which I loved, Dead Shot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), and Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) each leaving lasting impressions, as do antipode Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), and I look forward to seeing them pop up again from time to time.

I'm assuming Diablo will return.

I love the im/mortal dimensions of fantasy/sci-fi/adventure/detective characters.

I'm even thinking Krycek might somehow return some day.

Almost forgot to mention the new Joker (Jared Leto) whose character diabolically diversifies the plot while heartbreakingly hustling truly romantic tragedies.

Leto has tough acts to follow and he macabrely makes the character his own.

The Joker's scenes add an unexpected dimension to the film as he keeps showing up in carnivalesquely chaotic flashbacks (and the present) which save it from mediocrity even if the narrative's still somewhat feeble.

The DC Extended Universe is in dire need of a Captain America: Civil War.

Something outstanding.

Lots of Joker.

Just how I see it.

Genius

Agonizing labour mingling with the bewildered ethereal basks in potential obscured, a neverending stream of doubtful/joyous speculations as incendiary as they are preposterous, throngingly detached from the chattering corporeal, suddenly projecting auditory flashes of verisimilitude.

Acknowledgements.

Discoveries.

Versatile editor Max Perkins (Colin Firth) embraces eccentric self-obsessed writer Thomas Wolfe's (Jude Law) text with encouraging flattery and fetchingly suppressed awe, the two forging a working friendship that leads to eventual publication.

With a granite gristful, Perkins incisively vets to encourage digestion, while Wolfe thoughtfully considers his arguments with jubilant patience and restrained celerity.

Momentum matriculating.

Existential peculiarities haunt Perkins's purpose, as he wonders if his insights hold back the genius for which he dedicatedly advocates.

The director's cut of The Chronicles of Riddick isn't as good.

Mommy, is very good.

Once free, Wolfe is attached to no one, his loving support, his devoted patroness (Nicole Kidman as Aline Bernstein [it's like she hasn't aged since Billy Bathgate]), crippled by his callous insouciance.

His carefree hedonism.

Her sacrifices shut out.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce) offers begrudging consul as Wolfe's spite begins to deride Perkins, Fitzgerald critiquing Wolfe's Highlander spirit, his divine gravitational pretensions.

To Genius, the film taking something as unappealing as editing a novel then turning it into a multidimensional commentary on loyalty, fame, artistic expression, family, wantonness, friendship, blending trajectories which eventually polarize, fragile confiscated freedoms, collaborative literary identities, Fitzgerald functioning as synthesis.

Editorial toil.

Sometimes you write something that clearly requires no changes for about three days, others you arduously tear a document to shreds to make the improvements you're not sure it needs, most of the time it's just patience, purpose, progress, perplexion.

I actually find writing something, then working out all day, then editing in a state of exhaustion to work quite well as a technique on occasion.

Usually, if I enjoyed writing a poem or a review it needs serious work although that's not always the case.

Fugacious formulae.

Fleeting fancies.

Rock-solid reliability.

Temporal pressures.

Fragmentary fusions.

Consumption.

Silliness.

Reserve.

Should you just let it tear you apart?

For utility's sake?

Checkered Chattanooga.

Undecided.

*I'm wondering if purchased copies will include a conversation between director Michael Grandage and editor Chris Dickens as a bonus feature.

Captain Fantastic

Intellectual athleticism, extreme elastic environmental ecstasies, raising the fam in the wilderness like a self-sufficient acrobatic critically inclined motility, hunting game and gathering edible plants, roots, berries, vigorously debating political and ethical thought while fighting as if atavistic Thoreau went forth and meritocratically multiplied, thickets and thespians, excavated escalades, plundered idyllic trial-by-fire equanimity, willing free spirits, stereoscopic centigrade.

Off to the city.

To pay last respects.

Confrontation.

Introspecs.

Competing rationalities flourish in Matt Ross's Captain Fantastic as the traditional is multidimensionally deconstructed, the stark opposition culturally communalized entre the devout and the dedicated aptly displaying reasonable idiosyncrasies, alternative acclimatizations, to frenetically fluid shushed postmodern democracies.

The religious tradition, obediently abiding by the structures that be with respect for law and authority contra the inquisitive argumentative life that debates to understand dynamic sociopolitical distillations.

Both approaches formidable in their fragility.

They clash at a funeral for one of the clan's matriarchs, her father disgusted by his son-in-law's way of life.

The film, a wild playful illustration of familial fervency that is a definite must see, practically every scene generating active thought, a rowdy critical examination of critical examination, as mischievous as it is shrewd, as carefree as it is uptight, questions as it answers to inculcate critical discourse, an interrogative humorous vista, envisioning variety with causal robust gaze.

As Ben (Viggo Mortensen) accepts that he has to respect even if he disagrees while engaging with others, his humanity conscientiously expands, even if it irks him considerably.

Top-down and bottom-up, his children catalyze this transformation.

Balance you know.

Liberty.

The Legend of Tarzan

I suppose The Legend of Tarzan is an adventure film, an action film, a story, a, legend, not a penetrating critical essay examining European colonialist practices in Africa and the resultant horrors they unwittingly released.

Thus, in the final moments, as a British aristocrat who was raised in the wild by fictional mangani apes celebrates the fact that he thwarted the ruthless plans of a self-starting Belgian to brutally enslave the Congo, the entire country, human and beast alike, united behind this altruistic white man, I should have forgotten about the following century of violence and joined in the joyous festivities.

Oddly, The Legend of Tarzan is an American film that champions blue blood as opposed to hard work, the hard working risk takers's flagrant strategic planning unquestionably no match for his adversary's aesthetic environmental nobility.

In the context of the film, this is a good thing, for Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgård) succeeds and the ignominious Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) is devoured by crocodiles, and the people of the Congo can continue to exist as they have for millennia, beholden to no one besides themselves, as Tarzan does not seek to divinely rule.

But if you dig deeper, it's more like a clever manifestation of white supremacy either way.

A no win scenario for Africans.

The evil religious one who clearly considers himself superior and wants to enslave the population is defeated by the good laissez-faire one whom everyone in the country, including the animals, regards as if he's an omniscient god.

African and American characters alike are given prominent roles within that are combatively fierce and strong.

But none are as strong as blue blood Tarzan, who is mightier than all and has therefore indirectly upheld aristocratic British class privileges.

Apart from all this, even if you overlook all of this, the film's not that great.

It starts out well, introducing characters I wanted to learn more about while establishing a narrative I wanted to eagerly follow.

But there's just way too much sentiment, too many stock characters having predictable diminutive conversations in cliché situations.

Apart from George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) who impressed and functioned like a colonialist conscience.

It moves too quickly, the scenes that try to slow down the pace a bit and develop some character are far too short and adversarial, like the production team's trying to accelerate the interactions so you don't have time to figure out how awful they are.

A lot of cool stuff does happen with the animals and I've always dreamed of seeing an ending like The Legend of Tarzan's within a different context.

Still though, gross historical aberrations, the double white supremacist whammy, and characters relying on underdeveloped merit.

Elusive indoctrination.

Clever in its villainous duplicity.