Born in China

The difficulties of growing up wild in China's rugged wilderness heartbreakingly yet adorably weather punishing and relaxing seasonal variabilities, as young animals and their parents dare to exist in Chuan Lu's Born in China.

The ancient mating rituals of the bold discerning chiru suggest itinerant proclivities can indeed encourage the maturation of confident resourceful young.

Raising a litter of snow leopards proves daunting for a feisty mother, as covetous rival families scout her bountiful terrain.

Bumbling about his newfound home provides a mischievous panda with the competencies and skills required to arboreally come of age.

Strife and mayhem chaotically confuse a growing golden snub-nosed monkey, due to his family's sudden disregard, and the lonely life he leads amongst his fellow abandoned thereafter.

And noble red-crowned cranes regally frame the different narratives with embowering transitory grace, alighting dignity in flight, for all of China's nimble creatures.

Come for the camaraderie, comb with the cuddles, beware nature's harsh realities, and flourish off the beaten path.

To be in possession of these extant verdant luscious inspiring treasures is indubitably a grand historical responsibility.

Soulful stewardship of such vast antiquities makes one feel millennial in the present, humble yet starstruck, with nascent habitual awe.

Definitely worth seeing.

Intergenerationally expansive.

King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword

In an age flourishing long before the ascension of technocratic opalescence, wherein which the supernatural and the wayward majestically manifested authenticity, the gifted and the gaunt galavanting and genuflecting, magnificence reliant upon impunity, servility wavering mistrust, an honourable King was nefariously betrayed by his kin, his only son cast adrift with neither warmth nor privilege to suckle, then discovered, and nurtured, by the independent and the forthright, inductively instructed in brawn, conviviality, mischief, loving evaluated through sanctuary, costs wholesomely hyperconnected, impulsive riled frantic mores, one chance still remaining to reclaim his unknown throne, skittishly and jealously revealed, through treacherous enfeebled woe.

Muggles and mages peacefully coexisting in cheerful luminescent palm, until the balance is thrust asunder by those who do not share power.

Fidelity to the old ways survives nonetheless, a dedicated lot sagely educated in myth and legend.

Patiently awaiting.

August sublimity subsumed.

Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: the Legend of the Sword reimagines an English epic by blending the surreal and the sacrificial with athletic cinematic prose.

Through recourse to the bewitching, he shamanistically summons convergent forces, which subterraneanly sanctify a waking vision enchantingly his own.

Snakes aren't evil.

Nature is bold and relevant.

The music and the action and the emotion made me wish I was sitting in an inn in the 5th century constructed of stone with a giant cauldron of stew simmering over a communal fire, our ales robust, our bread hearty, and as the practical and the spiritual became more rapturously entwined, I could almost taste the feast, I could almost consume the vittles.

Young Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) reincarnates the Snatch/Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels aesthetic, as do his feisty companions as they resiliently battle both themselves and the supposed King.

It isn't about armies or sieges, preferring rather to laud cults of personality.

It revolves around Arthur, but there are more than enough well-developed characters to ensure he's part of an influential collective.

He doesn't seem to care much for ruling yet wants to progress as challenges and quests present themselves.

An homage to British First Nations?

To conscientious individuals?

An eclectic international incantation regardless, if not a concentric mysticization, or a definitive indissoluble divergence.

Quite different from contemporary action/fantasy films.

Estuary.

David Lynch: The Art Life

Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm present David Lynch in his own words, as he prolifically creates at home in California.

Better known for his films, David Lynch: The Art Life alternatively investigates his multidimensional paintings, while he tells the tales that led him to begin narrativizing canvasses in motion.

From his wholesome beginnings in Montana and Idaho, to his wild adolescent high school days in Virginia, Lynch constructs several transformative trestles and discusses time spent with both mom and dad.

His mom detected special abilities during his childhood and took comforting steps to lovingly cultivate them.

His father found his outputs to be somewhat too macabre while visiting him in Philadelphia however, after he had moved there to study painting and actively engage with distinct recalcitrant phenomena, and made some harsh recommendations the timing of which was ironically inappropriate.

It was classic feast and famine.

The feast.

He suddenly receives a grant to study film at the American Film Institute.

Famine: the creation of his masterpiece, Eraserhead, takes longer than expected, and he doesn't complete the film until after his father and brother show up to give him the, "you should start thinking seriously about life" talk, which shortsightedly reduces him to tears.

He obviously disregards their criticisms and goes on to become one of America's great directors, working in film, music, television and painting, notably forging a strong bond with Mark Frost.

It's happening again.

And Stanley Kubrick once stated (paraphrasing) that Eraserhead was the only film he ever wished he had directed.

I think that's in Michael Chion's David Lynch but I'm not certain.

Dark and sombre yet light and dreamy, his texts possess a mystic quotidian quality that defies sustained comparison.

The man himself showcased in The Art Life is down to earth yet provocative, humble and unique.

Listening to him modestly describe his formative years sounds like an extended free form boundless poem which patiently articulates all things clasped artistic.

Like Paterson after a few more decades.

What I gathered from his thoughts was that it was never a matter of stopping, or that creation is his life's work, just as others drive buses or cure the sick, it's just what he does, and he never had any inclination to do anything else.

A gifted storyteller and a remarkable artist, it's amazing that he never stopped working, and incredible that he continues to create to this day.

An honest to God/Buddha/Coyote blue rose.

In bloom.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

The characters have been introduced, and have come together to forge a resilient team.

Traits briefly developed in vol. 1 must now be convincingly expanded upon in order to keep generating cheeky sly endearingly rebellious momentum, even if the Guardian's antics are no longer officially outlawed.

Rocket (Bradley Cooper) screws up though, and, after saving a guilded race from a thick-skinned monster, he steals some of their precious batteries to profit on the side, and that very same none-too-amused excessively proud community decides to vengefully hunt the Guardians down consequently, which leaves them troubled and divided after Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) meets his father (Kurt Russell as Ego) who turns out to be an immortal Celestial.

For the first time.

Ego wants to destroy the galaxy but I've said too much already.

Nevertheless.

There's still more to be told.

Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Rocket wind up imprisoned after Yondu's crew mutinies and deprives him of his mellifluous arrow.

While imprisoned, Rocket begins to understand that perhaps he is somewhat abrasive, as he's critique by the rather unpolished Yondu, and referred to as "a professional asshole."

Sticking two assholes in prison together and having them play who's the severest was a great idea, and one that helped them tone it down a bit without spoiling their characteristic alarm.

A new empathic character named Mantis (Pom Klementieff) complicates Star-Lord and Gamora's (Zoe Saldana) relationship after revealing his true feelings, and they interrelate ala Sam and Diane of old afterwards as pride and improvisation delicately yet ruggedly blend.

Star-Lord must also relate to his newfound dad while Gamora contends with her psychotic sister (Karen Gillan as Nebula), the former becoming more estranged as the latter begin to bond.

The Guardians themselves are concerned with their collective identity and whether or not their wild unheralded intergalactic shenanigans have united them together as an im/penitent family?

Without acknowledging the unconscious focus of many of their conversations, they consider the nature of their beguiling consensus, while unravelling supervillainous plots and doing their best to universally grind.

Drax's (Dave Bautista) comments thematically reflect this Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 prerogative, as his colourful blunt wholesome yet provocative observations coddle and crucify the group as a whole.

Groot (Vin Diesel) assists as well.

It's a great sequel, multilaterally pondering life and why it's worth living without sugarcoating its contentions or shying away from its responsibilities from diametrically opposed perspectives.

Big time.

Complacency is structurally criticized as its warm and friendly formal aspects contradict its argumentative content, until the Guardians realize that if both its fuzzy and festive features are to continuously chill, or if Ego conversely gains the upper hand, their raison d'être, their status as Guardians of the Galaxy, will become somewhat mute, multivariably speaking.

The transformation accelerates around the time Star-Lord's walkman (walkperson) is destabilized.

If they didn't care, if they just embraced eternal isolated luxury, they would have gluttonously imploded.

Also visually stunning.

Tragic artistic melodramatic sci-fi?

Correct.

I'd say that designation is correct.

Yes I would.

Vermillion.

Colossal

Sensational supernatural synergies conventionally disrupt earth's space/time continuum to coincide with the destruction of a young girl's diorama in the woeful Colossal, extracurricularly transporting her grief to South Korea, where unbeknownst to her, a giant monster covertly seeks vengeance.

But said vengeance is spatially and temporally dependent and the beastie does not return until decades later, when, still consumed with dioramic grief, attempts to self-medicate with alcohol and promiscuity having failed to appease her anguish, she heads back to the small town where she was raised, at which point the destructive culprit comes courting.

Instinctively.

He offers friendship, furniture, a job, free booze, but she still prefers his better looking friend, which drives his responsible sure and steady stamina into a state of pure psychosis, for he has once again entertained the forbidden.

A monster was created for him upon that fateful day also.

And after they discover they both wield giant indestructible surrogates, it's on bitches, in the heart of downtown Seoul.

The potential for an incredible film lies within Nacho Vigalondo's Colossal, but, unfortunately, it's more concerned with possession than comedy.

It's funny when you think about what happens, what transpires, and it's fun to talk about afterwards, not that dark comedic elements don't permeate throughout.

I've never spoken about this film with anyone.

Yet Colossal spends a lot of time just chillin' in a small town, while emphasizing that a hard working character is boring, or that spontaneous bombshells find him boring, which winds up being somewhat boring, and pyrotechnically awkward when he tries not to be boring, until the final moments which are worth the wait, as stoic disinterest unwittingly consumes him.

Let the Sirens be you fool, they know no allegiance, they have no sense of fair play.

Metaphorically speaking, diligence and responsibility are crushed by both self-generated righteous indignation and adventitious independent preferences for alcohol.

Just let things be.

As you approach 40, you may lose most of your interest altogether.

And settle into a general routine of regenerative composure.

Good food, good music and film.

An appreciation for synchronizations.

A cat.

A micropig.

Free Fire

There's something different about this pointless indolent thrashy debacle, an art to not caring at all that transcends the actual output and haphazardly generates an irradiating flame.

Like the rebellious walrus who spontaneously decides to find new lodgings, or the lackadaisical raccoon who still outwits grandpa every Sunday, Ben Wheatley's Free Fire accidentally harnesses that wild raw pulsating energy that is undeniably up to no good, yet still mercilessly elucidates congenital deviant awe.

Resignedly.

It's not really that funny, the points it makes aren't particularly profound, the action sequence/s lack hyper-reactively intricate multivariable momentum, and none of the characters possess enigmatic appeal.

It's sort of like riding the métro late at night and watching while someone who drank too much vomits, and then penitently slips and falls into that vomit while his or her friends recklessly cheer.

Or when you're sitting in class and someone farts and you can tell that they're embarrassed but it's a stinker and the stink doesn't fade and soon the teacher can smell it but they wind up counterintuitively smirking to the culprit's chagrin.

They may have been hoping their lack of a plan, their free fire, would extemporaneously implicate jarring vindicated chartreuse, correct, yet, instead, the backlash ends up courteously refining clumsy awkwardness astern, collegially asking their audience to digest pestilent penpersonship in order to stentoriously belch, gaseously unscrew, or squeamishly bellow, as a matter of loyalty to the director and cast under examination.

It's like a struggle, a struggle to achieve that which they never intended to accomplish, to not do anything, a nihilistic neologism necromantically jaded and spry.

As it succeeded at doing next to nothing blandly, I couldn't help but think its murky blend of flash and crash was more refreshing than similar more engaged comedies, form cacophonously duelling with content, to circuitously disappoint while chugging back another 6.

Tally-Ho.

Incendiary inanity.

The Circle

Omnipresent technological observation, every detail from everyone's life infinitesimally revealed with omnibus macroscopic composure, the triumph of the public sphere, no more secrets, no more subterfuge, real time rhapsodic synergistic respiration sucking in surety and exhaling plots, sandlots, polka dots, buffets, aeronautic knowledge in plain microcosm, mountainous metaphoric immersive munchy meadows, cross-referenced cursive equations, auspices, permanent honesty.

The Circle seeks to reveal everything ever recorded, every piece of data historically accumulated, every whisper, every slight, while turning everyone's life into a networked primetime extravaganza, constant pervasive awareness, monitoring each and every aspect, like itsy-bitsy circus shows.

Prophetic in its potential, sage in its revelations, James Ponsoldt's The Circle critically examines the ways in which social media has significantly transformed human existence in less than ten years, like the printing press of old, exponentially exemplified.

Within the film, an employee's (Emma Watson as Mae) responsibilities gradually increase after she's hired by the aforementioned, an innovative business that has combined several popular online sites into one übercolossus, until she goes transparent and everyone begins following every moment of her life all day everyday as it happens online, and she suddenly finds herself with an unprecedented degree of influence.

She's chill though, cool, she's not really into all that sort of, in the film anyways, the film is quite different from the book, although she realizes she possesses a perky ability to monumentally game change.

She digs.

She excavates.

She constructs.

She reveals.

If everything about all and sundry was accessible online the world would certainly become a different place.

A lot of pricks would be forced not to be huge dicks, unless some kind of sadistic sensational saga prevailed, for a time.

It might end up being like true democracy, things like starvation and violent crime slowly (perhaps rapidly) disappearing, the exaltation of the ephemeral, new variations of Star Trek compellingly illuminating the variations, slavery ending, endangered animals given a fighting chance for survival.

Imagine the pizza.

The long weekends.

The orations.

But if a select group controlled it things likely wouldn't change much.

And it would be super hard on those who didn't want their lives to be transparent, not just the unscrupulous but regular people as well, unscrupulous regular people notwithstanding.

Seems to be heading in that direction regardless.

Not really sure if The Circle's prophetic or simply just a comment on the times.

Makes the art of creating genuine surprise all the more intriguing either way.

*Another film could be made based on the book that could offer deeper reflections.

The Lost City of Z

Driven by an irrepressible desire to advance and succeed, willing to assiduously acclimatize himself to arduous extremities, without uttering a single dismissive word of protest, the bold Percival Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) sets out to map disputed South American realms, and learns of an ancient legend after earnestly departing down river.

The pursuit of that legend leads him to boisterously challenge the racial preconceptions of Britain's Royal Geographical Society after he achieves fame for his rigour and accolades for his gall.

Controversies cloud his subsequent expedition however as a colleague of a higher social rank (Angus Macfadyen as James Murray) signs up and cannot handle the hardships of the exploratory life.

After Fawcett judiciously grants him reprieve, he still slanders his reputation upon returning home.

Yet his resolve remains unencumbered (even during World War I) and his humble determination wins him the loyalty of his fellow explorers as well as that of local aboriginal tribes.

The long periods of time he spends away from his family leave them aggrieved nevertheless.

Atonements must be paid for cold sacrifices made.

James Gray's The Lost City of Z presents an adventurous life lived in nimble haunting miniature.

I've often written that biographical films such as Z proceed too quickly and only offer a scant realization of the subject of inquiry's remarkably inspiring accomplishments.

Yet Z has found a compelling balance between the burst and the burnish which cleverly captivates without seeming superficial or insufficient.

It isn't a poppy light conglomeration of exceptional details but rather a profound accumulation of brave characteristics which classically define an intrepid life.

Born to quest, and ruggedly equipped with the constitution to do so, Fawcett stoically sought the supposedly sensational in order to encyclopedically romance.

I imagine, as the internet mutates, hundreds of years from now cyberspatial explorers will pursue similar objectives by searching online for that which previous civilizations considered noteworthy.

The macroscopic transforms ultramicro.

The evolution of adventuring.

Piquant periodic paradigms.

Solid career move Robert Pattinson.

Going in Style

Methinks there was a time when companies rewarded 40 years of hard work with a decent pension so their loyal workers could retire with dignity.

I suppose many companies still do assist dedicated workers after they've paid decades worth of dues, Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next and its cheerful examination of European generosity coming to mind, although I'm sure the practice isn't limited to Europe.

It's about community, family, friendship, trust, virtues which scurrilous executives working for the bad companies rapaciously exploit to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains.

Dignity doesn't make any sense to them because they have none.

To put it bluntly.

Relatedly, I was thinking about Vancouver's housing market one day and the following thoughts came to mind. If someone lives in the community where he or she grows up and owns multiple properties which she or he rents out to his or her fellow citizens, it would be more difficult for them to exploit said citizens due to the strong communal bonds forged during a life worth living. I can't statistically verify the following, but I'm convinced this is why so many Québecois cities remain relatively affordable.

However, if the housing market was opened up to encourage international sales, wealthy foreigners who have no communal attachment to a city's people, unlike landed immigrants, could easily buy up property and start charging exorbitant rates because they have no cultural bonds with their renters.

It seems like if you ever want to own a house in Vancouver, you either have to earn a ballpark $250,000 a year, or hand your mortgage down to your children who would then eventually hand it down to their children and so on.

In other words, if you make 60K a year in Vancouver and buy a home, it's your grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will eventually pay off the debt, theoretically speaking, and some jerk from who knows where may have picked up a new jet meanwhile.

I know it's still hard to buy a house in Montréal but remember they are more affordable than those in Toronto or Vancouver. I haven't read a book covering this subject but I'm convinced it's because Québecers, begrudgingly or not, care more about one another collectively.

In Zach Braff's Going in Style, three elderly friends lose their pension and can no longer afford the rent or make mortgage payments as a result.

So they person-up and take ridiculous risks to make amends.

It's a bit too pom-pom and ding-dong for my tastes, but it does take a light look at the ways in which globalization is crushing some local communities.

While emphasizing the hopelessness of workers caught in such situations through recourse to absurd comedy.

And it's fun too watch agile screwed-over seniors rob a bank Robin Hood style, the same bank who grossly screwed them over.

Suppose it's not only international financial interests that buy up property and jack up the price so disposable incomes disappear.

There's still a local aspect to the global even if international agendas obscure regional concerns.

Has Christy Clark ever done anything to address Vancouver's housing crisis?

All I really know is that the killing of hundreds of wolves was authorized by someone in B.C while she was premier.

They'll be back.

I wonder if she cares about anything at all that isn't plus $250,000?

More often than once every 5 years.

Tragic.