Disobedience

I remember hearing years ago that when Amish children reach a certain age they're given the opportunity to leave their religious community to see if they prefer the alternative ways of the secular world.

If they do, they're free to leave their community without bitterness or regret, but if they don't they're free to return and live their lives according to their people's traditions.

I'm not sure which Amish sect utilizes this strategy or how closely its guidelines are adhered to.

Or if they're still in place.

It seemed like a fair way to religiously raise children, however, a method that doesn't force them to live a certain way but rather gives them the chance to choose that lifestyle for themselves.

Judicious and sustainable.

I'm not sure whether or not the children who choose to live a secular lifestyle can return and visit their families from time to time.

And I'm not writing about Kingpin.

Sebastián Lelio's Disobedience presents the return of a daughter who chose to live independently to the religious community that no longer acknowledges her.

The religion in question makes no difference.

There are Christian, Jewish, Islamic, and other religions who all have sects that function as conservatively I'm sure.

This isn't a scholarly article.

I need a research assistant.

A loved one has passed whom she loved dearly, and she has returned to pay her heartfelt respects.

The last words of the deceased emphasized that God had given humans the ability to choose, had given us free choice, whereas animals and angels had been constructed to unalterably follow predetermined rules.

Regardless of the evidence that demonstrates that many animals don't exclusively follow their instincts, or proceed with some degree of variability according to their natures, after uttering these words he passed and his freethinking daughter returned shortly thereafterwards to express her genuine grief.

I don't know how communities strictly living according to ethical codes should proceed when such codes are challenged, but I do know that many such codes were written thousands of years ago when the world was a remarkably different place.

I've always found it suspicious that the New Testament ends like a novel.

Did God stop speaking to Christians thousands of years ago?

Did he or she decide it was time to start working on another project?

I wish I hadn't seen this film.

It was a terrible week for movies and it seemed like the best option until I sat down in the theatre and realized what it was about.

I find it's best not to talk about religion. Religious people can be very touchy when you start asking questions. What I learned from Christianity was that Christ loved and forgave and loved and forgave again and again and was a remarkable person whose example is worthy of the highest respect.

But when I see the warlike ambitions of so many of his followers continuing to flourish in whatever century I don't understand the point.

Religion for me is supposed to be about love, like the line from David Bowie's Soul Love, "and how my God on high is all love," but different religions who preach about love and kindness, as many others have mentioned, often violently confront one another, and that just plain sucks, period.

Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz) is a wonderful person who made an extremely difficult decision and was left with no support afterwards while she struggled to make a place for herself in the world.

If she had been able to continue her relationship with Esti (Rachel McAdams) without judgment, they likely would have added many wonderful nuances to their community and become strong contributing members.

Didn't happen that way, but some prominent patriarchs did seriously reflect upon their loving logical difference nevertheless, boldly taking a humble stand.

Heavy subjects that will only get me into trouble.

If God didn't create Ronit and Esti, who did?

Didn't God create everything?

Aren't Ronit and Esti also his or her children?

Tully

Exhaustion complicates a dedicated mother's life as neverending chores, responsibilities, and appointments demand too much of her limited time.

It's tough to pay attention, secondary tasks remain unfinished, it's difficult to swiftly recall precise details, and sleep beckons with tempting uncompromised reverie.

She takes care of business, she's tough, creative, dependable, reliable, Tully empathetically and realistically characterizing resilient motherhood while emphasizing that Marlo (Charlize Theron) could use a break without suggesting she can't take care of it.

Then, as the clouds disperse and the heavens burst forth with luminous starlit magnanimity, a nanny is hired to manage her household during the night, reprieved, so that she can catch up on that sleep, clad in peaceful angelic dreams cheerfully composed with reflective serenity.

Or, pyjamas, love that word, the industrious Tully (Mackenzie Davis) still fully charged by the carefree energy unconsciously sustained throughout one's twenties, seemingly effortlessly excelling beyond Marlo's highest expectations, agilely working throughout every nocturnal moment, mindfully crafting with spontaneous endearing glee.

It's win-win-win-win.

The best character I've seen introduced midway through in a while.

Tully.

Rich with thought compelling interpersonal detail convincingly narrativized with multitudinous emotional commitment, like an unpretentious bourgeois folk band reflecting upon family life, it intergenerationally synthesizes to produce joyous rhythms, before unfortunately succumbing to dire judgmental decree.

I suppose a lot of storytelling tends to include a traumatic ending which hauntingly calls into question everything that has previously taken place, in Tully's case it seems as if the story is saying that it's fine for Tully to imagine a role she might play in the future, but foolish for Marlo to decide to revisit her past, but it was such an uplifting film before the final fifteen minutes or so, so uplifting I don't see why things suddenly became morbidly intense.

They could have just kept chillin'.

Still a wonderful film though, my favourite moments condemning a school that would harshly judge a child so young (solid John Hughes), and discussing the checks and balances occasionally associated with socializing post-29, Mackenzie Davis and Charlize Theron work well together and their conversations are full of lively invention, several deep characters diversify a shallow pond with flora and fauna and sun and shade that tantalizingly makes you wish you could symbiotically camp nearby, a thoughtful well-written, directed and acted comedic drama that I'd love to see again, bold print brainiac style.

Pioneering off the beaten track.

Huggable.

Knock

Having escaped the clutches of ne'er-do-wells who seek to vengefully discipline and punish, a resourceful medically inclined entrepreneur finds work in an isolated village.

Referred to locally as the doctor, his remarkable skill and charm soon has everyone salubriously enamoured, renowned beauties cherishing his companionship, established families appreciative of his foresight.

Even if a fussy priest remains suspicious.

Yet although Dr. Knock (Omar Sy) is sought after and desired, being of a romantic disposition, he spiritually manages his appetites, with the hopes of cultivating a platonic friendship in bloom.

Plus sérieusement.

But will desperate old acquaintances suddenly appear, intent on ruining his newfound communal engagements?

And will those who passionately resist the excitement generated through change blindly vilify its cheerful plaudits, focusing too strictly upon precise definitions, as discursive alternatives prosper fluidly and amuse?

Magnanimous mountaineering?

Perhaps not.

Lorraine Lévy's Knock playfully asks if imaginative innovations are more substantial than concrete calculations?, as bounding life in action flowers with postured prestige.

If the diagnoses exist yet specific corollaries are lacking, is motivational sustainable spirit preferable to austere vitality?

In politics, childhood and fiction, yes, in medicine, Knock presents a strong controversial localized case.

It celebrates the positive impacts alternative initiatives can have on environments grown static over time while championing the ways in which outsiders can fruitfully benefit the new places they come to call home.

Should they choose to call it home one day.

The secular is depicted fantastically while the religious coldly straddles the real, their fictional dialectic not as profound as it could have been, but Knock is a lighthearted comedy whose rigorous emotion naively contemplates creatively exalted difference.

Like having an ice cream instead of boxing.

Preconceptions slowly melting away.

The Rider

A rider, a force, a whirlwind.

A contendor.

In possession of very select skills applicable to one dangerous sport specifically, the wild lure of the bedlam, the thrill of each imprecise buck, exhilarating unpredictability loosely tamed and codified, potent threat Brady Blackburn (Brady Jandreau) deals with a formidable head wound, which cruelly jeopardizes his bright future, yet opens up worlds previously nailed shut.

Quietly withdraw?

Unwillingly walk away?

One more ride could kill him.

But what's life without one more ride?

The Rider sharply examines the mid-West's razor's edge.

People let people be to make there own decisions, and even if casual advice is offered, they remain their decisions to make, alone.

Respectfully so.

Carefully crafted tight scenes reservedly using every meaningful syllable to generate patient thought, the act of riding functioning like a release from the maturity, like a tumultuous counterbalance to the engrained composure, innocent, blunt, affected, and observant characters discuss life and their unique approach to living, gathered together in wide open terrain, soul searching without judgment or pretence.

Tough lives lived by tough people making tough decisions accepting harsh consequences.

Authority challenged with respect hence the challenge to authority is respected.

A decision to be made that's not like buying new jeans or signing a mortgage, one that calls into question Brady's raison d'ȇtre without presenting transformative solutions, less appealing responsibilities beckoning meanwhile, while troubling precedents set make known dire convictions.

The Rider rustles up existence without bearing its soul, friends and family supportive yet concerned, a rewarding way of life boldly tempting a gifted steed, while responsibility contends with resolve, and retirement dreams haunt and hustle.

There's nothing easy about this film, nothing fluffy, no lullabies.

Harbingers of mortality crushing the carefree.

As resilience reflects upon life.

Immersed in restrained adoration.

Origami

The present still reverberating with past conjugal shocks, a traumatic life temperamentally tasked and torn, David (François Arnaud) discovers he can intermittently travel through time, yet the sought after pivotal moment eludes his troubled psyche, as breakdowns and estrangements enervatingly obscure.

Conceptions clasped concordant.

The drama.

A caring Japanese author (Milton Tanaka as Yamane) of a helpful instructive text, mnemonic tectonics, atemporal literature, periodically comes to his aid, inquisitively providing techniques, tracks, and testaments, aware of calisthenic applications, like a sci-fi avatar, graciously expending.

David's father (Normand D'Amour as Paul) assists with daily living, bearing the future in mind as his son interdimensionally convalesces.

But can he locate that lost definitive truth and act to assert its veracity?

Thereby restoring conscious equilibrium.

And revitalizing soulful decay.

Like psychoanalytic treatises fluctuating within continuums of space-time, Patrick Demers's Origami's self-diagnostic transhistorical warps cerebralize therapeutic cyphers.

The act of creating distinct mature variations of manifold temperate classifications envisioned as a recrudescent conciliator, he sorrowfully deconstructs his mind's disconcerting revelations.

Prognostic perseverance inversely composed through the passage of time, subjective objectives manifest artistic calligraphy.

To patiently meditate upon fact and fiction, like newborn bear cubs curious at play, chasing butterflies while closely following mom, learning secrets while serendipitously strategizing, is to blend innocence and refinement with vinous uncategorized anthropomorphism, distilled like having time to nap, syncopated in spiritual daydream.

Transitioning from one precipice to another.

Chasing, investigating, challenging, shying away.

Clarifying.

Speculating.

Final Portrait

"What was that?"

"No, that was months ago."

"What happened to, yes, no, hold on, it was, underneath this!"

"Damn it."

"Oh wait, that's it, I moved it over, here, haha, hey, whatever, got it, alright, focus, what was your question?"

"Oh, minutia."

"You expect me to remember precise details that I didn't even care about at the time or about people I never met or subjects I never studied?"

"I'm like a big freckle."

"I found this last week, try it, it's delicious and only costs $2.99."

"Have you ever had a readymade store bought sandwich with or without meat that tastes this good?"

"There's no one around, you don't have to pretend, you can lie and say you were humouring me later. If word gets out."

"Come on, it's sunny and +23."

"Nah, it's blends, mixes, swamp water, iridescence."

"I like that cats have whiskers."

"He was a golden-haired Adonis. A conversation with him was like going to a play. Logical too, a natural stream of unedited fact-checked sense, like you imagine a conversation with your favourite artist might be like except that he was less random."

"Look, I couldn't say anything, he knew everything I was going to say before I said it. To stand out I had to be vulgar and that doesn't work."

"'Fair weather frisk', no, 'gilded gambit'? Not quite. What about, 'jaded orchid'?"

"Impartial?"

"You don't like swimming?"

"Milk and sugar, no lemon."

"No."

"I've been meaning to do that."

"With an S."

"I always like that they played even when it was raining or snowing or foggy or freezing."

"It's not like that here, the same categories exist but they're less rigid, less determinate."

"It lasts a long time. Everything's blurry late-March early April."

"It's the little birds. That's where you find nature's best colouring."

"Well, a huge section of downtown is opened-up for free shows from local and international artists for two months in the Summer."

"I met one guy who could do a crazy Chewbacca."

"Learn a bit everyday, try to apply it."

"If you spend too much time worrying about negatives, you might never do anything. Just don't leap too quickly."

Avengers: Infinity War

Seeing this film made me wish I had been around 7 years old when the first Iron Man movie was released.

And I had been allowed to watch it.

I still loved watching Avengers: Infinity War, and there were moments when I looked on with the uncompromised emotional intensity that rapturously flourished in my youth, but if I had watched every Marvel film with commensurate innocent intensity and then suddenly sat back to watch Avengers: Infinity War around the age of 17, the film that brings them all together, unites them with wild improvised spontaneous universal synergies, the energy from a star even harnessed within for manufacturing purposes, I think it would have seemed like 149 minutes of pure unadulterated joy, even if so much distress accompanies its beloved characters.

I don't mean to argue that there isn't a lot of brilliant television out there, or series is perhaps a better word to use these days, I love The Frankenstein Chronicles, Star Trek: Discovery, and Myths & Monsters for instance, and I'm hooked on Zoo and Frontier, but television is usually trying to be as good as film, whereas exceptionally bad films seem like they should have been released on television, creative mixes of the 2 mediums notwithstanding, Netflix currently attempting to bridge the gap.

But it's like the geniuses at Marvel asked themselves, "what if we create multiple films, always bearing in mind that we're creating films specifically, yet envision their totality like an incredible television series, patiently stitched together over the course of a decade?

That might bear ecstatic fruit.

And simmer the ultimate cliffhanger."

To be young and see so many cherished characters packed into one epic syntheses may have been both shocking and overwhelming, but would it not have also been mindbogglingly awe inspiring, like having millions of recordings from around the world available on your computer for $9.99 a month?

Perhaps I misjudge the intensity of the theoretical emotion.

I'm looking back and imagining what it would have been like if the pop cultural coordinates of the early 21st Century had been superimposed on the late 20th, but if they had been alternatively superimposed before I had acquired knowledge of both timelines, I may not have noticed a difference, and may have assumed frequent loosely unified instalments from a thoughtfully orchestrated pyrotechnic colossus were as natural as Sam falling for Diane, or George moving back in with his parents, since I wouldn't have known that I was taking an alternative timeline for granted, and therefore would have assumed my foundations were unilaterally temporal.

If Marvel is like Star Trek squared, what the heck is Star Trek cubed?

Avengers: Infinity War, if Orwellianly titled, malheureusement, worked for me.

There's the inevitable cheese associated with bringing so so many distinct characters into one film, but the cool smoothly devours it, grates it into an exhilarating intergalactic artisanal soirée.

I especially loved how Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) immediately decides to just stow away on an alien spacecraft in order to surprise attack the universe's most threatening villain.

Classic amelioration.

Star-Lord's (Chris Pratt) ideas also impress.

As do those of the Wakandans.

Not to mention the inherent self-sacrifice built into the script.

And pairing-up Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with feisty Rocket (Bradley Cooper).

I'm sure there's a plan for the intervening years, but Infinity War boldly erases billions in profit in order to make a more realistic film.

That's damn commendable.

I've been watching a groundhog eat grass for the entire time I've been writing this.

It keeps running back to his hole when people walk past.

And then comes back shortly thereafter.

He'll probably be shyer in Summer.

So I'm lucky I chose this spot for today.

Lean on Pete

A first job suddenly presents itself after a regenerative run through town, good fortune having granted knowledge and opportunity to a curious unconnected youth, his eagerness to impress well-suited to his employer's bustle, a crash course in low-end horse racing following, with long days and nights spent learning the ropes on the road.

His grizzled boss (Steve Buscemi as Del) still knows a few tricks that keep him one step ahead.

But he misjudges Charley's (Charlie Plummer) love for old school grinder Lean on Pete, and doesn't realize how far he'll go to boldly prevent him coming unglued.

Soon the two are headed North through lands unknown in search of Charley's only remaining relative, an aunt whom his father (Travis Fimmel) lost touch with years ago.

A kind-hearted waitress, some vets, and a troubled homeless trickster await, off the beaten track trudged with neither supplies nor know-how, random commentaries on hardboiled living manifested, improvised action, spontaneously guiding the way.

Lean on Pete bluntly juxtaposes innocent open-minds with worldly calculation then roughly blends them just before the mild homestretch.

Like a fledgling existentialist learning to take flight, different gusts intensifying principled individualistic spirits, experientially gliding, diving, riding, swooping, the new flexibly adjusts with crafty aeronautical awareness, balancing ethics and expediency on the fly, before lightly merging with the breeze.

Harrowingly examining lawlessness while considering when to forgive, Charley maximizes his advantage in every situation, having been extemporaneously confronted with stricken mortality, having lost the foothold that taught him to love.

Thereby functioning like a classic Western.

Will Charley age to become like the man who murdered his father?

Does the elevation of tax-free individualism create a world within which ethics are solely applied to different personal conflicts composed of duelling participants each trying to instinctually endure, like self-preservation in the state of nature, or is there a cultural rule of objective law which socially coincides?

Like Candide crowned Leviathan, Charley outwits responsibility.

A patient thought provoking solemn coming of age tale, complete with mischievous characterizations diversifying hardboiled scenes, Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete philosophically ponders life unbound, through an unexpected impulsive trek into the heart of wild humanistic existence.

Eye on Juliet

Love blooms in the North African desert as two romantics meet in the hills surrounding a sleepy town.

Uninterested in following the paths prudently yet sterilely groomed for them, they agree to spend everything they have on secret passage to Europe.

A lonely American, who just broke up with the love of his life, remotely observes them from a small surveillance robot he's tasked with operating, their innocent devotion saliently touching his heartfelt grief.

He decides to do everything he can to help them.

Yet trials belittle their imagination as knowledge of their plans reaches Ayusha's (Lina El Arabi) parents, who have already made arrangements for her to marry another.

She's locked up and forbidden to protest, austere calculation, in full-blown concerned restriction.

Kim Nguyen's Eye on Juliet playfully sculpts traditional and technological raw materials to present a passionate tragic embrace which caresses love requited.

Revitalizing age old themes with clever contemporary contents, it celebrates choice without mocking tradition, and risks that resiliently bloom.

Myriad abstractions block amorous integrities from ascending within, yet belief in oneself matched with mutual warmhearted understandings generates spiritual synergies which strictly transcend obedience.

By confidently wielding the spontaneous, it critiques cynicism while dismissing naivety, offering emotional appeals to the mind which stimulate soulful thought.

Tragedy does indeed strike after which responsibility makes amends, mistakes generating amicable relations, alternative options creating something new.

Loved the blind man in the desert (Mohammed Sakhi).

*That makes 1000 film reviews on this blog.