Incredibles 2

A family of adorable lovingly unique superheroes flexibly recommences its eternal struggle against evil, judiciously reimagining traditional gender roles along the way, as the older kids age, and the youngest multidimensionally explodes.

In Brad Bird's Incredibles 2.

Superheroics having been outlawed, a clever plan is hatched to see them jurisprudently reevaluated.

And as Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) steps up to bravely duel the wicked Screenslaver (Bill Wise), Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) learns that raising young is quite demanding indeed.

Violet (Sarah Vowell) hopes to date schoolmate Tony Rydinger (Michael Bird) for instance, yet said love interest's amorous memories have dis/enchantingly disappeared.

Little Dash (Huck Milner) is struggling with math in school, and the methodologies once used to solve standard problems have bewilderingly mutated, or so it seems, as Mr. Incredible digs deep to decode them.

And it's discovered that baby Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile) has more gifts than the entire family combined, and doesn't know how to cautiously control them, meaning that at any moment their roof might cave in, if order is not improvisationally substantiated.

As Elastigirl (is there anyone like her in Marvel?) spontaneously adjusts to Screenslaver's mesmerizing theatrics, balance reestablishes itself on the eccentric homefront.

Yet petty grudges against superhero kind continue to frustratingly manifest themselves, and an even more diabolical plan is revealed, one so insidious it maliciously promotes fastidious spectacular ruin.

Forever and ever.

Till the end of time.

Thus, extremist uncompromising villainy once again attempts to delegitimize the genuine, fantastic forces independently existing beyond its limits fuelling it as a matter of uptight principle.

Technology is employed to overcome naturalistic endowments as entrenched ne'er-do-wells continue to malign the do-gooding.

The Incredibles just want to modestly raise a family while thwarting genius crime, that's it, and since they're in possession of what it takes to lock down the ignominiously inclined, why not enable their enviable goals, while simultaneously encouraging a healthy bourgeoisie?

A middle-class?

An everglade?

An engine?

Conan.

A long time ago, when I was obsessed with the films I had been forbidden to view in my youth, one night I saw this cool looking cartoon called The Incredibles, and I rented it, and thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

I'm therefore happy to see Incredibles 2 released so many years later, and find that it fits well with postmodern superheroism.

It distinguishes itself by realistically yet humorously introducing a relatable familial dimension, thereby functioning like a Maverick doubling down within the heavens.

Like Switzerland.

Or the Toronto Blue Jays once they start winning.

Blue Jays.

Chirp chirp.

Beast

A bit lost, torn up, unsure of yourself, bored, appointments still kept, job held down, favourable impressions made, rules followed, suddenly an X-Factor chants out unassumingly, confident and determined to whisk you away, parental disapproval augments the intrigue, raw wild magnetism beckons, rugged unscripted romance unconsciously makes waves, formless indefinite turmoil, voluptuously forbidden.

Imaginative frontiers.

Realistically crushed.

Small town sociology, all nighters and country clubs, stratified daylight reckonings, prohibited ambiguity, tight collars buttoned down, assertive adolescent angst, high fives and pats on the back, phantasmagorically crossed streams, courting conspicuous challenge.

Once thought to be deconstructed.

Not that long ago.

Still are of course, there might even be someone conducting a widespread statistical analysis of global openminded sociopolitical economic constructs right now, more than one person, complementary tributaries crafting poems and plays, cartographies and lexicons, flourishing partout beyond one-dimensional obsessions, where youthful hearts still maturely animate wise non-violent pastures, radiating shifts accrued, soaking up the great beyond.

Just gotta look for it.

Beast contemplates in the intermediary zone, two lovers sticking together regardless of class based prejudices, their path fraught with judgemental blockades, and it still remains unclear if one of them is a vicious murderer.

Jessie Buckley (Moll) delivers a remarkable performance showcasing variable emotions with versatile authentic command. Multiple distinct scenarios enable her talent to luminescently blind, a raw spirit full of self-generated harnessed energy.

Sturdy yet flexible.

Calisthenically driven.

She's bluntly situated with Beast's cold narrative trauma, a member of an well-known family irresistibly drawn to a heartthrob with no name (Johnny Flynn as Pascal), one who doesn't mind the snobbery but won't back down either, a resilient freespirit who's been knocked around, both lovers mistrustful of codes, both reactive when confronting injustice.

Yet one remains level-headed and focuses their rage directly upon the foolish perpetrator in question (civilization), the other, unable to strike back at those who hurt them, takes their pain out randomly upon the world (madness).

A tragic comment on a class based state which gives no quarter to the unestablished.

In this case, however, they must be punished, the first two-thirds of the film unreeling like a profound psychological thriller, the rest descending into typical stereotypes high and low, a surprisingly stark ending, for an otherwise stunning film.

Birthmarked

Two brilliant scientific lovebirds decide it's time to prove, once and for all, that the strategically planned nurturing of children can void natural dispositions, three unsuspecting young ones deliberately chosen for their experiment, unaware of their historical familial traits, ready to grow up embowered in predetermined invariability, secluded in the country far away from constant distraction, homeschooled with amorous calculation, in Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais's Birthmarked, wherein science observes with religious fervour.

A family blooms within the carefully constructed unabashed bucolic laboratory, as two brothers and a sister innocently contend with that which remains unknown, mom and dad stubbornly sticking to the prepped script, hilarity ensuing, as youth spontaneously intervenes.

Malheureusement, if the desired results are not obtained, Catherine (Toni Collette) and Ben (Matthew Goode) must reimburse their patron for every dollar he's spent financing them, and everything that's taken place has been meticulously recorded by live-in Nanny Samsonov's (Andreas Apergis) weekly summaries, and another family from Portugal seems close to publishing their comparable results first, thus, as the pressure exponentially aggrandizes, psychological stabilities contiguously implode.

Bizarro intellectual contraceptive schematics.

Yet also an endearing comedy.

Nourished in a state of nature.

Disciplined in/sincere curiosity.

The parents aren't horrible or anything, but they do use questionable methods as time runs out.

Raising someone in isolation doesn't prove anything anyways.

In regards to living, you have to let complex organisms develop immersed in the unexpected to obtain results that have even the remotest chance of being spread far and wide.

Or so I've thought.

A tiger is generally a ferocious animal.

If you remove it from the jungle and beat it mercilessly it will either die or start to perform tricks for you.

But if you monitor it in the jungle throughout its life you can obtain untainted results.

The tiger left alone to its own devices.

Natural and free.

Unencumbered by prediction or shock therapy.

Birthmarked isn't about tigers, it's about science gone wrong in its quest for objective truth.

Fortunately, it's generally okay if a scientific experiment doesn't achieve miraculous results.

It goes without saying that science is about the slow and steady application of generally agreed upon principles which are constantly scrutinized themselves in order to maximize the universal applicability of its discoveries.

Funding scientific experiments which must produce results is bullshit.

Birthmarked recognizes this and therefore doesn't seem insane while focusing too intently on the adults at the expense of the children.

Novel to see such a narrative reflected through a comedic lens which elevates independent scientific research with no strings attached, since its subject matter so easily applies itself to drama, fantasy, and horror.

Yet by proceeding comedically, the other three genres still generate critical combustions, as formal narrative diversification examines experimental contents.

Strange film.

Ocean's 8

Alone in prison, with nothing but time on her hands, Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) masterminds a plan to steal over a hundred million in diamonds, immediately acted upon after her release, old and new contacts forging a daring team assembled, multiple components carefully coaxed and compacted, efficient intricate undaunted elasticity, subtly stretched to briskly bounce back, executing envisioned flawless features exfoliated, requiring patient expertise, and cultivated spurned suspicion.

She also plans to see her ex who betrayed her incarcerated for her crimes, her uncompromised love having been outrageously cast aside, her scorn left with abundant time to exhaustively scheme and cypher.

Meticulously so.

The team's an eclectic mix of independent spirits each existing beyond the clutches of patriarchy, thriving individually with highly specialized skills, collectively blended to secure legendary salutations.

As Debbie explains her plan.

Enormous risks taken to facilitate freespirited acclimations.

Proceeds to be evenly split amongst them.

Exacting details.

A group of friends.

Ocean's 8 takes this group of remarkably skilled individuals and lets them intelligently showcase with care.

Seductive they may be, but the film focuses on brains rather than beauty and doesn't sexualize its crafty heroines.

It's strictly business.

It moves at a fast pace as the plan dispassionately pursues its objectives, everything smoothly falling into place without much strain or fallout.

The plan's clever and it's fun to watch but if there had been more conflict throughout it would have been grittier and edgier, even if it's still appealing as it stands.

Could have used more Constance (Awkwafina) too.

She doesn't get much screentime.

Precise and polished yet somewhat too perfect, Ocean's 8 outwits expectations with crystalline charming tact.

Keeping a level head as it executively chills, it puts theory into practice with brilliant regenerative exclamation.

The Seagull

I've never given much thought to creating new dramatic forms.

I figured I'd just keep going and if something remarkably different popped into my head one day I'd share it and see what happens.

The Seagull examines an eager son's desire to impress his dismissive mother whose highly regarded literary partner has fallen for a would-be ingenue.

Her son loves her as well but the world is set to injure.

He writes an innocent play involving animals and the devil and boasts of having created a revolutionary form which is ridiculed thereafter.

The daughter of the family who manages their farm loves him, although he never notices, and an enthusiastic yet dull schoolmaster loves her, and she could sincerely care less.

An admirable doctor and a wise aged uncle (Brian Dennehy as Sorin) provide colourful commentaries throughout the film, which is based on the play by Chekhov, and contains characters who are generally engaging even if they're somewhat hedged-in.

He's a cad, she's a diva, he's seen better days, she's a dreamer, he's optimistic, etc.

But most (or all) plays lack the thousands of pages Proust had to consider his characters as they grew over the course of a lifetime, so I can't categorically fault an artist for introducing individuals prone to one trait or another, especially when they have so many clever and passionate things to say during so many meaningful exchanges.

Imagine no one ever spoke their mind or shared their point of view, their silence an attempt to preserve a sense of authoritative detachment when observing a discussion held between friends and relatives (they aren't bored), which often expresses either a lack of courage or adventure, if they truly have something valuable to say.

Someone could write a play where a modest youth consistently presents novel insights and ideas while surrounded by established personalities who refute everything he or she says through recourse to stereotyped vitriol and name it after The Logical Song.

Or call it Canonized.

The Seagull tragically blends innocence and maturity to warn artistic youths to beware of popularity and its influence as it unconsciously recasts everything it can control in its own marketable image.

It promotes novelty and difference but situates them within a covetous frame that scathingly materializes naive spirited dreams.

To mock itself, perhaps.

Perhaps not.

RBG

It's strange when you realize the law is much more complicated than simply feeling hot or cold throughout the day, and that advanced texts don't have clearly defined meanings which snuggly fit every case with cozy semantic lucidity.

The same logic applies to simpler texts as knowledge is obtained and interpretive methods are codified, reified, modified, exemplified, as others have noted, but that moment when you're sitting there reading dense material and you realize it can be read and applied from multiple different perspectives dependent upon the task at hand is simultaneously thrilling and chilling, inasmuch as it obscures the genuine while concurrently romanticizing its pursuit.

Example.

Take an equal wage paid for equal work done. If two equally qualified people are doing the same job and they started at the same time and they both perform their tasks competently they should be paid the same wage regardless of creed, race, ethnicity, appearance, or gender.

If opportunities for advancement exist they should be given to the person who is performing their tasks consistently well with the most precision as long as they aren't loathsome to deal with or incapable of managing staff diplomatically enough to prevent them from quitting or causing internal discord.

It makes perfect sense to me that men and women working the same job should therefore be paid the same wage and be given equal opportunities within their respective working environments if their employers are genuine.

It's clear that laws should support such a conclusion, yet it's chilling to read article after article, decade after decade, about how men and women are paid unequal wages for doing equal work, which makes the pursuit of creating a legal framework wherein which men and women are actually paid the same wage for equal work romantic, insofar as you need to simplify complicated codes of conduct which have diversified labour forces without applying fair work practices.

Actually doing this, actively changing the law so that one gender can't reflexively delegitimize the work of another in order to silently uphold gender based biases institutionally must be thrilling, and I imagine, in my limited way, that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has found her lifework to be quite thrilling, many of its compelling achievements nimbly presented in Betsy West and Julie Cohen's documentary RBG.

Not to say she isn't highly logical.

I suppose she eruditely comprehends the thrills of logical construction.

She's made many game changing arguments throughout her career while working as a lawyer and has delivered many landmark judgments as part of the American Supreme Court, while also raising a strong family with the aid of her remarkable husband (now passed).

A real world Marvel superhero.

A powerful living breathing example of an individual who worked within the system to peacefully change things while earning the respect of her peers, a dedicated activist who changed many laws to legalize social justice, I hope thousands of young and not so young people see this film and discover what can be realistically gained by working hard within a system that isn't necessarily broken.

RBG and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are the best real world examples which can be used to challenge the cynicism culturally propagated by the right that I've come across in years.

As they've inspirationally proven, the fight isn't hopeless and gender equality is a possibility.

You just have to find the fight thrilling.

And make sure you're a genuine romantic.

Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti

Irrevocably restless, never satisfied, constantly searching for sober novel inspiration with inexhaustible molten severance, erupting in fits of doubt and displeasure, encamped in violable abandon, glacial patience laboriously un/restrained, deep freezes and heat waves embryonically articulated, searching for radical bewilderment, impecuniously torn and strained, ambidextrous ambitions quotidianly qualified, seaside simplicity, inconspicuous nebula.

There wasn't anything else Gauguin (Vincent Cassel) could have done, although realizing this he likely should have embraced celibacy.

He seems to have been responsible inasmuch as he constantly worked to improve his art, dedicated to his personal tasks, resolved to carry on, but his wives and children were left destitute, as was he for much of his life, I suppose his family could have gone with him to Tahiti, although if I had several children and my partner was an artist who had never sold anything and was approaching 40 I likely would have moved on even if it would have crushed me.

Details.

Gauguin: Voyage de Tahiti doesn't present many details from his life, apart from the fact that he left his family behind in France to find inspiration in Tahiti where he met another woman whom he treated brutishly while painting.

The film condenses various aspects of his life into short scenes that depict him working, loving, playing, breaking down, scenes which infantilize his social relations while romanticizing his artistic stagger, the scene where a doctor notices that he isn't painting anymore adding sympathy and concern, the scene where he locks his wife Tehura (Tuheï Adams) up while he goes to work accentuating his callous desperation, as he realizes he has nothing else left, and is aware that must seem unappealing.

A bit of a scoundrel I suppose, base instincts overpowering free spirits at times as nagging hopelessness engendered cantankerous decay.

You still have to imagine you're Gauguin, you're a struggling dismissed talented artist with nothing to hold on to later in life besides works that aren't selling and intense stubborn commitment, no one recognizing your talents besides yourself, students prospering while you struggle, you have to situate yourself within his rugged composure, while remembering that you may have been less lascivious had you no steady income in the age before birth control, to take something enduring away from the film.

You could probably learn more about him from reading 5 pages of a biography.

But would you be able to imagine you were there, struggling as he struggled, toiling as he toiled, watching as everything he risked and loved slipped away, with as much doting dour devotion?

Voyage de Tahiti presents vivid impressions lacking in substance but full of rich emotion.

The other side of the world.

Lost in love at play.

Deadpool 2

I returned to my apartment around 2am a year or so ago and decided to throw on Deadpool, having loved it so much the first time I saw it.

I was tired and gaseous and distracted and a bit tipsy and wound-up shutting it off after only having viewed the first half-hour.

I figured it was unfair to judge the film because fatigue and flatulence were both likely preventing me from adoring its paramount trash talk, yet, due to the nature of Deadpool's reckonings, I also thought it appropriate to cast judgment based upon ludicrous criteria ingenuously articulated, as if such inanity was more in tune with the film's blunt charisma, as if in doing so I was being rashly genuine.

Thus, I never watched it again, and even though I still cherish the memories I have of loving it around Valentine's Day as I watched it in theatres à tout seul, and I arrived to see Deadpool 2 in energetic spirits calisthenically adjudicated, I was still worried that it would fail to impress and leave me bewildered and shocked as if I had aged to a point where I no longer got it, where I had become too stilted and bloated, where I had lost touch with the insouciant modes of expression I had studied lackadaisically in my youth, and could no longer intuitively access the mischievous spirits that once characterized so much harmless interrogative free play, like no longer enjoying hot dogs from street vendors in Toronto, even if I only eat vegetarian exemplars of the notorious snack these days, covered in pickles, onions, and corn relish, they're still quite tasty, and fill you up for under $5.

I wasn't disappointed.

The first viewing was a mind-blowing pristine cacophonous array of non-stop well-timed inappropriately pertinent comments unleashed with the untameable fury of well-educated individuals who lack the trust fund to perennially compete in the internship top-heavy elitist postmodern corporate world.

There's no lull, no pause, no moment where gifted writers Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, and Ryan Reynolds couldn't come up with another hardboiled multilayered remark that obliterates as it coddles or simply celebrates courageously embracing disenfranchised incredulity.

Asserting agency while confronting meaninglessness.

About a week before I saw Deadpool 2 I was wondering what happened to self-referential metaforecasts which critically examine their own narrative threads while simultaneously building them up with paradoxical discursive assertion.

Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) keeps getting better with age, does anyone play the grizzly sarcastic ferociously charming nerd better?, or has there ever been a better foolish romantic determined endearing smart ass contemplating pan-fried cultural conundrums with cold brazen provocative expertise?

Not that he isn't part of remarkable team that holds Deadpool 2 together, expressing individuality collectively to overcome shortsighted institutionalized supernatural miscalculations.

Like you're watching duty counsels in action.

There's so much more to the film than what I've presented here.

Boom.

Damn it's good.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

There's a lot to love about Solo: A Star Wars Story.

True love drives a cocky youth to make bold romantic decisions which aeronautically diversify his portfolio even if she's regrettably moved on.

A sassy droid (Phoebe Waller-Bridge as L3-37) that takes Dot Matrix up a notch adds homely elfish character that ruggedly protests as it swiftly confides.

The quotidian nuances outlandish improvised decisions with real world grit that's intergalactically localized.

The dangers as well as the thrills of risking everything for a cut make wild endeavours seem appealing yet threatening inasmuch as improbability mortally beckons.

41/38 years later fans finally get to see Han (Alden Ehrenreich) meet Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) then Lando (Donald Glover).

It's co-starring Woody Harrelson (Beckett).

The kessel run is both defined and showcased.

Emilia Clarke impresses as Qi'ra.

And audacious reckoning munificently makes for a gripping spine-tingling finale.

Non-stop action, exuberant spirits, phenomenal fusions, surefire soul.

If only it had been a little less hokey.

A little more dreadful.

A lot more Chewbacca.

It's missing the bone-chilling malicious sense of resilient desperation that realistically held The Last Jedi, Rogue One, Avengers: Infinity War, Captain America: Civil War, A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens, and The Wrath of Khan together.

The characters are desperate, and undeniably resilient, but the film's still so confidently assured that nothing could go wrong that I never truly felt worried or fearful or oppressed.

It's like Solo was written for young kids and the aged simultaneously, those who were around 20 when A New Hope was released now being around 61 years of age.

Thus there are myriad sequences that demand your full attention, but it's so formulaic that it seems like nothing could possibly go wrong.

I may have cut the opening 10-15 minutes.

Turned them into a series of flashbacks.

Han and Qi'ra's love story isn't even featured throughout the film.

It never feels like they'll eventually get together.

It doesn't matter that fans know they don't get together.

When it wasn't released at Christmas I figured something was up.

I still confuse Thandie Newton (Val) and Zoe Saldana.