Joker

A confused man who struggles to fit in suddenly responds with unhinged fury, to those who snidely provoke him.

He tries to socialize at work, to enjoy the friendly influence of camaraderie, but is attuned to a different wavelength that pushes others swiftly away.

He sees a psychiatrist on a regular basis to air grievances and seek shelter, but she's ill-equipped to deal with his issues and their encounters increase his frustration.

Before budget cuts bring them to an abrupt end.

He goes off his meds and starts researching his past after reading a letter written by his mother (Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck) to Bruce Wayne's father (Brett Cullen).

And as the woe disparagingly intensifies, he embraces reckless spleen, proceeding wild-eyed and menacing, with neither recourse nor path nor guilt.

Gotham's elite have developed an unsympathetic attitude regarding its impoverished citizens, who find solace in the Joker's (Joaquin Phoenix) rampage.

The result is incredibly bleak.

As despondent as it is abandoned.

A dangerous film, this Joker, released at the worst of times.

Characters like the Joker are often exceptions are they not?, but in recent decades the U.S has seen so much distressing carnage.

Joker could easily be dismissed if it wasn't so well done, and didn't reach such a wild wide audience.

Compassion abounds for the Joker within.

And Batman's father's a condescending jerk.

From the perspective of film, it's easily the best comic book movie, like mainstream tragic arthouse psychological horror abounding with sensitive emotion.

Not just sensational superheroes predictably poised and pouncing, Joker leaves behind both razzle and dazzle to distill nocturnal desperation.

You feel for him as he daydreams, as his explanations are dismissed at work, as he makes friends with a neighbour down the hall, as he traces the roots of his identity.

Perhaps nothing will come of it.

Perhaps people harbouring dark thoughts will see the horrifying nature of their outcomes and be emphatically deterred, like parents who teach children to respect alcohol by getting them drunk, school of hard knocksy pedagogical bedlam.

But hopefully people like Bruce Wayne or his father, people occupying positions of power in the U.S, will consider a more equitable distribution of wealth, and uphold institutions which aid the unfortunate.

It's not perfect in Canada and Québec, Britain, France or Ireland, but there is much less violence, according to Michael Moore's films.

Because these countries have elites who care about the unfortunate, like Bernie Sanders.

And encourage them to be productive team members.

Much harder to own your own weapons too.

Less idealistic.

Much more practical.

Lucy in the Sky

The mind-blowing levitations of supersonic space travel leave go-getting astronaut Lucy (Natalie Portman) high and dry.

Overwhelmed by joyous reckoning astronomically substantiated, she can't readjust to terrestrial tremens and slips up where she once shone.

Asked to join a prestigious club well-attuned to astral planes, she spares time she's never had for spontaneous acts forbidden.

Coaxed on by hulking brawn, which opportunistically sways euphoric, she soon embraces chance, deception, caught up with gracious praise.

Ill-equipped to negotiate raw emotion, while making snap judgments which make things worse, psychosis dawns and fiercely beckons, she's never lost, can't let go, recede.

He is a huge tool (Jon Hamm as Mark Goodwin) who must haven known something like this would happen.

Eventually.

A lot of people live this way though.

If it's not your style, best leave it alone.

Especially if you're prone to obsession.

Lucy's prone in Lucy in the Sky and the results are grim yet fascinating, the whole world innovating unaware, a moment's slack mind-melded menace.

It's like the film's critiquing drug abuse in a way, but rather than deride narcotics, it looks at post-ecstatic stress, if that's a thing, I've never heard of it.

Adulterous sensations reinvigorate the high, but then lead to stark addiction, that's destructive, by and by.

If the other's unresponsive.

Natalie Portman's revitalizing her career by portraying elite achievement recklessly abandoned, her roles rich with intense emotion as they wildly yearn and contemplate.

There's a mystical element in Lucy in the Sky that could have been explored with more depth, as if travelling in space gives Lucy superhuman power, its unknown effects increasing the tension, but it's left behind with vengeful cause.

Perhaps watching as she slowly developed superpowers would have been cheesier than seeing loss drive her mad, although not necessarily so, depending on narrative finesse (even an idea that seems fated to be incredibly cheesy may not turn out so if crafted with thought and care).

Sad to see such an accomplished woman self-destruct so, nevertheless.

A warning to stick to the path you've chosen.

And beware of sedate sensation.

*Of course, who knows, who knows what path to follow, perhaps best not to even consider it, honestly. I find that when change gradually occurs it's less disruptive in terms of serious things like relationships, unlike choosing a restaurant, or a film to go see.

**Bananas.

***Grapes.

Wo he wo de zu guo (My People, My Country)

Wo he wo de zu guo (My People, My Country) celebrates significant events that have taken place in China in recent years.

7 events in fact, each brought to life by different directors and writers, courageous stories elevating community and teamwork, the ways in which people forge the backbone of any nation, and how every story, no matter how small, has a role to play in refining plot and character.

As I was watching these gifted filmmakers tell their compelling tales, I couldn't help but wonder about significant Canadian and Québecois events that have helped me to define my personal fluctuating conception of the Canadian and Québecois identity?

Here's a look at the top 7.

Presented in no particular order.

Except the first one.

The last spike: must have been strange way back when in Canada and Québec when there weren't many roads and certainly no cars or airplanes. A bunch of super tough hombres cleared a path from coast to coast over the years, however, and created Canada and Québec's first railway. I doubt many people took the train to B.C back then, it's still prohibitively expensive to travel there, but the colonies were nevertheless linked, which helped generate imagination, travel was at least possible if not probable, and various goods could be interprovincially exchanged. Not bad.

Hydro-Québec: I love living in a nation province that has no nuclear reactors, the radioactive waste generated by such means a health hazard for millennia to come. Québec had the rivers and the will to dam them up and they now provide vital clean power and energy to millions. The sale of Québecois power to neighbouring jurisdictions is quite the cash cow as well. I understand there are environmental impacts. But they're nothing compared to nuclear fallout.

Universal Healthcare: having learned about how horrible it can be to live in a country that doesn't provide universal healthcare, I'll always cherish the fact that everyone has access to medicine in Canada and Québec (brought about by a Liberal/NDP coalition I've heard!). Could you imagine working hard and saving throughout your entire life while raising a family only to find you lost everything and still couldn't afford to pay your medical bills because you got sick? It often happens in the United States. Thank God it rarely happens here.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms: whole lotta freedom worked into this document. A brilliant stroke of ethical thought, masterfully illuminating post-World War II reckonings.

The Nature of Things: I loved watching The Nature of Things as a kid and was borderline ecstatic when I realized it was still on 15 years later, and had become even more diverse and relevant. You never really know what the next episode's going to be about; it's constantly updating its playbook. Solid, hard-hitting, impacting informative journalism, freely broadcast on the CBC, as incredible in middle-age as it is during childhood, a national treasure often overlooked.

The CFL: my favourite sport's football and I love our version of the game. Only having three downs makes every first all the more precious, the wider field invigorates special teams, the 20 yard end zone adds to the excitement, and who knows when someone will win by a rouge. It would be cool to see the league expand in upcoming years as our population continues to increase. Québec City could use a team. I'm also thinking about ye olde Brampton.

The French Canadian Essay: write what you will but don't expect big things. Appreciate what you've got. Don't be afraid to share an opinion.

The Winters may be long but it's a paradise in Summer.

A wonderful country we've collectively created.

This old school Northern Canada and Québec.

Not so bad when you think about it.

Could use speed trains like the ones in Europe.

😌

Downtown Abbey

I suppose I may have once had harsher words for a film about servants desperate to humour British royalty, inasmuch as they don't seem to have much leisure time, and there's no mention of rights or unions.

In fact they don't seem to have any time off at all, and serve altruistically day and night, the demanding nature of their age old situation less amenable to ye olde 9 to 5, any questions of an alternative lifestyle, absent from the master narrative.

I'm unfamiliar with the series so I don't know if they receive adequate wages, and if you're ever thinking about forming a union it's always best to consider whether or not it will bankrupt your employers, but if the idle rich can't afford to pay a decent salary, who can?, and Downtown's nobles don't seem to be working that hard.

Of course they have their own dainty way of labouring, comparatively, which has more to do with socializing and planning events than sweeping or dishwashing, and since a significant proportion of the population expects them to play these roles, handed down through the centuries, who I am to criticize them for doing so?

It's the democratic element you see which ironically uplifts the monarchy insofar as such traditions have just as much right to persevere as any other.

Their workers can still quit at any time should they find something lacking, or a better situation, although in many cases I imagine they strictly soldier on.

Due to the prestige they associate with their position, a bizarro rank and file reflection of aristocratic privilege, a phenomenon where one's proud to be of service to a duke or earl even if their quality of life's somewhat bland, for they imagine that others envy them, oddly enough, but then again, others actually do.

Covetously so.

I imagine serving the nobility must seem idyllic if you're serving the nouveau riche, if that's how you want to live your life (gaining status by association with a snotty clique), although I may be incorrect indeed, depending on how hip newfound wealth finds flex-time.

All I'm trying to say is that when you don't have many options you may settle for something snotty, who am I to judge?, and may even find it quite rewarding, depending on the character of your team.

The film does present a solid team equipped with full-time work by employers who don't hold them in contempt and do honestly listen to what they have to say.

Of course the idle rich don't have to sustain these networks, they could live much more modestly to be sure, but then thousands of people would be out of work, and the people who care about elite social activities would have to find other forms of media to entertain them.

So distressing, the items that trend on AppleNews.

As unimaginative as such pastimes may seem, a democratic conscience should try to tolerate them, assuming they don't imperialistically express themselves, or attempt to squash integral freedoms.

The world of Downtown Abbey is both resourceful and respectful.

Model worker/management relations.

Perhaps too prim and polished.

Remarkably cohesive bonds.

Abominable

The loss of a loved one drives an innocent youth to seek distraction through work, her bounteous labours distraught self-exclusion, her family concerned, her friends highly critical.

In the evenings, after refusing to sit down for a nice meal, she still regales the slumberous masses with passionate violin song, her emotions as tender as kitten cuddles, her insights conjuring tone, a melancholic im/material maestro, grieving through derelict soul.

One night a mind-boggling surprise timidly awaits her, for a frightened yeti has sought refuge on her rooftop, unaccustomed to concrete or chaos, yet abounding with love for music.

Yi (Chloe Bennet) soon realizes ne'er-do-wells are in hot pursuit, and adjusts her routine accordingly, to facilitate his agile escape, and embrace the forbidding unknown.

But not before friends discover what they're up to, and wind up hitching along for the ride.

There is a slight problem though, for they have to improvise their way from Shanghai to the Himalayas.

With those who would exploit them tracking their every move.

But sometimes risk engenders adventure, and uncertainty begets innovation, saturated with enriching magic, inventing wondrous epic reflex.

Rationally pitched through wild variety.

Blending novelty and convention.

The youngsters indeed strive to reach the legendary Himalayas in DreamWorks's jazzy Abominable, three youths and a gifted yeti cub, exercising latent imagination.

The skills they never knew they had.

The integrity they had been blindly overlooking.

Sometimes you need challenge to awaken vigour and voice, as Paul Atreides does in Dune, although it need not involve interplanetary conflict.

Build a cabinet.

Learn to make pasta from scratch.

It helps if your resolve or your team has recourse to magic, as the lads and lass and yeti do in Abominable, but you can always substitute the word "books" for "magic", and find myriad aids at your local library.

Or libraries if you travel.

Of course conflict demotivates and you need a thick skin to bounce back or continue to move forward, the kids in Abominable persevering against unfavourable odds, assisted by fortuitous transformations.

Perhaps their journey's too cozy, or lacking discombobulation, but it's still fun to watch as they swiftly outmanoeuvre, friendship and family esteemed on the fly.

They're interested in life and living, not cashing in on exploiting difference, and they do what they can to help the yeti regain freedom, proactively managing warm and friendly initiatives.

Inspiring depth.

Like the mysterious yeti.

*It would be nice to have a roommate who played the violin. Just sit back, read or write as he or she practices. That would be amazing.

**With a pet cat too.

Official Secrets

Back to Coventry again and the question of whether or not there are instances where it's in a government's bests interest to mislead the public, in order to cut down on panic and/or mass hysteria.

Letting the Nazis know their enigma codes had been compromised would have likely delayed the end of World War II significantly, but it was still known that Coventry was to be bombed, and with that information hundreds of lives could have been saved.

Seems like you could have kept the information on the down low and simultaneously achieved both objectives, the only serious hindrance being spies, or a lack of knowledge of whom to trust.

Why the ambitious stubbornly think the freewheeling are prone to mass hysterics as opposed to order and discipline (when kept fully informed) is a most unfortunate prejudice, and even though twitter and social media quickly shoot down clandestine pretensions, such pretensions still calculate with austere breadth, exposed hypocrisy notwithstanding.

This period of time has become frighteningly ludicrous inasmuch as clearly exposed political plots move forward regardless of blatant corruption, the character of the people who expose them awaiting ruin, large portions of the public choosing to applaud the plots regardless.

It's like we live in the age where the public is incredibly well informed but large swaths prefer non-traditional sources to orthodox journalism, and as the postmodernists continue to deconstruct sincerity and truth, the charlatans amass fortunes adhering to Bacon's negative instance, and the left's doctrinal relative truth.

An age of sensation, where anyone can run a story online, the irony, and many don't critically evaluate what they're reading, or even care when it's obviously false.

Fake news is like alcoholism, actual fake news, not The New York Times or The Globe and Mail or The Guardian.

You know you shouldn't have another drink, you know the same misfortunes await if you do, but after you have that drink, and deal with those very same misfortunes the next day, the only way to make the repercussions go away is to believe that one more drink won't hurt, or if I keep reading this yahoo some day his or her lies will make sense.

I still spend a lot of time reading traditional news outlets who hire people who function according to a code that upholds honesty and integrity.

Sometimes I think I'm out of touch.

Until I see Sanders beat Trump in the latest poll!

And the Brits stickin' it to Boris Johnson.

I actually saw the poll on Instagram, posted by Team Sanders. The mainstream news isn't that hip to Sanders yet.

Sanders!

If aliens existed and we had definitive proof I'd let the public know. I prefer to see what happens and trust in general reasonability.

If all the data demonstrated that the Earth is warming at an alarming rate, as it does, and something needs to be done to cool things down, I'd let people know and implement policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if it would take 200 years to feel their effects.

In Official Secrets, true story, Katharine Gun (Keira Knightley) discovers that government officials in Britain are intentionally misleading the public to gain support for the Second Iraq War, and she boldly lets the people know.

Takes a lot of flack in the aftermath.

But totally does what needs to be done.

The film's direct, factually predisposed, but still presents a tale of heroism as noteworthy as it is endearing.

Characters are criticized within for being anti-war, as if such a viewpoint is undesirable.

I always thought it was the other way around.

But I'll never work for the secret service.

Phew.

Could you imagine?

Il pleuvait des oiseaux (And the Birds Rained Down)

An aged free spirit spent her life under lock and key, now a relative passes, and she departs to pay respect.

Her nephew's open-minded and understands she could use a break, and happens to know a secluded location where feisty seniors get by.

The male pair's dialled in off the grid and have been for some time, one prone to grouchy outbursts, the other settled like humble pie.

Their lifestyle doesn't easily accommodate others, remote bush living requiring steady supplies, but they're as independent as they are resourceful, in regular contact with sustained sustenance.

Or Marie-Desneige's (Andrée Lachapelle) nephew anyways, who ATVs them up provisions from time to time, stopping to chat and relax lakeside, not so bad this side of February.

An inquisitive photojournalist comes calling with fresh sets of awkward questions, and since they have no interest in being found, they aren't as willing to respond as she had hoped.

Confrontation maladroitly abounds, as love blooms, identity blossoms, and angst prognosticates.

Il pleuvait des oiseaux.

Off the beaten track.

The urge to rigorously classify each and every individual is expressly resisted within, desires to live untethered, beyond, contesting traditional arrangements.

Practical argument may dispute its chill romanticism, but not without its characters having had their honest say.

Arboreally inclined foresty fomentation.

There's something to be said for the offbeat alternative rough and torchlit tumble, keeps you innocently aware through mature spiritual reference.

You have to appreciate what you have as opposed to imagining what you can get, even if online shopping's levelling the field, although that doesn't apply in this instance.

Note: the city is also amazing.

I love it when I meet people who are cyberspatially detached.

I can't do it myself, I admit I love the online world, but there are certain freedoms that persist if you spend your life offline, almost as if you don't exist, like you can't be tracked or followed.

Like a ghost or a bear, a bohemian, a spy.

A classical romantic.

Less prone to inane distraction.

If you somehow read this even though you live offline, consider that if you have no online footprint, you're perfect for spectral espionage.

Bu if iTunes disappears and therefore stops selling music, where do you go to buy music? Will AppleMusic be the only option? It's like downloading music from the internet for free wiped out millions for emerging artists, and record stores slowly merged into iTunes, but if iTunes stops selling music, and you still want to own albums, even if you can listen to them for free on AppleMusic, will record stores bounce back, and will those millions be made available once more?

It's cool to see people like Neil Young and Keith Richards with millions.

Can't say they didn't earn it.

Almost as if downloading music for free was ironically financed by the right wing establishment, to silence active protest, or at least make it much less comfortable to do so.

Il pleuvait des oiseaux generates aged pluck to state "it's never too late."

Cool characters and convincing situations.

A thoughtful narrative blend.

Provocative ego clash.

With love.

Unarmed Man

Harold Jackson III's independent Unarmed Man presents an impassioned interview taking place after a man was killed.

Shot dead even though he was unarmed by a trigger happy policeperson, all too willing to shoot first, none too prone to asking questions.

At least not to African Americans.

He has to give a statement, provide routine answers, in the fatal aftermath, and he's sincerely eager to participate, as long as the script is strictly followed.

But his interrogator's in search of truth, and doesn't play things by the book, asking tough questions that need to be asked, even after he's sharply reprimanded.

The film's fictional content is saturated with verisimilitude, its situations and legal ease striking chords all too familiar.

When does it end?

It happens so often.

Why are unarmed African Americans shot multiple times so often, even though they've done nothing wrong?

And why are the offending policepersons soon back to work without consequence or repercussion, how can they possibly be protecting and serving the black citizens upon their beat?

The racist system's as revolting as the answers to those questions, so many innocent lives cut short, so much potential recklessly shot down.

But Jackson's film doesn't simply preach, it provides a well-rounded argument. Its strength lies in its investigation of alternatives, the policeperson's point of view, which is refuted with upstanding logic.

Unarmed Man lays it out, explains why some policepeople are trigger happy, the stresses associated with their jobs, the fears such stresses naturally produce.

I've often thought about what it must be like to work full-time as a policeperson in a neighbourhood overwhelmed with crime, whether it's white, black, asian, or first nation, and it must be extremely difficult to do so day-in and day-out, especially when your colleagues lose their lives, having made the greatest sacrifice in the line of duty.

But policepersons still need to be trained to distinguish between different scenarios, one obviously threatening (a robbery, a drug bust, domestic violence, gang conflicts), another relatively textbook (pulling cars over for no reason).

If they can't distinguish between these scenarios they should be transferred to less demanding jurisdictions, or perhaps find work elsewhere.

Black people shouldn't have to put their hands on the steering wheel and make painfully slow movements if asked to show something every time they're pulled over.

But it seems like that's what they have to do to objectively avoid being shot.

Since it's clear that policepersons target black Americans.

Time and time again.

Unarmed Man's argument is well worth seeing and passionately brought to life by Shaun Woodland (Aaron Williamson) and Danny Gavigan (Greg Yelich).

Definitely tough subject matter.

Which will hopefully seem antiquated one day.

Honeyland

In the remote wilds of Northern Macedonia, an innovative maiden makes endearing ends meet.

In touch with fickle nature, ensconced within her environs, she harvests nurturing honey, to swiftly sell to local merchants.

A true friend of bee kind, she takes no more than she requires, and shares that which she humbly consumes, with her industrious agile constituency.

Never guided by greed nor gluttony.

In harmony with rustic enrichment.

Not that she's making huge disposable sums, but she has something left over for a bit of fun, and is able to care for her loving mother, who lives with her in modest surroundings.

Itinerant neighbour farmers move in to harvest nutritious honey as well, but they lack Hatidze Muratova's knowledge, and proceed in error in search of profit.

Motivated to gather much larger quantities, they fail to consider the health of their bees, as a third party eggs them on, who's more concerned with sugar than soul.

Shouldn't one always care for their workforce?

Ensuring health to prolifically prosper.

While respecting local traditions.

And maintaining holistic balance.

Honeyland follows Hatidze and her new age neighbours as they employ different management strategies, one in touch with solemn longevity, the other breeding contempt in haste.

The honey looks so delicious.

Eaten right off the comb!

Abounding with innovative nutrients.

Synergistically savouring strength.

Honey's one of the most wonderful things and it's a miracle that it exists in nature, a vital juxtaposition provoking thought, inasmuch as something so sweet can critique so severely.

Bears love it.

I imagine other animals less immune to stinging do as well.

I find bees won't sting you as long as you remain calm. If one lands on you, don't move, rest immobile, patiently wait 'til it freely moves on.

Even if one lands on your lip.

Or your eyelid.

Bees.

Honeyland's also hardboiled and distinct, vividly capturing woes of hard living.

Difficulties of having to start work so young.

Without recourse to community or medicine.

The spirit of independence durably thrives within, vibrantly generating lush sustainability, through hardcore pluck and spry versatility, thoughtful observation, long-lasting care.

Hatidze Muratova's an individual like no other.

Her story brought to life by a documentary team.

A moving imaginative tale.

Overflowing with intense life.

Not to mention some harmless fun.

Laidback immersive simplicity.

Harrowingly disturbed.

Resourcefully contradicted.