Hubie Halloween

As Halloween ascends, devout Hubie (Adam Sandler) prepares to celebrate, decorating his yard with festive rigour, taking the time to trust and care.

He also instructs local children at the high school he once attended, and even if they respond critically to his counsel, he still persists with animate declamation.

He still longs for his childhood crush whom he still has difficulty approaching (Julie Bowen as Violet Valentine), although he can string verbal loci together, when tasked with delicate comment.

His mom (June Squibb) does her best to encourage his loyal safety-oriented verbose reckonings, even if the rest of the town has taken to responding with varied projectiles.

But a new neighbour has recently moved in who's unfamiliar with traditional testaments (Steve Buscemi as Walter Lambert), and advises against disturbing him even if noise proves dire and irksome.

Local police are well-versed in Hubie as he consistently warns them of danger, and have developed related protocols designed to rapidly appease his qualms.

But on the particular Halloween in question Hubie's unease is more on the ball.

As people begin to disappear around town.

People known to lambaste his self-sacrifice.

It's been a long time since I've seen an Adam Sandler film, and I was wholeheartedly impressed, the old school magic still playfully enchanting as the ridiculousness flows unhinged.

Well-attuned to the rowdy shenanigans freely generated by social interactions, Hubie Halloween proceeds unabashed for another round of Sandlerian mischief.

A narrative such as this could have shifted and swerved into harrowing hysterical heartache, but it was hewn by less psychotic impulses to emerge imaginatively constructive.

As is often the case, the do-gooding lack versatile camaraderie, and struggle to cohesively integrate as they pursue less raunchy endeavours.

But Hubie's actions do not pass unnoticed as he employs freeform unsupervised tutelage, for members of the community do respond to his altruistic forgiving theatrics.

Hubie Halloween transported me back to a time less schizoid and volatile, when statespeople seemed to care more about governance than likes and shares on Twitter and Instagram.

When things seemed like they were moving forward far beyond O'Doyle's rules, consistent current manifestations mind-boggling grim unfathomable reversals. 

I'd say Sandler's still got it, can still teach while having some fun.

The urine stained sheet, the would be werewolf.

Nice to see a Halloween film that's a bit more lighthearted.  

*Buscemi doesn't show up in spellcheck. 😎

The Prestige

Professional rivalry, two up and coming magicians, each determined to present the most striking spectacle, imaginable, yet one is careless, and the other's cherished love interest passes, things taking a vicious turn in the aftermath, as they both refuse to back down.

One believes in dangerous risk taking while the other is more reserved, although the intensity of their grim competition provokes grand transformations forthcoming.

One visits the coveted Tesla (David Bowie) at his residence in the wilds of Colorado, and requests the creation of a machine that can transport matter from one location to another.

He believes such a sensation has already been acquired by his adversary, and spends a fortune to flagrantly duel, his nemesis not in possession of exhaustive funds, yet more innovative counterintuitively speaking.

I've never understood compulsive obsession and the personal desire to win at all costs. Sportspersonship is too valuable a concept to be obscured by personal ambition.

It's preferable to lose having played by the rules than to succeed through nefarious means, as long as you give your best effort and suppress destructive envious tendencies.

I pay too much attention to sports to proceed otherwise, not that I'm by any means a great athlete, but so many great athletes compete year after year without ever winning anything.

This doesn't prevent them from competing or trying to win one more time, they're great role models for the active spirit who never grows weary of enriching fair play.

Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) take things to levels I can't comprehend, to resort to sabotage or deliberate vengeance insults the art they're skilfully crafting.

I thought the arts would be much more friendly in my youth since so many of the artistic people I knew were often kind, the realities of the art world somewhat disconcerting as people critically jockey for position.

I suppose there are fewer opportunities to succeed as an artist than there are for sporty peeps, and the lack of engaging opportunity drives ambition to psychotic levels.

But it seems better to chill on the fringe than embrace destructive psychologies.

If you want the world to be a better place and you adopt ruthless means how will anything ever change?

Beyond what's written.

More respect for aging artists in the Anglo-American sphere may lead to less intense conflict, I'm by no means an expert on French culture, but it's clear they hold the arts in much higher esteem.

In general, not in relation to me, French culture seems to cultivate a much more level playing field for the arts and sports, which could explain why they're so successful at both, why they keep generating such incredible outputs.

The Prestige is an excellent film that showcases unsettling realities. 

There's so little to soulfully gain.

Through bland underhanded corruption. 

My Octopus Teacher

In keeping with the fame of YouTube's adorable octopus video(s), Netflix has released My Octopus Teacher, a stunning documentary that follows an octopus, shifting from one aqueous locale to the next.

It's a nature documentary like no other, focused on one flexible beastie in particular, not a seal or a dolphin or a whale, but a camouflaged octopus, hiding away.

Undaunted by the challenge of locating the same octopus every day for months in chilly water, Craig Foster proceeds like a diligent inspector, and learns to find clues in the imposing seabed, until enough knowledge is acquired for routine confidence.

He's inspired by African tribespeople who can track wildlife in manifold forms, because they read their environment like a book that's as logical as it is multifaceted.

I encourage pursuing higher learning at length or at least for as long as it compels you, but that doesn't mean people who don't acquire a formal education simply sit back and shut off their brains.

They just apply their intelligence to alternative variables just as rich with imaginative wonder, never tiring of intellectual endeavour, as it relates to non-scholastic rhythms. 

Thus, you find ingenious indigenous peeps who can't read or write or use a computer, who still understand their natural landscapes like surgeons preparing for open-heart surgery.

Hence, Foster doesn't give up, as he slowly teaches himself to track octopi, his troubles compounded by a lack of oxygen, or having to constantly resurface.

Total respect for such aquatic ambition, tracking earthbound wildlife seems much lighter in comparison, tack on the cold and the fluctuating visibility, and you've got wondrous herculean composure.

Planet Earth 2 seems like the apotheosis of nature documentaries, with countless shots of remote terrains, terrains that are incredibly difficult to access, its material presented with vigorous narrative.

But nature documentaries are vast and consistently mutating, finding new ways to resiliently captivate, My Octopus Teacher a remarkable feat of filmmaking ingenuity.

Plus Foster is interviewed throughout and provides thoughtful commentaries about his labours, which capture the stages he patiently went through as he learned more and more about his shifty subject.

The octopus isn't exactly chillin', indeed things are rather intense when sharks come a' callin'.

But he eludes them as best he can.

A must see examination of a fascinating creature.    

THX 1138

A totalitarian society, all-encompassed inanimate below ground, every aspect of daily life accounted for, no slip-ups, no love, no quarter.

Drugs are used to manage every aspect of existence, each with its own specific function, ubiquitous relentless mind-control, from the unsuspecting cradle to the strung out grave.

Physical love is anathema, forbidden, and theoretically resigned to the past, those who find themselves amorously stricken assigned chemical recalibration.

Computers monitor everything and not even the most ingenious citizens can outwit them, but there's nothing else to do so they try, the consequences at least a novel distraction.

Leisure time consists of televisual depictions of those punished for immoderate transgressions, all sense of individuality or uniqueness having been thematically sterilized.

A woman and a man living together find themselves caught in the grips of illicit passion, their newfound wanton recklessness quickly detected and sternly dealt with.

But THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) is able to miraculously escape, robot police following in hot pursuit, as he seeks his domain's outer limits.

But this film was made in the '70s, so there are less guards to flexibly elude, the budget generated to ensure his capture, swiftly spiralling exponentially ascending.

A chilling take on a panoptic alliance between religion and the sciences, binding psychiatric liturgies coldly blended with ascetic computation.

It often seems that if science and religion could simply try harder to collectively resonate, the world would be less fanatically divided, and balance and order would felicitously reign.

It also seemed like the cyberspatial genesis wouldn't be transformed into a hotbed of lies, that truth and reason would inevitably flourish, harnessing foresight and benevolent judgment. 

I suppose Animal Farm comes into play, the founders of a new scientific-religious equanimity reasoning with resplendent illumination, before the next generation realizes less cohesive principles, and the balance of power is transformed anew.

It doesn't have to be that way of course, Scandinavia has seemed sure and steady for decades, with a strong commitment to responsible schools, intently focused on cultivating respect.

If there could only be more profit in respectable truths and less of a willingness to cash in on crazy, more opportunities for people left behind in an affluent system, paving the way to act constructively.

As generations raised by the internet mature then lead and govern, it will be interesting to see what happens, if political discourse changes profoundly.

Still a decade or so to go.

Endless narratives could be written meanwhile.

If Animal Farm is taken for granted, doesn't utopia have novel appeal?

Even if it only emerges for mandates.

Isn't that still something to strive for?

Midnight Special

With manifold signals being transmitted ubiquitously throughout the air, who knows what mental or physical transformations are in store for forthcoming cyberspatial generations?

If physiological indiscretions are emerging nonchalantly, they're passing by generally unobserved, or at least I've never heard them commented upon, in my active yet limited experience.

If there are any pathological side-effects of widespread wi-fi whispers, I imagine they would be carcinogenic in nature, but those immune to such theoretical maladies may still develop previously unheard of synthetic adaptations.

I don't deny the oft maligned potential for supernatural emergence, I just approach it scientifically, the classic unique characteristics that mystifyingly seem divine, the product of uncategorized mutations challenging established truths.

You need established truths to consistently function, but taking them too seriously leads to error, especially when they don't apply to a political context that emerges as variable forces interact.

The emergence of unpredictable situations tests political wills with animate rigour, and responses motivated by ideology may fall short if adjustments aren't flexibly adopted.

But without an ideology how do you ever inspire or drive or motivate, without some goal that's always out of reach why would you ever bother trying to do anything?

Alton (Jaeden Martell) just tries to exist but his gifts generate spiritual passion, in a strict localized religious cult devoted to translating his peculiar reckonings.

His unique abilities lead to prophetical acclamations as the status quo seeks to readily adapt, but it's no life for a confused young child, so his father (Michael Shannon as Roy) helps him break free of the compound.

His devotees are ill-amused and set off to track him down (as does the F.B.I), endemic clashes inevitably ensuing, in a traditionally focused sci-fi drama.

Classifying what he can do in general is beyond my limited comprehension, but it's like his mind is an organic computer that blindly communicates with various satellites.

Midnight Special's focus on the supernaturally down-to-earth offers a humbler vision than many Übermensch testimonials, the larger-than-life phenom immersed in environments more akin to the X-Men than the Avengers.

It's somewhat straightforward yet still exciting, I freely admit that I love this kind of narrative, with a surprising ending and calm and collected characters instinctually reacting to volatile circumstances.

Perhaps they are really are out there.

But without more evidence, who's really to say?

I like Joe Biden's down-to-earth progressions.

He seems like a really cool guy.

Fotbal Infinit (Infinite Football)

Sometimes you savour the sweet conversation effortlessly generated by bizarro dreams. 

The improbability encourages rash exploration the ridiculousness of which augments middle-age.

Or any free-spirited time period wherein which dreams distract distinctly, and sweet nothings or crafty fantasies conjure wayward cogent reckonings.

Everything'd be too serious otherwise, there would be no compassionate touch, assuming the difference between reason and absurdity still maintained a coherent balance.

An unacknowledged coherent balance, the irregularities of sincerest trust, cultivated through fleeting foundations, or mutually presumed ill-favour.

In conversation.

There's an art to this kind of conversation which preserves imaginative youth, and myriad compelling narratives have theoretically been spawned thereafter (Ferris Bueller's, Strange Brew . . . ).

Fotbal Infinit (Infinite Football) examines a champion who's taken things way too far, so caught up in his gripping imagination that he's lost sight of the inherent humour.

It seems like he's taking his idea seriously, far beyond rational realistic applications, but he may just be humorously distressed, and there doesn't seem to be much else to talk about.

An injury suffered in his youth led him to stop playing soccer/football, and his dreams of moving to the U.S. were forgotten after his country joined the EU.

Expecting to find excitement in the years following, he instead wound up in a permanent position lacking bureaucratic fluidity.

As the years past his thrilling fantasy became much more appealing than his daily routine, and began to permeate every discussion integrated into his private life.

Does he take things too far in his reckonings and turn every conversation into an awkward exchange, or is there just nothing else left to talk about, and has he found expeditious refrain?

He finds ways to apply his dream to each and every social interaction, it's a remarkable feat of maladroit dynamism, that revels in novel disjunction. 

I'm not sure if he notices the difference between dream and reality any longer, but he's found a way to spice up his life that's at least individualistically invigorating.

What reality's in fact the most ludicrous is perhaps a pertinent question?

Beyond the public sphere.

Quizzical misgivings.

Discursive implosion. 

All About Eve

A celebrated actress at home on the stage, routinely delivering multifaceted exonerations, of unspoken thoughts and dreams, desires, ambitions, theories, a daring picturesque virtuoso, caught up with rhythmic sage.

Involved with a significant other, in a situation lacking scandal, discursive variation tact frivolity, consistent thoughtful bustling capers.

An idea forged through shades transformative delicately shared to invoke dispute, enlivening playful courageous wagers, and joyful crazed repute.

The introduction of another, obsequious and bashful, offering her services for little in return, as the weeks pass she slowly accumulates subtle regard for performance earned.

Her name emerges in conversation with consistent animate praise, remarkable piecemeal code conversion sundry trades professed liaised.

Enriched through understudy awaiting fortune shifts stage lights, the occasion swiftly surging with a levity airtight.

As newfound inspiration reimagines ways and means, novelty or contagion flows sustains the evergreen.

Bit of a downer for the resourceful Margo (Bette Davis) who didn't see it comin'. Fame persisting less assured now that Eve (Anne Baxter) is in the running.

A traditional take on awestruck rivalry that extols acting, reflective fervour, All About Eve introduces a competitive element that transfigures as it stupefies.

I imagine its age old subject matter still resonates today, not only in terms of acting, but Netflix etc. and countless ads prove there's neverending commercial work for any actor.

I even saw David Spade starring in a recent Netflix film (it was terrible) and it looks like a new Bill & Ted film has been released (not on Netflix), plus famous directors like Martin Scorsese, Michael Bay, and the Coen Brothers have released films on Netflix, which I never thought I'd see happen, it's like the medium's extending careers indefinitely while still forging opportunities for younger talents, the game has seriously changed, and it's fun to view the superstructural transformations.

For advertisements, when I was growing up, if you ever saw famous actors at the height of their careers in ads it was surprising, I don't recall it ever happening, but from time to time you see it nowadays, meaning there's less work to go around (love the A & W guy!).

It's like there used to be a code of sorts where film actors never did television/series or commercials, and television/series or commercial actors wanted to be film actors, perhaps that's slipped away into the past, along with reputation and prestige.

Margo takes a break in All About Eve and perhaps will work no more, which would have been a shame, considering the incredible work Nicole Kidman's doing, not to mention Jeff Bridges or Tom Cruise. 

Adversarial competitions aside, All About Eve's concern with acting as opposed to writing or directing reminded me of my youth, when it was important to see everything an actor had made, before I became familiar with auteurs. 

And I doubt that will ever go away, the public love of actors is something timeless. 

I'll still go see a film if it's starring one of my favourites.

Even if I'm supposed to know better.

😉

Clue

It seems that at one time the Clue board game was so popular that a feature film was compacted to playfully stipulate in tandem.

Murder/mystery perennially brooding shocks cross-stitched semantics airtight, it makes sense to periodically lampoon them with irreverent slipshod proclivities.

I enjoy watching detective drama as inspectors set about a' sleuthing, so why not blend such solemn preferences with carefree yet stilted amusement?

Clue's cheeky insincerity spryly lauds its commercial underpinnings, its lucid recognition of its charter slyly cast consoled ridiculous.

Yet it doesn't shy away from embracing traditional logic, as characters hectically discuss the morbid outcomes of their tether.

While I do enjoy detective fiction, the genre's obsession with vilifying do-gooding, is manifestly disconcerting, I'd argue its narratively pandemic.

Well-meaning communally focused characters are often hypocritically portrayed, or found guilty of improprieties they've kept hidden in the shade.

If you think American film and television is guilty of racist bias, let me introduce you to British crime drama where minorities are so often corrupt.

Courageous women are bound for trouble as are gay people and the otherworldly, let alone anyone introducing something new which conflicts with age old tradition.

I cheer for the do-gooders as I watch but the outcomes are so often grim. The world could use a new Columbo. A self-made lieutenant unconcerned with privilege.

Clue presents a group of strangers being blackmailed by the same man, for social misdemeanours coldly reckoned fibbed offhand.

They come together as a group to delineate strict character, but get along like woebegone curmudgeons none the merrier.

Tricked they've been wry Grenadine their startling frayed pronouncements, ill-considered spoiled and quivered distillates accounted.

Could a feature length film be made based upon a less scandalous game such as trivial pursuit?

It's really quite elementary.

You just answer a random question which then provides direction for the plot and then each subsequent question answered serendipitously transforms it.

The transformations could be genre-based as well in order to inspire homemade postmodernism.

Sports. Literature. Politics. Drama. 

Kitschy campy gold.

At integral multigeneric play.

Indubitably trivial. 

The Social Dilemma

From time to time, I've written about how much I love my cellphone, and that's certainly the case, it's a remarkable tool that simplifies so many things and makes life so much much easier.

For social media, I like to play games and post the odd article or picture on Facebook (or Twitter or Instagram). I post articles from reputable sources that abide by codes of conduct to share information I find relevant to the outside world. I don't update my profile status too often because my daily life's just not that interesting, or perhaps it's because I tend to annoy people, or don't have much to say.

Social media apps seemed like wonderful tools when I started using them, they facilitate the sharing of information and let you see what your friends are interested in. They let you express yourself creatively in a variety of different ways that make for a robust compelling caricature that celebrates the active life. Further, the tools are available to everyone so elites don't have a monopoly on shaping public opinion. If used in accordance with ethical guidelines the situation seems rather chill and democratic. But as Jeff Orlowski's The Social Dilemma suggests, the pursuit of logic and reason is seriously off course.

The documentary presents individuals who worked for companies like Google or Facebook and asks them to share their thoughts about their legacies, or the impact their tools have had upon the world at large. And according to the statistics they present, things have taken a turn for the worse.

For instance, they claim that fake news spreads 6 times as fast as news shared from legitimate sources, or that fake news reaches a much wider audience than that crafted by professionals adhering to ethical standards.

The line between comic criticisms of daily newscasts (The Onion) and flagrant disingenuous lies seems to have disappeared entirely as people vainly seek popularity.

If fake news spreads at a much faster pace it makes less sense to tell the truth if you want to be popular, and millions of people are aware of this, and expressing themselves thusly.

Considering that billions of people use social media, it's like the telephone game's gone galactic, as has an unsettling mistrust of professionals who separate fact from fiction.

I think it's important to speculate or theorize or comment or observe, but you need to present your ideas as possibilities, not facts, as you democratically engage with the outside world.

A lot of people don't seem to be able to tell the difference or would simply prefer to bask in sensation, and with the billions of people who access social media every day, the situation's potentially catastrophic.

Suicide rates have simultaneously expanded at an alarming speed and people are spending much less time socializing offline.

Hate is spreading as well and little is being done about it.

I was surprised recently when I attended a campfire at a cousin's where a number of youths showed up. And didn't sit around chatting with one another, but rather spent the entire evening on their phones (I figured cyberspatial obsessions would have less sway in the country).

The doc paints a grim picture of how polarized things are becoming and how the willingness to find consensus is rapidly fading. I suppose building bridges is at a low ebb. But I can't help it, that's what I do.

Even if the stories I share don't spread as quickly as lies, I'll still continue to share them. People need to fight rampant misinformation. And embrace holistic hug power.

As they suggest in The Social Dilemma, it's clear that there has to be some kind of change. There's no going back to the '80s, but there needs to be some sense of social media responsibility.

I don't know if there's much of a difference, democratically speaking, between someone without much education sharing a theory, or an academic publishing an argument, but the academic usually indicates that they may be incorrect, or at least suggests they're engaging in high end speculation. 

It's a compelling continuum where no one's correct but peeps aren't necessarily mistaken either. 

Social media is similar.

But it needs to highlight it's engaging in speculation, or find reputable sources to back up its claims.

If millions of people just make stuff up and then cite each other regularly without proof or argument as if they aren't engaging in speculation, then the world suffers from excessive stupidity.

Enter conscious free-flowing surrealism. 

The doc shares much more information than that (available on Netflix).