The BFG

The crafters of dreams, inaugurators of imagination, humbly humanizing heaven and earth with tragic humour and comedic complaint, magically transforming the mundane and the mechanical into mirthful exhilarations of sprightly cerebral rustic metropolitan whimsy, intergalactic anchovies, pepperoni principalities, the promotion of laughter, cheek, good luck and fortune, legendarily discrediting desperation and doubt, the blending of sundry scintillating elements, diversifying banalities, with intergenerational honeysuckle, and iridescent eclectic salience.

Giants!

There be giants in Steven Spielberg's The BFG and one has taken a shine to slumbering humanity (Mark Rylance as BFG).

He literally gathers dreams and then chooses to altruistically share them.

Smaller than the other giants however, his knowledge an insult to their blunt aggressive disdain, when he encounters others of his kind punishments must be endured, and humiliations ritualistically accommodated.

A young orphan girl (Ruby Barnhill as Sophie) spots him one night as he travels through London and is kidnapped shortly thereafter so that he can avoid detection (an odd way of going about things).

In order to save her from his invasive famished brethren (there aren't any female giants) back in giant land, he must employ stealth and dissimilitude, while she teaches him to be more confident, and to be proud of his clever achievements.

Innocent in its elevations and timid in its temerity, The Big Friendly Giant shyly sticks it to bullying while invigorating artistic expression.

Aside from some peculiar structural elements, it enlightens while it entertains and elucidates while it underscores.

Hey, I read Nicholas Nickleby way back when in school.

Loved that book.

I took flack for reading the whole thing.

And almost produced tears while reading aloud the chapter where _______ dies.

Recommend The BFG for children and adults alike.

Bullying really is the worst.

Peer pressure.

I thought these encumbrances would disappear during adulthood but they remain, oddly enough.

Not in my current job or social life, but I read about them regularly enough to remain intermittently flabbergasted.

Sigh, I could never pretend to love soccer or roller derby.

Or not complain when asked to do something unsafe.

A strange state of affairs this 21st Century.

Not so bad with JT at the helm though.

He doesn't seem like he possesses any bullying instincts whatsoever.

I keep agreeing with the things he says.

It's unprecedented. Uncharted. Uncanny.

Agreeing.

Peppermint.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Transcendently calculating with pure artistic spirituality, rarefied inspiration, crystalline caricatures, an East Indian genius leaves loved ones behind to study mathematics abroad, challenging racial and cultural stereotypes to do so, undeniably unique and innocent, picturesque prognostic in plume.

A gift beyond reason, like Proust, Shakespeare, Dickens or Joyce, he miraculously finds a patron at Trinity College, who sets out to formalize his spry romantic methods.

Malheureusement, academic rigour has its own contentions, and G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and his jealous colleagues initially distrust/dismiss Srinivasa Ramanujan's (Dev Patel) revelations.

Obsessions with the genuine.

Could he be the one?

There is no one, but mathematical proof is required (Ramanujan writes mathematical formulas at the highest level like squirrels climb trees or cheetahs swiftly accelerate), but would Srinivasa have written more profusely had Hardy sat back to obtain those proofs himself, giving his correspondent more freedom to think, thereby preventing the sterilization of genius?

Training Ramanujan to become an academic would have transformed him from dust devil to tornado, but in terms of both knowledge and refined intuitive creativity, it may have been better to leave him be, with a stipend, to maximize his unaccounted for mystifications.

These thoughts loosely reflect conversations held between Hardy and Prof. Littlewood (Toby Jones) as The Man Who Knew Infinity examines detections of the exceptional.

I thought it was a great film, comfortably blending brilliance and banality with modest poise and tenacious dignity.

Even at that level, amongst what Bowie called the elite and first, racist attitudes still obscure understandings, enviously orchestrating a fermented xenophobic squelch, as opposed to idealizing grand authentic freedom. 

Curious this 1729.

A modest proposal?

*Saw Alfred everywhere in this film.

La Grande Bellezza

Intricate spiralling ornately orchestrated unconcerned lavish spectacular ornamentations lushly yet temperately adorn La Grande Bellezza's sensuous immersions, crystalline socially interactive penetrating steps daring the bold to convivially counter, impeccable introductory multilayered intensities, celebrating for the urge of heights, shear polished expressive intertextual presence, the slightest movement, calm overwhelming culturally accumulated propensities, days within months within years within decades within millennia, to actively exist within contemporary a/temporalities, to discuss, persuade, to pressure, the hubris, the risk, the meticulous structure, deconstructing the meticulous by agilely removing any sense of the contritely overbearing, genius and beauty united in harmony, its form/s finessing the flaneur, complete distinct exploratory vignettes lacking borders or delineations, smooth seductive sequential synergies, emotive yet provocative, the mention of Proust, if ever there was a film that made me momentarily feel the same way I do while reading Proust, it's Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza; I thought this was an impossibility; flourishing forbearance, imparted, gentle.

Cinematography by Luca Bigazzi.

Idea, conversation, melody.

Jep Gambardella's (Toni Servillo) introduction is the best introduction of a character I've ever seen.

See this one in theatres.

Like 12 Years a Slave, it demands multiple viewings.

Par excellence.