Grumpy Old Men

The interminable rivalry delicately strewn with intermittent trust, effectively laidback with chaotic eruptions effacing moments of inspired tranquility. 

They grew up together as envious children and both lived their lives in the same small town, never venturing forth across the land but rather obsessing about local change.

One grew up to teach history and had a steady job for many a year, the other fixing broken down televisions at a time when that was still quite profitable.

In retirement, they quarrel and fish and keep a close eye on the slumbering block, their children stopping by to visit at times with vivid success stories and marital dilemmas.

Compulsively nickling and diming they dynamically forge economic blockades, the intricate precise observant conversation correspondingly generated with grouchy gusto.

When a beautiful belle aging in years suddenly moves in across the street.

With new ideas and jaunty bold reckonings.

Seeking companionship. 

Vehement magnitude.

I wonder how Grumpy Old Men has viscerally aged for the last thirty years, is it still talked about in film-loving circles or has it faded with the passage of time?

It was incredibly popular in the early '90s when it first came out, since it showcased well-known cantankerous belovéd old school household names.

Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon had brilliantly dazzled for many a year, especially in a well-regarded film my father loved known as The Odd Couple.

It's younger audience had aged since then and was in their twilight years when Grumpy Old Men came out, a brilliant bit of industrious casting also to be found in the Terminator films.

They deliver the curmudgeony goods and directly excel at provoking one another, with agile learnéd indelicate remonstrance wildly engaging in diligent bemusement. 

Are these films really just the subject of history choosing which films to watch is different these days?, with Netflix etc. eclipsing television the old school references may be somewhat archaic.

But information is available online for the curious film buff looking to learn more.

We didn't have Wikipedia thirty years ago.

Academically complemented with online encyclopedias. 

Der siebente Kontinent (The Seventh Continent)

Difficult to know where to find spiritual fulfillment within cultures dominated by dubious markets, consistently disseminating similar messages decade after decade epoch after epoch.

Nevertheless, if you cast a wide cultural net you may find remarkable alternative variability, assuming you don't limit yourself to the present and sample manifold styles and rhythms. 

If your culture micromanages music and only lets certain styles and messages get through, it could certainly become excessively tedious as the years slowly pass and nothing changes.

If your culture does accept new styles and genres and continuously strives to develop new markets, as long as the difference thoughtfully compels, it can be much less depressing than totalitarianism.

I watched a ton of television in my youth and became quite adept at channel surfing, finding shows that became lasting favourites which I regularly watched and routinely recorded.

The world of television made perfect sense and I could predict things that were going to happen, having un/consciously consumed so many narratives that entertaining developments became shockingly familiar.

I eventually moved away though started travelling around the country, and many of the places I stayed had no cable television, so I slowly moved away from the once cherished medium.

Eventually, more than a decade had gone by and I found that when I had the opportunity to turn on the TV, I wasn't as impressed as I had been in my youth, and questioned why I had spent so much time watching it.

I had actually found other cool things to do which imaginatively nurtured less manufactured thoughts, and although hardly anyone ever wanted to talk to me, I still found different ways to randomly express them.

It was like my mind was energized and my spirit enjoyed its liberation, you may not understand what a lot of people are talking about, but there's an uplifting world far beyond mainstream television.

Instrumental music made a big difference too as I imagined different scenarios in differing degrees, laidback listening to the incredible solos the inspired teamwork the emphatic orchestrations. 

Silent walks in natural environments made a huge difference as well with cool animal sightings. 

Defying the totalitarian void.

Unlike the family in The Seventh Continent. 

*Criterion keyword: chilli. 

Clockwatchers

What to expect when finally deciding to join the local workforce?

With an unsustainable temp position.

And no knowledge of office politics.

It must seem strange indeed to suddenly enter the bureaucratic vortex, wherein which copies and pencil pushing generate austere glib efficiencies. 

Should one not know what to do many others will gladly make things more confusing, as multivariable personalities dramatically claim they understand everything.

As the contradictions abound try not to seek out rational cohesion, but rather take each enigmatic exchange as an objective lesson in awkward composure.

Getting noticed - doing something well - may lead to widespread jealousy, even if it's something accidental that you naturally do without thinking.

Beware the ides of smalltalk with people with whom you have nothing in common.

Who write you up accordingly.

Even though you like to work. 

Clockwatchers follows timid Iris as she embraces office space, and makes friends with the other temp workers bewilderingly engaged within the labyrinth.

The lack of a definitive playbook and the inconsistent interactive exchanges, have encouraged latent entropy which oddly accentuates the mentorship.

The one clear regulation involves traditional hierarchical order, or when someone higher up in the chain makes a reasonable request, it's best to try to accommodate them.

Are they Broncos fans, do they like the NHL, do they read books, do they still watch movies, no they likely have families and that's all there is to talk about!

Clockwatchers examines the lack of stability generally associated with temp work, and the unfortunate frustrations which eventually arise from the drastic uncertainty. 

It's even worse with unpaid internships which shouldn't be legal in my opinion. To turn one into a job, meticulously say the congenial right thing even if you haven't the slightest.

Try to keep busy, he's working too hard.

Go with the flow, he lacks ambition.

Aloofly acculturate, he doesn't know what to do.

Embrace friendship, he's always kissing up. 

🤣 🦝

Kaamelott: First Installment

Nice to see a familiar style of comedy still observantly elucidating, to the tune of ancient legend emphatically deconstructed in recalcitrant sheath.

Thus, extended less devout commentaries can be expediently relied upon, as the temptation to laze about disarmingly overwhelms protocolian spirits.

Indeed, should a situation arise inherently imploring trust thereupon, debate regarding the utility of action may argumentatively delay courageous concourse.

Was there ever ebulliently a time when innate fidelity preponderantly prospered, and allegiance shone forth across the land with impeccable practical superstitious brilliance?

Or were old school lands aggrieved equanimously equipped with parallel suspicions, and whole-heartedly abreast of postmodern cheek illustriously composed through disputation?

Would the rarefied pretensions of the day have taken note in their limited volumes, of imparticular ineptitude, or would their vellum have harmonized rhapsodic?

Still, within ye olde Kaamelott: First Installment heroic endeavour doth vouchsafe akin, as Arthur (Alexandre Astier) pulls the sword from the stone and lackadaisically assumes regal volatility.

Sensing little effort need be applied to potentially reap heraldic fortunes, other nobles ceremoniously sign-up for the sublime cause sans hesitation. 

Alas, it is nice to see a less shocking and violent mass-marketed comedy, which doesn't rely on racism or cruelty as you sometimes find in this day and age. 

If that's the evolution of comedy is it not regenerating a decadent phase, to be followed by meaningless emptiness so the old theory historically goes?

For so many centuries much brighter comedians have encouraged laughter without bigoted reckoning.

Without bellicose mean-spirits.

Manifest pejorative prosperity. 

Kaamelott has faith in its strengths and doesn't stoop to bombastic prejudice, doesn't infuriatingly apply blunt and crude generalized cultural dissonance. 

In the age of legend it industriously competes with magnanimous superheroes, to provide a thoughtful supplement should the master narrative prove overwhelming.

Asking the age old question, lead through trial and error or ornate pageantry?

They find an intermediate compromise.

Composed so long ago. 

Meshi (Repast)

The rigid structure once naturalized since time immemorial so it seemed, the man diligently thriving at work, the wife taking care of the home.

It now appears rather out of touch with fluid non-specific schematics, which see both partners animately working while sharing household chores at the end of the day.

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I imagine contemporary partners function multilaterally, perhaps cooking on alternate nights, and cleaning together on the weekend.

As time passes, I reckon the division of labour organically corresponds to habitual preference, within relevant temporal constraints, incorporating time and variability.

Do couples indeed function this way as time progresses and patterns emerge?

Or is it only read about in books and newspapers?

Has corresponding data been reasonably compiled?

In Meshi (Repast), there isn't much of an alternative for Michiyo (Setsuko Hara) besides the life of a traditional housewife, the socioeconomic style of the times having yet to embrace gender equality. 

She finds her life rather dull and becomes frightened by her future prospects (they live in suburbia), especially after her husband's (Uehara as Hatsunosuke) pretty cousin (Yukiko Shimazaki as Satoko) comes to visit, and he engages her in conversation.

Michiyo leaves to stay with family and her husband is left to monotonously deal, he's actually not such a bad guy though, and patiently accepts his solitary predicament.

He certainly has the more active role empirically equipped with inherent mobility, but he isn't cruel and dismissive either, he loves his wife and doesn't flaunt his advantage.

She eventually realizes he's a catch even though he's dependable and trustworthy, and the two reestablish their conjugal trajectory, director Mikio Naruse presenting their union idyllically. 

Her husband's rather chill and accepting and would likely have played a role in instigating change (Meshi's from 1951). 

And perhaps would have learned to be more spontaneous as well.

To take Michiyo out to dinner more often. 

Cutter's Way

Independent thinking cynically disposed a lack of purpose embittered tension, disparaging resolute alcohol consumption concealing tranquil constructive pastures. 

A clever incapacitated curmudgeon fluidly expresses existential laxity, thoroughly unamused with bells and whistles or anything whatsoever other than drink (John Heard as Cutter). 

He has good friends committed to taking care of him to delicately nurturing his troubled spirit, the job rather difficult at times since he's prone to bursts of antagonism. 

But one of them witnesses a man who likely engaged in the act of murder, yet is unwilling to talk to the police since the volatile subject is rich and powerful.

His lack of natural daring reawakens Cutter's sense of adventure, his innate romantic composure swiftly shifting back to cavalier. 

His judgment's still somewhat hazy insofar as he thinks his plan will work, that he can blackmail the notorious oligarch and then turn him in once he pays up.

Richard Bone (Jeff Bridges) and Cutter's partner (Lisa Eichhorn as Maureen Cutter) are noticeably less enthused, but Cutter's seen quixotic daylight and can't turn himself away.

He's like a pirate with no ship mundanely caught up with static landlubbin', with his discerning eyepatch and peg leg potential picturesquely protocolled in caricature. 

Inherently independent, salty sea bound stray severity.

Without a goal in sight he's reckless letting loose on routine convention, forgetting what it means to be neighbourly, somewhat of a menace at times in fact.

But his youthful unwavering reckoning does eventually compensate, certainly not for his neighbour's car, but perhaps for endemic eccentricity. 

Perhaps an outcast amongst independent swashbuckling critical hopeless endeavours (the film), due to its fatalistic attitude about Vietnam, and its initial outburst of vulgar racism. 

As a tragic protagonist Cutter is a bit hard to take, the transformation of hope into fatalism generally producing resonant discord.

Boredom generates malcontent flourishes, but doesn't have to aggressively assail, everything found in the immediate vicinity including others who are bored also.

It's cool when bored people get together to put on a play or make a YouTube channel. Start a small business of some kind. Perhaps a restaurant. A local sports league.

But Cutter needed the epic to revitalize his distraught soul.

And as he becomes proactive it impresses.

The final moments are exceptional. 

Vivre sa vie

The art of presenting freespirited conversation that seems genuinely inspired in rhythm, that isn't mad or crazed or nutso, nor inspired by the master narrative.

I believe they're called sweet nothings even if they're critically articulated beyond romance, motivating neither king nor country, so vivaciously juxtaposed.

Imagine dialogue beyond jurisprudence, without concern for cookie cut expenditures, as if random commentary indeed suffices, depending on mood and role play.

The bizarro theories you might hear at work, a spirited notion betwixt the pines (polarities), observations spontaneously stylizing offhand fleeting rootless import.

Meaning's often so ostentatious, so grandiose, so definitive, so prime, so concerned with cause and effect that it dishevels as it seeks to clarify.

I suppose during times like these serious messages are positive things, delivered from leading figures (Prime Ministers, Premiers, Mayors, Queens), even if they're super intense. The pandemic is super intense and it's nice to see politicians care. Vivre sa vie is for a different time. Even if its ending is rather acidic.

It's a shame she wanted the money and didn't possess greater situational awareness. But that's precisely what makes her so appealing (Anna Karina as Nana Kleinfrankenheim) as she inquisitively coasts through life.

Her comments evocatively disrupt stately bland quotidian decorum, not in a manner that's trite or scandalous, more like light thoughtful curious sleuthing.

Like she's asking questions that haven't been preconditioned to align themselves with historical baggage, beyond categorical boundaries, which practitioners often lament.

Not that the content of such boundaries doesn't change remarkably, but the form often remains the same, as it's characterized by different approaches to high-stakes protracted meaning.

It's nice to meet people who are unfamiliar with the codes and stratagems, their lives like waking dreams, assuming things aren't authoritarian, they're relatively bold and free.

They're appealing im/precisely because they don't make sense, and demand you consider new cogent classifications, to discover what they're trying to say, even if you have to improvise a context.

Don't be dismissive for too long, or that regenerative spark of peculiar novelty may transform into something less captivating, solidifying as time passes.

That's how you expand upon limitations and diversify semantic relevance, if you can't figure it out just chill, it may have already been forgotten.

Imagine books integral to a film that philosophizes as it zines, like a bird as it moves on the ground without flight, not that it doesn't freely soar through unique interactive heights, it just would have been more uplifting without the hardboiled recourse (or the prostitution).

A practical warning nonetheless that blends carefree thought with economic depression.

It could have been so much less drastic.

The library's free of charge.

Had no idea what it was about when I decided to watch it.

Was just another Godard I hadn't seen.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Alternative dimensions, co-existing in immaterial symbiosis, parallel narratives unconsciously confabulating interdimensional repartee, no first contact, no apparent links, nothing organically orchestrating symphonic resonance, yet conceptual substance fantastically resides, even though manifold possibilities disenchant synthetic theses, corresponding primordial corporealities existing in fluid gurgle, perhaps by accident, perhaps extrajudicially, although their ontological synergies suggest otherwise, as if they're ethereally co-dependent envirosketches.

They're clearly independent inasmuch as each realm reverberates with distinct novelty, complimentary orthodoxies stretched out like multilateral scripture, naturalistic pretensions conflicting in universal bewilderment, as dogmas that seem tried and true are virtually lost in emancipating infinities.

Multivariability.

Emphatically groomed.

But they're clearly dependent insofar as each distillation is characterized by the same peculiarities, compelling factors from each resembling one another, even though their matrices may be innately avant-garde, from the outside looking in, they're still inhabited by the same constituents, still constructed with the same schematics.

What incorporeally organic material binds them?

What's responsible for their biodiverse resolve?

Star Trek examines the concept from different angles, Inception taking a more introspective approach.

If people hear voices who's to say they weren't multilaterally conceived by invisible ecological beings whom they're capable of phantasmagorically translating?

As if physical constructs like iron could be spread like Nutella, as if they could see and transform matter with tectonic credulity, crafting portals out of thin air with geological finesse, like aged astronomical alchemists, intergalactically demure yet cheeky.

Vortex.

Multiple alternative dimensions wildly present themselves in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, some of them demanding their own agile features, in unacknowledged tantalizing Grindhouse.

And as one Spider-Person perishes, another must heed the call, although he's somewhat shy and  bluntly nervous, and distrusting of his coveted newfound gifts.

Spider-Peeps make for a rambunctious roll call, as diabolical technological largesse seeks to cheat mortal temporality.

Paradigms of popularity dynastically converge in the superheroic postmodern, grating the spice mélange, blending ye olde everything.

So so love film noir Spider-Man.

Plus anime Spider-Woman.

And jaded middle-aged Spider-Man.

A cool collection of Spider-People.

*Still no Mirai no Mirai.

Juyuso seubgyuksageun (Attack the Gas Station!)

A group of young adults, who have failed to professionally assert themselves, randomly decide to attack a local gas station, again, in Sang-Jin Kim's Juyuso seubgyuksageun (Attack the Gas Station!), their boredom invigoratingly eclipsed by rash hypertense pretentions, inspirations from which they reclaim the dignity that their culture's strict obsession with obedience has denied them, artists and athletes in/variably adjudicating calamitous caprice, with malevolent will, and assiduous extension.

But through their delinquent acts, through the ways in which they audaciously challenge their neighbourhood's modus operandi, their divergence necessitating that unanticipated rival factions gather, investigate, emerge, the established order riled, jurisprudence gingerly jabberwocked, a serendipitous state of affairs chaotically presents itself, wherein which everyone eclectically entertains novel nubile notions, energetically exceeding the bumptious bottom line, collectively assembled, to irascibly trench and tether.

Extreme masculinity deftly delineating the absurd, Juyuso seubgyuksageun satirizes sociopaths to exorcize easy living.

Note how the no-goodniks must pretend to be constructive citizens in order to eventually acquire the loot they're after.

Comedically crafted psychotically shafted supreme bizarro excess, like Walter Hill's The Warriors sponsored by Red Bull, like paddleboarding down the St. Lawrence, a culture's admiration for fighting shocked but surely syndicated, Juyuso's childlike unconcerned courageous illuminating lunacy still metaphorically cultivates the entrepreneurial path, with cold considerate recourse to hypocrisy notwithstanding, levels and layers and legitimacies, assuming roles to expedite karma.

The House

An adorable loving cute-and-cuddly family suddenly finds itself violently managing a rowdy small town underground Casino in Andrew Jay Cohen's hit-and-miss The House, awkwardly refining streetwise bourgeois semantics thereby, while teaching their young daughter improvisational economic lessons learned.

Chug-a-lug-lug.

There would have been no need however a corrupt city councilperson embezzles the funds that would have paid young Alex's (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition, the Johansen's (Will Ferrell as Scott and Amy Poehler as Kate) unexpectedly finding themselves 250,000 dollars short afterwards, with no legitimate means to raise the cash required.

Enter their porn-afflicted deadbeat addiction-prone friend (Jason Mantzoukas as Frank) whose wife has just left him, but he's got an idea to win her back, and you've found a trendy sanctified sordid perky do-gooding sleazy debacle, complete with absurdly relevant relatable yet sensational stock (the mismanagement of government funds resulting in heavy taxes for small businesses?), weathering the wherewithal, manifesting latent complexes, hewing the graft, and exercising freewill.

It's a great idea for a comedy, glossing over serious defects in the American dream too lightly perhaps, but not unsympathetically, in its brazen hardy risk management.

How do people pay $50,000 for one year's tuition?

N-n-n-nutso.

That is one big bloody army.

Full-on crazy, this here historical epoch.

A great idea supersaturated with too much improbability that revels in its hypothesis without generating convincing conclusions, The House has its moments but some scenes are total amateur hour, even if they're naively treading the rambunctious deluge.

The script intends to blend the wild with the worldly in a bizarro multicultural cavalcade, but ironically leaves the parenting behind for too long, and focuses too intently on plain old thuggery.

It's true though, the film would have been stronger if they had cut back on the buffoonery a bit, even if Scott's 1970s-90s? cut-off hopeful progressive determined speech near the beginning suggests The House ain't that kind of film.

Butchin' and burnin'.

Is it really a comedic western?