Elvis

It's surprising more films haven't been made about Elvis (Austin Butler), and that it took so long for this one to come out, but I suppose rock bioflicks aren't really that common, or that I don't recall one having been made about the Beatles or Rolling Stones.

A big one anyways.

You'd think there'd be a huge market for stylistic glimpses into chaotic yesteryear, but perhaps said fans no longer care much for movies, and multigenerational appeal remains too risky (The Doors was cool in my youth).

Elvis's influence was waning when I was younger but he was still widely regarded as The King, and no other musical performer ever rivalled his incredible American popularity, there were certainly dozens of potential candidates, but no one else commensurately captured that sensational spotlight so smoothly.

So pervasively.

I liked many of his songs and even enjoyed playing them on the piano, but I wasn't that interested in the phenomenon, I was way more into Brit pop.

He had kind of been identified with the more straight and narrow path, and I often associated his music with study, which made it less appealing.

Baz Luhrmann is no doubt aware of this crisp commercial characterization, his film focusing on controversies from Elvis's life, where he spoke out against the grain.

Like a passionate devoted fan, he chronicles the less wholesome aspects of the King, and serializes his sultry swagger in contumacious cordial conflict.

Although I really don't know how seriously a non-traditional Christmas special challenged Woodstock, but it seemed to work according to the film, and helped him regain the centre stage, I wholeheartedly feel no shame for my love of Christmas specials.

The film focuses much of its attention on Elvis's relationship with his manager (Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker), who took advantage of the singer's naivety to earn an astronomical income.

Everything starts off well but things become tricky when it comes to international travel, since the Colonel has no legal identity and can't leave America, he consistently tricks Elvis into remaining stateside.

Such a shame the managerial aspects the real-world greed that complicates art.

Elvis still never stopped givin' 'er.

Even when he was forced to do so practically every night.

Some of his songs seem truly timeless and I'll still stop and listen like that guy on Seinfeld. 

Staple tradition. Consistent change. 

Shouldn't lyrics have been used in the title?

Stan & Ollie

An aging comedic duo, whose films were once the most sought after, settles into a British tour, with hopes of promoting another film.

But times have changed and resident audiences have embraced alternative acts, Laurel (Steve Coogan) & Hardy (John C. Reilly) forced to start out in a tumbledown forgotten theatre.

Nevertheless, their impeccable showpersonship soon smoothly generates a buzz, and shortly after recommencing they've embraced the grand marquee once more. 

They're accustomed to lofty praise and soon find themselves fashionably fawned in focus, the chance to return to the silver screen seeming much more likely with each passing day.

But a troubling memory problematizes the seamless reanimated tip-top traction, remembrances of an old contract dispute and the one instance they worked apart.

Had it not been for that one pesky moment their careers would have been holistically united.

Seems silly when you consider the stats.

But sometimes peeps obsess about perfection.

Laurel & Hardy were still well known in my youth and highly-regarded amongst my older relatives, I never really sought out their films but was once a huge fan of Abbott & Costello.

Where would they have been without Laurel & Hardy it's difficult to say, they likely still would have had talent, but would they have forged a dynamic Laurel & Hardyesque tandem that prolonged the paradigm for paramount decades, or would they have created solo acts, unfortunately having abandoned the adored routine?

It looks like Laurel was much more ambitious and wanted to earn them a bigger slice, and was always working on new ideas to potentially produce in upcoming shows. 

Stan enjoyed what they made and didn't want to risk the good life, it looks like famous lucrative actors held little executive sway back then, perhaps like professional sports before the unions.

Do they hold much more sway now?, I believe they're paid much more, and some of the more famous ones can choose their roles, but I haven't really read up on it.

Perhaps "lighthearted" is the wrong word to use to describe Laurel & Hardy's work, I imagine at the time it was truly groundbreaking, perhaps even shocking to old school audiences.

I'll have to see if they made the Collection or if iTunes has any of their films.

Stan & Ollie's worth checking out.

An engaging hommage to comedic legends. 

Newsfront

Post-World War II Australia, urges to diversify held within restraints, some see labour and the left as an influential leap forward, others worry about the Stalinist labour camps.

Productive hardworking journalists diligently capture the news within, changes in political culture the business itself energetically presented in periodic vignettes. 

You get to meet reporters and camerapersons plus narrators and overarching executives, and see how their active interpersonal relationships mutate and shift with multitudinous accord.

It's well done, a compelling slice of raw kinetic dis/proportionate compulsion, intricately endeavouring to freely showcase a vast unparalleled nation changing.

How do you monitor the changes. what paradigms to pinpoint, spices to sojourn?, with the massive amounts of incoming data how do you choose which stories to circulate?

Do you want to be known for something in particular or to brandish and broadcast wide-ranging spectrums, is there a timeless quality to certain narratives or do waves a' wingéd work it unbound?

It's been sad to see labour's role in the forecast sharply decline in recent decades, perhaps as the internet expanded alternative sources practically emerged (animated comedy?). 

And as those sources practically emerged traditional news outlets had to cater to a different audience, one with much more elitist pretensions that abruptly abandoned labour in Anglo/American markets.

A long time since I was in school, but even at that time interest in blending social strata had waned, except amongst the French Canadians living in Québec I met in grad school, of whom an enormously high percentage still cared about people.

The percentage was so high and at such a high level that Québec seemed like the best place to be, so even if my French wasn't that great I moved to Montréal to look for work.

I started reading a lot about Québec's history around that time as well, and enjoyed several engaging texts chronicling different periods of French Canadian culture.

I decided I didn't want to live in Toronto or Vancouver and read those books in isolation, or study Québec from afar if I had the chance to live there.

I cared about work and finances too but living somewhere I wanted to be meant much more. So much of life takes place outside of work it's better to live somewhere you love than grow weary with ennui.

Back to journalism, I imagined it would take longer for war to break out after major Anglo/American news sources abandoned the left, and the unhindered pursuit of either wealth or elitist standing once again imperialistically took centre stage.

It's happened nonetheless and will likely continue to happen for decades, if peaceful inclinations don't again take centre stage or at least form part of the master narrative's bedrock.

The jingoistic warlike right will tell you that it's natural just as they did before both World Wars, and it won't care while millions die as it coldly makes astronomical profits.

But just as many others are saying today and have been for previous millennia.

There's nothing natural about these conflicts.

In fact they're a grandiose perversion. 

Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood

Blending realism and fantasy with convincing creative bombast, Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time . . . in Hollywood masterfully cloaks the absurd.

Closely following Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Cliff Booth's (Brad Pitt) declining filmic fortunes, it patiently develops resounding depth where a closed mind might only breed shallows.

It's quite long.

I asked myself, why are we following Booth home for 7 to 10 minutes to watch him feed his dog and eat Kraft Dinner? The sequence establishes him as a loveable everyman, but this characteristic could have been highlighted without taking up so much time.

Similarly, Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) goes to the movies. Her visit doesn't seem to have much purpose besides paying visceral tribute to a star who's life was cut brutally short, but it's there, again and again, taking up ample sensuous space, it's kind of cool to see an actress go out to see her own film, but couldn't the scenes have only lasted for a minute or two, in total, or been removed entirely without effecting the plot?

In less gifted hands, these scenes may have seemed trite, and the film might have become unbearable after the 45th minute, but they add so much character to Once Upon a Time without really saying anything at all, like essential gratuitous indulgement, generating agile lucid meaninglessness.

It's quite long, but also quite good.

What first drew me to Proust's Search was the ways in which he seemed to enable every one of his ingenious indulgements no matter what happened to be taking place in the story, and there's a little of that bold genius at work in Once Upon a Time . . . 's sweet nothings, so much of it could have been cut, but the film's so much stronger because it was left in.

The whole Manson subplot could have been cut, and you'd still have a tragic tale of a struggling actor who may have blown it unreeling for 100 minutes or so (he could have met Polanski [Rafal Zawierucha] in a different way), Tarantino's love of genre actors shining through with understated ease, Dalton's trials heartfelt and revealing, DiCaprio exemplifying generic tenacity.

Sort of wish his character had been played by Michael Biehn.

Dalton gives the film its strength as he strives to keep keepin' on, delivering a powerful performance for a pilot no one will remember.

But here I've written, "no one will remember", and it's precisely that kind of snobbery Tarantino critiques, he truly loves television with all its wondrous diversity, whether it's genius or ridiculous or hokey, the ideas networks come up with and for who knows what reason decide to share (see They Live?), whether the stories are haphazardly crafted, or the narratives expertly hewn. 

Where would I be without Cheers, a show where everyone hung out in a bar for 11 seasons praising shenanigans that were generally lighthearted?

Clone High? Parker Lewis? Star Trek? Twin Peaks (The Original Series)?

Once Upon a Time . . . absurdly plays with history but genuinely brings struggling actors to life, forging an imaginative dreamy mélange that's as otherworldly as it is down to earth.

It's the first Tarantino film I've liked since The Basterds, but unfortunately it's still too toxic to recommend.

One of the protagonists murdered his wife and got away with it and this is supposed to be okay, the other lost his license for drunk driving and still gets wasted all the time, hippies are one-dimensionally vilified, Bruce Lee (Mike Moh) comes across as a flake and he's the only ethnic character to be found, Dalton stars in a filmic adaption of The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian, and violence often solves the problem.

Perhaps it's just a product of its time, but the film is ultra-violent, and doesn't offer alternative points of view.

He diversifies dimensions that are often one-dimensionally depicted (Westerns) while one-dimensionally depicting others to exaggerate the distinction.

A more balanced approach would have generated higher yields.

Especially in light of MeToo, and the intensifying climate crisis.

Kitschy insubstantial cool yet chilling art, obsessed with things that look pretty, putting a capital P back in patriarchal.

Why spend so much time thinking to wind up thoughtless?

Still better than so many of his films.

Ego Trip

Riches and success have spoiled a maturing talk show host to the point where his livelihood is threatened.

He built his career by connecting with people, and relied heavily on personal experience to humorously grind his convictions.

But since his experiences have become posh and lavish, his jokes have lost their charm, sowing contempt where once there was laughter, derision calibrated to applaud.

Yet hypothetical redemption presents itself in the form of a trip to Haiti, an engagement with humanitarian aid, a battle for surefire sanctity.

Age then counters youth, as his psychological economics, his current and past selves, egotistically contend, a confrontation worthy of Scrooge, a curriculum ripe with iridescence.

And errors.

Ego Trip's last half hour or so excels at delivering a finely tuned transformation, but its build-up is lacking in finesse.

I don't think the film's form was deliberately sabotaged to reflect Marc Morin's (Patrick Huard) temperament, I think there were too many people calling the shots behind the scenes, the result, messy and conspicuous.

You sort of know exactly what's going to happen, and this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as critical moments capable of developing character are cut short again and again, and subplots are introduced to struggle aimlessly or far too briefly, you kind of wish an additional 18 minutes weren't cut out, that they had taken more time to adhesively bind.

A lot of the scenes don't seem to fit as part of a whole, they're lacking in rhythmic sustainability, like a series of misplaced staccatos, rushing by far too quickly, at too choppy a pace.

Morin's life is choppy but Ego Trip's form could have found other ways to express this, potentially through a subtle infusion of self-awareness to metamalign his misplacements.

Much more could have been done with Sammy's (Gardy Fury) character.

Note: I didn't take to the urine jokes, but they did make me almost throw up, that type of humour often intended to generate such a response, good work.

Dinner for Schmucks

Stacking awkward conversations and embarrassing situations upon harrowing miscommunications and mismanaged revitalizations, twisting it all up, and igniting a raging disorienting inferno, of comedy, Jay Roach's Dinner for Schmucks delivers a consistently progressing discomforting crescendo, within which Tim (Paul Rudd) must come to terms with Steve Carell's Barry. A prestigious promotion is within Tim's clutches if he can 'negotiate' a deal and impress his new contemporaries. At the same time, he must find an individual whose relationship with reality can be thought of as questionable and bring him or her to his boss's party. The party showcases representatives of the peculiar, the person possessing the most distance unknowingly winning the day. But when Tim's partner Julie (Stephanie Szostak) discovers this malevolent purpose, she forbids him from attending, throwing an ethical wrench into his professional plans. Conscience and economics then engendger a combustible quandary, which thoroughly complicates what it means to do the right thing.

Steve Carell shines and saturates Dinner for Schmucks with a cheerfully disconcerting other worldly constitution, whose gesticulating regulations coordinate comedic justice. I shook my head several times. Paul Rudd holds his own and soberly responds to Carell's offbeat harmonies. A light-hearted comedy filled with sandpaper and pith, Dinner for Schmucks will demand your attention if you don't mind sitting back to shiver and squirm. Here's hoping one day Carell finds his Dr. Strangelove. Excellent supporting performances from Zach Galifianakis and Jemaine Clement.

Crimes and Misdemeanours

Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors snuck up on me. The first half of the film was slow moving and mundane, leaving me to concentrate more thoroughly upon the divergent dimensions of different varieties of dragonflies than its developing motifs. But as the videotape ran on, I discovered another multi-layered take on life, morality, and existence, with relevant themes breaking through a tragically-comedic allegory. Hence, we are not surprised when we discover characters marrying and divorcing in the film's final moments, nor do we startle when the pretentious wealthy "glad handing dandy"(Twin Peaks Pilot) steals the woman of Allen's dreams. Allen's nemesis is played by Alan Alda and their polarity metaphorically examines the old artistic-merit versus kitschy-sensationalism dialectic, hilariously, especially since Allen is filming Alda's biography. Allen's attempts to expose Alda's shallow character are juxtaposed against Martin Landau's moral battle throughout, a moral battle waged with his conscience after severing ties to his mistress once and for all. Landau (Judah Rosenthal) can't decide whether or not to go public with his guilty conscience (thereby ruining several lives) or to simply get over it. All in all, Crimes and Misdemeanors is worth viewing just to hear some of the jokes, such as, "hey kid, don't listen to what your teachers are saying, just look at them and see what they're going through." Etcetera.