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. 

Late Night

A fresh unsung outspoken new talent (Mindy Kaling as Molly Patel) suddenly finds herself writing for a popular late night talk show.

Its ratings have been slipping as of late however, and its charismatic host (Emma Thompson as Katherine Newbury) is bluntly searching for new ideas.

But she's become somewhat detached from the scene over the years and could be criticized for having lost the human touch, and although she excels at lauding the high brow, she still has yet to warm up to bold YouTube and Twitter theatrics.

Etcetera.

When she discovers her network is hoping to replace her, she has to dig deep and reimagine her worn image.

Thus she actually sits down with her writing team to quickly craft an alternative plan.

They're as uncertain of how to proceed as she is, since it's been years since she's taken an active role in her show's production, and doesn't even recall the majority of her staff's names.

It can be like that, so she gives them all numbers, acclimatizes herself to workplace codes she's forgotten, and slowly begins the painstaking process of improvised identity transformation.

Thankfully Ms. Patel is as unfamiliar with showbiz ego as Ms. Newbury is with contemporary audiences, and though she's reprimanded openly for plainly expressing her raw ideas, Katherine and her staff soon realize she has something to say.

She's in touch with postmodern pressures, and couldn't have come along at a more opportune time, sharing her ideas just audaciously enough, to make enlivening game changing droll ratings impacts.

Late Night excels at convincingly cultivating change.

Its clever script and dynamic characters compellingly fluctuate as the film progresses, offering insights into diverse social phenomena (dating, moving to a city, marriage, working, friendship, rivalries, social media, popularity, competition, . . .) while confidently managing constant change.

Like thermodynamic life in motion, Late Night flexibly introduces conflict and camaraderie, their schematics realigned as trial and error deconstructs, characters readily adapting to the unpredictable shifting frame.

The characters aren't ideal or all-knowing, flaws abound as they search for solutions, but they're strong enough to move forward after having proceeded in error, or to celebrate success without losing sight of the cold and fleeting.

Real world.

Late Night's super real world and professionally polished, but since Ms. Newbury's persona has to be creatively redefined, unorthodox grit leads to splotches and blemishes, which gradually emerge as best practices themselves.

For a time.

Must be hard to harness all the conflicting creativity and transform it into a convincing narrative night after night.

Films and books can be worked on for years, but late night talk shows unreel in real time every night.

Weeknight.

It's remarkable how they remain relevant year after year while existing in permanent flux.

Balancing the random with tropes and traditions.

Always moving forward regardless.

Best American comedy I've seen since The Big Sick.

Impressive realistic fiction.

The Big Sick

The one night stand that blossoms into something bountiful.

Lighthearted carefree revelling evoking humorous injunctions.

Pakistani and European Americans embracing mutually inclusive tactile artistry.

Fanciful floodgates flummoxing.

As exclusivity spoils the fun.

And traditions tumultuously tether.

The Big Sick was much better than I thought it would be.

I only went to see it because I had seen everything else besides The Emoji Movie.

It wasn’t generally wishy washy or trashy or ridiculous or tough to take, rather, it was a well thought out multifaceted intergenerational romantic comedic dramatic account (I’m not writing dramedy) of restless young adults credulously craving each other’s clutches, caught up in interstitial exuberance, with feverish judicious nourishing insatiable impress.

The wild.

The exhilarating.

But Kumail‘s (Kumail Nanjiani) age old customs complicate things and there’s a devastating break up around two-fifths of the way through.

The film struggles for 15-20 minutes afterwards as Emily (Zoe Kazan) falls into a non-related coma, but just as it seemed like it was turning into a write off, her parents Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano) show up, and as guilt ridden Kumail gets to know them, the film’s transported to a much deeper level of interpersonal awareness, their steadily shifting interactions developing themes from one perplexity to the next, notably as Kumail learns how many familial problems they had after they married, and how strong they had to be to fetchingly confront them.

Holly Hunter steals a bunch of scenes. I’ve never noticed her like this before.  She owns the role with feisty delicacy and ponderous pluck and delivers a performance to recall. 

Best supporting actress?

It’s still pretty early, but wow, I was thoroughly impressed enough to place her on the list, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise or the late honourable Bill Paxton in Aliens.

Kumail keeps performing throughout and the conversations he has with his fellow comedians ir/reverently round things out.

It also respectfully examines classic intercultural exploration.

Culture and tradition are certainly important. 

I don't care if people wish to live within their culture’s religious or secular guidelines.

Whatevs!

As long as the choice to mix and blend with other cultures still exists as well, to forge dynamic communal hybrids multigenerationally composed of differences from around the globe, to marry whomever the hell you want to marry, and if that choice is taken away, even if your family has lived somewhere for hundreds, thousands of years, I’m afraid that’s super lame, period.

It’s fun to date people from other cultures. You’re constantly learning new things.

Forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness if at times you learn a new cultural feature and happen to uncontrollably start laughing. 

Sometimes traditions you’re not familiar with seem funny until you understand how important they are to the new person you’ve met.

If you love them, you’ll feel bad. 

And if they love you, your punishment won’t be to dishevelling.

Blushy face.

*Nanjiani and Kazan work well together. I was thinking a sequel set in Brazil. I loved Ray Romano's "opened my mouth hoping something smart would come out" (paraphrase) line. The late at night sleepy conversations. "Tell me a story!" Oh man! 

Stand Up Guys

Went in blind to this one, lured by the cast, became worried after viewing a preview for Red 2, but then the laid-back unpretentious low-key credits and accompanying music brought upon feelings of relief, illuminated by Doc's (Christopher Walken) artwork, reminding me of those from Barfly and Pulp Fiction, for some unknown reason.

Was still worried that the film may be too status quo having been let down by similarly cast movies in the past, but wow, my worries faded quickly as I discovered that in the twilights of their careers, Christopher Walken, Al Pacino (Val), and Alan Arkin (Hirsch) were taking on grizzled rambunctious radioactive roles with hardly any inkling of sanitary preconditioning, they just thought it up and did it, ironically reincarnating the precocious spirit that likely lead to them becoming Hollywood mainstays in the first place.

Challenge. Acceptance. Realization.

That description applies more directly to Al Pacino who plays the most dynamic part but Walken and Arkin also get the job done.

The film explores a pyrotechnic variability while slowly excavating poignant distinct clarifications.

Hirsch's introduction escalates a seismic shift after which malfeasancient minerals are mercantilized.

It's funny.

Director Fisher Stevens knows how to make you laugh by encouraging specific nondescript awkward facial expressions or juxtaposing a hardened con with his choice of tasty treats.

Economic matters are classified while its joie de vivre is liquidated.

And family and friendship find frenzied filial refinements in the final moments.

Plus, these guys have a potent response for the coercive rapacious scum found in Kim Nguyen's Rebelle.

Volatile, chill, and collaborative.

On the record.

Here Comes the Broom

In Frank Coraci's new comedy Here Comes the Broom, writers Kevin James, Allan Loeb, and Martin Solibakke seem to be asking the question, "can we unite the domains of high school music teaching and mixed martial arts fighting while wholesomely addressing issues of immigration, dating, professionalism, health care, small business ownership, altruistic risk, male bonding, conjugal relations, etc., in order to create a constructive interdisciplinary framework, overflowing with ebullient feelgoodery, that can function as a precursor to model communal action?"

If this is indeed the question that they at one point asked themselves, I can only respond by saying that, in my opinion, "there is a strong possibility."

The film's a lot of fun.

I've never even really been that into boxing or mixed martial arts fighting but Here Comes the Broom gave me a new found respect for both sports and I'll now be more receptive to viewing 'pugilistic' events in the future.

The film lays it on super thick but I liked its relatable trial-by-fire humbly rebellious we're-goin'-for-it-no-matter-what oddball pragmatism, which offers a welcome break from a lot of the sleaze that's out there.

It also focuses on how prominent integral arts programs can be screwed over by overemphasizing sports while focusing on the ways in which those very same programs are essential to the sports that are sometimes overemphasized.

And points out that even when people have difficulties passing tests, they still often have marketable skills that can be remarkably beneficial to their community.

Liked the synthesis.

All good.

Chinese Take-Away (Un cuento chino)

A random gravitational incongruity crushes a soaring romance after which one partner haplessly finds himself mired in a self-inflicted mimesis.

Thus Jun (Ignacio Huang) travels from China to Argentina in search of his uncle where he meets a frigid loner (Ricardo Darín as Roberto) by chance who is firmly set in his ways.

Jun doesn't speak any Spanish and Roberto dislikes house guests but the good samaritan Roberto keeps locked within persuades his finicky craftsmanship.

But as those with whom he must interact to find Jun's uncle ironically do not posses the same level of social reflexivity, things take a lightheartedly combative turn, until fate forecasts its fortuitous frequency.  

Decisions made, gut garnished, ethos, codified.

But it's really not that cheesy, I mean, Sebastián Borensztein's Chinese Take-Away (Un cuento chino) does press the curds but if you're interested in seeing a heartwarmingly blunt piece of extroverted reticence, primarily focused on an eccentric small business owner's stubbornly withdrawn principled hardboiled tact, wherein fascists and communists alike take their comeuppances, it's fun to watch.

Sensitive, enumerative, obdurate, and tender, assuredly a go-to-option if dating and seeking to sneak in an alternative cross-cultural b/romantic comedy.

I'm assuming that's what people who date are trying to do. 

Regardless of gender.

Starsky & Hutch

Starsky and Hutch.

Back at it again.

Although, this film was released 8 years ago so perhaps 'again' isn't the correct word to be using here, but, since I'm viewing it according to the dynamics of the ways in which the second decade of the 21st century is influencing my writing, the term 'again' can therefore be thought of as being applied appropriately, give or take that there's still a lot more I need to learn about globalization.

Much much more.

That being said, I still don't have much to say about Starsky & Hutch.

To literally break it down, it takes two psychological law enforcement extremes, one which is so anal retentive that it alienates everyone and is consequently regularly forced to find new partners, another with an approach that is so laissez-faire that it can smoothly make contacts and move about suavely but can't effectively get any work done, and slowly synthesizes them throughout as they grow and come to function like a strong resilient team.

Alternatively, in regards to its comedic aspects, I didn't find it as funny as I probably would have in 2004 but I may not have found it that funny back then either.

Cool car though.

Alright, I'm really not that into motorized vehicles.

Just trying to sound cool.

Fun to ride around in sometimes though.

I'm not cool.

Roller Town (Fantasia Fest 2012)

Rollin' along; roller skatin' down that road.

Bringing disco, back to life.

Haligonian comedy troupe Picnicface insert their distinct brand of hypertense laissez-faire creepy yet ingratiating socio-cultural commentary into their first full-length film, Roller Town, overflowing with the same cerebral mix of nostalgic innocence and nauseous necromancy that nauticalized their television show, ironically transmitted through a vicarious fundamental frequency, which fetishistically elevates the construction of a permanent sense of psychological well-being, localized and qualified by an irresistibly naive belief in the eternal values of pop culture, avatarized with direct access to the divine, while criminally agitating its impending neuroses.  

A lot of the jokes/situations have an immediate impact (are funny) while many of them seem like they were deliberately set up to just be as inane and I-don't-give-a-fuck as possible. But when you think about them afterwards it's these inane moments that lacked depth that make you laugh and want to see it again.

Which isn't that easy to do.

To Rome with Love

For a summer in Rome, an office clerk finds himself thrust into the spotlight, his routine reflections hyperbolically sensationalizing influence, as an architect revisits his youth to bring back to life/cross-examine his most serendipitous subject of desire, a young communist lawyer contends with a retired opera producer when it's discovered that his humble father can sing exceptionally well, and a married couple, in town for a potentially prosperous employment opportunity, find themselves accidentally embracing exotic extramarital affairs.

Felicitously framed by a traffic cop's dissolving point of view.

The conditions of which inculcate calisthenic creativity.

Romantically mingling the celebrated with the starstruck and the ordinary with the hyper-intensive, while evoking the nimble necessity to unearth metaphorical mirth within corresponding psychoanalytic observations, Woody Allen's To Rome with Love's palpable playful pluck picturesquely procures impressionable popularizations, and salaciously serenades atemporal condensations.

Fidelity strengthened through chance, temptation tethered to testimony, regret distinguished from revelation, and dreams evanescently alighted.

A virtuosic variation on a theme.

There's a lot more to it than that.

Ted

Magic and a child's dream of having a friend brings a cuddly teddy bear to life in Seth MacFarlane's Ted, thereby transforming little John Bennett's (Mark Wahlberg, Bretton Manley) existence from one dominated by loneliness to one permeated with joy.

With neither responsibility nor consequences.

And an inexhaustible supply of the kind.

But the introduction of John's steady love interest Lori Collins (Mila Kunis) and their 4 year relationship threatens to end John and Ted's (Seth MacFarlane) non-stop binge, and a hitherto unimaginable strain threatens their impregnable friendship.

Obviously things need to change, and Lori is exceptionally relaxed and understanding, but after Ted moves out and John continues to haplessly disregard his social and economic obligations, things fall apart, and he finds himself back on his own.

Struggling to get by.

Mr. MacFarlane's undeniable gift for packing his scripts full of nostalgic pop cultural references does not struggle, however, and Ted's narrative is jam packed with witty intertextual memorabilia (also written by Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild).

Johnny Quest is mentioned.

Ted Danson makes light of his more successful Cheers co-star Woody Harrelson in a bit of playful bad taste.

And Ted's answer to The Wedding Singer's use of Billy Idol impresses at first.      

A lot of the jokes are funny, but the consistent barrage of cheap shots loses its appeal as the film unreels.

While some movies use repetitive jokes effectively (Paul's three boobs for instance), the devices Ted borrows from Office Space grow tiresome and the second half doesn't hold together well.

The subplot involving Donny (Giovanni Ribisi) is taken way too far.

As is the use of Ted's Billy Idol.

And the nauseating Rex (Joel McHale).

Too much reliance on knee-jerk reactions and not enough on strong character development, Ted flounders where it could have flourished and applies the brakes when requiring acceleration.

I've seen Adam Sandler movies that were better.

Seriously.

Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie

Enjoyed Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie.

Some of the jokes aren't the greatest and one situation almost made me retch, but these guys are undeniably flexible in terms of producing sustained awkward oblivious carefree traumatically endearing comedy, nostalgically nuanced with a 1980s commercial naivety, and overflowing with nimble bad judgment.    

In search of a billion dollars.

Chef Goldblum's (Jeff Goldblum) transitional introduction sets the stage.

The hysterically fruitful job interview where Damien Weebs (Will Ferrell) devotedly demands that Top Gun be played a second time keeps things flowing.

Taquito's (John C. Reilly) epic battle with the mall wolf invokes tragedy.

And Katie's (Twink Caplan) indiscretion cannot tear Tim and Eric apart.

They've been taught what to expect from life and how to approach it from television and the movies, and, as a consequence, haplessly proceed with limitless confidence.

No matter what situation they face.

Ignoring the ways in which everything around them is crumbling and decaying, they manage to not let a little financial instability get them down.

While forging a strategic plan.

And unerringly living the dream.

Dark Shadows

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows revisits an American gothic soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971 and is therefore supposed to be superfluously tactless.

Not that the emancipated 18th century vampire Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is lacking in sensitivity, it's just that he rigidly abides by a strict moral code through which he hopes to reconfigure his family's fortunes and reanimate its pseudo-aristocratic position within the town of Collinsport.

Okay, he is lacking in sensitivity, and a bit of a prick, and bloodthirsty and unforgiving and functionally clueless.

But he also embodies a raw nocturnal decisive magnetism which sanguinely yet solipsistically cultivates the melodrama (the film focuses too intently on him to the detriment of the supporting cast).

In the 1760s, his family sailed to the New World and established a successful fishery, for all intents and purposes administrating the town thereafter.  While growing up, Barnabas caught the eye of many a local  maiden including one his servants, Angelique (Eva Green). Unbeknownst to him, Angelique was a witch who proceeds to curse his family after he scorns her. She eventually turns him into a vampire and has him chained and buried deep below ground, proceeding to use her witchcraft to incant a fishing business of her own afterwards. When Barnabas is accidentally unearthed in 1972, her business has expanded significantly and the Collins family is in a state of practical ruin.

And she still desires him.

Barnabas remains uninterested however although he does reflexively entertain. His actions engender her fury in the aftermath when she discovers that he has once again fallen for another.

Another who is the spitting image of she whom Barnabas left Angelique for all those centuries ago.

Dark Shadows could have been good had its writers nonchalantly taken their uninspired subject matter more seriously (in order to concoct something terrible yet fun). Having Johnny Depp in your film, giving him the majority of the lines, and having him hypnotize characters within does not spontaneously conjure happy returns.

Further, working uncritically within kitschy commercially feudal fantastic frames serves to romanticize patriarchal socio-economic representations (which is probably the point).

Thus, noble Barnabas feasts on construction workers and itinerants and the only successful female characters used spells to achieve their goals or are punished severely for their transgressions.

There are flamboyant moments but their affects are localized and therefore don't pervasively instil the narrative's underground with a recurring thematic foil (and the film isn't much fun).

There may not be a foil, but one over-the-top scene where Angelique briefs her best and brightest, all of whom are men, seems to cast doubt on the fact that higher corporate echelons were almost uniformly masculine in the seventies, through the use of excessive exaggeration, which sinisterly places the film's manifested patriarchal focus within its subterranean realm by suggesting that male dominated boards of directors were perhaps not as permeated with testosterone as progressives would have you believe, thereby hyperbolically challenging the 21st century ideological playing field by conservatively deconstructing historical reality.

Dark shadows to be sure.

The Five-Year Engagement

A couple is in love.

Their first meeting is adorable. They are living in San Francisco. One of them finds a job in small-town Michigan. They move. The other's career is resultantly set back but this is sacrificially taken in stride.  Attempts to acclimatize to small-town life are heroically made but an undeniable despondency cannot be persuasively concealed.

A break-up is imminent, the couple goes their separate ways, and new partners are found. But a kernel of love remains which new arrangements cannot disintegrate and it's possible that the two lovers will restructure their efficient and profitable means of production. With the future and age pressing in and standards of compatibility becoming less and less idealistic, a decision must be definitively made.

According to what I know about romantic comedies anyways.

The Five-Year Engagement has some funny scenes and introduces a broad range of distracting characters. Bill's (Chris Parnell) sweaters and Vaneetha's (Mindy Kaling) toast stand out and I enjoyed listening to the ideas of both Ming (Randall Park) and Tarquin (Brian Posehn).    

Individuals working in intellectual and culinary markets are juxtaposed and members from both groups are made to appear ridiculously profound.

Rather than consistently sentimentalizing the romantic love that often results in marriage, the film introduces argumentative points of combative relational diversification during the engagement, thereby instructively applying quasi-conjugal conflicts to prenuptial amicable operations while installing a degree of collaborative critical conditionals as well.

Sweet but trashy, mildly melodramatic, and pretentiously inclusive, The Five-Year Engagement offered more insightful observations and humorous interjections than I was expecting (after the film shifts to Michigan), which helped me get over the snickering directed in my direction as I entered the theatre on my own.

And if donuts have yet to be eaten, why purchase new ones? That's wasteful.       

21 Jump Street

After royally screwing up their first arrest, rookie policepersons Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are reassigned to the undercover division 21st Jump Street, where they're tasked with discovering the supplier of a new narcotic which has recently claimed its first victim.

While preparing for life back in high school, Jenko, who played football, takes the lead, providing advice to the less intellectually challenged Schmidt, who was a member of the Juggling Society. Pretending to be brothers and bunking out at Schmidt's parent's house, they reacclimatize themselves to the young adult social predicament as best they can, before youthfully arising and plunging back in.

But things have changed since they came of age, and environmentalists are now just as popular as the jocks were back when Jenko tossed his tight spirals. Jenko and Schmidt quickly see their traditional roles reversed as the later makes headway with the cool kids and the former infiltrates the nerds.

But as Schmidt begins to socially prosper for the first time, he loses sight of their law enforcement objectives.

It's now up to Jenko to hold the team together and nerd where he has never nerded before.

Down, set, hut.

Ignoring the film's ludicrous structure and myriad implausibilities, the question of where 21 Jump Street sits in the political spectrum remains up for debate, and I'm sure it's currently being dissected in political philosophy classes across North America.

I may as well add my two cents.

The objective of the film: stop the flow of easily accessible trendy narcotics within high schools.

Point awarded to the Right Wing.

But it's not as if the Left Wing wants to see the proliferation of drugs proceed unabated, it simply recognizes that the traditional means that have been employed to prohibit them have had little effect (they're not going away), and since many of them are less harmful than alcohol, don't see an enormous problem with systematically controlling them and making a productive fortune off their taxation. However, the narcotics in 21 Jump Street are new and little is known about them so it would make sense that the Left would seek to analyze their contents and resultant effects before judging whether or not they should be legally regulated/distributed. A commodity is being trafficked off the grid and the government wants to step in and regulate it in order to understand its harmful effects more comprehensively and better educate the public: point awarded to the Right Wing withdrawn.

21 Jump Street Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) tells his recruits to focus on stereotyping everyone they encounter in order to fit within their high school social spheres more snuggly.

Point awarded to the Right Wing.

Yet by focusing intently on stereotypes, Schmidt and Jenko have trouble fitting into their new environment and only succeed after opening their minds to the possibility of difference.

Point awarded to the Right Wing withdrawn.

Drugs are demonized throughout insofar as curtailing their distribution is sought after yet the ways in which they are presented glorifies their consumption.

Point awarded to neither.

While the Left realistically understands that the war on drugs is futile, it still doesn't glorify their use, and neither does the Right.

The female officers working for 21 Jump Street close their first case long before Jenko and Schmidt are in a position to begin solving theirs.

Point awarded to the Left.

Chauvinism pervades Right Wing discourses and by making Schmidt and Jenko semi-incompetent buffoons who pale in comparison to their feminine coworkers, 21 Jump Street counteracts its "might is right" ethos. But at the same time, the heroes of the story are men, and even though the women obtain results much more efficiently, their achievements are still only ephemerally referred to and the point is by no means elaborated.

Point awarded to the Left withdrawn.

The principal student drug dealer is an environmentalist, directly synthesizing facilitators of intoxication with those who support initiatives such as sustainable development.

Point awarded to the Right.

Yet the student in question, Eric Molson (Dave Franco), is given some of the film's best lines and shown to be an understanding and compassionate person who cares about his fellow classmates with whom he gets along well. But still, when 21 Jump Street reaches its conclusion, he's dragged off in handcuffs to answer for his activities.

Point awarded to the Right sustained.

From the Schmidt and Jenko duo, it's the football playing jock who holds things together and ensures their success.

Point awarded to the Right.

Then again, while professional football seems at times like a prolonged jingoistic advertisement for the military, this doesn't mean the game itself is necessarily Right Wing, inasmuch as when you ignore the ways in which it's sensationalized, you can still sit back and enjoy an entertaining sport, played by many a Left Winger.

Point awarded to the Right withdrawn.

And ambiguity permeates 21 Jump Street insofar as it's difficult to strictly determine what its political motivations are.

Point awarded to the Left.

Although, even though the Left attempts to break down strict polarities and establish a level non-stereotypical playing field wherein historical factors play an inductive role, it still staunchly adheres to specific points within established dichotomies in order to ensure their ethical survival.

Point awarded to the Left withdrawn.

The only sustained point may have been awarded to the Right, but I still hesitate to classify 21 Jump Street as a conservative film. There's simply not enough evidence.

Is it still an entertaining film that I didn't want to leave half way through?

You be the judge.

The Muppets

And The Muppets takes us back to a more cheerful time during which humour didn't consist of making jokes about blood diamonds and friendship meant more than exchanging vitriolic insults ad infinitum. Within the spirit of the The Muppet Show is reincarnated and acclimatized to a 21st Century comedic aesthetic, and the two differing ethical approaches subtly duel before creating a productive popular counterpoint.

A musical synthesis.

The film starts out with an insufferable musical number that immediately challenged the ways in which I've been cynically indoctrinated by shows such as Family Guy over the years. "Is this movie going to be this incredibly cheesy?", thought I, as I appreciated the choreography and prepared for an internal struggle. But as it progresses and the distressed Muppets decide to get back together in order to perform once more and raise 10 million to save their dilapidated studio from a greedy oilperson (Chris Cooper as Tex Richman), their naïve hope and innocent determination took root deep down and energetically confronted years of psychological conditioning propagated by ruthless patriarchs (goodbye Berlusconi).

But writers Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, fully aware of their audience's manufactured predispositions, cut Kermit (Steve Whitmire) off when he begins to explain how different things were way back then, and have their characters kidnap Jack Black to host their comeback special, who sits tied to a chair throughout allegorically representing the psychological mechanizations of the 1990s and 2000s, his exchange with Fozzie (Eric Jacobson), priceless.

And to add to the seemingly hopeless situation environmentalists find themselves in these days, enough funds are not raised and the oilperson seems to have won and an attempt at transforming the filmic/televisual sphere seems to have failed.

But then that insufferable number from the film's opening act commences once more, only this time it isn't unbearable, it's entertaining and fun and cheerful and happy, and Tex Richman decides not to destroy the Muppet's studio, and everyone's getting along, and the Muppets are a hit, and they're singing, together, dancing and swinging, to the beat of their own communal drum, positive and revitalized.

Note the fortuitous relationship between this ending and the Keystone Pipeline Protests which caused the Obama Administration to delay making its decision. My gut's telling me that they delayed the decision hoping that when it comes time for reexamination, the protestors will not return and they'll be able to conduct their business as usual (the same strategy the powers that be used in Hamilton, Ontario, for decades, in order to construct the controversial Red Hill Valley Parkway). Hopefully a bit of The Muppets's spirit will remain in 2013, and the Keystone Pipeline agenda will once again unify environmentalists across North America.

Rubber

Quentin Dupieux intelligently and playfully pulls off a ridiculous off-beat puréed slice of incongruity with Rubber, a film which challenges you to keep watching even though its subject matter is incredibly discombobulated.

Question: can we improve upon the typical Hollywood horror-comedy by stripping it down to its bear essentials, presenting an inanimate villain, crafting a film within a film, and then virulently exterminating its audience?

Or to put it another way, is watching a tire that rolls around randomly blowing up things and people preferable to series such as Final Destination or I Know What You Did Last Summer (note that I did like Final Destination 2)?

Without providing any back story explaining why or how the tire gained consciousness and why it decided to start randomly destroying.

The answer is yes, it can be improved upon, and a back story is not required, if you don't care in the slightest what your audience thinks but still take the time to expertly craft an audacious non sequitur which appears as if it was haphazardly constructed.

Rather than simply destroying the minds of its audience with nauseating dialogue and unimaginative viaducts, Rubber simply destroys its audience half way through after they ravenously gorge on a roasted turkey.

Rather than trying to seem as if there's a point or introduce something saccharinely tragic, Rubber makes it quite clear that there is no reason structuring its dementia, and proceeds to unreel unabashedly.

But nothing can exist without placing itself within a multifaceted logical fulcrum, as each subject is free to express their interpretive difference in regards to the ways in which artistic objects are constructed (or sporting objects etc.), thanks to the freedom built into democratic societies made viable by the internet, and it's possible to gain constructive insights into complicated dynamics from bizarre examples of lucid frivolity, if you search for them (search for them within the new show Picnicface, especially the Lost Highway themed episode wherein the Mystery Man looks like John Waters).

Reason underlies Rubber's tracks although its content salutes insanity. But it's only insane from the point of view of the monotonous narrative that has been produced to shackle the many as the few exercise their free self-development (Terry Eagleton), and from this point of view, accentuating difference, it makes nothing but perfect sense, and a rational explanation is presented for its not so subtle ending.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Good God. What the hell happened to Christmas?

It seems as if the traditional Christmas special has been warped and welded into a devious pot smoking lingerie modelling gangster frolicking schism, just in time to usher in the 2011 holiday season. A special crafted for those who have grown weary of the predictable patterns worked into the yearly festive Frostyesque line-up and are hungrily seeking a palpable harbinger of mainstream subversion, of decadent diversions, of subterranean incursions.

Fully endorsed by Santa.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas provides such content and insouciantly precipitates a brazen comical maelstrom into which the politically correct is unwittingly thrust.

As Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Hal Penn) frantically search for a new Christmas tree.

Trying to make sense of the ways in which this film confronts stereotyping is challenging. It's as if representatives of two minority groups are saying that due to the institutional barriers firmly established by the Anglo-Saxon majority it's impossible for us to successfully integrate into the mainstream, but we'll still give it a shot, and playfully present you with exactly what you would expect, based upon your own preconceptions, while opening up a resultant critical space in your public sphere, and affectively plunging within full throttle.

You see, the mainstream often prevents minorities from successfully integrating into its culture. It does so in order to horde the prominent signs of achievement and associated luxuries for itself. As minorities still seek to earn a living and take care of their families, they must find a way to do so in the underground, using the only resources they have available to their general advantage (selling narcotics etc.). If racist institutional representatives and policies promote these stereotypes and they are upheld by their ethnic non-professional counterparts, and progressive legislation such as affirmative action is suppressed, you directly stifle an enormous degree of potential, and keep generations of prominent public role models from ever being able to productively apply themselves.

Therefore the underground becomes their outlet and they carve out an existence within while demonstrating that some of the 'demonized' resources they control (marijuana) aren't really that bad and would legitimize their 'unlawful' pursuits if legalized.

There's some of this in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and they definitely take things to new levels as they nurture a tormented frustrated blockaded aesthetic while working within a form that has been culturally stabilized.

All the while applying new meanings to concepts like marriage, family, and friendship.

And smoking that reefer.

Tower Heist

Was incredibly disappointed by Brett Ratner's Tower Heist. Generic films don't have to be terrible. If their writers try to at least create four or five unexpected witty provocative scenes wherein something distracting takes place they can be salvaged. But they have to hold our attention before they can affectively destream it. Tower Heist presents one boring mundane predictable scene after another, as if they were trying to mimic the aesthetic built into a swiffer wet jet ad in order to peddle jokes that make television's Whitney seem hilarious by comparison. It was like the inspiration behind this script was vacuuming or cleaning behind the fridge. Unmitigated stubborn concrete tedium disseminated by performances who are only noteworthy because they managed to successfully convince me that they were taking their work seriously, regardless of the fact that they must of wretched upon first reading over the material. There's one moment where Matthew Broderick at least looks as if he's aware that he's starring in an cup into which you spit but it's subtle enough for him to still be able to convince the powers that be that he's a team player.

I like films wherein rich assholes who steal from struggling workers are punished and I like that this happens in Tower Heist, but the execution is uniformly lacking in skill, insight and perspicacity, and the plot, racist in structure.

Don't be sucked in by the cast or the ads. Tower Heist isn't worth it and reminds me why I haven't wanted to see an Eddie Murphy film since Bowfinger.

SUPER

Some superheroes have vast financial and intellectual resources at their disposal which they use to champion justice. Others develop superhuman strength after having directly embraced science's unpredictable diversity. Still others are born with exceptional gifts for which they are ridiculed and ostracized by their fellow citizens. And others are simply nurtured by an alien land whose environment provides them with a permanent degree of invincibility.

But my favourite superheroes are regular average joes who grow tired of corruption's prosperity and take to the streets in a homemade outfit to distribute discipline and punishment with bluntly accurate precision.

Superheroes like SUPER's Crimson Bolt (Rainn Wilson) and his enthusiastic sidekick, Bolty (Ellen Page).

Crimson Bolt has experienced two perfect events throughout his life which have helped him to overcome an existence otherwise filled with depression and humiliation.

The day on which he helped a police officer fight crime, and that on which he married love interest and ex-drug addict Sarah (Liv Tyler).

But as SUPER begins we discover that Sarah has fallen prey to a local drug-dealing thug (played by Kevin Bacon) who encourages her latent addictions in order to steal her away from her loving and devoted trustworthy husband.

After complimenting his eggs.

That same husband decides it's time to fight back and save Sarah once more, and guided by the forces of instinct, love, and over-the-top Christian superhero The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), he makes a red suit, picks up a wrench, and tells crime to shut-up as he bashes its representatives in the head with said wrench while wearing his red suit.

And playing by the unwritten rules.

As Serial Mom coalesces with Q-The Winged Serpent and becomes what Mystery Men should have been, SUPER psychotically delivers a sensationally laid back hard-boiled piece of cinematic mayhem, swathed in a deadpan frank ready-to-wear elasticity.

Not crafted for the feint of heart or those searching for technological hyperactivity, its comedic intuition and adventurous spirit still distill a universal sense of vigilante dexterity, as one short order cook rediscovers what it means to despair.

La sacrée

Fertility. Structure. Beer.

Dominic Desjardins's La sacrée has it all, and as its lighthearted romantic-comedic aura ferments, a jovial buzz is effervescently disseminated.

The Franco-Ontarian town of Fort Amiable has seen better days. The economy has yet to rebound from the closure of the local canoe factory and while the local residents remain upbeat, they still hold serious reservations regarding their future.

Enter François Labas (Marc Marans), son of the former canoe factory's owner who is blamed for the undesired closure. He seeks to wed a wealthy cosmetics heiress (Marie Turgeon as Sofia Bronzeman) but must impregnate her before wedding bells can ring. Unfortunately, he's sterile, and broke, and in danger of having his intricate web of devious lies exposed, thereby spoiling his plans for the unforeseen, and leaving him blindly tethered to the unknown.

Can the legendary La sacrée beer, locally brewed by the residents of Fort Amiable in the past and reputed to actively assist in the reproductive process, reinvigorate the lads and facilitate his dreams?

Or will he lose his favourite game and be turned out in the streets with nothing but credit card debt and incomparable charm to sustain him?

As he perseveres.

A picturesque portrait of a resilient conman, La sacrée provides opportunity for the dynamic while distributing limits to their productivity. Presenting a cheerful cast of sprightly characters, examining the marketing potential of the clarified anglicisme, suggesting that love can be truly exciting if and only if it builds upon a volatile foundation, and consistently transitioning from one pristine Northern Ontario scene to another, La sacrée enlivens the traditional struggling small town narrative, while thoroughly making use of the sacrament of confession.

And the supporting cast is given plenty of room to manoeuvre as their innocent hopes reflect a cohesive pastoral communal ideal.

The first feature comedy to be made in Ontario entirely in French.