Hard Eight

Avuncular reckonings substantially haunt an old school gangster embracing retirement, the laidback harmonious chill distillation emphatically deducing resonant calm. 

He finds a lost and helpless individual awkwardly seeking an income and shelter, and goes through a lacklustre introduction to win his trust things still uncertain.

He shows him some tricks-of-the-trade to help him earn a modest living, time passing as nimble confidence slowly builds and friendship blossoms.

L'amour traditionally envelopes as the young understudy finds a partner, spontaneous marriage one day emancipating lovelorn daydreaming recklessly strewn. 

While hostile disrespect suddenly complicates with animate distressing despondent chagrin.

The old school mobman finding himself bellicosely tasked.

Through hopes of aiding young lovers in conflict.

Attempts to luminescently alter the opaque path of a troubled young adult, is fraught with the unsettling passions orthodoxly upheld by the casino life.

World-weary acquiesced good natures fail to anticipate bold romantics, and the maladroit random unpredictable dissonance wildly accompanying disciplined faith.

While others who attempt to grandstand find themselves lacking vigorous excess, the residual outcomes of routine and habit excessively indicative of tearjerked dysfunction. 

I wouldn't let the shocking display wholeheartedly showcased in ye olde Hard Eight, effectively dissuade you from acts of kindness as the years pass and wisdom emerges.

It's never antiquated, outdated, out of style, to virtuously care for your fellow men and women, and the more you can do at whatever lifestage the more is accomplished through literal grace.

It could just be helping out at a soup kitchen or joining Big Brothers or volunteering at shelters, with millions of people simultaneously engaged it's a bone fide network paying it forward.

Not the most uplifting film, difficult to watch at times, it's challenging.

Strong performances still abound.

Especially from Samuel L. Jackson. 

The Millionairess

An exceptionally talented man of business gains a vast imposing fortune, and only has one adoring daughter after his life comes to an end.

A rather sporting man full of chide and eccentric flourish, conditions must be met to legitimately acquire his colossal resource.

Thus, his flamboyant progeny (Sophia Loren as Epifania) can only marry if rather fortunate, and her prospective husband can turn 500 pounds into 15,000 in just three weeks. She realizes she can fix things and proceeds to do so for a sheath of muscle. 

But he's unable to grin and bear it.

Soon she must find another.

As fate would have it, during a mock-suicide attempt she's saved by an impoverished doctor (Peter Sellers as Dr. Kabir), who's sincerely dedicated to the sick, and has no genuine interest in money.

The habitual "impertinence" soon ignites an inextinguishable flame, she's determined in hot pursuit to become his betrothed alluring patron.

He's a student of the mind and has not interest, nevertheless, but still gives Epifania a challenge which must be definitively met.

Yet in his disinterested haste he generously gives away the 500.

Leaving her to embrace despair.

And impecunious improvisation.

Strange to see a conscientious individual sternly refusing limitless abundance, not that such an occurrence itself is odd, but since there's so much obsession with material these days.

Indeed it seems the more difficult it becomes to astronomically endow oneself, the less ethical concerns emphatically refine an inner voice.

In terms of programming and aesthetic shallows which grossly overlook collective objectives, and blindly uphold vain personal strategies with misperceived monopolistic psychology.

The Millionairess presents an alternative time when respected self-sacrificing age old duty, still made its way to populist markets and produced miraculous effects.

It's like mass collaboration has been disingenuously disdained, and too much of an individualistic bias is creating a lack of faith in public institutions. 

Healthcare and education remain the backbone of a multivariable cultural thrust.

With millions of people developing interactive loci.

Structurally stable.

Resiliently sound. 

With Alastair Sim (Sagamore). 

Running on Empty

A family nurtured on the run from the law, as two aging radicals domestically innovate.

They were both once somewhat younger but not much less idealistic, and they engaged in destructive violence, by blowing up the lab responsible for making Napalm, no was supposed to be there, but an innocent janitor was blinded.

Their network was vast and organized and managed to keep them on the move, to help them avoid incarceration for enough time to raise a family.

Their family's tight and genuinely loving full of creative exploration, the imaginative alternative means cultivated by clandestine life.

It's all the children have ever known and they've matured and adapted well, at least inasmuch as they love each other and are correspondingly respectful.

Mom (Christine Lahti) and dad (Judd Hirsch) feel somewhat guilty but there's little time to wallow, yet when their eldest son (River Phoenix as _______) reaches his late teens he starts to think about University.

He has a musical gift and is earnestly supported by his teacher (Ed Crowley), he even falls for his feisty daughter (Martha Plimpton) and dares to share his courageous plan.

His competing responsibilities are rather solemnly negotiated, as he deals with teenage impulse and unanticipated affection.

It's a bizarro shout out to active engagement generally presented with caring sympathy, I tend to think no one would make a similar contemporary film (in North America), but I'm likely mistaken, you never know what's out there.

I fully support the critique of the manufacture of destructive weapons like Napalm, and the war machine in general, a peaceful world praises productivity, contemplative virtues beyond the utilitarian.

But I can't get behind using violence to putting an end to violence, unless you're forced to do so, as in the case of Ukraine. There are just so many innocent victims. So many people who may have been keen carpenters, teachers, actors, even accountants, if they hadn't got caught up in an ideological conflict. I'd prefer to see concerned citizens capture violent leaders from different sides and force them to fight it out like gladiators on TV. When the people see the hopeless position the gaunt promoters of warlike violence find themselves within, it would no doubt produce a comic effect, which may generate a sustained resonance.

I don't claim to know a universal path forward, there's so much contradiction in an active thoughtful life, so many unforeseen intricate complications that mass cultural endeavour seems foolhardy.

A disposable income seems to help, however, keeping people away from poverty. If they aren't stressed about food and shelter they're more at ease with things in general. 

And businesses flourish and there's less of a need for credit and people can relax and have fun after a busy day's work.

With friends or with their families. 

Disposable incomes.

A huge win win. 

Ace in the Hole

A versatile reporter, who's worked for the biggest papers in the U.S., finds himself writing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, after having burned too many bridges.

He's still accustomed to glitz and glamour and has trouble settling into small town life, unimpressed with natural phenomena, he works hard but can't get used to it.

Sent out one day to cover a far off rattlesnake hunt, he picks up a scoop while attempting to gas up, which leads to a man immobilized deep within a mountain, and the human interest story he's been longing for.

Realizing what he's got and ready to milk it for all it's worth, he convinces the local sheriff that he can get him re-elected if he helps push the story just a little bit further.

So rather than rescuing the chap in 12 to 16 hours, an elaborate drill is employed with a 6 day timeline, and as the story blows up across America, concerned citizens flock to their locale.

But as Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) continues to write copy he finds himself starting to care for Leo Minosa (Richard Benedict), as he suffers locked down below, and has harsh interactions with his wife (Jan Sterling as Lorraine) who wants to move back East as well.

New York comes calling and soon he's back up to a $1000 a week, but it becomes apparent that Leo's dying and he's the man directly responsible.

Conflicting attitudes polarizing soul and sensation dig contentious woebegone roots, as grim mortal reckonings shock aggrandizements, and Tatum suddenly considers morality.

The ensuing spectacle gaudily encourages accusations of the exaggerated, but seeing how ubiquitously Trump used to dominate headlines makes me question assumed hyperbole. 

Contemporary news certainly is rather drastic and seems catastrophically disposed, not that there isn't quite a lot to worry about or take note of or dismiss or applaud.

Years ago I had a thoughtful boss who told me he didn't watch or read the news, and I wondered if they were missing out by deciding to not stay in touch.

But as I age and the world becomes more volatile, sometimes it seems like their approach has merit, inasmuch as peace of mind is something to be desired, and more easily attained by ignoring revelation (there are so many disasters right now, including environmental, economic, and social/racial varieties, not to mention the plague [it's insane how depressing the news is]).

Ace in the Hole is a fascinating film whose message is enduring, reliable.

Where should the ethical line be drawn?

What happens to a world where there no longer is one?

Wrote this long before Biden won the election, around when the first wave hit in fact (edited today).

Hopefully a willingness to at least try and forge a consensus emerges. 

It's gotten so far out of hand.

*Point of clarification: I mean that a significant percentage of Americans seem to love sensation, and sensation was Trump's bread and butter. Therefore, it's not surprising that Chuck Tatum's able to generate sensation regarding his scoop in Ace in the Hole, even though at first it seems unrealistic.

Blood on the Moon

Spoiler Alert.

Alone in the burgeoning West riding cautious 'cross rugged terrain, a new position lucratively awaiting within lands hitherto unknown.

The services required necessitate fearsome low combative life-threatening confrontation, and have never been offered by the unlucky rider, who thought he may as well help an old friend.

$10,000's available should he choose to abide by the deal's unsettling corrupt regulations, the work at hand just simple enough should he avoid the volatile conflict.

A large herd of cattle once earnestly thrived to provide beef to a local First Nation, but the contract's been lost through duplicitous means and they now must vacate the calm reservation.

A deadline's been set for their thorough removal and remains stern and non-negotiable; if John Lufton (Tom Tully) can't cross the river he'll be forced to sell to the highest bidder.

Local homesteaders don't want him to cross for they fear his herd will take up the best land, and the rider's (Robert Mitchum as Jim Garry) employer (Robert Preston as Tate Riling) has actively led them to make a formidable stand.

But Riling has no interest in farming, he hopes to buy Lufton's cows cheap if he has nowhere to go.

He'll then sell them back to the government at a significantly increased price.

Like a film noir hero, Garry possesses conscience and won't take things too far, he's forced to decide which side's more honourable to appease his critical will.

Not an easy decision to make.

Drifting alone along the ageless frontier.

The law's entirely absent apart from one character in charge of Indigenous affairs (Frank Faylen as Jake Pindalest) (there's no First Nation voice in this film), and the haunting prospect of the army, their dispute relies on strict honour and loyalty.

The outlaws are rather unorthodox for traditional western fare, inasmuch as they aren't robbing a bank or holding up lonesome forlorn stagecoaches.

They uphold ideals to clandestinely gain financial and territorial advantage, the appeal of which would have generated romance with less conniving illicit compunction.

No femme fatales in the mix so seductively contriving intrigue, in fact Amy (Barbara Bel Geddes) and Carol Lufton (Phyllis Thaxter) seek nothing more than just investigation.

A choice must be made but who's to make it beyond material considerations, when the stakes are tantalizingly high and the right thing bears no startling cash settlement?

If Blood on the Moon's a crafty noir it proceeds without poignant despondency.

Garry may struggle with gripping free choice.

But he's by no means utterly alone.

Alone in Berlin

A husband and wife, conscientious citizens who watched in silent horror as their culture madly lit jingoistic imperialist flames, once more, as their neighbours and compatriots became communally intoxicated with the blind xenophobic ambition of institutionalized megalomania (Trump?), politically isolated yet industrially integrated, morosely aware of the overwhelming tyrannical dogmas that have consumed their beloved Germany, quietly protest by writing critiques of Hitler's government on postcards and leaving them in public places throughout Nazi Berlin, their messages blunt and to the point, boldly castigating a movement that reduced their country to ash.

Long past the age when passionate inexperience habitually motivates romantic rebellious protest, for those lacking inexhaustible wealth, their logical engagement soberly revitalizes their youthful commitment, tenderly captured by director Vincent Perez with tender aged compassion.

A civil bureaucracy (a police force) believing it can independently operate outside Nazi jurisdiction is assigned their case, the intelligent objective inspector soon castrated by totalitarianism.

Individualized governments require general violence to rule.

General violence inherently encourages revolution.

Until such a time as cooler heads prevail.

And different cultures forge diverse unions.

Alone in Berlin modestly visualizes proactive labour in action, as it takes social democratic steps to subvert authoritarian cruelty, using intellect to promote sustainable security as opposed to sensationalized sanity (fascist psychiatry), capturing active conjugal middle-aged bliss meanwhile, as well as constabulary sympathy and inspired materialism.

If that scene didn't break your heart you've stiffened your lip too rigidly.

I wonder if the film would have been stronger if other protestors from Berlin had played secondary roles, the Quangels (Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson) still isolated but part of a bigger picture?

It's a very patient film that excels at slowly and soberly building tension and character (note how the wedded dialogue becomes lengthier as the film unreels), however, in order to reflect realistic independent engagement, a simplified upright form harmoniously working with diverse mature content, lessening its multilateral impact to focus its robust character.

Too many distractions may have spoiled it.

Light yet hard and penetrating, it humbly captures aspects of resistance that many more complicated narratives fail to realize.

Sincere.

Daddy's Home

The other guy, better looking and stronger than you, father of the two children you are rearing, covetous of your stable ambient domesticity, questioning your every decision, flouting the love his children exhilarate, doing everything you can't do, outperforming you at work, giving advice that contradicts your tutelage, suddenly living in your once cozy home, awake bright and early, to reclaim that which he discarded.

Carelessly.

Since the time of cave people rivalries such as these have endured, but in the contemporary absence of sabre-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths, the biggest challenge for the reckless alpha, is patiently following smoothly polished bourgeois rules.

Being polite.

Complimenting others.

Nurturing through support.

Restraining violent impulses.

Never thinking, "this sucks."

Dusty Mayron's (Mark Wahlberg) suburban shadow Brad Whitaker (Will Ferrell) must also exercise caution by not attempting to court the exceptional, which he no doubt nevertheless tries to do, kneading knee-jerks as his outputs flounce and flail.

The A+ wild man versus A+ dependability, the disharmonious blend struggling within the uncertainty, great ideas not producing the laughs one might expect, although the virile exchanges offer constructive lessons learned.

Sara (Linda Cardellini) caught in-between.

Panda Smooth Jazz.

Griff (Hannibal Buress) adds solid ridiculous structure as his character functions as unnecessary referee, but Leo Holt (Thomas Haden Church) could have been more inappropriate in his consul.

Consul such as his could have provided even more completely unnecessary distractions from the narrative and refined raunchy and/or gluttonously verbose observations.

The kids are funny and cute, used to exaggerate the conflict as much as possible, the best part of the film.

Which struggles.