Dune: Part Two

Is there as much of a story to tell after Paul and his mom find themselves lost in the desert?

Dune: Part Two suggests there is. 

The Fremen slowly growing accustomed to the uncanny ways in which the gifted Atreides youth fulfills their prophecy, Paul must still overcome his horrific nightmares to convince the devout majority to follow his lead.

The film's kind of like the episode of STNG where Kahless suddenly returns, and the Klingons agree to manage his legend, hoping the enticing story will win hearts and minds.

But Kahless's return is manufactured in the more scientifically structured Star Trek continuum, whereas Paul's actions verifiably fulfill a prophecy and therefore messianically comport themselves in ye olde Dune.

Yet he still doubts he can effectively lead a massive underground populace in a daring uprising (against the Emperor), their rivals in possession of technological wonders of an extremely advanced destructive nature.

Much of the dialogue concerns Paul's coming of age as he learns to play the influential leading role.

The film widening its scope to include Harkonnen bedlam. 

To add despotic reckless nuance.

You'd almost hope that in 2028 a younger American would feverishly arise, and move the political spectrum away from agéd octogenarians, back to something much more grassrootsy indeed even potentially kind of lithe and nimble (these guys are in charge of the fate of the free world?) - hold on, a lot's happened since I wrote this on Saturday, looks like there is a younger American candidate, and she is indeed feverishly arising (love Bernie, but he's older than Biden)!

I often wish David Lynch had had more time and two separate films to craft his vision, I still love watching what he came up with, but also wonder what he would have crafted these days.

He was one of the pioneers however who was inventing postmodern science-fiction.

They often had to improvise sensational fascination.

Special effects weren't nearly as reliable as they are in the SuperHero Age.

Regardless, I love the Dune story apart from the Atomics and the talking fetus, Chani adding so much in this version, as does the extended look at planet Harkonnen. 

I still find intense belief which defies science to be the most destructive force the Earth has ever seen.

It makes for incredible films and books though.

Just hope it doesn't destroy the planet one day.

Or slowly over the course of depreciating centuries.

*Star Wars + Denis Villeneuve ='s Amazing (the entire trilogy).

Un 32 août sur terre (August 32nd on Earth)

A near death experience regenerates instincts to daringly embark on the path of motherhood, a coveted model having barely survived after falling asleep at the treacherous wheel (Pascale Bussières as Simone). 

To suddenly go about the definitive business of engaging in acts which will lead to pregnancy, she relies on the dedication of a trusted friend who has been obsessed for many a year (Alexis Martin as Philippe).

He's somewhat uncertain as to how to proceed and his closest friend recommends refusal, yet even though he's found a new loving partner, he maddeningly can't find the guts to say no.

So it's off to peaceful Utah to accomplish the deed in the heralded salt flats, but they're unable to rent a car and must depend on a suspicious cab driver.

Unfortunately, the offbeat romantic isolation fails to inspire spry animate parlay, the shocking nature of the surprise interconnection leaving studious Philippe shaken not stirred.

The cab driver returns and ups the price, they refuse to pay and are left in the wild.

With nothing but time on their hands.

Incarnate impromptu fascination.

An unorthodox take on romantic true love clad in crazed cheeky carbonite crucible, habitual discussions regarding procreation generally absconded in abstentia.

What lengths will anyone go to if their compulsive daydreaming miraculously matriculates, and a conducive schematic instantaneously materializes out of thin air ze reified rapscallion?

'Tis a tantamount tale for romantic young adults perhaps too prone to radical reverie, highly charged through amorous immediacy the inherent amusement disenchanting fact.

Although to engage in random speculation, I would wager that at least 60% of newborns emerge by accident, and that such an off-putting yet versatile possibility keeps the gene pool rich in non-determination. 

So many thoughtful reasonable people sterilize particularity through prudent planning, and even though they resonate lucidity, lack the wild random vivacities of life.

Do these vivacities produce more novelty than steady reflection and scientific trial and error, I've never heard anyone who lives that way complain, in fact pointing out discrepancies is anathema. 

But why worry about what might have been?, it serves no useful productive purpose.

The present is much more interesting. 

Just have to stay constructively active. 

Maelström

Conflicting emotions morosely problematize picturesque drab conducive momentum, difficult decisions unconscious mourning requisite paramount agile time off.

Through unfortunate circumstance trouble cruelly abounds with the mobile lucrative family business, cascading crucibles Klingon clutches awkwardly aided by a hit and run.

Classic down and out comic lugubrity staggeringly keen to romanticize coincidence, the stars aligned postmodern im/permanence gritty irritable cosmic practicality.

Constant motion demonstrative clarity intuitively reacting to frustrating stimuli, her (Marie-Josée Croze as Bibiane Champagne) family renowned the pressure abrasive outputs enduringly vague inconclusive.

Why all the hassle for simply engaging with piquant particulars precipitous life, the haunting austere adamant duties discernibly daunting lighthearted lackadaisics?

If only taking time off was much simpler a sudden sojourn a querulous jaunt, some place remote perhaps unfamiliar fortuitous fashions restorative calm. 

Not in the cards in this instance as the habitual play grinds dolorous doldrums, although the free sharing of genuine grief begets newfound friendship and lithe l’amour.

A grizzled sizzling disparaging humour harrowingly harks with dissonant certitude, narrated by a fish who keeps losing his head, like your belch tastes like sardines and lime whiskey.

As if the consistent clash of disparate ethics unconsciously produces animate haze, within which peeps must continuously make decisions based upon theories, pragmatism, and expediency.

Within this inherently confusing pinball polemic reason resides, each situation convolutedly clarified through recourse to multivariable mayhem.

The confident decision made can lead to enigmatic trust, any hesitation and everything’s lost even if negatives shake things up.

Social media takes this potentiality to panopticonic levels, like a byzantine web a’ squelched and sticky wherein which myriad strata interconnect.

The clear and rational diagnosis can’t be relied upon to be popular, unless of course it’s fashionable for a monuments brief intersection.

There seems to be less convivial reliance on the sustainability of the collective, as divisive narratives creatively collude to exalt absolute rights.

But Ukraine’s standing tall and fighting off the Russian army.

Wish I could develop a clearer picture.

But then there'd be no maelström.

Dune

The Indigenous inhabitants (the Fremen) of a barren world (Arrakis aka Dune) once flourished unobstructed, until its only resource became the most coveted in the galaxy.

This spice mélange allows gifted navigators to alter the fabric of space and time, while others use it to mutate consciousness, attaining heightened spiritual states.

Different planets within the interplanetary union are governed by an Emperor, who is obsessed with maintaining control, and possesses a massive formidable army.

The rights to mine the spice engender astronomical profits, and House Harkonnen of planet Giedi Prime has obscenely enjoyed them for quite some time.

But House Atreides of planet Caladan has become remarkably popular in the union, as led by its level-headed Duke (Oscar Isaac), and the Emperor has grown jealous of its meteoric rise, and seeks to dishonourably annihilate them.

Thus, he takes Dune's mining rights away for the barbarous self-obsessed Harkonnens, and gives them to House Atreides, who can't refuse the magnificent honour, even if they suspect a trap.

The Harkonnens who hate the Atreides seek to attack them after the transition, supported by several legions of Sardaukar, the Emperor's ferocious spartan troops. 

But the Fremen hold a prophecy that a messiah will lead them out of darkness, and will come from the outer world, and know his ways as if [he's] born to them.

Duke Leto's son Paul (Timothée Chalamet) possesses extraordinary abilities and the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood admires them.

Could he survive the Harknonnen's sneak attack?

And find discreet refuge amongst the Fremen?

That's a working general snapshot of Frank Herbert's complex plot, which is difficult to simplify in a film, so this one' stretched into two instalments.

Denis Villeneuve cultivates isolation as a matter of intergovernmental intricacy, so many fierce independent characters collegially united through distinct cause.

Dignified solemnity is no laughing matter as the Atreides accept monumental responsibility, in a fluctuating volatile stern vortex, augustly magnified through intrigue.

The imposing offer freely shared sombrely cloaked in grand deception, the refusal of which would lead to acknowledgement of a rival's mean-spirited intent.

A love so great it leads to trust in the most duplicitous of foes, whose autocratic snide contempt is thoroughly condemned throughout the galaxy.

The belief in prophecy spiritual import patient intergenerational stratagems, producing widespread derelict skepticism as highly invested as it is dismissive.

An oppressed people tired of colonialism and their exploitation by another.

Prone to passionate belief.

Projected reified agility.

The Atreides and the Fremen still find compassion amidst the gloom.

With staple simple pleasures.

The sustainability of life.

*Love the changes Villeneuve made with Duncan Idaho (Jason Momoa) and Dr. Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster).

**Loved the palm tree scene as well.

***It's very respectful of David Lynch's Dune and there are many similarities between the two films.

****Loved the dragonfly ornithopters. I was reaching for a cigarette last Summer and a dragonfly landed on my finger, obviously suggesting I should stop smoking, which I'm going to try to do next week, many thanks to dragonfly kind. 

Blade Runner 2049

Discontinuous highjacked expedited inevitable irrelevancy.

Circuitous momentous obedience bountifully propelling twisted archaic innate atypical hemorrhage.

Existential awakening argumentative dawn autosuggestive auspices communal cast iron cravings, clues, ambulatory optics, somnambulistic certainty, neigh, whisker.

Fragmentary vestiges ominously scattered cryptic pathfinder serpentinely excavating miracles, whippoorwills, potash.

Direly coaxed into a subconscious vortex transformative sensual belonging propagated harvested posterity.

Suckling within the protospatial womb.

A set plan, goals, preconditioned life programmed to pounce and prognosticate, virtual violations inorganic technotruths, aesthetic vibrations old school orchestrations architecturally hallowed within alternative sanctuary, every scene reigniting the ambivalent distraught investigative visceral momentum, symphonically sequestering emotional anomalies to imagine identity harmoniously hewn, institutionalized on the outskirts primordial emergent feeling, a home, a relationship, a father figure, integration, tacit knowledge extant and mobile, coveted like uncertifiable exception, music, production design, editing, cinematography, as vocal as dialogue, plot, or character.

The most beautiful dress I've ever seen.

Every sequence painstakingly sculpted to intangibly perspire life while inquisitively examining manufactured ontological biology by humanistically juxtaposing desperate and plutocratic being.

Without sharp contrast.

With minimal direct contact.

Non-existent environmental biodiversity morosely levels artistic conflict like a galaxy with no solar system or a workplace without feminine voice.

As fragile as cloistered brilliance she cultivates eternities crafting memories as wondrous as the Saguenay for the fortunate to joyfully consider.

Respectful of its origins while dynamically creating divergent vision, Blade Runner 2049 is on par with Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of revelation, in this case that of Denis Villeneuve's genius, which successfully synthesizes so many gifted subjects.

Harrison Ford's (Deckard) so real.

Ryan Gosling ('K') too.

Arrival

Time shifts encoded rifts temporal gifts communication, a brilliant linguist (Amy Adams as Louise Banks) practically applying her knowledge to freelance first contact with an alien race, 12 mysterious ships having suddenly appeared across the globe, but no one knows why they've arrived and even though they haven't attacked or encouraged hostilities many fear the worst, for which they hysterically prepare.

The aliens write using extraordinarily complex symbols the deciphering of which requires the coordinated efforts of worldwide ingenious minds.

But as paranoid tensions continue to increase and the aliens share a sign which appears to mean weapon, the universal olive branch is sensationally shaken.

Fortunately Dr. Banks has the last word, her caring friendly curiosity refusing to abandon peaceful interstellar objectives.

In overdrive.

Another outstanding film from Denis Villeneuve, who's competently directing in different genres, Arrival rationally manages chaotic instincts to surgically fictionalize scientific translation.

Palindromic comprehension.

It flips typical sci-fi by placing understanding in the forefront and violence beneath the surface while still generating an exciting story with multiple ethicopolitical elements.

Bejewelled.

It also questions the nature of time and space to ontologically shiver epistemological certainties.

In relation to origins, to meaning, to the interrelations between the myriad signs presented to a subject every day and their potential interpretations, like an abstract grid infinitely connecting everything within existence with flexible stability, instinct, awareness, knowledge, corrections, detecting harmonies and juxtapositions with piquant patterns or unique exposés, messages, revelations, guides, the artist/mathematician/scientist/politician/welder/ . . . generating imaginative conditionals from such material to cure a disease or make an audience laugh, blending seemingly immiscible particulars to create something uniform, a node, a whorl, a beacon, something distinct, eventually subsiding into overwhelming euphorias fractionally reduced to the pristinely primal, at ease with one's environment, in conflict or judicial correspondence.

I got in trouble when I was young for thinking reincarnation was real, it just seemed obvious to me, which eventually transformed into the idea that perhaps there was no beginning, no ending, there was just being, which doesn't make much sense but there it is, foolishly matriculating.

I also saw the Star Trek: Voyager episode where Q claims the Q have always been years later.

He didn't explain whether or not human consciousness lives after physical death.

I also really loved swamp water when I was young. Once I discovered you were free to mix all the sodas together when fast food restaurants gave you your own cup to fill, it was straight to the swamp water.

Lol.

Sometimes it was rather tasty.

Delicious even.

Exponentially sound.

Like a library.

Sicario

Revenge.

Obsession.

Law.

Order.

The big picture, international intrigue, drugs smuggled in from Mexico to the United States, 20% of the American population consuming them while the profits fuel domestic violence south of the border, the number of sequestered kingpins having expanded in recent decades, too many to control, too deadly to ignore.

Stats and info provided by Sicario.

The film indirectly comments on ISIL, on Saddam Hussein, the theory that he was the strongperson who kept the extremists in check, who maintained Iraqi order regardless of his methods, the vacuum created after his removal having led to ISIL, who is currently seeking to control much more than Kuwait.

Plutocratic blunders.

It's the same thing in Sicario, the Americans having had more success monitoring/controlling the drug trade when there was only one kingping narcotically nesting, according to the film, a multidimensional marketplace full of alluring alternatives working well for the sale of computers or jeans, but not for the trafficking of drugs.

Wolves eating wolves.

Victims menaced and menacing.

Sicario fictionalizes tough decisions, capital gains, as Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) seeks to assassinate a leading man, and Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) idealistically monitors his actions, the masculine and the feminine conflicting thereby.

A Mexican policeperson, a father, enters the narrative to ask the question "do Alejandro's methods justify his results, do his means justify his ends"?, the violent violently infernalizing social spheres, do as you're told or you'll never grow old, dig in deep and try to exist, extreme unlicensed ego, upheld by any means necessary.

No exceptions.

No limits.

No humour.

Behind the scenes kings and queens.

À la carte.

I liked the film; thought that it could have been more menacing.

Shades of Zero Dark Thirty. 

Enemy

Well, if David Lynch is frustratingly not going to make films anymore, I suppose other directors may as well work within his domain, expanding its carnal lethally chipper metamorphosis to absolve instinctive claims, encouraging their characters to experimentally confront themselves as curative acts of regenerative p/haze, immersively diversifying degenerative converse sights, for the love of a beautiful woman, for the transience of a femme fatale.

Denis Villeneuve prospers.

Enemy is too stark for direct comparisons with Lynch's work, but penetrating transverse inveteracies still construct its obsessed will, a trembling fearful confrontation with an other,
forsaken withdrawal, fey iron amplitudes.

Isabella Rossellini (Mother) inhabits.

Sarah Gadon (Helen) resembles Patricia Arquette.

A clandestine group internally promotes coveted exclusive performances.

Identity crises clarify.

Challenging co-existence.

The reality the protagonist cohorts ambiguously disdains its materialistic shell, swapping seductions for synergies, intimately, with standing.

A web based conjugal convection rallies Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) to the next internment, the closing credits befouling his rise, follow the sentient bread crumbs, to unlock a foresighted rendez-vous.

In plume.

Incendies

A notary public is tasked with delivering two cryptic letters from his former administrative assistant's will to her adult twin children, one mentioning the father they thought dead, the other, the brother they never knew they had. The children receive the letters with opposite reactions, Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) setting out to the Middle-East in search of her father, Simon (Maxim Gaudette) refusing to take them seriously. With hardly any corresponding information and no working knowledge of Arabic, Jeanne resiliently makes her way from cryptic clue to startling fact while encountering the cold face of historical prejudice. When Simon and the notary public (Rémy Girard as Jean Lebel) finally arrive, everyone comes closer to discovering the truth.

The narrative travels back and forth through time, presenting Jeanne and Simon's mother (Lubna Azabal as Nawal Marwan) as she struggles to survive, and her children as they try to piece her life together. At first I found this device frustrating, wanting to spend more time focusing on Jeanne and Simon and theorize my own version of Nawal's past through their discoveries. But as the stories blend together, the delicate pacing, intergenerational tracings, and temporal effacings stoically reinvest the concept of adventure with a spiritual intellectual assiduity that rarely vouchsafes its resplendent presence (editing by Monique Dartonne).

Not bad.

Delivering serendipitous facts and inevitable allusions which hauntingly dispossess the eternal return of the same, Denis Villeneuve's Incendies interrogates time by historically condensing its contemporary space. The definition of sacred is re-calibrated and dematerialized within, its semantic distinction fluidly overflowing.

And what is all this worth if not for a chance to pursue something distant and arcane?

Heatstroke and heartache and lambastes and pulsates.

Deep down.