Kaamelott: First Installment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without bellicose mean-spirits.

Manifest pejorative prosperity. 

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

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

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

They find an intermediate compromise.

Composed so long ago. 

Nezha zhi motong jiangshi (Ne Zha)

A couple committed to protecting their realm from demons who maladroitly arise, jests with the birth of a magical newborn, who's an ill-tempered god hellbent on partaking in routine village life, annoyed that his powers are quotidianly ill-favoured, too young to hold back when hospitably disposed.

He seeks friendship yet is prone to mischief and can't comprehend why he's consistently rebuked, which leads to volatile discontent declarations, and generalized feelings of mutual disaffection.

His parents are uncertain of how to raise their malcontent offspring, and trust a hedonistic immortal to both guide and provide active care.

But he responds too precociously to his loosely structured lessons, and the results are both disconcerting and counterproductive, things becoming much worse when he learns he'll live only three short years, and is indeed frenetically fated, to unleash wanton reviled ill-repute.

He meets his counterpart one day, who is destined for greener pastures, seaside pastures, a god of water secretly raised by dragons, who's also inquisitive and young, and seeking to make trusted oddball friends.

The divine proclamations which indisputably govern their predetermined constitutions have been cast in immaterial chrome, yet they're determined to follow different paths, to make their own fates, randomly preconditioned.

Listen for The Terminator theme music.

It's super deep, this Nezha zhi motong jiangshi (Ne Zha), with its lone bemused disposition, abounding with intricate detail, as it contemplates counterintuition.

In action, while it calisthenically unreels, as hyper-reactive as its nimble namesake, as unrestrictive as leaps and bounds.

Part tragedy as it generates sympathy for a youngster who can't help but cause destruction, yet longs for someone to play with, who isn't afraid of him, or easily duped.

Part comedy as symbiotic shenanigans cerebrally startle and delicately sway.

It's as if predictability were vehemently critiqued by innocent gifted youth, aware of their otherworldly powers and dismissive of fate and forecast.

As if it's comic that ties bind no matter how much agency's secured, and tragic that you exist apart especially if you're born romantic.

To be fated for mystic fortunes adds pressure to attempts to chill, as youth imagines the outer world while taxing mundane rhapsodics.

Nezha (Lü Yanting) gives 'er despite scorn and protest, as misinterpretation confounds.

The film's must-see animation for lovers of fantasy and robust storytelling.

Extraordinarily complex and profound.

Still innocent enough for younger audiences.

Downright quizzical.

Epically nuanced.

Snow White and the Huntsman

A wicked Queen who loathes men kills her husband due to her blind fear that he will cast her off when her beauty fades and then takes psychotic steps to insure that it will remain forever.

But when his daughter whom she has kept prisoner comes of age and it becomes clear that she is even more beautiful, she immediately seeks to put her to death.

But Snow White (Kristen Stewart) escapes and her purity and innocence help her to make her way back to the forces who fought for her father and will still nobly battle for his seed.

A Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), seven dwarves, and many others assist her during her journey.

Her innocence would likely have not been so pure had she not spent her entire youth locked inside a cell.

Unfortunately, unlike the creators of Mirror Mirror, those responsible for Snow White and the Huntsman seem to have never escaped from the cell in which they were nurtured, and are still struggling to develop genuine tension, emotion, and plot.

At no point throughout this film does it seem probable that Snow will not succeed. Her young curious yet cautious inner light intuitively and instructively guides her steady improvised actions.

As if she was born to lead.

But the film sets up another tired opposition between naturalistic and fabricated extremes with the King's only heir exuding divine rights with every instinctive calibration.

Snow's rallying cry when she's reunited with the resistance lacks depth, character and ferocity.

I really wanted to like Muir's (Bob Hoskins) omniscient observations but they were just too much.

The Huntsman predictably abandons Snow but only for two to three minutes.

And William (Sam Claflin) doesn't hide his feelings at all upon being reuniting with her, going so far as to actually display them.

It just doesn't make sense.

The Huntsman and William do form a pseudo-Jacob/Edward dichotomy for Kristen Stewart which brings in a little Twilight.

But this really only makes things worse, although in the end it seems that she desires Jacob, which is, of course, the correct preference.

However forbidden.

The Trotsky

This is just a personal impression to which I don't mean to attach any objective legitimacy, but I've noticed a lot of jaded apathy regarding left wing collective political movements in several cultural/interpersonal/social domains in recent years, and it's somewhat distressing. Perhaps I spend to much time watching and reading texts manufactured according to conservative ideological guidelines and hanging out with people who regard the adoption of a republican ethos to be a sign of maturity, but the older I get the less I encounter persons who believe in the collective good of unionized activity and the fact that there are people out there who are trying to use political systems to promote social justice as opposed to establishing a maniacal cult (the republican trope of turning the person-of-the-people into a power hungry demagogue is frustrating). Jacob Tierney's brilliant new film The Trotsky astutely addresses this phenomenon by presenting us with Leon Bronstein (Jay Baruchel), a teenager from Montréal who believes he is the reincarnation of Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Leon believes in social justice and is willing to stand up to the powers that be (notably his dad [Saul Rubinek] and high school principal [Colm Feore]) in order to promote egalitarianism and fight the fascists. His commitment and dedication to fighting apathy and disengagement throughout are inspiring especially considering the strength of his opponents. The film's an edgy comedic romantic reinvigoration of unionized labour which provides a glimpse of how social change requires a firm commitment and multiple voices in order for its message to uniformly spread. It's definitely an uphill battle, but hopefully Leon will motivate more labour activists to keep fighting the forces of imperialism. With an exceptional soundtrack by Malajube.

Kung Fu Panda

Mark Osborne and John Stevenson's Kung Fu Panda kicks and chops and punches and blocks to the tune of the traditional comedic structure. Within we have Po (Jack Black), a tenderly rowdy Panda who dreams of becoming a revered warrior but spends his days working for his father as a culinary jack of all trades. A group of kung fu warriors lives on the mountain above and one day Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) has a vision that villain (and former student) Tai Lung (Ian McShane) will escape from prison (which holds 1000 guards exclusively for him), unleashing an unforgiving campaign of torment in his pursuit of the Dragon Scroll. To counter, he believes that the Dragon Warrior must be chosen and trained for it is predicted that only her or his power will be strong enough to overcome Tai Lung's. Through serendipitous circumstances, Po is chosen to be said Dragon Warrior although Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) holds sincere reservations. His training begins none to soon for after Tai Lung breaks free from his chains and defeats the Furious Five, only Po's ingenuous determination can save the citizens of Peace Valley below.

The film's funny and smart, its comedic timing stylistically aligned with its animated martial arts sequences. The structure's a bit haywire, however, which led to a bit of a crisis insofar as I was initially expecting a specific pattern which didn't coalesce yet was still disappointed with the unexpected results (what I was expecting would have required an additional 20 to 30 minutes which likely explains why it was cut). The problem lies with the Dragon Scroll. The Dragon Scroll can only be read by the Dragon Warrior yet when Po reads it he has not attained the heights of Dragon Warriosity. The Dragon Scroll holds the secrets to unlimited power and it makes more sense that the chosen one would refuse its gift, finding personal strength in the acknowledgements of their limitations (and the maintenance of the legend which supports them). Po certainly doesn't want to read it but he does much to the fury of rival Tai Lung. Tai Lung and Po both have father figures and their relationships are established in opposition: while Po generally supports his father, Tai Lung viciously subverts his. Due to Po's support, his father rewards him by letting him know his soup's secret ingredient; Tai Lung receives no such knowledge. That very same secret ingredient provides Po with the wisdom required to understand the Dragon Scroll and suddenly become a hero, even though he should have never been given the damn Scroll, but, in the tradition of Richard Lester's Superman II we find a hero that's just plain and simply a go**-d*&^ hero once she or he realizes it.

And then they kick ass (although it's unlikely that afterwards Po lives for an entire year off only the dew from one ginkgo biloba leaf and the energy of the universe).

Mongol

The leader, Genghis Khan, aware of his destiny, with uncompromising faith, purity of intent, and divine cognition, against all.

Sergei Bodrov's Mongol chronicles the early life of the legend of Genghis Khan, known as Temudgin, who united the disparate peoples of Mongolia and conquered half the known world in the 13th century. The maintenance of his rule was supported by the strict adherence to an unwritten set of principles orally upheld by the just within his domain, with only one exception. Temudjin (Tadanobu Asano) pursues his childhood love Börte (Khulan Chuluun) forever and for always, recognizing the value of her companionship and the unflinching resolution of her courage. In order to be together they face war, slavery, betrayal and vengeance, but in the end, when Temudjin demonstrates that he has conquered his people's most revered natural fear, their union finds the stability to endure.

Through the ages.

Like many epic films attempting to portray the conflicting legendary accounts of the identity of a conquerer, Mongol is divided into a series of concise, precise episodes, rich in symbolism and terse in dialogue, each movement supporting and challenging the next, the successful epic, like the successful conquerer, synthesizing their balance with an analytical purpose. Bodrov's purpose is to lay siege to the historical traditions that have portrayed Genghis as a monster, and throughout this enticing fairy tale, and within its filmic domain, he assuredly succeeds.

Temudgin's best friend is Jamukha (Honglei Sun), who rescued him as a child after his father, the Khan of his people, was poisoned by an enemy (the rebellious Targutai [Amadu Mamadakov] taking the Khanship by force afterwards while humiliating the usurped Temudgin). Jamukha and Temudgin become blood brothers but eventually find themselves at odds, having amassed the two largest armies in Mongolia. Temudgin's forces are victorious and his moral fibre will not permit him to slay his defeated brother. While Jamukha would have certainly killed Temudgin, and has no respect for feminine strength, Temudgin has found peace by maintaining childhood pacts, the confident man whose persisting progress is dependent upon consciously breathing the past in the present. Temudgin's forgiveness is heralded in an earlier scene where he and Jamukha lay on the ground beside one another, their position suggesting that in order for these two giants to remain brothers, they must be dreaming. In the concluding moments, his dominance solidified, his hardships endured, Temudgin's character perfectly aligns wisdom, courage, and moderation, never doubting the legitimacy of his actions, wherein the justice of his ethical dreams finds its political realization.

Much to the dismay of his neighbouring kingdoms.

Mongol is certainly far-fetched and ludicrously implausible, Genghis Khan, the war-like proto-feminist messiah building a civilization from the wastes of his cultural dune. The legends of Genghis's brutality may be exaggerated, but how often do individual's attain positions such as his without recourse to brutality? By presenting a perfect leader with the wizened and fair soul of a child (in a thoroughly entertaining fashion), a filmmaker can make everyone who follows the rules feel as if they too are a leader. Assuredly, it's a great feeling, and Bodrov subtly crafts this subliminal layer while frankly displaying enough heroic hyperbole to disengage its realistic relationship, thereby formally portraying the objective reality of democratic freedom.

Was Genghis Khan brutal? Probably. Kind? To his followers and family, most likely. Almost anyone in a position of power leaves themselves open to constant charges of being either good or evil, and attempting to attach a definitive judgment to their character is as historically fleeting as any world empire. Mongol effectively yet outrageously presents an extreme refutation of those who would platonically vilify the great leader, while engaging in the same tactics used by its propagandistic opponents. Is Bordov's narrative Temudgin and his combatant's Jamukha, the two separating into various ideological camps and polemically waging their conceptions to support their intellectual/popular markets? Because if this is the case, Bordov's potential usurpers have a significant battle to fight if they are to deconstruct his design in a commensurately tantalizing fashion.

Prince Caspian

Tried hard to resist the temptation to see Andrew Adamson's second envisioning of C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series, Prince Caspian, but buckled as soon as I saw that it was 3 hours long. Figured three hours of vegin' out while watching talking animals and trees battle imperialist dogs would be fun, more fun than staring at the wall wondering which book I should be reading. Note that the bear representation was not as strong as I was hoping, but there were two bears featured within the narrative and a chivalrous mouse named Reepicheep voiced by Eddie Izzard.

Prince Caspian struck me as the iconic 3 out of 5 stars film. It's nothing special, a lot of the acting is brutal, good enough to spout one-dimensional lines about leadership and victory, not too strong when it comes to dealing with the complex subtleties of historic emotion, although the plot proceeds too quickly to allow for such developments.

Yup, 3 out of 5. I didn't dislike it, I could watch it with my family, and if I was 10, I'd probably continue to think it's exceptional until I was at least 17. A lot of the scenes are ridiculous, some of them are kind of fun, and Anna Popplewell has a fletching beauty that causes one to quiver more and more intensely with every drawn arrow. On the ideological side, the story seems to be saying that talking animals and environmental activism are playthings for children, and that when one grows up, they will 'austerely' leave these subjects behind. And that British children are capable of leading a successful revolution against tyrannical monarchs but can only succeed with the help of a magical lion. It would be nice if an auteur would transform one of these legendary narratives into something bizzare, rather than sticking to the conventional plot designs. Return of the King directed by Guy Maddin. Now there's a best picture.