Lost in Yonkers

Intelligence, when examined multifacetedly, has many industrious tributaries, whether it's the hands-on practical methods of labour and commerce, or the idle imaginative nature of academia. 

Not that reading isn't hands-on or labour prone to distraction and daydreaming, the multilayered convulsive vortex producing versatile compelling symmetries. 

Standardized tests can delineate efficiencies for specific subjects categorically determined, and if successful with these tests administrative accolades invariably accrue.

Social skills at the same time often aren't tested with authoritative skill, but cultural knowledge brought to vivid life securely allows one to snuggly fit in.

Fitting in can be rigidly frowned upon and categorically dismissed as routine flimflam, just as abstract knowledge may seem rather useless by the utilitarianly inclined.

People often specialize in something and know that subject very well, if you're to ask them a question about it they'll no doubt respond with relevant discourse. 

Do they lack intelligence because they aren't gifted in multiple domains?, I would argue they do not, since their subject of expertise demonstrates erudition. 

Getting along with people, co-existing, should be more highly valued, as a sign of communal functionality that encourages peace and tranquil living. 

Working the eccentric into such a framework along with novel peculiarities less disposed to small talk, is a gifted skill of its collective own readily displaying incumbent sympathy.

In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace bluntly examines intellectual styles, and without the most diplomatic language, brilliantly arrives at working-solutions.

He points out that most people aren't nearly as intelligent as they think they are and that fools often make incisive observations, while grotesquely filling his multidisciplinary pages with people self-destructively obsessed with over-achievement. 

I always thought it was irritating to focus on subjects I knew little about, and had no interest in thoroughly studying, to show-off my learning with people I didn't like because that was what they expected. 

I thought most people had strengths and weaknesses and respecting their strengths was a sign of culture.

Help them work on their weaknesses in school.

Let their strengths shine at work and play.

The Bounty

Wild deliberations, imaginatively bred, cerebrally adrift on contemplative seas, evocatively swelling disproportionately sly arrhythmically attuned courageously attired.

I imagine it's still tantalizing to freely circumnavigate the globe, it may have been done ad infinitum but must still impress vessel-type depending.

In The Bounty, the rigid captain has it in sight as a resolute goal, but gives up after inclement weather bombards his ships for weeks on end.

He still reaches his destination where his hearty men modestly indulge themselves, the tropical climate and easy living a well-earned break from life at sea.

But for the celebratory accomplished return trip he wants to test the stormy waters again, to stubbornly realize his lofty objective which was wisely abandoned with sobre regret. 

His men have grown quite sick of the imposition of discipline at sea however, and many of them miss their island comforts with far fewer rules and regulations and lashes. 

Fearing they'll never make it, they openly launch an audacious mutiny. 

Taking the ship wherever it may go.

Never to see their Native homeland again. 

The Bounty takes an imperious shine to top-down order and absolutist reckoning, affirmatively upholding old school codes of efficient conduct and divine faith.

Circumnavigating the globe would have no doubt been a noteworthy accomplishment, to look back upon in your senior years with loyal disbelief and rebellious fidelity.

Dying in the attempt would have been fruitless and perhaps even mad obsessions pending, although if the captain had been less severe he may have subtly won the crew over.

He isn't a loveable man though and relies more on codes and duty than artful persuasion, unlike his affable mutinous counterpart whom the crew adores with uncompromised feeling. 

To take a ship and just sail off into the wide open salient distance. 

Could you have purchased your own ship and done that way back when?

Is it even possible to do that now?

Flying to Vancouver's crazy expensive.  

Reflexiconstruct

Cartoon flecktone barracuda

lapis lazuli gingérent fluke

illusory scan Gaelic mélange

artisanal splice ornate plume

plasticine plinth claytent augur

clandestine groove sentiment Sally

blithe melancholia district solute

murky emulsion immiscible mood

stipending glisten jettison jolt

snuffefluff straw syndicate sneer

Ma & Pa Kettle salt-of-the-Earth

instructive knowhow routine capacity

galvanized structure thriving schoon'

exquisite pomp lobsty-kablobsky

obstinate glee stubborn splendour

grubstake galley saturnine swish

gushing torrent acquiesced 'clusion

crystalline glut blindside berm

supple kerfuffle roundabout truffle

pluscious portico flotsalmon flim'

cul-de-sacrosanct hearty victuals

chevalier spike shifting gears

lotto gelato cavernous grotto

elusive shades stoic inflection

insolent tender bold delineation

humidor haven hamstrung shard

critter calculi fold combustion

strict exhaust airtight filter

viacondor bereft digression

wholegrain flounce digestive aid

pomegranitely saccharine shivers

Odessa artistry Corinthian cruise

disintegration journeyman jaunt

arcane extension butterscotch bloom

starch chuckleberry candlelit quantum 

rooty panflutey maladroit glen

efficient cycle rolodex reticence

transistor torrent Kraken deluge

regardless flair banal simplicity

regal temperance haywire hospice

spacious enclosure fictive friction

yeteatime travel homeostasis

temptation trickle fly tributary 

ossified flow frenetic fleuve

engulfed exertion tenement treacle

blustering bandits lodgepole pine

inverted caution commercial break

fluffy and snuffly suger shack bake 

discus Invictus inhabited hostie

oblong tabernac fractious frenzy

vessel carestle burgeoning tresel 

watershed cheshire serenadine. 

Fluxurious

Bogged downhome stasis marchery twang

fennigan 'fuffle swampersand dune

vetted dissected clackety cruise

mariner magpie holstein hearth

grimacing ghoul fortuitous frown

withering wince marmellow mash

emotive 'flage cornhusker 'fuge

soma 'lacrum hybriddle hocus

vocal pinpointdextr'ous mismatched membranes

marbled conduction blithering dearth

spiralling hatch swineyard sortie

dissolving adorable gothic fluidity 

tomcatty jones charming enchantment 

jejunglee jinx barrelhousebound

calico crisper fallow retained

'ciferous vocab ornament lex

eclipsing pulsar stately ambrosia

festoon tycoon garland croquet

dazzling dust devil whimpering slight

tarragon tremors fastened askew

oblong kyoto cryptic hiatus

banishing bulge frugal inception

inchoate cream shimmering gown

Cadillac quorum quadrant variable

swish-ke-slob scurvy redoubled effortitude

scallywag sympatico zesty relish 

casabathousebound embryo unction

thoroughbred chalice jocose enterprise

imbroglyonostrum elliptical clash

asphyxiated stifle babbling brouhaha

rabble roused recourse diverse counsel

chaotic quench salient enclave

starboard sufferance anointed Druid

peripatechnic sparmesan crust

immersive axiom rotisserie ramshack

nutrient nebulae languid larva 

maquillage malcontent austere spontaneity

cloaked conditional hollow imperative

pirouette pewter symbiotic swirl

obscure definition gourmantic glade

ricochet Richelieu neutrino nuance

photon overdrive daguerrotypical

artifice flume Boston cream

volcanic cosmos obsidian crest

ironcalladin technicolour tempo

salamander skimp collusive sublimity

hyena harken hammerhead hail

metropolitan magma meadowlark slam

marathon mingle fingerling fresca

opaque jasmine saturnine hinge 

lunar module bivouac burnish

starling doppelgäng squadron threshold. 

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 Alamo

The classic three colonel quandary this time defending ye olde Alamo, where a lot of good people lost their valiant lives courageously fighting reckless tyranny.

Plato's Republic can lend a hand giving a coherent account of their personalities, as convincingly theorized by James Edward Grant likely after having embraced agile study.

In The Republic there are 3 classes of people chillin' out then gettin' er' done, those known as producers providing goods and services, at times irrationally or superstitiously expressing themselves.

The second is labelled the auxiliaries and it defends the city from agression, its bravery valued and at times commended when they're promoted to the rank of guardian.

The guardians or philosopher kings are a strictly rational lot, driven by temperance, courage, wisdom, and emergent justice, they uniformly focus on reasonable good governance and can be prickly pears when encountering tomfoolery.

In The Alamo, Colonel William Barret Travis corresponds to such a character, in charge of defences and unwilling to leave or surrender even though the situation seems hopeless. Driven by principle and ideal he's quite severe in his language and commentaries, not many men willing to fight for him, although those that do admire his courage.

Jim Bowie is a classic producer he's rough and tumble and lacks regal eloquence, drinking too much at times - even far too often, his questionable discipline endearing to his men.

These two colonels wield lucid rancour and almost kill each other more than once, Bowie furious he wasn't given the command even if his chaotic conduct should have convinced him otherwise.

The third colonel is Davy Crockett played by John Wayne who also directed, his spirit wise his loyalty abounding his men thoroughly devoted to his command.

He admires Travis's wisdom even if he thinks he's a haughty stuffed shirt, who's difficult to get along with and too overbearing yet still a great soldier at the end of the day.

He likes the other's pluck and resilience but soon realizes he lacks knowledge and insight, building a bridge between them through friendship which makes for a somewhat rowdy yet fastidious accordance.

It's certainly entertaining at times and even gives the peaceful characters noble voices. 

Such voices prominently revelling at times.

Peaceful times.

With Kamala's grace.

Here Come the Huggets

A different age, an alternative set of technological gizmos exalting newfound creative freedoms, a family's first concocted telephone begetting recourse grand undisciplined. 

Could it have been that there was once such a time when the queue breathtakingly persisted, and excited peeps tantalizingly awaited the heartfelt call of a friendly admirer?

Imagine the profits made in recent decades with the advent of the cellular phone, whereas families used to have one monthly bill per household they may now have one for each individual family member!

Back in the eighties (or 40s in the Huggett's case), there was usually one bill per household anyways, and if you used your minutes and long distance wisely, it wouldn't wind up costing too much.

But now if you have two or three children along with trusted cells for you and your spouse, you could be paying for many a bill indeed perhaps 5 times as much as used to be spent!

That equals astronomically higher profits for reliable service providers, throw in the requisite internet as well and the resultant sums seem theoretically absurd.

Nevertheless, Meet the Huggetts takes us back to a less interconnected day, wherein which people weren't immersed in the cheshire panopticon, assuming not everyone vigilantly kept track of the comings and scandalous goings of their surrounding inquisitive neighbours back then.

'Twas a time endearing indeed when the pressures of work and play abounded, but with jolly good resilient cheer inherent progression was outfitted accordingly.

However, one had to pay strict attention to the robust means through which incomes were generated, and toe the line with saccharine candour while at times sharing contradictory advice.

Without doing any research I'd wager Meet the Huggetts caused quite a stir in its day, and was indeed known as pervasively popular throughout what has come to be known as Great Britain.

In fact the couple, the titular Mr. Joe (Jack Warner) and Mrs. (Kathleen Harrison) Huggett both found themselves roles in Brian Desmond Hurst's A Christmas Carol (1951) shortly thereafter, and there's even a unique scene where Mrs. Harrison shares a bundle with a character named Joe. 

Back in the film, Mr. Huggett's forced to take debilitating lumps after having stuck his neck out for distant relations, the resonant injustice of determinate blame countermanding innate and temperate self-sacrifice.

An able couple notwithstanding the fluid tribulations of athletic life.

Sometimes it's fun to see cultural codes in action.

Transmitted by a film that never sought preservation.  

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

*Not really a Christmas film.

World War II, in Java, British soldiers languish in a POW camp, their captors unaccustomed to European sensibilities, alternative discipline drilling irate tact.

Secluded from the war, or at least not engaging in direct combat, acquaintances develop through mutual boredom, the cultural clash as fascinating as it is disruptive, provocative argument begetting grand decorum.

The British Colonel's (Jack Thompson as Hicksley) generally stubborn and resentful of his inert command, ill-attuned to sycophantic flexibility, and the disrespect it entails.

But Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence (Tom Conti) appeals to humanistic reason and attempts to ease their deprivations, engaging the curiosity of the opposing side, who even consults him at times.

A new prisoner is sent to camp who's much more contentious than the Colonel or his Lieutenant, perhaps they fought like him when they arrived, yet eventually lost their bold ambition (David Bowie as Major Celliers). 

He introduces flowers and jaunty disarray.

Having barely escaped a firing squad.

Lt. Colonel Lawrence loves him. 

The result's somewhat discontinuous as the narrative ebbs and flows, grim dastardly acculturation diplomatically strung through patchwork. 

Such content aptly asserts earnest independence struggling and stifled, neither side able to generate consistency, hence disgruntled cropped themes.

It's like peace trying to break through during cataclysmic epochs, at times making genuine progress, at others lost and lounging.

As Lawrence converses with jailers and guards thoughtful cultural exchanges take place, conflicting political viewpoints accentuating alternatives, while generating oddball friendship.

The film's grim, lighthearted, revolting, evocative, collegial, heroic, and pressing, poetic I suppose in a nutshell, wave upon wave of distressful import. 

More people like Lawrence would be a good thing with a move away from the coercive absolute.

The spirit of giving and sympathy.

Mutually constructive pause. 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Spoiler Alert.

Tired of working for a prison's work farm, one inmate decides to play crazy, and winds up in a different sort of institution still strictly and coldly regulated.

He's rather aggressive and independent and quickly gains disputatious influence, realizing his wits are still intact and keen on promoting seismic change.

But the regulations are rather severe and there's no place for critical controversy; trouble abounds if you can't grow accustomed to the various binding slights.

R.P McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) has never been one to listen to anything besides his passionate emotion, and he goes about setting his brethren free, with oceanic amassed endeavour.

Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) is sympathetic but also concerned with rigorous discipline, the film challenging psychiatric conventions used to theoretically promote sanity.

McMurphy's approach makes more sense for living or thoroughly enjoying undisciplined life, his wild contumelious hedonistic ontology the product of distaste for form and structure.

Nurse Ratched crafts strong workers who can function within a hierarchical structure, and pays less attention to thrilling desire than their productive work at hand.

McMurphy may have made complimentary inroads had he not been so thoroughly combative; life within the hospital may be dull but it's still aligned with reasonable thought.

He is rational or at least he reasons but he's not a trained psychiatrist.

He's well-versed in vibrant life but perhaps overly concerned with chaos.

He introduces fun and playful mischief to people unaccustomed to freedom, or to freely and confidently expressing themselves in order to obtain objectives.

The administration's goals and objectives promote sure and steady stability, but perhaps without considering happiness as it applies to daily life.

Nurse Ratched is often critiqued for being hard-hearted and stubborn, but McMurphy wantonly disrespects her even though she's trying to help.

He doesn't just make rude comments or eagerly disobey, he throws a party with booze and prostitutes and she's left with no choice but to punish him.

The punishment's grossly disproportionate and akin to tacit murder, if such methods are still used today we're clearly still quite a barbarous species.

Blending work and play with logical enjoyment seems like a rational goal to pursue.

I don't know how regulations can promote joy, but how do epicureans finance lavish lifestyles without ever having to work?

The balance is out there somewhere, hopefully emerging after vigorous investigation.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest examines extremes, bellicosely jostling in stern opposition.

Casting by Jane Feinberg & Mike Fenton.

The Rock

Decided to revisit The Rock last Summer after stopping by a local thrift store, and impressed was I as it chaotically unreeled.

It reminded me of a time when I still considered blockbusters to represent the best of what cinema had to offer, long before I discovered non-British European movies (I already knew about British films), Québec's vital film industry, Takashi Miike, Kurosawa, or Criterions.

Blockbusters are still kind of fun, especially when they're deep, the big picture critiqued in miniature, striking slices of stark sensation.

After the insane number of sequels released last Summer I even found myself wishing another Skyscraper was in the works, not a Skyscraper sequel, to be precise, but something sort of different that at least attempted to start something new.

Even if it channelled Die Hard.

I've mentioned this before.

Stuber filled the gap meanwhile.

The Rock never had any sequels and if it had they likely would have seemed preposterous, or at least too logically improbable, if they had sought to reunite Cage (Stanley Goodspeed) and Connery (John Patrick Mason).

The film's actual plot still likely seems preposterous if you read or talk to people about it, or see it I suppose, even if it rationalizes insanity well.

If you don't like action films or sports I imagine watching The Rock would be excruciating, 20 plus years later no less, some of its best lines as ra ra as they are hyper-reactively appropriate, like watching solid Monday Night Football, a Raptors/Clippers showdown, the Leafs facing off in Montréal, or Hamilton taking on the Argos.

As far as I remember, it was released before globalization took off, or just as it was taking off, when America was examining itself critically, even from militaristic perspectives.

And the hero's a green nerd (Cage) who'll pay $600 for one of the Beatles's worst albums (old vinyl though), his partner a dangerous Brit who's been locked up for at least 30 years, like Michael Bay of all directors was deeply concerned with creating something memorable, something that had never been seen before, in sharp contrast to so many new action films.

Take some of these scenes.

After some tourists find themselves locked up on the Rock, there's a really short moment that lasts long enough for one of them to say, "what kind of fucked up tour is this?"

It's funny, and could have easily been left out, but Bay realized how cool it was, and kept it in to generate humour and tension.

I've never seen anything like it in a Marvel film, even if they excel at multidimensionally entertaining.

There's also a high speed chase through San Francisco that revels in cinematic mayhem, that introduces a tour of the city, on a trolly, as everything goes to hell.

Then, as an elite group of Navy SEALs prepares to take on well-heeled Marines on Alcatraz, and Mr. Goodspeed seeks a breakdown of what's going on, one of the SEALS (Danny Nucci as Lieutenant Shepard), a relatively unknown actor at the time who had yet to say anything in the film, delivers an extremely precise borderline passionate synopsis, that startles as it summarizes, and shocks with exhilarating brevity.

What an opportunity for a young actor.

Nucci totally nails it.

There's nothing like that scene, that moment, in current action films, like the lines were created to give someone the opportunity to build a career, instead of all the roles going to world cinema's best and brightest.

It's like the actors in The Rock are fighting to build or sustain a career, from Vanessa Marcil (Carla Pestalozzi) to Tony Todd (Captain Darrow) to David Morse (Major Tom Baxter) to John C. McGinley (Captain Hendrix), no one holding back or resting on old school precedent, just givin' 'er hardcore with ample opportunity to do so.

There are at least 17 actors who stand out in this film.

That's a script that cultivates 1990s diversity (written by David Weisberg, Douglas Cook and Mark Rosner).

Cage and Connery work well together, the former frenetically perspiring athleticism, as he's suddenly thrust into the frenzied fray, replete with doubt, inexperience, and a pregnant partner, Michael Biehn (Commander Anderson), Ed Harris (General Francis X. Hummel), and William Forsythe (Ernest Paxton) givin' 'er too, the film's just so damned professional.

With a ne'er-do-well landing on a spike near the end.

This is what blockbusters could be like before pirating.

Greater risks.

Greater reward.

I'm recommending The Rock.

And watching it again this Winter.

En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove)

A routine lifetime, sturdy crystalline productive disciplined rigour, shocks and surges and synergies refreshed and reconstituted, dis/ingenuous gravitas, im/pertinent shallows, crises, crucibles, cubicles, companionship, curmudgeony coca, grumpy old bear, shattered inveterate disrepair, friendly yet fiendish, stubborn yet understanding, a bleeding heart with no tolerance for stupidity, a prognostic paradigm, tired of living alone.

An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.

Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.

In search of aid.

Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?

To unburden.

I should have just called him an aging romantic.

Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.

Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.

From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.

Captivatingly so.

There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.

According to Ove's incisive summaries.

But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.

I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.

Sort of like hot chocolate.

Points to make, style to consider.

Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.

Occasionally expressing road rage.

Barbara

Declarative desire dedicatedly persists after state sanctioned seclusion silences its volatile temerity.

Another, resigned yet combative, is enamoured.

The fate of a rebellious young adult becomes a decisive tangible consequent as the Stasi's invasive pressure deliberately dehumanizes.

A doctor, emphatically refuses, to be muzzled.

Carefully contextualizing different varieties of tension, while diagnosing risk with surgical precision, Christian Petzold's Barbara internally serenades freedom of expression, and externalizes a crisp courageous spiritualization.

An extensive reactive multilateral engagement furtively negotiates an honest state of affairs.

Its interconnected inextricable professional, personal, romantic, governmental and (inter)national relationships foment a forlorn fugitive firmament wherein influential forces collaborate and contend.

Interrogating what it means to pursue.

Attempting to have their voices heard.