Shaft

Shaft (2019) presents a more traditional depiction of its iconic lead (Samuel L. Jackson), much more bellicose than that envisioned in 2000, perhaps more reminiscent of the original character.

He's moved far beyond rules and regulations, and lives according to his own proper procedure, as he investigates crime with blunt condemnation, making ends meet with radical ease.

But this time the son he left behind comes calling hot on a case (Jessie T. Usher), a daring analyst working for the F.B.I who's mild-mannered, sincerely reserved.

The endearing odd couple scenario is flexibly enhanced by bemused paternalism, as sustained stark and improvised indiscretion wildly mingles with uptight pretension. 

Shaft Jr. is trying to discover who murdered his friend after he returned from Afghanistan, his methods leading to few results while laying the groundwork for inspired investigation.

Paps turns things up a notch while thoroughly shocking his incredulous son, the danger chaotically increasing as they approach concrete definition.

Mom's none too impressed upon hearing about the unexpected rapprochement (Regina Hall as Maya Babanikos), nor by her ex's ensuing repartee on a random evening which swiftly follows.

Reunited as a family they freely dispute while fighting crime.

Even after Jr.'s kicked out of the Bureau.

John Shaft Sr. (Richard Roundtree) happy to oblige.

Shaft boisterously blends distraught anarchy with technological presumption, intergenerationally melding paradigms with impassioned deconstructive pleas.

Much more raw than Shaft (2000), I wondered how thoroughly it impressed, not that its predecessor isn't also complex, it just lacks awkward contentious fidelity.

Are action heroes like Shaft and John McClane fading into the pre-online background, as cyberspatially savvy considerate sleuths prefer brains to brawn in unprecedented shifts?

Or will a new style of clever private eye still duke it out when their favourite apps fail them, the resultant extant absurdity as ahistorically fashionable as gold or astronomy?

It's fun to watch as emergent generations productively mutate traditional varieties. 

The same family achieving similar goals.

Working together, throughout the centuries. 

Project Power

The Marvel instinct is pejoratively packaged and illicitly cast for chaotic distribution, those taking the metamorphic drug unleashing wanton blind destruction.

It enables superpowers derived from beastly DNA, an individual's latent spirit animal emerging in death defying rampage. 

A policeperson (Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Frank) keeps close contact with a dealer with the hopes of busting the network, but bribes and high level corruption make his duties grim untenable.

An ex-soldier (Jamie Foxx as Art) seeks the dealers who have kidnapped his only daughter, her unique multivariable metabolism having been used to create the drug.

They find themselves forging a team dedicated to preventing its sale.

Without that much to go on. 

Trepidatious flounce and flail.

Project Power takes übermanche obsessions and distills them within a pill, the resulting crazed despotic X-Men committing brazen crimes at will.

It's not the deepest film but it makes the most of its barebones script, not many characters or deceptive scenarios but what persists isn't strained or dull.

A byproduct of preponderant superheroics is the desire to court invincibility, and people taking illegal drugs may express themselves accordingly

The difficulties the police have engaging the users are pronounced but the side-effects are largely ignored, there's no trip to the hospital like that in The Third Man, or a descent into madness like that found in Trainspotting. 

Scholastic endeavour is directly criticized, the film seems to be saying there's no point. The film indeed criticizes the teacher more severely for seeking student engagement than the specific student for selling drugs.

School's a remarkable tool that can help you genuinely engage your mind.

Sometimes you have to make it more interesting (I believe Eminem's expression is, own it) rather than just critiquing education in general.

I've found the scholastic world's much more open, less rigid than worldly practice.

If it doesn't help you make millions, it can still help you develop your mind.

Unlock scholastic superpowers, give it a shot, directly apply yourself.

There's no shame in cultivating imagination.

Brilliant raps in Project Power. 

Through Black Spruce

A family grieves the disappearance of a loved one, as a distraught daring twin sister (Tanaya Beatty as Annie) heads to Toronto in search of answers.

Uncertain if she'll find anything, and proceeding without much to go on, she follows her only leads, and soon meets her sister's last contacts.

Last known contacts.

Back home her caring uncle (Brandon Oakes as Will) has problems, for he's angered a group of thugs who tend to express themselves viciously.

He's trying to unobtrusively get by, but finds himself branded a person of interest.

He's soon hiding out on a remote island, while his niece runs into troubles of her own.

Rough, gruelling, dire anxious realities, jurisprudently stitched, in tragic combative song.

The characters in Don McKellar's Through Black Spruce find themselves living in contrasting environments, one chill and peaceful, the other harsh and violent.

Living within them tragically bewilders, as conflicts which they had nothing to do with assault wholesome fun initiatives.

An act of healing, a gentle harmless letter sent off to put minds at ease, provokes extreme tension, and disrupts otherwise blooming friendships.

And a career.

The film athletically unreels with hard-edged sophistication, presenting diverse accessible scenes with a tough gritty concerned sensibility.

A fireside chat in Toronto, hunting together in James Bay, introductions to the art world, with specific takes on the discipline of photography.

For instance.

The blend of the two storylines could have been smoother though, as extended time intervals separate the tales from one another.

But since one storyline's urban and the other's set far away, the different paces, the different immersions, may have produced unsought after shocks, had they been edited and merged more consistently.

The lengthy immersions do creatively pull you into different aspects of Indigenous life, notably the non-toxic bug spray, and the extended time gives each of them their own lifeforce, lifeforces which may not have blossomed had they been cut more regularly.

It's nice to see long patient scenes.

And stories about First Nations people that aren't filled with violence.

What happened to Annie's twin remains a mystery, another sad story in an extreme crisis that effects all of Canada and elsewhere.

If the same percentage of woman of European descent disappeared or were murdered as often as their First Nations Canadian sisters, I imagine governments would enlist armies to find a solution to the problem.

To the extreme crisis.

This is no exaggeration.

The statistics are plain as day.

There needs to be a strong will to make Canada safe for these women.

The racist realities of which should be considered.

Good film.

Love Brandon Oakes.

The Hate U Give

When I was really young I never really wanted to leave the house.

It seemed, *as M. T_______ has observed, come to think of it, totally unfair that every weekday I'd be carted off to a centralized hub wherein which I'd have to negotiate terms and conditions with a select group of strangers many of whom were impolite and none too impressed with my habitual timidity.

Having yet to learn that being able to count was frowned upon and that you had to listen to people who were bigger than you, I had a rather tough go of it before settling into an obnoxious yet less beating-prone comedic routine, which was also difficult to grow out of as changing circumstances created new socially acceptable codes of conduct.

But eventually I reached middle-age and found that my desire to impress people outside of work had almost entirely disappeared, and although I didn't shy away from outings or conversation, I cared much less about whether or not I was appealing, catchy, suitable.

Sought after.

The Hate U Give's Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is still in the thick of it though, uploading different psychological applications to fit sundry social situations, still attending school, going to parties, pursuing amorous relations, a student from a modest background attending a solid private school cleverly going with the flow, smoothly fitting in, hyperaware of precisely what not to say, managing rage, desire, curiosity, and confusion, with the adroit composure of a surefire sagelike symphony.

Flexible and highly strung.

She's still a kid though and therefore likes to do things kids like to do, as do her friends and siblings.

But when gun shots ring out at a party attended, she flees with an old companion with whom she once enjoyed playing Harry Potter.

Their youthful ambitions hold no sway after they're pulled over for no reason, however, and Starr's friend Khalil (Algee Smith) is soon dead on the ground after having spontaneously decided to simply comb his hair.

He may have been 17 and had a lot of potential.

How often do I read about events like this in the news?

How many of these tragedies could have been avoided?

Starr suffers extreme shock mixed with helplessness and the film gracefully supports her as systemic injustice generates activist passions.

It's a tight multifaceted narrative that soulfully blends kids playfully trying to live their lives, a hardworking father who's served time for drugs and won't go back (Russell Hornsby as Maverick Carter), a local drug dealer who's worried about exposure (Anthony Mackie as King), a caring mom who supports her daughter's decision (Regina Hall as Lisa Carter), a black cop caught up in the system (Common as Carlos), a supportive privileged boyfriend who's willing to take risks for Starr even though it's a world he doesn't understand (K.J. Apa as Chris), Starr's close school friend who doesn't try to understand (Sabrina Carpenter as Hailey), media reports that don't try to understand, underfunded public schools that can't keep the drugs out, an activist who understands how hard it is to speak out but knows how essential it is to do so (Issa Rae as April Ofrah), a family's local struggle to get by transformed by national attention which is none too appreciated by the thugs, many of whom tried, but could never find anything better to do.

Starr unites these elements and bravely makes tough decisions to help her community.

I loved the film's positive focus, convincingly letting the light shine through so much demotivating darkness.

The light is out there and it is shining brightly.

A lot of people who try to make it big selling drugs wind up in jail.

A lot of people who put in an honest day's work and keep looking forward, building a business or helping others build businesses, can still make good money, and don't have to be scared all the time.

Can enjoy time spent with friends and family.

Chill out a bit even.

Joke around.

Read books and watch movies.

Limbo

A struggling small town, as conscious of its historical economic uncertainties as it is of its naturalistic providence, its identity surfing Northwest waves with surges of prosperity before suddenly crashing with hawkish speed, introduces a newcomer to its local pantheon, her voice mellifluously diagnosing with gritty surgical precision, a tavern effervescently supplying tales and testaments and intrigue and romance, while a local canning factory shuts down, a mayor envisions the benefits of ecotourism, a couple grow tired of meagre cashflows, and winter incrementally and hauntingly approaches.

As all of these plots threads stitch together and breakaway, like preparations being made for a regional mini-series replete with bucolic melodrama, a wayward son shows back up in town in desperate search of liquid capital, his by-the-book sibling unaware of his shady dealings, the two reunited for a trip by sea enriched by artistic accompaniments, which indiscreetly departs with adventurous cheer, glibly unaware of the creditors who pursue them.

Some films chart a different course halfway through, and courageously alter their narrative visions, such as Full Metal Jacket or Lost Highway, with more success than John Sayles's Limbo.

Theoretically speaking, or inasmuch as one is to apply thought to speculate regarding its cryptic prophetic ending, the second half of Limbo works, after three of its characters find themselves lost on Pacific shores without much hope of rescue.

The rest of its characters disappear though, after having been creatively developed, and I have to admit that they had been developed to the point that I was somewhat irked to see them largely absent from the rest of the film.

However, during the second half young Noelle (Vanessa Martinez) does demonstrate remarkable storytelling skills as she pretends to read from a diary found sitting in an abandoned cabin which doesn't contain many entries.

The film was released in 1999.

By isolating an imaginative youth and then celebrating her literary agility, minutes before her rescue arrives, and then ending the film before we find out whether or not she's been rescued or murdered, Sayles may have been expressing his concerns regarding the future of American cinema, her death representing one wherein which friends sell each other out to make a quick buck, or original storytelling fades as commercial interests place more of an emphasis on calculating revenues than cultivating independence, her life allegorically symbolizing the flourishing of American small town communal solidarity, with its corresponding continuing focus on original ideas, which would inevitably find themselves hailed in the nation's cinemas.

It looked like her feisty mom (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) had finally found a stable nice partner (David Strathairn as Joe Gastineau) as well, a relationship that may have prospered within diverse creative cultures.

The depth of Sayles's prophecy can't be explored here unfortunately, but I can confidently claim there are still many excellent independent films being made in the U.S., and many that are still out there to make a quick buck.

Did the 2000s engender a paradigm shift or cleverly dissemble artistic realities which never stop agitating?

How would I know?

May make a cool book however.

Moonlight

Locked-down in isolation but technically free, young Little (Alex Hibbert/Ashton Sanders/Trevante Rhodes) moves between drug abusing mother (Naomie Harris) and violently dismissive classmates as gracefully as he can, finding refuge with a childless local dealer (Mahershala Ali as Juan) whose guilty conscience and ironical good nature suggest he accommodate the boy.

An oasis helplessly haunted, Little still attends school, and the bullies still bully as he ages, as he grows, as he matures.

One way to stop bullying is to fight back but they travel in packs in Barry Jenkins's Moonlight.

Cowardice.

Little (now Chiron) does bash the most vicious of them in one day with a chair after which the police take him away, suffer in silence or respond and go to prison, not much of a childhood for the peaceful gay fatherless African American kid.

Moonlight is a sad film, a resilient film, a crucial film, a sophisticated film.

A simple story on the surface which fluently presents coy critiques of cultural codes without recourse to sentiment while patiently blending in focus, asking why is difference so frightening?, why do so many instinctively suppress it?

Difference spices things up to add alternative flavours which merge and diverge with eye-opening wonder.

Adventure.

It's as simple as bread.

Different types of bread.

White bread tastes good but one day you might try brown, then rye, then pumpernickel, then multigrain.

Then you have 5 options rather than one for making a sandwich, and can experiment to find out what tastes best, for you, on each different type.

If you have to prove you're tough by forming a group to violently suppress another or an individual, you aren't tough, you're pathetic.

If you're afraid of difference ask yourself why?, and try something new, something startling, like blue cheese or a strawberry shake.

Overcoming fears is what Men and Women do.

Took me a while to start loving olives and hot peppers.

Now I eat them all the time.

A lot of the gay people I've met are chill with a great sense of humour.

It makes for good conversation.

Not many films make as serious an impact as Moonlight while just simply presenting a story.

It's profoundly chill considering the tale it's telling.

The highs and lows.

The emptiness.

Crack ruins communities, ruins lives, makes a sewer of superlatives, which otherwise may thrive.

There's no simple solution.

Besides giving up crack.

And refusing to sell it.

If that's the economy something's seriously wrong.

It does not have to be that way.

And takes courage to turn things around.

Bravery.

Dedication.

Understanding.

Will.

In the great wide open.

Moonlight states this without saying a word.

Blessed.

Keanu

Can a ridiculous plot supported by an irresistible gimmick cast aside its kitschy credulity to generate a quivering constellation which instructively calibrates curricula of its own?

The cutesy.

The adorable.

Keanu does demonstrate how one can go about teaching struggling lost disadvantaged youth after bourgeois nice guy Clarence Goobril (Keegan-Michael Key) infiltrates a drug trafficking gang to help his depressed friend Rell Williams (Jordan Peele) recover his beloved kitten, using the music of George Michael to elucidate the art of communication, skills which they hilariously apply during the film's rambunctious climax.

Immersed in reckless carnage.

Said climax pulls together the best aspects of the film and was fun to watch but the build up consistently stalls since it's painfully apparent that these two suburbanites could never have tricked anyone.

The uneducated aren't that dumb you know.

It's too light.

Because it's too light, the situations Clarence (Smoke Dresden) and Rell (Oil Dresden) find themselves within lack the threat of death, even when they're almost killed, which is what Keanu required to transform into something other than a cute cat movie.

Yet, if they had just kept reintroducing Keanu, the sought after kitten, throughout, making him an integral part of the story rather than losing sight of him for prolonged periods, I probably would have thought, this makes no sense, it's a great nonsensical idea, and this incredibly loveable kitten's frequent appearances at least acknowledge the incoherency, highlighting its inherent encumbrances, while reminding me not to take it too seriously.

Instead I was stuck taking it seriously as it tried to be serious, Keanu having indeed plucked its lilies, to be crushed by the weight of its praiseworthy gambit.

Short-term prison sentences awaiting the heroes in the end.

Keanu!

Keanu!

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. 

The Connection (La French)

Defying lucrative kickbacks from entrenched coercive vindictive drug trafficking thugs, dealing in heroin, preying on the unsuspecting, paving a joyless path to potential ruin, magistrate Pierre Michel (Jean Dujardin) has been promoted to take a stand, a stand he does take, a direct hands-on extremely dangerous crackdown, which audaciously challenges impregnable subterranean smirks.

To compensate the victims.

And mitigate the misery.

The Connection (La French) loses sight of its victims early on, however, focusing more intently on developing characters possessing similar indomitable wills, occupying antagonistic posts on the legalistic transversal.

Kingpin Gaëtan Zampa (Gilles Lellouche), for instance, steamrolls when challenged, demonstrating that he cares for his loyal subordinates, has compassion for his clients, and loves his adoring family.

As he reacts to the increasing threats to his well being, and the sociocultural affects of heroin abuse disappear from the film, sympathy begins to ambiguously creep, aromatic scatology, dismantled by a vengeful application of justice.

Of logic.

The scene that best captures The Connection's impact takes place early on, when Michel and Zampa assert their opposing viewpoints in isolation on the outskirts of Marseille.

You see them staring at one another in front of a voluminous sky that almost looks incredible.

I'm assuming there was a strict shooting schedule, otherwise they would have waited for a more impressive sky to intensify the background, thereby accentuating the inviolate universal both characters seek to dialectically represent, in tandem, the film bordering on the outstanding throughout, but never quite crossing its threshold.

The opening moments are somewhat underwhelming, scenes meant to accentuate wickedness failing to impress, cardboard where there could have been kerosene, dalliance where there should have been dread.

It improves as Michel's obsessive tendencies lead to self-destructing interpersonal conflicts.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!

Incisively inclined to meticulously mitigate, Byomkesh Bakshy (Sushant Singh Rajput) lucidly exfoliates the devils in the details, from facade to haste to postage, instantaneously accessing each and every complicit pact.

Indubitably.

This curation doesn't wistfully pry, rather, he gracefully inspects subterfuge and dissimulation like a distraught determined sloosh, ingenuity modestly asserted, the collection of facts, the gathering of precipitates.

Not really a film noir, there isn't a sense of perpetual oppression or an ambiguous translucent hue, Bakshy's too green to be jaded, to successful to be shorn.

More like Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, its subject matter gradually becoming more grandiose as Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! progresses, it still does frequent the underground while avoiding the police, Bakshy's insight surveying both realms to serialize ingenious constellations.

Characters curiously come and go, the convivial confessing like crisp contraband, the wicked revelling in their byzantine confessions.

It's well designed, the seemingly insignificant worked into a greater vision, characters reappearing just when I was wondering what had happened to them, logical license and casual constructs, solid crescendo, youthful passion making danger seem fun.

Whenever it appears like it's going to far, Bakshy's detections cleverly level things out.

Intense yet chill.

Escobar: Paradise Lost

The tranquilities of a peaceful life living on a beach teaching surfing unexpectedly mutate in Andrea Di Stefano's Escobar: Paradise Lost, as love magnetically draws a couple together, and a Canadian romantic is suddenly thrust into the world of cocaine exportation.

Tectonic shifts.

Alternative outputs.

The couple is quite young and Nick (Josh Hutcherson) somewhat ill-prepared for his newfound corruptly honourable daily transactions, their relationship fervid and flourishing, his responsibilities, a discombobulating mind fuck.

Kingpin Pablo Escobar (Benicio del Toro) takes religion quite seriously.

He distributes wealth to the people.

He takes care of friends and family.

Requiring strict obedience.

And no nonsense.

The film embraces its haunting naive blossoming recourse to sound polarized youthful degeneration with multidimensional popularized efficiency, almost tumbling off a cliff, the established and the entrepreneur coming together as family, age inspecting its curious new fledgling, love securely blanketing the stage.

The crimes.

A chilling if not formulaic examination of familial stress and stipulated largesse, competing ethical constabularies cauterized in political inflammations.

Nick is forced to adapt as the authorities move in and Escobar downsizes.

To fight back.

To survive.

Solid career move for Hutcherson.

Inherent Vice

Blistering pronounced enigmatic athleticism, neat and tidy obscurity, a question asked, a question, answered, competing forms of non-traditional rationalities searching for clues within a down and dirty faceless salute to comic cerebral lechery, with role playing, familiarity, pop-ups, explanations, free form investigative hallucinogenic heartache, golden plunders, an error, bows and arrows, cameolot, freewheeling receptive improvised incognitos, purpose, demand, facts and fictions fused to fornicate, to love, the ether, groundless fluctuating intuitive forward motion, possessed, indecisive, a partnership, sympathy, acquiring a foothold, intransigent brawn, a narrator's clarifications, grinding and gone.

Far gone.

It seems that America's great directors must now hear the call of the The Big Lebowski's pastiche of The Big Sleep to make misguided judgment hedonistically live again.

Insert pot smoke into the underground world of high-stakes narcotic reality.

Remain calm.

React.

It's more about potential and theory, ideas, than plot, although the plot is astounding.

Difficult to say if the events depicted are actually taking place or simply expiring in an exposed hemorrhaged zig-zagged amphetamine.

I didn't see any evidence for this however.

The cast reminded me of that which you often find in feel good comedies, Eric Roberts (Michael Z. Wolfmann) filling in for Sam J. Jones or Billy Idol.

Martin Short's (Dr. Rudy Blatnoyd, D.D.S.) still got it.

I'm buying some absinthe.

Kill the Messenger

An instance where the opening credits are more seductive than the film itself, Kill the Messenger struggles to live up to its illuminatingly opaque origins.

These credits suggest an intense clandestine submersion into a frantic treacherous linguistic labyrinth by shyly presenting the cast and crew as if they're integrated non-factors in the film's journalistic fabric, integral to its action, but secondary to its impact, thereby foreshadowing a hectic clueless ambiguous submission, like The Insider, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, or The Big Sleep, byzantine yet driven, augmenting competitive professional agencies.

The film's content contains such aspects.

Journalist Gary Webb's (Jeremy Renner) life becomes a paranoid misery after he writes a story about the Reagan Administration's possible flagrantly hypocritical role in its war on drugs, applauded and awarded at first before failing to gain traction due to its extremely controversial nature.

He's cast out.

The film's form doesn't match this content well, however, as it follows Webb's path too closely, making it too comfortable and accessible by streamlining its focus.

Had a number of scenes been introduced to take the emphasis away from Webb, in order to diversify its plot by complicating its narrative structure, thereby examining the film's politics, the film's deeper issues, more variably, Kill the Messenger would have been more captivating in my opinion.

Scenes on the ground examining the contemporary Nicaraguan situation, the results, perhaps.

There are some slight diversifications but they're too residual to effectively detach themselves from the storyline and create a compelling subconscious dialogue.

The subject matter they present is still important however.

Undeniably, Webb's life ended in tragedy after he pursued the truth with the highest possible goals.

This fact is emphasized in the film.

Which functions as both enlightened tragedy, and cautionary tale.

22 Jump Street

Unrepentantly unashamed of its recycled ripple effect, yet excelling where Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me did not, 22 Jump Street revisits 21 Jump Street's plot, counting on the strength of its reflexes to convincingly entertain, Hill (Schmidt) and Tatum (Jenko) demonstrating that they've still got it, poetry, football, college, weak on plot but undeniably hilarious, their humouristic confidence reliably overpowering the need to expand, not that they don't bromantically exemplify, how to sustain a flexible working partnership.

The bromance, introduced at the outset with a comparative illustration of both yin, and yang, holds the film together, breaking away to adhesively unite, strategizing football connections in the meantime, relationships, parenting, age.

Giving minor characters from the first film a larger role in the second can work, and it works well in 22 Jump Street, Ice Cube (Captain Dickson) furiously losing it at one point, Tatum's additions to the motif, a side-splitting shining moment.

Hill's best scene comes in the form of an improv slam poetry reaction.

I'm wondering if they wrote his poem beforehand, in which case he should be applauded for his ability to believably pretend to be improving, or, in the case that he did improv his poem, he should be seriously applauded for delivering some successful semantic syllabic breakdowns, immediate and inferential, confident and spry.

Either way, he makes a bold fashion statement.

Is 22 Jump Street a left wing film?

The yin seems to be represented by the more sensitive thoughtful Schmidt, Jenko representing the yang.

But equating sensitivity with the left and aggression with the right is somewhat stereotypical, an organized left often functioning highly combatively, the right seeming quite timid when living outside its comfort zone for extended periods.

What I've just described somewhat reflects Jenko's role in the film, as he is quite timid when interacting with the more intellectually gifted Schmidt, yet, when it comes to applying what he's learned in his human sexuality course, he isn't afraid to defend groups traditionally ignored by the right, making a great point about the problems associated with silence, such actions breaking him away from his social comfort zone, which I would be guilty of examining stereotypically if I thought it didn't support Jenko's actions, it doesn't come up but Jenko does start searching for something more, what he's missing being the fire enflamed through his arguments with Schmidt, that fire enabling them to cohesively function highly combatively, as long as they remain organized, which they do as time goes by.

The Colleges of the United States of America may wish to explore the issue further.

Having Peter Stormare (The Ghost) complain about how things were better in the 90s was a nice touch.

Has he ever been in a Woody Allen movie?

Libraries are unfairly examined.

It's a funny plot device.

But nothing beats having the physical book in-hand.

We're the Millers

A cornucopia of unrefined protracted sleaze, non-traditional role models doing their best to advise, their chosen economic insignias problematizing their bourgeois endorsements, choosing questionable yet confident manners of expression, juxtaposed with professional counterparts whose assiduity assumes authority yet lacks respectability, the perseverance of youth humanely automatizing errors in judgment, so many errors in judgment, serendipitously sanctioned, incontinently divine.

The film struggles as its characters acclimatize themselves to each other.

All you really have to do is write about what happens and you're good.

Although you're really not supposed to do that.

There are so many good ideas worked into We're the Millers's script that thinking about what happens afterwards trumps actually watching the film, many of the jokes falling flat, not that there aren't hilarious moments.

For me, it's most significant flaw is a product of the enormous and commendable risks that went into its construction, an attempt to simultaneously deconstruct and build-up cherished yet occasionally hypocritical codes of conduct, the juxtaposition requiring a contraceptive consensus to export its value that never intangibly materializes.

Lacking stability, character development is sacrificed for references and in/direct pop cultural criticisms, leaving it blindly searching for a good episode of Family Guy, rather than focusing on Trailer Park Boys, season 2.

2 Guns

Centripetally incensing two sharp sabre-toothed cynosures to shifting psychotic solipsistic syndicates, vengefully frothing from within and without, taking precautions which establish guidelines ad hoc, a weathered weaponized multileveled liaison, 2 Guns fires, 2 Guns fires back, a Fred Ward cameo keeps things intact, the script sometimes swoons, occasionally falters, through cutbacks monterey jack, transitional malters, but chemistry can be a wonderful thing, and Denzel and the Wahlberg flow smoothly, ching ching, learning to trust what they've often been taught, is foolhardy nonsense, born, to be bought.

They should seriously do more movies together.

Functioning in fraternal unison.

Excited for the sequel.

Their are a bunch of, for lack of a better phrase, prick moments, where one prick talks business with another, both express their angst, neither comes across looking particularly sympathetic, but their points are made, confidently, confidence backed up by bravado.

The soldiering aspect of this Summer's blockbusters, already inculcated by The Wolverine's frenzy, bridges an international divide in 2 Guns, as Trench (Washington) and Stigman (Wahlberg) are forced to bypass the vehicularly qualified Mexican/American border with a group of hopeful workers, reminiscent of a theme from Pacific Rim as well (soldiering also present in Pacific Rim), Trench and Stigman having been abrasively abused by the CIA (Trench), the American Navy (Stigman), and a cartel Kingpin (Edward James Olmos as Papi Greco)(both), leading them to forge a more comprehensive understanding of social democracy, American style.

The 'oak leaves costume' comment worked well, this being a work of fiction.

Strong female role models are lacking within.

Not much of a focus on technology either.

Also, there's no way Trench and Stigman would have been able to kidnap Greco that easily.

The ease with which he was kidnapped does accentuate raw individualistic teamwork however.

Yes, it does.