The striking underground comedic Canadian coming of age pseudo-road trip, nestled on cozy Cape Breton Island, with teenage conflicts to settle and communal sympathy to spare, a wide variety of soulful situations stitched together to explore desire, relationships, and family, as a young couple discuss the nature of their bond, both representatives confused and curious, as they head to a beach party revelling off the beaten track.
Weirdos focuses on identity inasmuch as it challenges gender based preconceptions.
Alice (Julia Sarah Stone) wants to be a police officer for instance and Kit (Dylan Authors) wants to move away from his father, who uses homophobic slurs.
They're not particularly weird though.
I didn't think they were that weird anyways.
Perhaps they were in 1973.
There was this dance I saw on Degrassi Junior High when I was a kid that presented a bunch of fellow youngsters from different backgrounds just having a good time dancing together.
It didn't seem weird.
In fact it seemed like a lot of fun.
I figured the title is more of a test, a challenge, do you actually think these characters are strange or are you missing the point if you can't see how normal they are?
If you ask me, there's really just being, living, wanting to do things and doing them.
If jerks won't let you try due to some shortsighted notion based upon a callous stereotype ignorantly generated by fear and hatred (how these rotten individuals are trying to make themselves seem like victims in the Trump era [as they recklessly bully]), screw 'em.
If you really want to do it, find another way, even if it can be incredibly difficult at times.
You may just find a lot of people believe in you.
Weirdos excels.
A light examination of difference that generates contentment and disappointment while gingerly transitioning from one scene to the next.
I didn't understand why Kit's mother (Molly Parker) received such harsh treatment though.
Artists criticizing artists for lacking social graces always confuses me.
She doesn't understand children well nor the impacts of the statements she makes.
But toss her into a mental hospital? Again?
Odd.
There's probably something I'm missing about the character, but I still wonder if the amount of money French cultures spend promoting the arts and artists is directly proportional to that which English cultures spend promoting pharmaceutical drugs and psychiatric hospitals.
I'd like to research that theory.
Going to see a French artist perform on French turf is quite remarkable. They have personality and they're there to entertainingly share that personality while performing to an audience who isn't only there to see them play music.
The audience wants to hear what the artist has to say.
When you hear French people discuss artists in conversation they do so with a degree of respect that I rarely note in conversations regarding the arts with English people.
Not all English people.
Obviously this isn't a critical reflection that exhaustively examines shortcomings etcetera, but these are features I've noticed about French culture in conversation.
A criticism of artists in English realms I've often heard is, "why did they talk so much between songs?"
I never understood that point.
Just experiential observations.
Things I've noticed.
Showing posts with label Homosexuality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Homosexuality. Show all posts
Friday, July 28, 2017
Friday, November 18, 2016
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.
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.
Friday, September 9, 2016
Sausage Party
Sociological structural semantics b/romantically ameliorate as a raunchy yet go-getting cornucopia of conditionals recalibrate unquestioned universals for slumbering succulent psychosubjects.
And the rooster cock-a-doodle-doos.
Okay, there's no rooster, but wow Bob wow I wasn't expecting to see a sustained critique of unacknowledged cast aside postmodern religiopolitical discourses hilariously unleashed in this sultry Sausage Party.
I knew nothing beforehand, only saw it accidentally, and was shockingly blindsided within.
But don't take my forlorn abstruse clarifications ;) as abstract proof of its spluttering legitimacy, view the film and adjudicate adroitly, celestially, to discover whether or not you detect within its reels invaluable collective conscience with an average of 99%.
Could Middle-Eastern tensions be lightened by enlivening sexual experimentation?
Is conscientious awareness maturely elevated through recourse to the ostensibly juvenile?
Is there a dubious state of affairs awaiting those who can't find work within globalized _______ sectors?
Can spiritual dream quests enlighten in lassitude both the lugubrious and the illustrious through the reflection of a savannah's steamy brays?
Can't answer these questions myself, but the hot dog and the bun do hook-up in Sausage Party, as the malevolent douche attempts to scour their union.
Like a comedic genius political scientist ate acid and went 'a grocery shopping, Sausage Party brilliantly utilizes the seemingly mundane to offer a scathing critique cloaked in ludic scatology.
Relishing.
I'm.
And the rooster cock-a-doodle-doos.
Okay, there's no rooster, but wow Bob wow I wasn't expecting to see a sustained critique of unacknowledged cast aside postmodern religiopolitical discourses hilariously unleashed in this sultry Sausage Party.
I knew nothing beforehand, only saw it accidentally, and was shockingly blindsided within.
But don't take my forlorn abstruse clarifications ;) as abstract proof of its spluttering legitimacy, view the film and adjudicate adroitly, celestially, to discover whether or not you detect within its reels invaluable collective conscience with an average of 99%.
Could Middle-Eastern tensions be lightened by enlivening sexual experimentation?
Is conscientious awareness maturely elevated through recourse to the ostensibly juvenile?
Is there a dubious state of affairs awaiting those who can't find work within globalized _______ sectors?
Can spiritual dream quests enlighten in lassitude both the lugubrious and the illustrious through the reflection of a savannah's steamy brays?
Can't answer these questions myself, but the hot dog and the bun do hook-up in Sausage Party, as the malevolent douche attempts to scour their union.
Like a comedic genius political scientist ate acid and went 'a grocery shopping, Sausage Party brilliantly utilizes the seemingly mundane to offer a scathing critique cloaked in ludic scatology.
Relishing.
I'm.
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Les mauvaises herbes (Bad Seeds)
An unlikely trio of mismatched screw-ups ironically discovers health and well-being after one of them forces the other two to help him cultivate his marijuana crop, alone in isolation, on a rural Québecois farm.
The low down.
Simon (Gilles Renaud) has an estranged son with whom he wishes to make amends by leaving him land after he dies. He's been hired by bikers to grow weed to make this dream a reality.
Jacques (Alexis Martin) has crippling gambling debts due to an uncontrollable slot machine addiction and although he lives the life of a cultured actor, has little knowledge of rough impoverished mannerisms.
Francesca (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) is much younger than Simon and Jacques and prone to passionate outbursts of justifiable rage. She's lesbian and her parents no longer talk to her and she has trouble relating to others. Her youth dynamically contrasts Jacques and Simon's odd older couple and the film is at its best when her wrath is unleashed.
Les mauvaises herbes (Bad Seeds) is like watching your favourite sports team struggle to win a game. In the end, victory is achieved, and some outstanding plays are made, but there's a fumble here and there, blown coverage, a break away, 12% shooting for half a quarter, a run walked in, calico.
It unreels with two sensibilities, one naive, innocent, and unsuspecting, the other harsh, vindictive, and punitive, like its three principal characters, misfits who haven't had the best of luck (their innocence has led to harsh reprisals which in turn has caused them to be somewhat harsh when they aren't seduced by naivety).
It's funny at times, the introduction of the barn for instance, or Jacques running through the countryside dressed like a French aristocrat, but stalls at points, especially when Simon and Francesca start developing their bond, or when Jacques and Simon are initially juxtaposed (Renaud and Martin don't have much chemistry[Martinez compensates]).
Eventually, after Simon becomes Francesca's surrogate father, and she his lost child, it does work, pulls at the heartstrings without seeming contrived, but the process of getting there has some hiccups, like a running game that doesn't take off till the 4th quarter.
The two sensibilities are sharply contrasted when thug Patenaude (Luc Picard) comes to collect his debts. He's in the barn with Simon searching for Jacques and at first it's too light, he doesn't seem threatening, but then after discovering him hiding beneath a table, it takes a wicked turn and is suddenly frightening, the film becoming more dramatic thereafter.
I still don't see why Patenaude drove the stolen snow mobile over the ice instead of hitting the road, but that's just me.
Jacques makes huge plays in the film's final moments, generating an affective harsh innocence.
He courageously applies his acting skills to the real world to make a deal with bikers before meeting Simon's son (Patrick Hivon as Alexandre).
Some of it comes up short, but Les mauvaises herbes still thoughtfully provides its misfits with room to gently or furiously explain themselves, even Patenaude, its tender moments like spoonfuls of cookie dough, its fury like animated hellspawn.
It blends the immiscible with bizarro good cheer while detonating its intersections with genuine self-righteousness, in the oddest of situations, bad attitudes slowly fading.
There's also a great shot of falling snow.
The low down.
Simon (Gilles Renaud) has an estranged son with whom he wishes to make amends by leaving him land after he dies. He's been hired by bikers to grow weed to make this dream a reality.
Jacques (Alexis Martin) has crippling gambling debts due to an uncontrollable slot machine addiction and although he lives the life of a cultured actor, has little knowledge of rough impoverished mannerisms.
Francesca (Emmanuelle Lussier Martinez) is much younger than Simon and Jacques and prone to passionate outbursts of justifiable rage. She's lesbian and her parents no longer talk to her and she has trouble relating to others. Her youth dynamically contrasts Jacques and Simon's odd older couple and the film is at its best when her wrath is unleashed.
Les mauvaises herbes (Bad Seeds) is like watching your favourite sports team struggle to win a game. In the end, victory is achieved, and some outstanding plays are made, but there's a fumble here and there, blown coverage, a break away, 12% shooting for half a quarter, a run walked in, calico.
It unreels with two sensibilities, one naive, innocent, and unsuspecting, the other harsh, vindictive, and punitive, like its three principal characters, misfits who haven't had the best of luck (their innocence has led to harsh reprisals which in turn has caused them to be somewhat harsh when they aren't seduced by naivety).
It's funny at times, the introduction of the barn for instance, or Jacques running through the countryside dressed like a French aristocrat, but stalls at points, especially when Simon and Francesca start developing their bond, or when Jacques and Simon are initially juxtaposed (Renaud and Martin don't have much chemistry[Martinez compensates]).
Eventually, after Simon becomes Francesca's surrogate father, and she his lost child, it does work, pulls at the heartstrings without seeming contrived, but the process of getting there has some hiccups, like a running game that doesn't take off till the 4th quarter.
The two sensibilities are sharply contrasted when thug Patenaude (Luc Picard) comes to collect his debts. He's in the barn with Simon searching for Jacques and at first it's too light, he doesn't seem threatening, but then after discovering him hiding beneath a table, it takes a wicked turn and is suddenly frightening, the film becoming more dramatic thereafter.
I still don't see why Patenaude drove the stolen snow mobile over the ice instead of hitting the road, but that's just me.
Jacques makes huge plays in the film's final moments, generating an affective harsh innocence.
He courageously applies his acting skills to the real world to make a deal with bikers before meeting Simon's son (Patrick Hivon as Alexandre).
Some of it comes up short, but Les mauvaises herbes still thoughtfully provides its misfits with room to gently or furiously explain themselves, even Patenaude, its tender moments like spoonfuls of cookie dough, its fury like animated hellspawn.
It blends the immiscible with bizarro good cheer while detonating its intersections with genuine self-righteousness, in the oddest of situations, bad attitudes slowly fading.
There's also a great shot of falling snow.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Bullhead
Symptomatically and jaggedly pluralizing the personal psychological affects of a sudden all-encompassing disillusionment, while intricately stratifying a diverse bombastic barrage, literally interjecting his film with bellicose doses of testosterone, Michaël R. Roskam takes Bullhead and cacophonically synthesizes a man with his husbandry, as he tries whatever he can to surreptitiously distend.
An event. A transformation. Perseverance. Sublimation. Shock. Disintegration.
The wind in the willows.
Or the cyclone in the spruces in this instance. Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is one volatile powder keg lacking the deflammatory passions which may have softened the blow.
But apart from scintillatingly nocturnalizing a tragic character study, Bullhead complacently, cerebrally, and chaotically economizes its 'subject matter,' potently intensifying a somewhat underrepresented particular submergence, while using it to indirectly comment upon Belgian social interactions.
If Mr. Vanmarsenille represents the local, then the local is diversified, then regionalized (the regional possessing a nationalistic nuance), and then subjectively traumatized, historicized, and atemporalized, while the film retains a selective degree of objectivity (which dissipates near the end), the catalyst of said trauma triumvirately functioning within the local, regional, and national domains, with romantic, familial, comic and veterinary issues exhaustively adorning its multiplicity.
Mr. Roskam knows how to get things done (screenplay by Michaël R. Roskam).
It offers a potential counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, one film focused primarily on a individual's parenting struggles within an environment theoretically dominated by the personal, the other's less subject-centric caricature working within one hypothetically attempting to produce a less hostile bilateral congregation, both lamenting static subjective growth.
Stress. They're both, full, of stress.
I recommend Bullhead for lovers of multidimensional cinema but be prepared cause it's rather dark.
I kind of think of it as a stubborn grouchy emasculated subdued rowdy intellectual action film to which you must pay strict attention.
Calamitizing the maintenance of an ideal.
Which blindly obscures what's beautiful.
An event. A transformation. Perseverance. Sublimation. Shock. Disintegration.
The wind in the willows.
Or the cyclone in the spruces in this instance. Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is one volatile powder keg lacking the deflammatory passions which may have softened the blow.
But apart from scintillatingly nocturnalizing a tragic character study, Bullhead complacently, cerebrally, and chaotically economizes its 'subject matter,' potently intensifying a somewhat underrepresented particular submergence, while using it to indirectly comment upon Belgian social interactions.
If Mr. Vanmarsenille represents the local, then the local is diversified, then regionalized (the regional possessing a nationalistic nuance), and then subjectively traumatized, historicized, and atemporalized, while the film retains a selective degree of objectivity (which dissipates near the end), the catalyst of said trauma triumvirately functioning within the local, regional, and national domains, with romantic, familial, comic and veterinary issues exhaustively adorning its multiplicity.
Mr. Roskam knows how to get things done (screenplay by Michaël R. Roskam).
It offers a potential counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, one film focused primarily on a individual's parenting struggles within an environment theoretically dominated by the personal, the other's less subject-centric caricature working within one hypothetically attempting to produce a less hostile bilateral congregation, both lamenting static subjective growth.
Stress. They're both, full, of stress.
I recommend Bullhead for lovers of multidimensional cinema but be prepared cause it's rather dark.
I kind of think of it as a stubborn grouchy emasculated subdued rowdy intellectual action film to which you must pay strict attention.
Calamitizing the maintenance of an ideal.
Which blindly obscures what's beautiful.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Magnifica Presenza (Magnificent Presence)
Radiating an offbeat, gentle, luminescent reflexivity, Magnifica Presenza's Pietro Pontechievello (Elio Germano) works in a bakery while striving to become an actor.
After renting a house, he's visited by the ghosts of a theatre troupe (Compangia Appollonio) who worked for the resistance and were betrayed by their feature during World War II.
They strike up a friendship and their influence ameliorates his performance while imbuing his social interactions with experimental antiquated idiosyncrasies.
Awkwardly yet humanistically elevating while humorously tenderizing an artist's ambitions, subtly suggesting that blending the contemporary with the historical can lead to a broader understanding of one's self, or the surmounting of socio-cultural barriers (the stigma of homosexuality) more suited to a different time (within the film's temporal boundaries the stigma of homosexuality isn't prominent), and simultaneously warning against and romanticizing the internalization of the cult of the hero, Magnifica Presenza lovingly offers a clinical diagnosis of loneliness alongside a curative aid.
Boundlessly allusive and reticently merry.
In the mind's eye.
After renting a house, he's visited by the ghosts of a theatre troupe (Compangia Appollonio) who worked for the resistance and were betrayed by their feature during World War II.
They strike up a friendship and their influence ameliorates his performance while imbuing his social interactions with experimental antiquated idiosyncrasies.
Awkwardly yet humanistically elevating while humorously tenderizing an artist's ambitions, subtly suggesting that blending the contemporary with the historical can lead to a broader understanding of one's self, or the surmounting of socio-cultural barriers (the stigma of homosexuality) more suited to a different time (within the film's temporal boundaries the stigma of homosexuality isn't prominent), and simultaneously warning against and romanticizing the internalization of the cult of the hero, Magnifica Presenza lovingly offers a clinical diagnosis of loneliness alongside a curative aid.
Boundlessly allusive and reticently merry.
In the mind's eye.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Circumstance
At the risk of sounding melodramatic, falling in love is a beautiful thing. Suddenly there's someone there with whom you get along and/or enjoy fighting with regularly who saves you from the interminable tedium of your own personal thoughts.
And loves it when you suggest going at it.
Through the exchange of ideas you learn and grow constructively and destructively as you challenge one another while suffering/flourishing as your dependency increases.
Having the opportunity to do this is something a lot of people take for granted.
Maryam Keshavarz's Circumstance suffocatingly accentuates the torment of trying to embrace your mutual feelings in a homophobic socially conservative stasis, as Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) fall in love.
Atafeh is the privileged daughter of wealthy parents whose lifestyle is encouraged by the current Iranian regime. Shireen's parents were free thinking writers who didn't fare so well after the Revolution in 1979.
As they explore their affections in the Iranian underground, Keshavarz showcases their blossoming vitality before the morality police step in and rigidly crush it.
One of the policepersons is Atafeh's former drug abusing religiously reformed brother Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai).
If you're wondering how the affects of your socially conservative values and their associated misguided ethical conceptions can distort potentially productive members of your community and turn them into passionate iconoclasts, try and imagine a world where all you want to do is have a heterosexual relationship but everyone keeps telling you it's an unnatural crime for which you will be eternally punished.
And ask yourself, "why do I keep bullying gay people?"
Do you seriously think a loving God would encourage such behaviour?
And loves it when you suggest going at it.
Through the exchange of ideas you learn and grow constructively and destructively as you challenge one another while suffering/flourishing as your dependency increases.
Having the opportunity to do this is something a lot of people take for granted.
Maryam Keshavarz's Circumstance suffocatingly accentuates the torment of trying to embrace your mutual feelings in a homophobic socially conservative stasis, as Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) fall in love.
Atafeh is the privileged daughter of wealthy parents whose lifestyle is encouraged by the current Iranian regime. Shireen's parents were free thinking writers who didn't fare so well after the Revolution in 1979.
As they explore their affections in the Iranian underground, Keshavarz showcases their blossoming vitality before the morality police step in and rigidly crush it.
One of the policepersons is Atafeh's former drug abusing religiously reformed brother Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai).
If you're wondering how the affects of your socially conservative values and their associated misguided ethical conceptions can distort potentially productive members of your community and turn them into passionate iconoclasts, try and imagine a world where all you want to do is have a heterosexual relationship but everyone keeps telling you it's an unnatural crime for which you will be eternally punished.
And ask yourself, "why do I keep bullying gay people?"
Do you seriously think a loving God would encourage such behaviour?
Sunday, December 11, 2011
J. Edgar
Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar situates a cunning politico-ethical land mine deep within the socio-American filmic vortex which combusts a manufactured traditional market by highlighting the contribution of gay Americans to the creation of some of their most revered institutions.
According to this film, there is no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) loved his country (or his conception of his country). His opposition to radical elements and disgust with the ways in which the media glorified gangsters is relentless as he pursues the incarceration of outlaws while demanding nothing but refined conduct from his employees. As director of the FBI, he significantly expands its agency through the acquisition of legal and economic resources while patiently and obsessively focusing on the cultivation of its public reputation. Deeply and resolutely committed to the idea that public figures must comport themselves with the utmost integrity, he sharply manages both the conduct of his agents and the public perceptions of the conduct of his agents while placing himself in the forefront whenever possible. Paranoid and power mad and willing to take down those whose popularity risks rivalling his own, he delicately balances the relationship between democratic efficiency and bureaucratic autocracy throughout the course of his lengthy career, agilely avoiding the sword of Damocles.
But there's one problem.
He has no interest in women and loves Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) who has been by his side for the majority of his career. His private life has been defined by the politico-ethical foundations of his public pursuits as undesirable, which encourages a significant degree of anxiety. This extra layer of anxiety adds additional pressure to his institutional position which already demands a heightened degree of caution.
Hence, paranoia.
But he still skillfully utilizes his considerable gifts to survive within a heteronormative domain wherein he succeeds in accomplishing remarkable feats, even though his memory of such feats may be somewhat exaggerated.
It can be argued that his achievements were the results of his repression and that he wouldn't have been able to survive in a cutthroat competitive professional climate without having had the added bonus of developing exceptional survival instincts through the art of concealment in his youth.
But who in their right mind wants to nurture a public sphere which necessitates the dissimulation of strengths when their cultivation could increase the intensity of said sphere's productive tendencies by enabling its representatives to energize their freedoms? There's no telling what else J. Edgar could have been able to accomplish had he been nurtured in an environment where sexual difference was respected and he didn't have to consistently expend psychological resources to distract attention away from the most beautiful parts of his personality.
According to this film, there is no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) loved his country (or his conception of his country). His opposition to radical elements and disgust with the ways in which the media glorified gangsters is relentless as he pursues the incarceration of outlaws while demanding nothing but refined conduct from his employees. As director of the FBI, he significantly expands its agency through the acquisition of legal and economic resources while patiently and obsessively focusing on the cultivation of its public reputation. Deeply and resolutely committed to the idea that public figures must comport themselves with the utmost integrity, he sharply manages both the conduct of his agents and the public perceptions of the conduct of his agents while placing himself in the forefront whenever possible. Paranoid and power mad and willing to take down those whose popularity risks rivalling his own, he delicately balances the relationship between democratic efficiency and bureaucratic autocracy throughout the course of his lengthy career, agilely avoiding the sword of Damocles.
But there's one problem.
He has no interest in women and loves Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) who has been by his side for the majority of his career. His private life has been defined by the politico-ethical foundations of his public pursuits as undesirable, which encourages a significant degree of anxiety. This extra layer of anxiety adds additional pressure to his institutional position which already demands a heightened degree of caution.
Hence, paranoia.
But he still skillfully utilizes his considerable gifts to survive within a heteronormative domain wherein he succeeds in accomplishing remarkable feats, even though his memory of such feats may be somewhat exaggerated.
It can be argued that his achievements were the results of his repression and that he wouldn't have been able to survive in a cutthroat competitive professional climate without having had the added bonus of developing exceptional survival instincts through the art of concealment in his youth.
But who in their right mind wants to nurture a public sphere which necessitates the dissimulation of strengths when their cultivation could increase the intensity of said sphere's productive tendencies by enabling its representatives to energize their freedoms? There's no telling what else J. Edgar could have been able to accomplish had he been nurtured in an environment where sexual difference was respected and he didn't have to consistently expend psychological resources to distract attention away from the most beautiful parts of his personality.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Beginners
Percolating a playful, creative, laid back, inquisitive aesthetic, wherein a son convalesces after his father's death thanks to the assistance of a gentle, curious partner, friendly and caring, challenging and supportive, Mike Mills's Beginners evocatively examines freedom through a palliative lens and a spontaneous framework.
Oliver (Ewan MacGregor) didn't know his father was gay until he came out in his seventies after his wife's death. Hal (Christopher Plummer) had enjoyed being married but with his wife's passing decided to openly explore other sides of his personality. Oliver responds with surprise and confusion but due to his open-mind isn't bogged down by bigoted preconceptions. Hal's terminal cancer complicates matters as he refuses to acquiesce to his doctor's corresponding prescriptions.
Oliver remembers these moments along with many from his childhood as he comes to terms with his father's death and falls in love with partner Anna (Mélanie Laurent). The story mimics the thought patterns of a melancholic mind as it searches for an indecipherable stratagem from which to rediscover joy.
As refreshing as Ghost World, Beginners lacks the predetermined bells and whistles that accompany so many polarized narratives and comfortably occupies the middle ground. It doesn't definitively judge, it doesn't segregate, unless the character in question happens to have been consistently segregated and has trouble not definitively judging as a consequence.
Its relaxed pace and sympathetic deliveries mask an unfaltering ingenuity disguised as a lackadaisical reflection.
Oliver (Ewan MacGregor) didn't know his father was gay until he came out in his seventies after his wife's death. Hal (Christopher Plummer) had enjoyed being married but with his wife's passing decided to openly explore other sides of his personality. Oliver responds with surprise and confusion but due to his open-mind isn't bogged down by bigoted preconceptions. Hal's terminal cancer complicates matters as he refuses to acquiesce to his doctor's corresponding prescriptions.
Oliver remembers these moments along with many from his childhood as he comes to terms with his father's death and falls in love with partner Anna (Mélanie Laurent). The story mimics the thought patterns of a melancholic mind as it searches for an indecipherable stratagem from which to rediscover joy.
As refreshing as Ghost World, Beginners lacks the predetermined bells and whistles that accompany so many polarized narratives and comfortably occupies the middle ground. It doesn't definitively judge, it doesn't segregate, unless the character in question happens to have been consistently segregated and has trouble not definitively judging as a consequence.
Its relaxed pace and sympathetic deliveries mask an unfaltering ingenuity disguised as a lackadaisical reflection.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Death at a Funeral
Everything that possibly can go wrong will go wrong.
Bring on the airing of grievances.
Take a walk in the park, take a Valium pill.
Nothing brings a family closer together than a little blackmail.
A father has died and a funeral has been arranged. Friends and family are scheduled to arrive. Personal motivations have piqued ambitious interests. The reverend hopes to depart at 3 o'clock sharp.
Hallucinogenic drugs have accidentally been introduced. An affair has been brought to light. An appropriate time to express one's romantic longings is passing by. Solutions are expediently distilled.
Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral lightly presents intergenerational tensions, sibling rivalries, progressive structures, and scatological sentiments. Historical details are used sparingly to support present actions. The principle subject lies motionless and rarely becomes the object of analysis. Anxiety and awkwardness brazenly duel as an afternoon's solemnity is feverishly deconstructed.
Indirectly suggesting that without the influence of one man's protective guise a family's prosperity is in pedantic jeopardy, thereby functioning as a formulaic exemplar of transition, Death at a Funeral symbolically externalizes emotions such as grief and gives them plenty of room to transmute. Consistently juxtaposing the petty and the poignant while delegating comedic insight with a sober intensity, it will certainly cause you to shake your head more than once as you helplessly and cheerfully ask the question, "why?"
Bring on the airing of grievances.
Take a walk in the park, take a Valium pill.
Nothing brings a family closer together than a little blackmail.
A father has died and a funeral has been arranged. Friends and family are scheduled to arrive. Personal motivations have piqued ambitious interests. The reverend hopes to depart at 3 o'clock sharp.
Hallucinogenic drugs have accidentally been introduced. An affair has been brought to light. An appropriate time to express one's romantic longings is passing by. Solutions are expediently distilled.
Frank Oz's Death at a Funeral lightly presents intergenerational tensions, sibling rivalries, progressive structures, and scatological sentiments. Historical details are used sparingly to support present actions. The principle subject lies motionless and rarely becomes the object of analysis. Anxiety and awkwardness brazenly duel as an afternoon's solemnity is feverishly deconstructed.
Indirectly suggesting that without the influence of one man's protective guise a family's prosperity is in pedantic jeopardy, thereby functioning as a formulaic exemplar of transition, Death at a Funeral symbolically externalizes emotions such as grief and gives them plenty of room to transmute. Consistently juxtaposing the petty and the poignant while delegating comedic insight with a sober intensity, it will certainly cause you to shake your head more than once as you helplessly and cheerfully ask the question, "why?"
Friday, April 22, 2011
2 frogs dans l'ouest
Leaving behind her structured life in Montréal, Marie Deschamps (Mirianne Brulé) travels to Whistler in pursuit of adventure and the acquisition of the English language. Things don't progress smoothly in the beginning until the angelic Jean-François Laforest (Dany Papineau) steps in to save the day. With a job and a place to stay, Marie's transition steadfastly accelerates and good previously unimagined times present themselves. But the predetermined all encompassing capitalist master narrative is still seductively ready to pounce, just as bohemian alternatives become all the more tantalizing.
Dany Papineau's 2 frogs dans l'ouest salutes the pursuit of non-traditional lifestyles while highlighting corresponding difficulties as well as those associated with learning a new language. The scene where Marie attempts to order something to eat in English near the beginning of her journey reminded me of similar personal outings in Québec, where you can't help but feel prostrate due to the fact that you can't communicate or don't understand the simple linguistic distinctions that you need to be able to comprehend in order to function, although the percentage of Québecors who speak English is much higher than that of English Canadians who speak French, a fact that many English Canadians should take into consideration. Sport is central to 2 frogs dans l'ouest's vision and the cathartic affects of activities such as snowboarding play a central metaphoric role. Is living in a beautiful place like Whistler or Canmore in order to pursue the artistic life while consistently engaging in exhilarating activities amidst the continuous inspirational presence of breathtaking scenery a good decision?
Yes, yes it is, although I suppose everyone can't live in such places, only the committed few.
Some of the coming of age reflections in 2 frogs dans l'ouest are a little tough to take at times. Papineau develops a lot of sympathy for Marie's father (Germain Houde) who made many sacrifices so that she could go to school as well. But he also didn't make those sacrifices so that she would give up her dreams.
And she doesn't.
Dany Papineau's 2 frogs dans l'ouest salutes the pursuit of non-traditional lifestyles while highlighting corresponding difficulties as well as those associated with learning a new language. The scene where Marie attempts to order something to eat in English near the beginning of her journey reminded me of similar personal outings in Québec, where you can't help but feel prostrate due to the fact that you can't communicate or don't understand the simple linguistic distinctions that you need to be able to comprehend in order to function, although the percentage of Québecors who speak English is much higher than that of English Canadians who speak French, a fact that many English Canadians should take into consideration. Sport is central to 2 frogs dans l'ouest's vision and the cathartic affects of activities such as snowboarding play a central metaphoric role. Is living in a beautiful place like Whistler or Canmore in order to pursue the artistic life while consistently engaging in exhilarating activities amidst the continuous inspirational presence of breathtaking scenery a good decision?
Yes, yes it is, although I suppose everyone can't live in such places, only the committed few.
Some of the coming of age reflections in 2 frogs dans l'ouest are a little tough to take at times. Papineau develops a lot of sympathy for Marie's father (Germain Houde) who made many sacrifices so that she could go to school as well. But he also didn't make those sacrifices so that she would give up her dreams.
And she doesn't.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Easy A
The rumour patrol, derisively and intrusively guided by, well, everyone, in some little way, for abstract, practical, or theoretical purposes, always and forever. Will Gluck's Easy A examines the strengths and weaknesses of a malevolent high school rumour machine, full of invective and austerity, delineations and miscommunications, as it attempts to ruin the reputation of Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone). But Olive's smarter than your average bear, and she uses her classmate's curiosity and stereotypical subservience to elevate the social status of the downtrodden, while quietly accepting her scarlet letter. The film excels at presenting sensational subject matter in a subdued yet occasionally theatrical manner designed for young adult audiences yet containing enough elderly content to appeal to the middle-aged, and others, as well (this form subtly heralded by the coy opening credits). Olive's parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci) steal the show, but then Thomas Haden Church steals portions of their booty from them, while Stone herself makes off with a queen's ransom. An engaging examination of the potential horrors of high school distilled and distributed by an appealing 'iconoclast,' Easy A's case study suggests that the solution to overcoming ruthless gossip is to find true love, unless he or she is secretly unfaithful, which, I guess, is kind of saccharine. Good movie though.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
The Kids are All Right
Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids are All Right covers the volatile disruptions affecting a family of four after a married lesbian couple's two children seek out their biological father. His freewheeling bohemian ways conflict with the family's traditional order of things as he challenges, complicates, and reinvigorates their dynamic. Bourgeoisly examining themes such as child rearing, conjugal power struggles, friendship, ethnocentrism, adultery, philandering, and young adult relationships, The Kids are All Right has a multidimensional character which elevates its aesthetic. Effectively normalizing gay marriage for right wing audiences, while problematically making light of the harsh treatment of Mexican workers(thereby highlighting the phenomenon's unconscious cultural agency), The Kids are All Right successfully investigates manifold topics, presenting robust characters and humanized ideals.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Four Minutes
People born with gifts often don't have an easy time with them, and Chris Kraus's Four Minutes (Vier Minuten) expressly explores the dark side of disenfranchised genius.
Jenny von Loeben (Hannah Herzprung) is a piano prodigy suffering in a women's prison after taking the murder wrap for her deadbeat boyfriend. Traude Krüger (Monica Bleibtreu) is her temporally paralyzed coach, having spent her life teaching piano to incarcerated women in memory of her lesbian lover, who was hung by a piano wire because of her ethnicity during the final days of World War II. Mütze (Sven Pippig) is the iconic lagging student, devoted to his patronage but unable to accept Jenny's privilege, especially after she sends him to the hospital for reconstructive surgery. Revenge, jealousy, cruelty, and loss loom large in this hard-boiled script, where no one is spared from Jenny's wanton precision. Her rage is poignantly juxtaposed with Krüger's crystallized loneliness and Kraus soothes the overt mania by interweaving tender moments from Krüger's youthful affair. Every character executes their designs to the best of their abilities in a convoluted deconstruction of what it means to forgive. Imprisoned lives and disadvantaged dreams attempting to stoically adjust to political postures that consistently crush them, where love is fleetingly permanent and trust a compromised conception. Four Minutes lays on the extremes and some of the situations are slightly far fetched, but within the evocative melodrama Herzprung and Bleibtrau provide powerful portrayals of the brutally alacric midpoint where devotion and corruption collide.
Jenny is given her chance, four minutes for fame, praised by the bourgeoise, arrested through the tradition. The dénouement presents a powerful critique of systematic condemnation while inherent within Jenny's rhythm lies a passionate orchestration of derelict cultural prodigy.
Jenny von Loeben (Hannah Herzprung) is a piano prodigy suffering in a women's prison after taking the murder wrap for her deadbeat boyfriend. Traude Krüger (Monica Bleibtreu) is her temporally paralyzed coach, having spent her life teaching piano to incarcerated women in memory of her lesbian lover, who was hung by a piano wire because of her ethnicity during the final days of World War II. Mütze (Sven Pippig) is the iconic lagging student, devoted to his patronage but unable to accept Jenny's privilege, especially after she sends him to the hospital for reconstructive surgery. Revenge, jealousy, cruelty, and loss loom large in this hard-boiled script, where no one is spared from Jenny's wanton precision. Her rage is poignantly juxtaposed with Krüger's crystallized loneliness and Kraus soothes the overt mania by interweaving tender moments from Krüger's youthful affair. Every character executes their designs to the best of their abilities in a convoluted deconstruction of what it means to forgive. Imprisoned lives and disadvantaged dreams attempting to stoically adjust to political postures that consistently crush them, where love is fleetingly permanent and trust a compromised conception. Four Minutes lays on the extremes and some of the situations are slightly far fetched, but within the evocative melodrama Herzprung and Bleibtrau provide powerful portrayals of the brutally alacric midpoint where devotion and corruption collide.
Jenny is given her chance, four minutes for fame, praised by the bourgeoise, arrested through the tradition. The dénouement presents a powerful critique of systematic condemnation while inherent within Jenny's rhythm lies a passionate orchestration of derelict cultural prodigy.
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