Friday, March 27, 2026
Cheminstrel
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Mysterious Object at Noon
Clementine fiddlestick cursory 'thusela Flamenco berm androgynous fathom, underground fissure transformative treatise celluloid succulence discursive scorn.
Friday, March 7, 2025
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
The recreational impulse to tell lively tales improvisationally immersed in exotic wonder, effectively drives so much interactivity as days slowly pass and nights stall and linger.
Friday, December 15, 2023
Sing
I always marvel at how tolerant my parents were regarding my singing when I was younger.
Friday, March 3, 2023
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Multivariable universes loosely interconnected through tenuous familiarity, simultaneously emergent disproportionately taxing impeccably embellished latent hyper-reactivity.
Friday, November 11, 2022
El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive)
There was once what was known as censorship, so that impressionable youths could avoid narrative trauma, accompanied by bad dreams and apprehension, throughout the course of the traditionally peaceful day.
Tuesday, March 30, 2021
The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter
*This applies more to my haphazard analysis of American politics.
One of the cool elements of a democracy is that it encourages the development of a multiplicity of voices, the cultivation of sundry alternatives to the heroic master narrative.
It doesn't seek to eclipse the heroic narrative but rather to promote less ra ra alternatives, in order to represent the millions of people who aren't engaged in epic quests.
I suppose this goes without saying but it seems like populists are seeking to reinvent the wheel, as if the heroic narrative was somehow in danger of suddenly disappearing.
I like the application of heroics to humdrum daily life, through the application of general comedic agency and particular tragic commitment, for to deny epic possibility to random modest chill existence, is to foolishly underestimate sociocultural potential, and overlook vast compelling markets (see The Lord of the Rings).
I may prefer to watch a film like Museum Hours, but I still enjoy watching Iron Man or Thor, which unfortunately leaves me on the fringes since so many people prefer one style to the other.
But if you can balance the divergent approaches you can cater to so many different preferences, and perhaps avoid wild confrontation by fulfilling manifold desires.
Snobs digress erroneously by dismissing so many things, and creating categorical prejudices which designate them undesirable.
For so many of these things are culturally celebrated by people who don't wish to be dismissed (I don't really care), or made to feel inadequate because they simply don't like serious drama.
It's just the application of equality to widespread divergent artistic tastes, which seems anathema to elitist snobs who often advocate for greater equality (see life).
It wouldn't be much of an issue if millions of people weren't rallying behind the populists, and creating a vast absolutist network of alternative facts on social media.
Such bizarro alternative reckonings shouldn't be dismissed, they're much too powerful, but rather ways should be found to rework them from within based upon probable fact and reason (like robust dynamic schools).
You see they've created new definitions for "fact" and alternative conceptions of "reason" which they uphold without any evidence in order to pursue a dismissed agenda.
Because mainstream discourse has dismissed them they've found outlets to spread their discontent.
Unless both sides are willing to relax passionately upheld categorical prejudices, the situation could become much worse as The Social Dilemma postulates.
I hope it doesn't descend into one strictly policing the other (unless there are acts of violence).
Brute force is so much less convincing.
Reimagine the emptiness, like The NeverEnding Story II.
Friday, August 14, 2020
Museum Hours
The active mind having aged to reimagine engagement through interpretive fluid rapt multivariable impression.
A rambunctious youth clad in melodic calculi (managing and touring with bands), then ruminative middle-age embracing quiet illustration (monitoring different rooms in Vienna's Kunsthistorisches Art Museum).
Living a thoughtful solitary life well-attuned to simple pleasures (Bobby Sommer as Johann), he meets a curious tourist one day visiting from Montréal (Mary Margaret O'Hara as Anne).
She's in town to watch over her cousin who's fallen into a coma, and would love to see the sights but doesn't know where to begin.
The film loosely follows their interactions as they travel in and about town, different features brought to life through historical exposition. It's not just the Kunsthistorisches that shines, Vienna's contemporary spirit enlivens as well, evocatively situated in past and present, replete with urban wildlife.
As Anne and Johann converse reflections on art evanescently materialize, not as if they're searching for essentials, more like chill jazzy random observation.
In fact it's like Museum Hours aesthetically cherishes the chill and random, as various images are freely showcased without a particular focus.
It's not presenting a specific thesis arguing for a point of view, but rather sharing different images to let Vienna thrive on through.
According to individual tastes, a clever seminar in artistic analysis attempts to lead visitors away from cocktail clichés, to more expansive literary compositions, as they observe different paintings, like there isn't an essence to be extracted but rather a variety of compelling interpretive exports.
Johann looks on in studious wonder as a guide imaginatively elucidates, her insights applicable to Jem Cohen's style which doesn't seek to blandly distill.
He observes that the right has made things much more serious, and made casual conversation much less prevalent, if the left loses sight of lighthearted argument, don't you wind up with The Lobster?
If the emphasis is on the correct interpretation of a shifting multivariable phenomenon, aren't such aggressive and violent evaluations highly dubious and irrational?
Taking absurd comedic outputs that clearly lack exhaustive scope, and treating them with biblical import, can lead to an unwillingness for people to participate in sustained and vigorous debate.
If they aren't treated with biblical import but rather as just another form of expression, then you have something much less frightening, and more amenable to inclusive discourse.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Mirai no Mirai
For the solitary world within which he was ensconced has been definitively altered by the presence of another.
Attention that was once solely centred on him must now be shared with a sister, and even if she's somewhat adorable, he still can't fraternally conduct.
Strange forces align within his domestic playground to provide him with familial aid, and soon, through recourse to animated historical visuals, he's swathed in verbose fluent didact.
But he still may be too young to absorb his interactive lessons, and whether or not he can accept little Mirai (Victoria Grace) remains truly and innocently uncertain.
As dad (John Cho) learns the domestic arts.
And mom (Rebecca Hall) settles back in at work.
The child (Jaden Waldman) creatively explores pasts and presents to embrace Mirai no Mirai, the film excelling at presenting tactile evidence while he struggles to grasp and comprehend.
A wonderful film, rich with effervescent showcase, abounding with nimble tutelage, proceeds to generously foil and viscerally cascade, like windswept rains intermittently drenching the tropics in inclusive instructive echo, it proceeds with a friendly light heart playfully immersed in soothing reprimand.
Revelations must be hidden in order to avoid conflict as mom and dad wonder what's happening in their unassuming nondescript back garden.
As Kun embarks on journey after journey, it's as if luminescence has been seamlessly disseminated, the film's insouciance mysteriously matriculating, in nurtured inculcated frisk.
Deconstructing disillusions of age.
Enveloping unpasteurized wonder.
The scenes aren't boring or risk-fuelled or death-defying or controversial, they're way more chill, like they aren't working within a systematic production slyly cultivating grass-is-greener ideologies.
Thus, with intergenerational independence and particularized unique charm, they offer alternatives overflowing with paradigmatic initiative, laidback, like childhood storytime.
Categorically unconcerned.
You try to keep your eyes open as you age so you don't miss life passing by, like Ferris Bueller, and from time to time you still notice something novel for which you're totally unprepared.
It's like Mirai no Mirai harnesses this outlook in narrativized jazzy melody, which it thoughtfully focuses on itself, to compose something calm and collective.
A must see.
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Festive ceremonies can't ease her troubled mind, nor can appeals to the breadth of tradition, nor the temptation to snuggle away.
Honestly immersed in dire bleak emotion, she visits a trustworthy friend (Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer).
And his supportive counsel and sympathetic understanding miraculously ignite her imagination, which magically blooms thereafter, a fantastic realm inadvertently emerging, wherein which she's respected as Queen.
Yet dark forces have set about undermining her rule, forces which take advantage of her naivety.
But those who remain loyal to her innate justice refuse to yield as the usurper rises, the rag tag as composed as they are outnumbered, united with the formerly influential.
Known as Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren).
As darkness descends.
In The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, an enchanting tale wildly revelling in solemn majesty, its embroiled burnished brightness boldly bursting the bland banal.
Within, inherent characteristics predisposed to leisure and play must outwit irreverent subjugation while clashing with concrete woe.
Is it so hard to enjoy the peaceful refinements a culture enlightens without being threatened by their jests?
Enamoured impulse, commercial spontaneity, sportspersonlike intrigue, a weekly night out?
Who doesn't like Mexican food?
The realization that the limitless nature of the democratic arts, as opposed to one-dimensional all-powerful commands they may be, produces much more lively overtures, which can creatively inspire curious hearts and minds, who produce much more clever material when given room to play, and freed from mind-numbing stereotypes, enlivens dull predictable routines, and lets you appreciate Birdman and Ferris Bueller sans hesitation, depending on complementary moods.
No one ever really listens to anyone who uses violence to assert themselves, although they pretend to to avoid pain.
I see smart men and women whose families respect them precisely because they don't micromanage things all the time.
They seem happy because their families are happy, and are always ready to provide assistance when required.
Perhaps Clara realizes her father is like that after contending with thoughtless Sugar Plum (Keira Knightley).
And agrees to dance with him lightly.
Caught up in spirited flight.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
Pete's Dragon
In David Lowery's Pete's Dragon, we find a young child (Oakes Fegley as Pete) who has been living in the woods for several years under the watchful eye of a caring dragon.
Elliot's the beastie's name.
His existence is undeniable in the film, but, if he is thought of as representing limitless imagination and Pete has developed limitless imagination while growing up on his own in the wild, then after he is discovered by humankind, what becomes of that imagination in terms of future potential?
In terms of the options available in town?
Two brothers are presented, one (Wes Bentley as Jack) who owns a logging company and abides by the law when extracting timber, and another (Karl Urban as Gavin) who manages the company on the ground and breaks those laws in order to earn higher profits.
Either way Pete's imagination will have to adapt to human civilization, since both options extract wood from the forest.
Jack takes Pete in while waiting to hear from child services, after Pete befriends his daughter Natalie (Oona Laurence), and for the first time since the fatal car accident in the film's opening moments, Pete is surrounded by and immersed within nourishing comforts, comforts that can lovingly engage his imagination.
Meanwhile Gavin, having learned of Elliot's existence, hunts down and viciously traps him, thereby attempting to turn Pete's imagination into an estranged exploited sideshow.
Cunning and ingenuity, no doubt the reflexive byproducts of that imagination, enable Pete and his friends to free tethered Elliot, who is then chased by his would be oppressor, and forced to unleash incendiary objections.
Foes defeated and stability secured, in the end we see Elliot and Pete reunited, Elliot having found companions as well, or Pete having developed an in/dependent artistic/commercial sensitivity, nurtured by a disposable income.
Perhaps not the most well rounded layer of metaphorical interactivity, but if relativity is applied to expand upon the definitions of stability and comfort, as it should be if Elliot is taken into consideration, and these definitions proliferate within the realm of free choice, it's possible that everyone could have their own community of dragons, loveable in their specialized elasticities, curious to energetically explore.
Why the heck not?
As Summer is applied to the upcoming scholastic year?
It's a wikithing.
I can be cheesier.
Friday, July 15, 2016
Swiss Army Man
Friendship fervid moribund enriching live decay, frolicking within the flora ursine twitchy craze, batteries a slowly pining loves lost intercepted, consummate stardust inverted glacial verdant 'spectives.
Lessons lounging lynchpins gouging finch the new companion, eagerly consumes the trust with gaseous abandon, launch relight ignite insights the leveraged absentia, automatic crisp erratic exercised 'fluenza.
Visitors a challenging courteous ebbs and flows, calisthenic plights endemic rockets robins hoe, curious the interactions surely socialized, tricks refastened sparred Sebastian glimpsed etherealized.
Caught up in surfin' chagrin like dismal diuretics, forward movement grooved attunements exiled resurrected, burly bitchin' swift restitchin' crucial conversation, wild restyled agile nubile explicit intonations.
Back within the suburbs thinly overwrought disguise, aware the stare lays bare the madness cruising lunar tides, imbued exotic dues hypnotic cloistered campy crystal, jostlin' prim the seraphim bewildered glistenin' gristle.
Loved Swiss Army Man.
What an idea.
Great performance from Radcliffe (Manny).
I've been waiting to see something different from him for awhile.
I don't see everything he does.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Room
Solitary semantics.
Ontological incarceration.
A mother and son locked away for years in a shed, never leaving, never seeing the outside world.
The child, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), having spent his entire life in the shed, imaginatively tries to make sense of existence, while his Ma (Brie Larson) attempts to define the outside world.
It's difficult for him to comprehend, and his creative energies, as applied to his confined explorations, idealize the passionate curiosity of youth, his desire to learn more stifled by a lack of resources.
Escape cunningly presents itself and the real world suddenly emerges, but emerging into a hyper-reactive media sensation contrasts monstrous plans with excessive exposure.
It's too much for his overwhelmed mom, as it would be for anyone, but familial strength steps up as required, to cuddle in consultation, and placate emotionally complex obsessions.
Tough film, Lenny Abrahamson's Room, juxtaposing different pressurized extremes and their belittling affects on a severely traumatized family.
Those are the tough questions you don't ask.
Jack's lack of knowledge saves him from the psychological torments disintegrating his mother, his attempts to simply be profound in their hesitant wonder, the compassionate easing the transition for both of them, trust contra control, revelations of an inchoate spirituality.
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
The Imitation Game
To suffer in ecstasy.
And win the war.
The Imitation Game celebrates unprecedented advances in theoretical practicalities, adding humanistic plights to the achievement of goals, balance and structure within the hierarchy, competing authoritative conceptions, managing the exceptional's zeal.
Creation's credibility.
Love's unacknowledged blush.
It's about a brilliant mathematician who creates an apparatus that cracks Nazi Germany's enigma machine.
Beyond tragedy, what eventually takes place, difficult to think that so many incredible leaps forward have been squashed in their infancy by culturally accepted prejudices, suffocatingly husking hopes and dreams.
Futures.
From Black Bear Pictures.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Seen through the eyes of young Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), the festivities, and the rest of the film, transmit a youthful candour.
Qualified by directly applying extinct carnivorous didactic extracts to the forthcoming unreeling upheavals, as discoveries bearing no familiar points of tectonic reference, suddenly, present themselves.
And the resilient strength of her family and friends.
Innocently yet formidably dealing with while challenging her adventurous unpredictable shifting bohemian foundations, refusing to accept ill-considered permanent demarcations, imaginatively combatting fantastical realizations, and unyieldingly embracing the cycle of birth, death and regeneration, Hushpuppy inaugurates an icon for the free-spirited impoverished soul, and Beasts of the Southern Wild is a discursive feast for pensive humanistic diagnoses.
Beyond the state of nature.