The Man from Earth

A well-liked professor announces he's leaving to his disappointed and confused thoughtful colleagues, the sudden nature of the shocking departure ruffling an inquisitive feather or two.

He tries to swiftly hit the road but they manage to convince him to stay for a party, which he begrudgingly agrees to attend without much enthusiastic pomp and ceremony.

Some people just don't like farewell gatherings and aren't habitually attuned to free-flowing emotion, but in this case it has more to do with the solemn fact that he's immortal.

His friends are naturally curious about why he's leaving and where he intends to go, and he awkwardly avoids their questions before simply telling it like it is.

Being of intellectual dispositions they're instinctually prone to doubt such claims, and proceed to effortlessly introduce highly spirited qualms and refutations. 

He's quite an agreeable chap though and is able to congenially hold his own, slowly but surely breaking down barriers intuitively contradicting his eccentric bearing. 

Dating back over 140,000 years he has clever things to say about so many different things.

Even if he needs to leave when people notice he doesn't age.

Having immersed himself in so many epochs. 

With people so formerly aggressive and much more covetous of their feudal neighbours, living for 140,000 years seems like it would have blended impossible odds with infinite distress.

To avoid so many roll calls to consistently keep head attached to neck, while learning so many languages and variable customs throughout the millennia. 

I imagine you could move to different cities and creatively remain for a century or two, and fluidly observe the dynamic ebb and flow with crafty relatable multivariability. 

It would have been cool before colonialism to have travelled to North South America and Australia, and live there for thousands of years you'd possess so much indigenous wisdom. 

The Man from Earth's a lot of fun with a cool cast of characters from old school pop culture (Tony Todd, David Lee Smith, John Billingsley, Ellen Crawford, Annika Peterson, William Katt, Alexis Thorpe, Richard Riehle), demonstrating their chops with reliable industry in a cool chillin' script straight out of Star Trek's finest.

I don't deny the possibility that such immortals may live among us.

You'd have to wonder if they ever get bored.

So much to do.

So little time! 

Infinite

If the world was a computer program and the lifeforms within it unique entities, reincarnation could be the gradual transformation of an independent electronic dynamism.

It could have been created and serendipitously set to holistically mutate as the centuries pass, taking on strikingly different characteristics as it slowly changes throughout the millennia.

It would be somewhat loquaciously like the mischievous transmutations found within poetry, the anomalous forms and shape-shifting algorithms inherently celebrating multivariable verse.

Thus perhaps after the generation of the world and the patient acclimatization of the various species, an intense supercode was created like an infinite phantasmagorical fulcrum. 

Somewhat like alchemy perhaps like the living embodiment of the philosopher's stone, not granting immortality to specific individuals but eternally guaranteeing constituent existence. 

It would be interesting to see what's happening in cyberspace to see if a world is in fact being created, or if the A.I programs situated within technonaturally observe their surroundings organically.

That is, when placed within a mathematical code does consciousness automatically assume an environment, within which it consistently interacts with other cyberlifeforms situated within (as theorized by many others)?

My mind strays to STNG's Moriarty and the clever episodes relatedly constructed.

But if I remember correctly he encountered Being and Nothingness.

Not a consistent ecological reliability.

In Infinite, reincarnation exists and reincarnated people are aware of their former lives, those who only remember slight bits and pieces diagnosed with schizophrenia at the onset of puberty.

The story follows one such individual as he's taught about his incredible lives, and his immortal friends try to expand his consciousness to make every moment eternally contemporary. 

There are two groups of immortals however and one seeks the destruction of Earth.

Tired of being born again and again throughout the centuries.

They seek to shut down the program.

It's a cool film, I liked the idea and it's good to destigmatize mental illness, I thought it was a creative way to link the two phenomenon in a progressive 21st century synthesis.

I find there are a lot of fantasy films being made this postmodern day.

But many of them are in such a hurry to explain things.

That some of the build-up and tension is lost.

For instance, in the first Terminator film I was totally immersed and fluidly infatuated, longing to find out more information, overwhelmed when Kyle Reese met Sarah Connor. 

There's a lot of cool adventure films these days.

You don't have to rush it, take your time, your audience loves it.

So much is given away at the outset.

It's okay to smoothly craft and build.

*They actually don't rush it in Infinite, well, we find out the details of the dialectic pretty soon after it starts, but McCauley's consciousness doesn't return until much later.

Orlando

What one gains to live forever without aging amongst the royals, while perennially persisting in novel light of heart heuristics. 

Through non-determinate trail and error Orlando (Tilda Swinton) learns of love and politics, like a youngster dabbling in frisk and fancy with everlasting inhibition. 

Not that everyone's at play the social lab invokes decorum, but as time passes new tasks emerge mischievously befitting a young immortal.

Orlando the film generates true innocence ironically immersed in frayed executive, eager to dally forlorn forever while at times taking part commissioned commanding.

The typical tropes you find in narratives concerned with living forever can't be found, as Orlando frolics through the centuries with jocose beam and slight expenditure.

Thus, concerns with true romance and personal loss don't fit within, not that there aren't moments of genuine displeasure along with strong desires fawned unrequited.

Perhaps it's supposed to be much more serious I'm afraid I just can't view it that way, Swinton's simply just too adorable and seems at home at rest at play.

I've had this problem with les adorables who as a metaphysical rule loathe as I admire, thus I've had to abandon the practise altogether in terms of circumspect affection.

It was the same way with pets when I was a kid, I would try to hug them and they'd bite me.

Relationships must be easy since so many people have them.

It'd be nice to have more money.

But other people have the worst taste in everything! 😜

It's cool to see Orlando isn't fraught with studious indelicacy, and her immortality isn't feared or hated as she travels throughout the centuries. 

Why she doesn't travel to the northern forests of Canada and Québec to make a home remains a mystery, she could have watched the wildlife for 100 years and still have spent another 1,000 shopping.

But she loves her gloomy homeland with all its rain and absent bears, are there any major forests left in Britain?, I heard they recently brought back beavers.

A cool companion piece for Highlander, Orlando proceeds with judicious humour, like an earnest library patron who spends their life enjoying stories.

S/he's living them however which does seem like quite the nuisance.

Role playing, expectations.

Disproportionately fashionable.

Highlander II: The Quickening

The ozone layer all but disappears and the sun's rays punish those still living, until the Highlander known as MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) constructs a massive shield to offer protection.

Years later he's robustly agéd and quietly withdrawn from the engaged life, immortality having faded away after he emerged victorious in instalment one.

He has the choice to peacefully pass or return in triumph to his home world, and since he's grown fond of his new home, he has no desire to solemnly depart.

But back on planet Zeist, the bitter general who once had him banished (Michael Ironside as Gen. Katana), fears his agile reemergence and sends his minions to ensure fatality. 

Meanwhile, the necessity of the shield has been called into commercial question, since environmentalists believe the 'zone has regenerated but still lack evidence to prove their theory.

The entire planet is indeed a customer of the corporation who owns the shield, and if it was proven to be non-essential the most lucrative business ever would swiftly fade.

The minions arrive and quickly find MacLeod and waste no time waiting for the perfect moment, but he resoundingly responds in style thereby regaining his cherished youth.

Having met the leader of the environmentalists (Virginia Madsen as Louise) he must now ethically decide, if he's to investigate their audacious claims with the help of age old friends such as Ramírez (Sean Connery).

But soon Katana arrives in full-on monumental fury.

Dire reckless chaotic reckoning.

Bizarre changes impenitent brood.

There's still a lighthearted touch to the imposing abyss presented in Highlander II: The Quickening, as attempts to seem serious are undercut by mischievous mayhem and lithe longevity.

The return of Ramírez is cheerfully welcome even if the rationale is somewhat ludicrous, and calls into question much of the first film's action, without justifying MacLeod's amnesia.

I suppose the animate sequel strives to diversify the original's plot, but sometimes initial features shouldn't be reimagined or incongruently altered.

The comic touch and Connery's unconcern challenge this point of view with certainty, but not with enough striking substance to leave one feeling unconditionally moved.

The original Highlander's such a cool film I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

The Quickening offers further salient material.

Without the original's thought provoking plausibility. 

*That's my last review from the deep pandemic.

Zardoz

Imagine COVID-19 as reflective of desires to keep demographics stratified, with no intermingling amongst different collectives, even though at the moment isolation is paramount.

The title sounded cool and it stars Sean Connery.

I imagine John Boorman didn't like ivory towers much.

Or the politics of the left in the early '70s.

Zardoz expresses such sentiments anyways with blunt instinctual derision.

It's absurd menacing political satire.

Confrontationally conceived.

In a hypothetical future, the elite have sealed themselves off within an impenetrable exclusive zone, where they live immortal lives of plenty, or at least with everything they need.

Outer regions know only chaos in maddening woebegone conflict.

The immortals have struggled to achieve enlightenment and have compiled vast repertoires of scientific knowledge, but some of them have grown restless, bored, tired of the limits of infinite perfection.

Fortunately for them, an enforcer stows away on the giant head that travels between realms, hiding beneath the grain, intent on acquiring wisdom (Sean Connery as Zed).

He introduces a unique element.

Curious carnal contrariety.

The immortals have cast off emotion you see, and live within stoic reasonable boundaries, with no children or families or nurturing, just rarefied rational discourse.

Subversive intentions plaque somnambulistic.

Those in control have qualified everything.

Gross exaggeration pervades the rigid Zardoz, but I still wonder how it was received at the time? I've certainly never heard anyone discuss it and don't recall it ever showing up in rerun.

I imagine it was cutting edge sci-fi for the '70s, at least some of the visuals are quite impressive, not the giant head itself so scandalous, but there are noteworthy technical features.

I still wonder if it was meant to be taken seriously, on some level I don't quite comprehend, but so much of it seems like solemn farce, like barbarians inside the gates.

But what seemed like solemn farce in recent memory is trying to transform reasonable debate these days, and what used to seem absurd is taken seriously, the public sphere in free-fall flux.

If people are currently worried that desires to function self-sufficiently are threatening the proliferation of the nuclear family, perhaps they were in the '70s (and long before then) as well, although I remain to be sure uncertain, even if I'm leaning towards "they definitely were".

A future where people suddenly want to stop breeding, generally, no matter what ideology predominates, seems highly unlikely to me, however.

There's just too much comfort in relaxed recreation.

With agency attached to the conjugally bold.

Nice that the opportunity to not have a family exists though, medieval pressures must have been stifling.

Can't say I recommend Zardoz.

Although it's certainly out of this world.

Doctor Strange

Mind and body.

Interrelations.

Descartes aside, the only real indication that my body has a source code independent of my mind is apparent every time I arrive home and have to use the washroom. I can be out for a while successfully holding back with mind over matter but once my body detects an outlet in close proximity it vehemently takes control of my upcoming accelerated actions.

With sharp immediacy.

And irrepressible distinction.

Turning this peculiar relationship into something spellbinding, into something interdimensional, requires a unique set of skills begrudgingly acquired by one Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), which is more than just a rushed formulaic addition to the Marvel armada, don't get me wrong, I love the formula, it's a fun film to watch but doesn't measure up to Captain America: Civil War (with another 45 minutes it may have [Strange's conversion and training passes by too quickly and the intriguing practical applications of the supernatural are pinned-down by the action {too much brawn, not enough brain}]), it's also a metaphorical guide to the spiritual benefits of rigorously studying a subject or subjects that inspire you, whether they be sporting, artistic, scientific, or rhetorical, game tapes, books, experiments or debates imaginatively generating alternative realities for the eager student/teacher/coach/professional from which they can create agile plays, literary allegories, locked-down lightning strikes, or stunning arguments, synthetically, analytically, fictionally, environmentally, as do the Ancient One's (Tilda Swinton) pupils in Doctor Strange, with intergalactic active primrose.

The film metaimaginatively converses with technology to reflect upon spirit and multidimensionally interpose.

Macrodiscourses of empire and conquest having been thoroughly exhausted and replaced by micropastures of cerebral cyberspatialities, real world style, it seems that these are strange times indeed, which Marvel has entertainingly narrativized ad stock.

With the old school tradition of universal conquest still worked in.

Making millions off an American Honey style blockbuster.

That would be, philosophically humungous.

21st century style.

Loved the library.

*No Big Bang Theory cameos?

Time Raiders

Infinitesimal odds adventurously bewitching, organic intemperate millennial immortality, slumbering throughout the ages in vengeful spurned insurgence, miraculously discovered at the moment of apocalyptic reckoning.

Environmental excavations.

Tomb raiding turbulence.

Historical extravagance.

Heuristically empirical.

Daniel Lee's Time Raiders proceeds Indiana Jonesingly to chromatically synthesize psychological dualities.

A terrestrial imagination is thereby crystallized to inadvertently advocate for biological diversity.

Immortality woebegone.

Botanical ingenuity having been overshadowed by industrial revolutions, a reminder of its potency, its majesty, counterstrikes within.

Even as discourses of the übermensch multilaterally disseminate, the environmental factor still symbiotically materializes.

Ecosystems in peril.

A gross antithetical imbalance.

The film's logic blockbusterly imposes ridiculous action and dialogue.

More rich in metaphor than script and execution, Time Raiders struggles to rationalize while allegorically exceeding.

Self/less

The prospects of immortality, rearrange and shift, mutate, transform, galavanting through the epochs with illuminated historical flexibility, observing, unnerving, acting, forlorn fountainheads cartesian factotums, watching from the sidelines, taking direct roles, zigzagging away through the here and now like mesmerized counteracting resonance, a comment, a plan, an insight, a lyric, a strategy.

The choice is Damian's (Ben Kingsley/Ryan Reynolds).

Repercussions be damned.

Or not, as it soon becomes clear that the body he's purchased wasn't grown in a lab but was once inhabited by another whose consciousness still resides within, regular doses of potent pharmaceuticals required to maintain control, limitless ethics, the conscience of consciousness.

He was an extremely successful businessperson during his first life, erudite and invincible, this aspect giving him an advantage as he begins to unravel the crime, while highlighting the importance of retirement to give the next generation a shot.

He slowly comes to understand this, that he's already come into existence, that new ideas and fresh perspectives invigorate evolution, as his new body persists, still thrives with the ecstasy of youth.

A decision must be made.

A balance must be spiritualized.

Tarsem Singh's Self/less works as a thrilling contemplative digestible crucial reflexion.

Perhaps Ben Kingsley shouldn't retire (any actor looking to star in science-fiction or superhero films should study Kingsley's performance in Self/less).

Age versus youth, activism contra avarice, death circling everlasting life, the theatrics of a dream, the investment of a lifetime.

Agile mainstream science-fiction makes you think while plausibly delivering a steady stream of action.

Self/less embodies these synapses.

A touching examination of transformations within transmutations, it investigates the moral, to powerfully project and diversify.

Note: I'm still quite young.

*I like this Tarsem Singh. He also directed Mirror Mirror. I liked The Cell too when I saw it in 2000.

The Age of Adaline

Coyly acquiescing to time passing, chronicling cultural rhapsodies like timid mellow echoes, epochs merging and diverging like predetermined burgeoned whiplash, photo luminescent filaments, spurned inchoate cracks, immortality strikes in The Age of Adaline, and with it comes frayed responsibilities, the importance of remaining impersonal, hesitant refusals to love.

Aloof highlander.

She can't get close, watch while others develop, like physically disinclined incandescence, engaged in lifelong learning, observant, patient, withdrawn.

But a suitor emerges who will not yield, and temptation entices her dormant romantic desires.

Euphoria exfoliates before fate steps in, a cosmic interpersonal strike, socializing sequestered surveillances, interdisciplinary constructs, radiance mesmerized in bloom.

Like father like son.

Maddening immersed fraternities.

A beautiful film, saliently capturing the awestruck, the in/visible, historically intensifying inflamed conjugal passions, a universal library, modesty in timeless curation.

I thought it was odd that the FBI eventually stopped searching for Adaline (Blake Lively), because it would have been so easy to find her by following her daughter, although, in hindsight, continuing with that plot thread would have added an irritating sense of oppression, whose lingering aftershocks haunt the film regardless, as it wisely focuses on romance, delicately arranging an iridescent jaunty bouquet, from securely self-imposed isolation.

Distant, tragic, torn.

Good decision.

Snow White and the Huntsman

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if she was born to lead.

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

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

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

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

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

It just doesn't make sense.

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

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

However forbidden.