Difficult to know what path to follow as convergent multiplicities stabilize and fluctuate, the sure and steady at times withdrawn, the wild chaotic occasionally solid.
Friday, May 1, 2026
Office Space
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Zatoichi and the Fugitives
Lonely travels honourable service distinguished expertise impassive unbound, moderate spirits laidback luminosity chillaxed script amicable spawning.
Friday, July 18, 2025
A Tale of Summer
A trip to the beach a nice seaside locale enrichingly equipped with chillaxed amenities, the undulant waves and spirited climate effortlessly producing rhythmic sessions.
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Gypsy 83
Bucolic fashions habitually annoy Gypsy Vale as she randomly fluctuates, moving more style to quip to inspiration as concrete dissonance mundanely obscures.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Microcosmos
If seeking to find a source of enticing limitless variability, look no further than the world of insects, where diminutive dynamism thrives indelicately.
Friday, July 28, 2023
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
Struggling to get by, an ex-soldier's hardships rapidly increase (Anthony Ramos as Mr. Diaz), his younger brother in need of medical attention (Dean Scott Vazquez as Kris Diaz), his own application for work denied.
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
A King in New York
The freedom to think whatever remains universally appealing, assuming you aren't infringing upon the rights of others to freely work and actively play.
Friday, February 3, 2023
The Horse's Mouth
I imagine The Horse's Mouth has been inspiring cheek for generations, as it magnanimously schemes through stray ludicrous accord.
Friday, February 5, 2021
Holiday
Independent unsettled magnetic jocose daring finds itself spontaneously infatuated with amorous resolve.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
The Rhythm Section
He's familiar with her case and seeks to facilitate just closure, and at least has the means at his disposal to provide temporary soulful relief.
Coordinates and probabilities, nothing definitive, eager to learn, never having accepted the official account explaining what caused a fatal accident.
Soon her leads dry up though and she's back on the road researching further, eventually finding an ex-secret service agent, who still takes the time to work in the field.
He agrees to train her resolutely, her resolve quickly becoming an obsession, replete with fierce wherewithal, months later she's determined and ready.
She embarks naive yet feisty and soon takes on her first assignment.
Aware of possible limitations.
Seeking the truth regardless.
The Rhythm Section's quite primal, instinctual, reactive, brazen, there's little argument or variability, just raw unyielding focus.
It pulls you in with blunt alarm and keeps things rough and menaced, crazed and stressed, with striking backbeat discipline, it tenaciously accentuates.
But without the variability its plot's somewhat too thin, too reliant on what takes place considering not much happens.
When you see The Empire Strikes Back as a child you don't think that Luke is only trained by Yoda for a couple of days (is it even that long?) before he faces Vader.
But later you discover the Jedi were once educated from a very young age, for decades under the tutelage of masters, which would make Luke's emergence as a Jedi seem slightly absurd if he hadn't learned his profession under epic duress.
It's similar in The Rhythm Section inasmuch as there's too much improbability. It's a serious film so you're meant to take it seriously and the action's direct and grave so it doesn't promote generic misunderstanding.
At least for me.
I don't mean it would have been more probable if the lead had been a man. It just seems like anyone coming out of circumstances comparable to those The Rhythm Section's heroine finds herself within at the beginning, would have had quite the time suddenly transforming into an elite counterterrorist.
But whereas some films improve as you think about them after they've finished, The Rhythm Section seems more and more implausible, not that something similar couldn't have indeed taken place, but the odds of it actually happening are beyond me reasonable thresholds.
Of course good cinema excels as it takes you beyond such thresholds to present something different from typical life, but if it's meant to be persuasive, and goes out of its way to be grim and realistic, it becomes more difficult not to apply logic, the application of which doesn't aid The Rhythm Section (she fights someone who's breathing from a respirator?).
More characters and a more intricate script and it may have been more believable.
The novel's likely more gripping.
Others likely found it more appealing.
It's always a good idea to forge your own opinion.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Cats
Is there a difference?
That would be a fun essay to write (in detail).
I would argue that Cats sets out to romantically investigate life on a thriving fringe, within a talented artistic community, independently predisposed.
It's a wonderful idea.
It introduces a variety of vigorous individuals who have taken the time to melodiously compose themselves, in preparation for a carnivalesque soirée, abounding with life and perhaps reincarnation.
A wicked cat who jealously seeks to live again nefariously disrupts the proceedings with cruel and covetous intent.
The historical social interactions of the innovative neighbourhood are observed by a fascinated newcomer who's introduced after emerging astray.
The songs are sung very well, there's no denying the musical talent, the robust sincere efficacious concerned camaraderie erupting with ecstatic charm.
But they rarely stop, there isn't much intermittent dialogue, and I'm afraid they're somewhat abstruse, or lack helpful points of clarification.
It's not that you can't figure out what's going on or find yourself lost within a byzantine delirium, but if you're not familiar with the story beforehand, you may find it somewhat obscured in the opening numbers, which are rather wordy if not longwinded, and lack sturdy lucid foundations.
Even if they are cats.
But they are cats, and there are a bunch of cool animated felines singing and dancing with paramount glamour, so if you aren't worried about what's actually going on, you have recourse to the wild absurdity.
Even though it's just a bit garrulous, I still wondered if it was primarily made for children, because the cat expressions employed fall flat throughout, but may appeal to the more innocently minded, if they're seeing a musical for the very first time.
The constant close-ups too, which seem like they're trying to generate wonder, but often cause people to burst out laughing, don't worry, the same thing happens to me.
So the melodrama's there, Cats at least approaches serious subjects with a touch that's light of heart, and leaves room for scandal and intrigue as it proceeds with the best intentions.
But if it's meant to be taken seriously, and I can't really see that happening, even if it improves as Ian McKellen (Gus the Theatre Cat) begins to sing, and there's a wonderful break where's there's no singing at all, just dancing, it may not universally succeed, although my hypothesis could be way off.
Nevertheless, films that are meant to be taken seriously which create serious comic appeal can be transformed into cherished camp, if the audience is there and willing.
The audience whom I watched Cats with was overflowing with playful cheer.
Is it always that way with melodrama?
To tell you the truth, I'm far from certain.
But people get angry if you don't take what they're taking seriously sometimes.
A matter of perspective, I try to keep quiet.
Friday, September 6, 2019
The Peanut Butter Falcon
An iron clad tenacious second round deftly wrought greased up leviathan.
Another proceeds in error, thieving what could have been his, rather irritated by austere repercussions, well aware that he's truly at fault.
He responds with fury, as if he were legion and not mortal man, this time raging beyond heartfelt mercy, courageous reckless madness.
He has a good heart, he's just slightly insane, or at least doesn't recognize law, or authority, of any kind, unless it's done right by him.
He then saves a stranger from drowning, and they head out on the resplendent run, applying homegrown irate grassroots logic, heartwarmingly bidden, they build quite a raft.
Another proceeds in hot pursuit, unaware she's given herself away, do-gooding yet friendly and sympathetic, disillusioned by rules, expediency.
Does the wrestling school they seek still exist?, and is the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church) still there to train them?
They're sought after with sadistic scorn.
Which doesn't mean they can't fall in love.
The Peanut Butter Falcon flips the bird to prudence and regulations, and celebrates primordial will.
Self-righteous magnetism, as adamant as it is impulsive, organically orchestrates as it blindly flexes.
Tenderness and warmth await as compassion and understanding embrace agile elasticity, improvised reason contemplating with raw passionate substance, like wayward soulful jazz, harnessing modernist themes.
Paramount absurdity realistically toned in stereo, jukebox genesis ebullient bayou, madcap maestros unbound and breathless.
Luminescent unrestrained unrestricted dis/orientation, plunging to suffer quixotically, soaked in ir/reverent s(pl)urge.
Reemerging in familial consensus.
Ready for the great wild unknown.
Glad this wasn't made by Scorsese.
Why should forethought have all the fun?
Okay, one character applies forethought. He thinks he's locked down for life, and is therefore reasonably frustrated because he hasn't done anything wrong. The institution where he lives should have taken him out from time to time. A road trip or a day at the beach. Not just two or three rooms forever. That doesn't make any sense.
There's a cool fun sort of vibe within that you don't often see work so successfully.
Like an old school Larry Cohen film.
I think they had fun while they made Peanut Butter Falcon but still took everything seriously.
The feisty spirit of independence.
I highly recommend it.
Friday, July 6, 2018
Quand l'amour se creuse un trou (When Love Digs a Hole)
His reserved yet open-minded parents understand that teenagers like to experiment, but are still adamant that their boy should definitively finish high school.
Therefore, their family rents a home in the countryside where it is believed there will be less distractions, and Miron sits down with mom to soberly cast procrastination aside.
Things go well.
The plans seems to be working.
But little do mom and dad know that their son is cut from the purest romantic egalitarian inclusivity, and soon finds himself enamoured of their rebellious widowed neighbour next door.
Florence (France Castel/Emilie Carbonneau) is a daring freespirit who elastically makes ends meet, and while Miron's parents (Patrice Robitaille as David and Julie LeBreton as Thérèse) sympathize with such an approach, at the end of the day they're better acquainted with orderly inflexible routines.
They aren't ogres or anything, they're actually much cooler than many parental units depicted in romantic comedies, yet they still authoritarianly attempt to shut love the fuck down, which thoroughly annoys their son, who effortlessly finds it wherever he goes.
As a side effect, David's increasing strictness revitalizes his wife's latent passions, and their marriage is consequently saved.
Yet their son is much more resourceful than they think, and an idea is generated through pseudo-televisual leisure studies, which just might represent, the apotheosis of truest free love.
Excavated from the heart of despair.
It's been awhile since I've seen such a remarkable Québecois comedy, which outperforms its American counterparts with a scant fraction of their operating budgets.
No doubt because Excentris went under.
A well-written story vivaciously brought to life, cognizant of the ways in which utopian dreams must confront disengaging realities, yet illustrative of the ingenuity which enables them to variably thrive amongst different generations, Quand l'amour se creuse un trou (When Love Digs a Hole) beautifully celebrates love and living, from multiple philosophical perspectives argumentatively voiced and respected.
It ends with perfect timing.
It's important to strive for the utopian but you still have to live meanwhile.
The trick is to do so without becoming cynical, a mindset which dismally breeds decay, if it takes over one's unconscious.
Don't get me wrong, I think finishing high school (and university or college) is very important, especially when you're young and don't have to work all the time, and it does open up doors and lets you expand your mind with cool challenges that the real world rarely offers.
Quand l'amour se creuse un trou makes a stunning case for disorderly reckonings however, undoubtably mischievized after categorial rules were far too dismissively applied.
Digs in deep.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Indian Horse
A problem with taking religion too seriously, as noted by many others I'm sure, with institutionalizing it and using it to guide governmental policy, is that the people operating within such a bureaucracy don't think they derive their power from fallible mortal men and women, they believe it comes from an all-knowing supreme being, and if they think that they are correctly acting in the interests of a supreme being, that somehow they logically figured out what that being actually wants them to do, it's a completely different kind of managerial ego, because everything they do is sanctioned by perfection, and if their interpretation of his or her omnipotent designs is legally and politically considered to be nothing less than perfect, they tend to believe their actions are irrefutably just.
No matter how cruel.
The residential school presented in Indian Horse doesn't even teach the students real world skills like mathematics or logic, rather it focuses on meticulously studying the bible as if its compelling stories will help them learn how to become accountants or lawyers or doctors.
Thus, as multiple other sources have noted, many students didn't have the skills to find any job whatsoever after graduating, and since many of them had been systematically abused throughout their formative years, many fell into a dire cycle of drug addiction and alcoholism on the streets.
And were plagued afterwards by uninformed cultural stereotypes which developed.
It's not something you just shake off and forget about.
Indian Horse examines a colonized people doing their best to play with a deck stacked against them.
Racism ubiquitously assaults them as they boldly compete, as they regularly face daunting challenges.
One student is gifted athletically and seems poised to make a name for himself in the NHL (Sladen Peltier, Forrest Goodluck, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul).
But he faces internalized demons and mass cultural characterizations that turn the most thrilling time of his life into a harsh struggle.
He would have made a huge difference for any team that had signed him.
If the goal is to win hockey games, why does anything other than one's ability to help teams win matter?
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Red Sparrow
Emaciated modus operandi, secretively adjusted objectives, flirtatiously plummeting pirouettes, applauding emotionless utilitarianism.
Innate degeneracy opulently upholding volatile foundations meticulously irradiated.
Occupational hazards phantasmagorically posturing with the resigned duplicitous elegance of nouveau riche ostentation, spread so delicately thin that one's senses aspirationally swoon with treacherous wonder.
Dissimulated.
Prevaricated.
If you can figure out what lies beneath a question's seeming innocuous simplicity as it's delivered with clumsy sincerity by someone who has no respect for you, it's easy to lie and give them the answer they expect to hear, the poorly concealed sarcastic nuances of their tone having betrayed their vicious intentions, their misguided readymade conclusion (along with what they intend to do with it), and after providing the answer for which they search which is easy enough to detect, you'll hopefully never hear from them again, calico.
Red Sparrow.
Wherein incomparable poise is wounded then theoretically transformed into a solicitous unimaginative reflection exalting spirited disillusion, commandeered to effortlessly seduce while never questioning executive artifice.
She does seduce effortlessly and you wonder how an undercover operative could have let his guard down so obliviously, but it does save time in a film that's already considerably lengthy.
For good reason.
It patiently follows resourceful Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) from career ending catastrophe to harrowing rebirth, accentuating her helplessness piecemeal before considering an alternative only awkwardly presented hitherto, thus enabling multidimensional character development within the strictest confines.
Pigs at the trough beware, Egorova is comin' to get 'cha.
The Americans are generally presented as trustworthy agents while the Russians betray their government with cause, a comment on the price of bearing petty grudges, one disloyal American voraciously bisecting the cultural stereotypes.
Not as intricate as some spy films, but Lawrence's stark brutal portrayal of a coerced fledgling homegrown psychopath still brazenly holding on to her innocence, as accompanied by a feisty Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a reserved General Korchnoi (Jeremy Irons), and a fierce Matron (Charlotte Rampling), situated within a clever direct script whose subject matter is uncannily relevant if Icarus and Russia's other international relations woes are interwoven, still helps Red Sparrow stand out, the groundwork for an outstanding sequel having been provocatively laid.
Perfect February release.
Mind-bogglingly coincidental.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Blade Runner 2049
Circuitous momentous obedience bountifully propelling twisted archaic innate atypical hemorrhage.
Existential awakening argumentative dawn autosuggestive auspices communal cast iron cravings, clues, ambulatory optics, somnambulistic certainty, neigh, whisker.
Fragmentary vestiges ominously scattered cryptic pathfinder serpentinely excavating miracles, whippoorwills, potash.
Direly coaxed into a subconscious vortex transformative sensual belonging propagated harvested posterity.
Suckling within the protospatial womb.
A set plan, goals, preconditioned life programmed to pounce and prognosticate, virtual violations inorganic technotruths, aesthetic vibrations old school orchestrations architecturally hallowed within alternative sanctuary, every scene reigniting the ambivalent distraught investigative visceral momentum, symphonically sequestering emotional anomalies to imagine identity harmoniously hewn, institutionalized on the outskirts primordial emergent feeling, a home, a relationship, a father figure, integration, tacit knowledge extant and mobile, coveted like uncertifiable exception, music, production design, editing, cinematography, as vocal as dialogue, plot, or character.
The most beautiful dress I've ever seen.
Every sequence painstakingly sculpted to intangibly perspire life while inquisitively examining manufactured ontological biology by humanistically juxtaposing desperate and plutocratic being.
Without sharp contrast.
With minimal direct contact.
Non-existent environmental biodiversity morosely levels artistic conflict like a galaxy with no solar system or a workplace without feminine voice.
As fragile as cloistered brilliance she cultivates eternities crafting memories as wondrous as the Saguenay for the fortunate to joyfully consider.
Respectful of its origins while dynamically creating divergent vision, Blade Runner 2049 is on par with Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of revelation, in this case that of Denis Villeneuve's genius, which successfully synthesizes so many gifted subjects.
Harrison Ford's (Deckard) so real.
Ryan Gosling ('K') too.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Baby Driver
Mad skills.
Variably exercised.
Character driven.
Edgar Wright's Baby Driver's hilariously character driven, with Ansel Elgort (Baby), Lily James (Debora), Bats (Jamie Foxx), Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza González), Joseph (CJ Jones), Griff (Jon Bernthal), and Doc (Kevin Spacey) each chauffeuring full-throttle eccentricities that make said characters their own.
The well-thought-out creatively choreographed romantically comedic yet harrowingly hardboiled script (Wright) supplies them with ample maneuverability.
In fact I'd argue this is Wright's best film.
There are two notable oppositions within that reflect different intellectual styles.
Baby and Doc's youthful and aged conversations provide the film with an executive frame as they reticently interact, Doc's nephew Samm (Brogan Hall) brilliantly expanding one of their sequences, while Bats and Buddy concurrently represent clever tenacious earnest hard work, as they durably discuss various subjects between jobs.
Nice to see Jamie Foxx rockin' it again.
Doc heartbreakingly embraces romance in the end, risking everything to aid young Baby and Debora as they wildly set off to matriculate on the run.
I've been focusing on the criminal nature of the film but it's also a warmblooded romance.
Baby owes Doc a large sum of money that he's been slowly paying off for some time.
He meets Debora at the diner where his deceased mom used to work and they hit it off, young adult love at its most endearing, hesitantly tender and shyly enthusiastic.
Since he engages in illicit activities quite frequently, however, the nogoodniks eventually terrorize their sanctuary, especially after they craft plans to escape, which unconsciously precipitate embroiled maturations.
Excellent film that's patiently yet boisterously detailed, the dedicated caregiving, the musical artistry, the Mike Myers gag, the paradoxical sense of coerced altruism, the relaxed quiet dignity, the wanton perplexed angst.
Realistic reverberations.
Sweet sweet summertime.
Breezy.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Logan
Rather than cultivating an inclusive public sphere wherein which difference is free to flourish, that difference has been isolated and weaponized by monstrous geneticists intent on rearing invincible super soldiers to achieve militaristic objectives.
But these gifted children fight back, escape, avoid capture, one of them eventually finding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) who have been living off the grid in severe destitution.
She's (Dafne Keen as Laura) hunted of course, intense battles erupting everywhere she goes, the death count extremely high as the trio travels from Mexico to North Dakota in search of a secretive promised land.
And a family.
There's a very tender scene where they all sit down to dinner on a farm and warmly discuss different topics, a rare moment in superhero films that briefly and humbly exemplifies everything they've been fighting for.
They're reminded shortly thereafter that for some insane reason their idle happiness enrages conformist obscurities.
Suffocatingly.
Patrick Stewart delivers a remarkable performance.
He often has a leadership role that doesn't display much vulnerability, but in Logan he's quite helpless and therefore given the opportunity to heartbreakingly act beyond the borders his characters often rivetingly apply themselves within.
An outstanding supporting role.
Logan's like no other X-Men film.
It's much more stylistically concerned with the human factor than special effects or introducing a wild array of compelling new characters.
Identity, community, belonging, loneliness, rage, and bigotry still drive the narrative, but they're examined less explosively, with more realistically tender tenacity (when the fighting stops), as if X-Men films truly are applicable to global sociopolitical debates, debates within which their characters dynamically distinguish themselves.
A fitting salute to Hugh Jackman who has thankfully been bringing Wolverine to life for the past 17 years.
So many irresistible moments.
Only the death of Captain James T. Kirk effected me similarly.
Who knows, maybe huge assholes with tons of power will stop militaristically expressing themselves while crushing other people who aren't like them some day.
That kind of bullshit doesn't seem to fly in the EU much thankfully.
Currently.
Difference really is a wonderful thing.
When it thrives, the scientific, artistic, and religious benefits are extraordinary.
It's why we have cars, electricity.
The internet.
Refrigerators.
If the people who invented or discovered these things had been callously excluded and beaten down throughout their lives we'd still be living in the dark ages.
And those assholes would still be in charge.
Nurturing contempt.
Ruling with imperialist ambitions.
Recklessly waging war.
To satisfy capricious whims.
Friday, December 23, 2016
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
They're incredibly fun to watch even if they're not that great (I loved Rogue One), and, instead of waiting 2 or 3 more years to pull-in a gazillion dollars, you can confidently expect to make such an amount every freakin' year, sums that can efficiently facilitate all kinds of alternative endeavours, perhaps jumpstarting artistic revolts thereby.
Independent sci-fi, independent sci-fi!
Now's the time.
I always imagined that the rebels employed the utmost stealth when stealing the Death Star's secret blueprints, and although that isn't the case in Rogue One, the resultant space and land Jediesque battle does manage to rebelliously compensate.
They're not a rag tag bunch, these rogues, these freedom fighters, more of an eclectic cast of wild yet willing individuals collectively assembled to see what can be accomplished.
I thought Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones/Beau Gadsdon/Dolly Gadsdon), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), K-2S0 (Alan Tudyk), and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) were some of the coolest Star Wars characters I've seen, Malbus redefining the force through sheer devotion, Gerrera exemplifying a less peppy aspect of the oft rather perky rebel alliance, K-2S0 is actually funny (outstanding), Andor makes a gripping speech about his commitment to the rebellion, and Jyn slowly yet boldly steps up and strides.
Have these characters been typecast to fit the Star Wars B realm because they have more personality than those brought to life in The Force Awakens?
I bet they could still be managers in California.
Since Rogue One's outcome is already known to all, discussing its internal dynamics seems fitting, dynamics which generally impressed, the Disneyesque opening moments (Jyn's sort of like Bambi) setting the familial stage, the heart wrenching space drama, the assembling of the crew strikingly youthful in its mouthy composure, so many familiar sights from A New Hope (even Dr. Cornelius Evazan and Ponda Baba[I'm still looking for my Walrusman figure]) perhaps endearingly distracting me, tragedy, brilliance, escape, tragedy, brilliance, escape, battle, it's cheesy at points but I thought the good far far outawayed the bad to create the best Star Wars film since Jedi, please never alter the music in one of these films again, or do so in a way that isn't so mediocre.
One point of interest: in a New Hope, Vader critiques General Motti, stating, "don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force." If Motti constructed the Death Star, why was he left out of Rogue One?
Also, Grand Moff Tarkin isn't so aggressive in A New Hope. His computer animated replacement isn't quite as withdrawn yet commanding.
'Tis true.
Forest Whitaker delivers one of the best if not the best performance/s I've seen in a Star Wars film.
Some day, I'd like to know how many extra millions this film makes because they gave it the more search engine friendly title add-on, A Star Wars Story.
Just Rogue One is clearly the better title.
I'm betting they make an extra 237 million.
Friday, November 4, 2016
American Honey
Films like this don't come around often.
Devices you'd find in so many just sort of there for the partaking, not concerned with generating a thought or emotion, more like evocative immediacy living day to day, explosive yet stoic, every 24 hour cycle rewriting codes in kinetic cuneiformed western wrestlin' peach, exotic mundane snuggly fitting docs, the natural world in ribbitting gentle whiles firebright.
I love what Shia LaBeouf(Jake) has done with his career.
Sasha Lane(Star) also impresses.
With poetic fever in erratic fathoms, American Honey plucks and pulsates like unpasteurized raw ambrosia, precepts, dusk till dawn.
Moonshine.
Self-perpetuating brisk momentum.
Quintessential cultural fuel.
Favourite film of 2016 so far.
Another gritty romance.