Lost in Yonkers

Intelligence, when examined multifacetedly, has many industrious tributaries, whether it's the hands-on practical methods of labour and commerce, or the idle imaginative nature of academia. 

Not that reading isn't hands-on or labour prone to distraction and daydreaming, the multilayered convulsive vortex producing versatile compelling symmetries. 

Standardized tests can delineate efficiencies for specific subjects categorically determined, and if successful with these tests administrative accolades invariably accrue.

Social skills at the same time often aren't tested with authoritative skill, but cultural knowledge brought to vivid life securely allows one to snuggly fit in.

Fitting in can be rigidly frowned upon and categorically dismissed as routine flimflam, just as abstract knowledge may seem rather useless by the utilitarianly inclined.

People often specialize in something and know that subject very well, if you're to ask them a question about it they'll no doubt respond with relevant discourse. 

Do they lack intelligence because they aren't gifted in multiple domains?, I would argue they do not, since their subject of expertise demonstrates erudition. 

Getting along with people, co-existing, should be more highly valued, as a sign of communal functionality that encourages peace and tranquil living. 

Working the eccentric into such a framework along with novel peculiarities less disposed to small talk, is a gifted skill of its collective own readily displaying incumbent sympathy.

In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace bluntly examines intellectual styles, and without the most diplomatic language, brilliantly arrives at working-solutions.

He points out that most people aren't nearly as intelligent as they think they are and that fools often make incisive observations, while grotesquely filling his multidisciplinary pages with people self-destructively obsessed with over-achievement. 

I always thought it was irritating to focus on subjects I knew little about, and had no interest in thoroughly studying, to show-off my learning with people I didn't like because that was what they expected. 

I thought most people had strengths and weaknesses and respecting their strengths was a sign of culture.

Help them work on their weaknesses in school.

Let their strengths shine at work and play.

All the Little Animals

The loss of a loved one lugubriously leads to a new set of rigid familial schematics, and whereas his mother was kind and generous, Bobby's intimidating step-father's acrimonious.

He hurt his head as a child and grew up differently thereinafter, homeschooled in isolation yet still loving and chill and fond.

Not very worldly indeed and wholeheartedly despairing of mature procedures, with hardly any of the requisite knowledge temperamentally toned through objective realism.

His step-father wants his share of the business and all he really knows is not to sign anything, dear old dad threatening a secluded lifetime in a mental institution if he doesn't play ball.

He makes an awkward break for it and soon finds himself hitchhiking across the country, with Cornwall as his destination without any money or clothes or friends.

Yet fate lends a gentle hand after he escapes a life-threatening situation, and meets an eccentric lonesome wanderer who delicately spends his free time administering.

Not a business or office or government but the deceased animals found throughout the countryside.

Whom he gingerly finds and buries.

As he comes across them in his travels. 

Logic and reason and management and consequence take on alternative hues in All the Little Animals, where the most unlikely of protagonists exceedingly champion magnanimous essentials.

There's no doubt that life in all its forms deserves to flourish for the time it's given, but it's not that often you discover the cinema courageously celebrating badgers and moths.

It's not a children's film although they may find it quite endearing, it resolutely adores all animal life and was even made in animal-hating Britain.

I'm even trying not to step on the shoots enthusiastically sprouting from the ground at the moment, hoping not to prevent the dynamic emergence of blooming nimble evergreen plant life.

Inasmuch as I've never seen anything like All the Little Animals before, I have to admit to remaining spellbound regarding its altruistic import.

It's like David Suzuki or David Attenborough asked one of their grandchildren to write a movie.

And somehow it actually got commercially made.

With a stellar cast.

Love for books and animals. 

*I mean to say that it's incredible that this film was made and it would be great if there were more films like it.

**There must be many British people who like animals, all I know is bears went extinct there thousands of years ago (according to Google and a Bears book I read years ago). 

***Islands. 

The Elephant Man

A gentle soul, curious and thoughtful, is habitually tormented by another, who obscenely profits from his misery and spends next to nothing on his care or comfort.

The individual in question suffers from severe deformities which make him appear extraordinary, people wishing to marvel at his stunning difference and willing to pay for the chance to do so.

No one asks him for his opinion regarding his tragic state of affairs, he isn't consulted his steadfast approval is disregarded, ignored, disdained.

No one talks to him either in fact he's left voiceless and caged and isolated, confronting violence should he humbly protest his scathing chains and caustic fetters.

Fortunately, a kind and sympathetic promising young doctor learns of his struggles, and goes about freeing him from the carnival while searching for a permanent place of residence.

Mr. Merrick is then given the opportunity to calmly express himself and converse, his discussions and observations inquisitively demonstrating tender caring playful cognizance. 

For the first time in his life he's treated with respect and he wholesomely responds with innocent wonder.

As those seeking to exploit him discover his whereabouts.

And set about wildly profiteering. 

A young gifted director with one film to his credit was lovingly tasked with crafting The Elephant Man, David Lynch responding with incisive imagination which still resonates this postmodern day.

The just and the wicked frequently colliding in his chaotic campy down-home daring dramas, we find scenes scenarios that stretch throughout his work in their sophomore distillations in this film.

Is Dr. Frederick Treves who seeks to take away John Merrick's pain and let him live in mindful society, not unlike Special Agent Dale Cooper who genuinely cares for the residents of Twin Peaks?

Is the wretched slave-driver Bytes who makes his living spreading death and decay, harbingers of Frank Booth and Dick Laurent the Baron Harkonnen or the Killer Bob?

The dreamlike fascination with surreal storytelling far beyond what the scene depicts, amorphously anchors our innate curiosity as this early outing creatively transmits.

A good place to start if seeking to learn much much more about David Lynch the filmmaker, while sincerely taking requisite note that the path you're on will get much rockier.

At home with artistically embracing noble and unsettling offbeat emotions.

He spent his life contemplating holistic humanism.

In a bona fide theatre of debutant dreams. 

Maelström

Conflicting emotions morosely problematize picturesque drab conducive momentum, difficult decisions unconscious mourning requisite paramount agile time off.

Through unfortunate circumstance trouble cruelly abounds with the mobile lucrative family business, cascading crucibles Klingon clutches awkwardly aided by a hit and run.

Classic down and out comic lugubrity staggeringly keen to romanticize coincidence, the stars aligned postmodern im/permanence gritty irritable cosmic practicality.

Constant motion demonstrative clarity intuitively reacting to frustrating stimuli, her (Marie-Josée Croze as Bibiane Champagne) family renowned the pressure abrasive outputs enduringly vague inconclusive.

Why all the hassle for simply engaging with piquant particulars precipitous life, the haunting austere adamant duties discernibly daunting lighthearted lackadaisics?

If only taking time off was much simpler a sudden sojourn a querulous jaunt, some place remote perhaps unfamiliar fortuitous fashions restorative calm. 

Not in the cards in this instance as the habitual play grinds dolorous doldrums, although the free sharing of genuine grief begets newfound friendship and lithe l’amour.

A grizzled sizzling disparaging humour harrowingly harks with dissonant certitude, narrated by a fish who keeps losing his head, like your belch tastes like sardines and lime whiskey.

As if the consistent clash of disparate ethics unconsciously produces animate haze, within which peeps must continuously make decisions based upon theories, pragmatism, and expediency.

Within this inherently confusing pinball polemic reason resides, each situation convolutedly clarified through recourse to multivariable mayhem.

The confident decision made can lead to enigmatic trust, any hesitation and everything’s lost even if negatives shake things up.

Social media takes this potentiality to panopticonic levels, like a byzantine web a’ squelched and sticky wherein which myriad strata interconnect.

The clear and rational diagnosis can’t be relied upon to be popular, unless of course it’s fashionable for a monuments brief intersection.

There seems to be less convivial reliance on the sustainability of the collective, as divisive narratives creatively collude to exalt absolute rights.

But Ukraine’s standing tall and fighting off the Russian army.

Wish I could develop a clearer picture.

But then there'd be no maelström.

Crocodile Dundee II

Back at it.

Livin' the cosmopolitan crescendo with carefree commitment and resonant calm, his bucolic mannerisms and coy misunderstandings an immersive backwoods buoyant imbroglio (Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee). 

His wife continues reporting interrogatively investigating fiction and fact (Linda Kozlowski as Sue Charlton), while enjoying the comforts of bold unpredictable youthful regenerative domesticity. 

But she was married once before and her daring ex-husband has taken perilous photographs (Dennis Boutsikaris as Bob Tanner), of a blunt unforgiving cacophonous execution overflowing with diabolical intrigue. 

He fears for his life and sends her the photos but their destination is soon intercepted, the ne'er-do-wells following them to bustling New York where they engage in flagrant kidnapping.

Crocodile soon learns of his wife's disappearance and comes up with a plan to facilitate rescue, enlisting the aid of a local network of free-wheeling chillaxed non-traditional peeps.

Their unorthodox plan is indeed a success but Dundee doesn't trust the witness relocation program.

And heads with his wife to the hospitable outback.

To range and rustle secluded down under.

A delicate blend of the grim and the gossamer mischievously materializes at ease within the film, as a lighthearted spirit prone to adventurous reckoning reconciles wisdom with resolute tact.

Indigenous knowledge inviolable custom effortlessly guides his freeform endeavours, nature encyclopedically grasped and authenticated through active study and lively application.

The script's logic may perhaps raise questions regarding the plausibility of a detail here and there, the kidnappers pursuit perhaps rather foolhardy considering their destination and incomprehension.

It isn't really that concerned with probability or likelihood however, just that you love the rugged Crocodile as he interacts and explores in different environs.

He is a fascinating character and well-worth checking out if you're unfamiliar. His films were incredibly popular in my youth and I still love watching them to this day.

Traditional gender roles are even creatively deconstructed as Mick discovers urban flexibility, and adapts to the equanimous rhythms of multifaceted abstract economies. 

There's remarkable bush in the wilds of Québec and Canada as well, but I don't recall ever seeing a rural/urban divide ever examined so respectfully in a homegrown film.

Lots of potential there anyways.

Building bridges.

Can't wait to see more of Québec. 

With Charles S. Dutton (Leroy Brown), Kenneth Welsh (Brannigan), Stephen Root (DEA Agent), John Meillon (Walter Reilly), Steve Rackman (Donk), Gerry Skilton (Nugget), and Maggie Blinco (Ida). 

Legend

A maiden heads out, in search of her trusted love interest, who lives alone in the forest, anxiously awaiting her return.

They nimbly frolic and amorously explore the nature of his verdant domain, so caught up with love's magnanimity, that he decides to share a secret.

For he knows the location of unicorns whom she is eager to graciously meet, yet such knowledge is strictly forbidden to those who have not grown up in the woods.

Little do they know they've been followed by dastardly goblins seeking malice, who've been tasked to take out the unicorns for an envious Lord of Darkness.

Unicorns maintain metaphysical splendour within their lighthearted realm, their habitual laughter and innate innocence required to nurture time itself.

A forbidden act having been facilitated, a glorious unicorn falls, the other captured and brought back to answer for cherished wondrous humanistic enlightenment.

Along with the crestfallen maiden.

But her suitor is suddenly entrusted with mythical elven aid, after time stops and winter descends, and they realize they need a champion. 

So it's off to the fiery depths to save the universe from eternal darkness.

Guided by valour and instinct.

And perhaps, the power of Christmas.

Not technically a Christmas film, although unicorns no doubt emit the wisdom of Christmas, and have for munificent millennia, through the enchanting art of mysticism.

Their narwhal kin perhaps act as go-betweens with Santa as he makes toys far off at the North Pole, their scintillating seafaring network rich with endemic interactive fluencies.

Perhaps every creature found on Earth is part of this biodiverse switchboard, Santa and unicorns coordinating initiatives throughout the embowered globe.

For some reason I never saw Legend while still a wee ginger lad, plus I also missed Labyrinth and Dragonslayer until reaching the age of adulthood.

Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoy watching old school fantasy that isn't reliant on technical know how, when they still built sets from the ground up, and creative costumes generated adventure.

It'd be cool to see a contemporary filmmaker make a new fantasy film with muppets and physical sets.

Sort of like filming in black & white.

I bet they'd make something awesome.

That would never rival Jim Henson.

The Heiress

An innocent artist, unconcerned with the world at large, is encouraged to take an active role, in environs she's ill-equipped to comprehend, but still willing to cautiously explore (Olivia de Havilland as Ms. Sloper).

Her mother was a dazzling sight, in possession of coveted social perspicuity, akin to Oriane de Guermantes, in terms of wit and incisive observation.

Her husband genuinely admired her, and was crushed by her untimely passing, resigned in the following years to focus intently on the practice of medicine.

Unfortunately, he's quite the snob, and even applies his pretensions to his family, so weighed down by the maintenance of ideals, that he dismisses everything that doesn't add up (Ralph Richardson as Dr. Austin Sloper).

His daughter's fascinated by embroidery and has developed enviable skill, and wants to make her father happy, but lacks multilateral bearing.

Nevertheless, she sets out one evening to attend a social gathering, wherein she's courted by a brazen upstart, who's familiar with what she stands to inherit, his candour as fluent as his resolve (Montgomery Clift as Morris Townsend).

Shortly thereafter he's asked her to marry and she's gleefully and passionately accepted, in the belief that she'll make her father happy, and perhaps find some joy of her own. 

But her father is rather suspicious of her fiancé's amorous feeling, and poses unsettling questions to ascertain its authenticity. 

The result is the tragic transformation of well-preserved sequestered peculiarity, which attempts to suddenly adjust to age old rapacious cunning.

She comprehends with the resplendent grace casually borne by the unsuspecting, and perhaps would have been content if she had met an honest person.

Neither heartfelt nor harlequin, The Heiress proceeds to interrogate innocence, its manifestation of purest true love, tragically destined to swoon unrequited.

The results much more traditional than the romantic setting suggests.

Traditional in the withdrawn sense. 

Calculated hesitant gravity.

The Cat's-Paw

A man raised in China by missionaries suddenly finds himself in New York, his first trip back home to the States since he was but the weest lad.

Unaccustomed to anything besides a life of study in rural environs, he accidentally finds himself running to become mayor of the bustling city.

The party he represents is controlled by their opposition, and was instructed to find a candidate who would without a doubt most certainly lose.

But as fate would have it through blind dumb luck he aptly wins race, and proceeds to set the highest bar altruistically apace.

He's also searching for a wife to one day bring back to Asia, and meets a streetwise countergirl breathtaking poised regalia.

Having no knowledge of worldly affairs and even less of bureaucratic intrigue, he governs according to the philosophy of Ling Po, a Chinese sage he's studied exhaustively. 

His alternative methods disgruntle his adversaries who are used to the status quo, and unfamiliar with philosophy, and none too pleased with all the extra work.

They take advantage of Ezekiel's (Harold Lloyd) innocence and soon he's the victim of a scandal.

To which he fluidly responds with an ancient epic gamble.

The Cat's-Paw's wondrous naive enthusiasm generates holistic applause, as working solutions combat corruption in a metamorphic state of bureaucratic nature.

Ezekiel applies his knowledge with well-meaning bold intent, and finds effective cost cutting measures that encourage less dependent fiscal enterprise.

It's fun to watch as a sheltered intellectual governs with no strings attached, his worldly shocked advisors in a constant state of panic.

A sense of calm restorative ease ascends as he honestly settles the score, like deficits and graft and cons will fade forevermore.

But for every wide-eyed dreamer who ably governs through ancient texts, a hundred more and then some keep them historically in check.

Certainly old school writings can influence the present, but when they outstrip their mortal bonds things become rather unpleasant.

That is, new sets of circumstances inevitably emerge (an overpopulated planet, extremely stressed environmental resources) to which the antiquated writings cannot be applied, and if cultures need new strategies to solve the unprecedented problems, a reliance upon ancient texts can be problematic.

You would think they would simply adapt to reasonable scientific observation.

But that doesn't seem to happen.

Perennially at odds, no progress, no quarter. 

21 Days

Sometimes the clearest answer's too elemental to swiftly chime, 21 Days presenting guilt and innocence as one man reacts consumed, quixotic.

For a murder has been committed, and the wrong man could indeed be hung, guilt punishing the bona fide culprit, who decides to wait for the binding verdict.

He may be found innocent you see, and then everything's right as rain, Larry Durrant (Laurence Olivier) can marry his cherished belle (Vivien Leigh as Wanda), and perhaps raise a happy family.

He didn't mean to murder her husband, who was in fact a disreputable man, they just started fighting and he wound up dead, the intent to kill never crossed his mind.

He hides the body in an alley and it's discovered by a fallen priest (Hay Petrie as John Evan), who robs it and is caught red-handed, and presumed to be the murderer.

Durrant considers giving himself up but his brother (Leslie Banks) is a prominent lawyer, who's about to be promoted to judge, the slightest scandal would ruin his career, he begs young Larry to reconsider.

While the fallen priest stands trail for murder, Larry and Wanda have 21 days, which they spend in search of bliss, sparing no expense or liberty.

But gloom haunts their freespirited endeavours as the trial nears its catastrophic end, no family, no fantasy, no future, should erroneous guilt descend.

The fallen priest doesn't even mind.

He thinks he should be punished for his desperate action.

Thus you have a devilish comedy masquerading as sincerest drama, its amoral resonance discreetly echoing, its spirited candour dissembled code.

Not me, not this blog, 21 Days.

How could audiences have figured it out when they were having so much fun?, Laurence Olivier instinctually astounding, I see why older generations loved him so.

Its fast pace and irreverent script (Basil Dean, Graham Greene & John Galsworthy [The First and the Last]) (note the legal peeps discussing their light crimes over dinner) overflow with amorous and ethical wonder, a diabolical treat for the cheeky intellect, that leaves you feeling guilty for having appreciated it.

Don't think older generations were uniformly upright with stiff upper-lips, the cheek is always trying to break through, it's just a matter of style and timing.

Great lines nuance realistic situations with audacious unorthodox levity.

The joy of filmmaking. 😜

Also known as 21 Days Together.

Reversal of Fortune

Snap judgments based upon agitated reckonings lead to pejorative sensationalized repute in Barbet Schroeder's Reversal of Fortune.

How to make someone appear guilty without making it look like you're attempting to make someone appear guilty, if they are in fact not guilty?

If they are in fact not guilty, how do you convincingly make it look like someone has attempted to make them look guilty without looking as if they were attempting to make them look guilty, before cold judicial verdicts descend?

It's basic Columbo, the televisual and cinematic world worse off without a regular dose of Columbo, and its freewheeling composed articulate dishevelled discourse, perhaps channeled by Professor Alan Dershowitz (Ron Silver) and his team in this inclusion, which asks if maligned bourgeois sentiment has predetermined an aesthete's obituary?

It's certainly quite the team.

It's incredible how many people can come together to defend or prosecute, many of them working pro bono, out of devoted respect for the law.

Engrained malfeasance.

People in positions of power exploit that power since no one holds them to account, but then someone does, it seems obvious that they're guilty, and justice adjudicates, condemning the reckless individual.

But it's still quite the task, the required reading voluminously dissonant, to transform every link into a succinct gripping narrative no small feat albeit thrilling for a motivated legal team, in possession of the facts, and interpretive plausibility, expert testimony, meticulous mechanics, it must be like playing a stable integral role in a constantly shifting production, not improvised, still rehearsed, but unaware of specific counterarguments, the speculation part of the fun, bold jurisprudent research and development.

Reversal of Fortune takes place in such a frame as Claus von Bulow (Jeremy Irons) seeks legal counsel, he's been convicted once already, and his lawyer's none too sympathetic.

He takes the case though, assembles his team, and finds evidence which contradicts his assumptions.

Upon appeal, another round of judicial observation considers the alternative facts, and the second reading makes Claus seem as innocent as he was once thought definitively guilty, differing detailed composite accounts, instructive rhetorical consommé.

People observe thousands of minute details distilled into an accessible format that leads them to make claims which back up narrative threads.

Hoping there isn't some technical distortion.

While theatrically duelling in shades.

Majo no takkyȗbin (Kiki's Delivery Service)

Sometimes you get lucky.

I didn't find what I was looking for earlier this Summer when I went out to see Die kleine hexe (The Little Witch), but decided to see Majo no takkyȗbin (Kiki's Delivery Service) last week on a whim, and I'd be lying if I didn't say it was exactly what I'd been searching for, apart from the fact that it was released in 1989, and therefore lacking in contemporary applicability.

If it was indeed contemporary, it would have ideally and bewilderingly fit.

Not that I'm complaining.

Finding something in the present that produces an affect you cherished long ago reliably revels in enigmatic ecstasy, but finding something from the past that commensurately impresses, shouldn't be dismissed for ye olde bygone praise.

I'm reminded of people dismissing classic films because they aren't contemporary, the assumption being that the current moment must be the most advanced, because the arts evolve in an unerring progression.

I've tried to explain that the arts are more like a mutation, and that seminal works emerge at different intervals regardless of what mesmerized the past, or will dazzle the future, by citing several well known examples (Citizen Kane, Dr. Zhivago, Casablanca, Dr. Strangelove), and arguing passionately to the viable contrary.

I've never gotten very far, but it's true if you can wrap your head around it, although it was much easier to access classic films in my youth (many are available on Itunes) at what were called "video stores", where you went to rent movies, some of them having better collections than others, many of them wiped out as Blockbuster rose.

It's even hard to come by a film from back in the day that disseminates age old wonder, for I'm sure you've watched some of the beloved films of your youth in recent years, and found them lacking in tantalizing appeal.

Or you've streamed films you missed way back to reimmerse yourself within an old school aesthetic, and found some of the exemplars lacking in eccentric magnetism, or at least not as spellbinding as you had hoped they would be.

Majo no takkyȗbin (Kiki's Delivery Service) resonates with that innocent yet risk-fuelled ageless atemporal fluidity you find in Dickens and Proust however, as the little witch Kiki (Minami Takayama) heads out on her own, to build a life abounding in unchecked novelty.

With her wise contradictory cat Jiji (Rei Sakuma), who supplies grumpy yet pertinent commentary.

It's like otherworldly cool and alternative pluck were joyously yet controversially distilled to craft a regenerative narrative elixir, as intergenerational as it is unique, as wondrous as it is compelling.

I'll have to see every film crafted by Ghibli Studios I'm afraid, and share observations from time to time.

I could have just as easily seen something else that night.

Good fortune when that kind of thing happens.

Five Feet Apart

Cloistered away in diagnostic retention, family and friends stopping by at times, the caring staff warmly dedicated to promoting cheer, the world wide web providing paramount community.

Emotions locked-down as intimate contact is forbidden, the sublimation of imaginative desires creates fantastic legend.

Fortunately she's no Obscurus, the desires unattainable but not maligned, and she responds with sprightly do-gooding, which acutely marks chill observation.

Others similarly afflicted become reliable confidants, their convivial theses and humorous charm laying the congenial groundwork for inclusive mischief.

But as fate would have it, or perhaps, lo and behold, one day the enigmatic emerges and cannot be idiosyncratically arrayed.

This bad boy of intensive care (Cole Sprouse as Will) ruffles feathers in strict amorous revel, and even though she's highly critical, Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) can't tear herself away.

The two forging a palliative dynamic.

That's as convalescent as it is ecstatic.

Hearts strung out like time-lapsed supernovas, they must remain Five Feet Apart at all times, a romantic interpretation of the convention, their budding awe saturated with robust feeling, their hesitation, as adorable as panda cupcakes.

The film isn't so bad.

It looked after-school-specially in the previews but I swear it's cinematically legit.

Perhaps they do break the rules somewhat foolishly, but they rarely do so while going too far.

With one ridiculous situation near the end, it would have been stronger with a less melodramatic climax.

Something less mortal.

More genuine.

Poe's (Moises Arias) character could have been treated differently too, for wouldn't it have been ironic to not focus on death in a film about young adults striving to live, wouldn't it have been fortuitous to celebrate joy without consequence in a film latently flush with sanguine grief?

It still celebrates joy nevertheless, and that's why it's so worth seeing, even if it slips up a bit, even if it could have been less dependent.

As Stella and Will fall in love at the hospital, slowly coming to terms with their eccentricities, it's as timid as it is unorthodox, like trying something new when you don't know what you're doing.

As tenderhearted as a mama bear, and as loving as ballroom impertinence, Five Feet Apart keeps the melodrama at bay, while crafting something coy and wonderful.

Death-defying romance.

Out of this world.

Rules Don't Apply

Sure and steady representatives of 1960s youth find themselves fetchingly employed in Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply, wherein an angelic songwriter with purist heart (Lily Collins as Marla Mabrey) and a loyal driver possessing patient ambition (Alden Ehrenreich as Frank Forbes) are caught between careers and courtships in the employment of Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty).

They're ever so cute.

Yet their employer, however so cunning in the face of adversity, however so adorable in his wild eccentricities, however so unpredictable in his unwavering caprice, however so devoted to reifying his dreams (eccentricity does not imply caprice!), even if he spends every waking nanosecond taking care of his responsibilities (wherein lies the eccentricity [when you work all the time suddenly an undeniable desire hits and you immediately must have that thing /often Denver Broncos related {this works better when you have employees who will bring you that thing |shopping online is changing this|}\]), can't be relied upon to simply do what's right, like a/n h/airline fracture, at critical moments, with destinies in overdrive, with futures notwithstanding.

That doesn't mean he doesn't remain endearing, as he's depicted in the film anyways, since he possesses an inextinguishable fancy free flame, which has come to be idealized in American cinema, with refined audacious tenacity.

Rules Don't Apply.

Young at heart, always.

I'm thinking about renting Cool Hand Luke.

Collins and Forbes romantically drill their way through Rules Don't Apply, frustrated in frenzy, synergistic straight shooters.

I can't say if the film's reminiscent of a cinematic golden age (I'm assuming many people associate such a phrase with the films of their youth and seeing it redefined is a matter of another generation reaching a specific age having made the right arguments), or trying to recapture the magic of watching movies (surprised this wasn't a Disney film), some ethics thrown in, a political struggle, a charismatic tycoon, Matthew Broderick (Levar Mathis), principles plucked im/pertinently, an appreciation for simple pleasures (burgers and fries), a story that could have seemed trite if left in less capable hands, with filmmakers who don't know how to both provoke and entertain, but it pulled me into its dazzling sashay with raw sincere wondrous precision, the split-second editing keeping things lively in the early going (Robin Gonsalves, Leslie Jones, F. Brian Scofield, Billy Weber), and even if it may not be one of my favourite films of the year, it still revitalized my love of going to the movies and writing about them more than any other.

There's a great sequence where the main characters are depicted doing something individually which simultaneously highlights their doubtful loneliness (content) as well as their sense of communal belonging (form), on the job, I suppose I'm a sucker for that kind of thing; poutine once a week you know; and the occasional root beer.

The Girl on the Train

Woebegone coy wailing whispers, loves lost unavailing misters, crescents incoherent past, conjuring disclosed the tracks exacting causal punishments, the unignored passions hellbent mystery steeping pains in bellowed seemingly surficial celloed, instinct buried deep beneath each crushing dipsomanic beat, could she clue in expressly solve and vindicate romantic sprawls?

Wherewithal.

Consensual adulterous ramifications haunting Tom (Justin Theroux) and Anna's (Rebecca Ferguson) marriage, his ex-wife Rachel (Emily Blunt) obsessively views the putters of the wealthy suburb where she once happily lived as she passes by on the train every morning, like a saturated classics scholar trying to piece together the activities of an ancient civilization based solely upon tantalizingly loose scattered fragments, it soon becomes apparent that she has seen something, although it will take some fecund fogcutting to find out if she has indeed taken note.

Panoramic puzzling.

Cross worded deluge.

Tate Taylor's The Girl on the Train sounds comedic but is in fact deadly serious.

Tensions gradually increase as the baffled slowly fit the pieces together, jilted jigsawing jousts in stark rendition, autumnal auspicious reminiscence, engendered through firm resolve.

Acrimony.

Tenderness.

The film's well-structured, deftly integrating seemingly innocuous lives to suspensefully prepare you for myopic innocence with scenes that prevaricate in probability.

Multiple characters skilfully intertwined as Rachel's ride proceeds bush tag.

Hokey at points and Rachel's conclusion could have been lengthier.

Traditional comments on marital infidelity chimed.

Infatuated caprice.

Destructive blind ceremony.

L'Hermine (Courted)

As it began, I was worried.

The subject matter, the trial of a man from the projects accused of killing his baby, seemed sterile, like there was nothing more to it besides the trial itself, mundane fictionalized courtroom drama, too direct, too pinpointed, polished and shrewd yet textbook and obligatory, like actual courtroom drama, a trip to the laundry, baking soda, antiseptic concrete diction.

But L'Hermine (Courted) slowly builds President Racine's (Fabrice Luchini) determined objective character with understated incisive mature solemn clarity, his courtroom strategically managed with only one goal in mind, the discovery of the truth, or, in light of insufficient evidence, the nurturing of a level-headed atmosphere within which the evidence can be clearly and concisely adjudicated.

The trial in question stands out since Racine is in love, was in love, with a member of the jury, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret (Sidse Babett Knudsen), and considering that he has a reputation for being obstinately punitive, her enlightening presence functions like a meditative emancipating regenerative balm, not distracting him from his work, but rather enabling him to approach it with warm hearted vigour as opposed to cold calculated formality.

True love?

In L'Hermine, it's true love, that true love igniting a spark of youthful innocence rarely embraced by an aging criminal court judge/President, who has spent decades in ignorance of the revelations of joy.

What I've just written is ten thousand times more sentimental than the film itself.

L'Hermine masterfully builds Racine and Lorensen-Coteret's relationship with modest narrative maturity, a total lack of sensation or antiquation, like a slowly building intellectually sustained crescendo, supported by multiple minor characters who each add melodic nuances of their own.

If someone asked the question, "can we take a routine legal drama and use intellect to illuminate the vitality of true love while keeping things plausible during a traditional criminal trial?", I would now respond by saying, "yes, yes you can."

Offering insights into the French legal system while proving that logic can amorously shine, L'Hermine keeps things professional to cleverly stylize contemporary bourgeois love.

Give it a chance.

Rawly refined.

Medium rare.

Jagten (The Hunt)

An asphyxiating altercating articulation of innocence incrementally fuels fratricidal flames until an upright loving gregarious educator's life lies holistically in ruin.

Thomas Vinterberg patiently and poignantly crafts a traumatic testament of angelic ostracization as a joyful lifelong friend slowly idealizes the abject.

The childlike recreational pursuits of a supportive communal cohesivity introduced at Jagten's (The Hunt's) outset haunts its terrorized reels in an acerbic antiseptic embodiment of consternated dramatic horror.

Nowhere to go.

No reason to run.

The truth's condemnatory instinct is diatonically disreputed as media sensations are pastorally localized.

Difficult and controversial subject matter.

A didactic tool designed to encourage pause and reflection in order to accentuate the right that one is innocent until proven guilty.

And what can happen if that guilt is assumed inveterately beforehand.

Mud

Innocent pluck tenderly, loyally, and brazenly clashes with his ideals as their real world applications resoundingly prove despairing.

Not that they aren't still omnipresent, as vital to those whose desires and incomes problematize their sustainability as to those whose iron will does not, uncompromised dedication liaising with starvation and prevarication to slowly devastate an unyielding devotion, destructive acts of retributive jealousy increasing in proportion with their subject's maniacal progressions, with no recourse to substantial alternative educational or economic detachments, to productively cover things up.

Mud's (Matthew McConaughey) love for Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) defines his sense of purpose as a career or a pastime might define another, and only after seeing his self naively rematerialized in the form of a 14-year-old risking everything to help him, does difference dawn.

Jeff Nichol's Mud ruggedly evaporates an accidental transient symbiotic bilateral pact, having uplifted both partners in its unwritten momentary apotheosis.

Seen through a child's eyes, many of the film's sequences are oversimplified.

Strength of character compensates.

Mandatory for lovers of romantic impoverished hard-hitting innovative coming of age bucolics.

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.