Alienoid

Imprudence exceedingly deteriorates an unorthodox prison constructed by aliens, when a particularly rebellious inmate is radically set free by robotic insurgents (hopefully their next stop's Russia around this time last week!). 

The jail consists of human hosts randomly chosen due to time constraints, the extraterrestrials placed within their bodies and left there (theoretically) dormant to slowly fade.

To make them more difficult to locate different time periods are meticulously mobilized, aliens resting in different bodies everlasting throughout time. 

Obsessions with magic periodically erupting should an alien escape two cyborgesque guardians arrive, their remarkably fluid technology enabling atemporal matriculate moxie. 

In the opening moments, one such innovative captive escapes, chaotically perishing in the ensuing confrontation, her host's baby daughter left alone and helpless, her lifeforce still indicating rampant resonance.

The guardians take her back to the present and improvisationally raise her as best they can, Yi-an (Kim Tae-Ri/Choi Yu-ri) slowly figuring things out as she ages, a unique inquisitive non-traditional childhood.

But the aforementioned shipment of criminal aliens eventually arrives to usurp and challenge. 

Proving too volatile for the resilient guardians.

Who can only defeat them through the passage of time.

That would be cool to have a special device which lithely facilitated forbidden time travel, not only to voyage to different times and observe, but also to hide vital treasures throughout history.

Divergent ideas im/materially motivating newfound visions and corresponding networks, the careful management of ingenious works may modestly encourage enriching contemplation.

Should time munificently permit the dynastic emergence of cartotemporal relevance, consistent multilateral mechanisms may spellbindingly enchant with rhythmic reticence. 

Perhaps more suited to the far distant past classic literature and museums performing similar functions, different generations reimagining first contact to inspire insurrections within established genres. 

But Chinese and Japanese cultures developed so much earlier than European customs, and have cherished artistic traditions for thousands of years give or take a century.

Unfortunately, conflict and power-relations may have led to many incredible works being lost, but how many of them were also preserved?, I don't know much about such history.

Nevertheless, if you had something precious to be wondrously showcased without fear of theft, managing different personas throughout time may lucidly enable multifaceted continuums. 

Perhaps another goal for alchemists should they discover the elixir of life.

Too complicated for me I'm afraid.

I thought Alienoid was amazing (with Twin Peaks characters).

*Looking forward to the recently released sequel.  

The Holiday Calendar

A creative photographer does the legwork for an unimaginative yet reliable small business, earning enough scrilla to keep up her apartment while her well-meaning family asks tough questions (Kat Graham).

Her best friend is keen and sympathetic and returns one Christmas from his travels abroad, eager to pick up where they left off as habitual merrymaking yearns and flourishes (Quincy Brown).

Meanwhile, her enigmatic grandfather (Ron Cephas Jones) shares one of her recently deceased grandma's treasures, a giant old school European advent calendar that fluidly winds up and shares daily presents.

Things routinely proceed as the photographic enterprise heads outside, to take pictures of youngsters with Santa as he meticulously notes their gift ideas.

But soon strange coincidences take place which only have one spirited explanation, that the gifted intricate advent calendar is mysteriously forecasting fate!

Every day unexpected events find symbolic representation numerically adjudicated, as the innocent shutterbug wondrously believes and sincerely follows the magical path.

But it becomes apparent that the picture perfect beau the calendar has showcased lacks eccentric merit.

Her closest friend making it known he's upset.

Will the spirit of Christmas heal their friendship?

I thought this was a really cool idea for a Christmas film that cleverly reimagines Holiday Season essentials, the old school advent calendar clairvoyantly presenting cryptic yet definitive structure.

A bigger budget with more time spent and perhaps with a major studio reworking the story, not that the original lacks seasonal merriment, I just thought it could be even more epic. 

Imagine living the ahistorical dream with an emancipatory place for a nimble eclective, while securing amorous accolades and the heartfelt devotion of a trusted friend.

Who knows where the regenerative magic of the clandestine Season holistically resides, perhaps it's rather like the Force and is infinitesimally everywhere all at once? 

Notably in eggnog and gingerbread it must enliven these treats every December.

Not to mention random gift ideas.

Hot cocoa.

Hibernating dreams.  

Sleepwalk

Can books harness immaterial authenticity possessing atemporal spiritual substance reified through literary practicality (reading)?

Can extant abstract imbroglios mischievously contextualize the present, without relying on ideological intervention (tricksters) as their readers extensively ponder?

Probably not, although indirect corresponding parallels may seem uncanny if not somewhat mystical, but had the material in question never been covered, would the events have still seemed otherworldly or enigmatic?

As you encounter variable idiosyncrasies (in books and films) it's only natural to narratively apply them, to whatever you happen to be doing at the time or as similar occurrences present themselves.

But are you simply randomly applying ideas chosen at random for different texts, to random storylines inevitably generated as you freely interact with others?

Or is there something beyond coincidence ethereally aligned like Jurassic Park's chaos theory, which attaches seemingly supernatural significance to disorganized interconnected (enticing) ephemera? 

Probably not, in terms of personal history as opposed to applied math.

But if you're ever bored it's a fun game to play.

As long as you don't take your wagers too seriously.

But at times you have to seem as if you're vigorously engaged, nevertheless, in order to inspire confidence in significant others early in life.

Logic aside, some people prefer elevating the absurd to inviolable levels, regardless of relevance to applicable rationalities out of an instinctual preference for determinacy. 

Without comedic reckoning.

Was never able to research the subject that much.

But I imagine there are many people who have.

Sleepwalk follows a bright translator/jack-of-all-trades as she's asked to translate an ancient Chinese text (Suzanne Fletcher as Nicole), the events from the forbidden parables uncannily haunting her life thereafter.

A cool independent low-budget examination of harrowing contemporaneous histories, it's chill yet still discerning much like birdwatching or métro station discovery.

An indirect advocate for libraries and archives, along with historical context and animate consistency, Sleepwalk presents its playful syntheses with less gravity than The Lord of the Rings.

Co-starring Tony Todd, Steve Buscemi and Ann Magnuson. 

Cinematography by Frank Prinzi and Jim Jarmusch. 

The Fisher King

A headstrong shock jock preaches polarities with assertive recourse to immutability, as his dedicated listeners tune in (Jeff Bridges as Jack), in search of tactile calamitous clarity.

But he goes way too far one impassioned evening and bitter criticisms lead to mayhem, as a devout fan takes what he's saying too seriously, and expresses himself with violence thereafter.

Jack may be rather confident and determined but he isn't made of stone, and after hearing about the mass shooting, he's overwhelmed with penitent distress.

Years pass and he's moved into his partner's (Mercedes Ruehl as Anne), working at times in her video rental store, woebegone motionless remorse having destabilized his once strident potency.

He's out and about one befuddled evening where he's drunk too much unfortunately, when some ne-er-do-wells lay into him, having mistaken him for a homeless man.

But homeless people quickly rise to his defence and he outmaneuvers the scurrilous rogues, awakening the next morning in a basement dwelling, accompanied by a fallen school teacher (Robin Williams as Parry).

He soon learns that that very same teacher's respected love interest was outrageously cut down, by the very same disgruntled individual whom he incensed with his improvised vitriol. 

Cosmic forces seeming to be at play he eagerly befriends his troubled saviour, the two forging a dynamic friendship, with mutual convalescence perhaps intuited.

But can Jack save his troubled soul by bringing Parry back from the depths of madness?

Or will traumatic resonance harrowingly consume him, as the shock proves too much to overcome?

Laidback mysticism and hardboiled angst creatively mingle ensemble within, bewildered conscience and integral redemption evocatively articulating the tragic bromance.

But Terry Gilliam isn't solely concerned with the interactions of the two wayward men, for the gals in their lives add so much spice (plus Amanda Plummer as Lydia) that it's well-balanced through fluid cohesivity. 

Magical realism constructively resides within the narrative's hands-on grizzly contagion, a leap of faith inexplicably necessitated to rejuvenate dormant animate spirits. 

The application of truth or utilitarian practicality may have led to a lack of change, for if there had been no sense of guilt, there would have been no need to assail cynicism. 

Even if it isn't practically sound doesn't it make for a more gripping tale, something less banal more out of the ordinary to transcend trusted paramount stability?

In works of literature and film anyways, perhaps not every day at work or in politics.

It's a mistake to categorically deny it.

And so much more boring in the long run. 

*With John de Lancie (TV Executive), David Hyde Pierce (Lou Rosen),  and Michael Jeter (Homeless Cabaret Singer). 

L'Écume des jours (Mood Indigo)

Assembly lines randomly recite a literary legion of improvisationalists who immediately harness their impressions ensemble with the goal of creating a tale of romantic note.

As the awareness of being written gesticulates limitless extraneous sensual amenities suddenly enlighten, becoming subjects of study or being callously yet festively disregarded, foreshadowing the genesis of love's interest.

The amenities coalesce with a practical and ingenious array of irresistible logical displacements whose metaphoric merits urbanely defy any sense of symmetrical cohesion.

What a world, what a world.

A tragic plot does take shape however whose voluminous sorrows, intricately and in/tangibly elaborated upon and refined, bear witness to the indoctrination of the real, whose vice-like grip expedites decay, within.

It's pointless to say that L'Écume des jours (Mood Indigo) should have been more surreal due to its experimental necessarily incoherent design, since its residual plot provides enough relational factors to make its aesthetic accessible, truly as a subject of beauty, and, if I'm not mistaken, Michel Gondry's saying that a minimum layer of consistency and logic enables radical indulgence to support its erratic spontaneity, although the internal despondency was disquieting as the film progressed.

Don't think I'll ever think of indigo again without thinking about this film, or stop searching in vain for a neat pianocktail.

Terraces in the afternoon.

Nothing but time.

Ésimésac

If you like community focused films that celebrate the strength of tightly knit towns without hesitating to unabashedly and wholeheartedly melodramatize their conflicts, you'll likely enjoy Luc Picard's Émisésac. 

If you like social democratic allegories which charmingly utilize the magically real to critically examine the affects of economic risks and their associated dreams primarily through the social interactions of an innocent, unworldly, inspirational protagonist, you should check Émisésac out.

If you like romantic resolutions that emphasize the human as opposed to the mathematical factors worked into strategic financial planning, Émisésac is for you.

And if you're looking for a film to inaugurate your cinematic holiday season, it's a total must.

Thoroughly enjoyed Émisésac's ample simplified multidimensional spirit, as well as its humble humanism.

Could have used some more multicultural material.

Midnight's Children

At the stroke of midnight, as India's independence lights up the sky, several children are born.

An ironic twist of fate, whereby bohemian and bourgeois babies are switched at birth, in an act of amorous solidarity, simultaneously precipitates openminded and hegemonic serializations.

One possesses the remarkable gift of being able to use his mind to create a cerebral in/corporeal clandestine commons where all of Midnight's Children can meet and discuss various subjects.

One's overwrought jealousy upholsters a ballistic desire to dominate, within.

The others, playing by a more reasonable set of hospitable synchronizations, collegially, discern.

That's a rather truncated description of what takes place in Deepa Mehta's film; it's much more complicated than that, narratively deconstructing particular parental preconceptions, touching upon complex interconnected conjugal and familial (and pre- and post-colonial) provocations, illustrating the effects of 'practical' ideological implementations on individual constituencies from jingoistically fraternal (ugh) and resurgently romantic jetties, at a frantic pace, which generally focuses on one character's brittle innocence.

The depth of potential lying within the film's itinerant confluences suggests that Salman Rushdie's novel is worth picking up, and that militaristic conflicts prevent the cultivation of prolonged endearing chill relationships.

At first, I found the film's magically real cloak to be somewhat flippant in relation to the gravity of its historical trajectory, but it's actually this light, dreamy, bewildered and baffling ambience that transcends its unavoidable puritanical devices, evoking an abstract laissez-faire conspicuous caricature.

That isn't that concerned with absolutes.

Covering a lot of interdisciplinary ground while firmly resisting attempts at classification, Midnight's Children sacrifices elaboration for stylization to divine a potential mantra.

More fitting to its humanistic features.