Miracle on 34th Street

It often seems like the jaded objective concrete materialistic obsession, is a feature of contemporary times which didn't exist in bygone days. 

The lack of spiritual enlightenment often attributed to common sense, seems like it wouldn't have existed long ago when cultures were more fantastically grounded. 

But if 1947 is the time marker which correspondingly took place 78 years ago, the agile contention that the present is less imaginative loses momentum in Miracle on 34th Street. 

For within its festive reels we find compulsive dismissals of the Holiday Spirit, and exacting rituals tempestuously inclined to rid its culture of compelling levity. 

Does the indefatigable spiritual not viscerally sustain scientific experiment, through the steady encouragement of alternative endeavours that strategic reasoning would have never conceived on its own?

Does the existence of incorporeal ethereal intangible dynamic being, not facilitate unorthodox thinking that leads to new developments in scientific theory?

We find stale and overwrought examples of traditional skeptical and cynical thought, dismissing the essence of Christmas with contemptuous vitriol in 34th Street.

Even as the remarkable benefits of harmless play lead to exceptional results, bitter acrimonious characters still crudely objurgate Santa's existence. 

Even as he exhaustively displays a meticulous knowledge of toys and where to find them, while speaking different languages with intricate foresight and linguistic flexibility, he's still excessively critiqued by agnostic stipulations from a roundabout age, and even thrown in a mental institution for boldly defending lighthearted humour. 

Should spiritual folk condemn the scientists to an improvised world of non-traditional reckoning, or should psychiatry and reason clerically expel all otherworldly thoughts from cultivated continuums? 

Does a grounded focus on reason and science not lay the framework for reliable consistency, while alternative arrangements cosmically endowed exalt sleigh bell sensations in ceremonious flight?

Does the fortuitous blend not effortlessly synthesize yin and yang with reflexive sanity?

That brings about open-minded efficiencies? 

Magic and moonbeams.

Hot cocoa. 

Gingerbread. 

Green for Danger

Pejorative pressure, incredulous and puzzling, weighs heavy or a war torn team, tasked with stitching the sick and injured back together, while sublimating the anxiety and at times encouraging mischief, above and beyond heroic duty, panegyrical par for the caustic course.

Strong wilful personalities playfully contend with objective whimsy, habitual fatigue and interminable destruction rambunctiously relaying unjust brawl.

One slips is pushed too far their transgressions passing unnoticed at first, before bold proclamation startlingly upends the otherwise fanciful well-earned night off.

It turns out the inexplicable amplifications which disastrously brought about dire moribund reckonings, were not incidental to the regenerative cause, but in fact produced through murderous provocation.

Who has indeed perpetrated with primordial perfidy remains a compelling inconclusive mind-boggle?, which none other than Alastair Sim (Inspector Cockrill) himself has been tasked with definitively elucidating.

He's rather bumbly and indelicate as if crime-solving required smooth parlay, and irritates several members of the staff simply because he's undeniably enjoying himself.

His eccentric methods conceivably convince the doctors and nurses that he's quite mad.

But logical liaison is litigiously immersent. 

With modest mischievous disconsolate fun.

A rather odd setting for an offbeat comedy which efficaciously blends the austere and the radical, entirely dependent on your love of Sim and his personable vivacious uncanny rhythms. 

Perhaps somewhat like a theoretical blend of Robert Downey, Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes and Peter Sellers's Inspector Clouseau, even if it's easier to say "like none other", it's worth checking out what he brings to the role.

Stress and lassitude bilaterally converging to unhinge otherwise tranquil minds, there's no telling what such circumstances would engender, one is therefore duty bound to help prevent them.

Such a treasure trove of great detectives thoughtfully awaiting inquisitive minds, within the clever British cinema no doubt first cultivated by wide-reaching books.

I imagine at least that since Sherlock's origins are indeed British, he drives contemporary denizens in whatever age to write intricate spellbound murder mysteries.

Do cultural origins truly play such a role within national literary traditions, with international multivariability available if elastically eager and diplomatically drawn?

I know I certainly love animals and it's possible that comes from Canadian and Québecois orthodoxy.

Would I have loved them as much if I'd been born elsewhere?

I'd wager probably (they cute!).

Impossible to know! 

Blizna

Problems associated with industrializing an underdeveloped region haunt the Party official in charge of managing operations, as Krzysztof Kieslowski's Blizna bluntly examines economic controversy, conflicting voices, inherent criticism.

Things haven't changed much in the quiet rural town for quite some time grandiloquently speaking, and while many of the residents adore the status quo, others seek prosperity or reliable jobs.

To build the chemical plant however several homes have to be "relocated", to the grave disillusionment of many citizens who aren't interested in financial compensation (if any was offered).

The age old forest is also decimated even more so as the project expands, there's an abundance of forest in Canada (even so economic development should proceed sustainably), such losses must be catastrophic in smaller nations.

But ecotourism hasn't flourished and the region isn't a vacation destination, and many people don't want to move to seek opportunity elsewhere, since plain and simply, they love their town.

But will they love it when industry settles in and mechanically transforms cherished landscapes and hideaways, as animal life departs and doesn't come back and pollution causes uncharacteristic illness?

Criticisms of the plant endemically abound which discourage its unassuming CEO, who's genuinely concerned with producing fertilizer in order to grow more food throughout the land.

It's easy to focus on a communal goal when a healthy way of life is cautiously preserved, but if pollution and 60 hour weeks become habitual, it can be more difficult to consider macrofactors.

A lot of people don't mind if the money's good and their lives improve, accumulating lavish sought after goods which were difficult to come by in the previous epoch.

But many others do and Bednarz (Franciszek Pieczka) takes their criticisms to heart, forgetting that it's just the price of doing business and that people like to complain.

Especially if there isn't much time to spend with their families and friends and the money isn't very good.

If the pollution makes them sick.

If they lose touch with their beloved environments.

Kieslowski doesn't seem to care much, Blizna examines Bednarz like he's a tragic figure, overcome by flippant grievances that can't see the bigger picture.

Pollution's not even a factor.

It's like the film laments a lack of absolutism. 

Not as balanced as I had hoped, still like nothing I've seen before, even if I found it too top heavy, I imagine it's admired by many an executive. 

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses

The Cowboys have fallen on hard times, down on their luck and stricken, forsaken, filiblustered.

They were once one of Mexico's most exhilarating acts, but after duelling with tequila incontestably, collapsed upon destitute ruin.

The band still exists however even if several of its members did not survive, those remaining somewhat revitalized after an invitation to play in New York.

But they've been tricked, hoodwinked, bamboozled, as they learn shortly after arrival, for Vladimir (Matti Pellonpää) their once loathsome manager turns out to have set up a ruse.

He seeks to once again rule them and lead them back to northern realms, and has awoken as a scandalous prophet who refers to himself as Moses.

The band is weary, downtrodden, aghast, and succumb to his ironclad will, which supplies a rickety motorboat for their journey across the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, he stays behind to chisel off spry Liberty's nose, before hitching a ride clasped and wingéd to the lonesome European coast.

They're reunited without much delay and are even joined by old school band members, and set off merrymaking homeward bound through less inhospitable continental climes.

But Vladimir hasn't failed to make headlines and he's become a wanted man.

And the law avails in hot pursuit as they actively gig hot damn.

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses adds significant layers and depth, to a narrative eclectically posturing with unyielding jocose inhibition.

A collection of wry self-reliant ideas intermittently staked uniformity notwithstanding, the story appealing to subsequent nodes which elucidate demonstrative beacon.

Sometimes the plot's surely secondary to verbose improvised momentum, providing adhesive broadened outlines which embrace reformed asymmetry.

For 'tis not argument Kaurismäki covets but rather offbeat ironic declension, messages bridled to slam dunk transparency as they softly sway in complement willow.

Enlivening inherent dimension through spatiotemporal interplay, it highlights disembodied ascension with aeronautic grassroots unconveyed.

A break from paramount logic resets and recasts judicious responsibility, inasmuch as too steady a jet stream cloys wise recourse clad indubitably.

Meet Moses takes its time to let loose but then settles to bewilder anew.

The Leningrad Cowboys are a real band apparently.

And still perform to this very day.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America

An unknown band communally flourishes in frozen northern realms, its upbeat traditional variety inspiring personal localized legend.

Yet their manager (Matti Pellonpää as Vladimir) has grown tired of just subsisting in grand obscurity, so he invites a well-known producer to evaluate offhand.

The results are by no means favourable although he provides constructive criticism, recommending a tour of America to showcase their zesty sound.

They've never left their cozy village and are unfamiliar with Western ways, yet they still seek widespread recognition and offbeat accolades.

Fortunately they learn swiftly and can make instantaneous adjustments, for their music doesn't inspire Manhattan and they're soon off for nimble Mexico.

Along the way they must jive and improvise according to regional preferences, for their finances lack exorbitance as they exercise in/congruity.

Their manager embraces capitalism and will not distribute that which they earn, their hunger erupting with molten fury as time slowly and thoughtfully passes.

They have learned the basics of English and can play anything they set their minds to, without ever rehearsing or even practising, acritical discursive maestros.

Yet they've been followed in spite of commands to the sincere vituperative contrary, the acolyte seeking a constructive role, aligned with indeterminate function.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America breaks things down to material instinct, while resilient spirits exuberantly chant, with extemporaneous unsung virtuosity.

And a Jim Jarmusch (Car Dealer) cameo.

Absurdity perhaps depicts the feisty subconscious of the aloud unspoken, but do such invigorations not surely emit down to earth realistic theatre?

If a dream is materially manifested and proceeds through spiritual trial and error, is comedy therefore strictly irrequisite to unpronounced disconsolate duty?

How else does the rational adroitly maintain well-reasoned logical dispassionate argument, if it hasn't been hewn by animate sacrifice born of consequent Kafkaesque rupture?

The Cowboys make their way South and forthrightly and freely excel, but if they had been an instant success, would they ever have even bothered?

Who knows?, it's difficult to say, we don't learn much about what they're thinking, just that they have a gig and they make it after versatile commiseration.

Presumably, so much is unsaid as potent difference decrees manifested.

At one point they present a resonant anthem.

Voltaic demonstrative poise.

The Lighthouse

Strict definitions classifying purpose, semantic utility assessed disfavour, forlorn yet productive acclimatized assertions, grim dismal chortling lugubrity, solar solace sequestered soliloquy, new days dawning in spectral quotes, quibbles quays seaside haze interrogative, must abide, attuned dactyl duties, caught up unaware, latent anger irascible breeze, Unicron scribbled courtly disclosure, endemic disputes surveyed frayed delirium, albeit the shock teeter totters and sways, as incumbent reason fritters away, the boundaries dividing labours concoct, dependable shaved categorical flocks.

Uplifted.

Upheld.

Within Robert Eggers's The Lighthouse.

Wherein legend and superstition frenetically fuze, with old school and ancient praised biblical dues, no comment no quarter no quarry no flight, just master and slave excavating the night.

A friend. A drinking buddy. Not so shy. Not so supple.

Who creates the casts and codes and who then seeks authoritative clarification?

To yield invokes oblivion.

To provoke kindles madness.

Yield provoke, yield provoke, yield provoke, yield provoke.

Resigned inarticulate fever promulgating brands upon brains, the dreamlike hierarchical breakdown dishevelled unfathomed treatise, stately astute confined delineations ill-prepared for potent protest, reproachful uninspired lamentation ill-equipped to lead to follow.

The film locks you down in sombre isolation, presents setting and character, inaugurates daily routine.

But how well can a film with only 2 characters tightly hold itself together for 109 minutes?

It starts off bored, slowly becomes more bleak, then increasingly dire, before settling for full-on nutso.

Fortunately time and care were taken with this one; I'm wondering if there'll be Oscar nominations?

Willem Dafoe is outstanding.

It's tough to tear yourself away, immersed in fog and storm, distressing syntheses hemorrhaging detail.

Like Lucy in the Sky, it sides with the straight and narrow, not without critiquing caprice, or hauntingly assailing rule.

Should have never touched a drop.

Should have kept it real notwithstanding.

A tragedy if you consider how easy it must have been.

To just not be a dick.

Relax.

Extrinsically.

*What's with the details? They give everything away.

The Lion King

I wasn't going to see the new Lion King because I heard it closely followed the original's script, but I wasn't disappointed as it ceremoniously began, for the live action animation indeed compels and motivates.

It's no substitute for the real thing of course, and I prefer to watch nature documentaries, but that doesn't mean the visuals aren't stunning, or zoologically endearing, like a blizzard after a veggie burrito, a trip to the Planetarium, mango icing, or a macchiato with lots of whipped cream.

I can't stress how important it is to conserve Africa's remaining lions, elephants, rhinos, etc.

Their populations have decreased drastically in recent decades, and if concrete action isn't taken, they may disappear forever.

That's not an exaggeration, it's just basic math.

They have just as much of a right to exist as we do.

And don't really do anything to harm us.

It would be cool if politicians committed to shutting down Canada's ivory market during this federal election campaign, if it isn't distressingly frustrating that it hasn't been shut down already.

'Lil Simba (JD McCrary/Donald Glover).

Who's Canada's 'lil Simba?

Nurtured within the chillaxed Canadian and Québecois social sphere, one day emerging to challenge the dissolute Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor)?

If you enjoyed the first Lion King film, I can't see why you wouldn't like this one, assuming you can get over how much money the film made without changing the storyline much, when there must be original narratives floating around out there that execs are unwilling to take a chance on, I don't really mind sequels as long as they're taken seriously, but an insane number of sequels and remakes have been released in 2019 thus far, as if pirated internet viewing's deeply cutting innovative bottom lines, and no one can afford to take cinematic risks, as if we're living in the age of bland cinematic prudence, born of misguided internet freedoms, which are transforming the world into Netflix, a remarkable minimalistic paradigm shift (it's cool to watch new films at home I suppose [I don't], but the result is that studios are now even less willing to embrace alternative ideas because their profits have been hit hard, theoretically).

Skyscraper!

Where art thou, Skyscraper!

If you accept that the new Lion King exists, however, regardless of its lack of différence, note, again, that it is a fun film to watch, abounding with commensurate degrees of age old wonder.

And imaginary animals can be placed in adorable situations that real life beasties instinctually avoid.

It's adorable.

And hard-edged, chock full of potent life lessons, much of the film's downright no-nonsense, although hakuna matata still resounds with bounty and ease.

Scar takes over again. Until 'lil Simba comes of age.

But wouldn't it be nice if successive governments respected what their predecessors had done, and didn't set about radically altering what they consider to be dysfunctional, unless you replace Scar, who is clearly dysfunctional.

It seems like all successive governments in Canada and the U.S are doing is reversing the decisions their predecessors made, regardless of the fact that significant portions of their countries/provinces/states value them.

There's no progress in such a situation.

And it must be a nightmare for career civil servants.

Politics is much more of a dog fight these days than it was in my youth, and the results are quite unsettling.

I doubt the NDP would change much of what the Liberals have done.

With the wily Jagmeet Singh.

Who's indubitably Simbiotic.

Vox Lux

Brady Corbet's Vox Lux wildly envisions tumultuous reasonability clad in disputatious aggrieved apotheosis facilitating chaotic calm.

Beware what transpires within, for it's a most uninhibited tale, executively brandishing dysfunction, perilously prophesizing unimpaired.

Like all stories, it begins, a school in a small town no less, where a distraught child assaults his classmates and takes many innocent lives.

It's appalling that lawmakers aren't taking measures to prevent such atrocities, especially after so many brave American young adults have appealed for political conviction.

So many years after Bowling for Columbine, these shootings still take place with horrifying regularity.

Mass school shootings or mass shootings of any kind are so obviously not acceptable and arming teachers to stop them is sheer utter madness, total insanity, extreme irresponsibility, just nuts, such events don't simply happen, they're the product of blind mismanagement, and legal steps should have been taken to prevent them many many many years ago.

Celeste (Natalie Portman/Raffey Cassidy) survives the shooting at her school and writes a song to express her grief, a song which capture's a grieving nation's attention, superstardom awaiting thereafter.

But with superstardom comes unexpected pressure, Vox Lux necessitating improvisation as the unanticipated interrogatively fluxes.

How to diplomatically respond?

When even her most humble words provoke sensation?

It's unhinged and perplexing and preposterous and disorienting when you think about it afterwards, Vox Lux's argumentative acrobatics and substance abuse fuelled rhetoric leaving a byzantine trail of grandiose unorthodoxy in their wake, realities so disconnected and otherworldly it's like they orbit the heart of an imperial pulsar, which radiates untethered brilliance partout, and neglects consequence with refrained spry spectacle.

Yet it's so real, the film seems so plausible, so concrete, so distinct, passionately yet prohibitively brought to life by Natalie Portman and Jude Law (The Manager), like a down to earth fairy tale that's as ludicrous as it is homemade, like a supernatural cookie cutter incarnated in mortal shade.

Bafflingly improbable yet so irrefutably sincere, Vox Lux resonates with raw animation as if a misfit god has awoken from eternal slumber, and what a performance she gives in the end, this former child star who's been nurtured by shock and scandal.

Exhilaratingly conjuring.

In visceral artistic balm.

Approach Vox Lux with caution.

Outstanding alternative mind*&%^ cinema.

A Star is Born

With a voice as multifaceted as Brooklyn or a night out on Duluth, effervescently reverberating with transformative emotional characterization, sweetly orchestrating discursive labyrinths, purpose delineating fluctuating climax, the in/conclusive communally narrativizing, the independent meteorologically summarizing, Lady Gaga (Ally) firmly embraces the silver screen, irrepressibly showcasing her vast talent, chanting out with distinct virtuosity, enlightened like a seaside glade, I've never listened to her before, what an exceptionally mesmerizing performer.

Starring in a film that struggles to match up.

Although it starts out well as an alcoholic superstar (Bradley Cooper) suddenly decides to check out the local nightlife after another successful performance.

To his immense good fortune, he's lucky enough to discover a local talent whose versatility is as profound as it is unknown (Gaga).

The film excels as the two meet and Ally is instantaneously recognized.

But as the praise keeps rolling in, and rolling in, and rolling in, its gritty edge is blandly dulled, and as Jack's addictions correspondingly get the better of him, the result is a depressing descent into cold reckless shadow.

A Star is Born is just too obvious, not in the good we know this is tacky and we're making fun of ourselves kind of way, but in the bad you're supposed to be taking this seriously kind of way.

And it's super long.

Often when I see something this bad I'll go see something else and write about it instead, to avoid hurting feelings, but I don't have time to do that this month, and therefore, must proceed.

But I won't say much more.

Immediacy can be a useful device but when things are this instantaneous everything just falls apart.

Rapidly.

In terms of making a film, not going with the flow when performing live.

Man.

My mind's too full of negativity.

I think the expression is, field day, or you could have a field day with this one.

Some great performances though.

And some funny family moments.

The first 40 minutes are really good.

Bummer.

Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins melodiously orchestrates the dedicated caring and understanding required to sustain true friendship.

It's a film that looks at the generosity and civility that kindly lifts up the arts to playfully generate elegance and authenticity.

The rowdier side also represents, but the same sense of communal sensitivity still pervades, raucously acknowledging a devoted patroness intently through saturated conciliations.

Cultivations.

The film's more concerned with the behind the scenes efforts required to sanctify a beautiful spirit than the performance that spirit delivers, savvy husband St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant[Grant giving his best performance to date{I haven't seen all his films}, like a humble sprightly humanistic aristocratic gazelle gracefully commanding each effortless stride]) smoothly working critical crowds to achieve angelic objectives.

Thus, it inevitably examines criticism's human factor, feelings as opposed to frequencies, comprehending multiple levels of artistic endeavour advocating for myriad aesthetic principles, eccentricities, something beyond obsessions with novelty that rationally yet wantonly balances sociopolitical ethics to assert un/specific cultural insights and focus on the dynamic perennial exchange between the educational and the entertaining.

Easy to scathe at will.

Although people sometimes find constructive criticism just as scathing as vitriol because they flippantly equate the different styles.

It's an artistic Magellan, a simmering solubility, not a mathematical exercise.

Exponential.

A complicated controversial multilayered investment in the unanimously uplifting, Florence Foster Jenkins, for a bit of harmless play, that's how I viewed it anyways, presented with the outmost tact.

More to it than crushing egos.

Daring in its amicable enterprise.

A Most Violent Year

Patience, hard work, and skill, transferrable knowledge calmly and efficiently presented, threats, competitive thefts assaulting bottom lines, disrupting morale and distribution, fermenting internal disputes, fear and uncertainty corrupting the working day, factions, a lawsuit, thugs, insert stoicism, by the books, leadership, an impenetrable reliance on a sense of fair play cultivated through years of shrewd progressive expansion relied upon during its darkest yet most definitive hour, revenue streams collapsing, worst case options relied upon, an unwavering commitment to the law, like Michael Corleone, if he had started from scractch.

Law and order.

Concealment.

As Abel Morales's (Oscar Isaac) business expands, his competitors employ desperate tactics, their livelihoods threatened, pathological pyrosthetics.

A Most Violent Year resists the urge to fight back.

It keeps a level head.

Distinguishing itself from other films in the genre.

It was odd watching it, I kept waiting for the eruption, the countermeasures, the explosion of pent up rage, disastrous regimens of revenge.

But its aesthetic honours goodwill as opposed to vindication, composure rather than frenzy, its blueprints shackling threats of reprisal, steady assured confidence, in the methods that have ensured success.

It's like the feeling you get when you work hard for something, enjoy the rewards, stay true to a vision, accept professional challenges, and continue to modestly achieve.

Like graduating from high school or being promoted.

Staying in business for decades.

Thoughtful innovations.

Water for Elephants

Romance/youth contends with fidelity/age in Francis Lawrence's Water for Elephants as the young penniless Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) falls in love with his boss's wife. Jacob is lucky to have a job, having fortuitously jumped on a train in the middle of the night carrying a travelling circus to its next destination.  His veterinary skills soon prove useful although one of his diagnoses humanely disrupts the circus's most prominent act. Taking matters into his own hands against the protests of the volatile master of ceremonies (Christolph Waltz as August) almost leads to his dismissal, but August respects his firm convictions, even though they frustrate his fiery ego.

Thus we have a self-made person whose successfully made their living for decades in a fluctuating market willing to make sacrifices to accommodate a naive intelligent capable worker. Unfortunately the brutal manner in which he conducts his affairs leave his protégé with little to aspire to. An economic depression complicates matters as predictable revenues dry up and paranoia unleashes its maniacal tendrils. The introduction of a forbidden subject of desire does little to destabilize the frenetic tension.

When theories put into practice are validated by longevity their proponents undoubtably feel a sense of accomplishment. But if this sense of accomplishment leads both to an unyielding desire for order and vicious attempts to authoritatively manage the chaotic, its heralded methodology will likely engender internal miscalculations. If the alternatives which present themselves are met with the sword, its manufactured stability may lose its sustained truth-value and blindly obscure the forward thinking focus of its integrative synergies.

As that which they love most flutters away.  

Moneyball

Brad Pitt must have loved Moneyball's script at first glance. He's given the majority of screen-time and only one other actor is provided with the lines to contend a memorable performance. The film's about a baseball general manager's (Pitt as Oakland's Billy Beane) struggles to introduce a new style of management/recruitment/strategizing in order to field a playoff contender with a limited budget, the style being based on sabermetrics, the specialized objective analysis of baseball statistics gathered from actual game-time activities, notably a player's on-base percentage. Pitt lectures, wheels, trades, demotes, admonishes and deals while throwing things around and confidently battling formidable egos. The film effectively demonstrates what it's like to champion the new within a set of firmly established guidelines that have been unquestionably governing the order of things since they were set in place and consequently naturalized through the act of unconscious repetition. Risks must be taken. It all must be laid on the line. A number of unanticipated factors and potential points of diversification must be calmly and patiently ignored/incorporated as their rational characteristics challenge or correspond to the plan in question.

The film's a lot easier to watch if you're a baseball fan whose interested in the trials of an innovative general manager. Lotta baseball goin' on and your response to the predictable trajectories may be more enthusiastic if following a team's condensed unheralded controversial season interests you.

Or maybe it won't, I don't know.

The relationship between Beane and his daughter (Kerris Dorsey as Casey Beane) offers a distraction and adds a familial dimension to his professional predicaments. Apart from his relationship with his daughter, he definitely lives and breathes baseball 24/7 each and every day always. Was impressed with Jonah Hill's reticent yet incisive performance, exemplifying the possibilities which occasionally exist for recent graduates who aren't afraid to challenge the establishment.