Jacob's Ladder

*Spoiler Alert.

Secret army experiments covertly composed and athletically executed, leading oblivious hardboiled soldiers to wanton acts of outrageous cruelty. 

Alone and isolated wasting their time with harmless shenanigans and lighthearted horseplay, the chosen unit suddenly erupts with insane bellicose bloodthirsty determinacy. 

A soldier's hit, a bayonet to the chest, and he wakes up back on the subway, years later in a different life with sights unfamiliar and newfound trajectories.

Things go well a lot of the time as his supportive partner seems chill and helpful, and things typically run well at work, his life advancing without hindrance or incident. 

But he starts to notice odd random things that look like demons spawned in hell, his mind unable to rationally explain them as their frequency intensifies.

At other times, he gleefully awakes in an alternative life he once closely knew, where he's married with three nimble sons who sincerely care for his clever witticisms.

As he drifts from one realm to the next he distressingly starts to lose touch with reality. 

Until he meets up with old friends from the army.

Who have been experiencing the same freakin' thing.

A fine example of a chilling psychological thriller effectively blending religion with reality, as a soldier ventures through ye olde purgatory after having been seriously wounded.

It isn't preachy or overly sentimental it just presents a man's life as it is, as he wildly contends with heaven and hell as his fluid mortality grotesquely fluctuates. 

In a rare class of religious films that aren't sensational or over-the-top, the grim world it slyly presents gradually unreeling while seeming quite real (like The Omen or on television, The X-Files).

Definitely a shame to see experimental drugs blindly field tested on faithful soldiers, who had no idea they were part of an experiment clandestinely conducted by the army.

A different time when the soldier's viewpoint mattered as much as higher ranking authorities. 

With democratic vision.

And wholesome subjectivity. 

Exuberant life.

Universal calculi.

The Madness of King George

Foucauldian investigation pending, I still find it odd to see a film from the '90s heavily invested in the monarchy, even though its cherished king briefly loses his mind, and an upstart layabout may indefinitely displace him.

Here you have a critical problem relating to monarchy or autocracy laid bare, what if the king loses his mind and sill continues to fluidly take an active role in government?

I'm more familiar with narratives that take a much more severe look at such potentialities, in order to wisely advocate for democratic institutions, which usually saturate tyrannical ambitions.

The king in this film is adorable however with an encyclopedic knowledge of his domain, he likes animals and knows the details of the intimate lives of even his most theoretically insignificant subjects. 

He finds custom and formality irritating and openly wishes to be less strict, amidst an observant displeased retinue compulsively obsessed with monarchical routine.

Unfortunately, as he becomes more and more friendly and more becoming to democratic sensibilities, he's considered more and more insane and eventually locked up for his communal troubles.

The doctor hired to cure him contrasts his personality with democratic incongruity, he's never read Shakespeare and has no time for pomp but understands his work with utilitarian efficacy. 

Thus the king who is more like a commoner hires a commoner who is more like a king, to save his mind from withering away into petulant unrehearsed trivial lunacy.

The treatment indeed is much less fun than the childish mad king ruling his kingdom, but it does work he's able to return to the head of government without excessive comment.

But even if the king is loveable and wise and caring and erudite, does the potential for debased absolutism not reside inherently within?

How strong are the democratic forces collectively aligned to challenge such aberrations, as absolutist sentiment widely spreads and eventually subsides in cultural familiarity?

Familiarity is no doubt ingratiating but what if it starts illegal wars that ruin the global economy?

Does the familiar become say fruitless? 

To be challenged by the feverish unknown? 

What About Bob?

The traditional meeting once a week between the maladjusted and their doctors, the routine format innocently encouraging freeflowing thoughts and observations.

A set time-limit producing boundaries within which to fluidly optimize potential, the information shared creating a narrative through which diagnoses can be stipulated.

The expansion or contraction of the framework occasionally necessary confidentially speaking, as dull humdrum repetitive stasis ridiculously shifts into ludicrous gear.

The quaint determination of coordinates bringing psychiatrist and patient together outside the office, likely universally frowned upon as far as professional relationships go, the possibility of misguided friction leading to awkward unorthodox quandaries, inherently structured by comic accident but at times reaching obsessed despondency.

The giving of advice so often unrewarded and intermittently resented by the genuinely insane, who can't accept a humble position within any sociocultural contract.

Tender affection can also characterize habitual desires to play or fraternize, degrees of comfort misread misinterpreted as unexpected meetings flow.

While the offering of modest counsel hopes to clarify points of confusion, the continuous embrace of unsolicited comment forged through madness can churn and fluster.

What seems irritating to you in consistent surprising recurrent conversation, may seem much less irksome to others who only entertain it in modest intervals.

As you point out your irritation and they swiftly counter with disbelief, the vexation itself can exemplify the obnoxious development of a syndrome.

If typically ensconced meaningfully within a reasonable scientific realm, burgeoning unacademic study may stifle clear-headed lucid imagination. 

Generally confined to the family unit it seems rather harmless as expressed by children, but continual confrontation with compulsive lunacy can sincerely obfuscate acute illustrations.

Steadfast reason having maladroitly transformed into random illogical glib orchestrations, dependable equilibrium wildly shuts down and leaves incoherent tense bewilderment.

Thank god for the onset of summer gleefully shouts parents everywhere.

Who have hopefully found enough time.

To regroup, decompress, and sterilize. 

The Holdovers

As Christmas approaches, a severe depressed teacher is suddenly stuck with a pressing burden, to monitor the activities and structure the days of a small group of children at a private school.

The children were left behind for unfortunate reasons their grief somewhat turgid, and to make things worse the ornery prof gives them lengthy flush days full of challenge and study.

Instinctive rebellion athletically simmers as the taut strict injustice wholeheartedly incapacitates, alcoholic coherence and ancient civilizations acerbically mustering seditious resolve. 

When the surprising introduction of chill unexpected adventurous pastimes makes itself freely known, and a former dismissive and angst-ridden parent turns a bucolic leaf and picks up his son. 

He also takes three of the other kids leaving only one student to be chastised and disciplined, the student desperately trying to contact his mom but she can't be reached at the resort where she's staying.

The resident cook still performs her duties as the Holiday Season ominously howls.

Helping the instructor try to loosen things up.

As the frustrated teenager dismally exfoliates. 

It's a traditional woeful bitter look at hard-boiled excessively critical regulations, as they gradually let go of their uptight ceremony and warmly embrace something much more public.

It reminded me of A Christmas Carol (1951) and how Scrooge had to once spend Christmas at a boarding school, until his adoring sister finally convinced their father to let him come home to celebrate together.

Imagine Scrooge the child, bright and decent, despondently stuck at school for Christmas, with Scrooge-the-elder, jaded and unfeeling, scheduling his activities throughout the day.

Scrooge vs. Scrooge the malignant metastases overtly arrayed through pomp and circumstance, slowly learning to get along as the stilted teacher incrementally lets go.

Perhaps if he'd been sent to the military academy he would have wound up more like Ebenezer, the Scrooge-like prof through an act of kindness embracing lithe spirits and altering his destiny.

Much more serious than many a light happy-go-lucky convalescent Christmas film.

That may find a lasting audience amongst the people who listen to the people whom no one ever bothers to care to listen to. 😎

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Multivariable universes loosely interconnected through tenuous familiarity, simultaneously emergent disproportionately taxing impeccably embellished latent hyper-reactivity. 

Perhaps every decision made unleashes alternative inconclusive realities, wherein which parallel characteristics authenticate ill-considered plans.

For each life, millions of distinct worlds invariably populate unique dimensions, which themselves continuously generate immutable mutations in a subjective infinity.

Perhaps it isn't a matter of corporeal space that the physical itself is in fact limitless, like compiling date online, how many electrons in a verbose atom?

Things take shape and manifest consistency during waking hours relatively structured, but just as the rotation of the Earth is imperceptible, perhaps sundry interdimensional interstices flourish undetected.

A brilliant way to travel between them is poetically realized in Everything Everywhere All at Once (apart from dreams), as an active mind abounding with creativity embraces overbearing disillusion.

As family pressures and economic doldrums reach discombobulating heights, escape can no longer be sublimated if it isn't the right thing to do.

She's (Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang) done the right thing in many respects and has never abandoned her responsibilities, even as her father (James Hong as Gong Gong) consistently belittles her, and her wayward daughter (Stephanie Hsu as Joy Wang) refuses to help.

She's kept everything held together with infinite patience and herculean resolve, but one day it all breaks down as she embraces grave ontological flux.

That dangerous question - to be scrupulously avoided, "what if I'd done that instead?", is intensely multiplied ad infinitum, as she encounters representatives from manifold worlds, disparate lives she may have lived.

She has an active imagination so the alternative potential is tremendously profound, comic book confounding and consternating quandaries suddenly disintegrating routine life.

It's one part exceptional nervous breakdown curiously bewildering material reality, and a brilliant synthesis of fantasy and reality somewhat like magical scientific realism. 

I wonder what people who don't like comic books will think of Kwan and Scheinert's conundrum, the ways in which obsessive practicality is suddenly fantastically disposed?

Or how the comic book aficionados will inquisitively consider the realistic intrusion, the reification of their abstract dreams perhaps passionately unappreciated?

I like this kind of thing and the poetic transdimensional drive (you can jump between worlds if you figure out the improbable poetic thing to say or do in any situation), who didn't spend hours imagining such things in their youth, perhaps not with so much detail?

A mother's strength radiates incarnate.

Thankfully not in a world without feeling. 

Classic postmodern impetus.

My favourite Oscar nominee this year (it's super zeitgeisty, if you believe in that sort of thing).

Co-starring Raccoonie.

The Alchemist's Cookbook

I reckon many imaginative people find the idea of alchemy appealing, the ancient search for magical realism 😎 as exceptionally alluring in any century.

It'd be worth taking a bit of time to compile a comprehensive bibliography, to see how often it's shown up in fiction, I'd wager one exists already.

Or several perhaps, multilaterally speaking, I'm unaware how realistically it was taken by yesteryear, there may even be whole sections in the British and French national libraries, Canadian and American history perhaps not as robust.

You would think it would have once been a dependable subject for versatile comedians, or illusionist/buffoon teams who put their heads together to entertain.

The romantic in me shyly wonders if anyone ever achieved the goal.

Such incredible knowledge of the natural world.

Long before taxonomical exasperation.

But I have no wish to see romance turn to dread like the lead's (Ty Hickson) experience in The Alchemist's Cookbook, his grand misfortune superstitiously compounded by an untutored embrace of the age old discipline. 

He seems to have been of two minds regarding the spirit and the secular, and even though he excelled at chemistry was still routinely bewildered by angels & demons.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if so many people didn't manipulate spiritual authenticity, making it generally impossible to trust any lucid supernatural symbiosis? 

You don't want to trust and be made a fool of, but manifest belief foils bland cynicism, the dismissal of everything consistently dull, the wholehearted embrace a contradictory blur.

I guess you can't feed all the animals in the forest, but if you see one who's injured it's cool to help out, perhaps some tropical forests come equipped with year round bounty, the northern forests of Canada and Québec a challenging struggle.

I wasn't going to watch a macabre flick in 2022 since dad passed away last year around this time, but frights still feverishly found me with mind-boggling active dialectic fervour (I wasn't expecting this film at all).

The age of reason certainly is much less of an inherent habitual gong show, I imagine.

But are people having less fun?

Could be a cool book, it's tough to say.

I imagine an alchemist would see through it regardless of epoch, trend, century, or stigma.

I wonder how raccoons relate to alchemy?

Through multidisciplinary agile play? 

🦝

Chattahoochee

A veteran from the Korean war who managed to distinguish himself has trouble fitting in back home (Gary Oldman as Emmett Foley), and after having grown tired of picket fence pastimes, tries to get the police to shoot him for the insurance money.

He winds up in a psychiatric institution and finds he's in for the long haul, a distressing situation to say the least since he really isn't that insane.

His coherent reflexes help him observe the unfortunate general corruption, the cruel and unnecessary punishment routinely handed out by the sadistic administration.

He keeps track of the abuse in writing and eventually even studies introductory law, learning enough to air legitimate grievances which are generally ignored by unsympathetic staff.

Meanwhile, as the years pass by, his child ages and his wife (Frances McDormand as Mae Foley) seeks divorce, his sister (Pamela Reed as Earlene) never giving up on him, but somewhat perplexed by the daunting legal fees.

Consistent protest within the facility leads to frequent confrontation, irate guards and frustrated staff with no inclinations to change the management.

It's an old school animate take on social justice and institutional reform, the assertion of rights by those left behind by a system thoroughly unconcerned with how to take care of them.

You get to see Oldman and McDormand in their youth delivering exceptional performances, even if Chattahoochee has issues, you can see why these actors made a go of it (didn't they win best actor and actress in the same year? [2018]).

The thought of being generally sane and finding yourself locked down by bureaucratic codes, is aggravated by the reality that so many others who lack rationality can do exceptionally little to freely defend themselves.

Fortunately, Foley's work prevails and over a hundred reforms are introduced, and he's eventually released a free person to passionately deal with middle-aged life.

I imagine things have remarkably improved since Foucault wrote Madness & Civilization, in some jurisdictions anyways, which hopefully aren't suffering from stringent cutbacks.

It seems that caring for the sick goes without saying and there should be principled professionals who proceed accordingly.

Too bad stories like Chattahoochee still emerge.

Laws should prevent sadistic reckoning.

*There's no secret meaning here, no underlying code. This film was released in 1989 and I'd never heard of it. That's why I chose to watch it.

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). 

Jigureul jikyeora! (Save the Green Planet!)

A reclusive individual soaks up the sci-fi with eccentric compulsive obsession, his immersive interactive interpretations inspiring conspiratorial hypotheses. 

Much more than that, indeed, an intricate historico-political narrative emerges, theorizing intergalactic genealogies as applied to entrepreneurial life.

The line between fact and fiction slowly fades as interpersonal calamity strikes, his creative in-depth provocative nativity explaining the consistent misfortune.

He concludes it's time to act and then kidnaps a wealthy businessperson, whom he believes is in fact an alien, part of a network controlling the planet.

His partner is rather worried when he returns home with his irate captive, and then proceeds to conduct experiments in order to validate his theory.

His subject refuses to adapt to his newfound interrogative paradigm, and verbally assails his psychotic jailor with cacophonies of sheer defiance.

A famous detective is hot on the trail employing the art of incisive conception, but working alone may prove hazardous as active suspicion buzzes in.

Oddball otherworldly yet realistic mayhem ensues, as a clever yet mad conspiracy theory exacts critical constructs construed.

Is it somewhat irresponsible to create narratives wherein which wild conspiracy theories prove to be true, considering the vast abundance of such unsubstantiated ideas (presented as genuine not speculative) circulating within cyberspatial domains?

In Jigureul jikyeora! (Save the Green Planet!)'s case macromischief irremediably results, the final moments so catastrophic that it becomes clear the film's starkly farcical. 

And where would cinema and literature be if it wasn't for enticing larger-than-life fantasy, that sees mundane routine circumstances transformed into something influential?

The trick is to teach people at a young age to see through conspiracy theories, or at least apply logic to their strange arguments, I don't really follow them myself but I hope such theorists are at least creating partial arguments.

If people see them as comic fantasy creatively generating harmless controversy, then there isn't much difference in either following them or watching The X-Files (great show).

But if people take them seriously, if they become popular and people actually think they're true, it can become rather dangerous for the people targeted who have no knowledge of the jealous conceit. 

The subject's much more vast than what I've written here but a good book could examine these observations more closely (if one hasn't already).

What's the difference between critical and conspiracy theory?

Democratically speaking.

No harm in transforming such ideas into pulp fiction (is that a chicken and the egg scenario?). 

David and Lisa

Sequestered far off in sympathetic regalia a gifted adolescent gradually makes friends, his highly strung opinionated disposition leading to conflict after first moving in.

If anyone harmlessly touches him or even suggests shaking hands, he erupts in crise de colère believing illness or malady will soon emerge.

None too amused with the psychiatric practice he defies his doctors as they present questions, quick to diagnose what's latently presumed in whatever is lightheartedly discussed.

Extremely defensive and generally combative an otherworldly fellow student puts him at ease, as she innocently communicates with rhymes and freely expresses herself through drawing.

Her carefree influence institutes calm and he starts agreeably listening to others, and taking part in various activities without introducing bitter criticisms.

But his parents aren't so sure he requires consistent supervision, and decide to bring him home long before he's contentedly transformed.

They try to help him comprehend what they consider to be sound.

But he misses his newfound friends.

And their free-flowing unorthodox collective.

David and Lisa is a touching must-see for anyone who's ever felt like somewhat of a misfit, for within irreverent rascality finds cohesive charmed community.

The affected or grouchy or compulsive or blunt find a safe place unobstructed by conformity, and eclectically assert multivariable dissonance in sweetly flowing uncanny favour.

Fortunately the doctors aren't motivated by strict pretensions, and by listening while freely conversing they remodel overbearing instruction.

There's no specific time limit and even less of an agenda and by no means a strategic plan, the students are rather given free time to matriculate beyond firmly structured commands.

Since there is something they just don't quite get in relation to generalized sociocultural temporality, it's wonderful to see them given the space to cultivate something random and specialized.

Through mutual acceptance and compassionate tolerance healing ascends with concordant eccentricity, and hang-ups and grudges and chips slowly fade since there's much less demand for routine predictability. 

Grievances persist but they're much less intense and friendship sees that they're readily forgiven.

An outstanding heartfelt film.

That's as sharp as it is mellifluous. 

Joker

A confused man who struggles to fit in suddenly responds with unhinged fury, to those who snidely provoke him.

He tries to socialize at work, to enjoy the friendly influence of camaraderie, but is attuned to a different wavelength that pushes others swiftly away.

He sees a psychiatrist on a regular basis to air grievances and seek shelter, but she's ill-equipped to deal with his issues and their encounters increase his frustration.

Before budget cuts bring them to an abrupt end.

He goes off his meds and starts researching his past after reading a letter written by his mother (Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck) to Bruce Wayne's father (Brett Cullen).

And as the woe disparagingly intensifies, he embraces reckless spleen, proceeding wild-eyed and menacing, with neither recourse nor path nor guilt.

Gotham's elite have developed an unsympathetic attitude regarding its impoverished citizens, who find solace in the Joker's (Joaquin Phoenix) rampage.

The result is incredibly bleak.

As despondent as it is abandoned.

A dangerous film, this Joker, released at the worst of times.

Characters like the Joker are often exceptions are they not?, but in recent decades the U.S has seen so much distressing carnage.

Joker could easily be dismissed if it wasn't so well done, and didn't reach such a wild wide audience.

Compassion abounds for the Joker within.

And Batman's father's a condescending jerk.

From the perspective of film, it's easily the best comic book movie, like mainstream tragic arthouse psychological horror abounding with sensitive emotion.

Not just sensational superheroes predictably poised and pouncing, Joker leaves behind both razzle and dazzle to distill nocturnal desperation.

You feel for him as he daydreams, as his explanations are dismissed at work, as he makes friends with a neighbour down the hall, as he traces the roots of his identity.

Perhaps nothing will come of it.

Perhaps people harbouring dark thoughts will see the horrifying nature of their outcomes and be emphatically deterred, like parents who teach children to respect alcohol by getting them drunk, school of hard knocksy pedagogical bedlam.

But hopefully people like Bruce Wayne or his father, people occupying positions of power in the U.S, will consider a more equitable distribution of wealth, and uphold institutions which aid the unfortunate.

It's not perfect in Canada and Québec, Britain, France or Ireland, but there is much less violence, according to Michael Moore's films.

Because these countries have elites who care about the unfortunate, like Bernie Sanders.

And encourage them to be productive team members.

Much harder to own your own weapons too.

Less idealistic.

Much more practical.

Madeline's Madeline

Raw inimitable frothing exuberant talent exasperated within deductive convention extemporaneously seething through.

Misunderstandings contraceptively disputing improvised codes maladroitly enfeebling eruptive creative scripture, diminutive tisane steeped in self-doubt ominous reckless outbursts wildly stricken angst.

No rules.

No mentor.

Consuming instinct cognizant of its gravity elementally composing ephemeral truths, the art of reflecting a god's experimental impulses editing in universal flux, objectives unrecognized ceaseless mismatched byproducts tempering environmental exfoliation; arboreal glimpses sowing conscious splash.

Climatology.

Raindrops.

She's phenomenal.

Constant motion excavating incorporeal archaeological feeling clasped in whisked conjecture verifiably asymmetrically drawn.

Random impulse subconsciously sleuthing bare recalcitrants embroiled revealed.

Ethereal alma mater intuitively grasped like love blindly struck with congenital nuisance empiric moisture foam.

Mama lynx still a kit feisty mews mystified matriculating.

Exotic overtures.

Prone discomfort.

Abstruse grammar attuned not specialized boldly stoked constrained gusts briskly pounced moans rosetta.

Obscene exhaustion retail shock.

Peace of mind on stage.

Constituent convalescence.

Emotional infinities planetary permutations feline fluctuation omniscient ceremony.

Bertha dans la zone.

It's like performance anxiety is strictly material as Madeline (Helena Howard) disconcertingly asserts stratos.

Duelling with classification.

Alternatives strictly conceived.

La Tenerezza (Tenderness)

Stubbornness and pride abound in Gianni Amelio's La Tenerezza, as a widower takes a shine to a family next door, while continuing to neglect his own middle-aged offspring, who shamelessly covet their litigious inheritance.

His extramarital appetites produced profound resentment in his young, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility have fostered distraught enmities.

The young family is energetic and full of life, curiosity boundlessly blooming as mother and little ones inspect undiscovered surroundings.

Lorenzo (Renato Carpentieri) finds himself offering fatherly advice and even develops kind friendships with both partners, sharing observations grumpily withheld from daughter and son with his unknown endearing impulsive new neighbours.

Something's not quite right though, Fabio (Elio Germano) often sharing awkward sad thoughts to which Lorenzo responds with empathy.

And as the joy from Amélie is pathologically reconceptualized, La Tenerezza admonishes adventurous spirits, the ramifications of settling with mindsets unsound, obtusely effecting tenants newfound, while those grown accustomed to habitual means, pay full price for taxing soirées indiscreet.

Redemption is sought however misplaced temperate reckonings bearing choice succulent fruits.

The film rhetorically narrativizes clashes between longstanding and recently confirmed residents to examine belonging and community from less romantic social ordeals.

Tenderness breaks through but as a cold heart convalesces psychological precedents confound poised rebirths.

Depicting a less cheerful array of realistic sentiments, losses disparaged erupt with molten inadmissibility.

Its mistrust of male refugees isn't counterbalanced by dependable claimants, even if said mistrust is ostensibly the byproduct of Lorenzo's infidelities, childhood trauma effecting his daughter Elena's (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) professional and personal lives, her inability to trust men perhaps resulting in cynical isolation.

Xenophobia's still xenophobia even when it's intellectually contextualized.

Leaving audiences to sift through clues presented to clarify semantic stresses may ambiguously impress, but effects still hauntingly linger long after characters heal from hard fought lessons.

The Dark Horse

A gentle soul plagued by mental illness finds himself caught between brother and nephew in James Napier Robertson's The Dark Horse.

Solemnity.

Mana's (James Rolleston) father (Wayne Hapi as Ariki) survived by joining a violent gang.

It's the life he knows and he wants his son to become a member so that he can feel safe as he dies believing he'll be taken care of.

His son loathes the senseless brutal thuggery however and doesn't want to live a life of crime.

His uncle Genesis (Cliff Curtis) is a brilliant chess player who also possesses an exhaustive understanding of his culture's mythology but may have never held a job and can hardly take care of himself.

Nevertheless, as he finds purpose helping to manage an after school club for disadvantaged youth, telling them stories and teaching them chess in preparation for a tournament, his nephew gravitates towards his civility as his father's partners become increasingly aggressive.

Ariki has told his brother to stay away from his son, and their ensuing dialectic, brashly shy and modestly brave, disputatiously contends for Mana's future, both of them eventually accepting that they need to acknowledge his own individualistic dreams.

The Dark Horse beautifully elevates the constructive art of teaching while harshly contrasting it with stark economic bellows, Olympian highs and devastating punishments masterfully articulated with naive bracing culpability.

Life without opportunity can be eviscerating so I don't stubbornly fault people for making desperate decisions, although I do commend those who struggle in different ways, creating something durable and friendly in a culture of bitter cynicism.

You feel bad for all the participants involved accept Mutt (Barry Te Hira) who's clearly evil.

Building a community from nothing, nurturing hope and togetherness through board games and puzzles as opposed to drugs and alcohol; something to think about.

Genesis is a character who sticks with you, clearly ill-equipped to deal with the quotidian yet exceptionally gifted at enlivening the imaginary.

An artist you know.

Perhaps the best kind.

Infinitely Polar Bear

Rolling, coasting, recoiling, roasting, stabilized ruptures fuel Cam Stuart's (Mark Ruffalo) days as he's prescribed more responsibility than he's used to levelling, medicated and somewhat unemployable, he begins looking after his kids el lobo solo when his partner moves to New York to study.

He's a handful, and not used to the innocent ponderings of his two young daughters, meticulous yet sloppy, steady while breaking down, he slowly learns to mirthfully manage, the acculturation of a wild renaissance man.

Refrained.

Eccentric and helpful, he tries to cultivate bonds with both his neighbours and extended family, occasionally succeeding, although his wondrous naivety does shake and bake from time to time.

Eclectic churn.

It's a lighthearted look at the strength of the human spirit, Infinitely Polar Bear, at second chances, the exceptional, the highly talented intelligent people who don't crave order or structure yet excel nonetheless at whatever it is they happen to be doing.

Also a heartfelt look at why medication can be good, and why too much can be harmful.

Maggie (Zoe Saldana) and Cam's relationship pirouettes like distilled spontaneous chuckling, working as a team to loving care, sorting it out, getting down to it, taking risks, believing in one another.

Inspired freeform flexibility, perennially youthful, ebullient leaps and bounds.

Because it's lighthearted, some of its cultural critiques, although direct and to the point, lack the stamina associated with more rigorous analyzes.

I would have left the seasons out. The film's too short to have four seasons and they seem like they're over as soon as they begin.

The frustrated wholesomeness still encourages further research, exploratory expeditions, nights out on the town.

Welcome to Me

Individualized destabilizing pent-up regressive rage, vanity spiked with lavish tear-jerks, revenge, pretence, Sardaukar, like white water rafting while having an enema, serendipitously skydiving into reckless raw sewage, a tropical vacation during a hurricane, horseback riding through an excrement infused mine field, or effervescent diarrhea, stuck in the washroom with the runs for 90 minutes with a good book after having drank a glass of Johnnie Walker Red, laughing your ass off while occasionally glancing at what's written on the walls, it's well done, solid dark comedy, poignant pointless improvised puttering, septic serenity, caw, caw, caw.

86 million squandered insanity.

There's a raw sense of guiltless innocence that destructively vibrates like a ludic chaotic cello, devoid of any constructive purpose, strict subjectivism, too independently inclined.

Like Immortan Joe, Alice (Kristen Wiig) rules, although her domain isn't post-apocalyptic, yet remains symptomatic of what leads to Fury Road.

Welcome to Me isn't hastily thrown together, they took their time to apply added depth, simultaneously enthusiastic and ghastly, it smoothly maintains its aesthetic the whole way through.

Reminiscent of World's Greatest Dad.

Possibly funded by the pharmaceutical lobby.

Decadence.

Mega Maid.  

Maps to the Stars

Is it possible to take a sterile excessive stale antiseptic and fill it with enough dry 40% neat conversations to soberly materialize a fumigated aesthetic, like sparkling versatile antithetical lard, an affordable Naked Lunch, its sacrificial form industriously high-strung, its intellectual content flowing with literary immiscibility, which, on the one hand makes you feel like insecticide, on the other, like a priceless set of handcrafted heirlooms, David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, a restrained hard-lined masterpiece of elitist horror, a subdued synthesis of the mundane and the maniacal, stronger than both Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method, inflammable family histories, seductively liaising, emphatically, eviscerated?

It is, Cronenberg's patient strategic mix of obnoxious refinements, youthful misgivings, and childish incredulity, slowly building its complex web of serendipitous interconnectivity, makes you wish you were about to pleasantly throw up after having spent $627 dollars on a bottle of scotch, like gentrified gentility, frenzied fire starters, was that Mr. Mugs?, all-knowing and ever-so-loveable Mr. Mugs?, shot down by 21st century infantile ennui, prevented from teaching his lessons, consigned, forevermore?

Bashful, so difficult to blend these elements without being overtly pretentious or inadvertently condescending, still allowing them to preserve their autonomy, pulsating, integrated, heterogeneity.

It's somewhat of a satirical take on both these potentialities, expertly derelicted, by a master who continues to innovate.

Reminded me more of his early texts Stereo or Crimes of the Future than A History of Violence or Eastern Promises.

His roots.

Back to his roots.

Mommy

Heartbreaking confused insurgent rage pervades Xavier Dolan's Mommy, violently exploding in fits of uncontrollable wrath, volatile and destructive, furiously limited by social, familial, educational, and economic restraints.

But these outbursts liaise with the tenderest consoling spirited charms of a thoughtful caring bold youth hoping to find a way to fit in, unable to play any role besides King.

It's a brilliant fusion, truly brilliant, the best Canadian film I've seen, on par with the best cinema the international community has to offer, Arcand, Maddin, Egoyan, and Cronenberg have a genuine inheritor in Dolan, who's cultivating new ground for Canadian film, and living up to his potential.

Undeniable oscar calibre.

I don't write this lightly.

The youth's struggles are situated within a socio(a)political legal frame successfully supported by a direct honest account of his actions, to provocatively generate cogent debate, regarding individual freedoms, or the curtailment of one's liberties.

Steve Després (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is free.

Dolan beautifully captures his freedom again and again, twirling a shopping cart, smoking while preparing a meal, synthesizing the joyous and the manic, the sincere and the coerced, to present a less sadistic Clockwork Orange, set within impoverished circumstances, reason and madness aligned to contend.

He doesn't get the basics.

He cannot serve.

It's like he has the constitution of a viking warrior, devoted to his family, requiring constant battle, too undisciplined to acquire any plunder, too wild to learn how to begin.

Contemporary ancient emergence.

If only he played sports.

What a fearsome running back he could have been.

His mother's supportive struggles and practically ideal patience gradually break your heart, as incident after incident disintegrates her resolve, the scene where she dreams of his future, still producing genuine tears.

That scene's too well done, too well timed.

Too unfair.

Discourses of the beautiful, the psychological, the political, the mad, resplendently yet carnally united in a downtrodden brazen familial peace, an illustrious rampage, so delicate, so refined.

So crushing.

So free.

Controversial scenes.

Excellent soundtrack.

Still prefer Tarantino's soundtracks, but this is a good one.

Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood)

A poetically crafted romantically frayed conversationally reflexive vibrato, wherein loyalty and trust intellectually intermingle with opportunity's libido, eternal springs caressing the depressed, spirited infatuation inquisitively cascading, limitless potential blossoming in flux, the radiance of rapture, sorrow's devastation, Tran Anh Hung's Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood) sees young adults exploring the logistics of desire, fervidly fletched with nature's aromatic ineffability, like poignant, durable, pirouettes.

Exceptionally well-written characters enhanced via situational rationality and environmental temperamentality, exclaim raw spiritual secular synergies, and a defined sense of purpose, strengthened through relational ambiguities.

Some of the most beautiful moments I've seen in a film recently, Toru (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) and Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi) romancing on a windy day in the countryside, an impromptu performance of the titular Beatles's song (one of my favourites), Proust's Captive condensed into a short much less comic rendition of suffering, every scene featuring Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), the seasons changing, a waterfall.

Hyper-reactive withdrawn contemplative driven supportive devotion.

Amorphous amorous schematics.

Billowing wisps encrust.

Integrated imagination.

Substantial.

Camille Claudel 1915

Attaching a strictly temporal dimension to the passage of time, wherein a brilliant delicate artist's psychological sentence is thought to be perennially relapsing, her in/direct encampment in the Real having seared an ominous dread, intransigent incarnate interference, a burning flame shrouded in darkness, no companions, no recourse, no distinctions, hospitable exclusion, reclusively aligned.

She can't break free.

Powerful performance by Juliette Binoche (Camille Claudel).

She is provided with the chance to convalesce and her ability to reason traumatically cloisters logical probabilities whose unrequited lesions awoke excessively paranoid delusions.

Her loved ones remain condemnatory, acting in accordance with principles which they consider to be charitably Christian, imprisoning her for life in an asylum, proudly refusing to listen.

The authoritative sanctioned madness is regally revealed as two differently abled persons are rebuked for not rehearsing their play with the requisite depth of emotion.

Mme Claudel is obviously disturbed, not possessed, and may have benefitted from more suitable surroundings, pharmaceutical aids, and/or an understanding listener.

That's not to say pharmaceuticals should have definitely been administered.

If pharmaceutical companies are run like a business who seeks to see revenues increase every quarter, and they rely upon people being diagnosed with particular characteristics in order for their products to be sold, a rather disreputable culture could resultantly emerge, if specific diagnoses are not cross-referenced.

Pharmaceuticals may not have been required in Camille's case as her self-diagnosis indicates, her hypothesized cure seeming reasonable enough, affable, sane.

A different time; Camille Claudel 1915 examines a different set of historical rationalities.

A patient, helpless, conspicuous film, judiciously stark, the sound and the fury.