The Butterfly Murders

After a period of great destruction, peace settles in Ancient China, the various factions and sects and clans tired of the senseless and brutal killing.

But unease remains in the troubled aftermath as simply getting along with one another requires effort, and extant tensions and widespread jealousies bitterly encourage internecine melodrama. 

Around this time, feverish and brittle, a tale of insects revolting circulates, indeed the emergence of killer butterflies outrageously terrifies the superstitious. 

A castle lies uninhabited except for the resident lord and lady and their maid, who, to avoid the slaughter of the butterflies, have taken to hiding underground.

Sternly visited by the upright leader of a different clan they lithely accommodate, yet mysteries abound delicately within the sombre lair frenzies notwithstanding. 

The legendary thunders are ceremoniously summoned after the strange death of the distant ruler, to see how he divided up his kingdom in stalwart deluge and unbecoming gore.

Their unique gifts are not enough to overcome the misguidance however. 

As unrest strikes and chaos descends.

With ruthless wingéd covetous metamorphosis. 

I haven't seen many old school martial arts films with a sinister focus on honour and treachery, I've never even seen Bruce Lee's films, it's a puzzling shortcoming I need to work on.

The Butterfly Murders, if indicative of a scheme, introduces a fast-paced in-depth action thriller, inherently necessitating suspicion and attention as it wildly indoctrinates incessant lesion.

Calculated mistrust and bewitching loyalties formally clash with inquisitive stewardship, unsettling murders and inarticulate chrysalids defiantly imploding sanctimonious stealth. 

An intricate script intriguingly accentuated with robust character and nondescript collusion, thrown together with ecstatic haste which at times leads to opaque delineations. 

I classically misunderstood the title and thought that butterflies (or transformative individuals) were being murdered, and although the latter does comes to pass, I was still surprised to find butterfly killers.

With such asymmetrical flight paths how could they ever be dispatched?

Similar to bats in flight.

Imbroglio misgivings.

Rigamaroller coaster. 

Les Fauves (Wildcats)

Difficult, where to situate this film, if anywhere in particular, or nowhere notwithstanding.

If it's supposed to inspire horror, it's far too tame and light, coming across as more of a creepy drama than anything truly frightening.

It is more of a kids film though, a teenage film, an adolescent film, a film basking in youthful articulation, so perhaps the short scenes that never really lead anywhere were still long enough to develop tension for younger audiences, searching for something more than a campy slasher, looking for melancholic distress.

Les Fauves (Wildcats) does take place in a campground and many of its characters are therefore camping, and it is somewhat campy I suppose, insofar as it's hesitant and awkwardly disposed, and perhaps the distraught psycho has lost its appeal in recent years, and horror directors are searching for more thoughtful borderline visceral illustrations, as they consider the globalized world, and step into the harrowing cascade.

Could be, although if horror is shifting paradigmatically, Les Mauves may not be seminally equipped, but it is chock full o' Summer, and there are without question much much worse things.

For presenting horror without a vicious monster and sincerely attempting to generate chills that are more cerebral, Les Fauves should be commended, even if it falls far short of the haunting Midsommar.

But I'm wondering if it's not supposed to be taken that seriously, as a horror film, or if it's more of a horror-comedy, to be accurate, or definitively precise.

The opening scene is certainly comedic and (forgive me if I'm wrong here) couldn't have possibly been intended to disorient, in fact after viewing it I thought I was in for a romp or at least something just a wee bit delirious.

The pool-filled-with-dead-animals scene functions in a similar way, and is also kind of campy, if not disreputable.

There's a long sad monologue in the end as well that's presented as if it's genuinely fond, but it's so histrionic and overwrought that I thought Vincent Mariette was trying to trick us into taking it seriously, and that if you were indeed irrefutably impacted, you had indeed unwittingly bought it.

Perhaps it's meant to be rationally analyzed, and I plain and simply didn't get it, but it seemed like something was out of place throughout, something that made me think I was immersed in shenanigans.

There are some really cool cave scenes that are kind of creepy and otherworldly, but they unreel so quickly that I never thought there was anything strange taking place, or that anything was in fact out of order.

Seemed more like we were just checking out some cool caves that happened to be located within a not so far fetched plot.

It's cool to see more brainy horror flicks but sometimes they're simply ridiculous.

At least Les Fauves promotes confusion.

With some cool characters.

Kind of sleazy.

The Hangover Part II

And they made another Hangover film.

This time the Wolfpack's in Thailand, and, thanks to the fact that everywhere they go someone speaks English, they're able to loosely piece together what took place during their second rowdy blackout. Character types are solidified and exaggerated. Phil (Bradley Cooper) once again maintains a level-head and calmly leads the pack from one reconstructed debacle to the next. Stu's (Ed Helms) future father-in-law humiliates him regularly and his adventures in Bangkok potentially complicate the bonds of holy matrimony. And Alan (Zach Galifianakis). Alan consistently elaborates upon his peculiar relationship with highly 'alternative' conceptions of the status-quo, and thoroughly demonstrates that he hasn't the slightest clue in regards to socio-anything. Of course, many of my favourite characters are Alanesque and the status-quo is a slippery conception whose malleable determinants relativistically engage opposing cultural semantic designations (internally and externally) which are dependent upon political and economic (and so on) qualifiers and whether or not anyone pays attention to them. But Alan's such a yutz when it comes to Teddy's (Mason Lee) inclusion in the pack, that it was difficult for me to generate any related sympathy.

Although the generation of sympathy is where The Hangover Part II's strength lies, not simply sympathy generated for the slapdash script, which was potentially written in haste in order to cash in on the simmering Hangover phenomenon, perhaps over the weekend or during daily trips to the washroom, but sympathy for reckless behaviour brought on by years of predictable engagements whose consequences resultantly clarify and distinguish their uniformity, for better or worse. Yes these particular things happened and they were the by-product of other general things which also happened and therefore, while problematic in regards to a strict definition of responsibility, accentuate and integrate said responsibilities into a traditional framework nonetheless, fully and completely, through the art of forgiveness.

It's too hot today.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I

Know then that Harry Potter is back once more in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, wherein he battles death eaters and fascists and feelings all the while coming of age. Most of the regular cast is also back for a scene or two and since the book has been cut in two even more depth than that found in The Order of the Phoenix is presented. Which doesn't mean many of the scenes aren't still curt and melodramatic full of noises and exclamations the kitschy insertion of which is supposed to tap into our preprogrammed dispositions and produce one of a variety of emotional responses. Short and to the point most of the time, yet supposedly exceptional due to the hype and reputations of the cast, the scene where Harry dances with Hermione still adds a nice touch. It's not that I didn't like the film, I certainly did. It's just as entertaining as any of the others, in fact, even more so, because it strays from the typical Hogwarts-and-they're-a-year-older-now format. It's just very rushed. A couple more extended scenes like that where Harry dances with Hermione would have been worth their weight in transitionary gold, or galleons, or something (why did they even include the Dursley's?). I'd really like to see an auteur like Werner Herzog or David Lynch take an aspect of one of these novels and transfer it to another setting within which its character is reconstituted yet traditionalized in order to provide it with more artistic depth. Or perhaps one of them could simply direct the Battle of Hogwarts. Could you imagine how amazing it would be if David Lynch directed the Battle of Hogwarts?

It would be amazing.