Going in Style

Methinks there was a time when companies rewarded 40 years of hard work with a decent pension so their loyal workers could retire with dignity.

I suppose many companies still do assist dedicated workers after they've paid decades worth of dues, Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next and its cheerful examination of European generosity coming to mind, although I'm sure the practice isn't limited to Europe.

It's about community, family, friendship, trust, virtues which scurrilous executives working for the bad companies rapaciously exploit to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains.

Dignity doesn't make any sense to them because they have none.

To put it bluntly.

Relatedly, I was thinking about Vancouver's housing market one day and the following thoughts came to mind. If someone lives in the community where he or she grows up and owns multiple properties which she or he rents out to his or her fellow citizens, it would be more difficult for them to exploit said citizens due to the strong communal bonds forged during a life worth living. I can't statistically verify the following, but I'm convinced this is why so many Québecois cities remain relatively affordable.

However, if the housing market was opened up to encourage international sales, wealthy foreigners who have no communal attachment to a city's people, unlike landed immigrants, could easily buy up property and start charging exorbitant rates because they have no cultural bonds with their renters.

It seems like if you ever want to own a house in Vancouver, you either have to earn a ballpark $250,000 a year, or hand your mortgage down to your children who would then eventually hand it down to their children and so on.

In other words, if you make 60K a year in Vancouver and buy a home, it's your grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will eventually pay off the debt, theoretically speaking, and some jerk from who knows where may have picked up a new jet meanwhile.

I know it's still hard to buy a house in Montréal but remember they are more affordable than those in Toronto or Vancouver. I haven't read a book covering this subject but I'm convinced it's because Québecers, begrudgingly or not, care more about one another collectively.

In Zach Braff's Going in Style, three elderly friends lose their pension and can no longer afford the rent or make mortgage payments as a result.

So they person-up and take ridiculous risks to make amends.

It's a bit too pom-pom and ding-dong for my tastes, but it does take a light look at the ways in which globalization is crushing some local communities.

While emphasizing the hopelessness of workers caught in such situations through recourse to absurd comedy.

And it's fun too watch agile screwed-over seniors rob a bank Robin Hood style, the same bank who grossly screwed them over.

Suppose it's not only international financial interests that buy up property and jack up the price so disposable incomes disappear.

There's still a local aspect to the global even if international agendas obscure regional concerns.

Has Christy Clark ever done anything to address Vancouver's housing crisis?

All I really know is that the killing of hundreds of wolves was authorized by someone in B.C while she was premier.

They'll be back.

I wonder if she cares about anything at all that isn't plus $250,000?

More often than once every 5 years.

Tragic.

Now You See Me 2

There's a lot of potential for this film/subgenre.

Magic's wicked awesome, and taking a bunch of slick magicians and hypnotists and troublemakers and having them Robin Hood their way into the international slipstream, ultimate performance magnetizing the ephemeral everlasting, works well as an idea, an hypothesis, a vision, like Harry Potter sailing Ocean's Eleven, tricks, concentric metrics, the benevolent bedazzle, the wisecracking wherewithal, elevated conceptual catharsis, it would be fun if this style of film caught on, like kung fu or biker movies, seriously, don't you think?

Nevertheless, although Now You See Me 2 sets out to viscerally mesmerize and existentially impress, it doesn't really move past its age 8-14 target audience.

I wanted to love this film, I tried to love this film, a compelling premise brought to life by many of my favourite actors, enjoying themselves and revelling in their dissimulations, so loving, so caring, but the action isn't multidimensional enough (too slow), and, unfortunately, the accompanying social interactions are far too stitched and corny.

If I was still 12, I would have loved it however.

I kept thinking, that was almost really cool, that nearly transcended what's taken place so far, that could have been mind blowing, I was close to applauding that, only to be unable to sublimate a reverberating no no no no, no no no, no no no no no no no that was generated deep down within.

Hoping no. 3 adjusts for its target audience's change in age as did Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

But is there another subgenre at play in Now You See Me 2, of which Ex Machina and Criminal might also be exemplars?  

I know you've got it, the contra-Snowden scripts have been given the green light, the counterconscience is prevaricating, time to forget, time to let go, don't worry about the cyberstasi, sit back and enjoy the show.

Order some cheesecake.

Collect some minted coins.

It's kind of neat how America introduces critical controversy if the aforementioned theory has any applicable validity.

It doesn't tell you to believe something and threaten you with imprisonment if you should speak out against it.

Mistake!

Rather, it slyly establishes an alternative narrative within select films and lets the subconscious subtlety generate its own in/credulity.

The power of being tapped into every cellphone and computer on the planet.

The knowledge.

You used to have to laboriously sift through mail, establish an intricate network of loyal spies (an hydra), or apply for warrants to learn someone's intimate private secrets.

Now they're all readily available in a tantalizing format that's impossible to stop using due to its inherent multifunctionality.

Omniscience.

It's like the ring of power (consider the invisibility factor), so powerful no government would ever give it up, ever stop using it, ever sacrifice their resounding advantage, ever refrain from accessing its invincibility.

Bizarre.

In terms of linguistic diversification, the development of complex undecipherable codes, it could perhaps be a golden age.

Unless, I don't know, a hobbit can arise, and, say, cast this ring into molten hot magma, thereby giving up the greatest advantage any government in history has ever had, in turn reinvigorating a civil society which respects an individual's legal privacy.

Is there, out there somewhere, an extremely hip and cool politician who would do this, someone so beloved of everyone they would remember the ways of the 1980s and decide that constant eavesdropping, even if picturesquely packaged with impressionable pizzazz, is invasive and undesirable, afterwards promoting old school law enforcement techniques to guarantee the preponderance of justice, and maintain order with discreet compact impregnable luminosity?

Is there, can there be, is it still possible to believe, that one day, in the not too distant future, we will meet, and come to love, an honest and exceptional charismatic leader who lives according to the principles his or her government upholds, and therefore doesn't choose to spy on each and every one of its citizens?

In the ether, amidst the flotsam and jetsam, perhaps already elected, perhaps already triumphing daily, is this man or woman enlivening the globe with his or her eclectic charm and undeniable whimsy déjà, and can this man or woman, this colossus, this supernova, be thought of, herein and forever after, in the annals of interstellarosity . . .

. . . as Prime Minister Frodo?

As Prime Minister, Frodo, Baggins?

It could happen you know.

It could!

*Loved the eye staircase. Cool staircases also in Criminal.

Robin Hood

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood presents an epic, complicated tale almost worthy of the designation legend. The plot is dense and starts out intense but its momentum relents as its second half falters. Here's the situation: King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) has been crusading for a decade and is about to return home. In England, his less courageous brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) has been ruling in his stead. Prince John's right-hand-man Godfrey (Mark Strong) strikes a deal with King Philip of France (Jonathan Zaccaï) in which he agrees to kill Richard and then convince John to brutally tax his citizens, thereby fomenting revolution. Then, after civil war has ravaged England, the French can invade and ruthlessly plunder the country.

However, Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), an honest member of King Richard's crusade, has other plans in mind. After rescuing the English crown from Godfrey's clutches, he returns it to the Royal Family and then sets out for Nottingham in order to reunite a fallen comrade's sword with his father. When said father (Max von Sydow as Sir Walter Loxley) discovers his son is dead, he asks Robin to pretend that he is that very same son, so that if he should pass on, his lands won't fall into the hands of King John. Robin agrees, and, after convincing his new wife, the somewhat upset Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett), that he's not a scoundrel, begins to restore justice to the region with the help of his Merry Men (Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, Kevin Durand as Little John, Scott Grimes as Will Scarlet, and Alan Doyle as Allan A'Dayle). Fortunately for Robin, Sir Walter also remembers his father (Mark Lewis Jones), who was killed when Robin was 6, and is able to help him rediscover related memories.

There's much more to Robin Hood's plot than what I've presented above. Political intrigue, ethical imbroglios, spiritual reflections, working class rights, aristocratic wisdom, feminine strength, and feudal customs are also synthesized within to create a byzantine portrait of Polanskian proportions. Even with all these intertwined dimensions, each presenting their points directly and/or covertly, Scott and scriptwriter Brian Helgeland still manage to create deeper layers of provocative sensation, showing how the defenders of a French castle take the time to eat during a siege, dealing with 12th century orphanage issues, depicting greed as a conniving hydra, delicately integrating provincial and "urban" life, and lampooning conceptions such as the divine right of kings. Then, as if worried that all of these plot twists have alienated their audience, the film's last section concerns itself with Godfrey's revenge quest and a ridiculous battle, shooting arrows to the wind, building cliché on cliché stick by stick, the multitude of twists and turns requiring closure which is rushed in order to prevent the film from lasting three hours. Robin Hood's ambitions are grand and its narrative multidimensional, but its dénouement suffers beneath the weight of its bulk, and can't support its synthetic structure. It's nice to see the legend of Robin Hood reimagined and intellectualized, Scott's film providing it with unprecedented layers of historical intensification. But the ending made me wish they had localized the story so we could have spent more time with Robin Hood and his Merry Men, its ineffective grandiose form causing me to wish for more regionalized content. Which is the perfect recipe for setting up a sequel, which I'll probably see, and then complain about having seen.