Todos lo saben

A wedding brings a family together to exalt in celebration, the festivities overflowing with spirit, inhibitions let loose to praise.

But as guards are let down and passions erupt, covetous malfeasance clandestinely violates.

Soon it is known that kidnapping is afoot, and the identity of the perpetrator remains a bitter mystery.

Old school social relations call motives into question, as despondent candour joylessly obscures lucid trust.

Financial responsibility dismally beckons, a lifetime of hard work hauntingly underlying stoic sacrifice.

The past interrogatively echoes.

As the present crumbles astray.

Emergent futures contend in Todos lo saben indeed, as disturbing essentials anxiously prognosticate.

Hives of activity maddeningly posture before settling down with forlorn resignation.

Its characters are strong, compassionate, resilient, loving.

They don't only care for their immediate family, but seek the prosperity of their workforce as well.

Like a versatile community.

The film excels at presenting passionate logic, the overwhelming emotions that characterize sincere distress rationally generated with sober feeling.

Everything's understood with astute enough composure.

It matures like the vines its reels cultivate, coming of age in the mid-afternoon sun.

Storms may disrupt its smooth delicate maturation, but not without augmenting rough unique compelling flavour.

It examines religion without preaching, infidelities without scorn, science without authentication, loyalty forbidding dependence.

Even though characters seek just outcomes, it doesn't mean it's easy, and even though they have resources they can access, it doesn't mean alternative solutions are shelved.

Suspicions bluntly arise.

Level heads contemplatively acquiesce.

Like culture under seige.

Todos lo saben peacefully reckons.

Liu Lang Di Qiu

In the not too distant future, our sun can support terrestrial life no longer.

Seeking to avoid humanity's extinction, countries around the world internationally forge the United Earth Government.

And it is decided that a new sun must be sought in the Alpha Centauri system, and that Earth must be propelled there by gigantic fusion powered thrusters strategically located around the imperilled globe.

As the Earth's rotation ceases, after the jets are turned on, colossal tidal waves shock the surface dwelling population, many others eventually finding refuge beneath its inhospitable crust.

These subterranean cities bravely incubate civilization and boldly rear the next generation with feisty underground enterprise.

But Earth's path leads it too close to miserly Jupiter, whose cruel and voracious gravity gravely threaten interstellar propulsion.

Fortunately, two mischievous youths, a brother and sister no less, have recklessly made their way to the frozen surface, strict punishment swiftly awaiting, as massive earthquakes malign worldwide.

Little did they know, when they set out that day, that they would become integral leaders in a wild improvised effort to reignite the disabled thrusters and break free from Jupiter's clutches.

The world desperately requiring resolve.

The planet galactically inducing their reckoning.

Frant Gwo's Liu Lang Di Qiu takes sci-fi to another level, courageously imagining the most distraught of extremes, then audaciously presenting them with enriched hope-fuelled probability.

Manifold variables are symphonically strung as tumultuous dispersals chaotically sizzle.

Catastrophe strikes with dependable fidelity as constant threats harken cold glacial stark entropy.

Team-based integrity internationally coalesced accentuates cooperative benefits that unleash instincts eternal.

Identity politics challenge concepts of belonging as shortsighted prejudices are critiqued and exposed.

The world, faced with an overwhelming discombobulating uprooting discourteous challenge, comes together to thwart impossibility, ensuring continuous life thereby, plus innovative infused prosperity.

As it should to combat global warming.

In an unprecedented aware multilateral interconnected age.

It would have been cool if there had been more animals in the underground cities.

A planetary meow.

An altruistic bark.

Aus dem Nichts (In the Fade)

Germany was a ruin at the end of World War II, rubble and ash produced by insane bigots who thought they were incarnated Übermensch playing out predestined roles.

The Russians crushed them.

The Allies dealt them crippling blows.

Tens of millions dead, goals unachieved, millions still mistrust and vilify Germany to this day, and even if postmodern Deutschland sets the standard for environmental sustainability and multicultural inclusion, and Nazi Germany was governed by brutal thugs who terrorized many into submission, when you watch World War II documentaries about Nazi death camps, or see how they slaughtered local populations when retreating, it's still difficult to separate the horrors from contemporary wonders, the scum, from the conscientious.

I do separate them, Germany shows up in the news doing something incredibly advanced so often that I can classify Nazi Germany as an aberration, and 21st Century Germany as a triumph, but watching those videos provokes latent passions that can't simply be reasoned away with vigour or ease, they were so systematically brutal, so void of compassion or humanity.

It's happening again elsewhere.

Atrocities that shouldn't have been forgotten have been forgotten and new generations of violent racists are once again politically active, have been for years, unconcerned for the lives and futures they would ruin, unconcerned with anything but themselves.

Aus dem Nichts (In the Fade) presents a loving family whose husband is a model of rehabilitation after having served his time in prison.

He's devoted to raising his son, loving his wife, and doing his best at work every day to provide for them.

Their multiethnic family is thriving and making positive contributions to greater Germany, but this offends a Neo-Nazi couple, who detonate a bomb in front of their multitasking business.

The husband and son are killed, and the wife is left suffering ad infinitum.

The film hauntingly focuses on her grief to accentuate the extreme hate crime's malevolence, the eventual trail of the murderers an exercise in sheer torture, as a victim must directly face the impenitent killers of her family.

What is reasonable doubt?

It must be incredibly difficult to make such decisions.

Reason isn't a blue sky or a shining sun.

As many others have pointed out, the vicissitudes of reason rationally articulated can logically drive someone insane, especially if they're the victims of a crime.

And the perpetrator's guilt is obvious.

Aus dem Nichts moves from despondency to hope to vengeance as it desperately seeks retribution.

Patience is an aspect of the sublime.

But how does one keep a cool head when forced to contend with total chaos?

With inflexible ideology?

Does logic apply to the actions of victims of terror?

Rationally?

Silence

There's a classic scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that still stands out for me, the one where the bandit Tuco speaks with his brother Pablo the priest and they discuss the different lives they lead after having not seen one another for 9 years.

It doesn't end well.

But during their dialogue, Tuco states that there were only two choices for them when they were young and impoverished, to become a bandit or a priest, and that becoming a bandit was more challenging, harder, fraught with more pain and suffering.

Martin Scorsese's Silence offers Tuco a lengthier response than Pablo's, demonstrating the herculean composure required to work as a missionary under harsh conditions in a hostile land.

Set in the 17th century, fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) travel to Japan to do what they believe is necessary to actively spread the word, while also searching for a famous fellow priest (Liam Neeson as Father Ferreira) who has supposedly lost his way.

They don't speak Japanese and are guided by a shifty alcoholic fisherperson (Yôsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro) who leads them to a small coastal village where they begin their work.

Not easy by any means, their path, their calling, and since Japanese authorities are persecuting Christians, especially priests, old school style, because they're worried about the ways in which in a foreign religion is conflicting with their own buddhist traditions, Rodrigues and Garupe employ the utmost stealth to avoid detection.

But they're eventually found in different spots and Rodrigues must then run the gauntlet to prove his faith, to demonstrate his courage.

Intellectually, physically and spiritually.

Scorsese struggles a bit in territory he hasn't explored in a while (time for another viewing of The Last Temptation of Christ methinks), the excruciating isolation and gruesome personal struggle involved demanding a more contemplative ascetic humbling approach than that found in some of his recent films, this aesthetic captured at points but Silence isn't Tarkovsky, and the contrast introduced when the violence begins doesn't captivatingly diverge in a stunning juxtaposition.

He did prove he's quite sensitive with Hugo, but the first half of Silence would have benefitted from a less traditional approach, from longer more destitute not necessarily plot-related scenes skilfully blending hope and sorrow, scenes which would have become more emotionally pronounced as Rodrigues's life descended into chaos.

Into more familiar territory.

Still a thoughtful investigation of faith and the trials that await the spiritually bold.

HAMMER (Versus)

Tragedy strikes as petty jealousies potentially ruin the career of a self-sacrificing international mixed martial arts contender, but the love interest in question and an opportunistic manager make deals with that very same brat to save the career of their honourable true champion.

Yet the date of the sought after fight doesn't give him enough to heal, and one stiff blow could instantly kill him.

He bears this in mind and wilfully responds to the challenge, death in the ring being infinitely preferable than a lifetime passed having disappointed his fans.

His coach, trainer, and lover eventually accept his decision, having expressed their discontent, and realized their aid is paramount.

But the ring doesn't hold the Russian Hammer's (Aleksey Chadov) fiercest foe, as thugs try to force him to disreputably dive.

Egocentric extremities.

Illicit, unsound.

Patriots and psychotics perniciously square off to wield Russia's HAMMER (Versus), honesty and deception contending therewithin.

It's bare bones, built, direct, no pussyfooting around agendas with esoteric mumbo jumbo, just good guys stuck dealin' with wickedness, making the most of it, as a dedicated matter of principle.

It impeccably sticks to its straightforward format and actively achieves its combative goals.

I can't fault it for that.

But if Rocky's in Moscow, this film's still far east of the Urals, not to say writer Oleg Malovichko can't also reach such a goal, but it will take some time, more passion, deeper digging, and a laid-back blizzard stew.

Winter's coming.

Plenty of time to sit back and write.

*Original title, Versus.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games return, and President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) grip on his domain loosens as he attempts to augment his stranglehold.

Revolt is in full swing and the people who have nothing are risking their lives to dismantle his order of things.

But they're disorganized, in need of both a communications network to coordinate their freedom fighting and a voice to articulate their common goals.

So they can combat Snow's minions as one.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) must decide if she can provide the people with that voice, with that superhuman strength which will give them the courage to persevere.

To sacrifice.

Her situation is extreme.

A tyrannical program of terror has been suffocating free speech and universal human rights for 75 years within her realm, forcing people to work excruciatingly long hours for nothing, at gun point, leaving them with no time to spend with their families, using media to convince them such practices are divine.

Showing off the wealth.

Murdering those who protest.

Mockingjay - Part 1 is bleak but how could it be otherwise?

It's about an unwilling leader coming to terms with their accidental heroism while living underground and fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

There's no cream or sugar.

No solace.

It still illustrates the end game of tyrannical political programs and the hopeless situation within which its proponents hope to enslave their opposition, who then have no hope but to spend practically every hour of the day working, so they can come home at night and crack open a can of beans, and then watch luxurious images of excess on their television screens.

Mockingjay even shows how the opposition creates propaganda to fight back, calling it propaganda, something I never thought I'd see in a mass produced American film.

Its politics remind me of those from the South Africa Nelson Mandela describes in Long Walk to Freedom, without the focus on race.

How people can treat other people with such disgust makes no sense.

I often think there's a different bible, one where Jesus chills with the rich and viciously punishes the poor for being lazy.

This would explain why tyrannical leaders sometimes seriously promote religion while prominently catering to the interests of the highest bidder.

Balance is the key.

Again, countries like Norway and Sweden seem to have found a working balance, a secular form of Christianity, where the wealthy can still have lots of shiny things and the poor don't have to ingratiatingly prostrate themselves.

Canada's quite a wealthy country as well.

We used to be a leader on the world stage.

Embracing patriarchal buffoonery isn't novel, it's been around a long long time.

The potentiality is built in to postmodern frameworks.

But such frameworks also support countless more cohesive cultural alternatives.

Back to the film, I would have ended it as soon as Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was overcome.

It is Part 1, and didn't require its own specific ending.

They must have debated that.

Interstellar

Times have changed, and centuries of polluting irresponsibly and unaccountably have left the Earth's soil predominantly barren, unsupportive and lifeless, the survivors carrying on, old pastimes still cherished, historical insights curiously revisited, a voice from the future, codes risen in dust, a father's love for his family, paramount, indeed to be sacrificed.

The big picture.

To do it all again, or make alternative choices.

A mission which cannot be refused.

There's no time to panic, no time, to hesitate.

It doesn't use scare tactics, Interstellar's quite reasonable, scientific.

There are options, pros and cons, we must do this, and hope there's enough time to find a solution.

Elements of the classic Western are reliably built into the script like quiescent caregiving sweet nothings, or an afterthought, a reflex, a calm level-headed proactive reflex, hindsight's compendium, temperately transitioning to science-fiction, its environments still cruel and unforgiving, and wild, with neither monsters nor civilizations, just will power and the unknown, assignments boldly navigated.

Survival.

Some wild cards are thrown into the mix which rely more heavily on the tropes of science fiction, an intergalactic clue, an explosion of self-interest, but they're skilfully intertwined, Interstellar quietly ascending in investigative baby steps, from the micro to the macro, mellowly maturing, to blow you away in the end.

I preferred Inception, and Inception's ending, but the same mix of cognitive entertaining emotive rationality still humanizes Interstellar, and its climax is as strong if not stronger, depending on which film you prefer.

Nolan suddenly creates a bucolic, like Birdman's bucolic foil, after having spent so much time in dreams and Gotham City, outstanding career move, this director is multidimensional.

It's worked into the script.

Dracula Untold

Dracula revisited, often portrayed as a vicious bloodthirsty tyrant, recast as a loving devoted father, husband, and ruler, willing to risk everything to secure the social prosperity of his dominion, brought up as a warrior, who excelled beyond limitation, against his will, trial by fire, impeccable excretions, having returned home a free man, to govern his people with wise, trustworthy gentility, through the art of thinking critically, and the continuous deployment of tribute.

Yet battle once again demands his obedience, a battle that can't be won through earthly means, and a pact is made with transcendent deviance, limitless power, for an insatiable thirst for blood.

Thus the iconic villain is torn, invincible at war, romantically condemned by his true love.

It's a different take on Dracula, Gary Shore's Dracula Untold, the latest vampiric franchise to tenderly and ravenously strike.

It's alright.

Somewhat cutesy at times, which is odd for a mass produced vampire film, making derelict lesions and hallowed imperfections seem direly quaint by comparison; however, its protagonist is rational and his love undying, his fidelity to the centuries, like twilight's eternal fountain.

Missed Jarmusch's Adam a bit while viewing, but it's unfair to compare the two visions.

Glad Jarmusch made that film.

Jodorowsky and vampires?

It's not too late.

Elysium

Universal healthcare, workplace health and safety initiatives, and true love are spatially vindicated in Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, wherein the unsympathetic inprickacies of a totalitarian state create an orderly robotic despotic exactitude whose overbearing calculations encourage widespread temporal discontent.

A colony for the wealthiest has been created in space on a station known as Elysium, whose cloistered citizens enjoy incomparable privilege and general legal impunity.

On Elysium, everything is relatively perfect, advanced technologies guaranteeing ideal health and well-being, pools, mansions, extravagance, for all.

For the 99.9% still living on an overpopulated underfunded desolate and impoverished planet Earth, in the year 2154, the law is applied authoritatively and immediately, statistical automatons having replaced the potentially understanding, the struggling worker left with no harmless option but to silently obey.

But even though Elysium possesses enormous technological and financial superiority, Earth's population is too large to ubiquitously suppress, and a group of freedom fighters, whose poverty and encumbering lack of resources necessitates a frugal expedient expensive quid pro quo, covertly flourish in the rubble, using their brilliant hands-on luminosities, to keep a faint degree of hope alive.

Extremes abound.

With characterless villains.

Their attempts to degrade the system even further accidentally nourish an individualistic inductively altruistic messianic thrust, whose attempts to reform were systematically rebuked.

Emphasizing an egalitarian redistribution of resources, and citizenship and advanced healthcare options, for all, Elysium is quite the blockbuster, medically administering a sensationally practical ethical solvency.

Myriad sociopolitical dynamics are built into the script.

Which welds the human factor to the heart of structural change.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek, born again.

Was a bit disappointed that Star Trek was born again with the crew from The Original Series, but it's not like there aren't manifold versions of Hamlet out there, Batman will likely live to see another day, Hawaii Five-O is back (I've never seen either of the series), and Beatles and Rolling Stones cover bands will likely continue to sing for centuries to come. 

I was hoping to see the Rolling Stones in Montréal next month but the cheapest seat I could find near the rafters costs over 200 hundred dollars. I paid 34 dollars to see them in 1994.

Bring on the cover bands.

Star Trek Into Darkness confidently gambles that the success of its predecessor paved the way for it to take greater liberties with Star Trek's most sacred moments, and I'm assuming every Trekkie has already seen the film twice, and are already dividing into different fastidious factions, each with their own take on the reintroduction of Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch), and the pastiche of Star Trek II's classic ending, so I'm discussing related plot details.

In my opinion, the new cast and crew of the Starship Enterprise were ill-equipped and unready to incorporate this classic ending, nor the famous Khan scream, and their sophomoric attempts to do so, more concerned with travelling at warp speed than taking the time to generate genuine emotion, even though the trap they fall into justifies this dependence, and within the film the new cast and crew is ill-equipped and unready to confront their adversaries, were, still, disheartening.

The cameo from Leonard Nimoy didn't suck me in. 

Giving Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Sulu (John Cho) expanded responsibilities while leaving them primarily in the background heightened the tension.

The who-should-be-captain dialogue between Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) was played out in the last film. 

And McCoy's (Karl Urban) all wrong (no offense to Karl Urban, he does his best with the material).   

Still though, if they hadn't touched Star Trek II's ending, and classic Khan scream, Into Darkness could have been quite different. 

And it's not that I didn't think the fight between Khan and Spock was awesome. It's always awesome when Spock suddenly fights in a Star Trek moment, since you suddenly remember that not only is he one of the phenomenon's smartest humanoid characters, he's also one of the toughest.

Giving Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) a strong supporting hopefully continuous role was a great idea. 

Introducing consequential conflict amongst the senior staff, Scotty (Simon Pegg) and Kirk, went beyond the professional dynamics found in the films featuring the cast of The Original Series, and since this consequential conflict sees constructive results, it fits nicely with contemporary conflict management theories, while directly encouraging freewill.   

Benedict Cumberbatch impresses as Khan. 

Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock's relationship reappears but isn't focused upon, rather, it comically ameliorates an otherwise typical shuttlecraft descension, accentuating the difficulties of sustaining romantic ties to people with whom you work, while giving Spock a memorable opportunity to advance his coherent logic. 

Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) provides a pestiferous dimension rarely seen within the Federation, thereby diversifying Star Trek's internal cohesions, while preempting a sequel, sigh, where there's a war with the Klingons. 

This seems more like Picard territory, where there's a possible war, but Picard finds a way to negotiate a peaceful settlement. 

Much too early for Picard however.

Perhaps the Borg will attack midway resulting in a sudden pact between Klingons and the Federation.

Kirk never fought the Borg.

Please don't revisit the Nexus. 

But a different ending. Something radically different. This would have lessened the cheesy kitsch factor and not caused me to immediately remove my 3D glasses. 

The Wrath of Khan is the only Star Trek film that can stand on its own outside the Star Trek parallax. 

Discourses of the sacred. 

Khan!

Snitch

Looking for a dramatized look at how seriously mandatory minimum sentencing laws, laws such as those recently enacted in Canada even though authorities on the subject from the States have sincerely critiqued them, suck?

Look no further.

Ric Roman Waugh's Snitch overtly breaks it down, as one man finds a way to save his son from a system gone wrong, by any means necessary.

The consequences of proceeding by any means necessary harrowingly present themselves shortly thereafter, however.

The only way for John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) to save his generally law abiding son (Rafi Gavron as Jason Collins) from a lengthy mandatory minimum drug trafficking prison sentence simply for receiving a package which he didn't really want in the mail, is to go undercover for a smug termagant who agrees to reduce his son's sentence if he can infiltrate a criminal organization and instigate the arrest of a well-heeled trafficker, which is the option his son was presented with, but, since he didn't know any traffickers besides his friend who sent him the package and was also arrested, and didn't want to be coerced into informing, he was forced to serve the minimum sentence, the judge having no opportunity to use her or his insight to make their decision.

Cold hard cruel absolutes.

That ignore the evidence.

John swallows his pride again and again and suddenly finds himself ready to take down a kingpin, much to the termagant's self-centred delight.

But in the process, his bold decision and enormous risks threaten everything he holds dear.

The particular sometimes indicates a structural issue that can be modified in order to enhance production.

In Snitch's case, Mr. Matthews functions as a particular designed to modify ethical institutions, his sacrifice directly calamitizing one of their misguided aspects.

However, it's possible that a non-contextual cult has been built upon this potentiality, using it to make antiquated outdated notions seem hip and new, even when the evidence provided by recent similar endeavours can be thought of as wholeheartedly indicating otherwise.

This is a problem.

Great performance by Dwayne Johnson.

I've only seen him in supporting roles and was wondering if he could take the lead.

Job well done.

Barbara

Declarative desire dedicatedly persists after state sanctioned seclusion silences its volatile temerity.

Another, resigned yet combative, is enamoured.

The fate of a rebellious young adult becomes a decisive tangible consequent as the Stasi's invasive pressure deliberately dehumanizes.

A doctor, emphatically refuses, to be muzzled.

Carefully contextualizing different varieties of tension, while diagnosing risk with surgical precision, Christian Petzold's Barbara internally serenades freedom of expression, and externalizes a crisp courageous spiritualization.

An extensive reactive multilateral engagement furtively negotiates an honest state of affairs.

Its interconnected inextricable professional, personal, romantic, governmental and (inter)national relationships foment a forlorn fugitive firmament wherein influential forces collaborate and contend.

Interrogating what it means to pursue.

Attempting to have their voices heard.

Mars et Avril

A rhythmic terrestrial interplanetary concordance collegially captivates audiences of the future in Martin Villeneuve's Mars et Avril, set in Montréal.

So nice, to watch, a science-fiction film, that humbly celebrates interdisciplinary artistic creation instead of some damn war culminating in an epic battle.

Crisp cosmic cerebral clarity: another, great film, made, in Québec.

The plot concerns the solidification of an abstract feminine image which is in turn corporealized as a musical instrument which a virtuoso performer then instantaneously masters live to the delight of his devoted listeners, thereby uniting inspiration, extraction, construction, distribution, and reception, in a harmonious synthesis of artistic production.

Yet as proof of a legend's historical longevity is ambitiously sought, an unknown factor, a representative of that which was sacrificed in order to sustain a radiant resurgent reverberation, threatens the unity of the whole, by accidentally silencing its voice, while ensuring the survival of its exhalations.

As the output destabilizes, so does the artist's basic distinction between interior and external reality, as if the film itself is unaware of a subtle intoxication, until the manufacturer finds a way to unite the process's conception and etherealization, directly binding two consciousnesses in their dreamwork, and generating un noveau monde.

Now that's science-fiction.

There was an odd moment for me in said dreamwork where I was wondering why the dreamworlds within films often closely mirror those established by alert spatio-temporal objectivities, which awakened a countermemory of David Lynch and Mark Frost's Red Room from Twin Peaks, when the scene suddenly changed to one invoking a comparison between it and said Red Room, with music reminiscent of David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti's "Sycamore Trees."

That was weird.

The marsonautes infuse the artistic philosophical romance with a cheeky degree of comedy that rounds out the film's intellectual action.

Indeed.

Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake) (Fantasia Fest 2012)

Presenting a comic romantic over-the-top ultraviolent musical, wherein bourgeois values resolutely seek to pacify a versatile tumultuous rogue, the undying and overpowering intensity of love unwaveringly guiding their reformative resolve, streetwise unconditional consistent combative tenacity governing his, Takashi Miike's Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake) does not refrain from elaborately executing every consummate class cliché ever created, sensationally synthesizing quixotic and hardboiled extremes, relentlessly reproducing unerringly awkward amorously explosive motifs, in the implacable pursuit, of emancipated co-dependence.

Group dynamics repetitively insist that young Makoto Taiga (Satoshi Tsumabuki) obediently pay his respects, but as their challenges are uniformly discombobulated, his limitless disenfranchised individuality, and consequent unwittingly seductive magnetism, remain intact.

Attaching a monetary value to the ability to maintain specific ideological viewpoints, while catastrophically choreographing their constructive affects, Ai to Makoto pugnaciously parodies the domain of rehabilitative reckoning, while chaotically kitschifying the practice of revenge.

For love's sake.

The Hunger Games

Suppose most people are familiar with what happens in The Hunger Games so I won't spend too much time expanding upon the plot.

An uprising was launched by 12 impoverished districts which was crushed by the powers-that-be. In the aftermath, in order to brutally humiliate their subjects even further, they then created the Hunger Games, a competition wherein a youthful male and female representative from each district is selected to take part in a vicious fight to the death.

24 combatants are chosen and by the end only one remains.

The combatants, referred to as tributes, travel to the capital where they're elaborately decked out and paraded in front of the well-to-do in an ancient romanesque spectacle that's designed to showcase the oppressed and impress potential sponsors. These sponsors can provide you with assistance during the Games thereby enhancing your chances of survival. Ratings are provided to each contestant and they have their chance to prove their worth in front of a select group of interested parties and on television as well.

President Snow (Donald Sutherland) makes it clear that the Games were designed to instil a sense of hope within his destitute subjects, a sense that even though your chances of survival are slim, you still might win and be showered with riches forever after.

Obviously the hope he intends to cultivate isn't seen quite so romantically by the citizens of the districts.

Or the participants of the Hunger Games.

But those who have lucratively profited by the current composition of the state cheer and laugh at the hopeless in a disgusting exercise of affluent vanity.

Refusing to participate in the Hunger Games ensures your death.

Participating in the Hunger Games almost assuredly ensures your death.

So you have an extremist government that castigates the poor and suppresses any form of rational descent, demanding strict obedience to its self-serving whims and designs. Its supporters revel in the bloodthirsty celebration and the families of the participants forlornly sit back and watch.

But sponsors can assist you, give you critical support if you put on a good show.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) put on the best show they possibly can.

By falling in love.

Love in its true form enables them to change the rules of the game to the vouchsafed delight of their begrudgingly suppliant benefactors.

Thereby suggesting that true love saturated with sacrifice can momentarily defeat the agents of tyranny.

Or that true love fictions are at the heart of the tyrannical enterprise.

Working within a sensationalist frame to provoke a tear jerking deconstructive critical strike disseminating subliminal democratic aftershocks.

Perhaps I expanded upon the plot ad nauseum.

I can't figure out if the end justifies the means.

2 frogs dans l'ouest

Leaving behind her structured life in Montréal, Marie Deschamps (Mirianne Brulé) travels to Whistler in pursuit of adventure and the acquisition of the English language. Things don't progress smoothly in the beginning until the angelic Jean-François Laforest (Dany Papineau) steps in to save the day. With a job and a place to stay, Marie's transition steadfastly accelerates and good previously unimagined times present themselves. But the predetermined all encompassing capitalist master narrative is still seductively ready to pounce, just as bohemian alternatives become all the more tantalizing.

Dany Papineau's 2 frogs dans l'ouest salutes the pursuit of non-traditional lifestyles while highlighting corresponding difficulties as well as those associated with learning a new language. The scene where Marie attempts to order something to eat in English near the beginning of her journey reminded me of similar personal outings in Québec, where you can't help but feel prostrate due to the fact that you can't communicate or don't understand the simple linguistic distinctions that you need to be able to comprehend in order to function, although the percentage of Québecors who speak English is much higher than that of English Canadians who speak French, a fact that many English Canadians should take into consideration. Sport is central to 2 frogs dans l'ouest's vision and the cathartic affects of activities such as snowboarding play a central metaphoric role. Is living in a beautiful place like Whistler or Canmore in order to pursue the artistic life while consistently engaging in exhilarating activities amidst the continuous inspirational presence of breathtaking scenery a good decision?

Yes, yes it is, although I suppose everyone can't live in such places, only the committed few.

Some of the coming of age reflections in 2 frogs dans l'ouest are a little tough to take at times. Papineau develops a lot of sympathy for Marie's father (Germain Houde) who made many sacrifices so that she could go to school as well. But he also didn't make those sacrifices so that she would give up her dreams.

And she doesn't.