Unknown

A brilliant doctor resilient and dependable arrives with his wife at a conference in Europe, the two looking forward to innovative discussions throughout the upcoming thought provoking week (Liam Neeson as Dr. Martin Harris and January Jones as Elizabeth Harris).

But Mr. Harris forgets a suitcase at the airport and must return with improvised haste, a random accident then suddenly sending his swift moving cab into the river.

He wakes in the hospital four days later confused and uncertain of his identity, flashbacking memories intermittently bombarding his worried bewildered forlorn consciousness. 

Enough memories are pieced together to locate his wife back at the hotel, but she's claiming another man is her husband (Aidan Quinn as Dr. Martin Harris), and he has the credentials to prove it.

Dr. Harris A has no supporting documentation and is alone in a foreign city, his only contacts the irritated cab driver (Diane Kruger as Gina) and an old school Stasi agent (Bruno Ganz as Ernst Jürgen).

But as they help him piece things together determined hitpeople come viciously calling.

His life hanging in the chaotic balance.

If he can determine which life is his own.

Identities ephemeral consistent mutating sculpted and warped through variable circumstances, sincere lighthearted earnest scenarios generating alternative fluid trajectories. 

In Dr. Harris's case, a traumatic shock engenders tumultuous transmutations, childlike innocence serendipitously resuscitated with headstrong free contradictory will.

As if latent wondrous ethical senses habitually reside within unobstructed awareness, a less reserved curious luminous syndication ethereally materialized through pneumonic flux.

Divergent associates proceed reflexively according to malleable regenerative factors, expectations foiled with animate nuance or transformatively adorned with newfound resonance. 

New sets of variables present cherished fascinations as inquisitive impulses react with the arts, ahistorical multilateral syntheses composing flexible dynamic spectrums.

Acquiring new knowledge leads to the reinterpretation of staple favourites convivially collected, the reinvigoration of personal relationships, intricate staunch identity.

Dr. Harris makes a go of it in Canada and Québec as so many adventurous people do.

Not that anything's written in stone.

Unknown wildly entertains throughout. 

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). 

Leave No Trace

A valiant soldier unable to adjust to civilian life.

Versatile and self-sufficient, he (Ben Foster as Will) makes a rustic home for his small family in a National Park.

His daughter (Thomasin McKenzie as Tom) is helpful and reliable and enjoys the alternative lifestyle her and her father are living.

But since their dwelling is technically illegal, after they're eventually discovered they have to abruptly adapt and make peace with the outside world, fortunately continuing to live together as one.

They're treated quite well, even provided with a home in the countryside plus ample work and schooling.

But the adjustment is still too much for Tom's father, and the sleeping and waking nightmares continue to destructively haunt him, and even though Tom likes living with others, one day they suddenly pack everything up and head back to the isolated wild.

A psychological tragedy.

Brought about by a lack of care.

Debra Granik's Leave No Trace presents a loving family striving to independently get by.

Their circumstances would be less extreme had more time and funding been available to assist Will after he returned home.

I find it's the people who promote and agitate wars who should be held to account after they're over, not the soldiers who fight them, many of whom likely believe the lies war mongering politicians tell them, and therefore shouldn't be condescendingly criticized in public themselves.

Unless they treated local populations savagely.

As many other people have written, stated, theorized, noted, the people who start the wars and sell the weapons to keep them going don't fight in them themselves, and take home profits that make Shangri-La look destitute.

Even if their own country's public debt skyrockets meanwhile (since their wealth is accumulated privately it's of no concern to them).

And they ask poor people to fight in their wars and those brave self-sacrificing people do fight in their wars, but after the war is finished and they've suffered extreme trauma that nothing can prepare anyone for, they're left to fend for themselves with a prescription for pills and the odd hour long chat, while the war mongers bank multi-millions, a scant fraction of which they spend helping those who earned them their profits recover.

Fighting in a war isn't a typical job, and those that do after mad fools start them deserve adequate care and compensation upon returning home.

No matter how long it takes.

A retreat in the countryside with no work and ample comfort for years on end perhaps.

Will walking into the forest on his own after leaving his daughter behind in a welcoming community should be a wake-up call for the civilian public service tasked with helping men and women like him rediscover peace of mind.

Or, more suitably, for politicians tasked with supplying such organizations with the necessary funds to do so, enormous amounts of public money spent on starting and fighting ludicrous wars, not enough spent helping honest veterans become contributing citizens after they've made unimaginable sacrifices.

Or, even more suitably, just ending gun violence permanently.

By making it much much much much much much much much harder to access a gun.

As Toronto's mayor John Tory suggested recently.

Or start wars.

A Middle-Eastern EU comes to mind.

That could work.

Julieta

Clandestine cordial crests revisiting past traumatic emotionally eviscerating relations, quotidian delineations, condemnations, obfuscations, a literary protocol perspicaciously pinpointing buoys and beacons and estuaries and islets, in revelation, orchestration, a confession, contemporary embraces confused by the disappearance, the sudden creative seclusion, infused with relapsed resuscitated cursive, gently and gingerly discovering clarifications whose lucidity exponentially envisions myriad alternative past contingencies, a roll call, a characterized crucible oceanically encapsulated, answers which question themselves, which everlastingly ensure, that their author never simply asks why?

The details of a former life haunt a convalescing classics expert (Emma Suárez as Julieta) after an unexpected encounter bears mythological witness.

Pedro Almodóvar makes a film based on the writings of Alice Munro.

Could there be a more tantalizing artistic synthesis?

I haven't read Ms. Munro for years (a mistake) but I loved reading her short stories in my twenties.

From what I remember, they often modestly yet incisively examined themes that might have seemed too light if they hadn't been treated with such soberly mischievous assured congeniality, like reading an unconcerned humble playful virtuoso, visiting a store in a small town that has that Amélie item for which you've been unconsciously searching for an unspecified period, or spending time with thoughtful friends who haven't turned bitterly sarcastic.

Her stories also stood out because they consistently contained memorable realistic conclusions, valuable advice that actually made you stop and think, that taught you how the world works without destroying or vitriolically critiquing something.

Like a mom.

I was worried Julieta wouldn't narrativize along these lines but was pleasantly surprised with the results.

A kind, sympathetic, bold yet hesitant film, it articulately pulls you into its struggles without preaching or pontificating about sleuths right and wrong.

Delicate strength.

With a stunning closing image that made me want to visit the Spanish countryside (cinematography by Jean-Claude Larrieu [Carrieu]).

I wonder what Jeff Nichols, Steve McQueen or Derek Cianfrance would create from Alice Munro's texts?

That would be cool if they became a bucolic rite of filmic passage.

American Sniper

Clint Eastwood's American Sniper is about soldiers.

It's not about politics or asking questions, it's about the people who risked their lives fighting for a cause they believed in, incendiary polemics aside, they were on the ground, fighting an enemy intent on killing them, living through events that would haunt the survivors for the rest of their lives, experiential extracurricular extents, forging bonds through action, teams, through combat.

It's focused on one sniper in particular, Navy SEAL Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), with a gift for precision, an eye for detail.

He becomes a legend.

A part of a team, embracing his role as protector, he saves the lives of his fellow recruits time and time again, through vigilance and dedication, making decisions no one should have to make, accepting the consequences, psychologically covering up the outcomes.

Civilian life becomes difficult.

He leaves unfinished business in Iraq, a nemesis at large, who continues to hunt his compatriots, this unnerves him as he tries to live with his family, überconscious conscience, the fall out of his exceptional track record.

Which leads to an exciting Young Guns sequence.

A compelling cinematic interpretation of levelheaded battlegrounded hysteria.

Direct, straightforward, and to the point, while mixing in enough trauma to unsettlingly exfoliate, American Sniper brings together eclectic teams, unified through bitter shattering circumstances.

What actually took place is fictionalized to the point where it makes a strong war film, however, this aspect of its creation makes what actually took place seem fictional, which takes away from its realistic impacts.

But it still salutes the life of a great Navy SEAL who went beyond the call of duty and risked everything to do what he believed was right, individuality within the collective, cohesively functioning as one.

Made the most of the worst possible situation.

Persevered.

Salaud, on t'aime (We Love You, Bastard)

The loveable bastard.

Gifted beyond reason, in touch with his emotions, loving, caring, accomplished.

But a total and complete cad when it comes to his dealings with the opposite sex.

Apart from his daughters.

4 with 4 different partners.

Whom he devotedly loves.

Salaud, on t'aime (We Love You, Bastard) is like going to a gift-shop in a bustling small mountain town.

Naturalistic beauty fastens its frames to adorable pristine picturesque attunements, romantically stressed, to vivify anew.

It does come across as somewhat too neat and tidy however, too picture perfect, all of the typical methods of gradually building tension remaining largely absent, all saved-up, for one startling traumatic release.

Stunning photography.

Loved the eagle. Would love to have a pet eagle. The eagle is awesome. But Claude Lelouch overdoes it a bit with the eagle.

Legitimate grievances.

Legitimate love.

Love spending time in the mountains.

Boyhood

Cradling incalculable creative mismatched fluencies, irregularly dispatched as an artist comes into being, Richard Linklater's Boyhood follows a struggling family's progressive course for more than a decade, intermingling climactic catalysts and laid-back observations to serialize the traumatic and the beautiful, the courageous and the chill, helpless free-flowing resilient tenacity, a pervasive sense of wonder, enlightened, eiderdown.

Nice to see an asshole who isn't loveable.

What a strong mother (Patricia Arquette).

Responsibility and teaching are major factors, the children living with their mother, spending weekends with their father, encountering caring facilitators of learning along the way.

Dad (Ethan Hawke) steals a lot of scenes because he has less responsibility and can therefore spend more time being cool, but mom commands more respect, having to make extremely difficult choices as her stable partners turn into beasts.

I liked how the film's divided into different sections as the children age without seeming like it's divided at all; Boyhood has a seamless continuous flow which maturely reflects the passing of the years by not choosing to focus too intently on significant events, while still unreeling cogently enough to recognize their developmental importance.

This style also allows Linklater's characters to smoothly change and grow without constant reminders that they are changing and growing, which may have become tiresome.

The Railway Man

Insurmountable trauma, disturbingly deconstructing any stable sense of self, recurring, regenerating, relapsing, biding its time, crocodiling in crucible, beyond sublimatic recourse, entrenched and ravenous, purloined to renew, its helpless, caustic, blight.

Eric Lomax (Colin Firth/Jeremy Irvine) survived systematic torture in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II to return to Britain a free man, yet the horrific memories have left him sealed and solitary.

Love's invigorating warmth can't help him overcome, and his desperate wife Patti (Nicole Kidman) seeks the aid of his comrades of war to find a sustainable solution.

As luck would have it, the whereabouts of one of his assaulter's accomplices have been discovered, such knowledge providing him with the potential to pursue a just cause.

Hesitant and confused, The Railway Man struggles with this burden, before submitting to the inevitable, and retributively withstanding.

It jumps between the present and the past, the length of the wartime scenes compounding Mr. Lomax's illness, suggesting that he is capable of circumventing its madness for a time, before its destabilizing will pathologically lurches.

I prefer it when filmmakers regularly intercut psychologically debilitating lesions but Jonathan Teplitzky's method speaks to Mr. Lomax's strength, and brilliance.

The Railway Man is a rational film, examining the affects of war on a highly logical mind.

It therefore lacks the emotional depth I'm used to seeing in films exploring the aftershocks of war, triumphing in its temperance, resolving through reason.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Having won the previous year's Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) return to District 12 to attempt to resume their normal lives.

Trauma terrifyingly affects them both as haunting memories short-circuit various pastimes.

President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) fascist ideology continues to crush workers throughout the Districts but Katniss and Peeta have given them something to believe in.

That belief steadily intensifies throughout the progress of a mandatory nationwide tour during which they must demonstrate their loyalty.

But fascist kings stack fascist decks, not really even a deck, and an unforeseen revised savage sewer augustly swells, threatening to tether the people's momentum, to a coerced, despotic, desolate, plain.

Upon which obedience is the only option.

There's a lot happening in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Katniss and Peeta's aforementioned trauma adds depth to Haymitch's (Woody Harrelson) character, justifying his excessive drinking.

Rob Ford is not Haymitch. Rob Ford is being legitimately criticized for drinking and driving and smoking crack cocaine. These are things responsible Mayors don't do. These are things responsible people don't do regardless of occupation.

You almost feel bad for Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks) as she makes the best of an abysmal situation by seeming to genuinely care about teamwork.

As one of the participants dies during the Hunger Games's Quarter Quell, the sun rises, thereby symbolizing that there is only freedom in death when living under extreme forms of government.

Protests at the highest level do nothing to dissuade Snow's executive, similar mechanisms existing in Canada before Baldwin and Lafontaine introduced Responsible Government.

Katniss's formidable resolve resplendently radiates as if her just constitution was forged by Barton Street Steel.

A crucial moment during which the expediencies of her predicament neurotically test her herculean will exemplifies this in/dependence (beautifully dependent on championing the rights of the helpless).

Trust becomes a critical factor.

The parts which necessitate action don't focus on the violence but rather the obstructions of the civilized combatants.

The film depicts what it could be like to live somewhere where 1% of the population hold 99% of the wealth and there isn't a democratic system in place guaranteeing fundamental freedoms.

Where one size fits all.

Should probably read the books too.

Gravity

Trauma's debilitating cloaked severity haunts Gravity's heroine as destructive debris and interstellar circumstances threaten her very survival, necessitating the delivery of split-second correct decision making where the slightest miscue will accelerate her demise.

Her oxygen supply is running low.

George Clooney (Matt Kowalski) doesn't make it.

Perdition rests in the flames.

Of cherished, bygone, days.

The immediacy of her isolated predicament and its associated inanimate malevolence prevents her conscious reflexivity from being able to divert periodic onslaughts of asphyxiating plush, the situation requiring simultaneous internal and external synthesized orchestrations for her reliable future to independently portend.

The film's action reliably and boisterously builds as the bright and beautiful Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) approaches its climax.

Couldn't help but think of the ending of the first Alien film, and that Gravity is somewhat of a gem amongst science-fiction considering that it poignantly and thought provokingly stuns throughout, providing a brilliant exemplar of feminine strength, without introducing a bloodthirsty monster.

Science-fiction more concerned with the beauty of life than gruesome death?

That stands out.

1er amour

Whoa.

Hold on a second.

What the hell just happened?

Trauma, maximized.

Traditional everything, capsized.

An idyllic summer of youthful exploration, satirized.

Desire and the literary imagination, terrorized.

Or distilled, depending on whether or not young Antoine (Loïc Esteves) and Anna (Marianne Fortier) can poetically compute.

The setting is idyllic. Traditional notions of marriage are elevated. The pivotal moment synthesizes far too many constitutional traumatic clefts for Guillaume Sylvestre's 1er amour not to be considered satirical.

While trying to write a breakthrough novel.

Classical music, cicading un/aware.

The shots of the insects etc. innocently foreshadow.

Is M. Sylvestre trying to classically pinpoint a salacious oxymoronic yet foundational postmodern quintessence or simply diagnosing a psychiatrist's dream?

The final image of the boat speeding away, the family unit confined yet in constant motion, offers little guidance.

But that look on his face.

The risk factor, Lothario, focus on the risk factor.

I might have released this in November.

Solid satire.

Bullhead

Symptomatically and jaggedly pluralizing the personal psychological affects of a sudden all-encompassing disillusionment, while intricately stratifying a diverse bombastic barrage, literally interjecting his film with bellicose doses of testosterone, Michaël R. Roskam takes Bullhead and cacophonically synthesizes a man with his husbandry, as he tries whatever he can to surreptitiously distend.

An event. A transformation. Perseverance. Sublimation. Shock. Disintegration.

The wind in the willows.

Or the cyclone in the spruces in this instance. Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is one volatile powder keg lacking the deflammatory passions which may have softened the blow.

But apart from scintillatingly nocturnalizing a tragic character study, Bullhead complacently, cerebrally, and chaotically economizes its 'subject matter,' potently intensifying a somewhat underrepresented particular submergence, while using it to indirectly comment upon Belgian social interactions.

If Mr. Vanmarsenille represents the local, then the local is diversified, then regionalized (the regional possessing a nationalistic nuance), and then subjectively traumatized, historicized, and atemporalized, while the film retains a selective degree of objectivity (which dissipates near the end), the catalyst of said trauma triumvirately functioning within the local, regional, and national domains, with romantic, familial, comic and veterinary issues exhaustively adorning its multiplicity.

Mr. Roskam knows how to get things done (screenplay by Michaël R. Roskam). 

It offers a potential counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, one film focused primarily on a individual's parenting struggles within an environment theoretically dominated by the personal, the other's less subject-centric caricature working within one hypothetically attempting to produce a less hostile bilateral congregation, both lamenting static subjective growth.

Stress. They're both, full, of stress.

I recommend Bullhead for lovers of multidimensional cinema but be prepared cause it's rather dark.

I kind of think of it as a stubborn grouchy emasculated subdued rowdy intellectual action film to which you must pay strict attention.

Calamitizing the maintenance of an ideal.

Which blindly obscures what's beautiful.

The Descendants

An Hawaiian lawyer's textbook life is adulterously disrupted after his wife has a boating accident rendering her comatose and their eldest daughter reveals the secrets of her infidelities. Her coma forces him to take an active role in the rearing of their two daughters to whom he has remained patriarchally aloof for most of their lives. His family is incredibly wealthy however his relatives have squandered most of their fortune and hope to sell off 25,000 acres of coastal land holdings in order to continue to support their lavish lifestyles. He is the sole trustee of the family trust which controls the land and has the final say in how it is managed.

Alexander Payne's The Descendants follows him closely as he gets to know his children, seeks to meet his wife's love interest, and decides what to do with his family's inheritance. As much of an exploration of shock as it is an examination of improvisation, the knowledge Matt King (George Clooney) relies upon to ensure his success in the legal realm finds itself curiously deconstructed when confronted with that of the domestic.

As he struggles to comprehend.

Acknowledging that the cookie-cutter approach to living has its share of unforeseen non-transmissible calisthenics, he still finds a means through which to visualize permanence. Less a reflection on the self-absorbed behaviour that results in partners seeking attention elsewhere than a thorough elevation of frugality, void of risk, The Descendants offers scene upon scene of pristine Hawaiian imagery without making them seem beautiful.

Not turning 25,000 acres of coastal land into a resort because you believe some wilderness areas should be protected from commercial development for future generations would be beautiful. Not turning 25,000 acres of coastal land into a resort because you believe its permanence represents your smug superiority is not beautiful.

The King's Speech

Tom Hooper's The King's Speech unites commoner and King with a national goal as the threat of war becomes increasingly more palpable. Providing brief glimpses into the trials affecting representatives of both domains, the film trivializes neither while promoting the ways in which they complement one another. The Duke of York (Colin Firth) stammers and is a source of mild embarrassment for his family when compelled to deliver public addresses. None of the doctors to whom he has been sent has been able to ameliorate his situation which becomes increasingly pressurized as his chances of becoming King improve. Enter Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), a speech therapist whose alternative methods have gained renown and censure within his profession's culture. A confident, bold, and successful practitioner, Logue isn't intimidated when The Duke seeks his help, conducting his experimental business as usual. But a relationship develops wherein the therapist finds himself navigating political currents with which his social histories are unfamiliar. As The Duke learns to speak, Logue learns to hold his tongue, which makes him a trusted advisor as he adjusts and redesigns the manner in which his advice is offered, making it less treasonous. As progress is made, the commoner becomes a friend, and their dynamic deconstructs class barriers as the inevitable clash with Germany approaches.

Of course these class barriers are deconstructed because this situation is exceptional and it's only after every possible traditional outlet is sought out in vain that a plebeian alternative is considered, which seems to be saying that only in exceptional circumstances can royalty mingle with the common person in order to find a working solution, which isn't exactly progressive. Entertaining film nonetheless which suggests that if it wasn't for the relationship established between King and commoner Britain would not have had an august figure to sustain its resolve throughout World War II. Some of the scenes are rushed, there's the occasional inappropriate piece of gaudy cinematic melodrama, and the Duke of York's personal troubles receive much more attention than those of Mr. Logue. But The King's Speech does champion experimental forms of professional conduct and the determined individuals who resolutely pursue them while providing the working person with dignity and humanizing the life of a King.

Nice to see Derek Jacobi looking like pesky old Claudius throughout, Hooper's tribute to the stammering Roman Emperor so brilliantly theorized by the 1976 BBC miniseries.

Trois temps après la mort d'Anna (Mourning for Anna)

Presenting the harrowing struggles of a mother whose daughter is murdered in the prime of her youth, Catherine Martin's Trois temps après la mort d'Anna (Mourning for Anna) traumatically accentuates what it means to profoundly suffer. Stripping the narrative down to its bear essentials and rarely even moving the camera, Martin's portrait of Françoise's (Guylaine Tremblay) breakdown is desolate, poignant, and bleak. After her daughter's death, Françoise moves from Montréal to a remote family home in Kamouraska in order to confront her grief. Isolated, desperate, and alone, her mind begins to play tricks, and long lost family members suddenly appear. In a moment of despair, she collapses in a snowbank only to be rescued by a local painter (François Papineau as Edouard). As the film continues, Françoise subtly convalesces thanks to Edouard's patient kindness. Trois temps après la mort d'Anna substitutes landscapes and imagery for dialogue and action, illuminating a barren portrait of a mother's battle with spiritual destitution. Stark and lean yet vivacious and colourful, it directly submits a uniform thesis, leaving us free to respond with intuitive perceptions.