Jiang Ziya

The realm of the demon scurrilously oppresses the unsuspecting people with wicked cunning, until the gods take fluent cardigan mercy and affably supply a kind-hearted champion.

The foes clash and battle and destroy until beauty and wonder fade from the Earth, and all that's left are wanton reflexes bombastically seeking mortal ruin.

Eventually, the fighting stops and the kind-hearted warrior is tasked once again, to see if he is ready to rule the gods with bold decision and incarnate reckoning. 

Banished to a frozen wasteland with many others whom he once fought, he can't sit still and humbly contemplate while tempting questions lithely fluster.

He sets out in search of answers sympathetically unable to obey commands, the compelling drive to aid his new friend in resolute question upheld unbidden.

Yet a higher level of executive functioning officiously scrutinizes his acts meanwhile. 

Attempting to cataclysmically transform.

Kind-hearted reason into absolutist sufferance. 

Does leadership command the unprincipled devotion of warlike jaded contradictory cynicism, or do compassionate alternatives modestly contend with thoughtful levity and playful understanding?

The bellicose leader will no doubt attempt to sincerely seem laidback and humorous, while the decent individual will at times employ strength and discipline to get things done.

But at the end of the day the kind-hearted leader facilitates consistency and open-minded trust (Augustus Caesar/Claudius), while the self-obsessed demagogue extracts envy from decay in a constantly shifting foundationless masquerade (Tiberius/Caligula). 

If you study your nation's leadership going back for hundreds of years, if democratically affiliated, you'll find multivariability. 

Thus Clement Attlee defeated Winston Churchill - how did that happen? - in 1945.

And Biden defeated Trump.

Only to be thrown under the bus for his troubles. 

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. 

Neighbours

The questions of how loud one can party is tempered by bourgeois infiltrations as a rowdy fraternity moves in next door to a married couple in Nicholas Stoller's Neighbours.

The fraternity is well versed in the Dionysian arts.

Their goal is to throw a brazen bash nutso enough to ensure their enshrinement on their wall of fame.

Their neighbours, the Radners, are not impressed.

Engaged in the practice of child-rearing, and hoping to maximize what they can of a good night's sleep, they utilize logic and persuasion in an attempt to famish the insatiability.

Their plan backfires however, leading them to employ alternative methods to achieve their sought after repose.

What follows is a diabolical exchange of quintessential quid pro quo, devious in its conceptual understatements, wherein the past congenitally confronts history.

Robust and adroitly wound.

This isn't a typical frat-boy romp.

Residing in its reels are unexpected lessons regarding the cultivation of one's career and the absurdity of dipsomanic progressions.

Teams frat and bourgeois are therefore divided into the successful and the stumbling, as the mayhem imbues.

Neighbours is somewhat tame in its gambits, but these tame gambits lay a reasonably ecstatic foundation, upon which multiple avenues of inquiry merge, to simultaneously question while enabling.

Embligmatic clues.

It's difficult to say who's having more fun.

La sacrée

Fertility. Structure. Beer.

Dominic Desjardins's La sacrée has it all, and as its lighthearted romantic-comedic aura ferments, a jovial buzz is effervescently disseminated.

The Franco-Ontarian town of Fort Amiable has seen better days. The economy has yet to rebound from the closure of the local canoe factory and while the local residents remain upbeat, they still hold serious reservations regarding their future.

Enter François Labas (Marc Marans), son of the former canoe factory's owner who is blamed for the undesired closure. He seeks to wed a wealthy cosmetics heiress (Marie Turgeon as Sofia Bronzeman) but must impregnate her before wedding bells can ring. Unfortunately, he's sterile, and broke, and in danger of having his intricate web of devious lies exposed, thereby spoiling his plans for the unforeseen, and leaving him blindly tethered to the unknown.

Can the legendary La sacrée beer, locally brewed by the residents of Fort Amiable in the past and reputed to actively assist in the reproductive process, reinvigorate the lads and facilitate his dreams?

Or will he lose his favourite game and be turned out in the streets with nothing but credit card debt and incomparable charm to sustain him?

As he perseveres.

A picturesque portrait of a resilient conman, La sacrée provides opportunity for the dynamic while distributing limits to their productivity. Presenting a cheerful cast of sprightly characters, examining the marketing potential of the clarified anglicisme, suggesting that love can be truly exciting if and only if it builds upon a volatile foundation, and consistently transitioning from one pristine Northern Ontario scene to another, La sacrée enlivens the traditional struggling small town narrative, while thoroughly making use of the sacrament of confession.

And the supporting cast is given plenty of room to manoeuvre as their innocent hopes reflect a cohesive pastoral communal ideal.

The first feature comedy to be made in Ontario entirely in French.