Star Trek Beyond

Loved Star Trek Beyond.

I see a lot of adventure, superhero, sci-fi etc. films, obviously enough, but it's rare when that long forgotten voice, still residing deep within, innocently pleads, "how are they going to get out of this one?"

The crew of the Enterprise is betrayed and their ship destroyed, early on, the survivors forced to regroup on a hostile planet below, most of them quickly captured by their ruthless enemy.

A desperate situation, overwhelming odds, a profound delineation of devastating loss, the immediacy of it all shocking in its sudden mass destruction.

The Enterprise usually isn't destroyed near the beginning of a Star Trek narrative, in fact, I think it's unprecedented.

Resolute dividends.

The principal characters continue to diversify their personalities within the new timeline, Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho), and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) given prominent roles that they often didn't receive in the early Star Trek films.

And McCoy (Karl Urban) finally takes centre stage.

The last two films focused too much attention on Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) while forgetting that McCoy was also a driving force behind the franchise's success.

He's back in Star Trek Beyond with a huge part to play complete with several feisty confrontations with an injured Spock, the classic Spock/McCoy logical vulcan versus emotive human arguments, observations, distillations, providing the cherished thoughtfully humorous dialogues that were responsible for polarizing so many compelling Star Trek moments.

Delicatessen.

Scotty (Simon Pegg [who also co-wrote the script]) rocks it too, a true miracle worker in this one, as the crew requires multiple extremely precise intricately detailed technological synchronizations to escape from the planet and challenge the monstrous Krall (Idris Elba).

The situation is grim and the odds catastrophic but resilient professionalism responds with formidable yet down to earth distinction that inspirationally guides their enduring competence.

The humour isn't as lighthearted as the earth scenes from Star Trek: First Contact. That's one of the best Star Trek films, but at points it loses sight of the fact that their goal is to prevent the future of humanity from being obliterated.

Jaylah (Sofia Boutella).

Like Saavik, Lily, and Anij, Jayla adds contemplative depth to Star Trek Beyond, in the tradition of introducing new supporting characters which nimbly diversify the story.

Plus, often in films rich with hand-to-hand combat, the female characters fight other women while the men fight men.

Jaylah takes on the powerful Manas (Joe Taslim) in an honourable testament to strength and athleticism, her brains backed up by both brawn and beauty, excellent addition to the Star Trek pantheon.

With no amorous attachments.

It is girl power year in anglo cinema.

The script also examines the corrupted soldier who was never able to learn to live peacefully after all of his or her battles were fought, the individual so immersed in violence that the progressive union of different planets devoted to living amicably with one another is an everlasting insult, for they see foes and treachery everywhere, and, unfortunately, due to the nature of their combative character development, can never learn to trust anyone, preferring to recreate a universe steeped in death and despotism than play a game of cards or head out to a local cinema.

Merciless.

Nevertheless, it must be incredibly difficult for soldiers to suddenly turn it off upon returning to civilian life, especially if governments who profited from their sacrifices don't adequately provide them with the support structures they might need.

Emphasizing ingenuity in the face of stark impoverishment, and teamwork as comprised by extracurricular resource, each of them making game changing plays, Star Trek Beyond respirates to succeed while remaining calm and collected.

I was surprised that Krall's compound wasn't more heavily guarded considering how many pilots were needed to launch his smothering swarm.

There are some wonderful moments that accentuate the biodiversity of the planet they find themselves upon, moments which could have been increasingly intensified as the film progressed.

Old technologies are relied upon to achieve contemporary goals which made me think of the ending of T-3.

A homosexual couple raising a family is lovingly introduced.

Upon the Yorktown station, there's a wonderful sense of metropolitan communal collegiality that captures the best moments one experiences living in cities.

The final moments were quite similar to those from Into Darkness.

Sad to think that Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin have passed on.

The impossibility factor of the crew's victory is extremely high but I suppose that's what makes for good science-fiction.

The dialogue in the opening scene is super corny.

And I loved that the story was completely new, a new story with new villains and characters I've never seen before, like classic Star Trek boldly exploring and contending, with the opening lines from the original series's credits recited by Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Scotty in the end, further augmenting their versatile collective, not in the apian or Borg sense, but with humble self-sacrificing semantics, unique to the federation.

Prosperous.

Ghostbusters

I don't see anything wrong with casting women as the new ghostbusters.

That's the fun thing about remakes, you switch up the story and the genders and the races or ethnicities to ensure that the reimagination comments on contemporary issues, rather than just presenting a facsimile of the original, whose origins themselves are likely hotly debated, thereby keeping the narrative fresh, while jump starting sociocultural synergies.

There's something to be said for respecting traditions as well, but as the centuries pass these liberal and conservative vice versa visualizations forge a compelling multiplicity that encourages vibrant critical controversies.

Liked the film.

The script lacks at least one feature that ironically made the original so realistic, the fact that the ghostbusters took huge risks to start their business, and then proceeded to take steps to in/flexibly run it, affectively pulling you into their audacious exterminating antics with hectic supernatural commercial conviviality, the new one focusing less on entrepreneurial aspects and more on interpersonal relationships, a different approach, but it still never seemed like their business could fail, or make any money either, although it did seem like friendships could be re/built through the productive art of constructive team building.

The interpersonal relationships of the four hilarious heroines do draw you in with kinetic displacements and undulating sorority, they're written quite well and engagingly invigorate the active material with knowledgable grit and practical pugnacity, the best of the best living up to the challenge, impressive, conducive, calico, they had an incredibly tough act to follow and at times even take the lead, regenerative calisthenic conversations, tally-ho, which remain loyal to the franchise's republican origins.

Grrr.

There's contempt for different levels of academic rigidity within, obviously the supernatural is real, the principal villain values the dedicated impeccable labours of hard working honest Americans, when African American ghostbuster Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) jumps off a stage no one catches her, the ghostbusters hire their secretary solely because he's good looking, the ivory trade is unforgivably referred to nonchalantly, nuclear energy is highly valued as an available technology ripe for non-regulated experimentation, ethnic slurs are callously dished out, and none of the brilliant perspicacious female ghostbusters has been able to find a partner.

Classic form, alternative Ghostbusters.

What else, yes, they slowly encounter different ghosties as the narrative unreels and during the climax end up battling those very same ghosties.

Different ghosts people, different ghosts, a cataclysmic apocalyptic (Hollywood's big on the Apocalypse this Summer) fissure has opened up in New York City unleashing thousands of ghosts and the ghostbusters end up fighting the same ones they fought earlier in the film.

Laziness, especially considering the remarkable creative opportunity the writers and special effects peeps had there.

Nevertheless, the film's worth checking out.

If you like strong comedy executively executed by leading American comics, I don't see why you wouldn't like this film.

It's not the gender that matters, but how well the individuals play their respective roles, and how well those roles are resoundingly written.

Kirsten Wiig (Erin Gilbert), Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Leslie Jones, and Kate McKinnon (Jillian Holtzmann) perform remarkably well.

And deserve total respect.

The BFG

The crafters of dreams, inaugurators of imagination, humbly humanizing heaven and earth with tragic humour and comedic complaint, magically transforming the mundane and the mechanical into mirthful exhilarations of sprightly cerebral rustic metropolitan whimsy, intergalactic anchovies, pepperoni principalities, the promotion of laughter, cheek, good luck and fortune, legendarily discrediting desperation and doubt, the blending of sundry scintillating elements, diversifying banalities, with intergenerational honeysuckle, and iridescent eclectic salience.

Giants!

There be giants in Steven Spielberg's The BFG and one has taken a shine to slumbering humanity (Mark Rylance as BFG).

He literally gathers dreams and then chooses to altruistically share them.

Smaller than the other giants however, his knowledge an insult to their blunt aggressive disdain, when he encounters others of his kind punishments must be endured, and humiliations ritualistically accommodated.

A young orphan girl (Ruby Barnhill as Sophie) spots him one night as he travels through London and is kidnapped shortly thereafter so that he can avoid detection (an odd way of going about things).

In order to save her from his invasive famished brethren (there aren't any female giants) back in giant land, he must employ stealth and dissimilitude, while she teaches him to be more confident, and to be proud of his clever achievements.

Innocent in its elevations and timid in its temerity, The Big Friendly Giant shyly sticks it to bullying while invigorating artistic expression.

Aside from some peculiar structural elements, it enlightens while it entertains and elucidates while it underscores.

Hey, I read Nicholas Nickleby way back when in school.

Loved that book.

I took flack for reading the whole thing.

And almost produced tears while reading aloud the chapter where _______ dies.

Recommend The BFG for children and adults alike.

Bullying really is the worst.

Peer pressure.

I thought these encumbrances would disappear during adulthood but they remain, oddly enough.

Not in my current job or social life, but I read about them regularly enough to remain intermittently flabbergasted.

Sigh, I could never pretend to love soccer or roller derby.

Or not complain when asked to do something unsafe.

A strange state of affairs this 21st Century.

Not so bad with JT at the helm though.

He doesn't seem like he possesses any bullying instincts whatsoever.

I keep agreeing with the things he says.

It's unprecedented. Uncharted. Uncanny.

Agreeing.

Peppermint.

Free State of Jones

Raw recruits hopelessly unprepared for military service, the people starving to support a lost cause, reprisals and punishments suffocating the countryside, whispers of emancipation enflaming formerly despondent fuels, a small racially mixed group of men and women set out to constructively challenge confederate rule, imagining a state where everyone profits from the fruits of their labours, during the American Civil War, in Gary Ross's Free State of Jones.

Odd to see a film that investigates militaristic insurrection as opposed to strict cohesive unified martial ubiquity, concerned citizens attempting to establish concrete constitutional reforms, exercising intellectual abstractions, with communal dignity, and auspicious flumes.

Eventually declaring their own fundamental principles.

Their group itself still fraught with internal discord.

The film has a progressive message inasmuch as it promotes racially diverse communities working together to flourish and succeed.

It was obviously shot in haste though.

Matthew McConaughey (Newton Knight) eclipses the other participants and delivers a great performance (bit overwrought at times), excelling in the lead as pivotal protagonist with the most critical speeches, but since no one else really stands out, Free State of Jones's formal aspects are at odds with its content's focus on diversity.

There can be more than one.

Not enough takes blended with sloppy editing that covers a lot of time and space without generating any visceral momentum.

There is a valuable subplot however that takes place in a not too distant future where one of Knight's descendants is on trial for marrying a caucasian woman even though he may have African blood, mixed race marriages being ridiculously illegal at the time.

By jumping back and forth between past and present, Free State of Jones coaxes its audience into critically examining contemporary racial injustices, which unfortunately continue to abound with incendiary abusive flagrancy.

A clever move, manifesting the present while remaining situated in the past, backgammon.

It's sad to think that the American Civil War ended 151 years ago and the same bigoted preconceptions still disharmoniously complicate the daily lives of so many people.

Do you remember when you were really young and there weren't black, white, Asian, Arab, Native . . . . . peoples, there were just people, living in communities together?

Those were great times.

Chill you know.

Peaceful.

Swiss Army Man

Languishing in loneliness lugubrious in doubt, hangin' high the penetrating suicidal shouts, when suddenly upon the beach betwixt the waves and sand, a body flatulent in thrust emerges ampersand.

Friendship fervid moribund enriching live decay, frolicking within the flora ursine twitchy craze, batteries a slowly pining loves lost intercepted, consummate stardust inverted glacial verdant 'spectives.

Lessons lounging lynchpins gouging finch the new companion, eagerly consumes the trust with gaseous abandon, launch relight ignite insights the leveraged absentia, automatic crisp erratic exercised 'fluenza.

Visitors a challenging courteous ebbs and flows, calisthenic plights endemic rockets robins hoe, curious the interactions surely socialized, tricks refastened sparred Sebastian glimpsed etherealized.

Caught up in surfin' chagrin like dismal diuretics, forward movement grooved attunements exiled resurrected, burly bitchin' swift restitchin' crucial conversation, wild restyled agile nubile explicit intonations.

Back within the suburbs thinly overwrought disguise, aware the stare lays bare the madness cruising lunar tides, imbued exotic dues hypnotic cloistered campy crystal, jostlin' prim the seraphim bewildered glistenin' gristle.

Loved Swiss Army Man.

What an idea.

Great performance from Radcliffe (Manny).

I've been waiting to see something different from him for awhile.

I don't see everything he does.

The Neon Demon

Authentic unawareness, a genuine ingenue, immediacy pressurizing the social with vindictive amorous jealousies she neither comprehends nor contemplates, august angelic agency, harpies heaven sent, an agonizing struggle having hawkishly conditioned their credence, as innocence mingles with disillusion, naivety nascently nocturnalized.

A young model whose natural beauty crushes her competitors suddenly reaches the heights they seek, forever and ever, without even having coquettishly furrowed, finding herself virulently enveloped in invariable viscosity shortly thereafter.

Unapologetically resigned.

To psychotic desire.

The Neon Demon starkly examines discourses of purity with venomous brevity and blunt exactitude.

Mortality.

Ostentation.

The hypnotic hallucinations impress as does the soundtrack and the scenes at the hotel (music by Cliff Martinez).

Director Nicolas Winding Refn pays homage to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch and at times seems as if he may possess a similar sense of maniacal eccentricity.

The Neon Demon's hit and miss though, some scenes pulling you into a dark carnal frothing extremity which skilfully blends the opulent and the oblivious, others just sort of hangin' out and dipsy-doodling like those you often find in generic horror.

Perhaps this approach is meant to reflect young Jesse's (Elle Fanning) shock, the uplifting yet haunting psychosocial affects of elegant effortless ascendence.

A larger budget may answer this question, one which gives Refn more time to cohesively structure a sustained chaotic incrimination, a more visceral sense of bleak wanton menace, like that which you often find in both Kubrick and Lynch's darker texts.

Wave upon wave.

Liked Jena Malone's (Ruby) performance.

Jubilance.

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.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Transcendently calculating with pure artistic spirituality, rarefied inspiration, crystalline caricatures, an East Indian genius leaves loved ones behind to study mathematics abroad, challenging racial and cultural stereotypes to do so, undeniably unique and innocent, picturesque prognostic in plume.

A gift beyond reason, like Proust, Shakespeare, Dickens or Joyce, he miraculously finds a patron at Trinity College, who sets out to formalize his spry romantic methods.

Malheureusement, academic rigour has its own contentions, and G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and his jealous colleagues initially distrust/dismiss Srinivasa Ramanujan's (Dev Patel) revelations.

Obsessions with the genuine.

Could he be the one?

There is no one, but mathematical proof is required (Ramanujan writes mathematical formulas at the highest level like squirrels climb trees or cheetahs swiftly accelerate), but would Srinivasa have written more profusely had Hardy sat back to obtain those proofs himself, giving his correspondent more freedom to think, thereby preventing the sterilization of genius?

Training Ramanujan to become an academic would have transformed him from dust devil to tornado, but in terms of both knowledge and refined intuitive creativity, it may have been better to leave him be, with a stipend, to maximize his unaccounted for mystifications.

These thoughts loosely reflect conversations held between Hardy and Prof. Littlewood (Toby Jones) as The Man Who Knew Infinity examines detections of the exceptional.

I thought it was a great film, comfortably blending brilliance and banality with modest poise and tenacious dignity.

Even at that level, amongst what Bowie called the elite and first, racist attitudes still obscure understandings, enviously orchestrating a fermented xenophobic squelch, as opposed to idealizing grand authentic freedom. 

Curious this 1729.

A modest proposal?

*Saw Alfred everywhere in this film.

Sunset Song

A clever girl, a brutal father, a stubborn son, confines of the quotidian bleak and unforgiving, the young at heart, the adventurous, callously beat down and kept in line with fierce despotic reckoning, patriarchal severity, but Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), a rapturous sight transmitting kinetic tranquility, relieves the threatening pressure, disseminating fortune with unembellished felicity, tensions be damned, as she inherits impassioned posterity.

Heuristic horizons.

Sunset Song, as bountifully bucolic as fireside chats or blueberries burgeoning, directly laying bare every insight and ramification with clearly defined wayward hesitance, too modest to overtly proclaim yet confident enough to quaintly criticize, enlivening the imagination while seductively steering, confidence in motion, as steady as she goes.

Cruel men jealousy asserting their authority are under fire within, John Guthrie (Peter Mullan) never having once listened to a feminine voice, his insensitive influence slowly transforming into World War I.

A rigid clock overwhelmed with propriety wherein youth struggle to entertain wonder.

To love in health and in spirit.

Express themselves.

Radiate.

Into the Forest

Isolated ingenuity, embowered seclusion, 2 sisters living together in the West Coast woods far from town must learn to survive after the North American power grid suddenly shuts down, permanently, in Patricia Rozema's Into the Forest.

Feminine fortitude.

There's no fear, no frequent unprovoked breakdowns, in fact the film seems too sober and logical after their father (Callum Keith Rennie as Robert) dies and the grieving ends after a brief period of intense sorrow.

It's a matter of timing, the film divided into temporal segments which narrativize specific incidents yet leave out inquisitive aspects which leave you wondering why they chose to stay in the woods and why they weren't more curious about was happening in the world?

Such questions are entertained but they aren't examined at length, as they would have been if the story didn't jump ahead so often, which I found odd considering their circumstances and the massive destabilizing continental paradigm shifts enveloping them.

They can't find any information and there's no one else to talk to besides a partner (Max Minghella as Eli) who arrives for a short stay to state that no one really knows anything in town either, and game changing decisions are behind made based on conjecture, which moderately heightens end of the world tensions by acknowledging that communication networks and associated cross-references no longer exist, but the film remains deep in the woods so none of these convolutions can be explored.

Nevertheless, Into the Forest challenges gender stereotypes as Nell (Ellen Page) and Eva (Evan Rachel Wood) pioneer it hardcore.

Their survival skills were actually significantly enhanced precisely at the moment where I started to think the film was going to ignore such progressive potential.

If you've ever worked in the bush you know women can do anything men can, often with less complaining, and more team building enthusiasm.

Nell learns to hunt, forage, use ropes to hide food in trees so bears have a much harder time getting at it, and Eva learns to chop wood.

Eva's raped while doing so, a terrifying moment which speaks to the worst in men, i.e., as women begin to prove that they are capable of doing the work stereotypically ascribed to men, the worst men violently assault them to belittle and degrade their genuine badass accomplishments.

As Nell and Eva slowly realize they don't want to live their lives botanically bushwhacking, their dwelling gradually collapses, the last sign of the postmodern world, reclaimed once again by environmental inevitabilities.

Thought the film shouldn't have skipped Winter, left out some relevant discussions, and missed out on incredible cinematographic opportunities (see Sleeping Giant), but Into the Woods still aptly disintegrates gender stereotypes with regenerative pluck and expedient resiliency, transitioning from one epoch to the next, wherein every moment defines adventure.

Risk.

Synergistic sisterhood.

The nebulous sublime.

Maggie's Plan

The spirit of independence, intelligence and confidence, basking in unconscious success, high-level functioning finessed, fabled and fastened, doubts rationally ridiculed, friends casually consulted, expansion, diversity, risk management, decision made, imaginations materialized, nebulous nascent nesting, enlightening epiphany, a child is born.

Yet one marriage dissolves to consolidate her portfolio, her hawkish rival expressing her grievances verbosely, the mutually sought after bad boy wearing on Maggie's (Greta Gerwig) nerves as the years pass, until it becomes plainly apparent, that she'd be better off on her own.

For a time.

In a bit of a pickle.

Maggie's Plan is as clever as it is charming.

Well versed in psychological analysis, manipulative benevolence fetchingly at play, it never loses its sense of cerebral congeniality, fun, it's a lot of fun, fair play you know, in what otherwise could have been tragic and miserable, director Rebecca Miller boldly blends logic and laughter, harmonizing open minds with good intentions, even as chaos clouds over it's smooth, chill, cool, laid-back in full putter, possibly the best romantic comedy I've seen.

There's a great short clip that shows Maggie and Georgette (Julianne Moore) out for a drive that could have easily been cut, but its inclusion hilariously stylizes quaint urban absurdity, thereby lightening the mood with self-deprecating shock, and calling into question its own romantic existence (editing by Sabine Hoffman).

Candlelight.

Gerwig and Moore work exceptionally well together, like Denzel and Mark Wahlberg, casting by Cindy Tolan.

Ethan Hawk (John) also excels, like a mix of Harrison Ford, John Cusack and Harry Dean Stanton, which he makes totally his own.

Watch the English language only Québécois signage. That's technically illegal!

A fun trip to Québec regardless, with good music, lively conversation, tantalizing food and drink, and a bit of snowshoeing adventurously thrown in.

Solid R&D.

No Žižek?

Miller wrote the screenplay as well and handles the brainy dialogue with restrained decorum and explosive observation.

It's like J. M. Coetzee's Foe.

It starts off rushed, in a panic, and then slowly settles down to seductively reflect and ponder, like Maggie's state of mind I suppose.

I'm crying.

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Courageous independent daring precociously proving itself under pirated extremes, sees its accomplishments rewarded with gender biased disdain as a scorned suitor attempts to neutralize it permanently, thereby aggrandizing his mediocrity, in terms of the status quo.

But in this petty and perilous predicament an alternative reality presents itself, more literary than commercial, but one within which Alice's (Mia Wasikowska) strength is regarded with respect and awe, the reflection becoming the recourse, as she instinctively exonerates Wonderland's sociocultural peculiarities.

Once more.

Agile assertions.

Temporal clemency.

The foundations are in place to enchant an everlasting imbroglio, feminine resiliency challenging unimaginative entitlement, multicultural magnanimity dousing insensitive cinders, but Alice Through the Looking Glass doesn't narratively impress, as it struggles to diversify both structurally and linguistically.

The script, while written for children, doesn't invest in creative unrestrictive dialogue, continuously employing stale predictable expressions, like Andrew Adamson's Prince Caspian, consequently subverting its versatile progressive message.

In an Alice in Wonderland film, it's fun to watch as all the strange characters have their defining moments as well, but in Through the Looking Glass many of them (Tweedledee [Matt Lucas], the Cheshire Cat [Stephen Fry], etc.) turn into background fluff, and offer sycophantic praise as opposed to startling interrogations.

Individuality sacrificed to establish unconscious group consensus.

Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) is also limited by stifling encumbrances, and the Mad Hatter (Hatter Tarrant Hightopp [Johnny Depp]) functions like a lamentable puppy instead of ingenious rarefied iridescence.

If he was destined to be a Hatter like his father before him, why wasn't Alice destined to end up like her mother before her?

Much too covertly traditional for a film advocating for gender equality, Through the Looking Glass has some fun moments, but doesn't inspire long lasting critical propensity.

Perhaps it's suggesting that if the powerful are indeed bland, powerful women must also be bland when occupying leading roles to avoid mass displacements, while structuring the order of things.

The familiarity in TTLG dulls its fantastic edge.

By dulling the fantasy, it counterproductively thinks outside the box, Alice excelling at out of the box thinking, but it's more compelling when she faces multiple encompassed challenges rather than one realistic and one fantastic, challenges which she duels with head on without encountering any serious setbacks.

The film does point out the ridiculous burdens independent women sometimes confront when expressing themselves, however, diagnoses of hysteria for instance, grossly unjust reductions.

High-Rise

Quiescently ensconced in an eccentric microcosm, floor upon floor of economically ranked struggles, celebrations, sacrifices, autarky inclined to divine judgment, electrical exclusivity dividing the aggrieved populace, factions and punishments and discourse, threats, rebellion, single Laing (Tom Hiddleston) remains professionally detached as the disdain of the upper levels begets a crusading demagogue, a brilliant attempt to self-sufficiently endure, chaotically chained to the repercussions of decay.

Experimental empowerment.

Entitled vengeance.

Daring to dream.

Ben Wheatley's High-Rise possesses a peculiar ambivalence which consistently deconstructs attempts to clarify its underlying motivations, inhabiting the illusive intersection where horror, comedy, and tragedy collude, where everything remains uncertain, and spectres illuminate aberrations.

Quick draw.

Technically, the film's outstanding. The production design (Mark Tildesley), cinematography (Laurie Rose), and editing (Amy Jump and Wheatley) shine forth with undeniable cheek and variability.

A team assembled.

At points the writing (Jump) struggles however, excelling at crafting believable impoverished and bourgeois dialogues, but failing to convince when enabling plutocratic mysticism.

Obviously a closer study of In Search of Lost Time is in order.

It's like a really tight elementary first or second script, Jump demonstrating that she has the ability to win awards, High-Rise impressing like Blood Simple or J'ai tué ma mère, Between the Buttons or David Bowie's self-titled album.

Childlike brilliance.

High-Rise sacrifices sophistication for shock and ordure, the script still excelling at not bothering to explain things which left me full of sardonic amelioration.

Cool cast of varied characters.

At its best when it's genuinely unconcerned, at its worst when it just doesn't care.

Winky face.

For such a massive apartment building, High-Rise doesn't showcase much of its commercial enterprise, only focusing on a totalitarian grocery store and some perfunctory athletic accompaniments.

Inflammatory reflections of hierarchical obsessions.

Sociopolitically speaking.

*Loved the quick-French-learning grocery clerk.

X-Men: Apocalypse

Entombed omniscience, eternally incarcerated in nocturnal necromance, once unparalleled god of an ancient world, tyrannical and ostentatious in luminous immortality, guarded by 4 devoted soldiers living and dying at his command, dedicated to ruling with neither compromise nor exception, suddenly unearthed by a clandestine Egyptian cult, to demonically deconstruct the flourishing postmodern world.

Auspicious ascension.

Consummate destruction.

The world is blanketed in relative calm as those with pseudosupernatural powers and their hardworking compatriots have learned to live peaceful lives, Magneto (Michael Fassbender) even having found a day job and wife, Professor X (James McAvoy) competently facilitating education.

But the extraordinary are still plagued by bigoted misunderstandings, forced to fight to the death or perform parlour tricks, and as Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) begins to rise he quickly finds enthusiastic neophytes.

To unleash a new world order.

The X-Men standing in his way.

X-Men: Apocalypse recasts the franchise, reintroducing favourite characters to the alternative timeline while ensuring traditional rivalries and romances ignite anew.

Too much time may have been spent exploring these traditions, Professor X and Magneto's everlasting polarity growing tiresome at points, future films perhaps expanding upon their routine dialogues, as they possibly explore alternative argumentative philosophies.

Relying heavily on what's transpired in the past, in the past, while laying the foundations to illuminate future irresistibilities, X-Men: Apocalypse isn't the best X-Men film but still delivers an exciting tale which encourages the development of its audience's better selves.

Things that initially seem strange or otherworldly can become as familiar as whatever it is you grew up thinking was natural and good, trying new things and having discussions with people from other cultures paving alternative avenues of inquiry with multidimensional crystalline curiosity.

Hopefully after last weekend's horrific tragedy in Orlando, people feel more willing to embrace less extreme world views.

You could live as long as Apocalypse and still encounter fresh perspectives to challenge your variable order of things with plump compelling intergalactic différence.

Without losing sight of where you come from.

Cross-referencing conversational data with research undertaken at your local universal library.

Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising

Ambience.

New beginnings.

The Radner family continues to shed light on erroneous child rearing trials, practices, reflexively adapting to unpredictable circumstances with cohesive charm and salacious whimsy.

But another flock of rambunctious young adults is intent on wantonly expressing themselves next door, a blossoming sorority playing by their own rules to un/consciously break new emancipatory ground, unconcerned with the fact that Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne) are trying to sell their home, convivially coached by arch rival Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron).

Who's let go shortly thereafter.

Conflicted and forlorn, finding solace on the opposing team.

The result is a rushed collection of combative criticisms, relationship constructs, implausible rationalizations, and bold active dreams, dreams clashing as they seek definitive realization, the film heavy on good intentions, light on aerobic integrations.

Sloppy sequel.

On the one hand, there's a progressive element which depicts young women trying to succeed by asserting themselves using non-traditional means (that's cool), unfortunately relying on a man to start things up, on the other there's the typical sophomoric approach that utilizes tried and true marketable probabilities to sell the film, although sex isn't one of the main selling points.

The opposition doesn't blend well.

Like reading the newspaper on the toilet, Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising doesn't really progress even if moving forward's built into the narrative and it never slows down to encourage reflection, conflicting lifestyles producing some laughs, but still lacking the lubricants that irritably fuelled the original.

Even if it's a carbon copy.

Efron steals the show.

Hardcore Henry

Apocalyptic awakening, immediately thrust into omnipresent annihilation, or birth in a fascist realm, unable to speak, cyborg awareness, the necessity of inductively coming to terms with what that means as a legion of minions attempts to obliterate you, escape from the blimp, follow the bread crumbs, instinctively strategize each and every incendiary reaction, awestruck athleticism, magnanimous masquerade, keep bursting with blunt obstinacy, survive to Frankenstein your creator, smash crunch dash ditch, pernicious reflexivity, maniacally coming into being.

Too insane.

Too psycho.

The opening credits suggest Hardcore Henry's parodying James Bond and is therefore supposed to be comedic, but if that's the case, it's a sick sense of humour that doesn't particularly impress.

The film's like a video game, like Henry's your character and you're trying to frenetically fight your way to the end, the unnerving celebration of violence perhaps meant to critique blitzkrieg obsessions, found in many a video game, less pronounced in Bond, still there, James Bond.

I don't think that's the case though, the opening credits also festively revelling in graphic death, Hardcore Henry consequently seeming like an elevation of violence for violence's sake rather than a reticent vituperative censor.

The audience is Henry as he fights his way to the top, always following his point of view.

Compliments for trying something different, but whereas this technique worked in Son of Saul, perhaps here suggesting that focusing too strongly on individuality leaves you suffering under constant threat, it's disorienting in Hardcore Henry.

The quasi-novelty wore off after 5 minutes and I quickly grew tired of the obscured frenzied panic.

Jimmy (Sharlto Copley) and his avatars provide comic relief but they also die brutally every time they provide information, as James Bond's contacts often do.

Way too much violence without much of a point.

I like raw bohemian unconcerned films, when they're done well, but Hardcore Henry just seems to be exploiting subconscious malevolence, like cockfighting or racism.

It's too easy.

Rash thoughtless elevations.

Scripted chaos.

Il racconto dei racconti (Tale of Tales)

August propitious enveloping cocoon, swath the embellished confiding ruckus in lavender pretence corresponding can do.

Zodiac.

A mockery.

A complete lack of concern wickedly blended with seditious witness guides Il racconto dei racconti (Tale of Tales) as it dismally lampoons heroic adventure with self-deprecating panache and oblivious tender.

Viscidly challenging you to care for its bland, boring, banal, and bumptious characters, it insolently reminds you that you still haven't left the theatre.

The cinematography's compelling enough (Peter Suschitzky), stating the natural beauty contained herewithin is abundantly more profound than anything these stories have to offer, yet we wrote narratives anyways to illuminate our genuine contempt, for you, asinine aperture, belittle the ebb and flow.

Care for nothing.

Salacious stasis.

The foundations for something more tantalizing laid waste by exasperating lassitude.

Do absolutely nothing, harvest excessive applause.

Galavanting circuitry, crusading camp.

Eye in the Sky

Speculation.

Strategic planning.

Cold calculation.

The human factor.

A peaceful Kenyan family who loathes yet fears extremists lives day to day in a militarized zone, embracing their loving routine while terrorists plot suicide attacks in the compound next door.

The British military has waited years to either capture or eliminate these fanatics and is ready to strike but requires direct authorization.

At the perfect moment, extraordinarily complicated and dangerous steps having been taken to ensure legalistic legitimacy, the adorable daughter (Aisha Takow as Alia Mo'Allim) of the family begins to sell bread within the proposed airstrike's targeted area.

Eye in the Sky hierarchically examines the politics and ethics of proceeding with the mission, humanistically stylizing the decision making process at executive, legal, operational, and civilian levels, internationally evaluating torrents and tributaries to disputatiously justify the repercussions of its actions, debate clad in detonation, textbook points on cue.

Interrogating the greater good.

The crucial unknown.

Millions have likely been spent leading up to the moment and preventing suicide attacks which will result in dozens of casualties seems like the logical decision.

But the peaceful family, if their daughter is killed, may then turn to extremism, convincing friends and relatives to join in the call.

I'm surprised this point wasn't mentioned in the dialogue which otherwise intellectually explores several hypothetical perspectives.

Conditionally, there are too many variables to confidently predict certain outcomes, and it is known that the terrorists are preparing to launch suicide attacks, and that dozens of deaths are more serious than one.

Painstaking steps are taken to ensure the girl's survival and a brave clever conscientious objection is even made by the soldier responsible for launching the strike.

Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren), eager to terminate her target, eventually takes matters into her own hands and lies about the girl's survival odds in order to secure the right to annihilate.

The audience is left to decide whether or not she made the correct decision.

The concluding moments, reminiscent of speeches made by Jean-Luc Picard, suggest director Gavin Hood thinks she did not.

War laid bare.

Unforeseen probabilities.

Possibility obscured.

Eye in the Sky rationally supports opposing viewpoints with argumentative clarity yet is somewhat too neat and tidy and at points I thought I was watching television.

It still boils down incredibly complex structures and their inherent departmental checks and balances to an accessible narrative replete with critical controversies.

Open-ended investigations.

Well thought out yet too polished at times, Eye in the Sky materializes the imaginary components integral to the ethics of fighting the war on terror, to lament both conscience and innocence, while statistically analyzing bursts of compassion.

Pleasantly lacking in sensation.

Loved the Alan Rickman (Lieutenant General Frank Benson).

Money Monster

Televisual luminosity, the centripetal cynosure dazzlingly captivating your attention for a sensationally scripted surefire thirty slash sixty, making all the right moves, gimmicky ingratiation, applying the research so you don't have to, don't have to do anything, besides bask in his or her cardiovascular charisma, as he or she blows off your steam, and insulatingly ensures you make the correct decision.

But correct decisions are not always made, and if the viewer has not cultivated a cogent degree of critical awareness, tragedy can strike leaving bitter grievances pending.

Jodie Foster's Money Monster exorcizes such a scenario as Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) loses his life savings following the guidance of Lee Gates's (George Clooney) networked investment extravaganza, and vengefully responds by taking his outputs hostage.

Live in real time.

Yet, as it becomes apparent that foul play may have been involved in the dealings of the company Gates lauded (IBIS Global Capital), the two begin to forge an investigatory friendship, hoping to reveal the truth, thereby saving both their good names.

Both!

The result is an entertaining heartwarming yet woeful examination of fraud, the broadcasters functioning like bourgeois intermediaries between the penniless and the plutocrats, impoverished angst voicing its anguish, malevolent miscalculations haunting the residue.

It had the opportunity to elaborately interrogate the dire financial predicaments many Americans find themselves in but only really touched the surface, focusing more of its attention on Gates's shock.

At one point you see Budwell passionately pleading on camera but you don't hear what he's saying as Gates's reaction is martyred.

Budwell has gone way too far but he could have been evidenced as more of a victim than a miscreant.

Should Chomsky have been consulted?

Most definitely yes.

The audiences watching Budwell's stand don't add much either. If individual members had been given personalities throughout, additional layers of reflective commentaries would have been added, like a web 2.0 factor.

Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) and Diane Lester (Caitriona Balfe) do add level-headed managerial insights however, holding things together, interactively mediating and sleuthing.

Not as hard-hitting as I thought it would be, but still creatively conscious of economic crises.

Solid ethical entertainment.

The Messenger

I've been thinking that if you possessed the ability to identify sundry song birds while walking through the woods, that walk would be a much more rewarding experience.

There are so many.

I've always loved seeing bears and raccoons, deer and foxes, skunks, chipmunks, minks, but learning more about song birds now seems like the best way to expand my knowledge of the forest, which is in need of expansion, in the interests of lifelong learning.

Because there are so many of them, it's difficult to notice if species are declining if you no longer hear the song you can't identify; there are still plenty of other songs being sung, so it still seems like song bird populations aren't threatened or decreasing every year.

But according to Su Rynard's documentary The Messenger, song bird populations have been decreasing every year for at least 40 years, windows, cats, habitat loss, climate change and chemical insecticides thought to be largely responsible.

I know the inclusion of cats sounds odd.

Aren't cats and birds just interacting as they always have, like lions and zebras or wolves and deer?

It's not quite that simple, as The Messenger suggests, by lucidly pointing out that house cats are actually invasive species, brought with humans wherever they go.

If house cats are thought to be lions and song birds zebras, it's like North America had billions of zebras and no lions until domestic cats showed up on the scene, stealthily silencing many bird songs.

It's recommended that cat owners keep their cats indoors for longer periods of time, or all the time, for even if it may seem like your cat doesn't eat many birds, cats are annually responsible for 1.4 billion bird deaths, and 32 song bird species are now extinct because of cats.

The Messenger also points out how the bizarro French practice of eating ortolans whole, possibly other song birds as well, needs to stop. It's like hunting elephants for ivory. Ortolan numbers have plummeted and people are continuing to eat them, as poachers continue to kill elephants, extinction looming on the horizon, it's disgusting, plain and simple.

It's not just a trifling matter when a species disappears; ecosystems can be harshly effected.

The Messenger mentions how Mao's ludicrous campaign to kill all the tree sparrows in China because they ate grain resulted in 30 million human deaths. The tree sparrows also ate insects that ate crops and without the tree sparrows to eat them, thirty million people starved to death.

It's thought that ariel insectivores are declining in Europe and North America, song birds that live around farms and grasslands, because farmers are using neonicotinoids to kill insects. It's believed that these chemicals have no effect on the aquatic environments they saturate, but this may not be the case, and they may be killing additional insect populations in said environments which aerial insectivores eat to survive.

If farmers can find ways to encourage song birds to live on their farms, perhaps they wouldn't need chemical insecticides. Song birds and bats. According to The Messenger, song birds also excel at distributing seeds and pollinating plants, while forming links with other species that cultivate a healthy ecosystem. It's also nice having them around, hearing them sing, watching them perch and scavenge about.

Windows and lights are also responsible for prematurely ending the lives of many a song bird. Many of them can't see windows and fly straight into them. There are ways to adjust windows to make them bird friendly, notably placing distractions on them that help song birds to see that they're flying into a window rather than continuing on a safe path. Lights being left on at night near windows often attract song birds as well, who often migrate at night.

Climate change.

On the plus side, Icarus Technology allows people to track song birds as they migrate around the world. It must be fascinating following their flight paths as they travel from one continent to the next.

If song bird populations have been decreasing for decades, it's a sign that the phenomenon isn't cyclical, and something can be done about it.

The Messenger travels across the globe interviewing passionate song bird enthusiasts to help people better understand these oft overlooked naturalistic wonders.

Their songs have inspired and are inspiring great musicians. Their colouring is stunning. They play productive roles in nature. And these tiny creatures the size of one's hand travel back and forth from continent to continent to the same precise seemingly impossible to find location year after year.

If millions of people kept their cats inside for longer hours, adjusted their windows to make them bird friendly, and kept lights out when they're not using them, billions of song bird lives may be saved.

Ecotourism is flourishing here and there.

Why not apply that concept to suburban and urban environments?

The ecoburbs?

Bet they're already doing it in Germany . . .

Captain America: Civil War

Infused with regenerative contemplative crucibles, Captain America: Civil War reflectively considers its own mortality, reinvigorating its lifeforce thereby, with abundant earthen pyrotechnic implosions.

Like Mad Max: Fury Road, Civil War doesn't focus primarily on one or two characters, preferring to simultaneously develop several of its bracing recruits, while introducing new additions and a brilliant mild-mannered villain (Daniel Brühl as Zemo).

The super villain is usually larger-than-life, obviously enough, and it was nice to see this tendency altered with a subtle human touch.

Vision (Paul Bettany) points out how the activities of the Avengers have served to encourage antithetical tyrannical histrionics, the challenge of defeating them too irresistible for megalomaniacs to ignore, power mad lunatics who might have remained inert in their absence, inimically keeping themselves in check.

Makes sense.

But Civil War is mainly concerned with civilian casualties (like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice), with decision making and oversight, Falcon (Anthony Mackie) reminding Captain America (Chris Evans) that the wicked are shooting at him too, the United Nations stepping in to neuter their independence.

It follows the Captain America storyline closely as Cap continues to try to save his old friend Bucky (Sebastian Stan), but I'd argue it's the 3rd Avengers film. Some of them are missing, but Civil War examines the dynamics of the Avengers much more closely than Captain America's, slowly breaking down their chummy conviviality, as Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Cap bitterly establish opposing factions.

The UN believes the Avengers should be held accountable for their future actions and seeks to establish a committee to decide when and where to deploy them should the forces of evil contend.

Generosity not being solely an impulse of the guilty, Stark still feels regret for the innocents who have died on his watch, and agrees that the Avengers's actions should be legally sanctioned to prevent further loss of life.

Captain America disagrees, thinking their startling efficiencies will be unnecessarily disillusioned by bureaucratic finagling and polemical delays.

The Avengers consequently divide and even battle one another as immediacy demands their intervention once more.

When they do intervene, do they do so too quickly, without applying enough thought to the side-effects of their engagements, ignoring local, national, and global laws as they save the world from imminent destruction?

Are they justified in responding instantaneously, since their enemies are usually universally threatening?

Early on in the film, a split-second decision almost releases a deadly biological agent into an urban environment, which would have likely killed thousands.

They are capable of managing such scenarios, but a slight miscalculation and they would have been responsible for the deaths.

Yet if Loki invades again with another bloodthirsty army intent on enslaving the planet, then it makes sense that the Avengers should charge in head on.

If a committee was responsible for authorizing such a defence they most likely would if they were indeed thinking clearly.

But as the aura of the Avengers intensifies and their enemies expand exponentially, how will they deal with concurrent attacks launched from different locations around the world?

Does it make sense that they each train their own specialized forces to be ready to defend different domains at the same time, the United Nations providing their counterstrikes with a centralized governing authority, with members of the Avengers advising them as needs be?

But HYDRA has undoubtably infiltrated the UN (and are perhaps working with Loki in a Vichyesque fashion) and would likely attempt to use its influence to frustrate the Avengers therewithin.

If the Avengers are guided by the UN it clears their conscience of responsibility, unless they're prevented from acting which may augment crushing pangs of guilt afterwards (I'm thinking Superman II).

The Avengers have entered the political realm, wherein most actions are polarized, no matter how many times you apologize, and a resultant stoic ambivalence enables its representatives to constructively cope with the fallout.

The best Marvel film thus far, making good on its Empire Strikes Back reference (the audacity), Captain America: Civil War cerebrally moves the franchise forward, sacrificing sensation for revelation, spry self-aware matriculation.

The action's secondary to the thought.

Big time character development.

Scenes that could have been cut are left in to the film's advantage.

It's more like solid drama than fantasy.

Blown away.

Note: sarcasm is often employed by intelligent people but watch for the person who isn't intelligent yet picks up on the fact that if you respond to something someone says sarcastically you can often win over the crowd without having to explain why you're responding sarcastically. Some people realize that all you have to do is employ the sarcastic tone without offering further explanation to win arguments without ever actually saying anything. It's just repetition. A troublesome bunch.

Sleeping Giant

Rest and relaxation, worry free contemplation blended with spirited solace and imaginary blunders, tranquility, wandering here and there to curiously explore, observing this, defining that, revelry and romance serendipitously replenishing, merrymaking mischief immersed in mirth and candour, spontaneous wit and jocose gentility, a Summer celebrated in the woods at bay, fellowships fermenting, in rowdy eccentric arbor.

I wish it could have been like that throughout Andrew Cividino's Sleeping Giant, just scene after scene of amazed revelation accompanied by stunning imagery and various fauna, a study of freewill rambunctiously investigating its surroundings, but I suppose films often have points, points to make, and conflicts, morals, tragedies, resolutions.

They're prominent features of story telling ;).

Sleeping Giant examines three young adult friends with nothing to do all Summer but soak up the rays.

Adam Hudson (Jackson Martin) is intelligent and shy, less interested in fighting, theft, booze, and drugs, but willing to go along for the ride.

Riley (Reece Moffett) is confident and direct, easy to get along with, chill, cool, breezy.

Nate (Nick Serino [Serino's like a younger Brad Dourif]) is a jealous vindictive punk who compensates for his lack of booksmarts with abrasively striking observations.

He finds out that Adam's father (David Disher as William Hudson) cheated on his wife (Lorraine Philp as Linda Hudson) after hours which frustrates things as their friendship slowly breaks down, sort of like 1er amour but Mrs. Hudson never finds out.

Adam's family is groovier than Riley and Nate's.

Riley don't care but Nate takes exception.

The narrative boils down to extroverted boorishness interacting with introverted contemplation, Riley caught between Adam and Nate as the latter becomes increasingly hostile.

Since Adam gets along well with Riley but poorly with Nate, Sleeping Giant isn't necessarily narratively characterizing demographic stereotypes, although Nate does wind up dead in the end, perhaps suggesting that when envious aggressive not-so-smart blowhards try to take control the results can be disastrous, and insects are featured throughout, one burned alive.

Did Cividino love Joe's So Mean to Josephine in his youth?

I was super impressed with the film regardless. Cividino's not as wild as Xavier Dolan but his thoughtful illustrations and gentle delineations reminded me of his films, environmental encapsulations, im/permanence in jest.

Forested.

Didn't like seeing the insect burned alive though.

I think I should have been a buddhist.

Enchanting woe.

Extracurricular.

Cinematography by James Klopko.

Keanu

Can a ridiculous plot supported by an irresistible gimmick cast aside its kitschy credulity to generate a quivering constellation which instructively calibrates curricula of its own?

The cutesy.

The adorable.

Keanu does demonstrate how one can go about teaching struggling lost disadvantaged youth after bourgeois nice guy Clarence Goobril (Keegan-Michael Key) infiltrates a drug trafficking gang to help his depressed friend Rell Williams (Jordan Peele) recover his beloved kitten, using the music of George Michael to elucidate the art of communication, skills which they hilariously apply during the film's rambunctious climax.

Immersed in reckless carnage.

Said climax pulls together the best aspects of the film and was fun to watch but the build up consistently stalls since it's painfully apparent that these two suburbanites could never have tricked anyone.

The uneducated aren't that dumb you know.

It's too light.

Because it's too light, the situations Clarence (Smoke Dresden) and Rell (Oil Dresden) find themselves within lack the threat of death, even when they're almost killed, which is what Keanu required to transform into something other than a cute cat movie.

Yet, if they had just kept reintroducing Keanu, the sought after kitten, throughout, making him an integral part of the story rather than losing sight of him for prolonged periods, I probably would have thought, this makes no sense, it's a great nonsensical idea, and this incredibly loveable kitten's frequent appearances at least acknowledge the incoherency, highlighting its inherent encumbrances, while reminding me not to take it too seriously.

Instead I was stuck taking it seriously as it tried to be serious, Keanu having indeed plucked its lilies, to be crushed by the weight of its praiseworthy gambit.

Short-term prison sentences awaiting the heroes in the end.

Keanu!

Keanu!

The Dark Horse

A gentle soul plagued by mental illness finds himself caught between brother and nephew in James Napier Robertson's The Dark Horse.

Solemnity.

Mana's (James Rolleston) father (Wayne Hapi as Ariki) survived by joining a violent gang.

It's the life he knows and he wants his son to become a member so that he can feel safe as he dies believing he'll be taken care of.

His son loathes the senseless brutal thuggery however and doesn't want to live a life of crime.

His uncle Genesis (Cliff Curtis) is a brilliant chess player who also possesses an exhaustive understanding of his culture's mythology but may have never held a job and can hardly take care of himself.

Nevertheless, as he finds purpose helping to manage an after school club for disadvantaged youth, telling them stories and teaching them chess in preparation for a tournament, his nephew gravitates towards his civility as his father's partners become increasingly aggressive.

Ariki has told his brother to stay away from his son, and their ensuing dialectic, brashly shy and modestly brave, disputatiously contends for Mana's future, both of them eventually accepting that they need to acknowledge his own individualistic dreams.

The Dark Horse beautifully elevates the constructive art of teaching while harshly contrasting it with stark economic bellows, Olympian highs and devastating punishments masterfully articulated with naive bracing culpability.

Life without opportunity can be eviscerating so I don't stubbornly fault people for making desperate decisions, although I do commend those who struggle in different ways, creating something durable and friendly in a culture of bitter cynicism.

You feel bad for all the participants involved accept Mutt (Barry Te Hira) who's clearly evil.

Building a community from nothing, nurturing hope and togetherness through board games and puzzles as opposed to drugs and alcohol; something to think about.

Genesis is a character who sticks with you, clearly ill-equipped to deal with the quotidian yet exceptionally gifted at enlivening the imaginary.

An artist you know.

Perhaps the best kind.

Criminal

Shockingly discarded as an infant, an incarcerated sociopath is given a second chance to live, but in order to do so the consciousness of another must be creatively grafted onto his soul, so that he can discover the whereabouts of an unwilling terrorist, and terminate the dictations of armageddon.

Does the soul have anything to do with consciousness? Does it exist? Is it an eternal regenerative quintessence that innocently survives death regardless of the ways in which an individual lived his or her life, radiating thereafter in a transitory state able to embrace different forms of illumination with permanent subjective clarity?

No clue.

Bill Pope's (Ryan Reynolds) soul/consciousness becomes an integral part of Jericho Stewart's (Kevin Costner) in Ariel Vroman's Criminal however, enabling him to feel for the first time, as he's covetously hunted for instinctively seeking freedom.

There were aspects of Criminal I would have changed had I been given final edit, but I loved the film's laid-back sensationalism.

An anarchist seeking global rule can unleash the apocalypse if he gathers the information he seeks.

But the film's lack of stunning visuals, Kevin Costner's chill performance (even if he's constantly fighting), and unconvincing poorly written villain (Jordi Mollà as Xavier Heimdahl), deflate its grandiose pretensions while smoothly levelling-out the inherent absurdity.

I would have changed the beginning and ending even if they celebrate redemption (there must have been another way to do this), Jericho does remember highly advanced details at times that seem at odds with his brief sudden visual intuitions, and when he's on his way to take on Heimdahl, I would have cut the scene where Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) asks him to stop (hardcore cheese).

Nonetheless, it's like watching a film from the 90s, direct and to the point, kinetically intermingling the unapologetic and the angelic with wholesome rash rage, I actually felt like it was the 90s while viewing, well done well done.

Criminal blends the violent and the gentle with dramatic comedic indifference that leaves you anticipating what's to come in terms of the consciously conscientious.

The world could end if an unrepentant criminal doesn't act on lessons internalized from a disparate personality living inside him and challenge those responsible for his eclectic demise.

It uses the surveillance techniques revealed by Snowden to disable a mad terrorist yet keeps George Orwell in the loop to critique those very same surveillance techniques, slyly playing a clever double game.

If you take the film seriously, it seems like it's naturalizing ubiquitous surveillance.

If you appreciate the ludicrousness, it's like it's championing Orwell.

Jericho was under constant surveillance but in the end he's a free man, potentially with both job and family.

Thought provoking.

Bunch of great actors delivering modest performances that help procreate the film's unconcerned momentum (apart from Gary Oldham [Quaker Wells]) who has to be livid).

I think it's pastiching The Terminator. The villain wants to be responsible for Judgment Day. Jericho is like a Terminator. And someone says, "get out," at one point.

There's a great shot from the top of a stairwell looking down on Jericho as he looks up, the shot accompanied by a platter of apples on the first floor.

Solid character names.

L'Hermine (Courted)

As it began, I was worried.

The subject matter, the trial of a man from the projects accused of killing his baby, seemed sterile, like there was nothing more to it besides the trial itself, mundane fictionalized courtroom drama, too direct, too pinpointed, polished and shrewd yet textbook and obligatory, like actual courtroom drama, a trip to the laundry, baking soda, antiseptic concrete diction.

But L'Hermine (Courted) slowly builds President Racine's (Fabrice Luchini) determined objective character with understated incisive mature solemn clarity, his courtroom strategically managed with only one goal in mind, the discovery of the truth, or, in light of insufficient evidence, the nurturing of a level-headed atmosphere within which the evidence can be clearly and concisely adjudicated.

The trial in question stands out since Racine is in love, was in love, with a member of the jury, Ditte Lorensen-Coteret (Sidse Babett Knudsen), and considering that he has a reputation for being obstinately punitive, her enlightening presence functions like a meditative emancipating regenerative balm, not distracting him from his work, but rather enabling him to approach it with warm hearted vigour as opposed to cold calculated formality.

True love?

In L'Hermine, it's true love, that true love igniting a spark of youthful innocence rarely embraced by an aging criminal court judge/President, who has spent decades in ignorance of the revelations of joy.

What I've just written is ten thousand times more sentimental than the film itself.

L'Hermine masterfully builds Racine and Lorensen-Coteret's relationship with modest narrative maturity, a total lack of sensation or antiquation, like a slowly building intellectually sustained crescendo, supported by multiple minor characters who each add melodic nuances of their own.

If someone asked the question, "can we take a routine legal drama and use intellect to illuminate the vitality of true love while keeping things plausible during a traditional criminal trial?", I would now respond by saying, "yes, yes you can."

Offering insights into the French legal system while proving that logic can amorously shine, L'Hermine keeps things professional to cleverly stylize contemporary bourgeois love.

Give it a chance.

Rawly refined.

Medium rare.

Demolition

Devastating impacts, instantaneous oblivion, no recourse, no quarter, a husband cannot come to terms with the death of his wife and consequently launches a full-on assault on bourgeois stability, lost in the unknown, penetrating unpredictable sorrow supersaturated with amorous considerations, did he love her?, why isn't grief virulently punishing?, this logical predicament obscuring reason with mad unconsolable solitudes, which question logic itself, for in nebulous realms of superlative shock there is no standard playbook, especially if you don't seek professional guidance and refuse to discuss things with loved ones, hence, there is neither reason nor madness, just thought mixed with emotion, like consciousness reborn, an obfuscating mélange, but if you worry about how you should be feeling as opposed to concentrating on how you are feeling without feeling guilty about your lack of emotion should you be mired in an apathetic stasis, things may exasperate, although perhaps it's exasperation itself that leads to catharsis, as it does in Jean-Marc Vallée's Demolition, the best film I've seen thus far in post-Oscar 2016 (just think, sit back, and let the thoughts flow).

It's very patient, even if Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) believes he can immediately transmutate his feelings early on.

Vallée delicately introduces new characters with expert timing and awareness to diversify Demolition at points where you think it might start to drag, thereby strengthening everything that has previously taken place while making what's to come seem intrinsically tantalizing.

The comedy bluntly yet potently contrasts Davis's quaintly absurd mischievous romance with Karen (Naomi Watts), and increasingly hostile relations with understanding yet fed-up step-father and boss Phil (Chris Cooper), creating a brash sympathetic omnibus charter, as he enthusiastically takes to sledgehammering whatever he can, while providing guidance to a struggling youth (Judah Lewis as Chris) who's direct, confident and brash.

The two generate a constructive bond through shenanigans and level-headed discussion.

Elsewhere Vallée tenderly introduces Davis's happy memories of his wife Julia (Heather Lind), shyly working sudden rejuvenative placating solace into the film as it approaches its tear-jerking horizon.

Grieving.

A seemingly insane examination of excruciating loss which benefits from an exploration of unfathomable ir/rationalities, Demolition provocatively refrains to emotionally heal, like sustained entropy, intermingling demographic psychologies memorandum, as it brings two families closer and closer together.

I love how Jake Gyllenhaal's career is progressing. It's sort of like John Cusack's but darker.

Naomi Watts puts in another outstanding performance, one of the best actresses in Hollywood no question.

Judah Lewis may make a career of it.

Impressive.

And Chris Cooper rocks another supporting role, demonstrating why he's been popping up in so many films for so many years.

Vallée must really work well with actors (like David O. Russell).

He's pumping them out as quickly as Woody Allen too.

Written by Bryan Sipe.

Editing by Jay M. Glen.

The Saver

Prudent economic planning immediately embraced by a determined struggling youth after the sudden death of a loved one, guides Wiebke von Carolsfeld's The Saver through grizzled and gruff gesticulations, problematic pestilence prescribed and perturbing, as young Fern (Imajyn Cardinal) resiliently comes of age.

It's classic hands-on do-it-yourself trial-by-fire pluck.

She's a fighter, doesn't back down from a challenge, instantaneously asserts herself, ruffles feathers while eventually getting-around-to-it, fights off lusty assailants, reflexively dodges youth protection, hoping one day to have saved up a cool million.

Her attitude and inchoate time management skills do cause trouble however, and adjustments must be made, but her uncle Jack (Brandon Oakes) and a forgiving chef (Hamidou Savadogo as Hamidou) help her deconstruct her rigidity, adding a freespirited friendliness to the film which nurtures sympathy and understanding.

The Saver's an odd synthesis of the hardboiled and the heartwarming that directly narrativizes elastic tenacity.

It does combat too swiftly at times, the attempted rape for instance, which is glossed over without much afterthought, but, nevertheless, that is what it's like when you're working two jobs with survival at risk, when something awful happens you don't have much time to consider your feelings before you're back at work focusing on the task at hand, the horror slowly fading into the deluge.

Still, the pace makes it seem like there's nothing wrong, makes it seem like she will persevere no-matter-what at-all-costs, it never seems like her house of cards might tumble, although it's wonderful that it never does, with the accidental curation of a family of rogues.

It's about a strong First Nations young adult frenetically prospering but race is never an issue.

I like how Carolsfeld's script considers race through action and deed as opposed to conflict and persecution.

Films which do examine race in terms of conflict and persecution often work obviously, but perhaps presenting race without politicizing it has considerable merit too.

You can't do this all the time because it does overlook systemic racism and gives the systemic racists cultural leverage, i.e., they continue to prevent people from specific racial groups from working while saying there's nothing wrong, they just aren't working hard enough.

NeverEnding.

Worth seeing.

The Lobster

The Lobster is one of those hilarious dark comedies that makes you feel guilty for laughing throughout and horrible for laughing afterwards.

Messed-up filmscape.

You aren't introduced to its fascist sociopolitical dynamics at first, so it seems like choice is still an option for the participants.

As it unreels, it becomes clear that extremists have held control for some time, and their authoritative micromanaging of human relationships have been fastidiously naturalized.

You hear this in the dialogue, the script, everything boiled down to awkward blunt expressions of confusion and loneliness, adding desperate depth to carnal credulity, the actors involved ironically bringing to life what might seem like decomposing prose with expertly timed inverse uniformity, their tones and gestures staggeringly reanimating, stitched together by the hauntingly observant narration.

Narration doesn't add much to some films, but it's a key component of The Lobster.

I don't want to give too much away, but from what I can tell, in The Lobster's realm you must have a partner and that partner must have the same idiosyncrasy as you (blindness, nosebleeds, ruthlessness, a nice smile).

If you can't find one within a specified time you're transformed into an animal of your choice.

If you escape to the woods to live with the loners you're hunted down like an animal.

It's like Yorgos Lanthimos imagined a world where you could not exist on your own, where you couldn't live without being part of a social order, and then fastened it with brutal punishments for refusing to obey, everyone under constant surveillance, totalitarian forms even encumbering those embodying subversive content (the loners) as they feel compelled to live their bohemian lives with a similar sense of strict gruelling cohesivity.

Mirrors and shadows.

Some of them actually find love which causes excruciating pain, the film consistently presenting interactions doomed to fail that seem so unfamiliar and bleak that the distance produces laughter until something excessively violent happens which isn't funny at all, like a discordant heavy metal xylophone solo broken up by machine gun fire.

The Lobster messes with your head to perhaps suggest that some folks just want to live alone, chill bachelors and bachelorettes, leave them be, let them do their own thing.

Coercively managing the social is the worst.

The expression of every thought.

Love truly blind.

10 Cloverfield Lane

Asphyxiated awakening, crucial incarceration, a story too wild to believe, raw apocalyptic notions, a strange man, another peculiar resident, the destruction of the world notwithstanding, things still seem quite odd, something's misplaced, misaligned, is he benefactor or captor?, saviour or jailor?, conversation promotes jealousy but his moods shift in flux, keeping busy even encourages prolonged periods of mutual affection, stability, camaraderie, domesticity, an end of the world thing, but it's still creepy, screwed-up, menacing, research leading to strategic planning, desperate usurpers, covertly exercising extreme perspicuity.

Below ground.

The bunker's fully equipped with supplies and distractions but the bizarro interactions intensify the infractions.

Claustrophobia.

Tough to keep the old three characters imprisoned together narrative convincingly moving along but 10 Cloverfield Lane lives up to the challenge, anxiously keeping you focused the whole way through.

It introduces the tension in short disorienting bursts but then smoothly covers it up with unconcerned conviviality, to ensure things are neither too warm and fluffy nor too distraughtly psycho.

Solid mix, adhesively struck by another strong performance from John Goodman (Howard), who seems like he's channeling Pruitt Taylor Vince at times.

The alien invasion and nutso farmhouse shelter aside, it's more like a take on arranged or forced marriage, when a young girl doesn't want to marry a much older man and live in isolation.

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is handcuffed, locked in a room, monitored, belittled, has to crawl through tight spaces, doesn't want to be there, has questions that neither Howard nor Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) can answer, and no one else to talk too, nothing else to do, confined in secular sanctimony, constantly thinking of escape.

Perhaps blindly travelling the country under hostile conditions in search of compatriots who are fighting to ensure the survival of humanity is better under such circumstances.

In fact, that is better.

Surprising sequel that creatively moves the franchise forward.

Bold.

Lickety-split.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

The Highlander spirit invades the filmic realm of DC Comics as Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) jealousy covets Clark Kent/Superman's (Henry Cavill) illustrious fame.

Politicians fear Superman as well due to his pseudo-invincibility and total lack of accountability.

The unlikely possibility exists that this polite self-sacrificing all-powerful lightning rod may one day grow tired of protecting the innocent, and instead choose to subject them to the whims of his desire.

Thus, both Batman and leaders from the United States decide to chip away at his impeccability, in attempts to achieve superiority over that which cannot be subjugated.

Lex Luthor (Jessie Eisenberg) is also involved, diabolically ensuring the three battle judiciously.

Superman, who doesn't understand the point (he's committed to do-gooding), infuriates Batman with his lack of concern, his foolish disinterested dismissals driving Batman into a bigoted raged-fuelled arms race (Batman doesn't like that he's an alien) which eventually constructs überBatman.

While conducting his research, he also discovers the existence of other potential superheroes, eternally co-existing with humanity incognito, like Star Trek's Requiem for Methuselah, one showing up at his darkest hour.

When it becomes clear that there can be more than one, teamwork transcends, and vision radiates.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice passes, but slips-up from time to time.

How many times can Superman save Lois Lane (Amy Adams)?

It takes awhile for the new Lex Luthor to gather steam (his introductory scenes lack character).

Would have liked to have seen him learning more from the archives on Zod's (Michael Shannon) ship as well.

You can tell Batman's fighting in a computer generated filmscape during one of his sort-of-cool dream sequences, and it's kind of lame.

The batmobile chase which Superman abruptly halts is also kind of lame; some of the action is precise yet slow in its frenzied variation.

Love Jeremy Irons (Alfred) but Michael Caine's Alfred is tough to beat.  Irons looks too young.

I watched The Dark Knight a couple of times recently and I'm convinced it's the best superhero film ever made. It rationalizes the sensational with polished grit and streetwise poignancy while making the highly dubious seem plausible through expertly timed captivating motivations.

Not easy to follow Christopher Nolan.

Still, Dawn of Justice has merit. Batman's introduction is startlingly clever.

Wonder Woman's (Gal Gadot) introduction is epic.

Politicizing Superman works while highlighting petty indignities that often pervade political realms.

I liked how Clark Kent fights with Perry White (Laurence Fishburne) to bring back the American consciousness, and how Lois then fights with Superman to remind him of this insight.

Solid Kevin Costner cameo (Jonathan Kent).

Batman's descent into villainy functions as a warning to activists on the left, as does Superman's dismissal of Batman, the activists who want to be the best activist out there and proceed to alienate all kinds of fellow activists in the process, potentially turning them into bitter cynics, making peaceful activism seem like olympic gymnastic tryouts, it's supposed to be the right that believes there can be only one, pre-emptive strikes are most recently the product of the George W. Bush Administration.

Liked how they set up the expansion of the DC film world.

With Marvel, Star Wars, and DC creating film after film after film, I don't know how the world/galaxy/universe will ever survive the constant bombardment of heroism.

I like it though.

It's kind of fun.

Most of the time.

Knight of Cups

Mused poetic carefree wanderlust, surreally surfacing then subsiding like capriciously concerned intermittence invariable, a complete lack of quotidian confines embraces disregard with irresistible a/temporal flux, playmate flock, subject of desire, cuddly and cute with innocent charm and magnetic magma, bathing in eternal springs, climactic occultist vociferous chance, guiding tides through fortune and bedlam, the loss of a loved one, haunting insouciant amour.

Plot secondary to image and impression, a dream indulgently manifests its candour, an obsession with water like soul purification, from one partner to the next, transfixed, transpiring, like he's lost but aware of his surroundings, enjoying the good times but wondering, "what's the point?"

Frolicking friendship and family.

Joyful ambivalent sorrow.

The plot submissively burdens Knight of Cups with fluttering ephemeral obscurities, a parade of seemingly relevant yet easily dismissed observations following Rick (Christian Bale) from one romance to the next.

In terms of a study of presence, of the man who characteristically captures the attention of everyone wherever he goes, whatever he does, without making any effort, without having to do anything, Knight of Cups fuels his inner-strength, electrifies his childish wonder, examines his relationships with diverse sultry invention, a sense of tragedy troubling his mind, while he never has to work, and is surrounded by voluptuous vixens.

The images are stunning and it's edited like a cinematic poem.

The images and editing distract from its somewhat shallow subject matter, however, the man who has everything and doesn't have to do anything, such grief, how tragic!, and compensate by celebrating spontaneity, the continuous illumination of the surroundings, the camaraderie, the impartiality entrancing the fluidity, depending on multiple subjective points of view.

Would watch it again.

Christian Bale must have loved filming this one.

Editing by A.J. Edwards, Keith Fraase, Geoffrey Richman, and Mark Yoshikawa.

Cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

The super-family, doing everything they can together like a curious fun-loving dis/harmonious blob, rooted in the past, making merry in the present, cultivating the next generation, with hyperintense traditional effervescence.

Boxes of steak.

Evaluations.

The addition of strawberries.

Holistic homemaking.

Resonant, romance.

Inconsistencies have damned-up the wild playful currents in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, however, as it becomes known that patriarch Gus (Michael Constantine) never officially married partner Maria (Lainie Kazan), and Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian's (John Corbett) child (Elena Kampouris as Paris) considers moving away to study.

It works as a predictable sequel, familiar endearing characters set up in new challenging situations which bring them heartwarmingly back to life, but struggles to lay down a foundation of its own that significantly differentiates itself from its nimble predecessor.

It's funny here and there, Andrea Martin (Aunt Voula) still churning out laughs and stealing scenes, a Greek version of White Wedding spicing up the soundtrack, contrasts and synergies provocatively and emotionally reeling, Mana-Yiayia's (Bess Meisler) omniscience startlingly transitioning.

Not really my style of film though, I'm more into the melting pot, as long as it doesn't infringe on minority rights, even if the melting pot's out of fashion these days (I don't recall ever being in fashion).

I'm wondering if the Alexander the Great letter which Toula forged actually states their family isn't Greek; I'm thinking the answer may be found in instalment 3.

A warm and friendly franchise.

There's something to be said for that.

Long time since I saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Way way back.

Different goals, divergent options.

Free-spirited you know.

That never truly goes away.

El Clan

The aftermath of Argentina's fascist liaison, a vicious patriarch possessing a specialized set of subversive skills, a son seditiously seduced by paternal sentiment, enlisted, nurtured, suddenly kidnapping wealthy citizens then requesting lavish ransoms, the assembled team working in unison to collect the nefarious booty, no quarter for victims, no peace for their families, the Puccios movin'-on-up in the world, as their country settles its psychotic score.

They were considered role models.

But the good life, the freewheeling prestige of excessive contemplation and leisure, beckons with demonic reckoning, envy consuming Arquímedes as he cannot accept a modest homely joie de vivre.

Exponentials.

El Clan focuses heavily on the relationship between Arquímedes and eldest son Alejandro (Peter Lanzani), suggesting the former's corrupt constitution thoroughly polluted his offspring.

The soundtrack's like that you would find in a film uncritically characterizing a rock'n'roll drug trafficker, the highs reached through financial freedom (notably Alejandro's relationship with Mónica [Stefanía Koessi]), while hauntingly foreshadowing losses yet to come.

Introducing neighbours would have accentuated the villainy by depicting Arquímedes engaged in respectable convivialities.

There's a great sequence where the camera follows him through his house as he discusses sitting down to dinner with his loving family before opening a door to feed his terrorized prisoner, which accentuates his villainy, his duplicitous communal role, however, even if the sequence is intense and memorable its impact still fades and neighbourly relations would have sustained the hypocrisy.

El Clan vividly portrays a criminal family and dynamically brings its featured and supporting characters to life, but if more attention had been paid to Argentina's post-fascist deluge it would have attained higher heights.

A convincing illustration of maniacal competence that would have been enhanced by a more thorough diversification of scorched sociopolitical agendas, El Clan douses home fires without igniting paradigm shifts, Pablo Trapero still demonstrating he can take it to the next level.

À la poursuite de la paix (In the Pursuit of Peace)

I love this style of film, documentaries that unpretentiously take a tiny slice of life and turn it into something compelling, instructive, global, just by directly laying down the facts, presenting a case without condemning its alternative, understanding the reasons why conflict abounds while attempting to find ways to decrease violence, modestly acting in the interests of diplomacy, bold and self-sacrificing calm caring camaraderie.

Peace, peace of mind.

À la poursuite de la paix (In the Pursuit of Peace) examines volatile situations in war torn regions of Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Kurdistan, where ethnic cleansing has torn families and communities apart, giving the survivors justifiable reasons to seek vengeance, although seeking that vengeance only ensures infinite destruction.

The courageous grassroots diplomats who travel to these regions to act as arbitrators of peace do so with neither weapons nor aggrandizing interests.

They're looking to negotiate peace between warring neighbours, help people find food and medical aid, share ideas that encourage healing and well-being, do what they can to end the cycle of violence.

It's one thing to enter a combat zone as a soldier/officer/commander, it's another to enter as a peaceful noncombatant.

Both require differing degrees of bravery, but entering such regions without weaponry, with open arms and peaceful goals, at the mercy of local hostilities, is braver in my opinion.

It's quite brilliant  how they proceed, some of them having discovered that in war torn regions both governments and their militarized opposition don't wish to see civilians harmed (according to the film, since the Second World War civilian casualties during wartime are now heavier than those sustained by military personnel), so the aid workers negotiate impartially with both sides, thereby alienating neither to get their workers on the ground, so they can start providing food and medical aid.

It's not quite that simple but that is one basic frame that can be applied.

Turning the other cheek isn't easy, especially when people flaunt their wickedness, but acts of unempowered kindness can help to build bridges where leaders sometimes fail to do so.

As I've said before, and heard mentioned in an episode of Morse recently, sports are a great way to release built-up counterproductive aggression. Like statements from the trailer for Race, on the field it's what you do that matters, not the colour of your skin. Assuming the officials keep that playing field level, enforcing the rules throughout the game, you can blow off steam while staying in shape, forget about petty injustices, and escape from the world for an athletic hour or two.

A lot of people involved in armed conflicts were forced to take part so when the conflicts end it's important to forgive as the process of rebuilding begins.

Tensions still arise in Europe from time to time, but since 1945 the degree of peace the continent has maintained is phenomenal, in comparison with the warlike preceding centuries.

A shining light.

À la poursuite de la paix is also a phenomenal product of translation, with at least a dozen languages, many of them obscure, from vastly different parts of the globe, skilfully translated and presented on the screen in either French or English, depending on which version you see.

I became interested in subtitles after learning that Xavier Dolan writes his own and seeing the phrase Bob's your uncle in Mommy's.

Hence, translating at least a dozen languages into two sets of uniform subtitles really appeals to me; unfortunately I made the mistake of commenting about them after viewing the film, and, in my resolute naivety, forgot that some people don't know that I'm fascinated by subtitle creation (remembered that upon uttering my first word in French and stumbled), and thought, because I was watching the French version, which I understood the majority of, that I was complaining that there weren't any English subtitles. I dislike it when I hear English people complaining about such things at French events and sincerely apologize if I caused any confusion.

A classic Kermode Montréal blunder.

Apologies.

When you think about how small an aspect of a film subtitle creation is, important but not as rewarded as cinematography or editing, and you think about how much time must have gone into writing the subtitles for À la poursuite de la paix, the film's other aspects like cinematography and editing are sincerely pluralized, as is the film's humble message in the context of global peacekeeping.

Canada and Québec can be that proud peacekeeping nation again.

Just a matter of time and energy, commitment, dedication and resolve.