Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 playfully revels in the aggrandized extravagance to be expected from an over-the-top sequel, the higher stakes like the going rate for energetic extrinsic jukes, personality charismatically fuelling covert operations, with enough clandestine viscosity to effervescently lubricate cool.
David Bouchard (Patrick Huard) and Martin Ward (Colm Feore) accidentally meet once again when Martin shows up one night to obliviously bust Bouchard's cover.
But spur of the moment strategization pugnaciously preserves David's stealth, and he's even able to infiltrate the underground more securely thereafter, or at least in the wild immediate aftermath.
Back at it again.
They're a bit too chummy throughout parts of the film though.
Bouchard's working undercover for Sȗreté du Québec while Ward monitors his activities for the RCMP, a situation that allows them to cleverly comment on Canadian Federal/Provincial relations, but they meet in person so frequently over the course of a few days that at times it seems more like a buddy comedy than serious cloak and dagger artifice.
But I'm missing the point here, for I did want to see these characters constructively and/or contentiously interact throughout, with a latent French/English cross-cultural subtext warmly characterizing their debates, so it was fun if not odd to see them start up new chats so regularly, inasmuch as it delivered what I was after.
A rowdy new character named MC (Mariana Mazza) adds a lot of synergistic technological spunk to their conversations as well.
Intergenerational acuity.
Hyperreactive charm.
Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 not only poses the question, "how can I be bonner and badasser than Bon Cop Bad Cop," but also asks if it can simultaneously lampoon sequels that ostentatiously rely on such a stratagem by incredibly taking things to supreme heroic levels which maximize the immaculacies of coy endearing pith!
Loved it.
I've never seen a Canadian/Québecois film go bigger, and I applaud similar initiatives to come, initiatives that even barely approach that which Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 has achieved, has accomplished, as international ambassadors of campy Northern wit.
Look for Jameson Kraemer (Middle Brook Police Officer 1).
He impressed with his scene on the bridge.
It's hilarious when Bouchard finds himself locked up in a small town American jail, the English/French Canadian fluencies from the first film enlightening Canadian/American diplomatic ties in the second.
Go big.
It would be hard to go much bigger.
But I would love to see them in space!
Trying to take down intergalactic warlords Xavier Dolan and Don McKellar?
Familial dynamics continue to codify a compellingly complicated filmscape.
Friday, June 9, 2017
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Alien: Covenant
An unexpected burst of flame urgently awakes a slumbering crew deep in space as their ship briskly travels towards an unknown far distant range.
Upon beginning their repairs, a beacon is detected on a nearby planet, the tantalizing nature of which leads their new captain to decide to investigate, the sage protests of his first mate notwithstanding.
Almost immediately after their arrival, a deadly spore which transmits a misty biological shiver into unsuspecting individuals (the colonization of the colonizers) infects two oblivious crew members, and as the organism gestates within them, their colleagues withstand plied mortal shocks.
Then as night falls and things seem extraordinarily bleak, a lone warrior appears in the wilderness.
Possessing knowledge, courage, agility, sanctuary, and fire power, he gracefully leads them to his haunting abode.
But does he plan to aid or sabotage their escape, and will his startled reflection acquiesce to his cold independence?
Lost and alone on an ancient world.
Intrinsically dependent.
Savagely skewed.
Alien: Covenant introduces acidic tyranny to the age of the superhero by blending the scientific with the biblical to castigate übermensch.
Taking technological insubordination to extremely sadistic levels, it intellectually yet spine-tinglingly reverberates by harrowingly theorizing creation.
Antiquation.
Devastation.
A solidly monstrous addition to the Alienverse, with an ending as cataclysmic as the direst recalcitrant lamentations, Alien: Covenant questions the elevation of artificial intelligence while agnosticating those who play god.
Attaching characteristic struggle to the exhilaration of adventure, it cynically yet resourcefully challenges to temper omniscient existence.
And dreams.
Upon beginning their repairs, a beacon is detected on a nearby planet, the tantalizing nature of which leads their new captain to decide to investigate, the sage protests of his first mate notwithstanding.
Almost immediately after their arrival, a deadly spore which transmits a misty biological shiver into unsuspecting individuals (the colonization of the colonizers) infects two oblivious crew members, and as the organism gestates within them, their colleagues withstand plied mortal shocks.
Then as night falls and things seem extraordinarily bleak, a lone warrior appears in the wilderness.
Possessing knowledge, courage, agility, sanctuary, and fire power, he gracefully leads them to his haunting abode.
But does he plan to aid or sabotage their escape, and will his startled reflection acquiesce to his cold independence?
Lost and alone on an ancient world.
Intrinsically dependent.
Savagely skewed.
Alien: Covenant introduces acidic tyranny to the age of the superhero by blending the scientific with the biblical to castigate übermensch.
Taking technological insubordination to extremely sadistic levels, it intellectually yet spine-tinglingly reverberates by harrowingly theorizing creation.
Antiquation.
Devastation.
A solidly monstrous addition to the Alienverse, with an ending as cataclysmic as the direst recalcitrant lamentations, Alien: Covenant questions the elevation of artificial intelligence while agnosticating those who play god.
Attaching characteristic struggle to the exhilaration of adventure, it cynically yet resourcefully challenges to temper omniscient existence.
And dreams.
Friday, June 2, 2017
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales has some compelling ideas woven into its text.
There's a strong woman of science boldly using her brain to discover truths unbeknownst as of yet to humankind.
Astronomical insights are cartographically applied to exonerate the supernatural as a matter of practical paternal romance.
A comical misunderstanding of a highly technical term leads to jocular confusion blended with righteous incapacitation.
The mythological and the religious are conjugally contrasted, perhaps to subconsciously juxtapose alternative attitudes acculturatively adopted as one travels through youth to age.
The monkey's back.
So's Mr. Gibbs (Kevin McNally).
But Gibbs doesn't have the striking supportive role he endearingly cultivated in Dead Men's predecessors, as he's shortsightedly reduced to more of a decorative ornament.
It's much more comedic than the other films, the swashbuckling seriousness that held them together sacrificed for generally flat tomfoolery.
Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) replace William Turner and Elizabeth Swann but they're no Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom.
The action's steady and the confusing political threads that abstrusely adorned some of the sequels are absent, but don't let the barrage of buffoonery distract you from the fact that robust characters have transmutated into stock representations.
For instance, Jack's drinking has commandeered his wit and the mesmerizing incomparable lovingly brilliant captain is more like a bewildered wildebeest.
Johnny Depp should have won an oscar for his performance in The Curse of the Black Pearl. The apotheosis of his genius, which has recently fallen upon troubled times.
It may be my favourite performance ever, to appropriately apply an adolescent designation.
Did he ever make a film with Robert Downey Jr.? In a small town? Co-starring Emma Stone, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Ryan Reynolds?
Plus Mayor Orlando Bloom and Schoolmistress Keira Knightley?
It's actually a great idea, having a washed-up Jack Sparrow circumventing at the helm.
He has aged considerably while drinking recklessly, so toning him down a notch adds an instructive realistic touch.
However, to tone down Jack Sparrow, or to transform his cheeky inspiration into reflexive knee-jerk contractions is to forget why Pirates of the Caribbean films are so appealing, and made me think, this is definitely take 5.
With the classic "everything imaginable is perfect" ending, apart from a significant loss (although I imagine they may resurface for part 6).
Said and done, I almost shed tears to see them back together.
But the significance was still diluted by the humour.
A critique of postmodern sincerity?
There's a strong woman of science boldly using her brain to discover truths unbeknownst as of yet to humankind.
Astronomical insights are cartographically applied to exonerate the supernatural as a matter of practical paternal romance.
A comical misunderstanding of a highly technical term leads to jocular confusion blended with righteous incapacitation.
The mythological and the religious are conjugally contrasted, perhaps to subconsciously juxtapose alternative attitudes acculturatively adopted as one travels through youth to age.
The monkey's back.
So's Mr. Gibbs (Kevin McNally).
But Gibbs doesn't have the striking supportive role he endearingly cultivated in Dead Men's predecessors, as he's shortsightedly reduced to more of a decorative ornament.
It's much more comedic than the other films, the swashbuckling seriousness that held them together sacrificed for generally flat tomfoolery.
Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites) and Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) replace William Turner and Elizabeth Swann but they're no Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom.
The action's steady and the confusing political threads that abstrusely adorned some of the sequels are absent, but don't let the barrage of buffoonery distract you from the fact that robust characters have transmutated into stock representations.
For instance, Jack's drinking has commandeered his wit and the mesmerizing incomparable lovingly brilliant captain is more like a bewildered wildebeest.
Johnny Depp should have won an oscar for his performance in The Curse of the Black Pearl. The apotheosis of his genius, which has recently fallen upon troubled times.
It may be my favourite performance ever, to appropriately apply an adolescent designation.
Did he ever make a film with Robert Downey Jr.? In a small town? Co-starring Emma Stone, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Ryan Reynolds?
Plus Mayor Orlando Bloom and Schoolmistress Keira Knightley?
It's actually a great idea, having a washed-up Jack Sparrow circumventing at the helm.
He has aged considerably while drinking recklessly, so toning him down a notch adds an instructive realistic touch.
However, to tone down Jack Sparrow, or to transform his cheeky inspiration into reflexive knee-jerk contractions is to forget why Pirates of the Caribbean films are so appealing, and made me think, this is definitely take 5.
With the classic "everything imaginable is perfect" ending, apart from a significant loss (although I imagine they may resurface for part 6).
Said and done, I almost shed tears to see them back together.
But the significance was still diluted by the humour.
A critique of postmodern sincerity?
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Born in China
The difficulties of growing up wild in China's rugged wilderness heartbreakingly yet adorably weather punishing and relaxing seasonal variabilities, as young animals and their parents dare to exist in Chuan Lu's Born in China.
The ancient mating rituals of the bold discerning chiru suggest itinerant proclivities can indeed encourage the maturation of confident resourceful young.
Raising a litter of snow leopards proves daunting for a feisty mother, as covetous rival families scout her bountiful terrain.
Bumbling about his newfound home provides a mischievous panda with the competencies and skills required to arboreally come of age.
Strife and mayhem chaotically confuse a growing golden snub-nosed monkey, due to his family's sudden disregard, and the lonely life he leads amongst his fellow abandoned thereafter.
And noble red-crowned cranes regally frame the different narratives with embowering transitory grace, alighting dignity in flight, for all of China's nimble creatures.
Come for the camaraderie, comb with the cuddles, beware nature's harsh realities, and flourish off the beaten path.
To be in possession of these extant verdant luscious inspiring treasures is indubitably a grand historical responsibility.
Soulful stewardship of such vast antiquities makes one feel millennial in the present, humble yet starstruck, with nascent habitual awe.
Definitely worth seeing.
Intergenerationally expansive.
The ancient mating rituals of the bold discerning chiru suggest itinerant proclivities can indeed encourage the maturation of confident resourceful young.
Raising a litter of snow leopards proves daunting for a feisty mother, as covetous rival families scout her bountiful terrain.
Bumbling about his newfound home provides a mischievous panda with the competencies and skills required to arboreally come of age.
Strife and mayhem chaotically confuse a growing golden snub-nosed monkey, due to his family's sudden disregard, and the lonely life he leads amongst his fellow abandoned thereafter.
And noble red-crowned cranes regally frame the different narratives with embowering transitory grace, alighting dignity in flight, for all of China's nimble creatures.
Come for the camaraderie, comb with the cuddles, beware nature's harsh realities, and flourish off the beaten path.
To be in possession of these extant verdant luscious inspiring treasures is indubitably a grand historical responsibility.
Soulful stewardship of such vast antiquities makes one feel millennial in the present, humble yet starstruck, with nascent habitual awe.
Definitely worth seeing.
Intergenerationally expansive.
Friday, May 26, 2017
King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword
In an age flourishing long before the ascension of technocratic opalescence, wherein which the supernatural and the wayward majestically manifested authenticity, the gifted and the gaunt galavanting and genuflecting, magnificence reliant upon impunity, servility wavering mistrust, an honourable King was nefariously betrayed by his kin, his only son cast adrift with neither warmth nor privilege to suckle, then discovered, and nurtured, by the independent and the forthright, inductively instructed in brawn, conviviality, mischief, loving evaluated through sanctuary, costs wholesomely hyperconnected, impulsive riled frantic mores, one chance still remaining to reclaim his unknown throne, skittishly and jealously revealed, through treacherous enfeebled woe.
Muggles and mages peacefully coexisting in cheerful luminescent palm, until the balance is thrust asunder by those who do not share power.
Fidelity to the old ways survives nonetheless, a dedicated lot sagely educated in myth and legend.
Patiently awaiting.
August sublimity subsumed.
Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: the Legend of the Sword reimagines an English epic by blending the surreal and the sacrificial with athletic cinematic prose.
Through recourse to the bewitching, he shamanistically summons convergent forces, which subterraneanly sanctify a waking vision enchantingly his own.
Snakes aren't evil.
Nature is bold and relevant.
The music and the action and the emotion made me wish I was sitting in an inn in the 5th century constructed of stone with a giant cauldron of stew simmering over a communal fire, our ales robust, our bread hearty, and as the practical and the spiritual became more rapturously entwined, I could almost taste the feast, I could almost consume the vittles.
Young Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) reincarnates the Snatch/Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels aesthetic, as do his feisty companions as they resiliently battle both themselves and the supposed King.
It isn't about armies or sieges, preferring rather to laud cults of personality.
It revolves around Arthur, but there are more than enough well-developed characters to ensure he's part of an influential collective.
He doesn't seem to care much for ruling yet wants to progress as challenges and quests present themselves.
An homage to British First Nations?
To conscientious individuals?
An eclectic international incantation regardless, if not a concentric mysticization, or a definitive indissoluble divergence.
Quite different from contemporary action/fantasy films.
Estuary.
Muggles and mages peacefully coexisting in cheerful luminescent palm, until the balance is thrust asunder by those who do not share power.
Fidelity to the old ways survives nonetheless, a dedicated lot sagely educated in myth and legend.
Patiently awaiting.
August sublimity subsumed.
Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: the Legend of the Sword reimagines an English epic by blending the surreal and the sacrificial with athletic cinematic prose.
Through recourse to the bewitching, he shamanistically summons convergent forces, which subterraneanly sanctify a waking vision enchantingly his own.
Snakes aren't evil.
Nature is bold and relevant.
The music and the action and the emotion made me wish I was sitting in an inn in the 5th century constructed of stone with a giant cauldron of stew simmering over a communal fire, our ales robust, our bread hearty, and as the practical and the spiritual became more rapturously entwined, I could almost taste the feast, I could almost consume the vittles.
Young Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) reincarnates the Snatch/Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels aesthetic, as do his feisty companions as they resiliently battle both themselves and the supposed King.
It isn't about armies or sieges, preferring rather to laud cults of personality.
It revolves around Arthur, but there are more than enough well-developed characters to ensure he's part of an influential collective.
He doesn't seem to care much for ruling yet wants to progress as challenges and quests present themselves.
An homage to British First Nations?
To conscientious individuals?
An eclectic international incantation regardless, if not a concentric mysticization, or a definitive indissoluble divergence.
Quite different from contemporary action/fantasy films.
Estuary.
Tuesday, May 23, 2017
David Lynch: The Art Life
Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, and Olivia Neergaard-Holm present David Lynch in his own words, as he prolifically creates at home in California.
Better known for his films, David Lynch: The Art Life alternatively investigates his multidimensional paintings, while he tells the tales that led him to begin narrativizing canvasses in motion.
From his wholesome beginnings in Montana and Idaho, to his wild adolescent high school days in Virginia, Lynch constructs several transformative trestles and discusses time spent with both mom and dad.
His mom detected special abilities during his childhood and took comforting steps to lovingly cultivate them.
His father found his outputs to be somewhat too macabre while visiting him in Philadelphia however, after he had moved there to study painting and actively engage with distinct recalcitrant phenomena, and made some harsh recommendations the timing of which was ironically inappropriate.
It was classic feast and famine.
The feast.
He suddenly receives a grant to study film at the American Film Institute.
Famine: the creation of his masterpiece, Eraserhead, takes longer than expected, and he doesn't complete the film until after his father and brother show up to give him the, "you should start thinking seriously about life" talk, which shortsightedly reduces him to tears.
He obviously disregards their criticisms and goes on to become one of America's great directors, working in film, music, television and painting, notably forging a strong bond with Mark Frost.
It's happening again.
And Stanley Kubrick once stated (paraphrasing) that Eraserhead was the only film he ever wished he had directed.
I think that's in Michael Chion's David Lynch but I'm not certain.
Dark and sombre yet light and dreamy, his texts possess a mystic quotidian quality that defies sustained comparison.
The man himself showcased in The Art Life is down to earth yet provocative, humble and unique.
Listening to him modestly describe his formative years sounds like an extended free form boundless poem which patiently articulates all things clasped artistic.
Like Paterson after a few more decades.
What I gathered from his thoughts was that it was never a matter of stopping, or that creation is his life's work, just as others drive buses or cure the sick, it's just what he does, and he never had any inclination to do anything else.
A gifted storyteller and a remarkable artist, it's amazing that he never stopped working, and incredible that he continues to create to this day.
An honest to God/Buddha/Coyote blue rose.
In bloom.
Better known for his films, David Lynch: The Art Life alternatively investigates his multidimensional paintings, while he tells the tales that led him to begin narrativizing canvasses in motion.
From his wholesome beginnings in Montana and Idaho, to his wild adolescent high school days in Virginia, Lynch constructs several transformative trestles and discusses time spent with both mom and dad.
His mom detected special abilities during his childhood and took comforting steps to lovingly cultivate them.
His father found his outputs to be somewhat too macabre while visiting him in Philadelphia however, after he had moved there to study painting and actively engage with distinct recalcitrant phenomena, and made some harsh recommendations the timing of which was ironically inappropriate.
It was classic feast and famine.
The feast.
He suddenly receives a grant to study film at the American Film Institute.
Famine: the creation of his masterpiece, Eraserhead, takes longer than expected, and he doesn't complete the film until after his father and brother show up to give him the, "you should start thinking seriously about life" talk, which shortsightedly reduces him to tears.
He obviously disregards their criticisms and goes on to become one of America's great directors, working in film, music, television and painting, notably forging a strong bond with Mark Frost.
It's happening again.
And Stanley Kubrick once stated (paraphrasing) that Eraserhead was the only film he ever wished he had directed.
I think that's in Michael Chion's David Lynch but I'm not certain.
Dark and sombre yet light and dreamy, his texts possess a mystic quotidian quality that defies sustained comparison.
The man himself showcased in The Art Life is down to earth yet provocative, humble and unique.
Listening to him modestly describe his formative years sounds like an extended free form boundless poem which patiently articulates all things clasped artistic.
Like Paterson after a few more decades.
What I gathered from his thoughts was that it was never a matter of stopping, or that creation is his life's work, just as others drive buses or cure the sick, it's just what he does, and he never had any inclination to do anything else.
A gifted storyteller and a remarkable artist, it's amazing that he never stopped working, and incredible that he continues to create to this day.
An honest to God/Buddha/Coyote blue rose.
In bloom.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
The characters have been introduced, and have come together to forge a resilient team.
Traits briefly developed in vol. 1 must now be convincingly expanded upon in order to keep generating cheeky sly endearingly rebellious momentum, even if the Guardian's antics are no longer officially outlawed.
Rocket (Bradley Cooper) screws up though, and, after saving a guilded race from a thick-skinned monster, he steals some of their precious batteries to profit on the side, and that very same none-too-amused excessively proud community decides to vengefully hunt the Guardians down consequently, which leaves them troubled and divided after Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) meets his father (Kurt Russell as Ego) who turns out to be an immortal Celestial.
For the first time.
Ego wants to destroy the galaxy but I've said too much already.
Nevertheless.
There's still more to be told.
Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Rocket wind up imprisoned after Yondu's crew mutinies and deprives him of his mellifluous arrow.
While imprisoned, Rocket begins to understand that perhaps he is somewhat abrasive, as he's critique by the rather unpolished Yondu, and referred to as "a professional asshole."
Sticking two assholes in prison together and having them play who's the severest was a great idea, and one that helped them tone it down a bit without spoiling their characteristic alarm.
A new empathic character named Mantis (Pom Klementieff) complicates Star-Lord and Gamora's (Zoe Saldana) relationship after revealing his true feelings, and they interrelate ala Sam and Diane of old afterwards as pride and improvisation delicately yet ruggedly blend.
Star-Lord must also relate to his newfound dad while Gamora contends with her psychotic sister (Karen Gillan as Nebula), the former becoming more estranged as the latter begin to bond.
The Guardians themselves are concerned with their collective identity and whether or not their wild unheralded intergalactic shenanigans have united them together as an im/penitent family?
Without acknowledging the unconscious focus of many of their conversations, they consider the nature of their beguiling consensus, while unravelling supervillainous plots and doing their best to universally grind.
Drax's (Dave Bautista) comments thematically reflect this Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 prerogative, as his colourful blunt wholesome yet provocative observations coddle and crucify the group as a whole.
Groot (Vin Diesel) assists as well.
It's a great sequel, multilaterally pondering life and why it's worth living without sugarcoating its contentions or shying away from its responsibilities from diametrically opposed perspectives.
Big time.
Complacency is structurally criticized as its warm and friendly formal aspects contradict its argumentative content, until the Guardians realize that if both its fuzzy and festive features are to continuously chill, or if Ego conversely gains the upper hand, their raison d'être, their status as Guardians of the Galaxy, will become somewhat mute, multivariably speaking.
The transformation accelerates around the time Star-Lord's walkman (walkperson) is destabilized.
If they didn't care, if they just embraced eternal isolated luxury, they would have gluttonously imploded.
Also visually stunning.
Tragic artistic melodramatic sci-fi?
Correct.
I'd say that designation is correct.
Yes I would.
Vermillion.
Traits briefly developed in vol. 1 must now be convincingly expanded upon in order to keep generating cheeky sly endearingly rebellious momentum, even if the Guardian's antics are no longer officially outlawed.
Rocket (Bradley Cooper) screws up though, and, after saving a guilded race from a thick-skinned monster, he steals some of their precious batteries to profit on the side, and that very same none-too-amused excessively proud community decides to vengefully hunt the Guardians down consequently, which leaves them troubled and divided after Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) meets his father (Kurt Russell as Ego) who turns out to be an immortal Celestial.
For the first time.
Ego wants to destroy the galaxy but I've said too much already.
Nevertheless.
There's still more to be told.
Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Rocket wind up imprisoned after Yondu's crew mutinies and deprives him of his mellifluous arrow.
While imprisoned, Rocket begins to understand that perhaps he is somewhat abrasive, as he's critique by the rather unpolished Yondu, and referred to as "a professional asshole."
Sticking two assholes in prison together and having them play who's the severest was a great idea, and one that helped them tone it down a bit without spoiling their characteristic alarm.
A new empathic character named Mantis (Pom Klementieff) complicates Star-Lord and Gamora's (Zoe Saldana) relationship after revealing his true feelings, and they interrelate ala Sam and Diane of old afterwards as pride and improvisation delicately yet ruggedly blend.
Star-Lord must also relate to his newfound dad while Gamora contends with her psychotic sister (Karen Gillan as Nebula), the former becoming more estranged as the latter begin to bond.
The Guardians themselves are concerned with their collective identity and whether or not their wild unheralded intergalactic shenanigans have united them together as an im/penitent family?
Without acknowledging the unconscious focus of many of their conversations, they consider the nature of their beguiling consensus, while unravelling supervillainous plots and doing their best to universally grind.
Drax's (Dave Bautista) comments thematically reflect this Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 prerogative, as his colourful blunt wholesome yet provocative observations coddle and crucify the group as a whole.
Groot (Vin Diesel) assists as well.
It's a great sequel, multilaterally pondering life and why it's worth living without sugarcoating its contentions or shying away from its responsibilities from diametrically opposed perspectives.
Big time.
Complacency is structurally criticized as its warm and friendly formal aspects contradict its argumentative content, until the Guardians realize that if both its fuzzy and festive features are to continuously chill, or if Ego conversely gains the upper hand, their raison d'être, their status as Guardians of the Galaxy, will become somewhat mute, multivariably speaking.
The transformation accelerates around the time Star-Lord's walkman (walkperson) is destabilized.
If they didn't care, if they just embraced eternal isolated luxury, they would have gluttonously imploded.
Also visually stunning.
Tragic artistic melodramatic sci-fi?
Correct.
I'd say that designation is correct.
Yes I would.
Vermillion.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Colossal
Sensational supernatural synergies conventionally disrupt earth's space/time continuum to coincide with the destruction of a young girl's diorama in the woeful Colossal, extracurricularly transporting her grief to South Korea, where unbeknownst to her, a giant monster covertly seeks vengeance.
But said vengeance is spatially and temporally dependent and the beastie does not return until decades later, when, still consumed with dioramic grief, attempts to self-medicate with alcohol and promiscuity having failed to appease her anguish, she heads back to the small town where she was raised, at which point the destructive culprit comes courting.
Instinctively.
He offers friendship, furniture, a job, free booze, but she still prefers his better looking friend, which drives his responsible sure and steady stamina into a state of pure psychosis, for he has once again entertained the forbidden.
A monster was created for him upon that fateful day also.
And after they discover they both wield giant indestructible surrogates, it's on bitches, in the heart of downtown Seoul.
The potential for an incredible film lies within Nacho Vigalondo's Colossal, but, unfortunately, it's more concerned with possession than comedy.
It's funny when you think about what happens, what transpires, and it's fun to talk about afterwards, not that dark comedic elements don't permeate throughout.
I've never spoken about this film with anyone.
Yet Colossal spends a lot of time just chillin' in a small town, while emphasizing that a hard working character is boring, or that spontaneous bombshells find him boring, which winds up being somewhat boring, and pyrotechnically awkward when he tries not to be boring, until the final moments which are worth the wait, as stoic disinterest unwittingly consumes him.
Let the Sirens be you fool, they know no allegiance, they have no sense of fair play.
Metaphorically speaking, diligence and responsibility are crushed by both self-generated righteous indignation and adventitious independent preferences for alcohol.
Just let things be.
As you approach 40, you may lose most of your interest altogether.
And settle into a general routine of regenerative composure.
Good food, good music and film.
An appreciation for synchronizations.
A cat.
A micropig.
But said vengeance is spatially and temporally dependent and the beastie does not return until decades later, when, still consumed with dioramic grief, attempts to self-medicate with alcohol and promiscuity having failed to appease her anguish, she heads back to the small town where she was raised, at which point the destructive culprit comes courting.
Instinctively.
He offers friendship, furniture, a job, free booze, but she still prefers his better looking friend, which drives his responsible sure and steady stamina into a state of pure psychosis, for he has once again entertained the forbidden.
A monster was created for him upon that fateful day also.
And after they discover they both wield giant indestructible surrogates, it's on bitches, in the heart of downtown Seoul.
The potential for an incredible film lies within Nacho Vigalondo's Colossal, but, unfortunately, it's more concerned with possession than comedy.
It's funny when you think about what happens, what transpires, and it's fun to talk about afterwards, not that dark comedic elements don't permeate throughout.
I've never spoken about this film with anyone.
Yet Colossal spends a lot of time just chillin' in a small town, while emphasizing that a hard working character is boring, or that spontaneous bombshells find him boring, which winds up being somewhat boring, and pyrotechnically awkward when he tries not to be boring, until the final moments which are worth the wait, as stoic disinterest unwittingly consumes him.
Let the Sirens be you fool, they know no allegiance, they have no sense of fair play.
Metaphorically speaking, diligence and responsibility are crushed by both self-generated righteous indignation and adventitious independent preferences for alcohol.
Just let things be.
As you approach 40, you may lose most of your interest altogether.
And settle into a general routine of regenerative composure.
Good food, good music and film.
An appreciation for synchronizations.
A cat.
A micropig.
Friday, May 12, 2017
Free Fire
There's something different about this pointless indolent thrashy debacle, an art to not caring at all that transcends the actual output and haphazardly generates an irradiating flame.
Like the rebellious walrus who spontaneously decides to find new lodgings, or the lackadaisical raccoon who still outwits grandpa every Sunday, Ben Wheatley's Free Fire accidentally harnesses that wild raw pulsating energy that is undeniably up to no good, yet still mercilessly elucidates congenital deviant awe.
Resignedly.
It's not really that funny, the points it makes aren't particularly profound, the action sequence/s lack hyper-reactively intricate multivariable momentum, and none of the characters possess enigmatic appeal.
It's sort of like riding the métro late at night and watching while someone who drank too much vomits, and then penitently slips and falls into that vomit while his or her friends recklessly cheer.
Or when you're sitting in class and someone farts and you can tell that they're embarrassed but it's a stinker and the stink doesn't fade and soon the teacher can smell it but they wind up counterintuitively smirking to the culprit's chagrin.
They may have been hoping their lack of a plan, their free fire, would extemporaneously implicate jarring vindicated chartreuse, correct, yet, instead, the backlash ends up courteously refining clumsy awkwardness astern, collegially asking their audience to digest pestilent penpersonship in order to stentoriously belch, gaseously unscrew, or squeamishly bellow, as a matter of loyalty to the director and cast under examination.
It's like a struggle, a struggle to achieve that which they never intended to accomplish, to not do anything, a nihilistic neologism necromantically jaded and spry.
As it succeeded at doing next to nothing blandly, I couldn't help but think its murky blend of flash and crash was more refreshing than similar more engaged comedies, form cacophonously duelling with content, to circuitously disappoint while chugging back another 6.
Tally-Ho.
Incendiary inanity.
Like the rebellious walrus who spontaneously decides to find new lodgings, or the lackadaisical raccoon who still outwits grandpa every Sunday, Ben Wheatley's Free Fire accidentally harnesses that wild raw pulsating energy that is undeniably up to no good, yet still mercilessly elucidates congenital deviant awe.
Resignedly.
It's not really that funny, the points it makes aren't particularly profound, the action sequence/s lack hyper-reactively intricate multivariable momentum, and none of the characters possess enigmatic appeal.
It's sort of like riding the métro late at night and watching while someone who drank too much vomits, and then penitently slips and falls into that vomit while his or her friends recklessly cheer.
Or when you're sitting in class and someone farts and you can tell that they're embarrassed but it's a stinker and the stink doesn't fade and soon the teacher can smell it but they wind up counterintuitively smirking to the culprit's chagrin.
They may have been hoping their lack of a plan, their free fire, would extemporaneously implicate jarring vindicated chartreuse, correct, yet, instead, the backlash ends up courteously refining clumsy awkwardness astern, collegially asking their audience to digest pestilent penpersonship in order to stentoriously belch, gaseously unscrew, or squeamishly bellow, as a matter of loyalty to the director and cast under examination.
It's like a struggle, a struggle to achieve that which they never intended to accomplish, to not do anything, a nihilistic neologism necromantically jaded and spry.
As it succeeded at doing next to nothing blandly, I couldn't help but think its murky blend of flash and crash was more refreshing than similar more engaged comedies, form cacophonously duelling with content, to circuitously disappoint while chugging back another 6.
Tally-Ho.
Incendiary inanity.
Tuesday, May 9, 2017
The Circle
Omnipresent technological observation, every detail from everyone's life infinitesimally revealed with omnibus macroscopic composure, the triumph of the public sphere, no more secrets, no more subterfuge, real time rhapsodic synergistic respiration sucking in surety and exhaling plots, sandlots, polka dots, buffets, aeronautic knowledge in plain microcosm, mountainous metaphoric immersive munchy meadows, cross-referenced cursive equations, auspices, permanent honesty.
The Circle seeks to reveal everything ever recorded, every piece of data historically accumulated, every whisper, every slight, while turning everyone's life into a networked primetime extravaganza, constant pervasive awareness, monitoring each and every aspect, like itsy-bitsy circus shows.
Prophetic in its potential, sage in its revelations, James Ponsoldt's The Circle critically examines the ways in which social media has significantly transformed human existence in less than ten years, like the printing press of old, exponentially exemplified.
Within the film, an employee's (Emma Watson as Mae) responsibilities gradually increase after she's hired by the aforementioned, an innovative business that has combined several popular online sites into one übercolossus, until she goes transparent and everyone begins following every moment of her life all day everyday as it happens online, and she suddenly finds herself with an unprecedented degree of influence.
She's chill though, cool, she's not really into all that sort of, in the film anyways, the film is quite different from the book, although she realizes she possesses a perky ability to monumentally game change.
She digs.
She excavates.
She constructs.
She reveals.
If everything about all and sundry was accessible online the world would certainly become a different place.
A lot of pricks would be forced not to be huge dicks, unless some kind of sadistic sensational saga prevailed, for a time.
It might end up being like true democracy, things like starvation and violent crime slowly (perhaps rapidly) disappearing, the exaltation of the ephemeral, new variations of Star Trek compellingly illuminating the variations, slavery ending, endangered animals given a fighting chance for survival.
Imagine the pizza.
The long weekends.
The orations.
But if a select group controlled it things likely wouldn't change much.
And it would be super hard on those who didn't want their lives to be transparent, not just the unscrupulous but regular people as well, unscrupulous regular people notwithstanding.
Seems to be heading in that direction regardless.
Not really sure if The Circle's prophetic or simply just a comment on the times.
Makes the art of creating genuine surprise all the more intriguing either way.
*Another film could be made based on the book that could offer deeper reflections.
The Circle seeks to reveal everything ever recorded, every piece of data historically accumulated, every whisper, every slight, while turning everyone's life into a networked primetime extravaganza, constant pervasive awareness, monitoring each and every aspect, like itsy-bitsy circus shows.
Prophetic in its potential, sage in its revelations, James Ponsoldt's The Circle critically examines the ways in which social media has significantly transformed human existence in less than ten years, like the printing press of old, exponentially exemplified.
Within the film, an employee's (Emma Watson as Mae) responsibilities gradually increase after she's hired by the aforementioned, an innovative business that has combined several popular online sites into one übercolossus, until she goes transparent and everyone begins following every moment of her life all day everyday as it happens online, and she suddenly finds herself with an unprecedented degree of influence.
She's chill though, cool, she's not really into all that sort of, in the film anyways, the film is quite different from the book, although she realizes she possesses a perky ability to monumentally game change.
She digs.
She excavates.
She constructs.
She reveals.
If everything about all and sundry was accessible online the world would certainly become a different place.
A lot of pricks would be forced not to be huge dicks, unless some kind of sadistic sensational saga prevailed, for a time.
It might end up being like true democracy, things like starvation and violent crime slowly (perhaps rapidly) disappearing, the exaltation of the ephemeral, new variations of Star Trek compellingly illuminating the variations, slavery ending, endangered animals given a fighting chance for survival.
Imagine the pizza.
The long weekends.
The orations.
But if a select group controlled it things likely wouldn't change much.
And it would be super hard on those who didn't want their lives to be transparent, not just the unscrupulous but regular people as well, unscrupulous regular people notwithstanding.
Seems to be heading in that direction regardless.
Not really sure if The Circle's prophetic or simply just a comment on the times.
Makes the art of creating genuine surprise all the more intriguing either way.
*Another film could be made based on the book that could offer deeper reflections.
Friday, May 5, 2017
The Lost City of Z
Driven by an irrepressible desire to advance and succeed, willing to assiduously acclimatize himself to arduous extremities, without uttering a single dismissive word of protest, the bold Percival Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) sets out to map disputed South American realms, and learns of an ancient legend after earnestly departing down river.
The pursuit of that legend leads him to boisterously challenge the racial preconceptions of Britain's Royal Geographical Society after he achieves fame for his rigour and accolades for his gall.
Controversies cloud his subsequent expedition however as a colleague of a higher social rank (Angus Macfadyen as James Murray) signs up and cannot handle the hardships of the exploratory life.
After Fawcett judiciously grants him reprieve, he still slanders his reputation upon returning home.
Yet his resolve remains unencumbered (even during World War I) and his humble determination wins him the loyalty of his fellow explorers as well as that of local aboriginal tribes.
The long periods of time he spends away from his family leave them aggrieved nevertheless.
Atonements must be paid for cold sacrifices made.
James Gray's The Lost City of Z presents an adventurous life lived in nimble haunting miniature.
I've often written that biographical films such as Z proceed too quickly and only offer a scant realization of the subject of inquiry's remarkably inspiring accomplishments.
Yet Z has found a compelling balance between the burst and the burnish which cleverly captivates without seeming superficial or insufficient.
It isn't a poppy light conglomeration of exceptional details but rather a profound accumulation of brave characteristics which classically define an intrepid life.
Born to quest, and ruggedly equipped with the constitution to do so, Fawcett stoically sought the supposedly sensational in order to encyclopedically romance.
I imagine, as the internet mutates, hundreds of years from now cyberspatial explorers will pursue similar objectives by searching online for that which previous civilizations considered noteworthy.
The macroscopic transforms ultramicro.
The evolution of adventuring.
Piquant periodic paradigms.
Solid career move Robert Pattinson.
The pursuit of that legend leads him to boisterously challenge the racial preconceptions of Britain's Royal Geographical Society after he achieves fame for his rigour and accolades for his gall.
Controversies cloud his subsequent expedition however as a colleague of a higher social rank (Angus Macfadyen as James Murray) signs up and cannot handle the hardships of the exploratory life.
After Fawcett judiciously grants him reprieve, he still slanders his reputation upon returning home.
Yet his resolve remains unencumbered (even during World War I) and his humble determination wins him the loyalty of his fellow explorers as well as that of local aboriginal tribes.
The long periods of time he spends away from his family leave them aggrieved nevertheless.
Atonements must be paid for cold sacrifices made.
James Gray's The Lost City of Z presents an adventurous life lived in nimble haunting miniature.
I've often written that biographical films such as Z proceed too quickly and only offer a scant realization of the subject of inquiry's remarkably inspiring accomplishments.
Yet Z has found a compelling balance between the burst and the burnish which cleverly captivates without seeming superficial or insufficient.
It isn't a poppy light conglomeration of exceptional details but rather a profound accumulation of brave characteristics which classically define an intrepid life.
Born to quest, and ruggedly equipped with the constitution to do so, Fawcett stoically sought the supposedly sensational in order to encyclopedically romance.
I imagine, as the internet mutates, hundreds of years from now cyberspatial explorers will pursue similar objectives by searching online for that which previous civilizations considered noteworthy.
The macroscopic transforms ultramicro.
The evolution of adventuring.
Piquant periodic paradigms.
Solid career move Robert Pattinson.
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
Going in Style
Methinks there was a time when companies rewarded 40 years of hard work with a decent pension so their loyal workers could retire with dignity.
I suppose many companies still do assist dedicated workers after they've paid decades worth of dues, Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next and its cheerful examination of European generosity coming to mind, although I'm sure the practice isn't limited to Europe.
It's about community, family, friendship, trust, virtues which scurrilous executives working for the bad companies rapaciously exploit to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains.
Dignity doesn't make any sense to them because they have none.
To put it bluntly.
Relatedly, I was thinking about Vancouver's housing market one day and the following thoughts came to mind. If someone lives in the community where he or she grows up and owns multiple properties which she or he rents out to his or her fellow citizens, it would be more difficult for them to exploit said citizens due to the strong communal bonds forged during a life worth living. I can't statistically verify the following, but I'm convinced this is why so many Québecois cities remain relatively affordable.
However, if the housing market was opened up to encourage international sales, wealthy foreigners who have no communal attachment to a city's people, unlike landed immigrants, could easily buy up property and start charging exorbitant rates because they have no cultural bonds with their renters.
It seems like if you ever want to own a house in Vancouver, you either have to earn a ballpark $250,000 a year, or hand your mortgage down to your children who would then eventually hand it down to their children and so on.
In other words, if you make 60K a year in Vancouver and buy a home, it's your grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will eventually pay off the debt, theoretically speaking, and some jerk from who knows where may have picked up a new jet meanwhile.
I know it's still hard to buy a house in Montréal but remember they are more affordable than those in Toronto or Vancouver. I haven't read a book covering this subject but I'm convinced it's because Québecers, begrudgingly or not, care more about one another collectively.
In Zach Braff's Going in Style, three elderly friends lose their pension and can no longer afford the rent or make mortgage payments as a result.
So they person-up and take ridiculous risks to make amends.
It's a bit too pom-pom and ding-dong for my tastes, but it does take a light look at the ways in which globalization is crushing some local communities.
While emphasizing the hopelessness of workers caught in such situations through recourse to absurd comedy.
And it's fun too watch agile screwed-over seniors rob a bank Robin Hood style, the same bank who grossly screwed them over.
Suppose it's not only international financial interests that buy up property and jack up the price so disposable incomes disappear.
There's still a local aspect to the global even if international agendas obscure regional concerns.
Has Christy Clark ever done anything to address Vancouver's housing crisis?
All I really know is that the killing of hundreds of wolves was authorized by someone in B.C while she was premier.
They'll be back.
I wonder if she cares about anything at all that isn't plus $250,000?
More often than once every 5 years.
Tragic.
I suppose many companies still do assist dedicated workers after they've paid decades worth of dues, Michael Moore's Where to Invade Next and its cheerful examination of European generosity coming to mind, although I'm sure the practice isn't limited to Europe.
It's about community, family, friendship, trust, virtues which scurrilous executives working for the bad companies rapaciously exploit to line their own pockets with ill-gotten gains.
Dignity doesn't make any sense to them because they have none.
To put it bluntly.
Relatedly, I was thinking about Vancouver's housing market one day and the following thoughts came to mind. If someone lives in the community where he or she grows up and owns multiple properties which she or he rents out to his or her fellow citizens, it would be more difficult for them to exploit said citizens due to the strong communal bonds forged during a life worth living. I can't statistically verify the following, but I'm convinced this is why so many Québecois cities remain relatively affordable.
However, if the housing market was opened up to encourage international sales, wealthy foreigners who have no communal attachment to a city's people, unlike landed immigrants, could easily buy up property and start charging exorbitant rates because they have no cultural bonds with their renters.
It seems like if you ever want to own a house in Vancouver, you either have to earn a ballpark $250,000 a year, or hand your mortgage down to your children who would then eventually hand it down to their children and so on.
In other words, if you make 60K a year in Vancouver and buy a home, it's your grandchildren or great-grandchildren who will eventually pay off the debt, theoretically speaking, and some jerk from who knows where may have picked up a new jet meanwhile.
I know it's still hard to buy a house in Montréal but remember they are more affordable than those in Toronto or Vancouver. I haven't read a book covering this subject but I'm convinced it's because Québecers, begrudgingly or not, care more about one another collectively.
In Zach Braff's Going in Style, three elderly friends lose their pension and can no longer afford the rent or make mortgage payments as a result.
So they person-up and take ridiculous risks to make amends.
It's a bit too pom-pom and ding-dong for my tastes, but it does take a light look at the ways in which globalization is crushing some local communities.
While emphasizing the hopelessness of workers caught in such situations through recourse to absurd comedy.
And it's fun too watch agile screwed-over seniors rob a bank Robin Hood style, the same bank who grossly screwed them over.
Suppose it's not only international financial interests that buy up property and jack up the price so disposable incomes disappear.
There's still a local aspect to the global even if international agendas obscure regional concerns.
Has Christy Clark ever done anything to address Vancouver's housing crisis?
All I really know is that the killing of hundreds of wolves was authorized by someone in B.C while she was premier.
They'll be back.
I wonder if she cares about anything at all that isn't plus $250,000?
More often than once every 5 years.
Tragic.
Friday, April 28, 2017
L'Outsider (Team Spirit)
No limits, no borders, astronomically inclined lucrative instinct wildly cashing in on risk at play, financial fecundity, articulate gumption, stereoscopic synergies in blissful shocked contagion, extraordinary, unprecedented, steady surefire streak, secretively securing nest eggs niched necessities, excessively consisting of self-obsessed belief, the unimaginable success encouraging chaotic exposure, an investigation, oversight, interrogation, one month's extravagance comes woefully crashing down, as France's greatest trader harshly hits ground.
But what a flight.
M. Jérȏme Kerviel (Arthur Dupont) learns quickly and trades and trades and trades until he's up 1.5 billion.
1.5 billion dollars.
Yet his unorthodox propensities cause problems for his private life as feelings of invincibility clash with social codes of conduct.
Having settled into the wolf pack, he is unconditionally respected, although even the most unrestrained amongst them fear his cold audacity.
His reserve.
Unwilling.
L'Outsider (Team Spirit [terrible English title]) playfully examines calculation to add and subtract legerdemain ;) while multiplying cryptic divisions.
Its bromantic aspects are more well developed than its heteronormatively amorous characteristics, although the latter are required to diversify Kerviel's portfolio.
Unalloyed wildman.
He had it all banked and locked away with hundreds of millions to spare.
Steerike!
Like a rowdy blend of The Big Short and Owning Mahowny, L'Outsider investigates the limitations and/or exasperations of addiction to criticize impatience while castigating excess.
I suppose some of the most successful people retain a degree a humility that prevents them from blowing it.
Not the case often however.
It seems like a "you blew it whatevs here's another shot" tacit union sometimes.
Hey, I love unions. Sign me up.
Maybe not to that union.
There's still humility within the abrasive if you know how to detect it (it's a matter of risk management).
Enduring it consistently is another matter.
Find the midpoint between French and English civil law.
Think up some characters.
Proceed.
But what a flight.
M. Jérȏme Kerviel (Arthur Dupont) learns quickly and trades and trades and trades until he's up 1.5 billion.
1.5 billion dollars.
Yet his unorthodox propensities cause problems for his private life as feelings of invincibility clash with social codes of conduct.
Having settled into the wolf pack, he is unconditionally respected, although even the most unrestrained amongst them fear his cold audacity.
His reserve.
Unwilling.
L'Outsider (Team Spirit [terrible English title]) playfully examines calculation to add and subtract legerdemain ;) while multiplying cryptic divisions.
Its bromantic aspects are more well developed than its heteronormatively amorous characteristics, although the latter are required to diversify Kerviel's portfolio.
Unalloyed wildman.
He had it all banked and locked away with hundreds of millions to spare.
Steerike!
Like a rowdy blend of The Big Short and Owning Mahowny, L'Outsider investigates the limitations and/or exasperations of addiction to criticize impatience while castigating excess.
I suppose some of the most successful people retain a degree a humility that prevents them from blowing it.
Not the case often however.
It seems like a "you blew it whatevs here's another shot" tacit union sometimes.
Hey, I love unions. Sign me up.
Maybe not to that union.
There's still humility within the abrasive if you know how to detect it (it's a matter of risk management).
Enduring it consistently is another matter.
Find the midpoint between French and English civil law.
Think up some characters.
Proceed.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Power Rangers
Patiently waiting for millions of years buried deep within the Earth's crust surrounded by gold, Zordon (Bryan Cranston) and Alpha-5 (Bill Hader) strikingly reanimate after the universe cosmically brings together 5 curious misfits to courageously battle Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks) and Goldar.
These Power Rangers initially doubt their abilities and require sage tutelage to discover strengths residing within.
Their newfound super powers help them to gain the confidence they never knew they possessed, eventually, and as they embrace their intense warrior spirits, they become more popular in high school.
They aren't blinded by their social prestige, however, for to be a Power Ranger one must act with humble composure.
Regardless of race, sexual orientation, or creed.
Will they develop the unconscious altruistic personas they need to harmoniously combat as one, or will mighty Goldar acquire the Zeo Crystal and enable Repulsa to nuclearly unleash pure wrath?
They must command self-sacrificing teamwork.
And will find the necessary stamina.
If they can only believe.
Dean Israelite's Power Rangers takes a look at the lighter side of irrepressible super human excellence.
The rangers are as endearing as they are unconventional in their pursuit of congruent formidable elasticities.
The film lacks the depth of Iron Man or Thor, but that doesn't mean it fails to moderately compensate in terms of pluck and do-gooding know-how.
Watching as the 5 troubled unique feisty individuals kitschily come together as a daunting unified unacknowledged sleuth was captivating indeed, even if I was perhaps much older than the film's target audience.
Their friendship knows no bounds and they will take them villains down.
A neat examination of thinking globally while acting locally.
Listened to favourite pop hits afterwards.
These Power Rangers initially doubt their abilities and require sage tutelage to discover strengths residing within.
Their newfound super powers help them to gain the confidence they never knew they possessed, eventually, and as they embrace their intense warrior spirits, they become more popular in high school.
They aren't blinded by their social prestige, however, for to be a Power Ranger one must act with humble composure.
Regardless of race, sexual orientation, or creed.
Will they develop the unconscious altruistic personas they need to harmoniously combat as one, or will mighty Goldar acquire the Zeo Crystal and enable Repulsa to nuclearly unleash pure wrath?
They must command self-sacrificing teamwork.
And will find the necessary stamina.
If they can only believe.
Dean Israelite's Power Rangers takes a look at the lighter side of irrepressible super human excellence.
The rangers are as endearing as they are unconventional in their pursuit of congruent formidable elasticities.
The film lacks the depth of Iron Man or Thor, but that doesn't mean it fails to moderately compensate in terms of pluck and do-gooding know-how.
Watching as the 5 troubled unique feisty individuals kitschily come together as a daunting unified unacknowledged sleuth was captivating indeed, even if I was perhaps much older than the film's target audience.
Their friendship knows no bounds and they will take them villains down.
A neat examination of thinking globally while acting locally.
Listened to favourite pop hits afterwards.
Friday, April 21, 2017
Boost
Friendships fiercely fraternized, habitual restraint mingling with wanton risk to wildly impress and collegially incarcerate, an idea, contrasts, audacity, accolades, admonitions, contrition, relapses, there's an intelligent way to go about things in films, in films I've seen there's an intelligent way to commit crimes, exercising extreme stealth, keeping things on the down-low, but young Anthony MacDonald (Jahmil French), recently suspended from school, likes to brazenly advertise, his mild-mannered accomplice (Nabil Rajo as Hakeem Nour) unable to withstand his will, their successful colleagues having stayed in business by remaining mature and sober, as bold youthful extravagance clashes with reticent age.
Hakeem's obligations leave him isolated, exhausted.
Duties to family, co-workers, culture, and friends, excruciatingly conflict as they seek the knowledge he's acquired.
But the only way to placate them without self-destructing is to expressly keep things zipped, zigzagged.
With staggering composure.
And multilateral calm.
Repercussions abound in Darren Curtis's Boost after two adolescents screw things up for hardened car thieves.
A slight taste of the spectacle leaves them ostentatiously entwined.
Balancing the headstrong with the pensive, the excessive with the shaved, Boost interrogates responsibility while matriculating resolve.
Demonstrating a sound understanding of the youthful confines of age, it fairly investigates cultural mis/conceptions to dialectically dis/integrate cunning hardboiled c(l)ues.
If you move here I wouldn't worry so much about becoming a Canadian, about fitting in.
It's one of those things where the more you try to do it, the less integrated you become.
Unless you're filthy rich.
Before you've lived through a couple of Winters people tend to doubt you'll hang around.
And after you have they may still not be that curious.
But they like to see familiar faces.
Have brief chats once in a while.
Even pay attention sometimes.
Like moving to most countries I suppose.
With a bitterly cold Winter.
If you're active though, and join some organizations and contribute something, you'll meet people.
Just give it some time.
Be patient.
And don't stress about it.
Hakeem's obligations leave him isolated, exhausted.
Duties to family, co-workers, culture, and friends, excruciatingly conflict as they seek the knowledge he's acquired.
But the only way to placate them without self-destructing is to expressly keep things zipped, zigzagged.
With staggering composure.
And multilateral calm.
Repercussions abound in Darren Curtis's Boost after two adolescents screw things up for hardened car thieves.
A slight taste of the spectacle leaves them ostentatiously entwined.
Balancing the headstrong with the pensive, the excessive with the shaved, Boost interrogates responsibility while matriculating resolve.
Demonstrating a sound understanding of the youthful confines of age, it fairly investigates cultural mis/conceptions to dialectically dis/integrate cunning hardboiled c(l)ues.
If you move here I wouldn't worry so much about becoming a Canadian, about fitting in.
It's one of those things where the more you try to do it, the less integrated you become.
Unless you're filthy rich.
Before you've lived through a couple of Winters people tend to doubt you'll hang around.
And after you have they may still not be that curious.
But they like to see familiar faces.
Have brief chats once in a while.
Even pay attention sometimes.
Like moving to most countries I suppose.
With a bitterly cold Winter.
If you're active though, and join some organizations and contribute something, you'll meet people.
Just give it some time.
Be patient.
And don't stress about it.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Wilson
I often love it when I meet people like Wilson (Woody Harrelson).
Feisty and self-taught, they're often up to date with what was popular in the past and can describe many scenes from their favourite films in playfully obnoxious detail.
Extroverted by nature, Wilsons talk and talk and talk about whatever pops into their heads, they have no filter at all and no ability whatsoever to discursively blend with different demographics.
I'm quite introverted and I'm used to navigating fussier domains where you have to watch what you say while people encourage you to speak freely, so it's always refreshing when I encounter free-spirited autodidacts who are flush with alternative phrases and expressions, even if I can only hack it for short periods before returning to my regenerative lair.
They're like conspiratorial sages, blending the hackneyed and the probable with instinctual brazen whiplash, blindly imagining that their interlocutors don't mind being consistently insulted, as they apply their cynical observations to whatever detail those with whom they are conversing are friendly enough to share.
They don't seem to understand that they've caused offence nor that the knowledge they've acquired may on occasion lack truth value.
But they proceed with the unabashed confidence of Olympian gods as they try to create a better world, casually interjecting fact with fiction to elucidate grizzly ideals, practical premonitions, while dis/harmoniously doing whatever they feel like at all times.
Impoverished Joes with aristocratic psychologies.
Try listening a bit longer the next time you meet one.
I usually find it's worth it.
Craig Johnson's Wilson mischievously speaks his mind and loves to talk to strangers as he travels about in search of company.
It isn't the greatest film, in fact the only other person watching it with me in the theatre left halfway through, sort of like St. Vincent's rusty doppelgänger, a valiant effort lacking sustained momentum.
But it does improve about halfway through, shortly before Wilson winds up in prison, and from that point onwards unreels with captivating vulgarity.
When I consider the first half I keep thinking, "that should have been funnier, it's fun to think about what happened anyways, even if the actual dialogue wasn't that funny and lacked any condemned cohesivity."
Harrelson's performance is great but he couldn't turn the bland dribble into something you'd recommend to someone you don't like.
Even if it had been great the whole way through, it would still be glibly satisfying to know someone you don't like, someone who probably doesn't like Wilsons, will have to put up with Wilson for 90 odd minutes.
Could have been better.
Still, don't shut it down midway.
Feisty and self-taught, they're often up to date with what was popular in the past and can describe many scenes from their favourite films in playfully obnoxious detail.
Extroverted by nature, Wilsons talk and talk and talk about whatever pops into their heads, they have no filter at all and no ability whatsoever to discursively blend with different demographics.
I'm quite introverted and I'm used to navigating fussier domains where you have to watch what you say while people encourage you to speak freely, so it's always refreshing when I encounter free-spirited autodidacts who are flush with alternative phrases and expressions, even if I can only hack it for short periods before returning to my regenerative lair.
They're like conspiratorial sages, blending the hackneyed and the probable with instinctual brazen whiplash, blindly imagining that their interlocutors don't mind being consistently insulted, as they apply their cynical observations to whatever detail those with whom they are conversing are friendly enough to share.
They don't seem to understand that they've caused offence nor that the knowledge they've acquired may on occasion lack truth value.
But they proceed with the unabashed confidence of Olympian gods as they try to create a better world, casually interjecting fact with fiction to elucidate grizzly ideals, practical premonitions, while dis/harmoniously doing whatever they feel like at all times.
Impoverished Joes with aristocratic psychologies.
Try listening a bit longer the next time you meet one.
I usually find it's worth it.
Craig Johnson's Wilson mischievously speaks his mind and loves to talk to strangers as he travels about in search of company.
It isn't the greatest film, in fact the only other person watching it with me in the theatre left halfway through, sort of like St. Vincent's rusty doppelgänger, a valiant effort lacking sustained momentum.
But it does improve about halfway through, shortly before Wilson winds up in prison, and from that point onwards unreels with captivating vulgarity.
When I consider the first half I keep thinking, "that should have been funnier, it's fun to think about what happened anyways, even if the actual dialogue wasn't that funny and lacked any condemned cohesivity."
Harrelson's performance is great but he couldn't turn the bland dribble into something you'd recommend to someone you don't like.
Even if it had been great the whole way through, it would still be glibly satisfying to know someone you don't like, someone who probably doesn't like Wilsons, will have to put up with Wilson for 90 odd minutes.
Could have been better.
Still, don't shut it down midway.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
The Zookeeper's Wife
Some animals are peaceful, others, ferocious.
Without researching the subject too seriously this evening, I would make the claim that vegetarian animals are generally less hostile, while those who eat meat are more instinctively vicious.
Bearing in mind Yann Martel's analysis of zoos in Life of Pi, and various observations I've made while observing wildlife behaviour, I've come to the conclusion that many animals don't mind living in zoos, especially if they have an abundance of food and lots of space to move around in, unless they are instinctively vicious, or are the resident alpha of an otherwise chill vegetarian herd.
Tigers are less friendly than bison for instance.
A raccoon (raccoons are omnivorous) makes a better fit for a zoo than a wolverine.
But when deciding whether or not an animal makes a good zoo fit, perhaps it's best to see how they react as individuals to suddenly being confined in a limited space that sharply contrasts their wild environment.
They may not travel very far in the wild; they may have a limited range.
But they do have the option to travel far and wide should they so desire, and, psychologically speaking, that makes a big difference.
If an animal is introduced to a zoo but continuously misbehaves and bites it's obvious that it doesn't belong, and should therefore be returned to the wild.
But if it doesn't seem to mind so much (animals, like humans, can be lazy), then the zoo can become its new home, and curious humans can benefit from the opportunity to see them chillin' doin' their domesticated thing, from time to time, should they choose to visit one.
Whales or giant sea creatures obviously don't belong in zoos or sea parks because it's quite difficult for them to grow accustomed to living in a bathtub, as Blackfish brilliantly demonstrated.
A lot of the larger fiercely independent animals like lions, bears and elephants don't seem to like them much either, although there are exceptions to the rule.
Love can play a key role in helping an animal adjust to zoo life.
In Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina Zabinski (Jessica Chastain) clearly loves her animals and is amorously devoted to cheerfully caring for them.
World War II commences however, and she's forced to suffer as her animals are grossly mistreated.
Fittingly, her family proceeds to resist Warsaw's Nazi occupation and turns their zoo into a refuge for those seeking to escape to allied territory.
Their self-sacrifice saves countless lives and functions as a shining historical exemplar of how to boldly fight back peacefully.
Come on Chechnya.
The film expertly contrasts the horrors of war with the benefits of community to create a dark sombre narrative that doesn't gratuitously focus on violence.
The terror is present but so is the love, and by revealing how communities can multiculturally come together in virulent times to humbly support one another, extremist mechanics seem pathetic by comparison.
Jessica Chastain delivers a captivating performance.
There were moments when I was thinking, "this response is bound to be cheesy," but the sophisticated way in which she timidly yet confidently stated her replies masterfully transformed the melodramatic into something tender and tragic, which helped me to understand why she's been so successful in film.
First rate.
Balancing the tender and the horrific in a way that clearly demonstrates the revolting nature of war without grotesquely showcasing its gruesome characteristics, preferring to celebrate friendship and collegiality without being trite or melodramatic, instead, is quite difficult to do, and Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife remarkably accomplishes this feat.
Discourses of the solemn resiliently resisting.
If I'm ever in Warsaw, I'm spending the day at the zoo.
Without researching the subject too seriously this evening, I would make the claim that vegetarian animals are generally less hostile, while those who eat meat are more instinctively vicious.
Bearing in mind Yann Martel's analysis of zoos in Life of Pi, and various observations I've made while observing wildlife behaviour, I've come to the conclusion that many animals don't mind living in zoos, especially if they have an abundance of food and lots of space to move around in, unless they are instinctively vicious, or are the resident alpha of an otherwise chill vegetarian herd.
Tigers are less friendly than bison for instance.
A raccoon (raccoons are omnivorous) makes a better fit for a zoo than a wolverine.
But when deciding whether or not an animal makes a good zoo fit, perhaps it's best to see how they react as individuals to suddenly being confined in a limited space that sharply contrasts their wild environment.
They may not travel very far in the wild; they may have a limited range.
But they do have the option to travel far and wide should they so desire, and, psychologically speaking, that makes a big difference.
If an animal is introduced to a zoo but continuously misbehaves and bites it's obvious that it doesn't belong, and should therefore be returned to the wild.
But if it doesn't seem to mind so much (animals, like humans, can be lazy), then the zoo can become its new home, and curious humans can benefit from the opportunity to see them chillin' doin' their domesticated thing, from time to time, should they choose to visit one.
Whales or giant sea creatures obviously don't belong in zoos or sea parks because it's quite difficult for them to grow accustomed to living in a bathtub, as Blackfish brilliantly demonstrated.
A lot of the larger fiercely independent animals like lions, bears and elephants don't seem to like them much either, although there are exceptions to the rule.
Love can play a key role in helping an animal adjust to zoo life.
In Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife, Antonina Zabinski (Jessica Chastain) clearly loves her animals and is amorously devoted to cheerfully caring for them.
World War II commences however, and she's forced to suffer as her animals are grossly mistreated.
Fittingly, her family proceeds to resist Warsaw's Nazi occupation and turns their zoo into a refuge for those seeking to escape to allied territory.
Their self-sacrifice saves countless lives and functions as a shining historical exemplar of how to boldly fight back peacefully.
Come on Chechnya.
The film expertly contrasts the horrors of war with the benefits of community to create a dark sombre narrative that doesn't gratuitously focus on violence.
The terror is present but so is the love, and by revealing how communities can multiculturally come together in virulent times to humbly support one another, extremist mechanics seem pathetic by comparison.
Jessica Chastain delivers a captivating performance.
There were moments when I was thinking, "this response is bound to be cheesy," but the sophisticated way in which she timidly yet confidently stated her replies masterfully transformed the melodramatic into something tender and tragic, which helped me to understand why she's been so successful in film.
First rate.
Balancing the tender and the horrific in a way that clearly demonstrates the revolting nature of war without grotesquely showcasing its gruesome characteristics, preferring to celebrate friendship and collegiality without being trite or melodramatic, instead, is quite difficult to do, and Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife remarkably accomplishes this feat.
Discourses of the solemn resiliently resisting.
If I'm ever in Warsaw, I'm spending the day at the zoo.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
John Wick: Chapter 2
Releasing a sequel to a visceral revenge film which shockingly surpassed critical expectations is a delicate affair, ironically in John Wick: Chapter 2's case, since you can no longer count on the objective bonus points freely dished out to reward the original's novelty.
You can sustain the momentum however, if you don't let the praise lift your spirits.
While still trying to craft another viral perplexity.
John Wick 2 sticks to the facts.
There are rules to be followed, no exceptions to be made.
Neither fairness nor camaraderie come into play.
At work.
In the age of the sensational superhero, Wick(Keanu Reeves) represents a humanistic counterbalance.
He may be the best assassin living, but he doesn't possess supernatural gifts and can contend without technological superiority.
He's just really freakin' good at what he does.
Don't screw it up.
Lickspittle.
Like pastis, grand marnier, amaretto, or amarula, with the humble demeanour of a 6 pack of bud, Wick reluctantly excels at authentically overachieving, with a kitschy pyrotechnic array of distinguished underground ex-factors.
It's enjoyable even if you know what's coming.
There's an art to writing blunt dialogue that leaves nothing to chance and states exactly what's on a character's mind.
The dialogue in Chapter 2 doesn't blow you away, but it, ah, sticks to its guns, with first rate integrity.
High-stakes slipstream.
Treacherous precipice.
Nocturnal necromancing nostrum.
They set up a hell of a third instalment.
Momentum sustained.
But the evocative visual style of the first film is missing.
There's a cool showdown (multiple cool showdowns) in an art museum though.
Professionalism oddly drives the narrative like sharks at corporate headquarters I suppose.
*Can one of these sequels be Man with the Golden Gunesque?
Chapter 2 is crazy violent.
You can sustain the momentum however, if you don't let the praise lift your spirits.
While still trying to craft another viral perplexity.
John Wick 2 sticks to the facts.
There are rules to be followed, no exceptions to be made.
Neither fairness nor camaraderie come into play.
At work.
In the age of the sensational superhero, Wick(Keanu Reeves) represents a humanistic counterbalance.
He may be the best assassin living, but he doesn't possess supernatural gifts and can contend without technological superiority.
He's just really freakin' good at what he does.
Don't screw it up.
Lickspittle.
Like pastis, grand marnier, amaretto, or amarula, with the humble demeanour of a 6 pack of bud, Wick reluctantly excels at authentically overachieving, with a kitschy pyrotechnic array of distinguished underground ex-factors.
It's enjoyable even if you know what's coming.
There's an art to writing blunt dialogue that leaves nothing to chance and states exactly what's on a character's mind.
The dialogue in Chapter 2 doesn't blow you away, but it, ah, sticks to its guns, with first rate integrity.
High-stakes slipstream.
Treacherous precipice.
Nocturnal necromancing nostrum.
They set up a hell of a third instalment.
Momentum sustained.
But the evocative visual style of the first film is missing.
There's a cool showdown (multiple cool showdowns) in an art museum though.
Professionalism oddly drives the narrative like sharks at corporate headquarters I suppose.
*Can one of these sequels be Man with the Golden Gunesque?
Chapter 2 is crazy violent.
Friday, April 7, 2017
T2 Trainspotting
The danger.
The danger of returning 20 odd years later to material which you expertly orchestrated with fertile frenzied finesse in your youth, fans will undoubtedly be expecting equivalent degrees of athletic anguish and bricked portered benzedrine, agonizing adrenaline, hysterical heuristic harkenings, even if they've aged meanwhile, even if the characters have as well.
Godfather III, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Everybody Wants Some!!
Star Wars Episodes I-III.
But the impulse to buck the trend must be overwhelming, to revisit old storylines, to reimagine old characters, and revitalize them alma mater.
T2 Trainspotting starts out on a depressing note.
Renton's (Ewan McGregor/Connor McIndoe/Ben Skelton) inspiring speech from the final moments of T1 hasn't exactly widgeted bourgeois effervescence, and he's downtroddenly returned home to reestablish old friendships.
The bourgeoisie has experienced sincere difficulties for the last twenty years so it isn't surprising that he's had a tough go of it.
Grievances are aired and there's a rapprochement of sorts, although Begbie (Robert Carlyle/Christopher Mullen/Daniel Smith) remains extremely hostile, and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller/James McElvar/Logan Gillies) duplicitously presides.
The characters are tetrarchically divided with Renton and Spud (Ewen Bremner/Aiden Haggarty/John Bell) making up one half, Sick Boy and Begbie the other.
Spud is loveable and tragic and incapable of smoothly navigating occupational domains due to years of drug abuse, but Renton is there to help him settle down and remember the sundry positive aspects of life existing beyond narcotic addiction.
Renton and Sick Boy meet in the middle, as mutual love interest Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) hilariously relates in one of the film's many lively observations, but Sick Boy got the bad side of the Schwartz, and is still incorrigibly struggling.
Hence, he is better at grovelling when a local phenom (Bradley Welsh as Doyle) threatens their lives after learning that they plan to open a strip club.
His sleazy misdemeanours make him a better fit for Begbie, who escapes from prison and hides out with his frightened family (like the police wouldn't have looked there [Begbie's relationship with his son is one of the best aspects of T2]), and is just as unemployable as Spud although his joblessness is the product of excessive aggression as opposed to chillin' fireside.
Begbie is wicked, yet when he gets together with Spud a brilliant synthesis cinematically unreels, after the initial terror subsides, and the cold violent horrorshow actually considers something tender.
Like Stalin at a spontaneous unannounced small town parade wittingly kept in line with party guidelines.
Trainspotting 2 struggles early on to reestablish the narrative after so many bygone years, and there were points where I thought it should have been left alone, but, when I sit back to consider the preponderance of insightful claims and witty evaluations afterwards, not to mention its bold calculations and tantalizing cutlass, cutlasses, I have no choice but to admit that my misgivings were premature, and that I did indeed enjoy the film, although I'm not buying the soundtrack this time.
Thoughtful depth is patiently added to the four main characters in a way that aptly reflects the trials they've experienced surviving for the past twenty years.
It's grittier than an everything-worked-out tale and more subdued like middle-age.
Jaded and scorned yet cheerfully torn.
Cynical yet aspiring.
Boyle's still got it.
As do David Lynch and Mark Frost.
The danger of returning 20 odd years later to material which you expertly orchestrated with fertile frenzied finesse in your youth, fans will undoubtedly be expecting equivalent degrees of athletic anguish and bricked portered benzedrine, agonizing adrenaline, hysterical heuristic harkenings, even if they've aged meanwhile, even if the characters have as well.
Godfather III, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Everybody Wants Some!!
Star Wars Episodes I-III.
But the impulse to buck the trend must be overwhelming, to revisit old storylines, to reimagine old characters, and revitalize them alma mater.
T2 Trainspotting starts out on a depressing note.
Renton's (Ewan McGregor/Connor McIndoe/Ben Skelton) inspiring speech from the final moments of T1 hasn't exactly widgeted bourgeois effervescence, and he's downtroddenly returned home to reestablish old friendships.
The bourgeoisie has experienced sincere difficulties for the last twenty years so it isn't surprising that he's had a tough go of it.
Grievances are aired and there's a rapprochement of sorts, although Begbie (Robert Carlyle/Christopher Mullen/Daniel Smith) remains extremely hostile, and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller/James McElvar/Logan Gillies) duplicitously presides.
The characters are tetrarchically divided with Renton and Spud (Ewen Bremner/Aiden Haggarty/John Bell) making up one half, Sick Boy and Begbie the other.
Spud is loveable and tragic and incapable of smoothly navigating occupational domains due to years of drug abuse, but Renton is there to help him settle down and remember the sundry positive aspects of life existing beyond narcotic addiction.
Renton and Sick Boy meet in the middle, as mutual love interest Veronika (Anjela Nedyalkova) hilariously relates in one of the film's many lively observations, but Sick Boy got the bad side of the Schwartz, and is still incorrigibly struggling.
Hence, he is better at grovelling when a local phenom (Bradley Welsh as Doyle) threatens their lives after learning that they plan to open a strip club.
His sleazy misdemeanours make him a better fit for Begbie, who escapes from prison and hides out with his frightened family (like the police wouldn't have looked there [Begbie's relationship with his son is one of the best aspects of T2]), and is just as unemployable as Spud although his joblessness is the product of excessive aggression as opposed to chillin' fireside.
Begbie is wicked, yet when he gets together with Spud a brilliant synthesis cinematically unreels, after the initial terror subsides, and the cold violent horrorshow actually considers something tender.
Like Stalin at a spontaneous unannounced small town parade wittingly kept in line with party guidelines.
Trainspotting 2 struggles early on to reestablish the narrative after so many bygone years, and there were points where I thought it should have been left alone, but, when I sit back to consider the preponderance of insightful claims and witty evaluations afterwards, not to mention its bold calculations and tantalizing cutlass, cutlasses, I have no choice but to admit that my misgivings were premature, and that I did indeed enjoy the film, although I'm not buying the soundtrack this time.
Thoughtful depth is patiently added to the four main characters in a way that aptly reflects the trials they've experienced surviving for the past twenty years.
It's grittier than an everything-worked-out tale and more subdued like middle-age.
Jaded and scorned yet cheerfully torn.
Cynical yet aspiring.
Boyle's still got it.
As do David Lynch and Mark Frost.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Life
Peacefully orbiting the unsuspecting Earth, the International Space Station obliviously welcomes pure malice.
Initially cheerful after having discovered that life in fact exists on Mars, that lifeform's inherent hostility soon transforms celebrations into madness.
Ill-equipped to contain an überadaptive ultra-assimilative foe, after a blunder releases it from its confines, the resilient crew still improvises ingeniously.
But can they prevent it from assaulting the verdant planet below?
Or will Earth suffer Mars's fate, and flounder inertly, eternally barren?
One Life to live.
Why this choice of title?
Perhaps a bleak message lies dormant at the core of Life's construction, for one character, David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), resides upon the space station due to his contempt for contentious and warlike terrestrial tendencies, yet within space he is once again forced to confront them, and in the brilliant ending he is the only one capable of saving what lies beneath.
Thus contention and cooperation remain locked in infinite begrudging dispute, while unconcerned fishermen seek, to set them free.
Or in the heavens there is a constant battle being waged which humble good natured down-home denizens neither comprehend nor wish to entertain.
They're too busy living.
To comprehend this aspect of Life.
*Not bad but Deadpool was crazy better. I understand they required different scripts with different demands, but Deadpool was much more impressive.
And touching.
Initially cheerful after having discovered that life in fact exists on Mars, that lifeform's inherent hostility soon transforms celebrations into madness.
Ill-equipped to contain an überadaptive ultra-assimilative foe, after a blunder releases it from its confines, the resilient crew still improvises ingeniously.
But can they prevent it from assaulting the verdant planet below?
Or will Earth suffer Mars's fate, and flounder inertly, eternally barren?
One Life to live.
Why this choice of title?
Perhaps a bleak message lies dormant at the core of Life's construction, for one character, David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal), resides upon the space station due to his contempt for contentious and warlike terrestrial tendencies, yet within space he is once again forced to confront them, and in the brilliant ending he is the only one capable of saving what lies beneath.
Thus contention and cooperation remain locked in infinite begrudging dispute, while unconcerned fishermen seek, to set them free.
Or in the heavens there is a constant battle being waged which humble good natured down-home denizens neither comprehend nor wish to entertain.
They're too busy living.
To comprehend this aspect of Life.
*Not bad but Deadpool was crazy better. I understand they required different scripts with different demands, but Deadpool was much more impressive.
And touching.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Paterson
Keep your ears open.
Your eyes.
That cat, that pick up, that vroom, that bud.
I didn't see trees covered in ice this winter.
I rhyme too much.
Rhyme provides focus.
Focus indents fusions.
Sometimes it doesn't.
I rhyme too much.
I love rhyming.
I also love poems that don't rhyme.
Proust mentioned that he liked rhyming.
I don't know if he changed his mind.
There's an old thought, an old idea, about auras of authenticity. Rich people used to use this idea to claim that works written by other rich people were authentic because they possessed a sacred aura that legitimized their being. Things were too religious at the time. Poor people realized that they could also make art yet were denied the sacred aura because they didn't know the right things to say or discuss when questioned. Pop culture developed to challenge the lofty realm of the fussy elitist and continues to frustrate purists to this day. Yet people still obsess about auras and the sacred like they're postmodern divinities acculturating themselves to materialistic throes.
It's confusing.
I really don't care.
I like rhyming.
Sometimes I don't like rhyming.
I didn't used to rhyme so much.
But Paterson reminded me of how impacting, how chill cool distant yet immediate poems that don't rhyme can be.
Or poems that kind of rhyme, sort of rhyme here, don't really rhyme there, aren't concerned with rhyming, are just expressing something like upholstery or glades.
Or they are concerned with something that it seems as if they aren't concerned with, like girls.
What a partner. What a character. Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) is one of Jarmusch's best, imagine coming home to someone like that, it's like you'd be living with receptive discursivity, a poem, a book, Paterson (Adam Driver) is also chill, a lot of chill in this film, not too cool, elitist cool, but chill cool, livin' it cool, with a disruptive jealous dog.
Tons of sweet bus shots too, bus moments, cinematography by Frederick Elmes (Eraserhead).
It's hard to write in my favourite spots in Winter.
I tried to see every Abbott and Costello movie in my youth.
They have quite a few.
I didn't see all of them.
I used to have a bus license.
I thought it would have been cool to just show Lou Costello park and not talk about it later.
I'm making a sandwich later.
I bought vegetarian ham this week.
It's not bad.
Your eyes.
That cat, that pick up, that vroom, that bud.
I didn't see trees covered in ice this winter.
I rhyme too much.
Rhyme provides focus.
Focus indents fusions.
Sometimes it doesn't.
I rhyme too much.
I love rhyming.
I also love poems that don't rhyme.
Proust mentioned that he liked rhyming.
I don't know if he changed his mind.
There's an old thought, an old idea, about auras of authenticity. Rich people used to use this idea to claim that works written by other rich people were authentic because they possessed a sacred aura that legitimized their being. Things were too religious at the time. Poor people realized that they could also make art yet were denied the sacred aura because they didn't know the right things to say or discuss when questioned. Pop culture developed to challenge the lofty realm of the fussy elitist and continues to frustrate purists to this day. Yet people still obsess about auras and the sacred like they're postmodern divinities acculturating themselves to materialistic throes.
It's confusing.
I really don't care.
I like rhyming.
Sometimes I don't like rhyming.
I didn't used to rhyme so much.
But Paterson reminded me of how impacting, how chill cool distant yet immediate poems that don't rhyme can be.
Or poems that kind of rhyme, sort of rhyme here, don't really rhyme there, aren't concerned with rhyming, are just expressing something like upholstery or glades.
Or they are concerned with something that it seems as if they aren't concerned with, like girls.
What a partner. What a character. Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) is one of Jarmusch's best, imagine coming home to someone like that, it's like you'd be living with receptive discursivity, a poem, a book, Paterson (Adam Driver) is also chill, a lot of chill in this film, not too cool, elitist cool, but chill cool, livin' it cool, with a disruptive jealous dog.
Tons of sweet bus shots too, bus moments, cinematography by Frederick Elmes (Eraserhead).
It's hard to write in my favourite spots in Winter.
I tried to see every Abbott and Costello movie in my youth.
They have quite a few.
I didn't see all of them.
I used to have a bus license.
I thought it would have been cool to just show Lou Costello park and not talk about it later.
I'm making a sandwich later.
I bought vegetarian ham this week.
It's not bad.
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Goon: Last of the Enforcers
It wasn't until I was much older that I realized there was something odd about fighting in hockey.
I began to slowly notice that other sports enforced much stricter penalties on athletes who decided to fight during a game, and that professional hockey's pugilistic characteristics were often regarded with astonishment by those hailing from far distant lands.
I admitted that, in comparison with football, basketball, baseball, and soccer, (okay, it wasn't until I was much much older that soccer was included in the list), it did seem strange that regularly squaring off during a game was culturally applauded, although, having matured within that very same culture, as a spectator, I found I didn't evaluate this aspect of the game that negatively, and instead tried to teach newcomers words and phrases such as, "bruiser," "goon," "toe to toe," "left hook," and "got knocked/laid the fuck out," in order to encourage their Canadian acculturation.
Some of them were also familiar with boxing, which made me think their transition to Canadian life may indeed be smooth, like learning to skate on a well-groomed ice surface.
Perhaps it was.
If they were still searching for more information concerning Canada's love of hockey fighting, I would certainly recommend Jay Baruchel's Goon: Last of the Enforcers, and also Goon, which I'm afraid I haven't seen.
Goon 2 uncritically captures Canada's love of enforcing the game, and a close study of its combative emphasis can likely assist roosted travellers in finding cozy ways to relate to their newfound Canadian brothers and sisters.
Had Mr. Baruchel known that his film would be functioning as an ambassadorial aid, he may have hired Mike Smith, Rob Wells, and John Paul Tremblay to help out with the script (they recently started writing new Trailer Park Boys seasons themselves and have scripted some of the best TPB episodes yet), which, although funny at times, struggles to generate long-lasting comedic momentum.
It does excel at emphasizing teamwork, family values, commentating, and friendship, absurdity bellicosely bromancing f(l)ights fantastic, but more time and care will be required to shoot Goon 3 into Don't Legalize It territory, not that it wasn't fun to watch, or hilarious at times.
Picnicface could play an opposing team coached by a scandalized Mr. D.
Erica from Being Erica could challenge Doug (Seann William Scott) and Eva's (Alison Pill) relationship by coquettishly introducing herself on the road in Moncton.
Bruce Greenwood could play the doctor with the magical cure.
Fred Ward's not Canadian but he could play a villain of some sort.
It's win win win.
Win win.
Win win.
With recurring curious comments from the recently moved Little Mosque on the Prairie family who at one point run into Ron MacLean in the stands who cheerfully explains everything?
What could function as a better unacknowledged integrational family friendly feature?
Like a grilled cheese for breakfast.
With blueberry crêpes on the side!
I began to slowly notice that other sports enforced much stricter penalties on athletes who decided to fight during a game, and that professional hockey's pugilistic characteristics were often regarded with astonishment by those hailing from far distant lands.
I admitted that, in comparison with football, basketball, baseball, and soccer, (okay, it wasn't until I was much much older that soccer was included in the list), it did seem strange that regularly squaring off during a game was culturally applauded, although, having matured within that very same culture, as a spectator, I found I didn't evaluate this aspect of the game that negatively, and instead tried to teach newcomers words and phrases such as, "bruiser," "goon," "toe to toe," "left hook," and "got knocked/laid the fuck out," in order to encourage their Canadian acculturation.
Some of them were also familiar with boxing, which made me think their transition to Canadian life may indeed be smooth, like learning to skate on a well-groomed ice surface.
Perhaps it was.
If they were still searching for more information concerning Canada's love of hockey fighting, I would certainly recommend Jay Baruchel's Goon: Last of the Enforcers, and also Goon, which I'm afraid I haven't seen.
Goon 2 uncritically captures Canada's love of enforcing the game, and a close study of its combative emphasis can likely assist roosted travellers in finding cozy ways to relate to their newfound Canadian brothers and sisters.
Had Mr. Baruchel known that his film would be functioning as an ambassadorial aid, he may have hired Mike Smith, Rob Wells, and John Paul Tremblay to help out with the script (they recently started writing new Trailer Park Boys seasons themselves and have scripted some of the best TPB episodes yet), which, although funny at times, struggles to generate long-lasting comedic momentum.
It does excel at emphasizing teamwork, family values, commentating, and friendship, absurdity bellicosely bromancing f(l)ights fantastic, but more time and care will be required to shoot Goon 3 into Don't Legalize It territory, not that it wasn't fun to watch, or hilarious at times.
Picnicface could play an opposing team coached by a scandalized Mr. D.
Erica from Being Erica could challenge Doug (Seann William Scott) and Eva's (Alison Pill) relationship by coquettishly introducing herself on the road in Moncton.
Bruce Greenwood could play the doctor with the magical cure.
Fred Ward's not Canadian but he could play a villain of some sort.
It's win win win.
Win win.
Win win.
With recurring curious comments from the recently moved Little Mosque on the Prairie family who at one point run into Ron MacLean in the stands who cheerfully explains everything?
What could function as a better unacknowledged integrational family friendly feature?
Like a grilled cheese for breakfast.
With blueberry crêpes on the side!
Friday, March 24, 2017
Kong: Skull Island
Could it be that islands still exist, prehistorically penetrating legend and myth with unbridled evidenced imposing extant luminosity, persisting undisturbed in majestic unrecorded intransigent galed shadow, a roar, a whisper, more lively and crisper ecosystems biologically invested in atemporal ontological sincerity, harmony, in other words, crépuscule, a delicate balance, a ferocious bottom line, lost in leisure in starlit environs, vigilance required to consummate freedom, at home in the pacific, empirically thine?
I would write that the adventurers weren't ready for their quest if it wasn't for the fact that nothing could have prepared them.
But I suppose the nature of questing demands a forged psychological allegiance between ill-preparation and adaptability, immediacy continuously generating an agile improvised awareness, which is narratively applicable to the epic in hand.
Characters descend on the ancient generally undiscovered home of King Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts's Kong: Skull Island, a chaotic campy realistic yet improbable, and therefore emancipating, energetic exploration of the quaintly forbidden.
Their goal is scientific yet commercial and thus the military's aid is bromantically secured.
Friendship, collegiality, professionalism, and love, populate the script with wild rhythmic versatile denizens, its cosmopolitan lodge fertile if not frenzied, the unfriendly monsters ready to eagerly devour those with too much or not enough innate courage.
Plus random soldiers.
But Kong protects them which trigger-happy Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) cannot comprehend as he attempts to kill him to right misperceived wrongs.
His attempts are obviously pigheaded but they do aptly reflect mad extremist methodologies.
The explorers, military personnel, and scientists, curiously encounter an old pilot from World War II who was forced to make his home on the island as well.
He survived by living with an Indigenous tribe who Kong altruistically protects from voracious giant lizards.
Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly [it's classic John C. Reilly :)]) represents the Indigenous people in the film, stands in for them as they (literally) fade into the background, and Packard refuses to listen to his tooth and nail.
Would the ending not have been more striking, more memorable (alright, Kong's fight with the Lizard King is memorable but the surrounding material isn't so much [okay, they escape on a boat, I'll remember that, but . . .]) if the Indigenous peoples stopped Packard before he tried to kill Kong, and everyone then escaped having understood the logic of their decision?
Such a development would have functioned as a salient metaphorical critique of the Vietnam war which otherwise isn't critically examined.
What I'm trying to say is, it would have rocked if Skull Island went Avatar.
With Kong still fighting the giant Lizard of course.
It's still a lot of fun, the new King Kong movie, and, as a matter of fact, I couldn't help comparing it to Planet Terror and Machete Kills since it unreels with a similar more family friendly aesthetic.
There are moments where it captures the magic that makes those films stand out, but the sequels will have to dig deeper for me to mention their names in the same breath.
Again.
I still recommend the film.
A great March release.
I was worried about March this year.
But so far it ain't so bad.
I would write that the adventurers weren't ready for their quest if it wasn't for the fact that nothing could have prepared them.
But I suppose the nature of questing demands a forged psychological allegiance between ill-preparation and adaptability, immediacy continuously generating an agile improvised awareness, which is narratively applicable to the epic in hand.
Characters descend on the ancient generally undiscovered home of King Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts's Kong: Skull Island, a chaotic campy realistic yet improbable, and therefore emancipating, energetic exploration of the quaintly forbidden.
Their goal is scientific yet commercial and thus the military's aid is bromantically secured.
Friendship, collegiality, professionalism, and love, populate the script with wild rhythmic versatile denizens, its cosmopolitan lodge fertile if not frenzied, the unfriendly monsters ready to eagerly devour those with too much or not enough innate courage.
Plus random soldiers.
But Kong protects them which trigger-happy Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) cannot comprehend as he attempts to kill him to right misperceived wrongs.
His attempts are obviously pigheaded but they do aptly reflect mad extremist methodologies.
The explorers, military personnel, and scientists, curiously encounter an old pilot from World War II who was forced to make his home on the island as well.
He survived by living with an Indigenous tribe who Kong altruistically protects from voracious giant lizards.
Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly [it's classic John C. Reilly :)]) represents the Indigenous people in the film, stands in for them as they (literally) fade into the background, and Packard refuses to listen to his tooth and nail.
Would the ending not have been more striking, more memorable (alright, Kong's fight with the Lizard King is memorable but the surrounding material isn't so much [okay, they escape on a boat, I'll remember that, but . . .]) if the Indigenous peoples stopped Packard before he tried to kill Kong, and everyone then escaped having understood the logic of their decision?
Such a development would have functioned as a salient metaphorical critique of the Vietnam war which otherwise isn't critically examined.
What I'm trying to say is, it would have rocked if Skull Island went Avatar.
With Kong still fighting the giant Lizard of course.
It's still a lot of fun, the new King Kong movie, and, as a matter of fact, I couldn't help comparing it to Planet Terror and Machete Kills since it unreels with a similar more family friendly aesthetic.
There are moments where it captures the magic that makes those films stand out, but the sequels will have to dig deeper for me to mention their names in the same breath.
Again.
I still recommend the film.
A great March release.
I was worried about March this year.
But so far it ain't so bad.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
A United Kingdom
It's bizarre how something as wonderful as two people falling for each other can have so many painful consequences, and how surrounding support networks, which are also supposed to be amorously bound, can suddenly disappear after the declaration, in an appeal to what the slighted individuals oddly refer to as shame.
It seems more shameful to me to cast out a loved one for following their heart and deciding to live with/date/marry . . . the person they hold dear.
People have been writing similar things for millennia because the problem has persisted for millennia and adults often don't consult 5 year-olds for solutions to such matters, even though in such cases the youngsters often possess a much clearer understanding than the mature grown-ups scorned.
In terms of race anyways, unless their parents have corrupted them at an early age.
When Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) engage in Amma Asante's A United Kingdom, and then marry, their contentment is multilaterally assaulted.
The British government is relying on its South African income to stay afloat after World War II , and since Khama is the hereditary heir of what eventually becomes Botswana, the South Africans, who have just enacted apartheid, are enraged by his betrothal to a white woman.
Correspondingly, his family, who have been begrudgingly living for decades under pretentious conservative British rule, sees their marriage as an affront to African dignity, the coddling of the colonizers, and regards their happy union with contempt.
The politics of empire are obviously quite complex, and if an important revenue stream is dammed up, ways will be found to ensure it continues flowing.
Thus, Khama is blocked in his attempt to begin governing his domain as the British cut him off after his uncle (Vusi Kunene as Tshekedi Khama) betrays him.
But democratic appeals to the British and Bechuanan public generate sympathy for the controversial lovers, and a working solution begins to materialize.
A lot of unforeseen trouble for the young couple.
Who steadfastly remains harmoniously united.
A United Kingdom breaks down the best and the worst of sociopolitical matrimonial relations to champion integrity as opposed to bland disgust.
Family friendly yet bold and powerful, it romantically digs deep to forge new ground, celebrating ethical reimaginings of the political, and two tenacious nestlings, who were fortunate enough to fall in love.
It seems more shameful to me to cast out a loved one for following their heart and deciding to live with/date/marry . . . the person they hold dear.
People have been writing similar things for millennia because the problem has persisted for millennia and adults often don't consult 5 year-olds for solutions to such matters, even though in such cases the youngsters often possess a much clearer understanding than the mature grown-ups scorned.
In terms of race anyways, unless their parents have corrupted them at an early age.
When Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) engage in Amma Asante's A United Kingdom, and then marry, their contentment is multilaterally assaulted.
The British government is relying on its South African income to stay afloat after World War II , and since Khama is the hereditary heir of what eventually becomes Botswana, the South Africans, who have just enacted apartheid, are enraged by his betrothal to a white woman.
Correspondingly, his family, who have been begrudgingly living for decades under pretentious conservative British rule, sees their marriage as an affront to African dignity, the coddling of the colonizers, and regards their happy union with contempt.
The politics of empire are obviously quite complex, and if an important revenue stream is dammed up, ways will be found to ensure it continues flowing.
Thus, Khama is blocked in his attempt to begin governing his domain as the British cut him off after his uncle (Vusi Kunene as Tshekedi Khama) betrays him.
But democratic appeals to the British and Bechuanan public generate sympathy for the controversial lovers, and a working solution begins to materialize.
A lot of unforeseen trouble for the young couple.
Who steadfastly remains harmoniously united.
A United Kingdom breaks down the best and the worst of sociopolitical matrimonial relations to champion integrity as opposed to bland disgust.
Family friendly yet bold and powerful, it romantically digs deep to forge new ground, celebrating ethical reimaginings of the political, and two tenacious nestlings, who were fortunate enough to fall in love.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Logan
Fascist forces of dull simplicity have driven mutants to the brink of extinction in James Mangold's Logan, but a few remain, carving out a meagre living while doing everything they can to conceal the beauty that defines their superlative difference.
Rather than cultivating an inclusive public sphere wherein which difference is free to flourish, that difference has been isolated and weaponized by monstrous geneticists intent on rearing invincible super soldiers to achieve militaristic objectives.
But these gifted children fight back, escape, avoid capture, one of them eventually finding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) who have been living off the grid in severe destitution.
She's (Dafne Keen as Laura) hunted of course, intense battles erupting everywhere she goes, the death count extremely high as the trio travels from Mexico to North Dakota in search of a secretive promised land.
And a family.
There's a very tender scene where they all sit down to dinner on a farm and warmly discuss different topics, a rare moment in superhero films that briefly and humbly exemplifies everything they've been fighting for.
They're reminded shortly thereafter that for some insane reason their idle happiness enrages conformist obscurities.
Suffocatingly.
Patrick Stewart delivers a remarkable performance.
He often has a leadership role that doesn't display much vulnerability, but in Logan he's quite helpless and therefore given the opportunity to heartbreakingly act beyond the borders his characters often rivetingly apply themselves within.
An outstanding supporting role.
Logan's like no other X-Men film.
It's much more stylistically concerned with the human factor than special effects or introducing a wild array of compelling new characters.
Identity, community, belonging, loneliness, rage, and bigotry still drive the narrative, but they're examined less explosively, with more realistically tender tenacity (when the fighting stops), as if X-Men films truly are applicable to global sociopolitical debates, debates within which their characters dynamically distinguish themselves.
A fitting salute to Hugh Jackman who has thankfully been bringing Wolverine to life for the past 17 years.
So many irresistible moments.
Only the death of Captain James T. Kirk effected me similarly.
Who knows, maybe huge assholes with tons of power will stop militaristically expressing themselves while crushing other people who aren't like them some day.
That kind of bullshit doesn't seem to fly in the EU much thankfully.
Currently.
Difference really is a wonderful thing.
When it thrives, the scientific, artistic, and religious benefits are extraordinary.
It's why we have cars, electricity.
The internet.
Refrigerators.
If the people who invented or discovered these things had been callously excluded and beaten down throughout their lives we'd still be living in the dark ages.
And those assholes would still be in charge.
Nurturing contempt.
Ruling with imperialist ambitions.
Recklessly waging war.
To satisfy capricious whims.
Rather than cultivating an inclusive public sphere wherein which difference is free to flourish, that difference has been isolated and weaponized by monstrous geneticists intent on rearing invincible super soldiers to achieve militaristic objectives.
But these gifted children fight back, escape, avoid capture, one of them eventually finding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) who have been living off the grid in severe destitution.
She's (Dafne Keen as Laura) hunted of course, intense battles erupting everywhere she goes, the death count extremely high as the trio travels from Mexico to North Dakota in search of a secretive promised land.
And a family.
There's a very tender scene where they all sit down to dinner on a farm and warmly discuss different topics, a rare moment in superhero films that briefly and humbly exemplifies everything they've been fighting for.
They're reminded shortly thereafter that for some insane reason their idle happiness enrages conformist obscurities.
Suffocatingly.
Patrick Stewart delivers a remarkable performance.
He often has a leadership role that doesn't display much vulnerability, but in Logan he's quite helpless and therefore given the opportunity to heartbreakingly act beyond the borders his characters often rivetingly apply themselves within.
An outstanding supporting role.
Logan's like no other X-Men film.
It's much more stylistically concerned with the human factor than special effects or introducing a wild array of compelling new characters.
Identity, community, belonging, loneliness, rage, and bigotry still drive the narrative, but they're examined less explosively, with more realistically tender tenacity (when the fighting stops), as if X-Men films truly are applicable to global sociopolitical debates, debates within which their characters dynamically distinguish themselves.
A fitting salute to Hugh Jackman who has thankfully been bringing Wolverine to life for the past 17 years.
So many irresistible moments.
Only the death of Captain James T. Kirk effected me similarly.
Who knows, maybe huge assholes with tons of power will stop militaristically expressing themselves while crushing other people who aren't like them some day.
That kind of bullshit doesn't seem to fly in the EU much thankfully.
Currently.
Difference really is a wonderful thing.
When it thrives, the scientific, artistic, and religious benefits are extraordinary.
It's why we have cars, electricity.
The internet.
Refrigerators.
If the people who invented or discovered these things had been callously excluded and beaten down throughout their lives we'd still be living in the dark ages.
And those assholes would still be in charge.
Nurturing contempt.
Ruling with imperialist ambitions.
Recklessly waging war.
To satisfy capricious whims.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Angry Inuk
I don't think I could ever kill a seal or a dear or a pig or a cow, but, as mentioned previously, I do eat meat and understand that somewhere down the line the lives of the animals I consume are cut short, that someone else brought their lives to an end, and they may earn their livings by engaging in such activities.
It's different if the species is threatened or endangered, or animal babies are involved, or if people are eating a species with a slow reproductive rate, but husbandry usually doesn't manage species at risk, as far as I know, the inherent cruelty of many aspects of factory farming notwithstanding.
Keep raising your voices and such aspects will change, all you have to do is frustrate a business's bottomline.
Several of the animals I eat are quite cute, however.
They're all quite cute.
I've considered posting pictures of them on my fridge to remind me not to eat them but still haven't gotten around to it.
Man I love steak.
Still, I'm glad there aren't massive industrial entities harvesting seals along with pigs and cows, but if some people in remote areas where there are no alternative economic opportunities want to hunt them, and sell products made from their skin etc., I see no problem with this, since the seals in fact flourish in abundance.
The seal population in Nunavut, for instance, is much higher than that of its human residents, meaning that if such residents want to hunt seals and sell boots and parkas made from their hides afterwards, I can't rationally critique such commerce.
Alethea Arnaqua-Baril's Angry Inuk takes a hard look at the EU's decision to ban the sale of seal products within its domain, and the effects that that decision has had on small communities in Nunavut, Canada.
Before the ban, the communities were earning enough money to support themselves, and people in Europe may not know that a 12 pack of ginger ale can cost as much as $82 North of 60.
After the ban, these communities were still (are still) able to hunt seals for subsistence purposes if they could afford to buy gas for their snow machines, but without markets to sell their seal products, they couldn't afford to do much else, the ban on the import of seal goods having effectively crushed their only economy, and left them dependent on government assistance.
They sustainably harvest a small fraction of the seal population and if allowed to do so can support themselves with dignity and respect.
I therefore support a reversal of the ban.
I find it hard to stomach that the EU props up the veal industry, which is extra revolting, the mass slaughter of baby cows, the systematic mechanized profit based mass slaughter of baby cows many of whom are restrained from birth, and it won't support a handful of Inuit hunters shooting free seals in the wild who have grown to adulthood outside of a cage.
Baffling.
I've heard that centuries ago working people in England desperately wanted to eat meat because the upper classes generally were the only ones who could afford it.
I think that if you transported many of those workers to the 21st century and showed them the unbelievably miserable lives many animals lead in order so that the majority of North Americans and Europeans can eat meat, over a billion deaths weekly according to some sites, they may return to their time(s) lacking their former jealousies.
Or currently, currently send oblivious citizens to a slaughterhouse and have them stay there for a week, invisibly, so they can see how the animals are treated when the workforce thinks no one is looking.
Factory farms can become organic.
It may only raise the cost of a big mac by 35 cents.
Governments could also subsidize the transition.
While subsidizing the cost of food North of 60.
Canada's population North of 60 is around 114, 970.
If the oil and gas industry receives massive government subsidies every year, there must be some money lying around to bring the cost of a 12 pack of ginger ale down to $7 in the far North.
If food costs come down and the Inuit can market seal products again, you've got a thriving aboriginal success story.
That's not only good press.
It's also solid humanity.
Angry Inuk, a must see documentary.
Shame on you Greenpeace.
Shame.
It's different if the species is threatened or endangered, or animal babies are involved, or if people are eating a species with a slow reproductive rate, but husbandry usually doesn't manage species at risk, as far as I know, the inherent cruelty of many aspects of factory farming notwithstanding.
Keep raising your voices and such aspects will change, all you have to do is frustrate a business's bottomline.
Several of the animals I eat are quite cute, however.
They're all quite cute.
I've considered posting pictures of them on my fridge to remind me not to eat them but still haven't gotten around to it.
Man I love steak.
Still, I'm glad there aren't massive industrial entities harvesting seals along with pigs and cows, but if some people in remote areas where there are no alternative economic opportunities want to hunt them, and sell products made from their skin etc., I see no problem with this, since the seals in fact flourish in abundance.
The seal population in Nunavut, for instance, is much higher than that of its human residents, meaning that if such residents want to hunt seals and sell boots and parkas made from their hides afterwards, I can't rationally critique such commerce.
Alethea Arnaqua-Baril's Angry Inuk takes a hard look at the EU's decision to ban the sale of seal products within its domain, and the effects that that decision has had on small communities in Nunavut, Canada.
Before the ban, the communities were earning enough money to support themselves, and people in Europe may not know that a 12 pack of ginger ale can cost as much as $82 North of 60.
After the ban, these communities were still (are still) able to hunt seals for subsistence purposes if they could afford to buy gas for their snow machines, but without markets to sell their seal products, they couldn't afford to do much else, the ban on the import of seal goods having effectively crushed their only economy, and left them dependent on government assistance.
They sustainably harvest a small fraction of the seal population and if allowed to do so can support themselves with dignity and respect.
I therefore support a reversal of the ban.
I find it hard to stomach that the EU props up the veal industry, which is extra revolting, the mass slaughter of baby cows, the systematic mechanized profit based mass slaughter of baby cows many of whom are restrained from birth, and it won't support a handful of Inuit hunters shooting free seals in the wild who have grown to adulthood outside of a cage.
Baffling.
I've heard that centuries ago working people in England desperately wanted to eat meat because the upper classes generally were the only ones who could afford it.
I think that if you transported many of those workers to the 21st century and showed them the unbelievably miserable lives many animals lead in order so that the majority of North Americans and Europeans can eat meat, over a billion deaths weekly according to some sites, they may return to their time(s) lacking their former jealousies.
Or currently, currently send oblivious citizens to a slaughterhouse and have them stay there for a week, invisibly, so they can see how the animals are treated when the workforce thinks no one is looking.
Factory farms can become organic.
It may only raise the cost of a big mac by 35 cents.
Governments could also subsidize the transition.
While subsidizing the cost of food North of 60.
Canada's population North of 60 is around 114, 970.
If the oil and gas industry receives massive government subsidies every year, there must be some money lying around to bring the cost of a 12 pack of ginger ale down to $7 in the far North.
If food costs come down and the Inuit can market seal products again, you've got a thriving aboriginal success story.
That's not only good press.
It's also solid humanity.
Angry Inuk, a must see documentary.
Shame on you Greenpeace.
Shame.
Friday, March 10, 2017
Forushande (The Salesman)
Honourable codes parlay filings frosty, high stress politesse addressed immaterials, expectations, blame, a role, a play, residual sin licentious spaces, jasmine, tremors entrenched repute resounding, a home makeshift explicit riffs callow, advanced notification withheld as fictional and realistic threads intertwine to obscure an artistic commitment, the adoption of a foreign text from a less patriarchal period and country (?) expressing thoughts and desires strictly forbidden, blended with alternative signs of subterranean dissatisfaction to question free thought as if it's a supernatural challenge, as if the artist is being challenged by God, a progressive man on the Iranian scene must internally confront strength, shock, and shame, obsessive disdain, turmoil exhaustively cultivated.
His wife's willing to forgive.
Emad (Shahab Hosseini) spends so much time thinking vengeful thoughts that he overlooks Rana's (Taraneh Alidoosti) suffering as rage slowly consumes him.
She was the victim, she was the one who was attacked, but throughout Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman Emad is more concerned with personal honour.
He critiques the system within which he was nurtured but is still a product of that system and when the real clashes with his noble imagination the sublime does not judiciously compensate.
Women shortsightedly relegated to a subservient role.
The salesperson interrogates to enlighten yet struggles as he surfaces.
The film brilliantly examines his tortured soul, but is also a product of its circumstances, and focuses far less time on the feminine.
A purgatorial predicament.
Igniting bitter flames.
His wife's willing to forgive.
Emad (Shahab Hosseini) spends so much time thinking vengeful thoughts that he overlooks Rana's (Taraneh Alidoosti) suffering as rage slowly consumes him.
She was the victim, she was the one who was attacked, but throughout Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman Emad is more concerned with personal honour.
He critiques the system within which he was nurtured but is still a product of that system and when the real clashes with his noble imagination the sublime does not judiciously compensate.
Women shortsightedly relegated to a subservient role.
The salesperson interrogates to enlighten yet struggles as he surfaces.
The film brilliantly examines his tortured soul, but is also a product of its circumstances, and focuses far less time on the feminine.
A purgatorial predicament.
Igniting bitter flames.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove)
A routine lifetime, sturdy crystalline productive disciplined rigour, shocks and surges and synergies refreshed and reconstituted, dis/ingenuous gravitas, im/pertinent shallows, crises, crucibles, cubicles, companionship, curmudgeony coca, grumpy old bear, shattered inveterate disrepair, friendly yet fiendish, stubborn yet understanding, a bleeding heart with no tolerance for stupidity, a prognostic paradigm, tired of living alone.
An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.
Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.
In search of aid.
Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?
To unburden.
I should have just called him an aging romantic.
Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.
Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.
From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.
Captivatingly so.
There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.
According to Ove's incisive summaries.
But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.
I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.
Sort of like hot chocolate.
Points to make, style to consider.
Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.
Occasionally expressing road rage.
An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.
Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.
In search of aid.
Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?
To unburden.
I should have just called him an aging romantic.
Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.
Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.
From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.
Captivatingly so.
There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.
According to Ove's incisive summaries.
But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.
I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.
Sort of like hot chocolate.
Points to make, style to consider.
Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.
Occasionally expressing road rage.
Friday, March 3, 2017
Toni Erdmann
The unexpected smile, the medium coffee spontaneously upgraded, surprise Thai food, microbrasserie du Lac St-Jean, discourses of extemporaneity startling and surprising with lighthearted charm and velvety enchantment, extracurricular cuddles, subtlety delicately embraced, yet it doesn't have to be so cozy, so huggable, the art of introducing mild-mannered bizarre yet keenly shocking escapades to a routine having been disruptively cultivated by a few, mischievously mutating manifestations genuinely juggling various psychologies in sundry situations to produce desired wtfs?, perfecting their grasp over a lifetime, to pluck up and stack anew.
Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann addresses such potential by placing a loveable creative comic within a corporate crucible, his goal, to cheer up his successful yet sad daughter, who's living the high life yet shovelling the coal.
She's none too impressed, but dad (Peter Simonischek) keeps showing back up equipped with alternative personality.
She can't deny that he's funny.
Nor that he radiates goodwill.
But it's not really a comedic film, not really a drama either, Toni Erdmann's more like a brilliant presentation of the seriously awkward which patiently and articulately synthesizes different lifestyles to hilariously and sensibly simplify choice.
Films that are almost three hours long which cleverly clasp your attention the whole way through are a rare treat, especially ones which realistically examine so many different aspects of the human predicament without directly moralizing, judiciously justifying scenario after scenario instead which simultaneously intensify while lightening lives lost and lounging.
Material taken on the road.
There's a chill extended shot which builds Erdmann's character early on. He's sitting next to an elegant stone wall which resembles aspects of a wild ocean that's been thoughtfully tamed.
Throughout the film he playfully interjects harmless doses of character to sharply strung financially volatile vectors, character which appears wild at first, but he does so with such well-timed respectful controlled im/precision that nothing ever wantonly swerves out of control.
Chaotic stability critically conditioned.
The script reflexively blends hierarchical configurations with nimble finesse and stressed out soul.
The last 25 minutes are so freakin' good.
Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann addresses such potential by placing a loveable creative comic within a corporate crucible, his goal, to cheer up his successful yet sad daughter, who's living the high life yet shovelling the coal.
She's none too impressed, but dad (Peter Simonischek) keeps showing back up equipped with alternative personality.
She can't deny that he's funny.
Nor that he radiates goodwill.
But it's not really a comedic film, not really a drama either, Toni Erdmann's more like a brilliant presentation of the seriously awkward which patiently and articulately synthesizes different lifestyles to hilariously and sensibly simplify choice.
Films that are almost three hours long which cleverly clasp your attention the whole way through are a rare treat, especially ones which realistically examine so many different aspects of the human predicament without directly moralizing, judiciously justifying scenario after scenario instead which simultaneously intensify while lightening lives lost and lounging.
Material taken on the road.
There's a chill extended shot which builds Erdmann's character early on. He's sitting next to an elegant stone wall which resembles aspects of a wild ocean that's been thoughtfully tamed.
Throughout the film he playfully interjects harmless doses of character to sharply strung financially volatile vectors, character which appears wild at first, but he does so with such well-timed respectful controlled im/precision that nothing ever wantonly swerves out of control.
Chaotic stability critically conditioned.
The script reflexively blends hierarchical configurations with nimble finesse and stressed out soul.
The last 25 minutes are so freakin' good.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Monster Trucks
Prudent planning can effectively ensure that environmental economics create jobs for adventurous workers while collaboratively caring for diverse ecosystems.
The plans can't be drawn up as quickly, and the people potentially living on the sought after lands have to be consulted, compensated, but since these projects often create billions in revenue, is it really that shortsighted to spend an extra 120 million?
It's like cleaning your house.
I don't like living in filth so I regularly sweep up and do the dishes.
Doing these chores helps me to avoid illness plus I don't stain my socks just by stepping on the floor.
It's win win.
The environment's like a massive house, some would argue it's God's house, God's country, and leaving behind toxic pools and/or terrain supersaturated with oil upon which nothing can live turns that verdant mansion into a disgraceful unkempt sofa you'd find at the dump, not at the cool free section of the dump where good natured citizens drop off used furniture, the dumpy section of the dump, i.e, the dump.
It's basic health and sanitation.
Sure, profits rock, but living in harmony with nature's what profit's all about, the environment's undeniably a priceless gift that has gingerly inspired people for countless generations and recklessly compromising its ancient integrity to make a quick buck foolishly belittles the daunting majesty that illustriously defines it.
Think I'm being foolish?
Think again.
Imagine New Brunswick's population increased to 17 million.
There are around 17 million people currently living in the Netherlands according to Siri, a country similar in size to NB.
Currently, if you live in New Brunswick, it's easy to spend time alone in the countryside because there aren't that many people living there compared to Holland and space is relatively abundant.
So I'm told.
(No one has told me that).
Increase its population by 16.25 million and that abundant space becomes precious as it decreases, and sustainably maintaining what's left becomes even more intuitively paramount.
I'm sure with the additional people it would still be just as beautiful.
But that's a much larger mass to deal with.
In Chris Wedge's Monster Trucks, a new species is discovered after greedy Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) digs too deep in search of even more wealth.
His monstrous avarice accidentally relocates actual (loveable) monsters who live within those depths and curiously resemble giant bulbous octopi.
Fortunately, gentle yet tough young Tripp (Lucas Till), who's having difficulty getting along with step-father Rick (Sheriff Rick) (Barry Pepper) and doesn't seem to notice that Meredith (Jane Levy) likes him, finds one of the beasties and affectionately names him "Creech."
Before long, a team is assembled, including a reluctantly brave scientist (Thomas Lennon as Jim Dowd) with a guilty conscious, and they're off to save Creech and his kind from the development which would lay their subterranean realm waste.
Their quasi-exobiological ecosystem.
Don't forget Danny Glover (Mr. Weathers).
It's family fun that makes great viewing after an extended hike, or rides on the métro and bus, environmentally aware without any mercantile misgivings, in bold, it cleans up its mess, while metaphorically promoting markets for biofuels.
Mass markets for said fuels can become realities if there's enough consumer demand.
Make some environmentally friendly automobiles and trucks that cost under $30,000 and run on alternative energy sources and that demand may materialize.
It would help clean up the air we breathe.
And make a huge difference, here on homestead planet Earth.
Likely below ground as well.
Loved this film.
The plans can't be drawn up as quickly, and the people potentially living on the sought after lands have to be consulted, compensated, but since these projects often create billions in revenue, is it really that shortsighted to spend an extra 120 million?
It's like cleaning your house.
I don't like living in filth so I regularly sweep up and do the dishes.
Doing these chores helps me to avoid illness plus I don't stain my socks just by stepping on the floor.
It's win win.
The environment's like a massive house, some would argue it's God's house, God's country, and leaving behind toxic pools and/or terrain supersaturated with oil upon which nothing can live turns that verdant mansion into a disgraceful unkempt sofa you'd find at the dump, not at the cool free section of the dump where good natured citizens drop off used furniture, the dumpy section of the dump, i.e, the dump.
It's basic health and sanitation.
Sure, profits rock, but living in harmony with nature's what profit's all about, the environment's undeniably a priceless gift that has gingerly inspired people for countless generations and recklessly compromising its ancient integrity to make a quick buck foolishly belittles the daunting majesty that illustriously defines it.
Think I'm being foolish?
Think again.
Imagine New Brunswick's population increased to 17 million.
There are around 17 million people currently living in the Netherlands according to Siri, a country similar in size to NB.
Currently, if you live in New Brunswick, it's easy to spend time alone in the countryside because there aren't that many people living there compared to Holland and space is relatively abundant.
So I'm told.
(No one has told me that).
Increase its population by 16.25 million and that abundant space becomes precious as it decreases, and sustainably maintaining what's left becomes even more intuitively paramount.
I'm sure with the additional people it would still be just as beautiful.
But that's a much larger mass to deal with.
In Chris Wedge's Monster Trucks, a new species is discovered after greedy Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) digs too deep in search of even more wealth.
His monstrous avarice accidentally relocates actual (loveable) monsters who live within those depths and curiously resemble giant bulbous octopi.
Fortunately, gentle yet tough young Tripp (Lucas Till), who's having difficulty getting along with step-father Rick (Sheriff Rick) (Barry Pepper) and doesn't seem to notice that Meredith (Jane Levy) likes him, finds one of the beasties and affectionately names him "Creech."
Before long, a team is assembled, including a reluctantly brave scientist (Thomas Lennon as Jim Dowd) with a guilty conscious, and they're off to save Creech and his kind from the development which would lay their subterranean realm waste.
Their quasi-exobiological ecosystem.
Don't forget Danny Glover (Mr. Weathers).
It's family fun that makes great viewing after an extended hike, or rides on the métro and bus, environmentally aware without any mercantile misgivings, in bold, it cleans up its mess, while metaphorically promoting markets for biofuels.
Mass markets for said fuels can become realities if there's enough consumer demand.
Make some environmentally friendly automobiles and trucks that cost under $30,000 and run on alternative energy sources and that demand may materialize.
It would help clean up the air we breathe.
And make a huge difference, here on homestead planet Earth.
Likely below ground as well.
Loved this film.
Friday, February 24, 2017
La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle)
Adrift unwilling splash immersion.
Unsettled erupting micromissive.
Beached a slumber fitfully sprained.
Awash.
Excursions verdant fruitful splendour.
Swirling marine exposure.
Rebirth. Escape. Dispatch.
Awash.
Repeat, then driven, driven wild, an uncharacteristic fusion steeped in visions manifold inflects unexpected leisure, immaculate pleasures deeply unfolding lifelong treasured dreams canopied, mystiqued, indiscreet wide-open vast panoramic environs, steady shimmering shifting surging intensities, furlong density, expansive imaginative sprite.
Bold red turtle, transformative undefined enigmatic variations, eternal interventions in matters emergentally sound, forever traversing labyrinthine realms, poetically sacrificing as life creeds incarnate.
La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle) patiently and passively pulls you into its mature yet childlike embrace with cozy caresses and blanketed calm.
A truly relaxing way to spend some time lost in ageless wonder, it's as sensitive as it is surprising, emotional yet cerebrally thine.
Loved the crabs.
Unsettled erupting micromissive.
Beached a slumber fitfully sprained.
Awash.
Excursions verdant fruitful splendour.
Swirling marine exposure.
Rebirth. Escape. Dispatch.
Awash.
Repeat, then driven, driven wild, an uncharacteristic fusion steeped in visions manifold inflects unexpected leisure, immaculate pleasures deeply unfolding lifelong treasured dreams canopied, mystiqued, indiscreet wide-open vast panoramic environs, steady shimmering shifting surging intensities, furlong density, expansive imaginative sprite.
Bold red turtle, transformative undefined enigmatic variations, eternal interventions in matters emergentally sound, forever traversing labyrinthine realms, poetically sacrificing as life creeds incarnate.
La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle) patiently and passively pulls you into its mature yet childlike embrace with cozy caresses and blanketed calm.
A truly relaxing way to spend some time lost in ageless wonder, it's as sensitive as it is surprising, emotional yet cerebrally thine.
Loved the crabs.
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Julieta
Clandestine cordial crests revisiting past traumatic emotionally eviscerating relations, quotidian delineations, condemnations, obfuscations, a literary protocol perspicaciously pinpointing buoys and beacons and estuaries and islets, in revelation, orchestration, a confession, contemporary embraces confused by the disappearance, the sudden creative seclusion, infused with relapsed resuscitated cursive, gently and gingerly discovering clarifications whose lucidity exponentially envisions myriad alternative past contingencies, a roll call, a characterized crucible oceanically encapsulated, answers which question themselves, which everlastingly ensure, that their author never simply asks why?
The details of a former life haunt a convalescing classics expert (Emma Suárez as Julieta) after an unexpected encounter bears mythological witness.
Pedro Almodóvar makes a film based on the writings of Alice Munro.
Could there be a more tantalizing artistic synthesis?
I haven't read Ms. Munro for years (a mistake) but I loved reading her short stories in my twenties.
From what I remember, they often modestly yet incisively examined themes that might have seemed too light if they hadn't been treated with such soberly mischievous assured congeniality, like reading an unconcerned humble playful virtuoso, visiting a store in a small town that has that Amélie item for which you've been unconsciously searching for an unspecified period, or spending time with thoughtful friends who haven't turned bitterly sarcastic.
Her stories also stood out because they consistently contained memorable realistic conclusions, valuable advice that actually made you stop and think, that taught you how the world works without destroying or vitriolically critiquing something.
Like a mom.
I was worried Julieta wouldn't narrativize along these lines but was pleasantly surprised with the results.
A kind, sympathetic, bold yet hesitant film, it articulately pulls you into its struggles without preaching or pontificating about sleuths right and wrong.
Delicate strength.
With a stunning closing image that made me want to visit the Spanish countryside (cinematography by Jean-Claude Larrieu [Carrieu]).
I wonder what Jeff Nichols, Steve McQueen or Derek Cianfrance would create from Alice Munro's texts?
That would be cool if they became a bucolic rite of filmic passage.
The details of a former life haunt a convalescing classics expert (Emma Suárez as Julieta) after an unexpected encounter bears mythological witness.
Pedro Almodóvar makes a film based on the writings of Alice Munro.
Could there be a more tantalizing artistic synthesis?
I haven't read Ms. Munro for years (a mistake) but I loved reading her short stories in my twenties.
From what I remember, they often modestly yet incisively examined themes that might have seemed too light if they hadn't been treated with such soberly mischievous assured congeniality, like reading an unconcerned humble playful virtuoso, visiting a store in a small town that has that Amélie item for which you've been unconsciously searching for an unspecified period, or spending time with thoughtful friends who haven't turned bitterly sarcastic.
Her stories also stood out because they consistently contained memorable realistic conclusions, valuable advice that actually made you stop and think, that taught you how the world works without destroying or vitriolically critiquing something.
Like a mom.
I was worried Julieta wouldn't narrativize along these lines but was pleasantly surprised with the results.
A kind, sympathetic, bold yet hesitant film, it articulately pulls you into its struggles without preaching or pontificating about sleuths right and wrong.
Delicate strength.
With a stunning closing image that made me want to visit the Spanish countryside (cinematography by Jean-Claude Larrieu [Carrieu]).
I wonder what Jeff Nichols, Steve McQueen or Derek Cianfrance would create from Alice Munro's texts?
That would be cool if they became a bucolic rite of filmic passage.
Friday, February 17, 2017
Fences
Friendship, family, filaments and filibusters, Denzel Washington's Fences (based upon the play by August Wilson) encloses dreams and protests and confrontations within a patriarchal shard, not that there isn't a willingness to entertain, as long as his fam remembers who's regally legion.
Potatoes and lard.
He's sacrificed a lot to responsibly take care of things, but his personal experience blinds him to the realities facing his youngest son (Jovan Adepo as Cory), who has a shot at playing professional football, even if dad had to spend his career on the sidelines (baseball).
The answer lies within the stories he dramatically tells, stories which enthusiastically explain how the United States changed over the course of the last 40 years (the film's set in the 1950s), meaning that if America's current composition is resoundingly different from that within which he wildly grew up, the tough lessons he learned through his trials may no longer directly apply to his son's struggles, a son who may therefore have opportunities that were cruelly denied him.
He can't understand the new, he can't comprehend change.
He's hard on his wife Rose (Viola Davis) as well, delivering a devastating blow just as their lives start to become less burdensome.
No settling into old age.
No moving on to greener pastures.
It's not as sad as all that when you listen to him telling his tales, nevertheless, when you watch as he multidimensionally exhales fiction, reverie, and fact.
Denzel (Troy) delivers a brilliant performance full of love, contempt, joy, confusion, understanding, obstinacy, fear, and courage, if you ever wondered why he's been so successful for the last thirty years, Fences offers distinct evidence, as Washington proves that he's far beyond playing typecast roles, that he can indeed competently display intricate multilateral e/motions.
While playing a regular guy.
Viola Davis excels as well.
The film's reminiscent of adaptations of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee plays, an expansive, caring, sophisticated, realistically controversial examination of real people living hard lives, who aren't afraid to share extended thoughts and commentaries.
Lives being lived, power struggles crisp and bold.
Brief moments of tantalizing largesse.
Rustling through rhythms.
Struggles struck and starchy.
Electric portions.
Potatoes and lard.
He's sacrificed a lot to responsibly take care of things, but his personal experience blinds him to the realities facing his youngest son (Jovan Adepo as Cory), who has a shot at playing professional football, even if dad had to spend his career on the sidelines (baseball).
The answer lies within the stories he dramatically tells, stories which enthusiastically explain how the United States changed over the course of the last 40 years (the film's set in the 1950s), meaning that if America's current composition is resoundingly different from that within which he wildly grew up, the tough lessons he learned through his trials may no longer directly apply to his son's struggles, a son who may therefore have opportunities that were cruelly denied him.
He can't understand the new, he can't comprehend change.
He's hard on his wife Rose (Viola Davis) as well, delivering a devastating blow just as their lives start to become less burdensome.
No settling into old age.
No moving on to greener pastures.
It's not as sad as all that when you listen to him telling his tales, nevertheless, when you watch as he multidimensionally exhales fiction, reverie, and fact.
Denzel (Troy) delivers a brilliant performance full of love, contempt, joy, confusion, understanding, obstinacy, fear, and courage, if you ever wondered why he's been so successful for the last thirty years, Fences offers distinct evidence, as Washington proves that he's far beyond playing typecast roles, that he can indeed competently display intricate multilateral e/motions.
While playing a regular guy.
Viola Davis excels as well.
The film's reminiscent of adaptations of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee plays, an expansive, caring, sophisticated, realistically controversial examination of real people living hard lives, who aren't afraid to share extended thoughts and commentaries.
Lives being lived, power struggles crisp and bold.
Brief moments of tantalizing largesse.
Rustling through rhythms.
Struggles struck and starchy.
Electric portions.
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Passengers
A shocking revelation suddenly shatters a crystalline credulity with excessive reactive disillusionment.
Their relationship was advancing quite well.
The ethical dilemma causes grief-stricken Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) sincere concern for months, the internal debate despondently intensifying his loneliness, his robotic companion (Michael Sheen as Arthur) unable to supply compatible warmth, as their massive craft continues thrusting through space.
With almost one-hundred years until it reaches its destination.
"She's so beautiful, lying there, undisturbed, at rest, at peace, what a comfort it would be if she were to wake, she would one day undoubtably forgive me."
Expressing contempt along the way.
While creating an interstellar Eden.
When the rest of the voyagers woke-up decades later, it must have seemed quite incredible, a wild romantic story to found their new colony's literary tradition, slowly transforming into myth over the centuries.
Cardamom.
Morten Tyldum's Passengers succumbs to overcome love's enmity everlasting.
A tortured soul redeemed through a courageous act which generates mercy as a matter of bold reckoning.
Ways are found to keep things moving as the dangers of a small cast taking up all the screentime are creatively confronted.
Oddly seeming like an oblivious arranged marriage or a clever reimagining of Michael Gottlieb's Mannequin, Gottlieb doesn't show up in spellcheck?, Passengers still excels at justifying its misgivings, while mischievously encouraging luscious tactile growth.
Entropically inclined.
'Til loves saves civilization.
Love the comments it makes about the discrepancies between first and second class tickets, the second class passenger undeniably integral to the vessel's survival.
Their relationship was advancing quite well.
The ethical dilemma causes grief-stricken Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) sincere concern for months, the internal debate despondently intensifying his loneliness, his robotic companion (Michael Sheen as Arthur) unable to supply compatible warmth, as their massive craft continues thrusting through space.
With almost one-hundred years until it reaches its destination.
"She's so beautiful, lying there, undisturbed, at rest, at peace, what a comfort it would be if she were to wake, she would one day undoubtably forgive me."
Expressing contempt along the way.
While creating an interstellar Eden.
When the rest of the voyagers woke-up decades later, it must have seemed quite incredible, a wild romantic story to found their new colony's literary tradition, slowly transforming into myth over the centuries.
Cardamom.
Morten Tyldum's Passengers succumbs to overcome love's enmity everlasting.
A tortured soul redeemed through a courageous act which generates mercy as a matter of bold reckoning.
Ways are found to keep things moving as the dangers of a small cast taking up all the screentime are creatively confronted.
Oddly seeming like an oblivious arranged marriage or a clever reimagining of Michael Gottlieb's Mannequin, Gottlieb doesn't show up in spellcheck?, Passengers still excels at justifying its misgivings, while mischievously encouraging luscious tactile growth.
Entropically inclined.
'Til loves saves civilization.
Love the comments it makes about the discrepancies between first and second class tickets, the second class passenger undeniably integral to the vessel's survival.
Friday, February 10, 2017
Hacksaw Ridge
The subject matter presented in Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge makes it difficult to critique the film, which presents an incredible account of an extremely brave unique complicated conscientious objector who formidably served his country during World War II.
Without ever handling a weapon.
In fact, he's one of a small group of soldiers who have received the American Medal of Honour over the years for exceptionally defining undeniable heroism.
He's the only conscientious objector to have received it.
The film follows him from rural upbringing to painful basic training lumps to terrorizing combat zones while patiently crafting a resilient character unyieldingly dedicated to non-violent principles.
His acts are inspiring and noteworthy and it's surprising that they haven't been commercially disseminated until now.
One Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Hacksaw Ridge succeeds at simplistically creating a multileveled accessible innocent narrative which ethically yet practically blends individual rights with communal commitments to curiously juxtapose the stubbornly naive and the obliviously stern.
It leads the pack in terms of mainstream domestic American war films released in 2016.
But a best picture nomination? A best director nomination?
Outrageous.
Let's take a brief look at a list of war films that Hacksaw Ridge hopelessly fails to live up to: The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Patton, The Thin Red Line, Anthropoid, Inglourious Basterds, Come and See, The Killing Fields, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, MASH, The Terminator, Phoenix, Schindler's List.
Favourable arguments aside, the true story is, that if this film wasn't about one of the most courageous Americans to have ever lived, Mel Gibson's even more of a laughing stock than he was after he released The Patriot.
Sylvester Stallone and Robert Rodriguez like to make guys-guys films too but at moments they also share extremely touching heartbreakingly sensitive artistic observations that soulfully, tenderly, and masterfully break it down.
Without the built-in emotions related to militaristic combat.
It still could happen someday with Gibson.
He's obviously been redeemed.
Plenty of more time for success.
Without ever handling a weapon.
In fact, he's one of a small group of soldiers who have received the American Medal of Honour over the years for exceptionally defining undeniable heroism.
He's the only conscientious objector to have received it.
The film follows him from rural upbringing to painful basic training lumps to terrorizing combat zones while patiently crafting a resilient character unyieldingly dedicated to non-violent principles.
His acts are inspiring and noteworthy and it's surprising that they haven't been commercially disseminated until now.
One Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), of Lynchburg, Virginia.
Hacksaw Ridge succeeds at simplistically creating a multileveled accessible innocent narrative which ethically yet practically blends individual rights with communal commitments to curiously juxtapose the stubbornly naive and the obliviously stern.
It leads the pack in terms of mainstream domestic American war films released in 2016.
But a best picture nomination? A best director nomination?
Outrageous.
Let's take a brief look at a list of war films that Hacksaw Ridge hopelessly fails to live up to: The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Patton, The Thin Red Line, Anthropoid, Inglourious Basterds, Come and See, The Killing Fields, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, MASH, The Terminator, Phoenix, Schindler's List.
Favourable arguments aside, the true story is, that if this film wasn't about one of the most courageous Americans to have ever lived, Mel Gibson's even more of a laughing stock than he was after he released The Patriot.
Sylvester Stallone and Robert Rodriguez like to make guys-guys films too but at moments they also share extremely touching heartbreakingly sensitive artistic observations that soulfully, tenderly, and masterfully break it down.
Without the built-in emotions related to militaristic combat.
It still could happen someday with Gibson.
He's obviously been redeemed.
Plenty of more time for success.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
Live by Night
Ben Affleck's Live by Night could have been could have been could have been.
It champions multicultural reflexivity as opposed to rigid dictations as its extremely honourable Irish gangster hero Joe Coughlin (Affleck) makes the right moves to sanctify in sacrifice.
Teamwork is essentially adorned with crucial combative exteriorized comeuppances as partner Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) provides extrajudicial reckoning.
Idyllic forbidden rapturous love bountifully blossoms in different contexts while Joe comes to terms with his unheralded prestige.
A real-world high-level inevitability permeates each action but isn't enough to prevent thought from rationally entreating.
From using honest North American know-how to level-out the playing field.
There's just one problem.
It's too perfect.
All of its calculations and conversations are just plain-old too noble, too wonderful, everything works out too well, it's far too comfortable for a gangster film.
Some loose ends, please.
Instead of feeling worried or anxious or fearful or nervous I just felt complacent, there's no suspense, it was like I was watching a bright mathematician prove a trigonometric identity, or checking out reruns of a favourite dark family friendly show.
Live by Night explains why the term hardboiled was applied to books by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, or indirectly to films by John Huston or Howard Hawks.
Without the hardboiled aspect, you wind up with Live by Night.
Which I may have loved in my youth.
But couldn't get into mid-life.
It champions multicultural reflexivity as opposed to rigid dictations as its extremely honourable Irish gangster hero Joe Coughlin (Affleck) makes the right moves to sanctify in sacrifice.
Teamwork is essentially adorned with crucial combative exteriorized comeuppances as partner Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) provides extrajudicial reckoning.
Idyllic forbidden rapturous love bountifully blossoms in different contexts while Joe comes to terms with his unheralded prestige.
A real-world high-level inevitability permeates each action but isn't enough to prevent thought from rationally entreating.
From using honest North American know-how to level-out the playing field.
There's just one problem.
It's too perfect.
All of its calculations and conversations are just plain-old too noble, too wonderful, everything works out too well, it's far too comfortable for a gangster film.
Some loose ends, please.
Instead of feeling worried or anxious or fearful or nervous I just felt complacent, there's no suspense, it was like I was watching a bright mathematician prove a trigonometric identity, or checking out reruns of a favourite dark family friendly show.
Live by Night explains why the term hardboiled was applied to books by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, or indirectly to films by John Huston or Howard Hawks.
Without the hardboiled aspect, you wind up with Live by Night.
Which I may have loved in my youth.
But couldn't get into mid-life.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Lion
Lion tenderly applies a limitless open-armed robustly supple characterization to family by plucking two children from a labyrinthine abyss, and gently ensconcing them within the logical wild.
Cohesive collocation.
Improbability abounds at the heart of this familial bloom, which literally represents the realization of a dream, of a belief, of a mother and father seeking to viscerally inscribe a humble message on the optical bedrock of vision, the odds against little Saroo (Dev Patel/Sunny Pawar) ever finding a safe home having been astronomically high, after he fell asleep on a train in rural Northern India, and woke to find himself hundreds of kilometres from home.
Long before the reliability of Google Maps.
Memories of his lost family haunt him in Tasmania, however, and as he seeks not to cause his adoptive mother (Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley) any distress by keeping his thoughts to himself, he winds up causing her more pain due to his inexplicable self-imposed isolation.
She opens-up to him in an incredible revelation.
What a performance.
Lion excels at internationalizing instincts warm and dear, complicating them through the art of imagining, strengthening them by nurturing responsibilities.
It covers a lot of temporal space which reduces complex relationships to stock familiarizations, apart from Saroo's illuminating conversations with mom, the impact of one scene alone transporting the film to another dimension.
The desperation Saroo feels after finding himself alone in Calcutta is also captured well, perhaps the film could have used another 30 minutes to ensure this refined sensitivity proliferated throughout.
With additional scenes showing the family growing and flourishing dis/harmoniously as one.
Still, a great film with a wonderful ending, beautifully, if not too rapidly, expanding upon convivial conjugal conceptions, thereby globally validating the local, while stabilizing wholesome fantasies in stride.
Cohesive collocation.
Improbability abounds at the heart of this familial bloom, which literally represents the realization of a dream, of a belief, of a mother and father seeking to viscerally inscribe a humble message on the optical bedrock of vision, the odds against little Saroo (Dev Patel/Sunny Pawar) ever finding a safe home having been astronomically high, after he fell asleep on a train in rural Northern India, and woke to find himself hundreds of kilometres from home.
Long before the reliability of Google Maps.
Memories of his lost family haunt him in Tasmania, however, and as he seeks not to cause his adoptive mother (Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley) any distress by keeping his thoughts to himself, he winds up causing her more pain due to his inexplicable self-imposed isolation.
She opens-up to him in an incredible revelation.
What a performance.
Lion excels at internationalizing instincts warm and dear, complicating them through the art of imagining, strengthening them by nurturing responsibilities.
It covers a lot of temporal space which reduces complex relationships to stock familiarizations, apart from Saroo's illuminating conversations with mom, the impact of one scene alone transporting the film to another dimension.
The desperation Saroo feels after finding himself alone in Calcutta is also captured well, perhaps the film could have used another 30 minutes to ensure this refined sensitivity proliferated throughout.
With additional scenes showing the family growing and flourishing dis/harmoniously as one.
Still, a great film with a wonderful ending, beautifully, if not too rapidly, expanding upon convivial conjugal conceptions, thereby globally validating the local, while stabilizing wholesome fantasies in stride.
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