A husband and wife, conscientious citizens who watched in silent horror as their culture madly lit jingoistic imperialist flames, once more, as their neighbours and compatriots became communally intoxicated with the blind xenophobic ambition of institutionalized megalomania (Trump?), politically isolated yet industrially integrated, morosely aware of the overwhelming tyrannical dogmas that have consumed their beloved Germany, quietly protest by writing critiques of Hitler's government on postcards and leaving them in public places throughout Nazi Berlin, their messages blunt and to the point, boldly castigating a movement that reduced their country to ash.
Long past the age when passionate inexperience habitually motivates romantic rebellious protest, for those lacking inexhaustible wealth, their logical engagement soberly revitalizes their youthful commitment, tenderly captured by director Vincent Perez with tender aged compassion.
A civil bureaucracy (a police force) believing it can independently operate outside Nazi jurisdiction is assigned their case, the intelligent objective inspector soon castrated by totalitarianism.
Individualized governments require general violence to rule.
General violence inherently encourages revolution.
Until such a time as cooler heads prevail.
And different cultures forge diverse unions.
Alone in Berlin modestly visualizes proactive labour in action, as it takes social democratic steps to subvert authoritarian cruelty, using intellect to promote sustainable security as opposed to sensationalized sanity (fascist psychiatry), capturing active conjugal middle-aged bliss meanwhile, as well as constabulary sympathy and inspired materialism.
If that scene didn't break your heart you've stiffened your lip too rigidly.
I wonder if the film would have been stronger if other protestors from Berlin had played secondary roles, the Quangels (Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson) still isolated but part of a bigger picture?
It's a very patient film that excels at slowly and soberly building tension and character (note how the wedded dialogue becomes lengthier as the film unreels), however, in order to reflect realistic independent engagement, a simplified upright form harmoniously working with diverse mature content, lessening its multilateral impact to focus its robust character.
Too many distractions may have spoiled it.
Light yet hard and penetrating, it humbly captures aspects of resistance that many more complicated narratives fail to realize.
Sincere.
Friday, November 3, 2017
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Cult of Chucky
Inextinguishable malevolent flames of pure maladjusted fury continue to terrify innocent yet vengeful Andy (Alex Vincent) and Nica (Fiona Dourif), the former having escaped to the country, the later, residing within a minimum security nuthouse, ignored and barely able to move, in Don Mancini's Cult of Chucky.
Not as much time and thought is put into imagining how Chucky (Brad Dourif) will be unleashed once more in this one, yet said Chucky, maniacal embodiment of blind undiscerning impulsive valueless consumeristic purchasing, soon visits rehabilitating Nica, who is being pervertedly manipulated by her secular psychiatrist, the traditional massacre following shortly thereafter, as obdurate extreme materialism rationally will not believe.
Demonic denizens ravaging.
Exonerating sheer incapacity.
For Chucky's wisecracking also betrays the world of pain that awaits young funny people after reaching the age of 27.
Should they choose to continue expressing themselves without a tight grip on the reigns.
And Andy's suffering that of the torment perennially felt by a child abused by the other children in his small hometown, a child who never leaves yet matures to become successful, but must still regularly see those who once routinely humiliated him, as living memories haunt and torment throughout the course of his busy days.
Even if they're now under his employ.
And beautiful Nica, paralyzed and surrounded by an ungrateful frenzied brood, warns of the unacknowledged dismissive regard a generous mother receives when raising bullish misogynistic patriarchal young.
This halloween.
Even if the movie came out some time ago.
Cult of Chucky could have used more Andy.
Great production values nevertheless.
Not as much time and thought is put into imagining how Chucky (Brad Dourif) will be unleashed once more in this one, yet said Chucky, maniacal embodiment of blind undiscerning impulsive valueless consumeristic purchasing, soon visits rehabilitating Nica, who is being pervertedly manipulated by her secular psychiatrist, the traditional massacre following shortly thereafter, as obdurate extreme materialism rationally will not believe.
Demonic denizens ravaging.
Exonerating sheer incapacity.
For Chucky's wisecracking also betrays the world of pain that awaits young funny people after reaching the age of 27.
Should they choose to continue expressing themselves without a tight grip on the reigns.
And Andy's suffering that of the torment perennially felt by a child abused by the other children in his small hometown, a child who never leaves yet matures to become successful, but must still regularly see those who once routinely humiliated him, as living memories haunt and torment throughout the course of his busy days.
Even if they're now under his employ.
And beautiful Nica, paralyzed and surrounded by an ungrateful frenzied brood, warns of the unacknowledged dismissive regard a generous mother receives when raising bullish misogynistic patriarchal young.
This halloween.
Even if the movie came out some time ago.
Cult of Chucky could have used more Andy.
Great production values nevertheless.
Friday, October 27, 2017
Jungle
Youthful exuberance, boldly challenging parts unknown, randomly embracing inquisitive camaraderie, a team assembled improvisationally adventuring, a lack of knowledge fuelling information hunger, a gluttonous immersion abstemiously characterized poetically generating conflicting points of view, holistic hostilities hierarchically hashed, minuscule manoeuvres incremental thresh, torn and frayed lost their way repartee coruscate, tenacious agility expressly trudging, environmental appreciation enlightening unawares, a man, a tool, moonlight gruel, irrepressible spirit, suddenly alone in the jungle.
Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) keeps going.
His pack breaks up and his partner disappears but he pushes onwards notwithstanding unforbidden, cavalier.
There's character, vision, perseverance, alarm.
Jungle interpersonally examines trial by audacity as 3 rugged romantics with sketch accompaniment dare endurance and improbability to vehemently and disdainfully scorn.
A true story which cruelly tests resiliency as dynamic friendships exhilarate, I was surprised that it captured my attention so completely even though it focused intently on only one character for so long.
When it seems as if the elements have pushed him far past loveable psychosis, the spiritual artistically intervenes, radiantly illuminated in emancipatory contrast.
Cool survival flick.
Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) keeps going.
His pack breaks up and his partner disappears but he pushes onwards notwithstanding unforbidden, cavalier.
There's character, vision, perseverance, alarm.
Jungle interpersonally examines trial by audacity as 3 rugged romantics with sketch accompaniment dare endurance and improbability to vehemently and disdainfully scorn.
A true story which cruelly tests resiliency as dynamic friendships exhilarate, I was surprised that it captured my attention so completely even though it focused intently on only one character for so long.
When it seems as if the elements have pushed him far past loveable psychosis, the spiritual artistically intervenes, radiantly illuminated in emancipatory contrast.
Cool survival flick.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Inhumanwich!
Global annihilation, voraciously presenting itself as conscious highly radioactive ground beef, sets out to capitalistically aggrandize, or plain and simply gluttonously devour.
Cincinnati unassumingly resting upon its sloppy path, a team of reluctant scientific heroes spontaneously joes to whopperifically flame-broil.
Lovin' every single carcinogenic prostate sizzle, heavily armed militaristic imprecision must recklessly engage, unable to determine if it can leave a lasting impression, it randomly improvises, and cartographically refills.
Only one person, in the known universe, can withstand the demon's exacting crawl, a mild-mannered limitless consumer, once, vocationally renowned.
Allergic to onions though he may be, willingly accepting his herculean labour, proceeding as would a wild boar possessing tusks of immortality, he eternally embraces his bold ephemeral hunger.
With room left over for pizza.
Covered with anchovies of old.
Sometimes it isn't fair to judge a film based upon merit, success, ingenuity, exoneration, originality, genius, appetite, intergalacticity, gumption, nope, sometimes a minimalist application of spirited inanity is the crucial critical factor to be haphazardly applied, whether the film has a low budget, a lack of concern, no goals, passion, agenda, rules, regulations, form working hand in hand with content inasmuch as it's quickly thrown together to castigate lacks of foresight, fast food or meat consumption in this instance, effort, yes, there might be effort, and the trick may be to indubitably judge if the film was effortlessly made or cheaply constructed, a beautiful thing or bilious impulse, perhaps simply a two day old baguette, tart treacle, meat that passes the smell test, or healthy yet aggravating nicorette gum, whatever the criteria, its bombastic sentience irresponsibly euthanizes audacity, while emphasizing bromantic good times, or feminist bewilderment.
Perhaps also indestructibility.
Bamboozled in boisterous fey jocose panini, wisecracked inherent impediments exclaim gargantuan folio.
Did they at least fail to attempt to innovate in any way while confidently transmitting an unreasonable lack of sophistication?
Did they at least refuel the status quo with disingenuous yet hearty absurd incredulous compunction?
Did they not even try to give everything they've got without seeming hopelessly and aimlessly incompetent?
I'd watch it again, regardless, if that means anything, this pan-fried indigestible Inhumanwich!
A bit more time and money and they might seriously impress some day.
Solid indistinct blunt metaphorical mischief.
Still much better than The House.
Midnight vegetarianism?
Cincinnati unassumingly resting upon its sloppy path, a team of reluctant scientific heroes spontaneously joes to whopperifically flame-broil.
Lovin' every single carcinogenic prostate sizzle, heavily armed militaristic imprecision must recklessly engage, unable to determine if it can leave a lasting impression, it randomly improvises, and cartographically refills.
Only one person, in the known universe, can withstand the demon's exacting crawl, a mild-mannered limitless consumer, once, vocationally renowned.
Allergic to onions though he may be, willingly accepting his herculean labour, proceeding as would a wild boar possessing tusks of immortality, he eternally embraces his bold ephemeral hunger.
With room left over for pizza.
Covered with anchovies of old.
Sometimes it isn't fair to judge a film based upon merit, success, ingenuity, exoneration, originality, genius, appetite, intergalacticity, gumption, nope, sometimes a minimalist application of spirited inanity is the crucial critical factor to be haphazardly applied, whether the film has a low budget, a lack of concern, no goals, passion, agenda, rules, regulations, form working hand in hand with content inasmuch as it's quickly thrown together to castigate lacks of foresight, fast food or meat consumption in this instance, effort, yes, there might be effort, and the trick may be to indubitably judge if the film was effortlessly made or cheaply constructed, a beautiful thing or bilious impulse, perhaps simply a two day old baguette, tart treacle, meat that passes the smell test, or healthy yet aggravating nicorette gum, whatever the criteria, its bombastic sentience irresponsibly euthanizes audacity, while emphasizing bromantic good times, or feminist bewilderment.
Perhaps also indestructibility.
Bamboozled in boisterous fey jocose panini, wisecracked inherent impediments exclaim gargantuan folio.
Did they at least fail to attempt to innovate in any way while confidently transmitting an unreasonable lack of sophistication?
Did they at least refuel the status quo with disingenuous yet hearty absurd incredulous compunction?
Did they not even try to give everything they've got without seeming hopelessly and aimlessly incompetent?
I'd watch it again, regardless, if that means anything, this pan-fried indigestible Inhumanwich!
A bit more time and money and they might seriously impress some day.
Solid indistinct blunt metaphorical mischief.
Still much better than The House.
Midnight vegetarianism?
Friday, October 20, 2017
L'Avventura
An artistic heritage so vast and imposing its contemporary admirers can't help but compose themselves with awe.
Quotidian cheek materialistically tethered exchanging observations with speculative mobilization possessing unimaginative magnetism (wry jealousy).
Small towns with no work wherein which the male inhabitants collectively contemplate aesthetics casually passing by.
Playful luxury illusively inconvenienced slumbers with impoverished free speech which differentiates not between beauty and brutality, a life spent with no feminine contact (it's odd when people seek answers and the answers are brutal and you try not to respond but they demand that answer, and if you respond they despise you even more than they would have if you had said nothing, and then treat you brutally).
A culture laments the disappearance of a siren whose mischievous independent preference for theoretical possibility created a sensation which his desire dismissively ignored.
Patriarchically philandering, L'Avventura presents a bored successful man to whom the most sought after precious women helplessly swoon, his innocent unattached habitual eloquence effortlessly ensnaring them within psychological shackles composed of forgiveness, sympathy, contempt, and guilt.
Apart from his betrothed who can't be found.
Culturally inclined, bucolic and urban socioeconomics multifacetedly engender amorous situations which fleetingly comment on relationships and/or conjugal commitment inasmuch as they carnivalesquely sexualize poverty and privilege.
The subject of so many wild comedies intellectually transformed into a literary matriculately meandering exposé, undesirable men imagining they're exceptionally endowed with unqualifiable gravitational irreducibility, which the opposite sex is irresistibly drawn towards, ethically as irresponsible as sadism, politically, masochistically responsive.
L'Avventura gets away with it, cloaking its victorious Lothario in voluminous vulnerable versatility, surrounding his endeavours with enough différence to democratically deconstruct any paradigmatic impulse, wildly commenting with realistic fascination, embroiling and staking with convectional subterfuge, brilliant inspired indulgence or bold calculated virtuosity?, metanarrative expression expressly exalting, cinematic sophistication, love, adventure.
Quotidian cheek materialistically tethered exchanging observations with speculative mobilization possessing unimaginative magnetism (wry jealousy).
Small towns with no work wherein which the male inhabitants collectively contemplate aesthetics casually passing by.
Playful luxury illusively inconvenienced slumbers with impoverished free speech which differentiates not between beauty and brutality, a life spent with no feminine contact (it's odd when people seek answers and the answers are brutal and you try not to respond but they demand that answer, and if you respond they despise you even more than they would have if you had said nothing, and then treat you brutally).
A culture laments the disappearance of a siren whose mischievous independent preference for theoretical possibility created a sensation which his desire dismissively ignored.
Patriarchically philandering, L'Avventura presents a bored successful man to whom the most sought after precious women helplessly swoon, his innocent unattached habitual eloquence effortlessly ensnaring them within psychological shackles composed of forgiveness, sympathy, contempt, and guilt.
Apart from his betrothed who can't be found.
Culturally inclined, bucolic and urban socioeconomics multifacetedly engender amorous situations which fleetingly comment on relationships and/or conjugal commitment inasmuch as they carnivalesquely sexualize poverty and privilege.
The subject of so many wild comedies intellectually transformed into a literary matriculately meandering exposé, undesirable men imagining they're exceptionally endowed with unqualifiable gravitational irreducibility, which the opposite sex is irresistibly drawn towards, ethically as irresponsible as sadism, politically, masochistically responsive.
L'Avventura gets away with it, cloaking its victorious Lothario in voluminous vulnerable versatility, surrounding his endeavours with enough différence to democratically deconstruct any paradigmatic impulse, wildly commenting with realistic fascination, embroiling and staking with convectional subterfuge, brilliant inspired indulgence or bold calculated virtuosity?, metanarrative expression expressly exalting, cinematic sophistication, love, adventure.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
The Mountain Between Us
A sudden crash upon a remote mountain top shockingly affects three airborne strangers, plummeting just before achieving thunderous summit, no cellphone service available, no flight plan having been filed, destitute, forlorn, aerodynely abandoned, they classify, catalogue, conjure, and code, embracing logical risk to command desperate passion, blindly preparing for enigmatic descent, wounded yet versatile, adventurously impacting.
Seductive scorned survival.
One traveller planned to be wed the next day, an innovative photographer working for The Guardian on her way to Denver, she refuses to sit still and wait, thereby prompting diminutive exodus.
Another must follow, himself quietly suffering after having lost a loved one, the two slowly traversing frozen inhospitable lands together as one, struggling to limitlessly strive on, with the hopes of rediscovering civilization.
A persevering dog tenaciously accompanies them, spiritually guiding them along the way, enabling them to grasp, grip, and grind, well-placed throughout the film to devoutly distract and domestically foreshadow, his improvised excursions adamantly nestling, the parental and the preconditioned, precociously implied.
Roughing it stark and wayward, lost in the wilderness in the dead of Winter with neither supplies nor sustenance to trek their way through.
Can they endure like inexhaustible inclement feline prognosticators?
While exponentially cultivating, what is known as true love?
The Mountain Between Us metaphorically ices the unforgiving terrain the everlasting requires to harmoniously resound.
Amidst the jaded chaos of hopelessness and the disabling cynicism of despair, a would be couple sustainably compensates.
Cinematographically lacking considering their environment, and much more rich in woodland symbolism than death-defying dialogue, it still presents a tumultuously touching vision, unobscured by constant slights.
Imperative integrity.
Substantiated romance.
Seductive scorned survival.
One traveller planned to be wed the next day, an innovative photographer working for The Guardian on her way to Denver, she refuses to sit still and wait, thereby prompting diminutive exodus.
Another must follow, himself quietly suffering after having lost a loved one, the two slowly traversing frozen inhospitable lands together as one, struggling to limitlessly strive on, with the hopes of rediscovering civilization.
A persevering dog tenaciously accompanies them, spiritually guiding them along the way, enabling them to grasp, grip, and grind, well-placed throughout the film to devoutly distract and domestically foreshadow, his improvised excursions adamantly nestling, the parental and the preconditioned, precociously implied.
Roughing it stark and wayward, lost in the wilderness in the dead of Winter with neither supplies nor sustenance to trek their way through.
Can they endure like inexhaustible inclement feline prognosticators?
While exponentially cultivating, what is known as true love?
The Mountain Between Us metaphorically ices the unforgiving terrain the everlasting requires to harmoniously resound.
Amidst the jaded chaos of hopelessness and the disabling cynicism of despair, a would be couple sustainably compensates.
Cinematographically lacking considering their environment, and much more rich in woodland symbolism than death-defying dialogue, it still presents a tumultuously touching vision, unobscured by constant slights.
Imperative integrity.
Substantiated romance.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Blade Runner 2049
Discontinuous highjacked expedited inevitable irrelevancy.
Circuitous momentous obedience bountifully propelling twisted archaic innate atypical hemorrhage.
Existential awakening argumentative dawn autosuggestive auspices communal cast iron cravings, clues, ambulatory optics, somnambulistic certainty, neigh, whisker.
Fragmentary vestiges ominously scattered cryptic pathfinder serpentinely excavating miracles, whippoorwills, potash.
Direly coaxed into a subconscious vortex transformative sensual belonging propagated harvested posterity.
Suckling within the protospatial womb.
A set plan, goals, preconditioned life programmed to pounce and prognosticate, virtual violations inorganic technotruths, aesthetic vibrations old school orchestrations architecturally hallowed within alternative sanctuary, every scene reigniting the ambivalent distraught investigative visceral momentum, symphonically sequestering emotional anomalies to imagine identity harmoniously hewn, institutionalized on the outskirts primordial emergent feeling, a home, a relationship, a father figure, integration, tacit knowledge extant and mobile, coveted like uncertifiable exception, music, production design, editing, cinematography, as vocal as dialogue, plot, or character.
The most beautiful dress I've ever seen.
Every sequence painstakingly sculpted to intangibly perspire life while inquisitively examining manufactured ontological biology by humanistically juxtaposing desperate and plutocratic being.
Without sharp contrast.
With minimal direct contact.
Non-existent environmental biodiversity morosely levels artistic conflict like a galaxy with no solar system or a workplace without feminine voice.
As fragile as cloistered brilliance she cultivates eternities crafting memories as wondrous as the Saguenay for the fortunate to joyfully consider.
Respectful of its origins while dynamically creating divergent vision, Blade Runner 2049 is on par with Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of revelation, in this case that of Denis Villeneuve's genius, which successfully synthesizes so many gifted subjects.
Harrison Ford's (Deckard) so real.
Ryan Gosling ('K') too.
Circuitous momentous obedience bountifully propelling twisted archaic innate atypical hemorrhage.
Existential awakening argumentative dawn autosuggestive auspices communal cast iron cravings, clues, ambulatory optics, somnambulistic certainty, neigh, whisker.
Fragmentary vestiges ominously scattered cryptic pathfinder serpentinely excavating miracles, whippoorwills, potash.
Direly coaxed into a subconscious vortex transformative sensual belonging propagated harvested posterity.
Suckling within the protospatial womb.
A set plan, goals, preconditioned life programmed to pounce and prognosticate, virtual violations inorganic technotruths, aesthetic vibrations old school orchestrations architecturally hallowed within alternative sanctuary, every scene reigniting the ambivalent distraught investigative visceral momentum, symphonically sequestering emotional anomalies to imagine identity harmoniously hewn, institutionalized on the outskirts primordial emergent feeling, a home, a relationship, a father figure, integration, tacit knowledge extant and mobile, coveted like uncertifiable exception, music, production design, editing, cinematography, as vocal as dialogue, plot, or character.
The most beautiful dress I've ever seen.
Every sequence painstakingly sculpted to intangibly perspire life while inquisitively examining manufactured ontological biology by humanistically juxtaposing desperate and plutocratic being.
Without sharp contrast.
With minimal direct contact.
Non-existent environmental biodiversity morosely levels artistic conflict like a galaxy with no solar system or a workplace without feminine voice.
As fragile as cloistered brilliance she cultivates eternities crafting memories as wondrous as the Saguenay for the fortunate to joyfully consider.
Respectful of its origins while dynamically creating divergent vision, Blade Runner 2049 is on par with Mad Max: Fury Road in terms of revelation, in this case that of Denis Villeneuve's genius, which successfully synthesizes so many gifted subjects.
Harrison Ford's (Deckard) so real.
Ryan Gosling ('K') too.
Tuesday, October 10, 2017
A Ghost Story
A Ghost Story takes itself rather seriously for a bizarro religious art film, opening with intense sorrowful classical music that accompanies the plodding uninspiring narrative for awhile before unobtrusively fading into the dull background.
Not much is known about the featured character before he chooses to remain with Earthen realms, forever spectating his former haunts, dolorously watching as life continues unaffected, self-inflicted emotional torment meets phantasmagorical purposeless attention, dry lifeless exchanges with other ghosts, pointlessness carrying on.
A number of mournful scenes then adorn the story with motionless static depressing longevity, which would have been more tragic if there was more of a reason to care, before, suddenly, wondrously, the camera starts moving, beautiful music then igniting a jaunty passionate grizzled condemnation of nihilism, the finite, the unimaginative, the plain, no counterargument forthcoming which makes sense considering the circumstances (that guy at the party), as the derelict observes, unable to intervene.
Afterwards we're treated to a remarkably creative lively endearing artistic exposition of convivial charm and romantic playfulness, which compensates for the drab meaningless anguish earlier, providing the rationale for the former bland rendition, from vapidity to virtuosity, David Lowery intellectually shining.
I would have left the ghost business out and focused on developing different compelling dialogues for different historical periods transitioning from one to another within the same remote locale instead.
Watch the whole thing, it's impressive, but could have been much more alluring, more penetrating, more provocative, more enigmatic, if it had embraced random ethereal flux, rather than lugubriously making a point that isn't that sharp or innovative.
Not much is known about the featured character before he chooses to remain with Earthen realms, forever spectating his former haunts, dolorously watching as life continues unaffected, self-inflicted emotional torment meets phantasmagorical purposeless attention, dry lifeless exchanges with other ghosts, pointlessness carrying on.
A number of mournful scenes then adorn the story with motionless static depressing longevity, which would have been more tragic if there was more of a reason to care, before, suddenly, wondrously, the camera starts moving, beautiful music then igniting a jaunty passionate grizzled condemnation of nihilism, the finite, the unimaginative, the plain, no counterargument forthcoming which makes sense considering the circumstances (that guy at the party), as the derelict observes, unable to intervene.
Afterwards we're treated to a remarkably creative lively endearing artistic exposition of convivial charm and romantic playfulness, which compensates for the drab meaningless anguish earlier, providing the rationale for the former bland rendition, from vapidity to virtuosity, David Lowery intellectually shining.
I would have left the ghost business out and focused on developing different compelling dialogues for different historical periods transitioning from one to another within the same remote locale instead.
Watch the whole thing, it's impressive, but could have been much more alluring, more penetrating, more provocative, more enigmatic, if it had embraced random ethereal flux, rather than lugubriously making a point that isn't that sharp or innovative.
Friday, October 6, 2017
Kollektivet (The Commune)
I know open relationships can work because I've met people who have rationally embraced free love without jealously descending into the wild frenzied madness that structures so many monogamously themed narratives.
When I listen to sex people tell their lusty tales of spontaneous syntheses and unbridled inspiration, I often wonder how their stable relationship continues to thrive over the years, yet years later still see them dating the same people, and neither partner claims to be consumed by purest envy.
They say it's a matter of maturity.
I still don't get it.
Kollektivet (The Commune) examines a stable relationship that is challenged by the introduction of a third element, who is plainly a much younger version of the man's original life partner.
The mother of his child.
She's seeking change to alleviate mid-life meaninglessness and argues that they should transform their recently inherited house into a lively commune.
She isn't psychologically equipped to sublimate her true feelings, however, and eventually finds herself struggling to logically endure.
More like Cassavete's A Woman Under the Influence than Lukas Moodysson's Tillsammans (Together), Thomas Vinterberg's Kollektivet cruelly illustrates the detrimental effects of a hasty big picture alteration, an incredible paradigm shift, as sure and steady security promotes basic instinct.
I was deceived by Kollektivet myself.
I was hoping to see a multidimensional film wherein which multiple characters were developed and nuanced as they cohesively embraced collective conflict as one.
I suppose it is unpredictable inasmuch as it primarily focuses on the deterioration of a nuclear family rather than the challenges of communal life, but I didn't rent a film about a commune to see what manifold more traditional storylines tend to generate.
The other individuals living within the commune receive little to no character development and bluntly interact throughout as originally presented, the occasional clever comment or the purchase of a dishwasher notwithstanding.
Decisions are made rather quickly as well, as if something as serious as starting a commune and giving away your house is like tying your shoes or trying Indonesian food for the first time.
Kollektivet atypically narrativizes life in a commune thereby tricking its traditional audience into watching the bizarro mainstream.
A dire preachy warning for the experimental, a harsh validation of conjugal revenge, it heartbreakingly explores/justifies adulterous instincts commonly depicted as characteristics of the alpha-male, who ironically wanted nothing to do with them, without sympathy for his partner, a daughter torn apart along the way.
An excruciating attempt to find a way to exonerate misogyny.
When I listen to sex people tell their lusty tales of spontaneous syntheses and unbridled inspiration, I often wonder how their stable relationship continues to thrive over the years, yet years later still see them dating the same people, and neither partner claims to be consumed by purest envy.
They say it's a matter of maturity.
I still don't get it.
Kollektivet (The Commune) examines a stable relationship that is challenged by the introduction of a third element, who is plainly a much younger version of the man's original life partner.
The mother of his child.
She's seeking change to alleviate mid-life meaninglessness and argues that they should transform their recently inherited house into a lively commune.
She isn't psychologically equipped to sublimate her true feelings, however, and eventually finds herself struggling to logically endure.
More like Cassavete's A Woman Under the Influence than Lukas Moodysson's Tillsammans (Together), Thomas Vinterberg's Kollektivet cruelly illustrates the detrimental effects of a hasty big picture alteration, an incredible paradigm shift, as sure and steady security promotes basic instinct.
I was deceived by Kollektivet myself.
I was hoping to see a multidimensional film wherein which multiple characters were developed and nuanced as they cohesively embraced collective conflict as one.
I suppose it is unpredictable inasmuch as it primarily focuses on the deterioration of a nuclear family rather than the challenges of communal life, but I didn't rent a film about a commune to see what manifold more traditional storylines tend to generate.
The other individuals living within the commune receive little to no character development and bluntly interact throughout as originally presented, the occasional clever comment or the purchase of a dishwasher notwithstanding.
Decisions are made rather quickly as well, as if something as serious as starting a commune and giving away your house is like tying your shoes or trying Indonesian food for the first time.
Kollektivet atypically narrativizes life in a commune thereby tricking its traditional audience into watching the bizarro mainstream.
A dire preachy warning for the experimental, a harsh validation of conjugal revenge, it heartbreakingly explores/justifies adulterous instincts commonly depicted as characteristics of the alpha-male, who ironically wanted nothing to do with them, without sympathy for his partner, a daughter torn apart along the way.
An excruciating attempt to find a way to exonerate misogyny.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
My Cousin Rachel
A loyal adopted son, filled with impotent rage, blindly seeks closure concerning his father's sudden death as it relates to a mysterious relationship beguiled in the Italian countryside, forged with an enigmatic English belle, who had the strength to seduce proud misogyny.
He sets out seeking justice, never having had much interest in women either, but soon finds himself enraptured with the sought after murderess, his presumption quickly fading as her charms mellifluously sway, his fortune soon levitating at her disposal, all-encompassing infatuation contending with more worldly criticisms, is she friend or foe?, matron, or dominatrix?
Beyond classification.
Contraceptive indigo.
My Cousin Rachel commences soundly.
Its sophisticated introduction to character, historical period, familial severance, and exotic cataclysm, gingerly yet coercively narrated with bitter incisive pause, led me to think I had stumbled upon something otherworldly, something radiant, something timeless.
It's not that the rest of the film isn't worth watching, it is, but My Cousin Rachel's first 25 minutes or so lour you in with a compelling cinematic elegance that rarely showcases its distinct eloquent reticence.
There are no answers, no solutions, no conclusions, it's strict theory, strict conjecture, a mystery lacking a brilliant sleuth, wherein which contingencies construct discombobulating distractions that harrowingly question what has indeed come to pass, a man who knows nothing about women obsessed with a woman who knows everything about men, who's intent on achieving independence from stiflingly patriarchal codes of conduct, without ever asking for anything, or seeming as if she desires six pence.
Was Rachel (Rachel Weisz) the hapless generous victim of sexist preconceptions themselves incapable of trusting anything a woman says after having fallen in love, thereby sacrificing their former unconscious unilateral independence, their control, as a consequence, and winding up mad, or was she indubitably trying to poison both father and son in order to access their vast unencumbered fortune?
Can free unattached wealthy male loners ever listen to anything overtly uttered by their curious brilliant feminine correspondants without suspecting conspiracy and treachery, the magnitude of the duplicitous betrayal slowly intensifying as the bond between them grows tighter and tighter?
How would a brilliant woman without a fortune who seeks control over her own affairs ever achieve financial and personal independence without comment in a society dominated by men?
Would both characters have lived pleasant lives if homosexuality hadn't been culturally abhorred?
Sometimes narration works, sometimes it doesn't.
The narration was working in My Cousin Rachel, and I wished it had played a more prominent role throughout the majority of the film.
He sets out seeking justice, never having had much interest in women either, but soon finds himself enraptured with the sought after murderess, his presumption quickly fading as her charms mellifluously sway, his fortune soon levitating at her disposal, all-encompassing infatuation contending with more worldly criticisms, is she friend or foe?, matron, or dominatrix?
Beyond classification.
Contraceptive indigo.
My Cousin Rachel commences soundly.
Its sophisticated introduction to character, historical period, familial severance, and exotic cataclysm, gingerly yet coercively narrated with bitter incisive pause, led me to think I had stumbled upon something otherworldly, something radiant, something timeless.
It's not that the rest of the film isn't worth watching, it is, but My Cousin Rachel's first 25 minutes or so lour you in with a compelling cinematic elegance that rarely showcases its distinct eloquent reticence.
There are no answers, no solutions, no conclusions, it's strict theory, strict conjecture, a mystery lacking a brilliant sleuth, wherein which contingencies construct discombobulating distractions that harrowingly question what has indeed come to pass, a man who knows nothing about women obsessed with a woman who knows everything about men, who's intent on achieving independence from stiflingly patriarchal codes of conduct, without ever asking for anything, or seeming as if she desires six pence.
Was Rachel (Rachel Weisz) the hapless generous victim of sexist preconceptions themselves incapable of trusting anything a woman says after having fallen in love, thereby sacrificing their former unconscious unilateral independence, their control, as a consequence, and winding up mad, or was she indubitably trying to poison both father and son in order to access their vast unencumbered fortune?
Can free unattached wealthy male loners ever listen to anything overtly uttered by their curious brilliant feminine correspondants without suspecting conspiracy and treachery, the magnitude of the duplicitous betrayal slowly intensifying as the bond between them grows tighter and tighter?
How would a brilliant woman without a fortune who seeks control over her own affairs ever achieve financial and personal independence without comment in a society dominated by men?
Would both characters have lived pleasant lives if homosexuality hadn't been culturally abhorred?
Sometimes narration works, sometimes it doesn't.
The narration was working in My Cousin Rachel, and I wished it had played a more prominent role throughout the majority of the film.
Friday, September 29, 2017
The Darkest Hour
A routine business trip to Moscow to sell software which knows how to party, itself fraught with duplicitous peril, is intergalactically interrupted in Chris Gorak's The Darkest Hour, as colonialist extraterrestrials electronically invade.
The entire freaking planet.
Gorging themselves on humanity's energy and power, yet invisible to homo sapien eyes, and protected by impenetrable shielding, Earth is globally gutted in a matter of hours, and our heroes thrust back into an unforgiving dark age.
Nevertheless, good fortune enables them to slowly piece together what has incredibly come to pass, as they juke and gesticulate their way from one improvised shelter to another.
Other survivors are encountered along the way, and from what little knowledge they possess as a whole, they're able to slowly strategize, synergize, swerve, and shock, mounting what little resistance they can, as they desperately seek submerged self-sustaining agency.
To bask in extant logic.
Even if there's nowhere to hide.
Allegorical applications of The Darkest Hour vigorously outdistancing the film itself, one wonders about these chaotic representations and what they indeed substantiate?
We know that once there was a will to party.
We know that energy has been ignominiously expropriated.
Those responsible can neither be seen nor detected.
And are in possession of vastly superior technology.
Yet within the underground alternative methods are ingeniously designed to expose the avarice worldwide.
Therefore, it seems that The Darkest Hour, in 2011, lacklustre and threadbare though it may presently be, was claiming that mad übercapitalists in possession of armies and courts of law were fed up with the leisure activities of the frisky masses, and diabolically dictated that their artistic energies would be direly transformed into concrete labour, with Dickensian dismissals and authoritarian shares, the last remnants of the bourgeoisie left to courageously extend the light, as darkness descended, and individuality soullessly evaporated.
Other interpretations might be more apt.
The entire freaking planet.
Gorging themselves on humanity's energy and power, yet invisible to homo sapien eyes, and protected by impenetrable shielding, Earth is globally gutted in a matter of hours, and our heroes thrust back into an unforgiving dark age.
Nevertheless, good fortune enables them to slowly piece together what has incredibly come to pass, as they juke and gesticulate their way from one improvised shelter to another.
Other survivors are encountered along the way, and from what little knowledge they possess as a whole, they're able to slowly strategize, synergize, swerve, and shock, mounting what little resistance they can, as they desperately seek submerged self-sustaining agency.
To bask in extant logic.
Even if there's nowhere to hide.
Allegorical applications of The Darkest Hour vigorously outdistancing the film itself, one wonders about these chaotic representations and what they indeed substantiate?
We know that once there was a will to party.
We know that energy has been ignominiously expropriated.
Those responsible can neither be seen nor detected.
And are in possession of vastly superior technology.
Yet within the underground alternative methods are ingeniously designed to expose the avarice worldwide.
Therefore, it seems that The Darkest Hour, in 2011, lacklustre and threadbare though it may presently be, was claiming that mad übercapitalists in possession of armies and courts of law were fed up with the leisure activities of the frisky masses, and diabolically dictated that their artistic energies would be direly transformed into concrete labour, with Dickensian dismissals and authoritarian shares, the last remnants of the bourgeoisie left to courageously extend the light, as darkness descended, and individuality soullessly evaporated.
Other interpretations might be more apt.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Juyuso seubgyuksageun (Attack the Gas Station!)
A group of young adults, who have failed to professionally assert themselves, randomly decide to attack a local gas station, again, in Sang-Jin Kim's Juyuso seubgyuksageun (Attack the Gas Station!), their boredom invigoratingly eclipsed by rash hypertense pretentions, inspirations from which they reclaim the dignity that their culture's strict obsession with obedience has denied them, artists and athletes in/variably adjudicating calamitous caprice, with malevolent will, and assiduous extension.
But through their delinquent acts, through the ways in which they audaciously challenge their neighbourhood's modus operandi, their divergence necessitating that unanticipated rival factions gather, investigate, emerge, the established order riled, jurisprudence gingerly jabberwocked, a serendipitous state of affairs chaotically presents itself, wherein which everyone eclectically entertains novel nubile notions, energetically exceeding the bumptious bottom line, collectively assembled, to irascibly trench and tether.
Extreme masculinity deftly delineating the absurd, Juyuso seubgyuksageun satirizes sociopaths to exorcize easy living.
Note how the no-goodniks must pretend to be constructive citizens in order to eventually acquire the loot they're after.
Comedically crafted psychotically shafted supreme bizarro excess, like Walter Hill's The Warriors sponsored by Red Bull, like paddleboarding down the St. Lawrence, a culture's admiration for fighting shocked but surely syndicated, Juyuso's childlike unconcerned courageous illuminating lunacy still metaphorically cultivates the entrepreneurial path, with cold considerate recourse to hypocrisy notwithstanding, levels and layers and legitimacies, assuming roles to expedite karma.
But through their delinquent acts, through the ways in which they audaciously challenge their neighbourhood's modus operandi, their divergence necessitating that unanticipated rival factions gather, investigate, emerge, the established order riled, jurisprudence gingerly jabberwocked, a serendipitous state of affairs chaotically presents itself, wherein which everyone eclectically entertains novel nubile notions, energetically exceeding the bumptious bottom line, collectively assembled, to irascibly trench and tether.
Extreme masculinity deftly delineating the absurd, Juyuso seubgyuksageun satirizes sociopaths to exorcize easy living.
Note how the no-goodniks must pretend to be constructive citizens in order to eventually acquire the loot they're after.
Comedically crafted psychotically shafted supreme bizarro excess, like Walter Hill's The Warriors sponsored by Red Bull, like paddleboarding down the St. Lawrence, a culture's admiration for fighting shocked but surely syndicated, Juyuso's childlike unconcerned courageous illuminating lunacy still metaphorically cultivates the entrepreneurial path, with cold considerate recourse to hypocrisy notwithstanding, levels and layers and legitimacies, assuming roles to expedite karma.
Friday, September 22, 2017
Babettes gæstebud (Babette's Feast)
Nothing sensational, cataclysmic, outlandish, inflammatory, no hooplas, aggrandizements, emoticons, bells and whistles, just simply steeped humble self-sacrifice graciously adorned, artistically respected, the shock of the indulgence subconsciously placated by years of habitual camaraderie, as the unassuming gregariously gather to uncharacteristically try something new, a world class multiple course meal prepared by the exiled apotheosis of authentic French cuisine, peacefully and modestly living with two beautiful unmarried once sought after religious sisters, a revolutionary remonstrance content to quaintly struggle who expounds the extraordinary by crutch, crépuscule, or chrysanthemum, ready to express her boundless gratitude, joyously importing refuge.
Assertive timidity.
Stoic intention.
A suitor, no, not a suitor, a patron, yes, a potential patron, himself a world renowned hypnotic, who miraculously facilitated her exodus out of respect for exceptional talent and devotion to social artistry, leaves a lasting impact even if his objectives were extinguished.
Another suitor, an actual suitor, having abandoned his pursuit decades earlier, apprehensively sits down to dine, pondering whether or not his world achievements were indeed worthwhile, or if psychological salvation, bucolic peace of mind, would have been alchemically manifested if he had surrendered to unrequited love.
To a life of fulfilled obscurity.
Babettes gæstebud (Babette's Feast) resplendently celebrates immersion and ingenuity by brilliantly settling down to cut and dry community.
As cultures digestively mingle to tolerate through mutual cooperation, discourses of the immiscible asymptotically approach convergence.
To accept, to permit, to question, to splurge, devout inhabitants of a remote Danish village spend one evening of their lives dramatically immersed in the warmth of the supernaturally quotidian.
A comment on the excesses of the French Revolution which freely examines spiritual aspects of social democracy (a suddenly wealthy chef spends everything to enrich impoverished lives for an evening), as well as an attempt to exemplify undeniable artistic veracity, lets everything go to theoretically merge with unconscious levity, choosing peace as a representative of sustainability, culinary assemblies, as heralds of the sublime.
Assertive timidity.
Stoic intention.
A suitor, no, not a suitor, a patron, yes, a potential patron, himself a world renowned hypnotic, who miraculously facilitated her exodus out of respect for exceptional talent and devotion to social artistry, leaves a lasting impact even if his objectives were extinguished.
Another suitor, an actual suitor, having abandoned his pursuit decades earlier, apprehensively sits down to dine, pondering whether or not his world achievements were indeed worthwhile, or if psychological salvation, bucolic peace of mind, would have been alchemically manifested if he had surrendered to unrequited love.
To a life of fulfilled obscurity.
Babettes gæstebud (Babette's Feast) resplendently celebrates immersion and ingenuity by brilliantly settling down to cut and dry community.
As cultures digestively mingle to tolerate through mutual cooperation, discourses of the immiscible asymptotically approach convergence.
To accept, to permit, to question, to splurge, devout inhabitants of a remote Danish village spend one evening of their lives dramatically immersed in the warmth of the supernaturally quotidian.
A comment on the excesses of the French Revolution which freely examines spiritual aspects of social democracy (a suddenly wealthy chef spends everything to enrich impoverished lives for an evening), as well as an attempt to exemplify undeniable artistic veracity, lets everything go to theoretically merge with unconscious levity, choosing peace as a representative of sustainability, culinary assemblies, as heralds of the sublime.
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
It
Plagued by an ingratiating ravenous monstrosity, a team of creative outcasts struggles to envision.
It preys upon them in isolation, shockingly manifesting their most potent fears in trepidatious real-time after they've been discovered alone.
Or at least passing by unnoticed, adults being immune to the clown's pestiferous ploys, and unable to assist their young as they struggle to outwit vicious appetite.
Yet one boy (Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough) boldly decides he will not yield and convinces the others to affirm contention.
Thereby emerging as leader.
Having realized they are stronger if they resolutely unite as one, they set out in search of conflict, whether engaging with the malevolent Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), their parents, or other unhelpful adults, things are bleak, castigating apprehensions woebegone, they eventually strike with vehement poise.
Umbilical.
They mustn't be afraid you see, and contending as a group helps them face then overcome their fears, Pennywise functioning as the haunting prospect of a spoiled unproductive lonely maladjusted youth, it doesn't necessarily kill them but transforms them into mature horrors, mired in a revolving stasis, the sought after younglings organized in It, finding friendship like an antidote to venom.
Articulate idiosyncrasies.
Improvised bedlam.
It's unconcerned restrained yet volatile examination of unsung heroism shyly elevates the versatility of teamwork while cohesively combatting bullying and rumour.
It's a matter of timing, strategizing, envisioning, coordinating, communicating, adjusting, adapting.
The film mechanically delivers some solid frights while still developing young adult character and plot without overemphasizing the grotesque or understating childhood trauma.
All around bad, being a kid in It's filmscape.
That is one crappy fictional town.
It preys upon them in isolation, shockingly manifesting their most potent fears in trepidatious real-time after they've been discovered alone.
Or at least passing by unnoticed, adults being immune to the clown's pestiferous ploys, and unable to assist their young as they struggle to outwit vicious appetite.
Yet one boy (Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough) boldly decides he will not yield and convinces the others to affirm contention.
Thereby emerging as leader.
Having realized they are stronger if they resolutely unite as one, they set out in search of conflict, whether engaging with the malevolent Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), their parents, or other unhelpful adults, things are bleak, castigating apprehensions woebegone, they eventually strike with vehement poise.
Umbilical.
They mustn't be afraid you see, and contending as a group helps them face then overcome their fears, Pennywise functioning as the haunting prospect of a spoiled unproductive lonely maladjusted youth, it doesn't necessarily kill them but transforms them into mature horrors, mired in a revolving stasis, the sought after younglings organized in It, finding friendship like an antidote to venom.
Articulate idiosyncrasies.
Improvised bedlam.
It's unconcerned restrained yet volatile examination of unsung heroism shyly elevates the versatility of teamwork while cohesively combatting bullying and rumour.
It's a matter of timing, strategizing, envisioning, coordinating, communicating, adjusting, adapting.
The film mechanically delivers some solid frights while still developing young adult character and plot without overemphasizing the grotesque or understating childhood trauma.
All around bad, being a kid in It's filmscape.
That is one crappy fictional town.
Friday, September 15, 2017
Métamorphoses
Immaculate inviolable chill yet vengeful hipster gods graciously curve their way through Christophe Honoré's Métamorphoses, immortality enabling them to cruelly spurn the wicked or justly reward good deeds, as they randomly select un/fortunate individuals to masterfully assert eternity.
With judicious postmodern consternation.
And bewitching salacious tact.
It's capricious veracity, sensually applied, brazenly exemplifying discourses of the inquisitive, the amorous, the mercurial, the forbidden, inexhaustible excesses secreting broiled dis/continuity, born of tender infatuation, harkened by incredulous gusts.
Ecstatic endurance.
Courtly compunction.
Roman myth flourishing within contemporary realms, ancient momentum rawly rekindled.
According to Honoré's appetitive applications of the tales, and the ways in which they loosely follow the journey of a bewildered ingenue, Roman gods were obsessed with Earthly pleasures, enjoyed obtaining them, yet still excelled at fruitfully complicating one another's pursuits, as if the satisfaction of a desire was sheer punishment for the uninitiated.
That's standard isn't it?
In the beginning the film seems like a lofty excuse to celebrate young adult experimentation, flings, but as it progresses a visceral sense of relevant nonchalant mesmerizing streetwise countryside volition gradually emerges, a bona fide spiritual transmutation, as it were, artistically grasping fecund universal tranquilities, light yet vicious, hesitantly engaged.
Perhaps all of these individuals who came to be worshipped as gods were just chillaxed Joes anthropomorphic and insouciant enough to delight literary pretensions of old?
Much more literal than O Brother, Where Art Thou?
With judicious postmodern consternation.
And bewitching salacious tact.
It's capricious veracity, sensually applied, brazenly exemplifying discourses of the inquisitive, the amorous, the mercurial, the forbidden, inexhaustible excesses secreting broiled dis/continuity, born of tender infatuation, harkened by incredulous gusts.
Ecstatic endurance.
Courtly compunction.
Roman myth flourishing within contemporary realms, ancient momentum rawly rekindled.
According to Honoré's appetitive applications of the tales, and the ways in which they loosely follow the journey of a bewildered ingenue, Roman gods were obsessed with Earthly pleasures, enjoyed obtaining them, yet still excelled at fruitfully complicating one another's pursuits, as if the satisfaction of a desire was sheer punishment for the uninitiated.
That's standard isn't it?
In the beginning the film seems like a lofty excuse to celebrate young adult experimentation, flings, but as it progresses a visceral sense of relevant nonchalant mesmerizing streetwise countryside volition gradually emerges, a bona fide spiritual transmutation, as it were, artistically grasping fecund universal tranquilities, light yet vicious, hesitantly engaged.
Perhaps all of these individuals who came to be worshipped as gods were just chillaxed Joes anthropomorphic and insouciant enough to delight literary pretensions of old?
Much more literal than O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
Don't Look Now
A mother (Julie Christie) and father (Donald Sutherland), devastated by the loss of their daughter, travel to Venice for restorative distraction, only to find themselves immersed in the inexplicable, struggling to comprehend what simply cannot be.
Thus, as a blind woman's (Hilary Mason) murky clairvoyance confuses yet spiritually syndicates, John Baxter's rationality holds strong, even if he can't deny he's seen something odd, or that her predictions coldly generate truth.
Monopolistic reason can lead one to disregard his or her non-linear senses, the pursuit of pure logic having yet to clarify visions and premonitions, the sustained consistency of which always cause the sure and steady to question enthusiastically, or deny nevertheless, with vehement sincerity.
It's much better than a culture which values psychic claims above all else, for such an unqualifiable elevation begs a preponderance of chicanery.
Mumbo-jumbo as it were.
I believe there are rare people who possess such gifts notwithstanding who shouldn't be shamed and sidelined consequently.
How much of it is basic logic psychologically or historically applied remains to be determined, not by me malheureusement, but by those who make a living marketing such things.
Take prophecy.
If I remember correctly, France was in a state of disarray years after the revolution and Napoleon judged that for order to return, the disorganized people needed something to do.
So he went about conquering Europe.
I applied aspects of this scenario 10 years ago to the United States, thinking that if masses accustomed to wealth and comfort one day found themselves struggling to get by, a madman could unite them with gilded promises, which is what Trump is trying to do.
It's not prophecy.
It's speculation based on historical precedent.
Don't Look Now isn't the greatest film. It's shot in Venice but the cinematography focuses more on dark alleyways and run down buildings than what I imagine are architectural wonders. It keeps you anticipating the next action throughout without offering much compensation for your trouble, apart from some timeless interactions between Christie and Sutherland, and a vague sense of conspiracy which would have benefitted from value added information.
It's character driven but the material doesn't exactly situate them on the 417.
Did Venice have a highly xenophobic reputation at the time?
Thus, as a blind woman's (Hilary Mason) murky clairvoyance confuses yet spiritually syndicates, John Baxter's rationality holds strong, even if he can't deny he's seen something odd, or that her predictions coldly generate truth.
Monopolistic reason can lead one to disregard his or her non-linear senses, the pursuit of pure logic having yet to clarify visions and premonitions, the sustained consistency of which always cause the sure and steady to question enthusiastically, or deny nevertheless, with vehement sincerity.
It's much better than a culture which values psychic claims above all else, for such an unqualifiable elevation begs a preponderance of chicanery.
Mumbo-jumbo as it were.
I believe there are rare people who possess such gifts notwithstanding who shouldn't be shamed and sidelined consequently.
How much of it is basic logic psychologically or historically applied remains to be determined, not by me malheureusement, but by those who make a living marketing such things.
Take prophecy.
If I remember correctly, France was in a state of disarray years after the revolution and Napoleon judged that for order to return, the disorganized people needed something to do.
So he went about conquering Europe.
I applied aspects of this scenario 10 years ago to the United States, thinking that if masses accustomed to wealth and comfort one day found themselves struggling to get by, a madman could unite them with gilded promises, which is what Trump is trying to do.
It's not prophecy.
It's speculation based on historical precedent.
Don't Look Now isn't the greatest film. It's shot in Venice but the cinematography focuses more on dark alleyways and run down buildings than what I imagine are architectural wonders. It keeps you anticipating the next action throughout without offering much compensation for your trouble, apart from some timeless interactions between Christie and Sutherland, and a vague sense of conspiracy which would have benefitted from value added information.
It's character driven but the material doesn't exactly situate them on the 417.
Did Venice have a highly xenophobic reputation at the time?
Friday, September 8, 2017
Walkabout
Courage sustains two formerly privileged youngsters lost in the Australian outback as they conserve what little strength remains to keep moving in search of sanctuary.
The boy (Luc Roeg) is too young to comprehend the crisis but the girl (Jenny Agutter) is resilient enough to diagnose, plan, proceed, and persevere.
Just as things seem hopelessly bleak, as their oasis dries up and alternatives fail to present themselves, an Indigenous youth on walkabout (David Gulpilil) appears on the horizon.
Possessing the knowledge and skills necessary to comfortably excel and thrive, he nourishes then guides them towards heavily populated lands, referred to often, as postmodern civilization.
Director Nicolas Roeg does a brilliant job juxtaposing the urban and the naturalistic throughout, showcasing at least a dozen native Australian animals, with childlike bliss and wondrous unconcern.
Can't believe I haven't seen this until recently.
Many of the animals are hunted for food however so beware.
When nature is your primary textbook, and survival your most demanding 9 to 5, you develop a relationship with your environment potentially as valuable as any University degree.
Possibly more valuable in current economies.
Walkabout provocatively elevates ingeniously living off the land, developing abilities akin to instincts, and characteristics cathartic and strong.
Possibly created to combat dismissive attitudes regarding Indigenous peoples adopted by Anglo-Australians, it certainly makes aspects of city living seem dull while lauding hearty bush living.
The unfortunate incompatibility of the two worlds as depicted in the film haunting the empathetic long afterwards, as different maturities conflict and cultures tragically come of age, Walkabout offers challenges and insights into ideal romance, coldly shattered, by prohibitive fears of the unknown.
The boy (Luc Roeg) is too young to comprehend the crisis but the girl (Jenny Agutter) is resilient enough to diagnose, plan, proceed, and persevere.
Just as things seem hopelessly bleak, as their oasis dries up and alternatives fail to present themselves, an Indigenous youth on walkabout (David Gulpilil) appears on the horizon.
Possessing the knowledge and skills necessary to comfortably excel and thrive, he nourishes then guides them towards heavily populated lands, referred to often, as postmodern civilization.
Director Nicolas Roeg does a brilliant job juxtaposing the urban and the naturalistic throughout, showcasing at least a dozen native Australian animals, with childlike bliss and wondrous unconcern.
Can't believe I haven't seen this until recently.
Many of the animals are hunted for food however so beware.
When nature is your primary textbook, and survival your most demanding 9 to 5, you develop a relationship with your environment potentially as valuable as any University degree.
Possibly more valuable in current economies.
Walkabout provocatively elevates ingeniously living off the land, developing abilities akin to instincts, and characteristics cathartic and strong.
Possibly created to combat dismissive attitudes regarding Indigenous peoples adopted by Anglo-Australians, it certainly makes aspects of city living seem dull while lauding hearty bush living.
The unfortunate incompatibility of the two worlds as depicted in the film haunting the empathetic long afterwards, as different maturities conflict and cultures tragically come of age, Walkabout offers challenges and insights into ideal romance, coldly shattered, by prohibitive fears of the unknown.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
The Glass Castle
Lifelong freespirited learning clashes with a daughter's less romantic pending nuptials as social interaction is inquisitively utilized to vindicate love in Destin Daniel Cretton's The Glass Castle.
Jeannette's (Brie Larson) wild unpredictable upbringing inculcated desires to seek out stability.
But schmoozing high and dry has its manicured blemishes, and a life spent precisely calculating the whimsical and/or incisive and/or apt and/or deconstructive impact of every austerely crafted glance, blush, and/or statement, and/or, sterilely severs her invaluable absurd attachments.
Through an intermittent series of sustained past life remembrances we're feverishly introduced to a lovingly versatile chaotically constructive family, complete with self-destructive alcoholic husband, and tender angelic supportive wife.
Their interactions bluntly interweave the traumatic and the endearing to intergenerationally spread a gritty multiphasic aggregate across recent genealogical landscapes, in order to strengthen psychological shielding which counters antiseptic evaluations.
It's well done, joyously celebrating unrestrained freedom while heartbreakingly illustrating potential related consequences, the bohemians and the bourgeois culturally busking and(/or) burnishing, as a family unconditionally demonstrates what it means to love.
Unfortunately, Captain Fantastic was released not too long ago, and while The Glass Castle makes more of a polished mainstream fit, Captain is the more exciting film.
A new subgenre?
Watch the booze peeps!
I love having a drink when the working day is done, a couple more on the weekend, and having learned to drink moderately, I find I now enjoy a glass of red wine or a pint much more.
I believe I learned to do this through cultural osmosis, my definition of the phrase being "learning and/or adopting features of the new culture you find yourself living within without socially interacting with it that often."
I should have posted that phrase when it popped into my head years ago.
It's probably from the 19th century.
Bah!
Jeannette's (Brie Larson) wild unpredictable upbringing inculcated desires to seek out stability.
But schmoozing high and dry has its manicured blemishes, and a life spent precisely calculating the whimsical and/or incisive and/or apt and/or deconstructive impact of every austerely crafted glance, blush, and/or statement, and/or, sterilely severs her invaluable absurd attachments.
Through an intermittent series of sustained past life remembrances we're feverishly introduced to a lovingly versatile chaotically constructive family, complete with self-destructive alcoholic husband, and tender angelic supportive wife.
Their interactions bluntly interweave the traumatic and the endearing to intergenerationally spread a gritty multiphasic aggregate across recent genealogical landscapes, in order to strengthen psychological shielding which counters antiseptic evaluations.
It's well done, joyously celebrating unrestrained freedom while heartbreakingly illustrating potential related consequences, the bohemians and the bourgeois culturally busking and(/or) burnishing, as a family unconditionally demonstrates what it means to love.
Unfortunately, Captain Fantastic was released not too long ago, and while The Glass Castle makes more of a polished mainstream fit, Captain is the more exciting film.
A new subgenre?
Watch the booze peeps!
I love having a drink when the working day is done, a couple more on the weekend, and having learned to drink moderately, I find I now enjoy a glass of red wine or a pint much more.
I believe I learned to do this through cultural osmosis, my definition of the phrase being "learning and/or adopting features of the new culture you find yourself living within without socially interacting with it that often."
I should have posted that phrase when it popped into my head years ago.
It's probably from the 19th century.
Bah!
Friday, September 1, 2017
The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature
Gluttony and greed contend with sustainability and prudence as a group of mischievous animals from a local park run afoul of a corrupt disingenuous mayor, in The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature.
As overflowing with contempt for anything that doesn't immediately enrich his vast fortunes, as he is unable to prevent himself from gorging upon snacks encumbered by a cardiac degree of immobilizing trans fat, Mayor Muldoon (Bobby Moynihan) decides to turn public land into an amusement park without seeking the guidance of council beforehand.
It is cheaply constructed for the bare minimum with concern for neither structural integrity nor public safety, a ghastly house of carnivalesque cards ready to crumble at any given moment.
The animals protest.
The public land is their home, the ground upon and within which they rear and nurture their young, without it they'll have to move to the surrounding unforgiving concrete wastelands, wherein which they'll likely be divided, and forced to live unscrupulously alone.
They are also guilty of flagrant distraction.
Spoiled after having fortunately gathered extreme wealth, they squandered their resources with reckless unconcern, consumed by ravenous appetites, their carefree excess foolishly cost them their homegrown instincts.
But one squirrel kept her head, Andie (Katherine Heigl), thorny love interest of leader, Surly (Will Arnett).
Together they begin to rebuild, encouraging each individual member to share their ideas, demonstrate their competencies, synergize their strategies, and mobilize their momentum.
With the sole goal in mind, of taking Muldoon the fuck down.
It's an energetic children's film that environmentally examines contemporary obsessions with grotesque profits by juxtaposing plutocrats with the penniless, the nimble, with the immutable.
The Mayor consults no one, cares nothing for his clients, it's pure unregulated capitalism, sacrificing sanctuary for psychotropics, and solace for crime and hunger.
Communal ghettoization.
Globalization is metaphorically presented as different animal groups share their mutually hopeless predicaments.
One hell of a squirrel.
One hell of a mouse.
An incredible synthesis.
Problems in one region of the globe/town, problems in another.
Symbiotic stitches, cooperative communications.
Pursuant, indicative.
Of global citizenry.
As overflowing with contempt for anything that doesn't immediately enrich his vast fortunes, as he is unable to prevent himself from gorging upon snacks encumbered by a cardiac degree of immobilizing trans fat, Mayor Muldoon (Bobby Moynihan) decides to turn public land into an amusement park without seeking the guidance of council beforehand.
It is cheaply constructed for the bare minimum with concern for neither structural integrity nor public safety, a ghastly house of carnivalesque cards ready to crumble at any given moment.
The animals protest.
The public land is their home, the ground upon and within which they rear and nurture their young, without it they'll have to move to the surrounding unforgiving concrete wastelands, wherein which they'll likely be divided, and forced to live unscrupulously alone.
They are also guilty of flagrant distraction.
Spoiled after having fortunately gathered extreme wealth, they squandered their resources with reckless unconcern, consumed by ravenous appetites, their carefree excess foolishly cost them their homegrown instincts.
But one squirrel kept her head, Andie (Katherine Heigl), thorny love interest of leader, Surly (Will Arnett).
Together they begin to rebuild, encouraging each individual member to share their ideas, demonstrate their competencies, synergize their strategies, and mobilize their momentum.
With the sole goal in mind, of taking Muldoon the fuck down.
It's an energetic children's film that environmentally examines contemporary obsessions with grotesque profits by juxtaposing plutocrats with the penniless, the nimble, with the immutable.
The Mayor consults no one, cares nothing for his clients, it's pure unregulated capitalism, sacrificing sanctuary for psychotropics, and solace for crime and hunger.
Communal ghettoization.
Globalization is metaphorically presented as different animal groups share their mutually hopeless predicaments.
One hell of a squirrel.
One hell of a mouse.
An incredible synthesis.
Problems in one region of the globe/town, problems in another.
Symbiotic stitches, cooperative communications.
Pursuant, indicative.
Of global citizenry.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Lucky Logan
Disreputably discharged, scintillating strategy, fraternal fervour, impenitent perfidy, perfecting the penetrating pardon piecemeal, a brother creates a plan to holistically heist, recruiting resins and residents and siblings and stealth, his team patiently exercising precise pitch adjudicatively, jigsawing the jabs and jettisoning apprehensions they not-so-delicately divide up the labour, differing divergencies conditionally coordinated with concise collocation, the moment of truth ascends, departures and infiltrations seismically systematized, they shift into high gear, and tenaciously tear up the track.
I imagine Lucky Logan will find a supportive audience.
It's one of those films you can't help but love even if you really don't like it.
The situations and sequences and shivers and synergies are certainly well thought out, but it's like it blew a tire during the first lap yet continued trekking round and round, aimlessly sans objectif, the idea being much stronger than the execution, which is unfortunately resoundingly flat.
It has its moments, notably scenes with Daniel Craig (Joe Bang) or those involving a distressed warden irreverently operating in isolation.
It's fun to watch while the thieves engage, plus it's super Robin Hoody which is awesome.
But there are so many exchanges which seem like they should be hilarious, like you should be boisterously busting a gut, but it never really happens, it's just too plain, too dull.
Just my opinion though.
And I don't get it sometimes.
Love Lucky Logan, excel and thrive.
Daniel Craig does have multiple scenes.
I'm bloated.
Friday, August 25, 2017
The Journey
A bold impromptu countryside drive bears diplomatic fruit in Nick Hamm's The Journey, as two polar opposites combatively discuss Northern Ireland's historic divisions along the way.
One is as unyielding in his convictions as he is appealing (to his flock) in his integrity, a cold hard person of the cloth who cites scripture like he's exhaling the divine to justify whatever it is he happens to be upholding/considering/refuting/condemning.
The other's less austere, a person of the world who's made tough decisions to challenge unsettling realities. He's tired of fighting and seeks a mutually beneficial resolution, a tie that binds, an end to the bloodshed.
The tension's thick as they depart side by side to travel to the airport, but the ostensibly naive inquiries of an undercover chauffeur slowly but surely facilitate dialogue.
Obviously enough, it's difficult to have a conversation when a participant is unwilling, when someone trades jibes and insults rather than reflections and well-reasoned respectful counterpoints.
Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) isn't easily dissuaded, however, and his resourceful concerned conciliatory olive branch gradually impresses the much older Ian Paisley (Timothy Spall).
What follows is a light but sturdy passionate yet restrained account of a brilliant diplomatic act, of a political synthesis replete with sympathy and understanding that significantly changed things and reunited integrities estranged.
Inspirational.
The ideological and the practical ingeniously combined, Northern Ireland's example as presented in The Journey provides leaders of all stripes with constructive hands on principles which can promote consensus as opposed to carnage, community rather than chaos.
A tiny country isolated on the edge of Europe which found a working solution so many more cosmopolitan realms never seem to discover, the lasting peace which McGuinness and Paisley embraced resolutely resonates to this day.
As many others have pointed out, the study of history is integral to a nation's identity, but bearing grudges about things that happened long ago can clog things up in the present until there's absolutely no moving forward, history blindly and stubbornly obscuring innovation.
Cynicism breeds contempt if not romance, contempt fosters alienation if not community.
If politicians can constructively clarify innovations at any given moment, contemporary conceptions can progressively promote change, as long as there's a willingness for different cultures to make concessions, or simply recognize the potential of how truly wonderful things can be.
Unfortunately, that's too easy, according to my rudimentary understanding of cultural obsessions with novelty.
Too predictable, too boring.
Perhaps you need that wild unpredicted spontaneous stroke of heuristic genius that brought Northern Ireland together to encourage cultural respect amongst peoples.
Or perhaps peoples really do respect one another as long as tensions aren't politically riled up every six months or so.
That could be it.
One is as unyielding in his convictions as he is appealing (to his flock) in his integrity, a cold hard person of the cloth who cites scripture like he's exhaling the divine to justify whatever it is he happens to be upholding/considering/refuting/condemning.
The other's less austere, a person of the world who's made tough decisions to challenge unsettling realities. He's tired of fighting and seeks a mutually beneficial resolution, a tie that binds, an end to the bloodshed.
The tension's thick as they depart side by side to travel to the airport, but the ostensibly naive inquiries of an undercover chauffeur slowly but surely facilitate dialogue.
Obviously enough, it's difficult to have a conversation when a participant is unwilling, when someone trades jibes and insults rather than reflections and well-reasoned respectful counterpoints.
Martin McGuinness (Colm Meaney) isn't easily dissuaded, however, and his resourceful concerned conciliatory olive branch gradually impresses the much older Ian Paisley (Timothy Spall).
What follows is a light but sturdy passionate yet restrained account of a brilliant diplomatic act, of a political synthesis replete with sympathy and understanding that significantly changed things and reunited integrities estranged.
Inspirational.
The ideological and the practical ingeniously combined, Northern Ireland's example as presented in The Journey provides leaders of all stripes with constructive hands on principles which can promote consensus as opposed to carnage, community rather than chaos.
A tiny country isolated on the edge of Europe which found a working solution so many more cosmopolitan realms never seem to discover, the lasting peace which McGuinness and Paisley embraced resolutely resonates to this day.
As many others have pointed out, the study of history is integral to a nation's identity, but bearing grudges about things that happened long ago can clog things up in the present until there's absolutely no moving forward, history blindly and stubbornly obscuring innovation.
Cynicism breeds contempt if not romance, contempt fosters alienation if not community.
If politicians can constructively clarify innovations at any given moment, contemporary conceptions can progressively promote change, as long as there's a willingness for different cultures to make concessions, or simply recognize the potential of how truly wonderful things can be.
Unfortunately, that's too easy, according to my rudimentary understanding of cultural obsessions with novelty.
Too predictable, too boring.
Perhaps you need that wild unpredicted spontaneous stroke of heuristic genius that brought Northern Ireland together to encourage cultural respect amongst peoples.
Or perhaps peoples really do respect one another as long as tensions aren't politically riled up every six months or so.
That could be it.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Annabelle: Creation
Horror awaits a group of female religious orphans in David F. Sandberg's Annabelle: Creation, as they find sanctuary with a childless family whose husband once made a living crafting dolls.
Unfortunately, his daughter was lost in a tragic accident, and emphatic prayers for reanimation were made to whomever would mercifully listen.
Yet in their desperation, Mr. and Mrs. Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto) accepted the aid of Satan, and one of his unholy minions was unleashed upon earthly realms.
Eventually captured and incarcerated within biblical shackles, it malevolently waits for ingenuous release, calling out to the unsuspecting, as they attempt to innocently slumber.
Why was there no exorcism?
Why was pure evil so lackadaisically contained?
Seriously, an exorcism and a wild grizzled priest would have added a lot to Annabelle: Creation, which performs some rudimentary tricks but by no means stands out as a testifying treat.
An exorcism perhaps would have made the film seem too derivative, but it's not like it represents supernatural authenticity in its current threadbare confines.
Many episodes of The X-Files are more frightening and thought provoking for instance.
If Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) had boldly and resonantly stood against the demon and dealt it a discombobulating blow, feminine strength would have been more actively asserted.
Thus, in its current state it's little more than a light bit of distraction, whose latent thematic potential might resonate more profoundly in subsequent instalments.
Unfortunately, his daughter was lost in a tragic accident, and emphatic prayers for reanimation were made to whomever would mercifully listen.
Yet in their desperation, Mr. and Mrs. Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto) accepted the aid of Satan, and one of his unholy minions was unleashed upon earthly realms.
Eventually captured and incarcerated within biblical shackles, it malevolently waits for ingenuous release, calling out to the unsuspecting, as they attempt to innocently slumber.
Why was there no exorcism?
Why was pure evil so lackadaisically contained?
Seriously, an exorcism and a wild grizzled priest would have added a lot to Annabelle: Creation, which performs some rudimentary tricks but by no means stands out as a testifying treat.
An exorcism perhaps would have made the film seem too derivative, but it's not like it represents supernatural authenticity in its current threadbare confines.
Many episodes of The X-Files are more frightening and thought provoking for instance.
If Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) had boldly and resonantly stood against the demon and dealt it a discombobulating blow, feminine strength would have been more actively asserted.
Thus, in its current state it's little more than a light bit of distraction, whose latent thematic potential might resonate more profoundly in subsequent instalments.
Friday, August 18, 2017
Detroit
Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit examines a horrific event from America's past that took place during the explosive Detroit riots.
As the twitterverse and the video technology built into postmodern cellphones vigilantly documents contemporary life, providing unburnished blueprints of power being abused, the prolonged illustration of police brutality found in the film seems shocking yet all too familiar.
How do you bring these two groups together, African American communities targeted by the police and the trustworthy police officers committed to treating them fairly?
If one group targets another for decades and becomes more like a bully than a protector, it's difficult for the victims to trust that group or assist them when their help is needed.
That targeted community deserves the same protection other communities enjoy and it would be terrifying to think that the very people hired to ensure public safety were in fact hostile and unwilling to assist.
The positive forces of progressive change are often overlooked within a sensationalized frame that predominantly focuses on violence.
They must be working together behind the scenes to fight both crime and police brutality, with stricter penalties for police officers who shoot first and ask questions later.
It must be difficult to trust if you see innocent members of your community killed by the police, and then the offending officer is set free with a slap on the wrist.
It must be difficult to trust if the authorities generally think you're troublemaking.
Decade after decade, no respite in sight.
Despair contending with animosity, historically nuanced to permeate strategic plans.
The African Americans I've worked with were first rate, working hard throughout the day while relaxing and having thoughtful and fun conversations during lunch and breaks, like the other people I've worked with over the years.
There's no difference unless you ignorantly approach the situation with destructive preconceived notions that turn a typical interaction into an eggshell extravaganza.
Detroit realistically and bluntly presents a racist tragedy perpetrated by those who blindly consider violence to be an effective tool.
Hemorrhaging and monstrous, it openly investigates that which remains unimagined, hopefully teaching confused individuals and communities just how horrendous miscommunication can be.
I suggest never pulling a prank on the police, rather, it's best practice to listen and do what they say.
Even if it makes no difference when they do that in Detroit.
There are thousands of police officers out there who care and are there to protect and serve.
Hopefully they can surely remove the racist motivations from the force, which encourage unrelenting tension, and replace trust and friendship with contempt and conflict.
As the twitterverse and the video technology built into postmodern cellphones vigilantly documents contemporary life, providing unburnished blueprints of power being abused, the prolonged illustration of police brutality found in the film seems shocking yet all too familiar.
How do you bring these two groups together, African American communities targeted by the police and the trustworthy police officers committed to treating them fairly?
If one group targets another for decades and becomes more like a bully than a protector, it's difficult for the victims to trust that group or assist them when their help is needed.
That targeted community deserves the same protection other communities enjoy and it would be terrifying to think that the very people hired to ensure public safety were in fact hostile and unwilling to assist.
The positive forces of progressive change are often overlooked within a sensationalized frame that predominantly focuses on violence.
They must be working together behind the scenes to fight both crime and police brutality, with stricter penalties for police officers who shoot first and ask questions later.
It must be difficult to trust if you see innocent members of your community killed by the police, and then the offending officer is set free with a slap on the wrist.
It must be difficult to trust if the authorities generally think you're troublemaking.
Decade after decade, no respite in sight.
Despair contending with animosity, historically nuanced to permeate strategic plans.
The African Americans I've worked with were first rate, working hard throughout the day while relaxing and having thoughtful and fun conversations during lunch and breaks, like the other people I've worked with over the years.
There's no difference unless you ignorantly approach the situation with destructive preconceived notions that turn a typical interaction into an eggshell extravaganza.
Detroit realistically and bluntly presents a racist tragedy perpetrated by those who blindly consider violence to be an effective tool.
Hemorrhaging and monstrous, it openly investigates that which remains unimagined, hopefully teaching confused individuals and communities just how horrendous miscommunication can be.
I suggest never pulling a prank on the police, rather, it's best practice to listen and do what they say.
Even if it makes no difference when they do that in Detroit.
There are thousands of police officers out there who care and are there to protect and serve.
Hopefully they can surely remove the racist motivations from the force, which encourage unrelenting tension, and replace trust and friendship with contempt and conflict.
Tuesday, August 15, 2017
The Big Sick
The one night stand that blossoms into something bountiful.
Lighthearted carefree revelling evoking humorous injunctions.
Pakistani and European Americans embracing mutually inclusive tactile artistry.
Fanciful floodgates flummoxing.
As exclusivity spoils the fun.
And traditions tumultuously tether.
The Big Sick was much better than I thought it would be.
I only went to see it because I had seen everything else besides The Emoji Movie.
It wasn’t generally wishy washy or trashy or ridiculous or tough to take, rather, it was a well thought out multifaceted intergenerational romantic comedic dramatic account (I’m not writing dramedy) of restless young adults credulously craving each other’s clutches, caught up in interstitial exuberance, with feverish judicious nourishing insatiable impress.
The wild.
The exhilarating.
But Kumail‘s (Kumail Nanjiani) age old customs complicate things and there’s a devastating break up around two-fifths of the way through.
The film struggles for 15-20 minutes afterwards as Emily (Zoe Kazan) falls into a non-related coma, but just as it seemed like it was turning into a write off, her parents Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano) show up, and as guilt ridden Kumail gets to know them, the film’s transported to a much deeper level of interpersonal awareness, their steadily shifting interactions developing themes from one perplexity to the next, notably as Kumail learns how many familial problems they had after they married, and how strong they had to be to fetchingly confront them.
Holly Hunter steals a bunch of scenes. I’ve never noticed her like this before. She owns the role with feisty delicacy and ponderous pluck and delivers a performance to recall.
Best supporting actress?
It’s still pretty early, but wow, I was thoroughly impressed enough to place her on the list, like Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise or the late honourable Bill Paxton in Aliens.
Kumail keeps performing throughout and the conversations he has with his fellow comedians ir/reverently round things out.
It also respectfully examines classic intercultural exploration.
Culture and tradition are certainly important.
I don't care if people wish to live within their culture’s religious or secular guidelines.
Whatevs!
As long as the choice to mix and blend with other cultures still exists as well, to forge dynamic communal hybrids multigenerationally composed of differences from around the globe, to marry whomever the hell you want to marry, and if that choice is taken away, even if your family has lived somewhere for hundreds, thousands of years, I’m afraid that’s super lame, period.
It’s fun to date people from other cultures. You’re constantly learning new things.
Forgive yourself and ask for forgiveness if at times you learn a new cultural feature and happen to uncontrollably start laughing.
Sometimes traditions you’re not familiar with seem funny until you understand how important they are to the new person you’ve met.
If you love them, you’ll feel bad.
And if they love you, your punishment won’t be to dishevelling.
Blushy face.
*Nanjiani and Kazan work well together. I was thinking a sequel set in Brazil. I loved Ray Romano's "opened my mouth hoping something smart would come out" (paraphrase) line. The late at night sleepy conversations. "Tell me a story!" Oh man!
*Nanjiani and Kazan work well together. I was thinking a sequel set in Brazil. I loved Ray Romano's "opened my mouth hoping something smart would come out" (paraphrase) line. The late at night sleepy conversations. "Tell me a story!" Oh man!
Friday, August 11, 2017
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
A peaceful life, a planet in possession of an indigenous miracle, its inhabitants living harmoniously with their environment, excelling at sustaining life in symbiotic exhilaration, pure simplicity matched with subtle eloquence, resplendent tranquil nimble mores, Fiji!, Endor!, Pandora!, Europa?!, falls prey to expansionist greed, victimized to the brink of extinction, the memory of its free people quickly fading, into refined contested disputed intergalactic lore.
Adherences to historical records formally tricked into officially believing nothing happened, the survivors fittingly conceal themselves in emptiness, the possibility of their existence unconsciously haunting their betrayer, on a bustling multidimensional metropolis nestled in neurasthenic nevermore.
Whereupon young love is burgeoning, two youthful recruits risking everything to obtain mission objectives, competent and respected enough to brave seeking evidence that will condemn a superior officer, athletically gifted and intellectually endowed, capable of infinitesimally infiltrating while still pausing to appreciate art, a serendipitous synergy pursuing altruistic cardioaccruements, they generationally contend with that which is forbidden, mineralogically setting sail, into cyclones Vedic honed.
As a matter of conscience.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets heats up virtually, technologically, terrestrially, and subterraneanly inclined environments, metaphorically synthesizing a lifetime engaged ensemble, through the provocative art of proactive pioneer.
Within a multicultural conglomerate safely harbours species at risk, if they aren't systematically sought after, and can steadily remain undetected.
A compelling look at the evolution of social media, Valerian ascends to olympian symbolic heights while occasionally stalling on paths taken to reach them.
Recalling that fair solutions do present themselves when cultures negotiate in good faith, it celebrates youthful fair play backed up by regulatory checks and balances.
The naturalization of animosity grossly misrepresents cross-cultural social relations.
People often don't take comedic applications of glorified negligence seriously.
If they think about the situation.
Separate the sleaze from the discontinuity.
Adherences to historical records formally tricked into officially believing nothing happened, the survivors fittingly conceal themselves in emptiness, the possibility of their existence unconsciously haunting their betrayer, on a bustling multidimensional metropolis nestled in neurasthenic nevermore.
Whereupon young love is burgeoning, two youthful recruits risking everything to obtain mission objectives, competent and respected enough to brave seeking evidence that will condemn a superior officer, athletically gifted and intellectually endowed, capable of infinitesimally infiltrating while still pausing to appreciate art, a serendipitous synergy pursuing altruistic cardioaccruements, they generationally contend with that which is forbidden, mineralogically setting sail, into cyclones Vedic honed.
As a matter of conscience.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets heats up virtually, technologically, terrestrially, and subterraneanly inclined environments, metaphorically synthesizing a lifetime engaged ensemble, through the provocative art of proactive pioneer.
Within a multicultural conglomerate safely harbours species at risk, if they aren't systematically sought after, and can steadily remain undetected.
A compelling look at the evolution of social media, Valerian ascends to olympian symbolic heights while occasionally stalling on paths taken to reach them.
Recalling that fair solutions do present themselves when cultures negotiate in good faith, it celebrates youthful fair play backed up by regulatory checks and balances.
The naturalization of animosity grossly misrepresents cross-cultural social relations.
People often don't take comedic applications of glorified negligence seriously.
If they think about the situation.
Separate the sleaze from the discontinuity.
Tuesday, August 8, 2017
The Dark Tower
A monstrous evil, scurrilously preying on the gifts of the innocent, intent on unleashing a frenzy of chaos upon worlds existing within worlds, rigorously assaulting their towering quintessence, transporting between realms with exuberant malicious discontent to capture a child and exploit his powers thereby inaugurating bedlam's unconstrained malevolence, after he desperately escapes his minion's demonic clutches, landing in a western world thereafter wherein which hope still communally emancipates.
Like a University professor who tyrannically bends the wills of his or her grad students to her or his own, or a teacher conjured by a shrieking nightmarish Pink Floyd soundscape, the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) feverishly seeks young Jake (Tom Taylor), who fortunately manages to obtain aid through opposition (Idris Elba).
In the fantastic dominion of Mid-World.
By the light of a despondent Sun.
As crudely cavalier nauseous malcontents continue to flourish in Trump's grossly irresponsible political construct, The Dark Tower disseminates multilateral luminescence, illuminating paths upon which to sublimely tread, during the villainous nocturnal onslaught, and the promulgation of sheer stupidity.
While artists are abandoned within, violence is recreationally devoured, leaders remain isolated and drifting, and attacks wildly increase in ferocity, an undaunted team slowly assembles, afterwards casting utopian firmaments anew.
Not the best fantasy film I've seen this Summer (I'm wondering if that's why Spaghetti Week at the Magestic [or something like that] is advertised near the end [lol]), but still a cool entertaining traditional yet creative sci-fi western, even if I'm unsure how I would have reacted to it if I were 15, I certainly find it relevant enough these days to imagine that I would have loved it.
The magical power of rhetorical/literary/political/interdimensional/. . . metaphor gracefully comments and forecasts, providing young and aged minds alike with plenty of rationales to reify, while still bluntly emphasizing the truth of scientific fact.
Focusing on the good of the many.
As contrasted with unilateral obsessions.
Like a University professor who tyrannically bends the wills of his or her grad students to her or his own, or a teacher conjured by a shrieking nightmarish Pink Floyd soundscape, the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) feverishly seeks young Jake (Tom Taylor), who fortunately manages to obtain aid through opposition (Idris Elba).
In the fantastic dominion of Mid-World.
By the light of a despondent Sun.
As crudely cavalier nauseous malcontents continue to flourish in Trump's grossly irresponsible political construct, The Dark Tower disseminates multilateral luminescence, illuminating paths upon which to sublimely tread, during the villainous nocturnal onslaught, and the promulgation of sheer stupidity.
While artists are abandoned within, violence is recreationally devoured, leaders remain isolated and drifting, and attacks wildly increase in ferocity, an undaunted team slowly assembles, afterwards casting utopian firmaments anew.
Not the best fantasy film I've seen this Summer (I'm wondering if that's why Spaghetti Week at the Magestic [or something like that] is advertised near the end [lol]), but still a cool entertaining traditional yet creative sci-fi western, even if I'm unsure how I would have reacted to it if I were 15, I certainly find it relevant enough these days to imagine that I would have loved it.
The magical power of rhetorical/literary/political/interdimensional/. . . metaphor gracefully comments and forecasts, providing young and aged minds alike with plenty of rationales to reify, while still bluntly emphasizing the truth of scientific fact.
Focusing on the good of the many.
As contrasted with unilateral obsessions.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Manifesto
Sizzling with cerebral sanctified spunk, a crisp calisthenic collage of artistic movements (manifestos) comedically condensed and maniacally applied, a bit of witty amusing marcochotic minimalism, envisioned extrapolated bizarro encapsulations, diabolic discombobulation, ebullient disillusion, Julian Rosefeldt's Manifesto is the most intelligent film I’ve seen in years, but it’s not just an abstruse display of eviscerating conceit, it’s funny too, a rare gift, to transform material as serious as that which Rosefeldt creatively lampoons into a series of critical reflections upon the nature of active being in a manner that chuckles as it castigates and drizzles high and dry, isn’t that easy to do at such a high level, sort of like Monty Python on steroids contemporizing credulia with Žižekean cheek and Derridean poise, a deconstructive magnum opus whose only failing is inherent within its repetitive structure, still, if I was in school I’d like to write essays about it, that would be irresistible, or teach it I suppose, Malcontent Manifestos: The Embroiled Baker's Slather, may pick up a copy regardless, Cate Blanchett’s incredible.
I’d have given her the oscar nod although I’m not sure whether or not you can be nominated for 13 short distinct performances as opposed to one lengthy one.
If that’s an unwritten rule, it should have been rewritten.
As far as manifestos themselves go, I don’t really know what to make of them.
I’ve learned that people like to take part in movements, organizations, hierarchies, even highly independent people, I’ve even found great comfort within unabrasive hierarchies which gave me room to maneuver as long as I respected the levels myself, but in terms of directly following one creed exclusively and abiding by its principles unyieldingly, well, I find that to be quite difficult, unless they aren’t sadistic and I’m being paid an enormous sum that allows me to travel and own property.
It’s like I’m judiciously applying French civil law without a Napoleonic code while bearing in mind precedent based upon what I’ve experienced, read, heard, seen, and created, a lot of the time.
That makes its fun.
Ecstatic extracts.
Conciliatory conscience.
Beware the manifestos that promote violence. If things are despotic and millions are starving, that’s, starving, while an elite few flaunt their wealth that’s one thing, but revolutions often wind up with millions dead, that’s millions of dead people, and the new system often resembles the old eventually with different families occupying the same positions of power.
Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities is a must read for those with revolutionary sympathies.
Read it 'til the end!
Peaceful revolutions, quiet revolutions, can remarkably change things however, gradually creating a cooler state of affairs that makes daily life much less desperate for the impoverished.
Not a perfect solution by any means, but democratically moving forward step by step towards something more meaningful, something less cruel, for human and animal kind alike, manifests progressive change that doesn’t rely on monstrous bloodshed.
Keep the non-violent manifestos coming.
You couldn’t do better.
People like to follow things, get involved.
I like the idea of following things and getting involved.
Even do get involved from time to time.
Take part.
Tuesday, August 1, 2017
Atomic Blonde
If this is the mainstream cinematic age of fantasy and action, it’s fascinating to see how different directors are imagining themselves franchised in the genre(s), as they create hyperreactive propulsive enterprising incinerations which vehemently ponder conundrums cloaked in smarm.
Brainiac brawn.
Succulent seduction.
King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword, John Wick, and Atomic Blonde do this anyways, offering jousts and jinxes to challenge unconcerned juggernauts.
Atomic Blonde is borderline brilliant with its kinetic complications and extensive improvisations, multiple characters each playing integral roles as a beautiful deadly agent thrives on information hunger.
The cold war is about to end (that’s end!) but not before a coveted list of pejorative players appears for sale on clandestine markets which seek to see its content temporally manifested.
French, Russian, British and American operatives desperately clash to obtain it on the streets of a divided Berlin, double-crossing, combatting, entertaining, conjoining, keeping track of who’s in first simmering hardboiled whats and I-don’t-knows, as it becomes clear that everything’s obscured, and only those who can proportionally balance the incisive with the bellicose have a chance at emerging unscathed.
The judicious exchange of bodily fluids a portentous exemplar of trust notwithstanding.
Or slightly scathed.
Quite scathed perhaps.
I didn’t see Ghost in the Shell so this statement may be incorrect, but Lorraine Broughton's (Charlize Theron) altercations (perhaps) set a new standard for tenacious females furiously and potently defending themselves.
Cool title, cool action, cool interactions, icy wherewithal, David Leitch's upcoming films may be some of the best espionagesque cerebral thrillers to ever gladiatorally grace American cinemas, notably if he keeps working with Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir (editing) and Kurt Johnstad (screenplay).
The music’s fantastic too and creatively mixed with the action.
Not for the feint of heart but essential to establish glacial bearings, Atomic Blonde exfoliates in overdrive to romanticize tranquility.
And calm.
Leitch used to be a stuntperson apparently. Has a stuntperson ever gone on to direct before?
Friday, July 28, 2017
Weirdos
The striking underground comedic Canadian coming of age pseudo-road trip, nestled on cozy Cape Breton Island, with teenage conflicts to settle and communal sympathy to spare, a wide variety of soulful situations stitched together to explore desire, relationships, and family, as a young couple discuss the nature of their bond, both representatives confused and curious, as they head to a beach party revelling off the beaten track.
Weirdos focuses on identity inasmuch as it challenges gender based preconceptions.
Alice (Julia Sarah Stone) wants to be a police officer for instance and Kit (Dylan Authors) wants to move away from his father, who uses homophobic slurs.
They're not particularly weird though.
I didn't think they were that weird anyways.
Perhaps they were in 1973.
There was this dance I saw on Degrassi Junior High when I was a kid that presented a bunch of fellow youngsters from different backgrounds just having a good time dancing together.
It didn't seem weird.
In fact it seemed like a lot of fun.
I figured the title is more of a test, a challenge, do you actually think these characters are strange or are you missing the point if you can't see how normal they are?
If you ask me, there's really just being, living, wanting to do things and doing them.
If jerks won't let you try due to some shortsighted notion based upon a callous stereotype ignorantly generated by fear and hatred (how these rotten individuals are trying to make themselves seem like victims in the Trump era [as they recklessly bully]), screw 'em.
If you really want to do it, find another way, even if it can be incredibly difficult at times.
You may just find a lot of people believe in you.
Weirdos excels.
A light examination of difference that generates contentment and disappointment while gingerly transitioning from one scene to the next.
I didn't understand why Kit's mother (Molly Parker) received such harsh treatment though.
Artists criticizing artists for lacking social graces always confuses me.
She doesn't understand children well nor the impacts of the statements she makes.
But toss her into a mental hospital? Again?
Odd.
There's probably something I'm missing about the character, but I still wonder if the amount of money French cultures spend promoting the arts and artists is directly proportional to that which English cultures spend promoting pharmaceutical drugs and psychiatric hospitals.
I'd like to research that theory.
Going to see a French artist perform on French turf is quite remarkable. They have personality and they're there to entertainingly share that personality while performing to an audience who isn't only there to see them play music.
The audience wants to hear what the artist has to say.
When you hear French people discuss artists in conversation they do so with a degree of respect that I rarely note in conversations regarding the arts with English people.
Not all English people.
Obviously this isn't a critical reflection that exhaustively examines shortcomings etcetera, but these are features I've noticed about French culture in conversation.
A criticism of artists in English realms I've often heard is, "why did they talk so much between songs?"
I never understood that point.
Just experiential observations.
Things I've noticed.
Weirdos focuses on identity inasmuch as it challenges gender based preconceptions.
Alice (Julia Sarah Stone) wants to be a police officer for instance and Kit (Dylan Authors) wants to move away from his father, who uses homophobic slurs.
They're not particularly weird though.
I didn't think they were that weird anyways.
Perhaps they were in 1973.
There was this dance I saw on Degrassi Junior High when I was a kid that presented a bunch of fellow youngsters from different backgrounds just having a good time dancing together.
It didn't seem weird.
In fact it seemed like a lot of fun.
I figured the title is more of a test, a challenge, do you actually think these characters are strange or are you missing the point if you can't see how normal they are?
If you ask me, there's really just being, living, wanting to do things and doing them.
If jerks won't let you try due to some shortsighted notion based upon a callous stereotype ignorantly generated by fear and hatred (how these rotten individuals are trying to make themselves seem like victims in the Trump era [as they recklessly bully]), screw 'em.
If you really want to do it, find another way, even if it can be incredibly difficult at times.
You may just find a lot of people believe in you.
Weirdos excels.
A light examination of difference that generates contentment and disappointment while gingerly transitioning from one scene to the next.
I didn't understand why Kit's mother (Molly Parker) received such harsh treatment though.
Artists criticizing artists for lacking social graces always confuses me.
She doesn't understand children well nor the impacts of the statements she makes.
But toss her into a mental hospital? Again?
Odd.
There's probably something I'm missing about the character, but I still wonder if the amount of money French cultures spend promoting the arts and artists is directly proportional to that which English cultures spend promoting pharmaceutical drugs and psychiatric hospitals.
I'd like to research that theory.
Going to see a French artist perform on French turf is quite remarkable. They have personality and they're there to entertainingly share that personality while performing to an audience who isn't only there to see them play music.
The audience wants to hear what the artist has to say.
When you hear French people discuss artists in conversation they do so with a degree of respect that I rarely note in conversations regarding the arts with English people.
Not all English people.
Obviously this isn't a critical reflection that exhaustively examines shortcomings etcetera, but these are features I've noticed about French culture in conversation.
A criticism of artists in English realms I've often heard is, "why did they talk so much between songs?"
I never understood that point.
Just experiential observations.
Things I've noticed.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Dunkirk
Hedged-in and horrorstruck, 400,000 soldiers await evacuation from France to Britain.
The blitzkrieg having overwhelmed brave defences, sanctuary upon the continent is rapidly diminishing.
Those who avoided capture or weren't stuck fighting against maniacal odds, found themselves awaiting a rescue that was itself fraught with peril.
On a lonely beach in Dunkirk.
Nazi aircraft bombing them from the skies while u-boats viciously lurked beneath open waters, hope nevertheless still reigned, as the absurdity of their position encouraged resilient pluck.
And so a fleet of civilian boats left Britain's shores to dare save them.
In possession of nothing less than the will to endure that drives so many, they immediately dropped everything to boldly challenge Hitler's despotic ambition.
With resounding allied success.
Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk viscerally threads the line between despondency and fortitude as impossibility is flipped the bird by land, water, and sky.
Heroic acts undertaken by those calmly balancing risk with resolve, Nolan's script modestly yet courageously envisions the potent danger.
A well-edited film (Lee Smith) which patiently blends the restrained passions of men statically suturing on the ground, with those defending them above and approaching by sea, the staggering unnerving losses counterbalanced by fortifying victories, aeronautic adrenaline, nautical initiative, Dunkirk celebrates as it suffers, with unified tripartite tenacity, presenting inherent atrocities without sensationalizing the violence, crisp resolute solemnity as opposed to sadistic sanctimony, steady as she goes, into the great beyond.
The numbers don't add up but its genuine character far outweighs what visual enhancements would have offered.
The real crafted realistically.
It never ages.
The blitzkrieg having overwhelmed brave defences, sanctuary upon the continent is rapidly diminishing.
Those who avoided capture or weren't stuck fighting against maniacal odds, found themselves awaiting a rescue that was itself fraught with peril.
On a lonely beach in Dunkirk.
Nazi aircraft bombing them from the skies while u-boats viciously lurked beneath open waters, hope nevertheless still reigned, as the absurdity of their position encouraged resilient pluck.
And so a fleet of civilian boats left Britain's shores to dare save them.
In possession of nothing less than the will to endure that drives so many, they immediately dropped everything to boldly challenge Hitler's despotic ambition.
With resounding allied success.
Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk viscerally threads the line between despondency and fortitude as impossibility is flipped the bird by land, water, and sky.
Heroic acts undertaken by those calmly balancing risk with resolve, Nolan's script modestly yet courageously envisions the potent danger.
A well-edited film (Lee Smith) which patiently blends the restrained passions of men statically suturing on the ground, with those defending them above and approaching by sea, the staggering unnerving losses counterbalanced by fortifying victories, aeronautic adrenaline, nautical initiative, Dunkirk celebrates as it suffers, with unified tripartite tenacity, presenting inherent atrocities without sensationalizing the violence, crisp resolute solemnity as opposed to sadistic sanctimony, steady as she goes, into the great beyond.
The numbers don't add up but its genuine character far outweighs what visual enhancements would have offered.
The real crafted realistically.
It never ages.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Spider-Man: Homecoming
The bourgeoisie surreptitiously asserts itself in Marvel's new Spider-Man: Homecoming, as competing potential father figures sternly challenge wild teenage convictions.
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) offers fame and fortune.
He nurtures young Peter (Tom Holland) with august olympian tragedy, but isn't there to provide sought after guidance when the perplexities of crime fighting overwhelm as bewilderingly as they undermine.
His approach is school-of-hard-knocksy and Mr. Parker is none too amused.
Thus, he sees Mr. Stark's world and that of the Avengers as too ornate, too disassociated from that of the common person, and even though he wholeheartedly seeks to become an Avenger, like Henry Carpenter, he prefers to keep his feet on the ground, since he's unable to balance avenging rewards with communal sacrifices.
Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) on the other hand presents a successful self-made entrepreneurial gritty streetwise contrast to the illustrious Ironman.
He doesn't hobnob with politicians and plutocrats and geniuses and royalty.
He's an intelligent hands-on formerly honest businessperson who was forced into a life of crime by insensitive shortsighted unapologetic bureaucratic greed.
Choosing to keep his house and to save the jobs of the workers he employs, he adapts to his unfortunate circumstances and finds ways to controversially endure.
He's still a criminal though, and Peter's right to attempt to stop him from selling highly advanced weapons to bank robbers and thugs (he could have found other applications for his salvage), but when Peter sees the effects his actions have on his friends at school, he can't help but wonder if he's made the right decision.
He's caught between silver spoons and heavy metal, uncertain as to where he fits in, naturally gravitating towards Mr. Stark, who is a good person and can't be accused of being self-obsessed after the ballplaying actions he takes in Captain America: Civil War, but Pete still can't help but wonder if there's a dark side to his illuminated heroics, a dark side that leaves people like Toomes and his family stricken, as he prepares for another year of high school.
In hearty bourgeois style.
I doubt critics who lambasted the bourgeoisie for decades thoroughly contemplated a Western world where there was no bourgeoisie and a serious lack of honest professions for intelligent hard-working University grads.
Not me. J'aime mes emplois.
I may have done that too.
Before entering the real world.
The internet does provide ample opportunity to set up a business though.
Or your own newspaper.
It makes sense that traditional news outlets would vilify self-made electronically based independent journalism for trying to broadcast news online because they can realistically put them out of business, a threat major news sources didn't have 15 years ago.
Monopoly contested.
If they won't hire you, and you want to be a reporter, just keep reporting online while utilizing commensurate principles of honesty and integrity.
If they call your news fake afterwards, you'll know you've been noticed.
If you are just making stuff up out of thin air and not adding a humorous element that makes it obviously seem ludicrous, then major news sources are justified in labelling your outputs fake.
Oh man, too heavy.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is an entertaining thought provoking comedic yet solemn examination of contemporary American society crafted from hardy adolescently focused momentum.
Parker's struggles to fit in, to get Mr. Stark to listen, to prove himself avengefully, to impress the girl he likes (Laura Harrier as Liz), etcetera, aptly reflect the struggles of so many youthful reps, who likely also possess incomparable super powers.
Peter's friends and family, along with his teachers and adversaries, and Toomes and his squad, persuasively expand the Marvel universe's exceptionally diverse cast into cool and quizzical alternative realms, complete with the potential for amorous arch-villainy, possibly in a sequel that builds on Peter's conflicted yet contending earnest yet withdrawn middle-class symbolism.
With that theme in mind, the next Spider-Man film could rival Captain America: Civil War in terms of groundbreaking action-based sociopolitical commentary, streams crossed and minds melding, to keep things fresh and pyrotechnically strewn.
Perhaps Peter will be strong enough to hold the boat together in subsequent films?
That's what the middle-class does when it doesn't overstretch itself.
Steady as she goes.
Classic 20th Century Canada.
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) offers fame and fortune.
He nurtures young Peter (Tom Holland) with august olympian tragedy, but isn't there to provide sought after guidance when the perplexities of crime fighting overwhelm as bewilderingly as they undermine.
His approach is school-of-hard-knocksy and Mr. Parker is none too amused.
Thus, he sees Mr. Stark's world and that of the Avengers as too ornate, too disassociated from that of the common person, and even though he wholeheartedly seeks to become an Avenger, like Henry Carpenter, he prefers to keep his feet on the ground, since he's unable to balance avenging rewards with communal sacrifices.
Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) on the other hand presents a successful self-made entrepreneurial gritty streetwise contrast to the illustrious Ironman.
He doesn't hobnob with politicians and plutocrats and geniuses and royalty.
He's an intelligent hands-on formerly honest businessperson who was forced into a life of crime by insensitive shortsighted unapologetic bureaucratic greed.
Choosing to keep his house and to save the jobs of the workers he employs, he adapts to his unfortunate circumstances and finds ways to controversially endure.
He's still a criminal though, and Peter's right to attempt to stop him from selling highly advanced weapons to bank robbers and thugs (he could have found other applications for his salvage), but when Peter sees the effects his actions have on his friends at school, he can't help but wonder if he's made the right decision.
He's caught between silver spoons and heavy metal, uncertain as to where he fits in, naturally gravitating towards Mr. Stark, who is a good person and can't be accused of being self-obsessed after the ballplaying actions he takes in Captain America: Civil War, but Pete still can't help but wonder if there's a dark side to his illuminated heroics, a dark side that leaves people like Toomes and his family stricken, as he prepares for another year of high school.
In hearty bourgeois style.
I doubt critics who lambasted the bourgeoisie for decades thoroughly contemplated a Western world where there was no bourgeoisie and a serious lack of honest professions for intelligent hard-working University grads.
Not me. J'aime mes emplois.
I may have done that too.
Before entering the real world.
The internet does provide ample opportunity to set up a business though.
Or your own newspaper.
It makes sense that traditional news outlets would vilify self-made electronically based independent journalism for trying to broadcast news online because they can realistically put them out of business, a threat major news sources didn't have 15 years ago.
Monopoly contested.
If they won't hire you, and you want to be a reporter, just keep reporting online while utilizing commensurate principles of honesty and integrity.
If they call your news fake afterwards, you'll know you've been noticed.
If you are just making stuff up out of thin air and not adding a humorous element that makes it obviously seem ludicrous, then major news sources are justified in labelling your outputs fake.
Oh man, too heavy.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is an entertaining thought provoking comedic yet solemn examination of contemporary American society crafted from hardy adolescently focused momentum.
Parker's struggles to fit in, to get Mr. Stark to listen, to prove himself avengefully, to impress the girl he likes (Laura Harrier as Liz), etcetera, aptly reflect the struggles of so many youthful reps, who likely also possess incomparable super powers.
Peter's friends and family, along with his teachers and adversaries, and Toomes and his squad, persuasively expand the Marvel universe's exceptionally diverse cast into cool and quizzical alternative realms, complete with the potential for amorous arch-villainy, possibly in a sequel that builds on Peter's conflicted yet contending earnest yet withdrawn middle-class symbolism.
With that theme in mind, the next Spider-Man film could rival Captain America: Civil War in terms of groundbreaking action-based sociopolitical commentary, streams crossed and minds melding, to keep things fresh and pyrotechnically strewn.
Perhaps Peter will be strong enough to hold the boat together in subsequent films?
That's what the middle-class does when it doesn't overstretch itself.
Steady as she goes.
Classic 20th Century Canada.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
The Beguiled
Lost and desperate, unable to move, in need of shelter, nourishment, warmth, comfort, convalescence, clinging and clutching, forlornly crutching, a young isolated soldier lies dying in the woods having survived to expire woebegone, patiently waiting to succumb to his injuries, consciousness slowly fading, as the days coldly pass by.
A haven, a sanctuary, a cloister, a dream, a school nestled in the forest delicately composed, full of sympathy and understanding, it miraculously takes him in, cares for him, coddles him, feeds him, talks to him, falls in love with him, the absence of men blended with Corporal McBurney's (Colin Farrell) charm and good looks leaves it tantalizingly taken and amorously affected, yet he can only respectfully choose one belle without slighting the others wholesale.
Like Paris of old yet disregarded by the gods, he grievously misjudges the situation and attempts to claim everyone for his own.
Perhaps he's not thinking clearly, due to his wounds, but he honestly believes his counsel can guarantee active lust, and proceeds to recklessly gorge with impulsive selfish gluttony.
Hold on, just let me explain . . .
Look, we're just . . .
Let's think about this logically . . .
I swear, it's not my fault!
Screwin' up big time, even if he would have screwed up less if he hadn't been so adamantly sought after, the palatial invokes the pernicious, a wanton craven eruption, infernally and retributively so.
It's a great film, painstakingly and provocatively crafted by Sofia Coppola, her clever well-written multileveled script and poetic title, composed with several compelling characters from different ages and regional backgrounds, presents a sound intricate knowledge of her controversial subject matter, and what otherwise could have been a raunchy sensational grotesque flash comes across as a cerebral elegantly fierce tale.
The feeling, the tranquil restful sensitive bucolic emotion stylizes an environmental awareness that's as curious as it is unconcerned.
Cinematography by Philippe le Sourd.
Nicole Kidman (Miss Martha) keeps getting better.
Pressing matters for the unrestrained, an optical host confined to disillusion.
Desire undoubtably blessed incarnate.
Rent in wonder dis/possessed of forthright loss.
I would have ended it right after he hit the floor.
A controversial metaphorical take on the American Civil War.
A haven, a sanctuary, a cloister, a dream, a school nestled in the forest delicately composed, full of sympathy and understanding, it miraculously takes him in, cares for him, coddles him, feeds him, talks to him, falls in love with him, the absence of men blended with Corporal McBurney's (Colin Farrell) charm and good looks leaves it tantalizingly taken and amorously affected, yet he can only respectfully choose one belle without slighting the others wholesale.
Like Paris of old yet disregarded by the gods, he grievously misjudges the situation and attempts to claim everyone for his own.
Perhaps he's not thinking clearly, due to his wounds, but he honestly believes his counsel can guarantee active lust, and proceeds to recklessly gorge with impulsive selfish gluttony.
Hold on, just let me explain . . .
Look, we're just . . .
Let's think about this logically . . .
I swear, it's not my fault!
Screwin' up big time, even if he would have screwed up less if he hadn't been so adamantly sought after, the palatial invokes the pernicious, a wanton craven eruption, infernally and retributively so.
It's a great film, painstakingly and provocatively crafted by Sofia Coppola, her clever well-written multileveled script and poetic title, composed with several compelling characters from different ages and regional backgrounds, presents a sound intricate knowledge of her controversial subject matter, and what otherwise could have been a raunchy sensational grotesque flash comes across as a cerebral elegantly fierce tale.
The feeling, the tranquil restful sensitive bucolic emotion stylizes an environmental awareness that's as curious as it is unconcerned.
Cinematography by Philippe le Sourd.
Nicole Kidman (Miss Martha) keeps getting better.
Pressing matters for the unrestrained, an optical host confined to disillusion.
Desire undoubtably blessed incarnate.
Rent in wonder dis/possessed of forthright loss.
I would have ended it right after he hit the floor.
A controversial metaphorical take on the American Civil War.
Friday, July 14, 2017
Transformers: The Last Knight
Can science, myth, religion, history, the aristocracy, the people, the British, Americans, the privileged, the self-made, the men, the women, humankind, and Autobots, be chaotically yet adventurously, ideologically yet practically, intergalactically yet locally, or quite simply extracurricularly brought together in a wild brainiacally styled jewelled Nile Summertime extravaganza, complete with a spellbinding mix of the brash and the delicate which epically unites risk, love, service and dedication, to thoroughly entertain while multilaterally seeking knowledge, like a trip to New York, or a voyage down under?
Yes.
I would say, "yes, yes they can."
"Affirmative" even.
A constructive ebb and flow.
It's always fun when the new Transformers films are released but I'll admit I've never enjoyed one as much as The Last Knight.
I mean, I'll actually watch this one again.
It's number 5 too.
So many metamorphic developments.
Plucky little Izabella (Isabela Moner), resiliently in search of friends and family.
The hyperreactive robotic butler (Jim Carter as Cogman), who flamboyantly yet earnestly adds neurotic inspirational spice.
Agent Simmons (Jon Turturro) is back, theorizing and analyzing his way to the heart of the narrative's conceit.
Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), youthfully and mischievously contemporizing more than a millennia of British legend.
England and the United States romantically come to terms?, the couple in question perhaps creating an invincible universal super being?
Plus secret entrances, spontaneous sushi, cheeky self-reflexive criticisms of blockbuster music, Cuba once again warmly featured in a 2017 American mainstream release, prophetic books preserved, getting-away-with-it explanations, scenarios, Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), First Nations fluidity, Tony Hale (JPL Engineer), whales.
The wild script energetically shifts from sentiment to shock to certitude to sensation, manifold short scenes eclectically yet straightforwardly stitched together with (en)lightninglike speed and ornate dishevelled awareness.
Fascinated, 'twas I.
I've often thought these films don't focus enough on Transformers, but Last Knight presents a solid shapeshifting/organic blend, its biological proclivities overwhelming desires to see Transformers discursively deliberating, relevant contributing human factors, caught up in the thick of it, creating solutions intuitively their own.
In fact, the subplot involving Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) was my least favourite part of the film.
The extraordinary examination of British History and its relationship to transforming-lifeforms-from-space easily made up for it though.
I'd love to see Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice during the witching hour.
How did they move those rocks?
They be pretty freakin' huge.
Yes.
I would say, "yes, yes they can."
"Affirmative" even.
A constructive ebb and flow.
It's always fun when the new Transformers films are released but I'll admit I've never enjoyed one as much as The Last Knight.
I mean, I'll actually watch this one again.
It's number 5 too.
So many metamorphic developments.
Plucky little Izabella (Isabela Moner), resiliently in search of friends and family.
The hyperreactive robotic butler (Jim Carter as Cogman), who flamboyantly yet earnestly adds neurotic inspirational spice.
Agent Simmons (Jon Turturro) is back, theorizing and analyzing his way to the heart of the narrative's conceit.
Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins), youthfully and mischievously contemporizing more than a millennia of British legend.
England and the United States romantically come to terms?, the couple in question perhaps creating an invincible universal super being?
Plus secret entrances, spontaneous sushi, cheeky self-reflexive criticisms of blockbuster music, Cuba once again warmly featured in a 2017 American mainstream release, prophetic books preserved, getting-away-with-it explanations, scenarios, Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl), First Nations fluidity, Tony Hale (JPL Engineer), whales.
The wild script energetically shifts from sentiment to shock to certitude to sensation, manifold short scenes eclectically yet straightforwardly stitched together with (en)lightninglike speed and ornate dishevelled awareness.
Fascinated, 'twas I.
I've often thought these films don't focus enough on Transformers, but Last Knight presents a solid shapeshifting/organic blend, its biological proclivities overwhelming desires to see Transformers discursively deliberating, relevant contributing human factors, caught up in the thick of it, creating solutions intuitively their own.
In fact, the subplot involving Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) was my least favourite part of the film.
The extraordinary examination of British History and its relationship to transforming-lifeforms-from-space easily made up for it though.
I'd love to see Stonehenge on the Summer Solstice during the witching hour.
How did they move those rocks?
They be pretty freakin' huge.
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
The House
An adorable loving cute-and-cuddly family suddenly finds itself violently managing a rowdy small town underground Casino in Andrew Jay Cohen's hit-and-miss The House, awkwardly refining streetwise bourgeois semantics thereby, while teaching their young daughter improvisational economic lessons learned.
Chug-a-lug-lug.
There would have been no need however a corrupt city councilperson embezzles the funds that would have paid young Alex's (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition, the Johansen's (Will Ferrell as Scott and Amy Poehler as Kate) unexpectedly finding themselves 250,000 dollars short afterwards, with no legitimate means to raise the cash required.
Enter their porn-afflicted deadbeat addiction-prone friend (Jason Mantzoukas as Frank) whose wife has just left him, but he's got an idea to win her back, and you've found a trendy sanctified sordid perky do-gooding sleazy debacle, complete with absurdly relevant relatable yet sensational stock (the mismanagement of government funds resulting in heavy taxes for small businesses?), weathering the wherewithal, manifesting latent complexes, hewing the graft, and exercising freewill.
It's a great idea for a comedy, glossing over serious defects in the American dream too lightly perhaps, but not unsympathetically, in its brazen hardy risk management.
How do people pay $50,000 for one year's tuition?
N-n-n-nutso.
That is one big bloody army.
Full-on crazy, this here historical epoch.
A great idea supersaturated with too much improbability that revels in its hypothesis without generating convincing conclusions, The House has its moments but some scenes are total amateur hour, even if they're naively treading the rambunctious deluge.
The script intends to blend the wild with the worldly in a bizarro multicultural cavalcade, but ironically leaves the parenting behind for too long, and focuses too intently on plain old thuggery.
It's true though, the film would have been stronger if they had cut back on the buffoonery a bit, even if Scott's 1970s-90s? cut-off hopeful progressive determined speech near the beginning suggests The House ain't that kind of film.
Butchin' and burnin'.
Is it really a comedic western?
Chug-a-lug-lug.
There would have been no need however a corrupt city councilperson embezzles the funds that would have paid young Alex's (Ryan Simpkins) college tuition, the Johansen's (Will Ferrell as Scott and Amy Poehler as Kate) unexpectedly finding themselves 250,000 dollars short afterwards, with no legitimate means to raise the cash required.
Enter their porn-afflicted deadbeat addiction-prone friend (Jason Mantzoukas as Frank) whose wife has just left him, but he's got an idea to win her back, and you've found a trendy sanctified sordid perky do-gooding sleazy debacle, complete with absurdly relevant relatable yet sensational stock (the mismanagement of government funds resulting in heavy taxes for small businesses?), weathering the wherewithal, manifesting latent complexes, hewing the graft, and exercising freewill.
It's a great idea for a comedy, glossing over serious defects in the American dream too lightly perhaps, but not unsympathetically, in its brazen hardy risk management.
How do people pay $50,000 for one year's tuition?
N-n-n-nutso.
That is one big bloody army.
Full-on crazy, this here historical epoch.
A great idea supersaturated with too much improbability that revels in its hypothesis without generating convincing conclusions, The House has its moments but some scenes are total amateur hour, even if they're naively treading the rambunctious deluge.
The script intends to blend the wild with the worldly in a bizarro multicultural cavalcade, but ironically leaves the parenting behind for too long, and focuses too intently on plain old thuggery.
It's true though, the film would have been stronger if they had cut back on the buffoonery a bit, even if Scott's 1970s-90s? cut-off hopeful progressive determined speech near the beginning suggests The House ain't that kind of film.
Butchin' and burnin'.
Is it really a comedic western?
Friday, July 7, 2017
Baby Driver
Split-second ingenious unassailable guiltless reflexes, instinctively classifying delicate improvisation, piquant extemporization, serpentine spontaneity, the driver, driving the getaway vehicle, atavistic awareness vigilantly circulating extractions, an unprecedented impresario envisioned in wild heartlands brake swerve accelerate, coordinate chaos with implicit clandestine credulity, pulsating pumping propulsive paved impertinence, irreducibly reacting, to unpredictable explosive larceny.
Mad skills.
Variably exercised.
Character driven.
Edgar Wright's Baby Driver's hilariously character driven, with Ansel Elgort (Baby), Lily James (Debora), Bats (Jamie Foxx), Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza González), Joseph (CJ Jones), Griff (Jon Bernthal), and Doc (Kevin Spacey) each chauffeuring full-throttle eccentricities that make said characters their own.
The well-thought-out creatively choreographed romantically comedic yet harrowingly hardboiled script (Wright) supplies them with ample maneuverability.
In fact I'd argue this is Wright's best film.
There are two notable oppositions within that reflect different intellectual styles.
Baby and Doc's youthful and aged conversations provide the film with an executive frame as they reticently interact, Doc's nephew Samm (Brogan Hall) brilliantly expanding one of their sequences, while Bats and Buddy concurrently represent clever tenacious earnest hard work, as they durably discuss various subjects between jobs.
Nice to see Jamie Foxx rockin' it again.
Doc heartbreakingly embraces romance in the end, risking everything to aid young Baby and Debora as they wildly set off to matriculate on the run.
I've been focusing on the criminal nature of the film but it's also a warmblooded romance.
Baby owes Doc a large sum of money that he's been slowly paying off for some time.
He meets Debora at the diner where his deceased mom used to work and they hit it off, young adult love at its most endearing, hesitantly tender and shyly enthusiastic.
Since he engages in illicit activities quite frequently, however, the nogoodniks eventually terrorize their sanctuary, especially after they craft plans to escape, which unconsciously precipitate embroiled maturations.
Excellent film that's patiently yet boisterously detailed, the dedicated caregiving, the musical artistry, the Mike Myers gag, the paradoxical sense of coerced altruism, the relaxed quiet dignity, the wanton perplexed angst.
Realistic reverberations.
Sweet sweet summertime.
Breezy.
Mad skills.
Variably exercised.
Character driven.
Edgar Wright's Baby Driver's hilariously character driven, with Ansel Elgort (Baby), Lily James (Debora), Bats (Jamie Foxx), Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eiza González), Joseph (CJ Jones), Griff (Jon Bernthal), and Doc (Kevin Spacey) each chauffeuring full-throttle eccentricities that make said characters their own.
The well-thought-out creatively choreographed romantically comedic yet harrowingly hardboiled script (Wright) supplies them with ample maneuverability.
In fact I'd argue this is Wright's best film.
There are two notable oppositions within that reflect different intellectual styles.
Baby and Doc's youthful and aged conversations provide the film with an executive frame as they reticently interact, Doc's nephew Samm (Brogan Hall) brilliantly expanding one of their sequences, while Bats and Buddy concurrently represent clever tenacious earnest hard work, as they durably discuss various subjects between jobs.
Nice to see Jamie Foxx rockin' it again.
Doc heartbreakingly embraces romance in the end, risking everything to aid young Baby and Debora as they wildly set off to matriculate on the run.
I've been focusing on the criminal nature of the film but it's also a warmblooded romance.
Baby owes Doc a large sum of money that he's been slowly paying off for some time.
He meets Debora at the diner where his deceased mom used to work and they hit it off, young adult love at its most endearing, hesitantly tender and shyly enthusiastic.
Since he engages in illicit activities quite frequently, however, the nogoodniks eventually terrorize their sanctuary, especially after they craft plans to escape, which unconsciously precipitate embroiled maturations.
Excellent film that's patiently yet boisterously detailed, the dedicated caregiving, the musical artistry, the Mike Myers gag, the paradoxical sense of coerced altruism, the relaxed quiet dignity, the wanton perplexed angst.
Realistic reverberations.
Sweet sweet summertime.
Breezy.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
I, Daniel Blake
Like Going in Style's much grittier independent cousin, Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake sympathetically examines poverty in Britain to find working solutions to bureaucratic prerogatives.
Daniel (Dave Johns) is a respectful hardworking individual who lives within his means and has never had to learn how to use computers.
He meets Katie (Hayley Squires) and her children one day at social services and responds reasonably to her criticisms of its harsh procedural dictates.
She's a young struggling single mother of two who wants to go back to school but can't afford to take care of her family at the same time.
Daniel helps out as much as he can, but has to spend 35 hours a week looking for a job that he has to refuse, should it be offered, because he can't physically return to work due to a recent heart attack.
He tried to tell this to a social services rep but potential heart failure wasn't an option on the questionnaire, which deemed him fit to return to work since he answered it truthfully.
He appealed but still had to abide by the initial ruling meanwhile.
A lot of time and planning goes into providing people living through hard times with financial assistance, but if there are no alternative options in place for the exceptions to the rules, as I, Daniel Blake sharply points out, the safety net needs to be adjusted in order to considerately accommodate.
For instance, as previously mentioned, Daniel can't use a computer, it's probable that other applicants can't use computers, it makes sense that a workshop should be created to help these individuals collectively learn computer basics, so that they can then access the services which can correspondingly assist them.
It's often just a matter of adding another question to a form, but it's surprising how hard it can be to change a form or how long it can take for the changes to be implemented after it's been approved by committee.
Daniel's feisty.
He gets along well with his neighbours but doesn't shy away from airing grievances.
It's a great film examining honest attempts to live honestly within a mistrustful situation.
Neither preachy nor sentimental, it's more like a realistic hypothetical investigation of unfortunate sets of circumstances, which for austere reasons can't be rationally resolved, than a poppy good natured heist.
Decent jobs with decent pay make a nation's reliance on social services much less taxing.
There's an interesting sidebar that examines how the internet can theoretically aid underemployed earnest entrepreneurs, who have physical jobs but lack full-time hours.
Strong performances, heartwarming community, heartbreaking realities, tenacious script, Ken Loach conscientiously examines postmodern day British poverty through a contemporary Dickensian lens to shed light on dark issues.
Do people still read him in Britain?
Seriously, it's worth building up the vocabulary.
I suppose the word grit may come from integrity.
Jeremy Corbyn.
In possession of both I imagine.
Daniel (Dave Johns) is a respectful hardworking individual who lives within his means and has never had to learn how to use computers.
He meets Katie (Hayley Squires) and her children one day at social services and responds reasonably to her criticisms of its harsh procedural dictates.
She's a young struggling single mother of two who wants to go back to school but can't afford to take care of her family at the same time.
Daniel helps out as much as he can, but has to spend 35 hours a week looking for a job that he has to refuse, should it be offered, because he can't physically return to work due to a recent heart attack.
He tried to tell this to a social services rep but potential heart failure wasn't an option on the questionnaire, which deemed him fit to return to work since he answered it truthfully.
He appealed but still had to abide by the initial ruling meanwhile.
A lot of time and planning goes into providing people living through hard times with financial assistance, but if there are no alternative options in place for the exceptions to the rules, as I, Daniel Blake sharply points out, the safety net needs to be adjusted in order to considerately accommodate.
For instance, as previously mentioned, Daniel can't use a computer, it's probable that other applicants can't use computers, it makes sense that a workshop should be created to help these individuals collectively learn computer basics, so that they can then access the services which can correspondingly assist them.
It's often just a matter of adding another question to a form, but it's surprising how hard it can be to change a form or how long it can take for the changes to be implemented after it's been approved by committee.
Daniel's feisty.
He gets along well with his neighbours but doesn't shy away from airing grievances.
It's a great film examining honest attempts to live honestly within a mistrustful situation.
Neither preachy nor sentimental, it's more like a realistic hypothetical investigation of unfortunate sets of circumstances, which for austere reasons can't be rationally resolved, than a poppy good natured heist.
Decent jobs with decent pay make a nation's reliance on social services much less taxing.
There's an interesting sidebar that examines how the internet can theoretically aid underemployed earnest entrepreneurs, who have physical jobs but lack full-time hours.
Strong performances, heartwarming community, heartbreaking realities, tenacious script, Ken Loach conscientiously examines postmodern day British poverty through a contemporary Dickensian lens to shed light on dark issues.
Do people still read him in Britain?
Seriously, it's worth building up the vocabulary.
I suppose the word grit may come from integrity.
Jeremy Corbyn.
In possession of both I imagine.
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