Paterson

Keep your ears open.

Your eyes.

That cat, that pick up, that vroom, that bud.

I didn't see trees covered in ice this winter.

I rhyme too much.

Rhyme provides focus.

Focus indents fusions.

Sometimes it doesn't.

I rhyme too much.

I love rhyming.

I also love poems that don't rhyme.

Proust mentioned that he liked rhyming.

I don't know if he changed his mind.

There's an old thought, an old idea, about auras of authenticity. Rich people used to use this idea to claim that works written by other rich people were authentic because they possessed a sacred aura that legitimized their being. Things were too religious at the time. Poor people realized that they could also make art yet were denied the sacred aura because they didn't know the right things to say or discuss when questioned. Pop culture developed to challenge the lofty realm of the fussy elitist and continues to frustrate purists to this day. Yet people still obsess about auras and the sacred like they're postmodern divinities acculturating themselves to materialistic throes.

It's confusing.

I really don't care.

I like rhyming.

Sometimes I don't like rhyming.

I didn't used to rhyme so much.

But Paterson reminded me of how impacting, how chill cool distant yet immediate poems that don't rhyme can be.

Or poems that kind of rhyme, sort of rhyme here, don't really rhyme there, aren't concerned with rhyming, are just expressing something like upholstery or glades.

Or they are concerned with something that it seems as if they aren't concerned with, like girls.

What a partner. What a character.  Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) is one of Jarmusch's best, imagine coming home to someone like that, it's like you'd be living with receptive discursivity, a poem, a book, Paterson (Adam Driver) is also chill, a lot of chill in this film, not too cool, elitist cool, but chill cool, livin' it cool, with a disruptive jealous dog.

Tons of sweet bus shots too, bus moments, cinematography by Frederick Elmes (Eraserhead).

It's hard to write in my favourite spots in Winter.

I tried to see every Abbott and Costello movie in my youth.

They have quite a few.

I didn't see all of them.

I used to have a bus license.

I thought it would have been cool to just show Lou Costello park and not talk about it later.

I'm making a sandwich later.

I bought vegetarian ham this week.

It's not bad.

Goon: Last of the Enforcers

It wasn't until I was much older that I realized there was something odd about fighting in hockey.

I began to slowly notice that other sports enforced much stricter penalties on athletes who decided to fight during a game, and that professional hockey's pugilistic characteristics were often regarded with astonishment by those hailing from far distant lands.

I admitted that, in comparison with football, basketball, baseball, and soccer, (okay, it wasn't until I was much much older that soccer was included in the list), it did seem strange that regularly squaring off during a game was culturally applauded, although, having matured within that very same culture, as a spectator, I found I didn't evaluate this aspect of the game that negatively, and instead tried to teach newcomers words and phrases such as, "bruiser," "goon," "toe to toe," "left hook," and "got knocked/laid the fuck out," in order to encourage their Canadian acculturation.

Some of them were also familiar with boxing, which made me think their transition to Canadian life may indeed be smooth, like learning to skate on a well-groomed ice surface.

Perhaps it was.

If they were still searching for more information concerning Canada's love of hockey fighting, I would certainly recommend Jay Baruchel's Goon: Last of the Enforcers, and also Goon, which I'm afraid I haven't seen.

Goon 2 uncritically captures Canada's love of enforcing the game, and a close study of its combative emphasis can likely assist roosted travellers in finding cozy ways to relate to their newfound Canadian brothers and sisters.

Had Mr. Baruchel known that his film would be functioning as an ambassadorial aid, he may have hired Mike Smith, Rob Wells, and John Paul Tremblay to help out with the script (they recently started writing new Trailer Park Boys seasons themselves and have scripted some of the best TPB episodes yet), which, although funny at times, struggles to generate long-lasting comedic momentum.

It does excel at emphasizing teamwork, family values, commentating, and friendship, absurdity bellicosely bromancing f(l)ights fantastic, but more time and care will be required to shoot Goon 3 into Don't Legalize It territory, not that it wasn't fun to watch, or hilarious at times.

Picnicface could play an opposing team coached by a scandalized Mr. D.

Erica from Being Erica could challenge Doug (Seann William Scott) and Eva's (Alison Pill) relationship by coquettishly introducing herself on the road in Moncton.

Bruce Greenwood could play the doctor with the magical cure.

Fred Ward's not Canadian but he could play a villain of some sort.

It's win win win.

Win win.

Win win.

With recurring curious comments from the recently moved Little Mosque on the Prairie family who at one point run into Ron MacLean in the stands who cheerfully explains everything?

What could function as a better unacknowledged integrational family friendly feature?

Like a grilled cheese for breakfast.

With blueberry crêpes on the side!

Kong: Skull Island

Could it be that islands still exist, prehistorically penetrating legend and myth with unbridled evidenced imposing extant luminosity, persisting undisturbed in majestic unrecorded intransigent galed shadow, a roar, a whisper, more lively and crisper ecosystems biologically invested in atemporal ontological sincerity, harmony, in other words, crépuscule, a delicate balance, a ferocious bottom line, lost in leisure in starlit environs, vigilance required to consummate freedom, at home in the pacific, empirically thine?

I would write that the adventurers weren't ready for their quest if it wasn't for the fact that nothing could have prepared them.

But I suppose the nature of questing demands a forged psychological allegiance between ill-preparation and adaptability, immediacy continuously generating an agile improvised awareness, which is narratively applicable to the epic in hand.

Characters descend on the ancient generally undiscovered home of King Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts's Kong: Skull Island, a chaotic campy realistic yet improbable, and therefore emancipating, energetic exploration of the quaintly forbidden.

Their goal is scientific yet commercial and thus the military's aid is bromantically secured.

Friendship, collegiality, professionalism, and love, populate the script with wild rhythmic versatile denizens, its cosmopolitan lodge fertile if not frenzied, the unfriendly monsters ready to eagerly devour those with too much or not enough innate courage.

Plus random soldiers.

But Kong protects them which trigger-happy Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) cannot comprehend as he attempts to kill him to right misperceived wrongs.

His attempts are obviously pigheaded but they do aptly reflect mad extremist methodologies.

The explorers, military personnel, and scientists, curiously encounter an old pilot from World War II who was forced to make his home on the island as well.

He survived by living with an Indigenous tribe who Kong altruistically protects from voracious giant lizards.

Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly [it's classic John C. Reilly :)]) represents the Indigenous people in the film, stands in for them as they (literally) fade into the background, and Packard refuses to listen to his tooth and nail.

Would the ending not have been more striking, more memorable (alright, Kong's fight with the Lizard King is memorable but the surrounding material isn't so much [okay, they escape on a boat, I'll remember that, but . . .]) if the Indigenous peoples stopped Packard before he tried to kill Kong, and everyone then escaped having understood the logic of their decision?

Such a development would have functioned as a salient metaphorical critique of the Vietnam war which otherwise isn't critically examined.

What I'm trying to say is, it would have rocked if Skull Island went Avatar.

With Kong still fighting the giant Lizard of course.

It's still a lot of fun, the new King Kong movie, and, as a matter of fact, I couldn't help comparing it to Planet Terror and Machete Kills since it unreels with a similar more family friendly aesthetic.

There are moments where it captures the magic that makes those films stand out, but the sequels will have to dig deeper for me to mention their names in the same breath.

Again.

I still recommend the film.

A great March release.

I was worried about March this year.

But so far it ain't so bad.

A United Kingdom

It's bizarre how something as wonderful as two people falling for each other can have so many painful consequences, and how surrounding support networks, which are also supposed to be amorously bound, can suddenly disappear after the declaration, in an appeal to what the slighted individuals oddly refer to as shame.

It seems more shameful to me to cast out a loved one for following their heart and deciding to live with/date/marry . . . the person they hold dear.

People have been writing similar things for millennia because the problem has persisted for millennia and adults often don't consult 5 year-olds for solutions to such matters, even though in such cases the youngsters often possess a much clearer understanding than the mature grown-ups scorned.

In terms of race anyways, unless their parents have corrupted them at an early age.

When Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) engage in Amma Asante's A United Kingdom, and then marry, their contentment is multilaterally assaulted.

The British government is relying on its South African income to stay afloat after World War II , and since Khama is the hereditary heir of what eventually becomes Botswana, the South Africans, who have just enacted apartheid, are enraged by his betrothal to a white woman.

Correspondingly, his family, who have been begrudgingly living for decades under pretentious conservative British rule, sees their marriage as an affront to African dignity, the coddling of the colonizers, and regards their happy union with contempt.

The politics of empire are obviously quite complex, and if an important revenue stream is dammed up, ways will be found to ensure it continues flowing.

Thus, Khama is blocked in his attempt to begin governing his domain as the British cut him off after his uncle (Vusi Kunene as Tshekedi Khama) betrays him.

But democratic appeals to the British and Bechuanan public generate sympathy for the controversial lovers, and a working solution begins to materialize.

A lot of unforeseen trouble for the young couple.

Who steadfastly remains harmoniously united.

A United Kingdom breaks down the best and the worst of sociopolitical matrimonial relations to champion integrity as opposed to bland disgust.

Family friendly yet bold and powerful, it romantically digs deep to forge new ground, celebrating ethical reimaginings of the political, and two tenacious nestlings, who were fortunate enough to fall in love.

Logan

Fascist forces of dull simplicity have driven mutants to the brink of extinction in James Mangold's Logan, but a few remain, carving out a meagre living while doing everything they can to conceal the beauty that defines their superlative difference.

Rather than cultivating an inclusive public sphere wherein which difference is free to flourish, that difference has been isolated and weaponized by monstrous geneticists intent on rearing invincible super soldiers to achieve militaristic objectives.

But these gifted children fight back, escape, avoid capture, one of them eventually finding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) who have been living off the grid in severe destitution.

She's (Dafne Keen as Laura) hunted of course, intense battles erupting everywhere she goes, the death count extremely high as the trio travels from Mexico to North Dakota in search of a secretive promised land.

And a family.

There's a very tender scene where they all sit down to dinner on a farm and warmly discuss different topics, a rare moment in superhero films that briefly and humbly exemplifies everything they've been fighting for.

They're reminded shortly thereafter that for some insane reason their idle happiness enrages conformist obscurities.

Suffocatingly.

Patrick Stewart delivers a remarkable performance.

He often has a leadership role that doesn't display much vulnerability, but in Logan he's quite helpless and therefore given the opportunity to heartbreakingly act beyond the borders his characters often rivetingly apply themselves within.

An outstanding supporting role.

Logan's like no other X-Men film.

It's much more stylistically concerned with the human factor than special effects or introducing a wild array of compelling new characters.

Identity, community, belonging, loneliness, rage, and bigotry still drive the narrative, but they're examined less explosively, with more realistically tender tenacity (when the fighting stops), as if X-Men films truly are applicable to global sociopolitical debates, debates within which their characters dynamically distinguish themselves.

A fitting salute to Hugh Jackman who has thankfully been bringing Wolverine to life for the past 17 years.

So many irresistible moments.

Only the death of Captain James T. Kirk effected me similarly.

Who knows, maybe huge assholes with tons of power will stop militaristically expressing themselves while crushing other people who aren't like them some day.

That kind of bullshit doesn't seem to fly in the EU much thankfully.

Currently.

Difference really is a wonderful thing.

When it thrives, the scientific, artistic, and religious benefits are extraordinary.

It's why we have cars, electricity.

The internet.

Refrigerators.

If the people who invented or discovered these things had been callously excluded and beaten down throughout their lives we'd still be living in the dark ages.

And those assholes would still be in charge.

Nurturing contempt.

Ruling with imperialist ambitions.

Recklessly waging war.

To satisfy capricious whims.

Angry Inuk

I don't think I could ever kill a seal or a dear or a pig or a cow, but, as mentioned previously, I do eat meat and understand that somewhere down the line the lives of the animals I consume are cut short, that someone else brought their lives to an end, and they may earn their livings by engaging in such activities.

It's different if the species is threatened or endangered, or animal babies are involved, or if people are eating a species with a slow reproductive rate, but husbandry usually doesn't manage species at risk, as far as I know, the inherent cruelty of many aspects of factory farming notwithstanding.

Keep raising your voices and such aspects will change, all you have to do is frustrate a business's bottomline.

Several of the animals I eat are quite cute, however.

They're all quite cute.

I've considered posting pictures of them on my fridge to remind me not to eat them but still haven't gotten around to it.

Man I love steak.

Still, I'm glad there aren't massive industrial entities harvesting seals along with pigs and cows, but if some people in remote areas where there are no alternative economic opportunities want to hunt them, and sell products made from their skin etc., I see no problem with this, since the seals in fact flourish in abundance.

The seal population in Nunavut, for instance, is much higher than that of its human residents, meaning that if such residents want to hunt seals and sell boots and parkas made from their hides afterwards, I can't rationally critique such commerce.

Alethea Arnaqua-Baril's Angry Inuk takes a hard look at the EU's decision to ban the sale of seal products within its domain, and the effects that that decision has had on small communities in Nunavut, Canada.

Before the ban, the communities were earning enough money to support themselves, and people in Europe may not know that a 12 pack of ginger ale can cost as much as $82 North of 60.

After the ban, these communities were still (are still) able to hunt seals for subsistence purposes if they could afford to buy gas for their snow machines, but without markets to sell their seal products, they couldn't afford to do much else, the ban on the import of seal goods having effectively crushed their only economy, and left them dependent on government assistance.

They sustainably harvest a small fraction of the seal population and if allowed to do so can support themselves with dignity and respect.

I therefore support a reversal of the ban.

I find it hard to stomach that the EU props up the veal industry, which is extra revolting, the mass slaughter of baby cows, the systematic mechanized profit based mass slaughter of baby cows many of whom are restrained from birth, and it won't support a handful of Inuit hunters shooting free seals in the wild who have grown to adulthood outside of a cage.

Baffling.

I've heard that centuries ago working people in England desperately wanted to eat meat because the upper classes generally were the only ones who could afford it.

I think that if you transported many of those workers to the 21st century and showed them the unbelievably miserable lives many animals lead in order so that the majority of North Americans and Europeans can eat meat, over a billion deaths weekly according to some sites, they may return to their time(s) lacking their former jealousies.

Or currently, currently send oblivious citizens to a slaughterhouse and have them stay there for a week, invisibly, so they can see how the animals are treated when the workforce thinks no one is looking.

Factory farms can become organic.

It may only raise the cost of a big mac by 35 cents.

Governments could also subsidize the transition.

While subsidizing the cost of food North of 60.

Canada's population North of 60 is around 114, 970.

If the oil and gas industry receives massive government subsidies every year, there must be some money lying around to bring the cost of a 12 pack of ginger ale down to $7 in the far North.

If food costs come down and the Inuit can market seal products again, you've got a thriving aboriginal success story.

That's not only good press.

It's also solid humanity.

Angry Inuk, a must see documentary.

Shame on you Greenpeace.

Shame.

Forushande (The Salesman)

Honourable codes parlay filings frosty, high stress politesse addressed immaterials, expectations, blame, a role, a play, residual sin licentious spaces, jasmine, tremors entrenched repute resounding, a home makeshift explicit riffs callow, advanced notification withheld as fictional and realistic threads intertwine to obscure an artistic commitment, the adoption of a foreign text from a less patriarchal period and country (?) expressing thoughts and desires strictly forbidden, blended with alternative signs of subterranean dissatisfaction to question free thought as if it's a supernatural challenge, as if the artist is being challenged by God, a progressive man on the Iranian scene must internally confront strength, shock, and shame, obsessive disdain, turmoil exhaustively cultivated.

His wife's willing to forgive.

Emad (Shahab Hosseini) spends so much time thinking vengeful thoughts that he overlooks Rana's (Taraneh Alidoosti) suffering as rage slowly consumes him.

She was the victim, she was the one who was attacked, but throughout Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman Emad is more concerned with personal honour.

He critiques the system within which he was nurtured but is still a product of that system and when the real clashes with his noble imagination the sublime does not judiciously compensate.

Women shortsightedly relegated to a subservient role.

The salesperson interrogates to enlighten yet struggles as he surfaces.

The film brilliantly examines his tortured soul, but is also a product of its circumstances, and focuses far less time on the feminine.

A purgatorial predicament.

Igniting bitter flames.

En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove)

A routine lifetime, sturdy crystalline productive disciplined rigour, shocks and surges and synergies refreshed and reconstituted, dis/ingenuous gravitas, im/pertinent shallows, crises, crucibles, cubicles, companionship, curmudgeony coca, grumpy old bear, shattered inveterate disrepair, friendly yet fiendish, stubborn yet understanding, a bleeding heart with no tolerance for stupidity, a prognostic paradigm, tired of living alone.

An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.

Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.

In search of aid.

Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?

To unburden.

I should have just called him an aging romantic.

Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.

Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.

From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.

Captivatingly so.

There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.

According to Ove's incisive summaries.

But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.

I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.

Sort of like hot chocolate.

Points to make, style to consider.

Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.

Occasionally expressing road rage.

Toni Erdmann

The unexpected smile, the medium coffee spontaneously upgraded, surprise Thai food, microbrasserie du Lac St-Jean, discourses of extemporaneity startling and surprising with lighthearted charm and velvety enchantment, extracurricular cuddles, subtlety delicately embraced, yet it doesn't have to be so cozy, so huggable, the art of introducing mild-mannered bizarre yet keenly shocking escapades to a routine having been disruptively cultivated by a few, mischievously mutating manifestations genuinely juggling various psychologies in sundry situations to produce desired wtfs?, perfecting their grasp over a lifetime, to pluck up and stack anew.

Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann addresses such potential by placing a loveable creative comic within a corporate crucible, his goal, to cheer up his successful yet sad daughter, who's living the high life yet shovelling the coal.

She's none too impressed, but dad (Peter Simonischek) keeps showing back up equipped with alternative personality.

She can't deny that he's funny.

Nor that he radiates goodwill.

But it's not really a comedic film, not really a drama either, Toni Erdmann's more like a brilliant presentation of the seriously awkward which patiently and articulately synthesizes different lifestyles to hilariously and sensibly simplify choice.

Films that are almost three hours long which cleverly clasp your attention the whole way through are a rare treat, especially ones which realistically examine so many different aspects of the human predicament without directly moralizing, judiciously justifying scenario after scenario instead which simultaneously intensify while lightening lives lost and lounging.

Material taken on the road.

There's a chill extended shot which builds Erdmann's character early on. He's sitting next to an elegant stone wall which resembles aspects of a wild ocean that's been thoughtfully tamed.

Throughout the film he playfully interjects harmless doses of character to sharply strung financially volatile vectors, character which appears wild at first, but he does so with such well-timed respectful controlled im/precision that nothing ever wantonly swerves out of control.

Chaotic stability critically conditioned.

The script reflexively blends hierarchical configurations with nimble finesse and stressed out soul.

The last 25 minutes are so freakin' good.

Monster Trucks

Prudent planning can effectively ensure that environmental economics create jobs for adventurous workers while collaboratively caring for diverse ecosystems.

The plans can't be drawn up as quickly, and the people potentially living on the sought after lands have to be consulted, compensated, but since these projects often create billions in revenue, is it really that shortsighted to spend an extra 120 million?

It's like cleaning your house.

I don't like living in filth so I regularly sweep up and do the dishes.

Doing these chores helps me to avoid illness plus I don't stain my socks just by stepping on the floor.

It's win win.

The environment's like a massive house, some would argue it's God's house, God's country, and leaving behind toxic pools and/or terrain supersaturated with oil upon which nothing can live turns that verdant mansion into a disgraceful unkempt sofa you'd find at the dump, not at the cool free section of the dump where good natured citizens drop off used furniture, the dumpy section of the dump, i.e, the dump.

It's basic health and sanitation.

Sure, profits rock, but living in harmony with nature's what profit's all about, the environment's undeniably a priceless gift that has gingerly inspired people for countless generations and recklessly compromising its ancient integrity to make a quick buck foolishly belittles the daunting majesty that illustriously defines it.

Think I'm being foolish?

Think again.

Imagine New Brunswick's population increased to 17 million.

There are around 17 million people currently living in the Netherlands according to Siri, a country similar in size to NB.

Currently, if you live in New Brunswick, it's easy to spend time alone in the countryside because there aren't that many people living there compared to Holland and space is relatively abundant.

So I'm told.

(No one has told me that).

Increase its population by 16.25 million and that abundant space becomes precious as it decreases, and sustainably maintaining what's left becomes even more intuitively paramount.

I'm sure with the additional people it would still be just as beautiful.

But that's a much larger mass to deal with.

In Chris Wedge's Monster Trucks, a new species is discovered after greedy Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) digs too deep in search of even more wealth.

His monstrous avarice accidentally relocates actual (loveable) monsters who live within those depths and curiously resemble giant bulbous octopi.

Fortunately, gentle yet tough young Tripp (Lucas Till), who's having difficulty getting along with step-father Rick (Sheriff Rick) (Barry Pepper) and doesn't seem to notice that Meredith (Jane Levy) likes him, finds one of the beasties and affectionately names him "Creech."

Before long, a team is assembled, including a reluctantly brave scientist (Thomas Lennon as Jim Dowd) with a guilty conscious, and they're off to save Creech and his kind from the development which would lay their subterranean realm waste.

Their quasi-exobiological ecosystem.

Don't forget Danny Glover (Mr. Weathers).

It's family fun that makes great viewing after an extended hike, or rides on the métro and bus, environmentally aware without any mercantile misgivings, in bold, it cleans up its mess, while metaphorically promoting markets for biofuels.

Mass markets for said fuels can become realities if there's enough consumer demand.

Make some environmentally friendly automobiles and trucks that cost under $30,000 and run on alternative energy sources and that demand may materialize.

It would help clean up the air we breathe.

And make a huge difference, here on homestead planet Earth.

Likely below ground as well.

Loved this film.

La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle)

Adrift unwilling splash immersion.

Unsettled erupting micromissive.

Beached a slumber fitfully sprained.

Awash.

Excursions verdant fruitful splendour.

Swirling marine exposure.

Rebirth. Escape. Dispatch.

Awash.

Repeat, then driven, driven wild, an uncharacteristic fusion steeped in visions manifold inflects unexpected leisure, immaculate pleasures deeply unfolding lifelong treasured dreams canopied, mystiqued, indiscreet wide-open vast panoramic environs, steady shimmering shifting surging intensities, furlong density, expansive imaginative sprite.

Bold red turtle, transformative undefined enigmatic variations, eternal interventions in matters emergentally sound, forever traversing labyrinthine realms, poetically sacrificing as life creeds incarnate.

La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle) patiently and passively pulls you into its mature yet childlike embrace with cozy caresses and blanketed calm.

A truly relaxing way to spend some time lost in ageless wonder, it's as sensitive as it is surprising, emotional yet cerebrally thine.

Loved the crabs.

Julieta

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

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

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

Could there be a more tantalizing artistic synthesis?

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

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

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

Like a mom.

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

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

Delicate strength.

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

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

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

Fences

Friendship, family, filaments and filibusters, Denzel Washington's Fences (based upon the play by August Wilson) encloses dreams and protests and confrontations within a patriarchal shard, not that there isn't a willingness to entertain, as long as his fam remembers who's regally legion.

Potatoes and lard.

He's sacrificed a lot to responsibly take care of things, but his personal experience blinds him to the realities facing his youngest son (Jovan Adepo as Cory), who has a shot at playing professional football, even if dad had to spend his career on the sidelines (baseball).

The answer lies within the stories he dramatically tells, stories which enthusiastically explain how the United States changed over the course of the last 40 years (the film's set in the 1950s), meaning that if America's current composition is resoundingly different from that within which he wildly grew up, the tough lessons he learned through his trials may no longer directly apply to his son's struggles, a son who may therefore have opportunities that were cruelly denied him.

He can't understand the new, he can't comprehend change.

He's hard on his wife Rose (Viola Davis) as well, delivering a devastating blow just as their lives start to become less burdensome.

No settling into old age.

No moving on to greener pastures.

It's not as sad as all that when you listen to him telling his tales, nevertheless, when you watch as he multidimensionally exhales fiction, reverie, and fact.

Denzel (Troy) delivers a brilliant performance full of love, contempt, joy, confusion, understanding, obstinacy, fear, and courage, if you ever wondered why he's been so successful for the last thirty years, Fences offers distinct evidence, as Washington proves that he's far beyond playing typecast roles, that he can indeed competently display intricate multilateral e/motions.

While playing a regular guy.

Viola Davis excels as well.

The film's reminiscent of adaptations of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee plays, an expansive, caring, sophisticated, realistically controversial examination of real people living hard lives, who aren't afraid to share extended thoughts and commentaries.

Lives being lived, power struggles crisp and bold.

Brief moments of tantalizing largesse.

Rustling through rhythms.

Struggles struck and starchy.

Electric portions.

Passengers

A shocking revelation suddenly shatters a crystalline credulity with excessive reactive disillusionment.

Their relationship was advancing quite well.

The ethical dilemma causes grief-stricken Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) sincere concern for months, the internal debate despondently intensifying his loneliness, his robotic companion (Michael Sheen as Arthur) unable to supply compatible warmth, as their massive craft continues thrusting through space.

With almost one-hundred years until it reaches its destination.

"She's so beautiful, lying there, undisturbed, at rest, at peace, what a comfort it would be if she were to wake, she would one day undoubtably forgive me."

Expressing contempt along the way.

While creating an interstellar Eden.

When the rest of the voyagers woke-up decades later, it must have seemed quite incredible, a wild romantic story to found their new colony's literary tradition, slowly transforming into myth over the centuries.

Cardamom.

Morten Tyldum's Passengers succumbs to overcome love's enmity everlasting.

A tortured soul redeemed through a courageous act which generates mercy as a matter of bold reckoning.

Ways are found to keep things moving as the dangers of a small cast taking up all the screentime are creatively confronted.

Oddly seeming like an oblivious arranged marriage or a clever reimagining of Michael Gottlieb's Mannequin, Gottlieb doesn't show up in spellcheck?, Passengers still excels at justifying its misgivings, while mischievously encouraging luscious tactile growth.

Entropically inclined.

'Til loves saves civilization.

Love the comments it makes about the discrepancies between first and second class tickets, the second class passenger undeniably integral to the vessel's survival.

Hacksaw Ridge

The subject matter presented in Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge makes it difficult to critique the film, which presents an incredible account of an extremely brave unique complicated conscientious objector who formidably served his country during World War II.

Without ever handling a weapon.

In fact, he's one of a small group of soldiers who have received the American Medal of Honour over the years for exceptionally defining undeniable heroism.

He's the only conscientious objector to have received it.

The film follows him from rural upbringing to painful basic training lumps to terrorizing combat zones while patiently crafting a resilient character unyieldingly dedicated to non-violent principles.

His acts are inspiring and noteworthy and it's surprising that they haven't been commercially disseminated until now.

One Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Hacksaw Ridge succeeds at simplistically creating a multileveled accessible innocent narrative which ethically yet practically blends individual rights with communal commitments to curiously juxtapose the stubbornly naive and the obliviously stern.

It leads the pack in terms of mainstream domestic American war films released in 2016.

But a best picture nomination? A best director nomination?

Outrageous.

Let's take a brief look at a list of war films that Hacksaw Ridge hopelessly fails to live up to: The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Patton, The Thin Red Line, Anthropoid, Inglourious Basterds, Come and See, The Killing Fields, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, MASH, The Terminator, Phoenix, Schindler's List.

Favourable arguments aside, the true story is, that if this film wasn't about one of the most courageous Americans to have ever lived, Mel Gibson's even more of a laughing stock than he was after he released The Patriot.

Sylvester Stallone and Robert Rodriguez like to make guys-guys films too but at moments they also share extremely touching heartbreakingly sensitive artistic observations that soulfully, tenderly, and masterfully break it down.

Without the built-in emotions related to militaristic combat.

It still could happen someday with Gibson.

He's obviously been redeemed.

Plenty of more time for success.

Live by Night

Ben Affleck's Live by Night could have been could have been could have been.

It champions multicultural reflexivity as opposed to rigid dictations as its extremely honourable Irish gangster hero Joe Coughlin (Affleck) makes the right moves to sanctify in sacrifice.

Teamwork is essentially adorned with crucial combative exteriorized comeuppances as partner Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) provides extrajudicial reckoning.

Idyllic forbidden rapturous love bountifully blossoms in different contexts while Joe comes to terms with his unheralded prestige.

A real-world high-level inevitability permeates each action but isn't enough to prevent thought from rationally entreating.

From using honest North American know-how to level-out the playing field.

There's just one problem.

It's too perfect.

All of its calculations and conversations are just plain-old too noble, too wonderful, everything works out too well, it's far too comfortable for a gangster film.

Some loose ends, please.

Instead of feeling worried or anxious or fearful or nervous I just felt complacent, there's no suspense, it was like I was watching a bright mathematician prove a trigonometric identity, or checking out reruns of a favourite dark family friendly show.

Live by Night explains why the term hardboiled was applied to books by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, or indirectly to films by John Huston or Howard Hawks.

Without the hardboiled aspect, you wind up with Live by Night.

Which I may have loved in my youth.

But couldn't get into mid-life.

Lion

Lion tenderly applies a limitless open-armed robustly supple characterization to family by plucking two children from a labyrinthine abyss, and gently ensconcing them within the logical wild.

Cohesive collocation.

Improbability abounds at the heart of this familial bloom, which literally represents the realization of a dream, of a belief, of a mother and father seeking to viscerally inscribe a humble message on the optical bedrock of vision, the odds against little Saroo (Dev Patel/Sunny Pawar) ever finding a safe home having been astronomically high, after he fell asleep on a train in rural Northern India, and woke to find himself hundreds of kilometres from home.

Long before the reliability of Google Maps.

Memories of his lost family haunt him in Tasmania, however, and as he seeks not to cause his adoptive mother (Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley) any distress by keeping his thoughts to himself, he winds up causing her more pain due to his inexplicable self-imposed isolation.

She opens-up to him in an incredible revelation.

What a performance.

Lion excels at internationalizing instincts warm and dear, complicating them through the art of imagining, strengthening them by nurturing responsibilities.

It covers a lot of temporal space which reduces complex relationships to stock familiarizations, apart from Saroo's illuminating conversations with mom, the impact of one scene alone transporting the film to another dimension.

The desperation Saroo feels after finding himself alone in Calcutta is also captured well, perhaps the film could have used another 30 minutes to ensure this refined sensitivity proliferated throughout.

With additional scenes showing the family growing and flourishing dis/harmoniously as one.

Still, a great film with a wonderful ending, beautifully, if not too rapidly, expanding upon convivial conjugal conceptions, thereby globally validating the local, while stabilizing wholesome fantasies in stride.

The Founder

The idea was to make a lot of money.

A lot of money.

He'd been at it for decades and had secured a modest living but still sought that vast immaculate neverending revenue stream, a potentially permanent enriching strike to help him bask in abundance and stretch-out bemused, selling milkshake machines meanwhile as he drifted thoughtfully from state to state, never ceasing even in decade number 6, nimble and agile, eyes open wide.

Catatonics.

Suddenly it was right there in front of him, the idea, the market, a tantalizing prospect replete with multidimensional opportunities for everyone involved, but his shortsighted eventual partners lacked his commercially expansionist vision, clutching their original take too tightly with static dismissive unshakeable vanilla.

Dubious discrediting. 

If Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) was about to go national and create wealth for sundry individuals seeking greener pastures it made sense that he couldn't be shackled by ideas which crushed his bottom line.

Turmoil.

John Lee Hancock's The Founder asks whether or not he was a warm generous individual intent on seeing others prosper or a cold calculating self-obsessed insatiable prick.

I would argue that he tried to work within the codes established by partners Dick (Nick Offerman) and Mac MacDonald (John Carroll Lynch) but as his impact on the business gradually transformed it from burger joint into national sensation, he slowly gained more clout, which enabled him to wisely challenge the principles of his hastily signed contract.

Dick and Mac did nothing to expand the business and consistently blocked reasonable attempts to increase revenues not just for themselves, but for the hundreds of people who worked for Kroc's franchises.

According to the film, Kroc was finding jobs for earnest people looking for a break and as McDonald's expanded from one location to dozens nationwide new ideas were bound to challenge the design of the original concept.

But Dick and Mac didn't support Kroc, at all, they couldn't grasp this aspect of the business, and he in fact chose the good of the many as opposed to the few, and therefore wasn't being monstrous when he hostilely took over.

Still, always take the 1%.

His analysis of the name McDonald's within the film adds a cerebral characteristic to a chain whose intellectual merits are not often highly regarded.

Ensuring that the animals who are eventually sold at McDonald's restaurants live comfortable lives beforehand and that hard-working employees are capable of earning enough income to support themselves does make a big difference to me as an occasional client, however, even if it means less profits.

McDonald's has taken steps to clean-up its supply chain in recent years, a potential reality which is quite impressive.

During a crazy 60 hour work week two years ago, I even stopped in for lunch and spent 20 dollars. 

That's a lot of McDonald's.

It may have been awesome.

Apart from all this, the film's good too, an accessible thought-provoking examination of a phenomenon I loved in my youth, which held my attention the whole way through thanks to its strong argumentative character driven paralysis. 

McSolid.

Driven, direct, frank, and bold, it never rests on its laurels, cleverly introduces new characters, and breaks things down with energetic distinction.

Make those burgers more healthy.

And it's crazy win win. 

Hidden Figures

On occasion, if you're asked to work longer hours for the same amount of money, the company you're working for is trying to ensure their profits increase every month/quarter/etc. and targeting your unpaid overproduction as a source of intangible revenue.

Red flag.

Make sure you're trying to find a new job if stuck in such a situation.

However, if you happen to be working for NASA (or have a stable professional position) and you're immersed in a reasonably wild competition with the Soviet Union to do all kinds of crazy space stuff, suppose that competition would be with China these days, and the Soviets are winning, as they are in Hidden Figures, I suppose spending some extra unpaid time at work wouldn't be that bad, if there are no available public funds to pay for the overtime, and you are capable of taking part in something vital.

In space.

Not necessarily in space, but Hidden Figures uses ye olde space race to cleverly promote congenial race relations as a matter of national integrity.

It's too bad a member from a minority group has to be Einstein-smart to break down racial barriers.

You would think common democratic decency would have done that centuries ago.

The film's solid, a feel good family friendly examination of three highly intelligent African American women that's neither too sentimental, nor too fluffy.

I love Octavia Spencer (Dorothy Vaughan).

The women boldly yet humbly challenge institutional bigotry through hard work and determination as opposed to violence to make changes in their stilted dismissive working environment.

Some cool features.

Rage and passive resistance are matrimonially engendered as Mary (Janelle Monáe) and Levi Jackson (Aldis Hodge) discuss inflammatory political subjects.

She loves expressing herself yet also loves Levi so she intelligently lets him know when her boiling point has been reached before passionately pontificating with resolute clarification.

He works with his hands but is impressed with her desire to become an engineer and buys her some new pencils out of respect for her mind and the difficulties associated with her approaching studies (she becomes the first African American woman to study at a white school in Virginia).

Dorothy creatively borrows a book from the white section of her local library which she uses to remain employed as computers show up on the scene.

She learns so much that she's able to save 30 odd jobs after teaching the people working for her how to adapt, thereby making their contributions operationally essential.

She doesn't just take the money and run.

She gives back to her community.

Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), whose mathematical gifts intergalactically defy limitations, demonstrates why it's so important to never dismiss pieces of information that seem out of date (thereby promoting technical libraries), by using ancient knowledge to solve a contemporary puzzle, proving that sometimes inventing the new means discovering something that was contemplated thousands of years ago.

And Kevin Costner (Al Harrison) kicks ass throughout.

What a great role to play.

I'm going to watch Waterworld again.

I tried that with Alexander last winter (although I had never seen it before).

Double whoops!

I bet Waterworld's better.

Hidden Figures is a wonderful film.

Silence

There's a classic scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that still stands out for me, the one where the bandit Tuco speaks with his brother Pablo the priest and they discuss the different lives they lead after having not seen one another for 9 years.

It doesn't end well.

But during their dialogue, Tuco states that there were only two choices for them when they were young and impoverished, to become a bandit or a priest, and that becoming a bandit was more challenging, harder, fraught with more pain and suffering.

Martin Scorsese's Silence offers Tuco a lengthier response than Pablo's, demonstrating the herculean composure required to work as a missionary under harsh conditions in a hostile land.

Set in the 17th century, fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) travel to Japan to do what they believe is necessary to actively spread the word, while also searching for a famous fellow priest (Liam Neeson as Father Ferreira) who has supposedly lost his way.

They don't speak Japanese and are guided by a shifty alcoholic fisherperson (Yôsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro) who leads them to a small coastal village where they begin their work.

Not easy by any means, their path, their calling, and since Japanese authorities are persecuting Christians, especially priests, old school style, because they're worried about the ways in which in a foreign religion is conflicting with their own buddhist traditions, Rodrigues and Garupe employ the utmost stealth to avoid detection.

But they're eventually found in different spots and Rodrigues must then run the gauntlet to prove his faith, to demonstrate his courage.

Intellectually, physically and spiritually.

Scorsese struggles a bit in territory he hasn't explored in a while (time for another viewing of The Last Temptation of Christ methinks), the excruciating isolation and gruesome personal struggle involved demanding a more contemplative ascetic humbling approach than that found in some of his recent films, this aesthetic captured at points but Silence isn't Tarkovsky, and the contrast introduced when the violence begins doesn't captivatingly diverge in a stunning juxtaposition.

He did prove he's quite sensitive with Hugo, but the first half of Silence would have benefitted from a less traditional approach, from longer more destitute not necessarily plot-related scenes skilfully blending hope and sorrow, scenes which would have become more emotionally pronounced as Rodrigues's life descended into chaos.

Into more familiar territory.

Still a thoughtful investigation of faith and the trials that await the spiritually bold.

La La Land

Heartbeats in harmonized constructs and contrasts, patience, impertinence, concessions, gall, twirling unfurling enduring expressionless fancies and flights intertwined with supine toyed devotion, blinding cataracts effervescent turbulence trusted and truly exonerating impressions jocose and dear starstruck fearless appearances awe inspired odysseys, caféd candlelit assuréd indiscretions, caught up in each others arms, candied (torn) in La La Land.

The stubborn and the starboard expressly romanticizing multigeneric medleys, relational urgencies bejewel tranced sashays.

That's me being romantic.

A life, of solitude.

Fluttering jittery animated embraces, what seems eternally inclined must professionally brace itself for itinerant scheduling, Mia (Emma Stone [outstanding]) and Sebastian's (Ryan Gosling) relationship fond of its festive familiarity yet troubled by tangents, sand duned by success.

But there's a classic Hollywood ending that anyone who's ever loved and lost may find sorrowfully endearing, the music and the magic and the mirth meteorically meshing with cosmic interplay.

An excellent beginning too, either I've lived long enough to start liking musicals or Damien Chazelle's La La Land is a notable exception, the film thoughtfully mixing different catchy styles to metaphorically synergize loveable forays, ones which last for a while anyways, the mundane micromovements, passionate parlays, intimate insights, and unique syntheses generated through sustained commitment viscerally subsumed.

The film's full of troubles and tearjerks and hugs, celebrating resiliency as it's dismally challenged, the authority a couple creates enigmatically as their own.

For themselves.

Pour La Strada.

Incrementally partitioned with existentially aligned spice, it swirls as it seasons, dips as it sways.

*Couples can be existential.

Yes they can.

Collateral Beauty

I suspect there's a prominent subculture that likes Hallmark cards and regularly exchanges them in order to express feelings of enduring love.

Subculture may be the wrong word to be using here.

No no no, they don't take the time to meticulously itemize the sundry ways in which a partner has disappointed them over the course of the last month, year, weekend, Festivus whispering, having realized that many people don't appreciate the comedic value of such clarifications and would rather simply be applauded.

Persona non grata.

Yet it seems that if everyone were to systematically express their mutual contempt ritualistically, disorganization may in fact destabilize the smooth innocuous flow of cultural codes, cultural goods, meaning that perhaps vitriolic proclamations of amour should be sequestered for the intemperate few, as they begrudgingly accept that they do indeed have feelings.

Reprieved.

They likely didn't think highly of Collateral Beauty either, even if it was overflowing with abundant goodwill and wholesome adorable tearjerks.

It does use swearing quite effectively if that counts for anything, situating the profane word within an exasperated exclamation with perfect sober timing, such a stark contrast from the preceding cuddles, repressed helplessness shockingly manifested.

Ah, so, if you're wondering why you don't like Collateral Beauty and its exceptional cast, you can at least think, there's some great swearing.

The ending's quite touching too.

Like cotton candy.

Hallmark cotton candy.

Jackie

Historically aware conscientious crucible within which responsibilities interdisciplinarily decode.

Crushing enervating profound despondency augustly conciliated with urbane stately poise.

Jackie Kennedy (Natalie Portman) seeks to comfort a nation grieving the loss of her husband while consoling their two young children and arranging funerary dispositions.

Details of which are verbally transmitted to a trusted reporter ensconced in the mournful countryside.

Utterly alone.

Concealment.

Deluge.

Pablo Larraín's Jackie endears to relate a lachrymose tale as a matter of dire consequence, benevolence still abounding within formal restraints as a portrait emerges with metadignified calm.

To be immersed under such scrutiny during such tumultuous transitions, a thunderous inducement having suddenly arrested, while still remaining conscious of steadfast bristling influence, is to augment an orbit's c/rippling individuality, resplendent in its tender, lustrous, febrile, mint.

The film sophisticatedly staggers memories and missives to elegantly charter stilted suffering in swoon, a stunning versatile interred x-ray, quintessentially courting philosophical entailments.

Lost in anodyne ethereal cruise, extraordinarily tight renditions, realistic reveries, antique extant gravity.

So many films keep going and going long after they should have ended, but Jackie packs several startling finales into its cordate nerve, curtained accented asseverations, lives, frolics, longing.

Phenomenal.

Elle

It doesn't get much darker than Elle.

A great companion piece for The Lobster if you're craving an evening of total anarchy.

This January.

In the film, a highly functioning potentially psychotic successful businessperson conducts her affairs with extreme emotional detachment, unless her ex-husband's involved, she's trying to help her emotionally abused son (a bad relationship with another potential psycho), or hoping her mother won't marry a coddling gigolo.

Even as she's raped at home and then thoroughly humiliated at work, at her own company, which produces sexually explicit video games, she still generally proceeds as if nothing's wrong and manages to accomplish an extraordinarily diverse number of tasks, pure robotic efficiency, as if she's been there and done that for every possible scenario, stoic impeccability existentially exonerated.

Unfortunately, in her youth, she accompanied her father as he proceeded to murder most of their neighbours, the story becoming a nationwide sensation, her life quite strange at all times forever after.

That's not all, it's even more dysfunctional, the eclectic cast of diverse oddballs even congregated for Christmas dinner, a scene that could have transported Elle into unapproachable contemptuous infinities, had it been even more sinister, had it sought after true infamy.

Therein lies a play for someone else to write.

Adam Reed? Mitchell Hurwitz?

Sadomasochistically submerged in ineffable grotesque hypotheticals, Elle's bourgeois community still must interrelate, it can't help it if that was how it was written.

Like pure misogyny masquerading as a caring caricature of feminine strength, Elle is as undefinable as it is cold and direct, its unmuzzled licentious agency, its pristine putrefaction, calculated to deafeningly depreciate, in gross inherent disillusion.

Not to say that it isn't well done.

It's quite well done in fact.

A sensation.

Pathologically speaking.

Christine

Pressurized self-motivation, dedicated drive, ambient adrenaline, Queen of the hive, a game changing carnal recalibration generating sensational scoops frustrates ethically inclined televisual journalist Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) as she eagerly seeks a new position in Baltimore, but Sarasota, Florida, lacks the raucous remonstrances more rigidly regaled in urban playgrounds, so she must exotically elucidate paltry empirical sums.

Without losing her soul.

But even when attempting to asininely unravel, she still showcases alternative angles, which intelligently promote distinguished depth, yet can't spin and stoke the sought after sleaze.

Interrogatively.

Tragic.

Forlorn and suppressing.

In any decade.

A principled well-rounded bipolar session, Antonio Campos's Christine juxtaposes the innocent with the expedient to maximize discontent.

Patiently waiting for years for the chance to broadcast intellectually, a perfect candidate for 60 Minutes or W5, perhaps, The Nature of Things, Christine can't slow down and has trouble playing ball if she's not constantly making game winning plays while also refereeing stark nubile antics.

More of an author than a reporter, she can't dish out the basest instincts, play on the team, and wants the chance to nationally unwind, but can't sludge her way through the grotesque steamy privilege.

Give a little, get a little, but even when she gives it's not what they've got, not what they want, sincere stupidity, she cannot fake it.

The film's full of strong characters who are each given plenty of screentime to express their opposing viewpoints.

It's not as focused on Christine as the title suggests, her manager Michael (Tracy Letts) clearly sharing his contradictory ideas, occasionally using locker room terms that specialists may find offensive.

You get used to it.

I even listen when people say, "that's sick," these days.

Christine obviously can't work within small boxes and would have excelled if she'd established herself in broadly disseminated artistic journals or art house films.

At the same time, she had an audience, an adoring audience, which unfortunately wasn't enough.

The film's set in the '70s, production design by Scott Kuzio, long before YouTube and the net, and even if the ending should be taken out of context, according to thoughts I've heard shared by prominent journalists recently, it's still a shame she couldn't handle losing, couldn't double down and diversify.

Bluntly speaking.

It drags a bit.

Allied

Fully cloaked undercover, watching every movement, scrutinizing each step, re/actions precisely measured to maximize discretion, on the road scripted codes liaised lessons, eager learner, coy discerner, modicums, romance, drills, an extroverted beauty chively strung singing along in chorus, friends in high places, versatile integration, his partner, his assigned wife, don't let emotions cloud judgments till it's time to gasp, to fire, to strike.

To love.

Precious freedoms, mission prerogatives.

Canadian Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) breaks with tradition and falls for Marianne Beauséjour (Marion Cotillard) in the field.

Less amorously aware than his new partner, the two make a marigold match.

Wed after accomplishing their objectives in Casablanca, they return to London to settle during World War II (Max is an intelligence officer who still actively strategizes while Marianne raises their daughter at home).

But there's a catch.

According to V-section, Marianne is a German spy, a potentiality Max can't face, having fully devoted himself to enabling their prosperity.

Bliss in crisis, Robert Zemeckis's Allied briskly examines conjugal fidelity, the rival in question a bellicose nation intent on grieving, the rewards of domestic security too high to blindly tow the line.

Torn between resistance and reconnaissance, upside down and inside out, the film passionately obscures Max's trusts, while keeping things strictly on the level.

Mythic misfortune presented in gallant 20th century plight, shorn trajectories and burnt down bulwarks critically commandeering catastrophe, appointments are met and duties kept in check, all the while clad in confidence, for remaining unsuspicious, for never having had a jealous mind.

Internal gridiron grind.

International intrigue, clutched all-weather.

Outstanding.

Somewhat, teary-eyed, was I.

Aquarius

The daily plunge, nautical navigation, oceanic unknowns obliviously obscuring reverberating traumas in convalescent translucent harmony, beneath the waves, submerged in seclusion, to the left, eastwards, straight ahead, salty ephemeral centripetal wake, free flowing ideas practically pirouetting with piquant poetic resolve, cardiovascular shade, illuminated marrow, infinite variety routinely sweetening the starchy and the stale insofar as histories heuristically heartache, good eye, optical infusions, testimonial treasures, immersed in ontological sheen, insatiably and abstemiously, current.

Subconscious stamina.

Steady as she goes.

Clara (Sonia Braga/Barbara Colen) is as certain as she is stubborn, and outrightly refuses to sell her cherished apartment.

The interested buyers own every other unit in the building and want to tear it down to construct another.

It's her home, her family's oasis, where she's lived for decades and where she raised her children, she can't even consider living anywhere else, and will not sit down to lucratively negotiate.

Her opposition responds with contempt.

Friends and family question her decision.

She notes their views.

Fully aware of what they cannot understand.

In her urban homestead, an artist tenaciously upholds her rights in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Aquarius, never yielding her firm convictions to the prospects of financial gain.

The film examines her plight from multiple angles while slowly descending from sanity to chaos.

It picks up after about an hour and a half when Clara's children confront her about her decision.

What follows is a stunning array of inflammatory sequences that end in a chilling vibrato.

Just make sure you hang around for it.

The first hour and a half, unfortunately, while patiently developing character and plot, is like sitting in the waiting room at a hospital for hours knowing that your minor injury could be healed in under 15 minutes.

I would have cut 45 minutes from this film.

Still, in its present form, the ending is incredible.

Humpback Whales

I was lucky enough to go whale watching at a very young age in Massachusetts with my father who seemed just as interested as I was in spotting the giant cetaceans.

By the end of the day, we had fortunately seen 3 North Atlantic Right Whales, one of the rarest species of whale out there, but even more majestic was the emergence of a mother fin and her calf, right beside the boat, just as we were getting ready to turn back; I've still never seen anything so startling, so incredible, even if it only lasted for a mesmerizing matter of seconds.

Enduring evanescence.

Optically outfitted.

I still go whale watching whenever I can, but spend most of my time landlocked, malheureusement. I was hoping Greg MacGillivray's Humpback Whales would deliver a fun cinematic whale watching experience equipped with plenty of whale shenanigans for interested landlubbers, and am glad to report that it doesn't disappoint.

The film follows graceful humpbacks as they frolic, bubble net, breach, and sing, whether living apart as mischievous individuals or gathered together in picturesque pods, convivially capturing their unfathomable social interactions, intently observing their wild wondrous movements.

In-depth and circumspected, Ewan McGregor's narration provides educational commentary for young and old alike, attaching sound qualifications to the accompanying historical narrative while pleasantly advancing contemporary research.

They really are wonderful lifeforms, these whales, these humpback whales, living most of their lives swimming freely underwater, exploring, navigating, contemplating, dining, it would be fascinating to be able to communicate with them, to learn more about what it's like to spend almost an entire life beneath the waves, completely different global perspectives submerged, perhaps as inquisitive as you or I, still getting lost for prolonged periods, in the riveting oceanic orchestrations of their own devices.

Who knows!

I can clearly state, however, that whether you're interested in learning more about whales or simply want to sit back and watch whales being whales for a while, Humpback Whales makes a perfect fit, a first rate IMAX experience, offering brief glimpses into the lives of these agile behemoths, which may be enough to kindle a lifelong interest.

Tadoussac, Québec, is a great place to spot them.

Located a couple of hours north of Québec City.

In a stunning landscape.

That demands you come back once more.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Perhaps releasing a new Star Wars movie every year is a good idea.

They're incredibly fun to watch even if they're not that great (I loved Rogue One), and, instead of waiting 2 or 3 more years to pull-in a gazillion dollars, you can confidently expect to make such an amount every freakin' year, sums that can efficiently facilitate all kinds of alternative endeavours, perhaps jumpstarting artistic revolts thereby.

Independent sci-fi, independent sci-fi!

Now's the time.

I always imagined that the rebels employed the utmost stealth when stealing the Death Star's secret blueprints, and although that isn't the case in Rogue One, the resultant space and land Jediesque battle does manage to rebelliously compensate.

They're not a rag tag bunch, these rogues, these freedom fighters, more of an eclectic cast of wild yet willing individuals collectively assembled to see what can be accomplished.

I thought Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones/Beau Gadsdon/Dolly Gadsdon), Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang), K-2S0 (Alan Tudyk), and Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) were some of the coolest Star Wars characters I've seen, Malbus redefining the force through sheer devotion, Gerrera exemplifying a less peppy aspect of the oft rather perky rebel alliance, K-2S0 is actually funny (outstanding), Andor makes a gripping speech about his commitment to the rebellion, and Jyn slowly yet boldly steps up and strides.

Have these characters been typecast to fit the Star Wars B realm because they have more personality than those brought to life in The Force Awakens?

I bet they could still be managers in California.

Since Rogue One's outcome is already known to all, discussing its internal dynamics seems fitting, dynamics which generally impressed, the Disneyesque opening moments (Jyn's sort of like Bambi) setting the familial stage, the heart wrenching space drama, the assembling of the crew strikingly youthful in its mouthy composure, so many familiar sights from A New Hope (even Dr. Cornelius Evazan and Ponda Baba[I'm still looking for my Walrusman figure]) perhaps endearingly distracting me, tragedy, brilliance, escape, tragedy, brilliance, escape, battle, it's cheesy at points but I thought the good far far outawayed the bad to create the best Star Wars film since Jedi, please never alter the music in one of these films again, or do so in a way that isn't so mediocre.

One point of interest: in a New Hope, Vader critiques General Motti, stating, "don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the force." If Motti constructed the Death Star, why was he left out of Rogue One?

Also, Grand Moff Tarkin isn't so aggressive in A New Hope. His computer animated replacement isn't quite as withdrawn yet commanding.

'Tis true.

Forest Whitaker delivers one of the best if not the best performance/s I've seen in a Star Wars film.

Some day, I'd like to know how many extra millions this film makes because they gave it the more search engine friendly title add-on, A Star Wars Story.

Just Rogue One is clearly the better title.

I'm betting they make an extra 237 million.

Office Christmas Party

Overwhelming pressures voraciously complicating the everyday affairs of a hardworking bunch at play, it soon becomes apparent that a lucrative deal must be struck in order to keep the sultry spice flowing, the troubling news being delivered in überScroogelike fashion, the high-end players responding with executive precision.

There's no other option.

It's time to party.

Festivities of epic proportions are therefore precipitated, the celebrations, ecstatically fuelled.

But as the good times roll, will Josh Parker (Jason Bateman), Clay Vanstone (T. J. Miller), and Tracey Hughes (Olivia Munn) be able to convince Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) that their research and development should move beyond the experimental phase?

Will Clay's uptight sister Carol (Jennifer Aniston) shut them down to right misperceived childhood wrongs?

Will human resources rep Mary (Kate McKinnon) engage in merrymaking regardless of penitent restrictions?

And will the prostitute (Abbey Lee as Savannah) Nate (Karan Soni) hires successfully pass as his supple theoretical girlfriend?

Before her psychotic pimp (Jillian Bell as Trina) shows up to destroy everything?

Wildly engaging in dishevelling shenanigans, Office Christmas Party educates as it embroils.

Through the magic of Christmas, Clay and Carol stop fighting and come together as a family, while several hilarious subordinates find the partner they've been so shyly seeking.

Lumps are taken, yet necessary risks ridiculously refine surefire stabilities, and remarkably steady technologies cyberspatially save the day.

Dionysian balance.

Brainiac mirth.

Certainly an adult themed Christmas film that sets a bizarro example, Office Christmas Party still excels at letting loose just in time for the holiday season.

Some scenes could have been cut, and a bit more time could have been spent editing the script, but the highs olympianly outweigh the lows, and it's definitely worth checking out.

With so many supporting voices delivering strong orations, it must have been tough for Jillian Bell to outshine them all.

But that's exactly what she does.

Second place going to Randall Park (Fred).

Rob Corddry (Jeremy) needs better material!

El hombre de las mil caras (Smoke and Mirrors)

Cast adrift by the Spanish secret service, disgraced Francisco Paesa (Eduard Fernández) must find other ways to earn a living, his reputation for profound cunning immersed in subterfuge still resonating however, as a crooked formal national police commissioner seeks his admonishing aid.

A plan.

A forecast.

Subordinate reliability a troubling factor, as indelicate months pass and pressures mount, every detail of the plan covertly constructed, contingencies classified with hypothetical clarity.

Interminable patience required by all players, Paesa's foreseen a possible outcome, that leaves him assuredly stacked in the black.

Yet he remains loyal, faithful, truthful, subservient, theoretically, resolute calm submerged and breaching, extrajudicial outcomes speculatively splayed, thatched, patched, acrobatic burlap, either way he's set free, unless he winds up in prison.

For the rest of his life.

Interstitial estuaries.

Comet and cupid.

Compacted nerve.

Expeditiously invigorating cerebral texts and phalanxes, Alberto Rodríguez's El hombre de las mil caras (Smoke and Mirrors) keeps things smooth and steady.

It masterfully pulls you in and then harkingly hails in lockdown.

Penetratingly equipped with pertinent plights enabled, multiple primary and secondary familial and professional plot threads fading then reappearing with expert cinematic timing, thereby effortlessly attaching sub/conscious depth to its politicoethical imbroglio, El hombre de las mil caras is far beyond most of what I've seen this year, another outstanding film from M. Rodríguez.

Immaculately composed.

That's/He's still so much fun to watch.

Verifiable.

*Was into Spanish music last week. Damn it!

The Eagle Huntress

As I've mentioned before, go out and work some brutal unforgiving high-paying do-it-yourself labour job with a bunch of women seeking to prove themselves and you'll surely find they can tough it out hardcore like any man.

And on the coldest harshest direst days you'll find just as many men seeking shelter as women.

I'm not saying the NFL will suddenly be flooded with female athletes or anything, but I'm sure they'd be welcome if they tried to make the cut.

In a different land, across the Pacific in rural Mongolia, a young girl named Aisholpan seeks to follow her family's traditions and hunt fox on horseback in winter with the aid of an eagle.

Her father is a kind man and agrees to train her even if the patriarchal fox hunting by eagle hierarchy is not amused.

What follows is another brilliant exploration of the strength of the feminine spirit, like the formidable Athena of old, of myth, boldly challenging dismissive conceits, narrated by Daisy Ridley.

I suppose if you live in the badlands with neither television nor internet or within a country that suppresses contradictory proofs, it's still possible to believe women aren't capable of succeeding when prohibitively constrained.

But if such conditions qualify or govern your life, and somehow you're still reading this, note that The Eagle Huntress provides exemplary non-fictional evidence of potentially subversive notions which are likely being stubbornly ignored.

It's quite a positive film that generally focuses on determination as opposed to discrimination, an uplifting story that's strict and to the point, doesn't drag, and generates genuine interest.

Worth seeing.

With excellent eagle-related cinematography by Simon Niblett (Director of Photography).

Felt bad for the foxes.

I'm assuming they thrive in abundance?

Arrival

Time shifts encoded rifts temporal gifts communication, a brilliant linguist (Amy Adams as Louise Banks) practically applying her knowledge to freelance first contact with an alien race, 12 mysterious ships having suddenly appeared across the globe, but no one knows why they've arrived and even though they haven't attacked or encouraged hostilities many fear the worst, for which they hysterically prepare.

The aliens write using extraordinarily complex symbols the deciphering of which requires the coordinated efforts of worldwide ingenious minds.

But as paranoid tensions continue to increase and the aliens share a sign which appears to mean weapon, the universal olive branch is sensationally shaken.

Fortunately Dr. Banks has the last word, her caring friendly curiosity refusing to abandon peaceful interstellar objectives.

In overdrive.

Another outstanding film from Denis Villeneuve, who's competently directing in different genres, Arrival rationally manages chaotic instincts to surgically fictionalize scientific translation.

Palindromic comprehension.

It flips typical sci-fi by placing understanding in the forefront and violence beneath the surface while still generating an exciting story with multiple ethicopolitical elements.

Bejewelled.

It also questions the nature of time and space to ontologically shiver epistemological certainties.

In relation to origins, to meaning, to the interrelations between the myriad signs presented to a subject every day and their potential interpretations, like an abstract grid infinitely connecting everything within existence with flexible stability, instinct, awareness, knowledge, corrections, detecting harmonies and juxtapositions with piquant patterns or unique exposés, messages, revelations, guides, the artist/mathematician/scientist/politician/welder/ . . . generating imaginative conditionals from such material to cure a disease or make an audience laugh, blending seemingly immiscible particulars to create something uniform, a node, a whorl, a beacon, something distinct, eventually subsiding into overwhelming euphorias fractionally reduced to the pristinely primal, at ease with one's environment, in conflict or judicial correspondence.

I got in trouble when I was young for thinking reincarnation was real, it just seemed obvious to me, which eventually transformed into the idea that perhaps there was no beginning, no ending, there was just being, which doesn't make much sense but there it is, foolishly matriculating.

I also saw the Star Trek: Voyager episode where Q claims the Q have always been years later.

He didn't explain whether or not human consciousness lives after physical death.

I also really loved swamp water when I was young. Once I discovered you were free to mix all the sodas together when fast food restaurants gave you your own cup to fill, it was straight to the swamp water.

Lol.

Sometimes it was rather tasty.

Delicious even.

Exponentially sound.

Like a library.

Rules Don't Apply

Sure and steady representatives of 1960s youth find themselves fetchingly employed in Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply, wherein an angelic songwriter with purist heart (Lily Collins as Marla Mabrey) and a loyal driver possessing patient ambition (Alden Ehrenreich as Frank Forbes) are caught between careers and courtships in the employment of Howard Hughes (Warren Beatty).

They're ever so cute.

Yet their employer, however so cunning in the face of adversity, however so adorable in his wild eccentricities, however so unpredictable in his unwavering caprice, however so devoted to reifying his dreams (eccentricity does not imply caprice!), even if he spends every waking nanosecond taking care of his responsibilities (wherein lies the eccentricity [when you work all the time suddenly an undeniable desire hits and you immediately must have that thing /often Denver Broncos related {this works better when you have employees who will bring you that thing |shopping online is changing this|}\]), can't be relied upon to simply do what's right, like a/n h/airline fracture, at critical moments, with destinies in overdrive, with futures notwithstanding.

That doesn't mean he doesn't remain endearing, as he's depicted in the film anyways, since he possesses an inextinguishable fancy free flame, which has come to be idealized in American cinema, with refined audacious tenacity.

Rules Don't Apply.

Young at heart, always.

I'm thinking about renting Cool Hand Luke.

Collins and Forbes romantically drill their way through Rules Don't Apply, frustrated in frenzy, synergistic straight shooters.

I can't say if the film's reminiscent of a cinematic golden age (I'm assuming many people associate such a phrase with the films of their youth and seeing it redefined is a matter of another generation reaching a specific age having made the right arguments), or trying to recapture the magic of watching movies (surprised this wasn't a Disney film), some ethics thrown in, a political struggle, a charismatic tycoon, Matthew Broderick (Levar Mathis), principles plucked im/pertinently, an appreciation for simple pleasures (burgers and fries), a story that could have seemed trite if left in less capable hands, with filmmakers who don't know how to both provoke and entertain, but it pulled me into its dazzling sashay with raw sincere wondrous precision, the split-second editing keeping things lively in the early going (Robin Gonsalves, Leslie Jones, F. Brian Scofield, Billy Weber), and even if it may not be one of my favourite films of the year, it still revitalized my love of going to the movies and writing about them more than any other.

There's a great sequence where the main characters are depicted doing something individually which simultaneously highlights their doubtful loneliness (content) as well as their sense of communal belonging (form), on the job, I suppose I'm a sucker for that kind of thing; poutine once a week you know; and the occasional root beer.

Manchester by the Sea

A brother's death brings an uncle home to the small coastal town where he grew up, mournful memories haunting him as he decides whether or not to become his nephew's guardian, and move back to live amongst old friends.

Disaster struck years ago and he's unsure if he can surround himself with sundry signs, sundry signs of his life that once was, sundry signs of his dreadful misfortune.

His 16 year old nephew (Lucas Hedges and Ben O'Brien as Patrick) has an active social life and does not want to move to Boston. He hasn't seen his mother for years. And his other close relatives live in Minnesota.

Lee (Casey Affleck) has trouble relating since he's completely withdrawn from the world and can't find peace in community.

Can't forgive himself.

Guilt-ridden ubiquity.

Immersed in potential salvation.

And loud ramshackle rumours.

A sorrowful well-acted well-written story which attempts to clear the dismal skies punishing a cocky guy's guy, Manchester by the Sea lightly examines psychological torment to baste and barbecue bucolic briskets.

Many scenes are elongated to pull you in, pull you into the narrative, to help Lee inhume the pain, scenes which encourage thoughtful consideration rather than rash judgment, formal composure, a cerebral chill cornerstone.

Loved the random dude with the whistle.

There's a lot of heart in Manchester by the Sea, a lot of caring.

You see it in the body language, the symbolic actions, as males unaccustomed to embracing emotion have to live with strong feelings in tight quarters.

One of the best films I've seen which soberly accounts for unacknowledged masculine emotion in awhile.

The controversial ending should promote debate.

Tough cross to bear.

Bewildering burden.

*Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams (Randi Chandler) and Lucas Hedges impressed. Casting by Douglas Aibel.

The Birth of a Nation

A young African American slave preacher responds biblically to his terrestrial owner's recidivistic change of heart as racial tensions vengefully explode in Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation.

Critical applications of dialectical divination, Nat (Nate Parker) and Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer) grow up playing together as friends, their friendship lasting long into adulthood until Sam begins seeking social prestige.

Alcoholism having clouded his judgment, no doubt the result of possessing a tender heart pounding within unjust lands, Sam reasserts himself as plantation ruler and loses the support of his lifelong pal.

Nat has been fortunate enough to receive a rudimentary education, and picks up on both the oppressive and the emancipatory dimensions of the bible as he applies his knowledge to his vicious surroundings.

His people dehumanized and suffering wherever he goes (he has to preach obedience to various plantations so that Sam can earn extra money), he decides their only recourse is full-on insurrection.

What would you have done?

Enslaved in such a hell.

Taught that it was righteous.

Bewitching carnal spells.

The Birth of a Nation celebrates courageous acts undertaken by voiceless desperate beaten down citizens, most of whom were never given the chance to scholastically or industriously define themselves.

Some of the acting isn't the greatest and like many films depicting slavery there's a gratuitous emphasis on the grotesque, which postmodern racists thoroughly enjoy watching, but it's still a solid début from controversial filmmaker Nate Parker, who skilfully if not sensationally demonstrates he could use more time and money.

Similar predicaments still persist in many nations worldwide, dedicated activists still working to spread the word.

A manageable work/life balance is always something to strive for.

Time worked to help businesses remain profitable.

Profits shared to help employees remain comfortable.

Equitable exchanges.

For international communities.

Loving

The daily special, a well trodden path, homemade blueberry pie, that stuff you're getting around to.

Almanacs.

Routine creature comforts, familiarity, trust, the Lovings plain and simply love one another, it's not deeper than that, there are no conditions, no excuses, no liaisons, no subterfuge, just a tradition in bloom as dependable as a grilled quarter pounder, step by step by step by step, a clock, outcrops, a home, that's all they truly wanted, ignoring what came to pass.

The law in their jurisdiction didn't take kindly to mixed race marriages at the time, and still held fast to bizarre justifications for its rules, no matter how innocently they happened to be contravened, no matter how strange they must have sounded to others.

You see, if you believe in God, or making laws based upon biblical texts, Adam and Eve were the father and mother of humanity, and, therefore, brought forth all the Asian, European, American, Australian, East-Indian and Island peoples of the world, and didn't establish strict covenants regarding their matrimonial segregation, naively overlooking demonic trajectories.

Not as simple as all that I reckon, once you work in history and economics and land and desire, but these passions didn't interest Mildred (Ruth Negga) and Richard (Joel Edgerton) Loving, they just wanted to work and raise a family, and didn't even attend when their case reached the Supreme Court, just carefully kept keepin' on meanwhile, setting an example, as dedicated civil rights lawyers strove on.

Jeff Nichols's Loving is a beautiful film which straightforwardly examines love, loyalty, kindness, and security.

It never lets things get out of hand.

In its unassuming bold humility.

It's patient, keeps things on the level, doesn't lose its head, a serious film without much drama.

A chill account, a bucolic masterpiece, Loving lovingly latches to assuredly settle, like down home democracy, romantically fused.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Seemingly eccentric fey dissimulated nuances underscore the symphonically seminal seductive Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), his offbeat orchestrations xylophonically zephyring crazed ritzy zigzags, since, you see, he's aware, he's aware, he's aware of woebegone wizarding wilt as stern and dismissive as ridden-stricked guilt, stilted passionless unyielding observant trusts, where difference remains shunned, locked-up in cuffs, hufflepuffed heart a beating in menagerie, secreting repleting so dissidently, to see attitudes change having decoded blunders, a transmuted sideline's reformed as a wonder!

In thunderous.

Zoology.

I doubt Queen Hatshepsut encountered such disdain.

And don't really know if he hopes to start a zoo. Or, a, magizoo.

Sigh.

Nonetheless, globe trotting in search of versed beasties, Scamander lands in New York heading west.

But his briefcase disappears, is accidentally switched with another, some of its residents escaping into feisty urban playgrounds.

He's also arrested by a disgraced auror (Katherine Waterston as Tina) with whom he eventually strikes up a friendship along with her nurturing sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) and a curious flabbergasted muggle (Dan Fogler as Kowalski).

Before he can stun the wizarding world with his dashing discoveries however, he must first find his tacit treasures and prevent a newfound obscurus (Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone)(a destructive force created when a magical child's gifts are violently suppressed) from joining forces with a wicked exclamation (Colin Farrell as Graves).

All the while NewYork's magical community manoeuvres to hide their existence from suspecting No-Mages (American muggles), who are afraid of their tremendous gifts, and hope to see them enervatingly exposed.

A bit of a pickle.

Spiked X-Men style.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them impresses as it expands Harry Potter lore.

Demonstrating that Rowling and Yates can keep delivering fresh thoughtful and entertaining narratives which provide hungry fans with fertile feasts even if they don't involve Harry Potter, it enticingly develops new characters with innocent depth and capably composes multilevelled meritorious measures (ethics, politics, the individual, the general, the new, the newt . . .).

Apart from the ruminations regarding war between muggles and magicians.

That is way way X-Men and seemed somewhat too grandiose, too tacked-on for a story about Newt Scamander.

These are epic times!

And the collective mindwash is so Jupiter Ascending.

Eddie Redmayne may currently be my favourite actor, his commanding poise and dignity subtly electrifying animated eccentricities.

Undeniably.

Note: I would have added at least 10 minutes to the exploration of Scamander's domain and an additional cheesy scene near the end where he romantically shows Tina his life's work, possibly with Queenie and Kowalski courting within as well.

Probably being saved for a sequel.

I wanted more fantastic beasts, less armageddon!

Can someone cast the independent Newt Scamander American Honeyesque spell?

Quickly, before there are 6 more big budget end-of-the-world blowouts!

Is working at a University really that tumultuous?

For heaven's sake!