The Dictator

Okay, let's take a big piece of autocratic shit, give him plenty of time to express himself, strip him of his privilege, place him within a formulaic situation which usually exemplifies redemption, and use his despotic voice to ambiguously promote substantial social democratic initiatives.

While satirically making light of reprehensible realities in order to suggest that disengaged nihilism can make one actively receptive to anything.

In an unrestrained salute to decadence.

Equating the structural socio-economic realities of dictatorships with those found in democratic countries makes a powerful point, representative of the Occupy Movement, perhaps attempting to speak to some who ignored it by encouraging their revulsion not only to Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) but also to the formula creatively used to try and generate knee-jerk sympathy for him.

Without the revulsion, however, a socialist/fascist dialectic presents itself wherein socialist initiatives (multiculturalism, universal healthcare, public education, freedom of speech, . . .), which progressively attempt to provide workers with agency so that their voice can play a meaningful role in the ways in which an entity (a business, corporation, parliament, school) conducts its affairs, are sadistically separated from their collective foundations by acts which attempt to convince them that since they have this agency, this voice, this individuality, they are therefore no different from your average plutocrat/monarch, and should consequently regard collective actions as being beneath them, seeing as monarchs often have more important things to concern themselves with than the impoverished concerns of their subjects (which are pervertedly generalized as being the result of morally corrupt characters).

The relationship between Aladeen and Zoey (Anna Faris) in The Dictator examines this dialectic by having a tyrant work at a collective organic grocery (Free Earth Collective).  While working, Aladeen demonstrates his complete lack of social understanding (monarchs are not like workers) and Zoey is so naive she ignores the multiple signs indicating Aladeen's sadistic tendencies.

And after Aladeen employs a stiff upper lip to improve her business's efficiency she marries him and helps to introduce a number of ineffectual political reforms within his home country.

Hence, The Dictator rashly sanctifies a maniacal potentate to level out the Western/Middle Eastern political playing field while indicating the need for change by wickedly evidencing how disengaged things have become.

There's a lot of corruption out there but for every Stalin there's a Tommy Douglas.

Greece is not Norway, Sweden or Finland.

Your vote does matter.

Battleship

Wasn't expecting to find a social democratic aesthetic at work in the latest alien invasion flick, Peter Berg's Battleship, but it's there, disguised in a maritime cloak, paying respect to multicultural nautical subjects, and demonstrating how an inclusive team excels.

As if the spirit of Battleship Potemkin is alive and well and theorizing what the Soviet Union's navy would have looked like after a century of reforms inspired by the courageous mutiny, distancing itself from its revolutionary heritage by codifying and transferring its content to 21st century American propaganda.

To battle a plutocratic blitzkrieg.

Can the aliens in Battleship be legitimately thought of as plutocrats?

Well, as environmental laws are repealed or gutted and scientific research is ignored in favour of religio-economic fanaticism (the misguided belief that the free market can do no wrong), the planet (or Canada at least) becomes more and more polluted. The 1% have the means through which to 'purify' their resources by purchasing expensive speciality ethically produced items without using credit excessively.  If fracking ruins their neighbourhood/district/region's water supply, they can move, easily, potentially beforehand after setting up the extraction.  Keeping abreast with technological advances, they can purchase or commission devices that can decontaminate their water even if they do stay while mitigating additional toxic effects.

The aliens who land in Battleship are technologically advanced, possess suits that shield them from that to which they cannot acclimatize (while protecting them from critical repercussions), are uninterested in the concerns of the citizens whom their policies disturb, and are using the military to pursue interplanetary colonialism.    

Sounds like fundamental plutocratic behaviour to me.

The international sailors who confront them however represent different ethnicities, socio-economic contingencies, genders, historical periods, and physical disabilities.

It's a well rounded group.  

They have no armour to protect them from the polluted Earth and must collegially improvise a strategic plan.

Not to naively present this social aesthetic as being ideally fine and dandy.

Before the invasion takes place egos collide and disorder persists.

Yet after a reason to work towards a collective goal presents itself, unity is restored.

The hierarchy within is troublesome yet look at how inclusive it is. Everyone has a voice regardless of rank whose logic is taken into consideration. When Lieutenant Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) suddenly finds himself in command and must make an immediate decision, his subordinate isn't afraid to challenge him in the pursuit of an alternative objective. Hopper even relinquishes command when it becomes clear that Japanese Captain Yugi Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) is a more suited candidate.

The fact that the confrontation takes place within a force field which separates the combatants from the world at large suggests that Battleship does indeed present a popularized plutocratic/social democratic dialectic insofar as these elements have been isolated and subjectified within an impenetrable ideological vacuum (let's find a way to represent these opposing approaches by creating a fictional polemical context within which they can aggressively interact), one which removes the concealments everyday life often necessitates.

The plutocrats through their blind ambition accidentally create a space within which their adversaries are capable of launching a constructive protest.

Because no matter how polluted things are, their adversaries are still capable of absorbing the sun.  

Dark Shadows

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows revisits an American gothic soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971 and is therefore supposed to be superfluously tactless.

Not that the emancipated 18th century vampire Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is lacking in sensitivity, it's just that he rigidly abides by a strict moral code through which he hopes to reconfigure his family's fortunes and reanimate its pseudo-aristocratic position within the town of Collinsport.

Okay, he is lacking in sensitivity, and a bit of a prick, and bloodthirsty and unforgiving and functionally clueless.

But he also embodies a raw nocturnal decisive magnetism which sanguinely yet solipsistically cultivates the melodrama (the film focuses too intently on him to the detriment of the supporting cast).

In the 1760s, his family sailed to the New World and established a successful fishery, for all intents and purposes administrating the town thereafter.  While growing up, Barnabas caught the eye of many a local  maiden including one his servants, Angelique (Eva Green). Unbeknownst to him, Angelique was a witch who proceeds to curse his family after he scorns her. She eventually turns him into a vampire and has him chained and buried deep below ground, proceeding to use her witchcraft to incant a fishing business of her own afterwards. When Barnabas is accidentally unearthed in 1972, her business has expanded significantly and the Collins family is in a state of practical ruin.

And she still desires him.

Barnabas remains uninterested however although he does reflexively entertain. His actions engender her fury in the aftermath when she discovers that he has once again fallen for another.

Another who is the spitting image of she whom Barnabas left Angelique for all those centuries ago.

Dark Shadows could have been good had its writers nonchalantly taken their uninspired subject matter more seriously (in order to concoct something terrible yet fun). Having Johnny Depp in your film, giving him the majority of the lines, and having him hypnotize characters within does not spontaneously conjure happy returns.

Further, working uncritically within kitschy commercially feudal fantastic frames serves to romanticize patriarchal socio-economic representations (which is probably the point).

Thus, noble Barnabas feasts on construction workers and itinerants and the only successful female characters used spells to achieve their goals or are punished severely for their transgressions.

There are flamboyant moments but their affects are localized and therefore don't pervasively instil the narrative's underground with a recurring thematic foil (and the film isn't much fun).

There may not be a foil, but one over-the-top scene where Angelique briefs her best and brightest, all of whom are men, seems to cast doubt on the fact that higher corporate echelons were almost uniformly masculine in the seventies, through the use of excessive exaggeration, which sinisterly places the film's manifested patriarchal focus within its subterranean realm by suggesting that male dominated boards of directors were perhaps not as permeated with testosterone as progressives would have you believe, thereby hyperbolically challenging the 21st century ideological playing field by conservatively deconstructing historical reality.

Dark shadows to be sure.

The Five-Year Engagement

A couple is in love.

Their first meeting is adorable. They are living in San Francisco. One of them finds a job in small-town Michigan. They move. The other's career is resultantly set back but this is sacrificially taken in stride.  Attempts to acclimatize to small-town life are heroically made but an undeniable despondency cannot be persuasively concealed.

A break-up is imminent, the couple goes their separate ways, and new partners are found. But a kernel of love remains which new arrangements cannot disintegrate and it's possible that the two lovers will restructure their efficient and profitable means of production. With the future and age pressing in and standards of compatibility becoming less and less idealistic, a decision must be definitively made.

According to what I know about romantic comedies anyways.

The Five-Year Engagement has some funny scenes and introduces a broad range of distracting characters. Bill's (Chris Parnell) sweaters and Vaneetha's (Mindy Kaling) toast stand out and I enjoyed listening to the ideas of both Ming (Randall Park) and Tarquin (Brian Posehn).    

Individuals working in intellectual and culinary markets are juxtaposed and members from both groups are made to appear ridiculously profound.

Rather than consistently sentimentalizing the romantic love that often results in marriage, the film introduces argumentative points of combative relational diversification during the engagement, thereby instructively applying quasi-conjugal conflicts to prenuptial amicable operations while installing a degree of collaborative critical conditionals as well.

Sweet but trashy, mildly melodramatic, and pretentiously inclusive, The Five-Year Engagement offered more insightful observations and humorous interjections than I was expecting (after the film shifts to Michigan), which helped me get over the snickering directed in my direction as I entered the theatre on my own.

And if donuts have yet to be eaten, why purchase new ones? That's wasteful.       

The Avengers

Prominent Marvel characters begrudgingly unite in Joss Whedon's The Avengers to battle the tyrannical intentions of the recently freed Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Loki travels to Earth in order to commandeer the Tesseract from S.H.I.E.L.D for the Other (Alexis Denisof) who promises him an army of Chitauri warriors in return (with whom he can launch an invasion).

The Tesseract is an extremely powerful and seemingly limitless source of energy.

The overt film's explosive enough, as superegos convincingly clash and physically exhibit their prowess. Their introduction's are concise and pinpointed, their initial meeting contentious and energetic, their conversation's confident, inquisitive and challenging, their commitment during battle self-sacrificing and unwavering, and so on.

Approaches and tactics are intently scrutinized before the necessity to act demands a united counter assault.

Much like any given Sunday.

This business of naming the overarching villain The Other is quite troublesome, however, insofar as this can be viewed as external difference financing and supplying Loki's imperialistic ambition.

Which is xenophobic.

And sucks.

After a nation engages in imperialistic activities a degree of underlying cultural paranoia is retroactively generated which can be thought of as manufacturing a subjugating unspoken psychological incision, an example of this incision's profusion being even more excessively manifested in A Song of Ice of Fire.

The Avengers themselves are exceptions overflowing with otherness as is S.H.I.E.L.D and the film's final confrontation takes place in New York.

These are local irreplaceable others, however, produced on planet Earth, apart from Thor (Chris Hemsworth).

As these special local others combat the 'extraterrestrial' forces of the Other in a metropolitan other the military's solution (the closest possible [ludicrous] representation of the people's voice in this film) is to send in a nuke and unabashedly obliterate all forms of difference.

But the narcissistic techno-other who cannot be somnambulistically subdued by Loki's sceptre catches that nuke and directs it into space, thereby using his 'idyllic' individualistic entrepreneurial ingenuity to simultaneously crush the threat of colonization and prevent a government sponsored homeland nuclear disaster.

He is then saved by brute force as he helplessly falls back to Earth (there's a disturbing image for labour relations [corporate fiefdoms anyone?]).

Thus, not so pleased with what's going on behind the scenes in The Avengers.

Thor does chastise Loki for considering himself to be above his potential subjects.

Thor who is from another planet.

Nice to see Harry Dean Stanton nevertheless.

The Lucky One

Don't really know what to say about The Lucky One.

Lead character Logan (Zac Effron) certainly is lucky.

While fighting in Iraq, he discovers the picture of an enticing woman lying in the wreckage and keeps it close to his heart thereafter. Having safely returned to Colorado, he then decides to find her and sets out on foot, showing her picture to people he meets. He eventually finds her (Taylor Schilling as Beth Clayton) in a small town in Louisiana and she gives him a job working in her kennel.

Against her better judgement.

Her jealous manipulative ex-husband (Jay R. Ferguson as Keith Clayton) is a smug policeperson, the son of a wealthy mayoral candidate, and a secure member of the local petty bourgeoise.

He takes none to kindly to Logan.

But Logan isn't afraid, and boldly refuses to play ball, trusting instead in the power of love and the genuine incorruptibility of his good intentions.

And the fact that lonely Beth starts wanting a piece.

The film would have been stronger had Logan encountered other labourers who had run afoul of Mr. Clayton's coercive tendencies and formed a resistance of sorts to counteract his abusive privilege.

Old Testament justice is thunderously administered, but a different solution, one galvanizing the resolve of mistreated workers, would have provided The Lucky One with a collective edge, thereby intensifying the fluidity of its amour.

The Raven

A mildly entertaining inconsistent romantic horror, James McTeigue's The Raven situates Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack) within a demented psychotic murderous tribute to his work and demands that he creates within. As a madperson kidnaps his love interest (Alice Eve as Emily Hamilton) and uses materials from his texts in a homicidal homage, Poe assists Detective Fields (Luke Evans) in his desperate corresponding investigation.  Anticipation leads to discovery but they vexingly remain one step behind the sought after killer and his or her realistic portrait of the literary dead. The time required to psychologically digest the enormity of its impact is vindictively denied as the narrative quickly shuffles from one grizzly chapter to the next.

And the unacknowledged trauma sinks in.  

Lying within this structure lies a hidden master/slave dichotomy. If you find yourself working within a environment in which your labour is continuous, giving you little time to think about anything else, and your efforts fail to result in better working conditions, as this pattern is reproduced, and your debt load continues to climb and your forbidden subject of desire becomes increasingly unattainable, an underlying current of motivated pointlessness emerges when the shape-shifting face of capital presents itself, exalting a moribund elixir.

This could explain why The Raven's dialogue possesses a timeless quality which utilizes both 19th and 21st century forms of expression.  By quasi-atemporally refusing to abide by a linear conception of verbal predictability, it subtly manifests this motivated pointlessness while elevating an unconscious ethos which revels in the disruption of contemplative leisure (the 60 hour work week).

Tezz

Two men on different sides of the law intellectually and physically face off in Priyadarshan's sensational Tezz, one seeking personal justice for having been deported to India and separated from his family, the other coming out of retirement after having spent his life foiling terrorist plots for the British government.

With a perfect record. 

A bomb is attached to a passenger train travelling to Glasgow which will explode if the train's speed decreases below 60 mph. If 10 million euros are given to Aakash Rana (Ajay Devgn), the disaster will be averted. Railway Control Specialist Sanjay Raina's (Boman Irani) daughter is on the train, adding to the melodrama. Counter Terrorism Agent Arjun Khanna (Anil Kapoor) is intent on catching Rana before he has time to explain how to dispose of the bomb. 

And egos explode. 

Within headstrong passionate personalities definitively express their emotionally charged strategic points of view, having been forced into a rationalized chaotic peculiarity. Extremes and modes of transportation abound as controversial decisions are rapidly made.

When ambiguity seems as if it may gain a foothold within the narrative's denouement, the law moves in and shuts thing down (thereby accentuating the predicament of the disenfranchised).  

You would think there would have been other ways for Aakash to be reunited with his family. 

But when taking into account the terms of Tezz's stark portrayal of the law's callous non-negotiable dismissal of Aakash's respectability, a sort of absurd understanding can be applied to his over-the-top benign all-or-nothing approach, since the rational framework to which he had devoted his productive life suddenly and unconditionally collapsed, leaving him with no constructive alternatives within the existing legal framework.

Lockout

Never thought I'd see Guy Pearce playing a John McClanesque trash talking tough guy, but this is precisely what he does in the new science-fiction action flick Lockout, and he does it rather well.

An excessively violent turbulent purveyor of mitigated anxiety, Lockout's carefree kinetic hyperactive machismo doesn't fail to impress as it consistently delivers cheesy stubborn sarcastic lines with a heightened awareness of their formulaic frivolity.

It knows it's ridiculous and doesn't stray far from its commercial purpose while refusing to take itself seriously and seeming as if it's delivering its product reluctantly, thereby overflowing with the same rash confidence Snow (Pearce) needs to break into a maximum security prison located in space and save the president's daughter (Maggie Grace) from the recently escaped inmates.

The same daughter who was trying to improve their quality of life.

Not exactly the most socially progressive film, as many of its characters are seconds away from meeting their death or losing a loved one as they try and carve out a place for themselves within their culture's coercive climate (by taking extreme risks), but in terms of its own internal chemistry it works well as a blunt form of unabashed entertainment which willingly provides that which you would hope to expect with neither pretension nor a lack of effort.

In outer space.

We Need to Talk about Kevin

Demon spawn is birthed in Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk about Kevin and provided with access to a vindictive bow.  Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) isn't the most outwardly loving mother/person and Kevin (Ezra Miller, Jasper Newell, Rock Duer) is by no means a happy responsive son. Seen through the lens of Eva's guilt ridden memories, being alive and eventually having to contribute to the continuing development of a community seems to have caused Kevin no end of pain. As he ages, this pain transforms into wickedness as he finds ways to disruptively take part. Possessing a bleak miserable cynical outlook, he flagitiously predicts the outcomes of various interactions with mom and does his best to ensure they flourish repeatedly.

All the while getting along well with his father (John C. Reilly) and enjoying the comforts of a suburban lifestyle.

The film itself is cunning, cutting, and challenging, generating pathos and humour within its sardonically stark yet traumatically playful frames. It juxtaposes parenting methodologies with communal judgments while stoically capturing a subject's helpless resolve as she formulaically attempts to domestically enact a traditional characterization of a mother's role while remaining unable to convincingly fake the requisite emotion. Kevin seemingly makes her pay for her dispassion by doing everything he can to provoke her rage. After one significant miscue, she retreats into an apathetic posture with the intent of never displaying her reckless anger again. Little Kevin becomes increasingly sinister, his dad maintains that boys will be boys, and dread tempered with disbelief crystallizes deep within her psyche.

We Need to Talk about Kevin uses the opposition established between demon spawn and reluctant mother to comic effect while making you feel guilty for finding parts of it funny. The bits of dark humour are intermittently interjected between the aftershocks of Kevin's calculated psychotic rampage which display Eva's unfortunate neighbourly predicament from multiple interpersonal angles. Hence, the mood shifts frequently and is orchestrated with a subtle expertise which disables one-dimensional attachments while still managing to sustain an appealing fluid uniformity (the mood creatively changes but as each scene takes on a life of its own they become united through the act of continuous non-chaotic formal diversification), these mood shifts reflecting the internal psychological dilemmas publicly banished from Eva's complacent demeanour.

It's well done.

Water for Elephants

Romance/youth contends with fidelity/age in Francis Lawrence's Water for Elephants as the young penniless Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson) falls in love with his boss's wife. Jacob is lucky to have a job, having fortuitously jumped on a train in the middle of the night carrying a travelling circus to its next destination.  His veterinary skills soon prove useful although one of his diagnoses humanely disrupts the circus's most prominent act. Taking matters into his own hands against the protests of the volatile master of ceremonies (Christolph Waltz as August) almost leads to his dismissal, but August respects his firm convictions, even though they frustrate his fiery ego.

Thus we have a self-made person whose successfully made their living for decades in a fluctuating market willing to make sacrifices to accommodate a naive intelligent capable worker. Unfortunately the brutal manner in which he conducts his affairs leave his protégé with little to aspire to. An economic depression complicates matters as predictable revenues dry up and paranoia unleashes its maniacal tendrils. The introduction of a forbidden subject of desire does little to destabilize the frenetic tension.

When theories put into practice are validated by longevity their proponents undoubtably feel a sense of accomplishment. But if this sense of accomplishment leads both to an unyielding desire for order and vicious attempts to authoritatively manage the chaotic, its heralded methodology will likely engender internal miscalculations. If the alternatives which present themselves are met with the sword, its manufactured stability may lose its sustained truth-value and blindly obscure the forward thinking focus of its integrative synergies.

As that which they love most flutters away.

Wrath of the Titans

Didn't find many redeeming qualities in Wrath of the Titans.

It's one of the worst sequels I've ever seen.

Counting on the manufactured pop-cultural codes disinterestedly built into its tired formula to lethargically generate knee-jerk approvals and instantaneous wonder, it proceeds from one predictable banal scene to another while relying on constant fighting and trite dialogue to move things rapidly along.

There is a five minute interval where the film seems to recognize its stench at which point things become somewhat more appealing.

But this interval passes swiftly and then it's back to taking itself and its ancient subject matter far too seriously for another 45 minutes.

At which point it ends, thankfully after only a little more than an hour and a half.  

Mirror Mirror

Possessing a self-aware mischievous aloofly focused reflexivity which takes interpretive postures narratively to heart, Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror playfully reimagines Snow White and infuses it with lighthearted billowing charm. The Queen (Julia Roberts) is certainly wicked, the princess (Lily Collins), beautiful. Prince Alcott (Armie Hammer) bumbles along unwittingly thrust between the two and the seven dwarves provide voyeuristic commentary and transformative benignity which constructively pluralizes the action by creating an audience within an audience.

It's totally web 2.0.

Economic matters haunt the film as the Queen brutally taxes her subjects to pay for her ostentatious whims. The dwarves have taken to robbing those who pass through their section of the forest due to the fact that they were expelled from the village because the Queen found them ugly. The villagers didn't stand up for the dwarves which has lead to resentment. When they rob a royal coach carrying funds obtained through taxation they therefore have no desire to return them. But Snow White sees things differently and returns the levies and gives the dwarves the credit.

Thus we have a situation where a capricious exception was made which divided the struggling populace. Feeling helpless and seeing no way of securing a lasting productive solution on their own, this exception lapsed into criminal activity. Then, after taking into their care a royal outcast, a solution presents itself necessitated by the underhanded activities they were forced to engage in.

Unfortunately, this solution was brokered by the outcasted royal rather than the people themselves. Had they remained united, perhaps they could have taken steps to frustrate the villainous Queen and would not have had to rely upon accidental august interventions.

A Dangerous Method

Usually I'm a big fan of David Cronenberg's films but A Dangerous Method didn't work for me. Which is surprising considering that if someone had suggested that I could go see a movie that blends Sense and Sensibility with Blue Velvet I would have responded with glee and eagerly anticipated an upcoming screening.

Oh well.

While Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) become acquainted with one another their dialogues are sound enough. Both are working within a traditional framework and trying to modify its rigidity in order to make room for modern theories. Freud's disciplined innovative approach is contrasted with Jung's emphasis on the hyper-experimental and both confidently support their differing yet supportive points of view (they're working within a new theoretical paradigm which calls into question various institutional bulwarks but coming at it from different practical angles). Their analytic proclivities and formidable egos squander the potential of a prolonged working relationship, however, and eventually their productive bond is ruptured.

The main problem with the film comes from the interactions between the two and patient/student/love interest/colleague Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley). As her and Jung start having an affair, the dialogue becomes increasingly maudlin and precludes any chance of a sharp unifying disruptive climax. When it suddenly jumps to scenes displaying their raucous lovemaking, the movie takes on a comedic aspect whose carnally cerebral concupiscent dexterity playfully problematizes/extends its focus on professionalism.

Classic Cronenberg.

But while the rigorous carnivalesque dreamlike fortitude radiates Method's formal elements, the melodramatic sentimental tedious exchanges surficially complicate things.

Perhaps Cronenberg is simply trying to say that it's the dreamwork that's more important?

Who knows.

La théorie du tout

Travelling throughout the Québecois countryside, Céline Baril presents the thoughts and observations of a wide variety of local points of view in her documentary La théorie du tout. The countryside is indirectly compared to a musical instrument that needs to be played in order to maintain its jaunty fluidity. Providing work for rural areas enables them to similarly maintain their communal vitality. But over production and obsessions with continually increasing profits have decimated resources that could have indefinitely supported them.

Changing technologies are lamented as a worker who has spent decades operating a specific machine must learn a new set of skills.

A young adult attached to her town wants to stay but her journalistic ambitions leave her with few employment opportunities.

Some individuals adapt and move from one industry to another as mining rejuvenates a struggling economy.

An ominous sense of anxiety pervades thoughts concerning the future of various fisheries as overflowing populations have been reduced to a fraction of their former plenitude.

The emphasis on providing rural workers/job seekers/small business owners/ . . . with the chance to voice their ideas and share their knowledge establishes a bucolic social democratic aesthetic which modestly illustrates sustainable development alternatives to the rapacious bottom line of 'moving forward' capitalists (without using the phrase).

A lot of people don't want to leave the town where they grew up or have lived and worked for most their lives. Sustainable development offers them with symphonic methodologies to orchestrate their futures along harmonic pastoral lines possessing environmentally sound melodies.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Delicate operations requiring providential mnemonic triggers and creative conditional calculations present themselves to retired intelligence agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) as he attempts to identify a Russian spy. Having infiltrated the highest level of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), this spy is well positioned to discretely disseminate significant flourishes of information to his superiors in the Soviet Union. Tacit knowledge, social and institutional information management, and the threat of death play integral roles in Smiley's clandestinely profitable wagers. The stakes are high and the opposition fierce as he descends into the labyrinthine foundations of memory, availability, and time.

In the interests of precision.

Taking ordinary research and adorning it with a strict lethal sense of provocative immediacy, Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy tantalizes the inquisitive faculties while proceeding staggeringly from point A to point B in a laconic linear warp.

Like an indirect salute to editorial predilections.

Trying to unearth the hidden adhesive catalyst whose motivational propulsion will synthesize his pensive analytic re/formulations, George Smiley pursues his subject with a cunningly subtle rigour which wisely sublimates feelings of joy.

While occasionally permitting its ephemeral presence.

In order to thwart bureaucratic instabilities.

The Hunger Games

Suppose most people are familiar with what happens in The Hunger Games so I won't spend too much time expanding upon the plot.

An uprising was launched by 12 impoverished districts which was crushed by the powers-that-be. In the aftermath, in order to brutally humiliate their subjects even further, they then created the Hunger Games, a competition wherein a youthful male and female representative from each district is selected to take part in a vicious fight to the death.

24 combatants are chosen and by the end only one remains.

The combatants, referred to as tributes, travel to the capital where they're elaborately decked out and paraded in front of the well-to-do in an ancient romanesque spectacle that's designed to showcase the oppressed and impress potential sponsors. These sponsors can provide you with assistance during the Games thereby enhancing your chances of survival. Ratings are provided to each contestant and they have their chance to prove their worth in front of a select group of interested parties and on television as well.

President Snow (Donald Sutherland) makes it clear that the Games were designed to instil a sense of hope within his destitute subjects, a sense that even though your chances of survival are slim, you still might win and be showered with riches forever after.

Obviously the hope he intends to cultivate isn't seen quite so romantically by the citizens of the districts.

Or the participants of the Hunger Games.

But those who have lucratively profited by the current composition of the state cheer and laugh at the hopeless in a disgusting exercise of affluent vanity.

Refusing to participate in the Hunger Games ensures your death.

Participating in the Hunger Games almost assuredly ensures your death.

So you have an extremist government that castigates the poor and suppresses any form of rational descent, demanding strict obedience to its self-serving whims and designs. Its supporters revel in the bloodthirsty celebration and the families of the participants forlornly sit back and watch.

But sponsors can assist you, give you critical support if you put on a good show.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) put on the best show they possibly can.

By falling in love.

Love in its true form enables them to change the rules of the game to the vouchsafed delight of their begrudgingly suppliant benefactors.

Thereby suggesting that true love saturated with sacrifice can momentarily defeat the agents of tyranny.

Or that true love fictions are at the heart of the tyrannical enterprise.

Working within a sensationalist frame to provoke a tear jerking deconstructive critical strike disseminating subliminal democratic aftershocks.

Perhaps I expanded upon the plot ad nauseum.

I can't figure out if the end justifies the means.

Carnage

Propriety is caustically deconstructed in Roman Polanski's Carnage as two couples meet to discuss a recent altercation between their contentious offspring.

And inadvertently try to get to know one another.

The situation is this: one kid was confronted by a group of kids mouthing him off so he picked up a stick and hit the leader of the group in the mouth, damaging his teeth. The parents of the former make an effort to apologize to the parents of the later by stopping by their apartment in a show of good faith. They discuss things amicably and the parents of the former are about to leave but one thing leads to another and their conversation is extended.

As the mother of the later (Jodie Foster as Penelope Longstreet) becomes more and more intrusive in her comments and suggestions, the father of the former (Christoph Waltz as Alan Cowan) becomes increasingly defensive and irate. The resulting polemic pits two couples from different socio-demographic backgrounds against one another and the children are soon forgotten as the animosity intensifies.

But each couple has their own internal struggles as well and the genders eventually square off while enjoying another round of afternoon scotch.

Known for its transformative curations.

Carnage works as a deconstructive piece which champions open honest airings of grievances over uptight formal indisputable appearances. Tearing away at the veneers which constitute a wide variety of social interactions, it finds catharsis through confrontation while productively disrupting and recasting established codes of conduct.

As everyone remembers their youth.

This could have been an exceptional film but there's something missing from its bitter tranquil blend. While I respected its formula, I couldn't find that cohesive regenerative spark which would make me want to wholeheartedly engage in subsequent viewings.

Some sort of kinetic catalyst.

Everything's reputably in place to make Carnage stand out and I think that may be the problem. This script may have found more life with a less successful cast and crew looking to make a resounding impact.

As they fight for recognition.

21 Jump Street

After royally screwing up their first arrest, rookie policepersons Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) are reassigned to the undercover division 21st Jump Street, where they're tasked with discovering the supplier of a new narcotic which has recently claimed its first victim.

While preparing for life back in high school, Jenko, who played football, takes the lead, providing advice to the less intellectually challenged Schmidt, who was a member of the Juggling Society. Pretending to be brothers and bunking out at Schmidt's parent's house, they reacclimatize themselves to the young adult social predicament as best they can, before youthfully arising and plunging back in.

But things have changed since they came of age, and environmentalists are now just as popular as the jocks were back when Jenko tossed his tight spirals. Jenko and Schmidt quickly see their traditional roles reversed as the later makes headway with the cool kids and the former infiltrates the nerds.

But as Schmidt begins to socially prosper for the first time, he loses sight of their law enforcement objectives.

It's now up to Jenko to hold the team together and nerd where he has never nerded before.

Down, set, hut.

Ignoring the film's ludicrous structure and myriad implausibilities, the question of where 21 Jump Street sits in the political spectrum remains up for debate, and I'm sure it's currently being dissected in political philosophy classes across North America.

I may as well add my two cents.

The objective of the film: stop the flow of easily accessible trendy narcotics within high schools.

Point awarded to the Right Wing.

But it's not as if the Left Wing wants to see the proliferation of drugs proceed unabated, it simply recognizes that the traditional means that have been employed to prohibit them have had little effect (they're not going away), and since many of them are less harmful than alcohol, don't see an enormous problem with systematically controlling them and making a productive fortune off their taxation. However, the narcotics in 21 Jump Street are new and little is known about them so it would make sense that the Left would seek to analyze their contents and resultant effects before judging whether or not they should be legally regulated/distributed. A commodity is being trafficked off the grid and the government wants to step in and regulate it in order to understand its harmful effects more comprehensively and better educate the public: point awarded to the Right Wing withdrawn.

21 Jump Street Captain Dickson (Ice Cube) tells his recruits to focus on stereotyping everyone they encounter in order to fit within their high school social spheres more snuggly.

Point awarded to the Right Wing.

Yet by focusing intently on stereotypes, Schmidt and Jenko have trouble fitting into their new environment and only succeed after opening their minds to the possibility of difference.

Point awarded to the Right Wing withdrawn.

Drugs are demonized throughout insofar as curtailing their distribution is sought after yet the ways in which they are presented glorifies their consumption.

Point awarded to neither.

While the Left realistically understands that the war on drugs is futile, it still doesn't glorify their use, and neither does the Right.

The female officers working for 21 Jump Street close their first case long before Jenko and Schmidt are in a position to begin solving theirs.

Point awarded to the Left.

Chauvinism pervades Right Wing discourses and by making Schmidt and Jenko semi-incompetent buffoons who pale in comparison to their feminine coworkers, 21 Jump Street counteracts its "might is right" ethos. But at the same time, the heroes of the story are men, and even though the women obtain results much more efficiently, their achievements are still only ephemerally referred to and the point is by no means elaborated.

Point awarded to the Left withdrawn.

The principal student drug dealer is an environmentalist, directly synthesizing facilitators of intoxication with those who support initiatives such as sustainable development.

Point awarded to the Right.

Yet the student in question, Eric Molson (Dave Franco), is given some of the film's best lines and shown to be an understanding and compassionate person who cares about his fellow classmates with whom he gets along well. But still, when 21 Jump Street reaches its conclusion, he's dragged off in handcuffs to answer for his activities.

Point awarded to the Right sustained.

From the Schmidt and Jenko duo, it's the football playing jock who holds things together and ensures their success.

Point awarded to the Right.

Then again, while professional football seems at times like a prolonged jingoistic advertisement for the military, this doesn't mean the game itself is necessarily Right Wing, inasmuch as when you ignore the ways in which it's sensationalized, you can still sit back and enjoy an entertaining sport, played by many a Left Winger.

Point awarded to the Right withdrawn.

And ambiguity permeates 21 Jump Street insofar as it's difficult to strictly determine what its political motivations are.

Point awarded to the Left.

Although, even though the Left attempts to break down strict polarities and establish a level non-stereotypical playing field wherein historical factors play an inductive role, it still staunchly adheres to specific points within established dichotomies in order to ensure their ethical survival.

Point awarded to the Left withdrawn.

The only sustained point may have been awarded to the Right, but I still hesitate to classify 21 Jump Street as a conservative film. There's simply not enough evidence.

Is it still an entertaining film that I didn't want to leave half way through?

You be the judge.

Shame

Consumed and dominated by uncontrollable sexual desires which demand constant strategic salacious improvisations, Brandon Sullivan's (Michael Fassbender) unquenchable thirst for carnal pleasures is disproportionately interrupted by a visit from his little sister (Carey Mulligan as Sissy Sullivan).

Who, as it turns out, has no where else to go.

His private carnivalesque prurient pursuits must now adjust themselves to the potential impact of familial judgment and the threat of patronizing restraint. As it becomes clear that Sissy's economic circumstances are by no means self-sufficient, the resultant limitations psychologically materialize a contemptuous backlash which leads to a breakdown in their sustainable relations.

And a resurgent unfettered libidinous conflagration.

Shame works as an emotionless stark rigid character study which sociologically examines localized affects of satyriasis. Michael Fassbender's focused distant unattached self-absorbed performance seductively infuses Mr. Sullivan with a wantonly calculated individualistic purpose. Carey Mulligan's struggling confused desperate counterpoint functions as an effective curve.

Responsibilities bear their consequences in jolting destructive strikes whose unleashed immediate pressures instantaneously distill a sense of belonging.

Consequent reactions determine semantic interpretations incorporating previously manifested patterns built into historical socio-foundations established in relation to a kaleidoscopic point of view.

Director Steve McQueen's direct approach attempts to resist the interpretative labyrinth.

In so doing we're given the cold hard narrow unforgiving facts.

Which themselves impose additional limits on Brandon Sullivan's freedom.

I thought perhaps that the fact that I was reading Game of Thrones would endear me to the patrons of the roadhouse I entered on my own for dinner, but, unfortunately, this was not the case. Or maybe it was.

The Artist

Pride leads to a tragic fall in Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist, as silent film superstar George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) refuses to adapt to a technological paradigm shift. Losing everything after the advent of the Talkies, he descends into a self-obsessed alcoholic tailspin while remaining loyal to his preferred form of artistic expression.

To which he was an unparalleled sensation.

Paying hommage to an abandoned form of film making which was responsible for cinema's resounding success, The Artist works, presenting a remarkable synthesis of motion and sound whose historical resonances are fashionably festooned.

Ludovic Bource's original music playfully harmonizes with the action and temporally positions us within a revitalized inspirational epoch. Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo (Peppy Miller) use the full range of their creative non-verbal subtly to emit an understated existential dialogue which encourages evocative sensual reflections as one tries to imagine what might have been said.

Even as Valentin seems destined for dereliction, a sense of innocent naivety permeates The Artist's being, as its expertly timed stylistic complexities leisurely conjure an effervescent cascade of childlike simplicity by delicately condensing multilayered supporting complements into an affective cry.

Nothing that surprising takes place in the narrative itself. It's the cohesive viscid micro-details which transform each moment into an exception of its own that make The Artist such a compelling film.

Nice to see Ed Lauter with a supporting role.

Like Crazy

Don't know if I'm the write person to be reviewing romantic films.

Drake Doremus's Like Crazy seems like a good one, with all the typical heartbreaking circumstances in place, presented in a harrowingly tranquil laid-back predictable manner, as a young couple falls in love but has trouble staying together because they live in different countries.

Marriage fails to solve their problems.

Long periods of separation lead to affairs.

There's nothing bizarre or distracting.

We're left wondering if the power of love will bring them back together in the end.

And it does and everyone's happy.

Hooray!

I liked the film's form. It's chill, non-judgemental, mature, flat and consistent.

But its content wasn't very surprising and lacked the distinct mesmerizing transitional scenes that could have differentiated it more prominently from typical tear jerking romances.

None of my tears were jerked.

Unlike the first time I watched Star Trek: Generations.

My Week with Marilyn

Suddenly thrust into an accelerated kinetic critical creative complexity wherein two distinct approaches to acting clash on their way towards cinematic seduction, the youthful Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) finds himself balancing myriad egotistical dexterities while trying to maintain his liturgical nerve.

And pacify the deployments of irrepressible temptations.

Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams) has an undeniably perplexing presence whose improvised flexible non-linear magnetism has trouble adhering itself to Laurence Olivier's (Kenneth Branagh) by-the-book routine.

Olivier isn't the most forgiving figure either and Marilyn struggles with his disdain. She also misinterprets some of her husband's writing which accentuates her sense of ineptitude.

But as established unflattering men futilely attempt to control her, she combats their derision with a burgeoning youthful laissez-faire methodology which aesthetically appeals to the young and energetic Colin.

Whose working on his first film.

My Week with Marilyn studies the convoluted diversions and rewarding excursions to whose preponderant inconsistencies young professionals must rationally respond. Colin's seamless integration and exceptional ability to smoothly fluctuate perhaps doesn't offer the most transferable set of relatable interactive qualifications, but his success and good fortune can generate abundant ambitious daydreams, from whose integrated prosperous peaks one can fleetingly unearth kernels of truth.

After placing them within a poetic context and analyzing the resultant metaphorical flow.

The Lorax

Sustainable Development finds a pop cultural proponent in the new musical-comedy The Lorax, based on Dr. Seuss's children's book of the same name. Within, young Ted (Zac Efron) seeks the affections of Audrey (Taylor Swift) who loves the environment and would like to acquire a living tree.

They both live in Thneedville where their surroundings are predominantly non-organic.

Having never seen a living tree and possessing no knowledge of where to find one, Ted contends with a puzzling situation as his romantic daydreams complicate his ability to socialize.

Until Grammy Norma (Betty White) steps in.

She secretly tells Ted that if he wants to locate a tree he'll have to consult the Once-ler (Ed Helms) who lives in the treacherous badlands outside Thneedville's city limits.

To obtain the sought after information, Ted hops on his motorized bike and leaves the safety of Thneedville's uniformity behind. The Once-ler is discovered but before Ted can benefit from his stricken arboreal wisdom, a tale must be told in multiple instalments.

Wherein we meet the Lorax (Danny DeVito).

Guardian of the forest.

What follows is a harrowing reenactment of economic opportunism which results in the destruction of a lush wilderness and the displacement of its local bear population. The Once-ler capitalizes on the forest's marketable trees but his blind greed results in the harvesting of every last one.

And the devastation of a vibrant ecosystem.

The Lorax himself may be the guardian of the forest but there is little he can do to combat the forces of commercialization, besides trying to emphasize their folly before it's too late.

He's a secondary character in the film whose non-consequential fantastic presence is there to accentuate the importance of a realistic united environmental front, designed to disenchant extremist right wingers who like to preach about how environmentalism is the dream of children who can't understand that God is going to miraculously come down from heaven and clean up this mess some day.

Or just leave it behind and rapturously reward the extremist faithful.

Who for some reason haven't been diagnosed with a mental illness.

At least The Lorax makes it clear enough that divine intervention is not on the way and that we have to take matters into our own hands to find a progressive vision for a multi-generational solution to this misguided point of view.

Here on planet Earth.