War Horse

Trudging through the war torn European countryside, using skills learned from a forgiving instructor to survive, a horse alertly struggles through World War I, making the most of his talents as he's haplessly acquired by different armies. Functioning as a valuable fortuitous representative of pluck, he resignedly forgoes his wild instincts until circumstances demand their acceleration. As a consequence, he becomes inextricably entangled with imperialist hostilities, an indelible illustration of apocalyptic freedom. External forces most then intervene to secure his release, employing logic and chance to facilitate its realization.

Steven Spielberg's War Horse successfully depicts the brutality of war without glorifying its retributive catharsis (without accenting the accompanying felicity that results from crushing jingoistic calamities). Simplified scenes exemplifying sincere trust or pastoral serenity (the French grandfather [Niels Arestrup] and granddaughter [Celine Buckens]) are juxtaposed with militaristic might to highlight the sharp distinction maintained between these domains. The concept of order is resultantly polarized as well since war represents an extreme form of total mobilization (organization) (you will be shot if you don't follow orders) while the trust built into an idyllic existence organizes necessity (you must work to continuously reproduce your quality of life) in relation to the imagination (it's still possible to enjoy yourself once the work is complete). One approach necessarily tethers fantasy to a definite specific goal while the other leaves it free to roam and discover/create concrete or abstract objects.

The discovery of these concrete or abstract objects may or may not relate directly to your work at hand but in War Horse's opening moments they certainly do. Ted Narracott (Peter Mullan) decides to outbid his landlord for a riding horse which he cannot afford. In order to make the payments, the horse must plow a rocky field that the village has dismissed as unmanageable. Ted's son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) teaches the horse to pull a plow and the land is thereby tilled. Thus, Ted's imagination allows him to believe that he can procure something which can then assist him in earning his living while also providing him with the means to pursue other interests (in his case, drinking, in his son's, horse riding). Unfortunately, a storm ruins his crops forcing him to sell his horse to the military.

And his son signs up for war.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

An adventure accidentally presents itself as commodities are exchanged. A secret lies deep within unconscious depths hidden beneath years of unchecked alcohol consumption. A helpful dog continuously discovers solutions to associated problems. And innocent Tintin proceeds unrelentingly.

Three clues have been placed within the masts of three model ships which represent a sunken vessel known as the Unicorn. A resourceful scoundrel seeks to decipher these clues in order to harvest a bountiful treasure. Tintin (Jamie Bell) is kidnapped and forced to take part in his quest. After cleverly escaping his captor's clutches, he meets a saucy Sea Captain (Andy Serkis) with whom he was born to encapsulate.

Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin youthfully and energetically galvanizes this filmic variation of the Tintin franchise. Fast paced deliberate inquisitive action meets dedicated trustworthy crafty redemption as comic interjections intermittently lighten the tension and purpose unites difference in the bonds of collaborative friendship. Travel is a necessity. Responses must be made according to specific temporal restrictions. The competition is ruthless and eager to displease. And historical antagonisms have been built into the dynamic so that contemporary animosities take on a legendary character.

It's very athletic.

Amiable and fun and full of life and nimble energy, The Adventures of Tintin is an enlivening family friendly film which pleasantly cushions the holiday season.

Concentration

I've noticed one of the problems I'm having engaging in French conversations which is kind of funny when I think about it. The problem is that I haven't spent much time immersed in environments where French is the most prominent language of communication so when I find myself within them (with native French speakers as opposed to those for whom French is a second language whom I have an easier time understanding) I have to concentrate intensely to differentiate the words. When I concentrate intensely I have this stern inhospitable look on my face which isn't very comforting. Hence, while someone's saying something like "I saw this great film" or "my friend and I went to the park this afternoon" I'm looking at them as if I'm trying to discern what an esoteric genius is saying about Fredric Jameson during an abstruse lecture. Problematic to be sure.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Wasn't as impressed with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows as I was with Guy Ritchie's first instalment. Holmes's (Robert Downey Jr.) remarkable wit and resilient problem solving skills are once again prominently on display and his whimsical interactions with Dr. Watson (Jude Law) continue to entertain. The fast paced reactive comedic drama moves the plot along with picturesque pinpoint precision. An erudite athletic warrior who constantly goes out of his way to massage his own ego still seeks to prevent the masters of war from obtaining their goals. And the meticulous attention to detail worked into his split second evaluations commands a heightened degree of respect as the concept of awareness receives a veraciously sharp intrepid exposition.

But these elements aren't tied together particularly well.

Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) struggles to maintain Holmes's level of acute alacrity. Some of the novelties which worked well in the first film such as Holmes's pugilistic propensities take up too much time in Game of Shadows to the detriment of his observational acumen. While the dialogue energetically motivates the action while hypothesizing/researching/analyzing/synthesizing the script seems like it was written with an equal degree of haste and more care could have been taken to include harmonious linguistic formulations (some incredible synergies would have resulted had these been in place)(linguistic formulations whose appealing character could have matched the intellectual intensity of the action). Having Holmes attempt to halt the escalation of a major European war places him in a position too grandiose for the execution of a successful first sequel (it's too over the top). And the female characters become static cardboard cutouts as the action progresses, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) having been poisoned in the opening moments.

While exciting enough and possessing a rationalized frenetic frequency, Game of Shadows attempts to move beyond the constructs of its predecessor too quickly while relying on them too strictly, and comes across as rash rather than bold, violently crashing into the sun.

Hugo

Time requires maintenance. Each ticking tock must be delicately managed in order to ensure punctual consistency and historical longevity. This is no easy task, and cataclysmic events can disrupt its narrative flow, as can the resurrection of the unforeseen, the one terrorizing established norms and constructs in the maniacal hopes of strengthening their resolve (the masters of war), the other invigorating traditional forms with revitalized content which in turn can redesign them if the insertion of difference is compelling enough to transmit a reconstituted concrete variability (inception) while (eventually) finding a receptive influential audience (innovative exoteric visionaries). Time will continue to pass regardless but its acknowledgement and associated terms of reference (habitual action X producing results D reinforced by the creation of pattern H) will need a cultural catalyst, from which things can begin anew.

We see both sides of this matrix at work in Martin Scorsese's exceptional new film Hugo, which examines the relationship between an orphan and an elderly toymaker. The orphan Hugo (Asa Butterfield) lives in the walls of a Parisian train station where he diligently keeps its various clocks running on time. From these walls, he eyes George Méliès's (Ben Kingsley) toyshop in the hopes of obtaining parts which will help him fix an automaton which was acquired by his father (Jude Law) before his untimely death. Inspector Gustav (Sacha Baron Cohen) monitors the station's passageways with a strong desire to uphold law and order (and send orphans to the orphanage). Monsieur Labisse (Christopher Lee) operates a dusty bookshop from which he encourages a love of lifelong learning.

Time was disrupted within Hugo's narrative by the introduction of film making to the Parisian artistic scene. Infatuated with the medium, a magician builds his own camera in order to share the dreamscapes of his imaginings. Having cultivated an audience, he continues to create profusely thereby compartmentalizing various tenants of his vision. But World War I annihilates many markets successfully established in France and beyond, and in its aftermath his audience fails to rematerialize and his films must be sold and melted down.

Time passes and due to the serendipitous reverberations of two curious youths an historical echo increases its volume. Hugo and his friend Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) discover a mystery whose clues lead them to volumes housed in a local library. From these volumes, clues transform into probabilities and an unconscious cultural qualifier approaches remanifestation. An automaton whose ability to produce felicitous active images is brought back to life through the ingenuity of friendship, and returned to its creator.

And an innovative exoteric visionary's legacy is recognized and celebrated, having been resurrected from the ashes of the masters of war. One of time's great disruptions is rediscovered and catalogued in order to ensure its historical longevity.

J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar situates a cunning politico-ethical land mine deep within the socio-American filmic vortex which combusts a manufactured traditional market by highlighting the contribution of gay Americans to the creation of some of their most revered institutions.

According to this film, there is no doubt that J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) loved his country (or his conception of his country). His opposition to radical elements and disgust with the ways in which the media glorified gangsters is relentless as he pursues the incarceration of outlaws while demanding nothing but refined conduct from his employees. As director of the FBI, he significantly expands its agency through the acquisition of legal and economic resources while patiently and obsessively focusing on the cultivation of its public reputation. Deeply and resolutely committed to the idea that public figures must comport themselves with the utmost integrity, he sharply manages both the conduct of his agents and the public perceptions of the conduct of his agents while placing himself in the forefront whenever possible. Paranoid and power mad and willing to take down those whose popularity risks rivalling his own, he delicately balances the relationship between democratic efficiency and bureaucratic autocracy throughout the course of his lengthy career, agilely avoiding the sword of Damocles.

But there's one problem.

He has no interest in women and loves Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) who has been by his side for the majority of his career. His private life has been defined by the politico-ethical foundations of his public pursuits as undesirable, which encourages a significant degree of anxiety. This extra layer of anxiety adds additional pressure to his institutional position which already demands a heightened degree of caution.

Hence, paranoia.

But he still skillfully utilizes his considerable gifts to survive within a heteronormative domain wherein he succeeds in accomplishing remarkable feats, even though his memory of such feats may be somewhat exaggerated.

It can be argued that his achievements were the results of his repression and that he wouldn't have been able to survive in a cutthroat competitive professional climate without having had the added bonus of developing exceptional survival instincts through the art of concealment in his youth.

But who in their right mind wants to nurture a public sphere which necessitates the dissimulation of strengths when their cultivation could increase the intensity of said sphere's productive tendencies by enabling its representatives to energize their freedoms? There's no telling what else J. Edgar could have been able to accomplish had he been nurtured in an environment where sexual difference was respected and he didn't have to consistently expend psychological resources to distract attention away from the most beautiful parts of his personality.

The Rum Diary

An outlet exists for the transmitting of information in Puerto Rico, a newspaper, thoroughly saturated with colonialist prejudices, at which a journalist interested in reaching out to the people finds employment. When not engaging in the act of writing, the adventurous observer explores his surroundings making friends, experiencing difficulties, encountering the well-to-do, and cultivating his desire. The love interest in question's disposition is strong and free, committed and versatile and capable of viscerally understanding the repressed needs of an impoverished body politic, to which she responds charismatically. The well-to-do see land on which hotels can be built regardless of the fact that people already live there. Difficulties arise based on socio-political differences which necessitate miscalculations in regards to the motivations of representatives of the dominant group on the part of the oppressed. Friends possess grassroots contacts, cultural leverage, and corresponding instinctual insights. From these particularities a story takes shape into which an historical approach coalesces with the habitualizations of the new to generate a point of divergence. But in order for this point to be transmitted ruptures within the traditional order of things must be accepted by the powers that be whose interests are lined up to the contrary. With nothing but conviction and a creative solution Kemp (Johnny Depp) attempts to take control of the means of production in order to nurture the needs of the many (and expose the will of the few).

The Rum Diary is an effective examination of the ways in which a talented writer lives in the moment in order to utilize its strengths in the expression of his art, blurring the line between reality and fiction. Accentuating the difficulties associated with establishing an enduring point of reference while using both rigid oppositions and malleable characterizations to motivate the action, it functions as both a playful poetic capriciously altruistic romance and a harsh stubborn warning as it investigates the relationship between young and old professionals. A remarkably sober structure for a film wherein the major characters regularly abuse substances, its pacing successfully introduces episodic crescendos, comic staccatos, and tragic climactic allegros. Nice to see more of a focus on Hunter S. Thompson the writer within, as his stand-in intuitively stumbles from one scoop to the next.

Justice for Sergei

Justice for Sergei is a powerful documentary which succinctly discusses incredibly distressing subject matter.

Sergei Magnitsky worked as a tax lawyer for Heritage Capital Management, a privately owned investment management firm formerly operating in Russia. From what I gathered, HCM was operating 3 Russian investment companies. These businesses had made profits of around 973 million and paid something like 230 million in taxes. One day, the police raided HCM's Russian offices and commandeered all of the documents proving they owned these organizations.

No reason was provided to explain the raid and employees who protested were beaten.

Around the same time, court proceedings were being held of which HCM had no knowledge during which ownership of the three companies was transferred to someone else who had previously been convicted for murder. The proceedings fined the companies 973 million thereby nullifying their most recent profits. As a consequence, the new owner of the companies was able to apply for a tax refund for which they applied and received 230 million.

When HCM protested stating that they owned the companies in question they were told to prove ownership by producing the documents then held by the police and therefore inaccessible.

Sergei uncovered this information (the largest tax fraud in Russian history) and consequently tried to have those responsible exposed. He was then arrested. He continued to try and illuminate the corruption in court and was ignored. He became sick while in a detention centre and was then sent to another with poorer facilities.

It is thought that the collusive individuals who put this plan into action, many of them government officials, tried to convince the incarcerated Sergei to change his testimony in order to draw attention away from their misdeeds.

Sergei refused, maintaining both his integrity and respect for the law.

He died shortly thereafter and no one was permitted to examine the body.

Many of the government officials involved in this fiasco and their cronies have since been promoted.

An investigation into the matter was called by President Dmitry Medvedev and after its first year no one had yet to be held accountable.

Sergei is described as a dedicated workaholic who devoted his life to his family and uprightly upholding the law.

His tragic death represents what happens when ethics confronts a thoroughly corrupt oligarchic body politic bent on using its judicial influence to obtain economic leverage from which it can nefariously continue to conduct its private business under the cloak of governmental justice.

Thoroughly revolting and reminiscent of Caligula, local, national, and international pressure can still bring about justice for Sergei if a committed campaign is sustained over time.

You can watch the film here.

When China Met Africa

Mark and Nick Francis's When China Met Africa presents a modest portrait of Chinese investment in Zambia and follows the lives of three individuals trying to secure a place for themselves within its economic dynamic.

Mr. Liu grew tired of struggling to make ends meet in China and moved to Zambia in search of opportunity. He's done well for himself and his family and has recently purchased his fourth farm.

Mr. Li manages the construction of Zambia's longest road for a multinational Chinese business and runs into trouble after government funding dries up.

At the same time, Zambia's Trade Minister travels to China in order to secure finances to encourage his county's economic development.

External narration and constant statistics do not support the film's construction as it simply presents brief insights into the daily activities of these men and the ways in which they conduct their affairs.

Zambia is meant to stand in for Africa in order to demonstrate how Chinese investments are changing its economic landscapes but I hesitate to draw strict parallels between its experience and that of other countries insofar as Africa is an extremely diverse continent whose multidimensional politico-economic markets resist such characterizations.

The film may have been more appropriately titled When China Met Zambia.

Mr. Li's attitude is stoic and wise as he encounters setbacks and delays and his stable and calm disposition no doubt have facilitated his capacity to endure.

The influence of capital is examined at local, national, and international levels as Mr. Liu must pay his workers, funds must be secured to encourage infrastructure development, and that development encounters difficulties trying to ensure its structural integrity (which corresponds to Mike Holmes's comments regarding home building on Canadian Reserves).

While When China Met Africa provides an explicit grassroots examination of Chinese investment in Zambia and its related projects at micro and macro levels, its lack of accompanying statistics leaves you hungry for more information (nice).

The film also functions as a strong investigation of the ways in which English functions as a prominent international language of communication as the international characters negotiate, manage, and interrelate in different English dialects.

The ways in which business is conducted on the ground are eye opening in regards to the negative environmental effects of deregulation.

Really like this article, by George Monbiot.

Inspiring video: Zach Wahls Speaks About Family.

Wheat Board Transitions

Call me impractical, but as the Canadian Wheat Board is unfortunately dismantled, shouldn't some kind of fund be created to help farmers with no marketing experience learn to effectively market their grain, and to help them cope with this serious disruption?

The Muppets

And The Muppets takes us back to a more cheerful time during which humour didn't consist of making jokes about blood diamonds and friendship meant more than exchanging vitriolic insults ad infinitum. Within the spirit of the The Muppet Show is reincarnated and acclimatized to a 21st Century comedic aesthetic, and the two differing ethical approaches subtly duel before creating a productive popular counterpoint.

A musical synthesis.

The film starts out with an insufferable musical number that immediately challenged the ways in which I've been cynically indoctrinated by shows such as Family Guy over the years. "Is this movie going to be this incredibly cheesy?", thought I, as I appreciated the choreography and prepared for an internal struggle. But as it progresses and the distressed Muppets decide to get back together in order to perform once more and raise 10 million to save their dilapidated studio from a greedy oilperson (Chris Cooper as Tex Richman), their naïve hope and innocent determination took root deep down and energetically confronted years of psychological conditioning propagated by ruthless patriarchs (goodbye Berlusconi).

But writers Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, fully aware of their audience's manufactured predispositions, cut Kermit (Steve Whitmire) off when he begins to explain how different things were way back then, and have their characters kidnap Jack Black to host their comeback special, who sits tied to a chair throughout allegorically representing the psychological mechanizations of the 1990s and 2000s, his exchange with Fozzie (Eric Jacobson), priceless.

And to add to the seemingly hopeless situation environmentalists find themselves in these days, enough funds are not raised and the oilperson seems to have won and an attempt at transforming the filmic/televisual sphere seems to have failed.

But then that insufferable number from the film's opening act commences once more, only this time it isn't unbearable, it's entertaining and fun and cheerful and happy, and Tex Richman decides not to destroy the Muppet's studio, and everyone's getting along, and the Muppets are a hit, and they're singing, together, dancing and swinging, to the beat of their own communal drum, positive and revitalized.

Note the fortuitous relationship between this ending and the Keystone Pipeline Protests which caused the Obama Administration to delay making its corresponding decision. My gut's telling me that they delayed the decision hoping that when it comes time for reexamination, the protestors will not return and they'll be able to conduct their business as usual (the same strategy the powers that be used in Hamilton, Ontario, for decades, in order to construct the controversial Red Hill Valley Parkway). Hopefully a bit of The Muppets's spirit will remain in 2013, and the Keystone Pipeline agenda will once again unify environmentalists across North America.

Immortals

And the Titans were imprisoned deep within Mount Tartarus after losing a war against the Gods of Olympus. Humankind prospered in the aftermath until such a time as one rose up from lowly origins to seek the destruction of Ancient Greece (Reason) through recourse to military means. But in his blood lust, he made the critical error of murdering the mother of another of humble birth, thereby inspiring his wrath. With no other alternative but to eventually seek the other's annihilation, their armies mercilessly clash, sparing no one from their antagonistic fury.

And the Titans are unleashed once more.

But what does all this have to do with socio-politics and religion and is there a social democratic agenda sequestered deep within Immortals's narrative, eagerly seeking emancipation?

We know that both Theseus (Henry Cavill) and King Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) are roughly members of the proletariat and that the former is primarily concerned with protecting his family while the later seeks to conquer Reason. Theseus is counselled by Zeus (John Hurt, Luke Evans) in disguise to protect the weak and the infirm, while Hyperion lives by the code that might is right. The Titans are incarcerated deep within the earth but they were equals to the Gods prior to being shackled (an ideological battle was waged which stripped them of their material resources). Mineral wealth often lies deep within mountains. Mineral wealth (or petroleum wealth) can be used to attain prestigious cultural god-like positions. With the attainment of wealth and prestige a challenge can be made against the resident Gods (many of whom made their fortune the same way hundreds of years ago and due to the passage of time had their 'royalty' naturalized) in order to obtain political control. Two simplistic traditional ways of examining those within the proletariat who rise through the ranks to positions of power is to regard them as maniacal control freaks (Hyperion, Stalin) or altruistic equalizers (Theseus, Tommy Douglas). Theseus defeats Hyperion and therefore Immortals upholds the altruistic equalizer. But his victory is dependent upon the constant intervention of the Gods or the established concrete ruling elite. In the final moments, Theseus leaves the mortal world and travels to Olympus to live amongst them, leaving humankind behind. There are certainly places within the upper echelons for altruistic individuals, but a social democratic film would have its heroes remain within the mortal realm in order to achieve a material surplus from which his or her compatriots could level out the upper echelons themselves. But if Mount Olympus is thought of as being a legislative assembly as opposed to the halls of the ever rich, then Theseus's position within suggests that he could represent a defender of social democratic values, those espoused by Zeus (or Thomas Mulcair, Brian Topp and Bob Rae), the established order making room for new innovations in order to diversify and remodel its means of production, and be leading the charge against the fallen nouveau riche who were freed by Hyperion's savagery. But Mount Olympus doesn't strike me as being the best place in which to situate a social democratic political aesthetic, inasmuch as the politics of the oppressed are often not resolutely upheld by immortals. And much of the anger felt by Hyperion comes from the Gods turning blind eyes to humankind, or creating elitist structures with no practical outlets nurtured by a culture of snobbery that alienates the proletariat and results in them voting for conservatives (who use the practical outlets ignored by liberal snobs to subliminally manipulate them into preferring divisive racist imperialist alternatives [wherein they mistake subservience for freedom]). And it's Hyperion who wants to destroy them as a consequence, conservatively placing Hyperion in the guise of the social democratic activist, whose out to destroy the liberally motivated yet aloof elite (with the goal of converting the liberal elite to team conservative).

Thus, Immortals doesn't strike me as being pro-social democracy.

In regards to religion, Immortals uses the win scenario to elevate it. The film's situated in Ancient Greece and thereby overtly distances itself from 21st Century religious agendas while metaphorically supporting them, as every character comes to believe (by using Ancient Greece, the film's support for religion doesn't alienate its audience by bombarding them with religious images with which they are familiar which is a win strategy when it comes to eventually converting cynical unbelievers).

Better than Clash of the Titans but not as entertaining as Troy, Stephen Dorff's character (Stavros) steals the show that is perhaps best left for a Saturday evening rental.

Grey Cup Pick

Great to see Grey Cup Weekend start out with a Vanier Cup victory for the McMaster Marauders.

Wow bob wow.

Don't know if the same will happen for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this Sunday at BC Place. Their defence stifled the Ti-Cats last weekend and looked capable of easily handling the CFL's best, but can they overcome the fact that the British Columbia Lions are playing at home, have an exceptional offence, and won the Grey Cup at home in 1994?

Winnipeg hasn't won the Grey Cup since 1990. They've lost it 4 times since then. In the NHL last season, the Boston Bruins overcame adversity to win the Stanley Cup after losing in the finals 5 times, meaning that a pseudo-precedent has recently been set for teams who have consistently faired poorly in championship games in recent decades.

But to defeat B.C at home with Travis Lulay playing at the top of his game and the crowd fanatically supporting their cherished Lions?

It can be done.

Winnipeg already beat B.C twice this season and look for more of the same tomorrow. With a formidable defensive stand and a career defining performance from Buck Pierce, the Grey Cup will soon return to Winnipeg for the first time in more than two decades.

*Should have been more precise in my Boston Bruins comparison.

Rubber

Quentin Dupieux intelligently and playfully pulls off a ridiculous off-beat puréed slice of incongruity with Rubber, a film which challenges you to keep watching even though its subject matter is incredibly discombobulated.

Question: can we improve upon the typical Hollywood horror-comedy by stripping it down to its bear essentials, presenting an inanimate villain, crafting a film within a film, and then virulently exterminating its audience?

Or to put it another way, is watching a tire that rolls around randomly blowing up things and people preferable to series such as Final Destination or I Know What You Did Last Summer (note that I did like Final Destination 2)?

Without providing any back story explaining why or how the tire gained consciousness and why it decided to start randomly destroying.

The answer is yes, it can be improved upon, and a back story is not required, if you don't care in the slightest what your audience thinks but still take the time to expertly craft an audacious non sequitur which appears as if it was haphazardly constructed.

Rather than simply destroying the minds of its audience with nauseating dialogue and unimaginative viaducts, Rubber simply destroys its audience half way through after they ravenously gorge on a roasted turkey.

Rather than trying to seem as if there's a point or introduce something saccharinely tragic, Rubber makes it quite clear that there is no reason structuring its dementia, and proceeds to unreel unabashedly.

But nothing can exist without placing itself within a multifaceted logical fulcrum, as each subject is free to express their interpretive difference in regards to the ways in which artistic objects are constructed (or sporting objects etc.), thanks to the freedom built into democratic societies made viable by the internet, and it's possible to gain constructive insights into complicated dynamics from bizarre examples of lucid frivolity, if you search for them (search for them within the new show Picnicface, especially the Lost Highway themed episode wherein the Mystery Man looks like John Waters).

Reason underlies Rubber's tracks although its content salutes insanity. But it's only insane from the point of view of the monotonous narrative that has been produced to shackle the many as the few exercise their free self-development (Terry Eagleton), and from this point of view, accentuating difference, it makes nothing but perfect sense, and a rational explanation is provided for its not so subtle ending.

CFL Playoff Picks

Another round of the CFL Playoffs are about to kick-off. Here are my picks for tomorrow's matchups:

B.C. Lions/Edmonton Eskimos: it's hard to envision Edmonton winning this game. They beat B.C. early on in the season but the Lions convincingly defeated them twice down the stretch, one game with a score of 36 to 1 (although if I'm not mistaken injuries were a key factor in Edmonton's loss in this instance). The game's being played at BC Place and the Lions have won 10 of their last 11. That being said, Ricky Ray's no stranger to big games and has demonstrated in the past that he knows how to win them. In the last 35 years, Edmonton has played for the Grey Cup 14 times and are statistically due for another appearance (they haven't made it since 2005). British Columbia only made it 7 times during the same time period although Saskatchewan has defied the odds in recent years. Travis Lulay doesn't have the same depth of experience as Ray but he has been compared by some commentators to Anthony Calvillo and he played exceptionally well this year. I think the game will be close with both teams playing well, the winner of the turnover differential emerging victorious, the winner of that turnover differential being B.C.

Winnipeg Blue Bombers/Hamilton Tiger-Cats: don't know how many times I've seen Hamilton lose big games to the Blue Bombers. Don't really want to dwell on it. Winnipeg beat the Ti-Cats 3 times this year and defeated them during their last playoff meeting in 2001, after Hamilton had eliminated Montréal. The Ti-Cats have also played inconsistently this season, being unstoppable one week and a total mess the next. But something about the only team to not enter the last week of the regular season with a 10 and 7 record winning the Grey Cup after stringing together three outstanding and unexpected performances in a row makes sense to me, logic be damned. Hamilton hasn't experienced much success in the playoffs since 2001 and are hungry for victory. I think Kevin Glenn dismantles his old team tomorrow and the Tiger-Cats play for the Grey Cup on November 27th.

*Ouch

Conviction

A brother falsely incarcerated. A sister dedicated to setting him free. Unwavering belief synthesized with focused raw acute determination. An inspiring film modestly elevating the power of hope while proving that it's not just for the naïve or the foolhardy.

Tony Goldwyn's Conviction could have been much more sensational, attempting to sentimentally cater to our manufactured desires for explosions and vindictive polarized constructs. It could have melodramatically situated its plot within a broader context, focusing on life in prison, media dramatizations, or the challenges presented by trying to raise a family, work, and finish law school with hardly any financial or social resources. But it doesn't examine these dimensions, preferring to zero in on an unbreakable bond forged between brother and sister, investigating their relationship primarily in order to provide extended insights into the constructive potential of an enduring commitment.

Betty Anne Waters (Hilary Swank) isn't about boasting or vilifying or emoting, she prefers to achieve her goals objectively and doesn't let anything or anyone stand in her way, most of the time, even though the odds stacked against her seem insurmountable.

Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell) isn't quite so level headed seeing how he's serving a life sentence for murder, but his sister's prudent, logical, affable recurring presence helps temper his suicidal tendencies.

Swank and Rockwell play their parts well and one of the only things missing from their interactions is an extended scene, one which probes the depths of their characters more thoroughly, without resorting to heartbreaking platitudes.

But such a scene perhaps would have been misplaced in Conviction, since it effectively works within the mainstream to instructively use a generic form to reach a wide audience for whom its message is much more positive than one latently conditioned by cynicism.

The structures preventing Kenny from being exonerated are formidable and entrenched. But they can still be challenged and remodelled.

One day at a time.

Green Lantern

An ancient force of evil has been accidentally released from his secluded prison and now seeks the destruction of all. The only thing standing in the way of his vengeful assault on the Guardians of the Universe and their home planet of Oa is an interstellar police force known as The Green Lanterns. The Lanterns were created after the Guardians harnessed the green essence of the Emotional Spectrum of Willpower to forge fearless warriors. One of the Guardians attempted to harness the power of Fear as well, but was unable to manage its infernal malevolence, and it warped his once impeccable constitution, transforming him into Parallax.

Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) is a test pilot on Earth, playing by his own rules and wary of responsibility. When Green Lantern Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) is mortally wounded by Parallax, he expediently travels to Earth to allow his ring to choose a worthy successor (the ring being made of pure will, it possesses the ability to discover those who are pure of heart and have the mental fortitude to safeguard the Universe). The ring discovers young Jordan who reluctantly accepts its heroic demands and then travels to Oa to begin his intergalactic training.

At the same time, Abin Sur's body is discovered by the American military who then ask scientist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) to perform an autopsy of sorts. Little does he know that Parallax has infiltrated Sur's body, leaving his essence behind. Hammond unknowingly absorbs this essence and begins transforming into an apprentice of pure evil. After Jordan fails in his initial attempts to join The Lanterns, he returns to Earth only to discover that he must protect it from Hammond's twisted momentum.

And Parallax's, who decides to destroy Earth in order to gain enough power to attack Oa. And since the best of his fellow more committed Lanterns failed in their attempt to defeat Parallax, he must defend his home planet, on his own.

With the help of the power of love.

It's a lot more fun to write about what happens in Martin Campbell's Green Lantern than it is to watch. Many of the scenes are rushed and packed tightly together which results in wooden and scant character development. Increased depth of character would have helped its script differentiate itself from similar films like The Last Starfighter, by creating distracting personalities whose insights construct a world of their own.

The Lanterns also give up on defeating Parallax far too quickly considering that they're supposed to be fearless and number over 3,000. This allows Jordan to demonstrate that he is the ultimate Lantern, thereby working within the old "the greatest heroes are the ones who distance themselves from their profession while performing exceptionally well day after day" aesthetic, but I'm afraid that my will still has trouble manifesting this particularity.

None of the other Lanterns help Jordan in the end either, which supports the idea that individuals need to make it on their own, but severely limits the roles social networks play in one's professional development.

Green Lantern basically lacks the backstories, crescendoes, wit, and depth that has made so many successful superhero films, as if they figured they could simply follow the traditional formula without introducing compelling contemporary content, more of a banal commercial calculation than an entertaining film.

Enjoyed how the Green Lanterns function nevertheless, having the freedom to materialize their creativity at will in order to leverage innovative productive and practical solutions.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

Good God. What the hell happened to Christmas?

It seems as if the traditional Christmas special has been warped and welded into a devious pot smoking lingerie modelling gangster frolicking schism, just in time to usher in the 2011 holiday season. A special crafted for those who have grown weary of the predictable patterns worked into the yearly festive Frostyesque line-up and are hungrily seeking a palpable harbinger of mainstream subversion, of decadent diversions, of subterranean incursions.

Fully endorsed by Santa.

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas provides such content and insouciantly precipitates a brazen comical maelstrom into which the politically correct is unwittingly thrust.

As Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Hal Penn) frantically search for a new Christmas tree.

Trying to make sense of the ways in which this film confronts stereotyping is challenging. It's as if representatives of two minority groups are saying that due to the institutional barriers firmly established by the Anglo-Saxon majority it's impossible for us to successfully integrate into the mainstream, but we'll still give it a shot, and playfully present you with exactly what you would expect, based upon your own preconceptions, while opening up a resultant critical space in your public sphere, and affectively plunging within full throttle.

You see, the mainstream often prevents minorities from successfully integrating into its culture. It does so in order to horde the prominent signs of achievement and associated luxuries for itself. As minorities still seek to earn a living and take care of their families, they must find a way to do so in the underground, using the only resources they have available to their general advantage (selling narcotics etc.). If racist institutional representatives and policies promote these stereotypes and they are upheld by their ethnic non-professional counterparts, and progressive legislation such as affirmative action is suppressed, you directly stifle an enormous degree of potential, and keep generations of prominent public role models from ever being able to productively apply themselves.

Therefore the underground becomes their outlet and they carve out an existence within while demonstrating that some of the 'demonized' resources they control (marijuana) aren't really that bad and would legitimize their 'unlawful' pursuits if legalized.

There's some of this in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and they definitely take things to new levels as they nurture a tormented frustrated blockaded aesthetic while working within a form that has been culturally stabilized.

All the while applying new meanings to concepts like marriage, family, and friendship.

And smoking that reefer.

CFL Playoff Picks

The following are my picks for this weekend's CFL Playoff matchups:

Calgary Stampeders/Edmonton Eskimos: Edmonton has home field advantage but the Stampeders have played better as of late. In fact, after winning their first 5 games of the season, the Eskimos only won 6 of their next 13. Alberta's finest played 3 times this year with Edmonton winning twice but the Eskimos have yet to face Calgary's new starter, Drew Tate. I find predicting who will win when these teams play based on stats to be frustrating and even so I can't find any that give either team a significant edge. Edmonton didn't finish the season well but the game's being played at Commonwealth Stadium. If the Eskimos get to Drew Tate early and often, throwing him off his game, Ricky Ray should be able to lead his team to victory. I don't think this will happen. Stampeders by 7.

Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Montréal Alouettes: Hamilton finally rose to the occasion when playing the Alouettes this year and won 2 of 4 at home. That being said, they haven't won in Montréal for almost ten years. At McGill Stadium. This game's being played at Olympic and the Ti-Cats have a history of defeating Montréal in the playoffs in (somewhat) recent years. Hamilton hosted playoff games in the first round of each of the last two seasons, losing them both. I think the pendulum swings in the other direction this weekend and Hamilton pulls off their first playoff victory since 2001, on the road.

Animal Shelter.org. Helping people adopt pets since 2003.

Trickle

Unchallenged reiteration
formulaic inspiration
dismissed abrasive observation
morbid stoic incantation.

Shadows

Hollow pronouncements
from coercive strongmen
dematerialize.

Agitated, commiserated, influenced.

Tower Heist

Was incredibly disappointed by Brett Ratner's Tower Heist. Generic films don't have to be terrible. If their writers try to at least create four or five unexpected witty provocative scenes wherein something distracting takes place they can be salvaged. But they have to hold our attention before they can affectively destream it. Tower Heist presents one boring mundane predictable scene after another, as if they were trying to mimic the aesthetic built into a swiffer wet jet ad in order to peddle jokes that make television's Whitney seem hilarious by comparison. It was like the inspiration behind this script was vacuuming or cleaning behind the fridge. Unmitigated stubborn concrete tedium disseminated by performances who are only noteworthy because they managed to successfully convince me that they were taking their work seriously, regardless of the fact that they must of wretched upon first reading over the material. There's one moment where Matthew Broderick at least looks as if he's aware that he's starring in an cup into which you spit but it's subtle enough for him to still be able to convince the powers that be that he's a team player.

I like films wherein rich assholes who steal from struggling workers are punished and I like that this happens in Tower Heist, but the execution is uniformly lacking in skill, insight and perspicacity, and the plot, racist in structure.

Don't be sucked in by the cast or the ads. Tower Heist isn't worth it and reminds me why I haven't wanted to see an Eddie Murphy film since Bowfinger.

SUPER

Some superheroes have vast financial and intellectual resources at their disposal which they use to champion justice. Others develop superhuman strength after having directly embraced science's unpredictable diversity. Still others are born with exceptional gifts for which they are ridiculed and ostracized by their fellow citizens. And others are simply nurtured by an alien land whose environment provides them with a permanent degree of invincibility.

But my favourite superheroes are regular average joes who grow tired of corruption's prosperity and take to the streets in a homemade outfit to distribute discipline and punishment with bluntly accurate precision.

Superheroes like SUPER's Crimson Bolt (Rainn Wilson) and his enthusiastic sidekick, Bolty (Ellen Page).

Crimson Bolt has experienced two perfect events throughout his life which have helped him to overcome an existence otherwise filled with depression and humiliation.

The day on which he helped a police officer fight crime, and that on which he married love interest and ex-drug addict Sarah (Liv Tyler).

But as SUPER begins we discover that Sarah has fallen prey to a local drug-dealing thug (played by Kevin Bacon) who encourages her latent addictions in order to steal her away from her loving and devoted trustworthy husband.

After complimenting his eggs.

That same husband decides it's time to fight back and save Sarah once more, and guided by the forces of instinct, love, and over-the-top Christian superhero The Holy Avenger (Nathan Fillion), he makes a red suit, picks up a wrench, and tells crime to shut-up as he bashes its representatives in the head with said wrench while wearing his red suit.

And playing by the unwritten rules.

As Serial Mom coalesces with Q-The Winged Serpent and becomes what Mystery Men should have been, SUPER psychotically delivers a sensationally laid back hard-boiled piece of cinematic mayhem, swathed in a deadpan frank ready-to-wear elasticity.

Not crafted for the feint of heart or those searching for technological hyperactivity, its comedic intuition and adventurous spirit still distill a universal sense of vigilante dexterity, as one short order cook rediscovers what it means to despair.

The Exterminating Angel

As times change and different political aesthetics present themselves, a dinner party is held for Mexican elites in Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel. Everyone gathers for a delightful evening accompanied by delicious food items and accomplished musical entertainments.

There's just one problem.

For some indeterminate reason, the majority of workers feel compelled to leave before dinner is served and after dinner none of the guests is capable of leaving the room within which the festivities have expired. Confined together with nothing but their social relations to sustain themselves as the limited resources at their disposal are slowly consumed/utilized, those theoretically possessing a heightened sense of proper and refined conduct descend into madness, as the pet bear freely wanders to and fro.

At his or her leisure.

The external world becomes curious regarding the status of the imprisoned professionals but also find themselves unable to penetrate the invisible, intangible barrier.

As if a feudal set of social divisions has been challenged by a mischievous deity who demands that the well-to-do intimately embrace the circumstances which those who uphold their lavish caprice negotiate daily.

Unable to acknowledge a system wherein opportunity is available to all, or the fact that their luminescence is dependent upon semantic classifications which have designated the activities of working others as undesirable, time exasperatingly passes, and knowledge desperately self-destructs.

Unlawful Access

Jules et Jim

And two friends, comfortable in each other's presence, accepting and appreciative of their differences, curious and generous, fall in love with the same woman. Their friendship is strong enough to survive petty jealousies but their rational approach must coalesce with a temperamental vengeful beautiful seductive other, someone created for all to desire but none to possess, as they attempt to recalibrate ancient volatile amorous restrictions, and logically come to terms with that which is scientifically forbidden.

Humble temperaments and a disregard for material goods produce a congenial state of affairs within which archaeology plays a constructive role and time is distended within its seemingly constant particularity.

Only the unanticipated extremes of the one, the refusal to tolerate anything but a complete and unadulterated submission, as they seek to sustain a subjective set of checks and balances, upon which they remain on top, threatens to dissolve things.

Sulphuric acid for the eyes of men who lie. Lips set in stone. Paris and trips to the countryside.

What is left unwritten.

The introduction of permanence disrupts Jules et Jim's carefree aesthetic through the blinding championing of victory.

Solutions chaotically present themselves.

Effects need not be taken into account.

It seems that if right wingers would stop creating shitty laws that prevent one from pursuing their liberty, and left wingers would stop being such pretentious douche bags in the pursuit of their liberty, we'd have a cohesive body politic, for a moment or two.

The Devil's Double

Caligula meets Scarface in Lee Tamahori's The Devil's Double, a sickeningly volatile portrait of Saddam Hussein's lunatic son Uday and the unfortunate subject coerced into functioning as his double(Latif Yahia). Dominic Cooper plays both roles and displays a remarkable tenacity in their execution.

It's a shame they're so difficult to watch.

I have no idea what Uday Hussein was like while living but if the acts he's depicted unleashing in The Devil's Double are even seriously exaggerated he must have been a first rate fucker. The spoiled capricious tyrannical salacious vindictive murderous son of a despot, he never holds back when it comes to satisfying whatever whim crosses his mind, and operates within a mad ethical spectrum wherein he is the insane judge, jury, and executioner. If you should displease him, his forces will destroy you and everyone you love, brutally. Unfettered, energetic, unconditioned jouissance, with unlimited resources at its disposal.

As it pursues its desire.

He needs a double to represent him in public and the humble Latif tries to successfully yield to his will. The two form a tempestuous public/private yin and yang as they carve a place for themselves in their culture's destiny. Love interest Sarrab (Ludivine Sagnier) melodramatically complicates things as she craves them both. Munem (Raad Rawi) tries to maintain a hemorrhaged degree of order as his upright constitution continuously confronts Uday's.

Oddly, Saddam (Philip Quast) isn't presented as a monster and he occasionally attempts to keep Uday in check. Uday's brother is shown in a dimly flattering light as well as he responsibly handles his political affairs.

The film staggeringly balances the two sides of Uday's identity as it attempts to reasonably analyze a maniac while working within his irrational frame. According to Tamahori's portrait, there's little room for ambiguity in the construction of Uday's constitution.

Adolescence meets power and refuses to accept responsibility. Pleasure endures without consequence. A populace rages and weeps. Madness ruins a civilization.

The argument can be made that if reprobates like Uday were given free reign in Iraq to do as they pleased, their elimination represents a victory for liberty. But externally inflicting such liberation on an oppressed people robs them of the catharsis obtained from settling the matter for themselves. It also sets up a dangerous set of circumstances wherein the 'liberators' eventually become the 'oppressors' thereby opening up critical domains which attempt to justify the excesses of the usurped as their authoritarian rule becomes more appealing in the aftermath.

Helping the people's revolutionary goals after they've been set in motion and then departing after the misery has been removed is a different matter.

Beginners

Percolating a playful, creative, laid back, inquisitive aesthetic, wherein a son convalesces after his father's death thanks to the assistance of a gentle, curious partner, friendly and caring, challenging and supportive, Mike Mills's Beginners evocatively examines freedom through a palliative lens and a spontaneous framework.

Oliver (Ewan MacGregor) didn't know his father was gay until he came out in his seventies after his wife's death. Hal (Christopher Plummer) had enjoyed being married but with his wife's passing decided to openly explore other sides of his personality. Oliver responds with surprise and confusion but due to his open-mind isn't bogged down by bigoted preconceptions. Hal's terminal cancer complicates matters as he refuses to acquiesce to his doctor's corresponding prescriptions.

Oliver remembers these moments along with many from his childhood as he comes to terms with his father's death and falls in love with partner Anna (Mélanie Laurent). The story mimics the thought patterns of a melancholic mind as it searches for an indecipherable stratagem from which to rediscover joy.

As refreshing as Ghost World, Beginners lacks the predetermined bells and whistles that accompany so many polarized narratives and comfortably occupies the middle ground. It doesn't definitively judge, it doesn't segregate, unless the character in question happens to have been consistently segregated and has trouble not definitively judging as a consequence.

Its relaxed pace and sympathetic deliveries mask an unfaltering ingenuity disguised as a lackadaisical reflection.

Real Steel

The latest Rockyesque film to hit the big screen is Shawn Levy's Real Steel, a fun and heartwarming story of how a dead-beat dad (Hugh Jackman as Charlie Kenton) and his feisty son (Dakota Goyo as Max Kenton) forge a strong bond through the power of fighting robots. It isn't the most original narrative although it does creatively work within an established tradition.

And Jackman's love interest Bailey Tallet (Evangeline Lilly) doesn't give up on him even though his reckless ways have proved to be remarkably unprofitable.

Whereas humans were still thought to be at the centre of various cultural dimensions in Rocky's day, in the time of Real Steel technological innovation has usurped their active role. Rather than directly taking part in ridiculous battles which regularly present themselves, proxies abound which can effectively fill in as disaffected combatants. Hence, boxing has been replaced by robot boxing and ex-boxers can continue to make a living boxing if they purchase a robot and expertly learn the subtleties of its dynamic controls.

But can such expertise generate results formidable enough to resiliently defeat the ultimate representative of technological fortitude, Real Steel's Zeus and its mastermind the bumptious Tak Mashido (Karl Yune), without continuing to maintain a multidimensional working person's perspective within the heart of its dynamic cultural trajectory, enhanced by love?

Fortunately it still cannot.

But when robots take over and start making movies for themselves will the human dimension still continue to persevere as the principal factor motivating their legendary decision making?

The answer is potentially fermenting somewhere within communist China.

The Thing

Wasn't that impressed with Matthijs van Heijningen's remake of John Carpenter's The Thing. Carpenter's version has strong character development, a cohesive skillfully manufactured presence which accentuates the heightened sense of stoic desperation, patient timing which delicately constructs the stifling paranoid aesthetic, a haunting soundtrack which anxiously disrupts any calming sentiments, and convincing special effects which have steadfastly survived the test of time. It's one of the best sci-fi/horror films I've seen, directed by a master working in the prime of his career.

Van Heijningen's Thing works as a mildly entertaining film that pays homage to Carpenter but, like many Friday the 13th movies, focuses too intently on its main characters, leaving little room for the supporting cast to establish itself (thereby failing to intensify the bond between audience and text). None of the performances match that of Kurt Russell's or Keith David's, and apart from some dismissible deviations, the script parallels that from Carpenter's far too closely, and lacks the timing and pacing etc. that enables it to endure.

Rather than remaking the film and revitalizing the narrative's life force, Van Heijningen relies on balances already cultivated in the 1982 instalment, and expects their latent influence to free him from having to intricately reimagine his subject. There are funny scenes where characters stop to ask one another how they are doing while raging fires burn and power dynamics are lampooned as individuals attempt to retain control, even though such attempts challenge the decrees of logic which their scientific pursuits are theoretically supposed to uphold, but it's as if we are expected to deductively relate to specific stock performances whose dynamics are taken for granted rather than being creatively and internally nurtured, which adds a slapdash quality to the affect, and destabilizes its innovative instincts.

There's also the issue of how both films allegorically salute xenophobia but that's another matter.

The 21st-century Thing. Was Carpenter's work crafted during a moment when studios cared about both profit and product and consequently encouraged artistic exploration in the construction of their modes of expression?

Probably not, but Carpenter's movie works on a number of levels that are simply not present in this remake, which seems to have only been distributed to sell tickets.

Carpenter didn't want to sell tickets.

No he did not.

Tsurugidake: Ten no ki (The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones)

Mountains. Climbin' 'em. Exercising precision in their classification. Work rationalized according to stubborn bureaucratic consistencies. An imperial map in the making.

Japan's military has one more mountain to catalogue before said map can be expertly articulated.

All they need is the right person for the job.

Yoshitaro Shibasaki (Tadanobu Asano) has climbed his fair share of mountains but finds the unconquered Mt. Tsurugidake somewhat intimidating. Pressed by his superiors to perform for posterity he overcomes his initial hesitation, with the aid of volumes delicately cared for by his local librarians, and proceeds unabated. At the risk of offending villagers whose religion forbids challenging Mt. Tsurugidake's treacherous peaks, he finds a local guide (Teruyuki Kagawa as Chojiro Uji) and begins his quest. Together they search for a route to the summit, hoping to outwit the adventurous Alpine Club who has declared they will climb the mountain first, thereby hoping to tarnish the military's reputation.

While Yoshitaro and Chojiro explore using equipment crafted by the ingenuity of the Japanese people, the Alpine Club adopts European technologies.

A number of survey stones must be placed at the top of the peaks which surround Mt. Tsurugidake as well, in order for the military's mapmakers to realize their cartographic ambitions.

Towers must also be built around these stones. Time callously ticks past. A team of courageous individuals is assembled. The snow keeps falling.

Daisaku Kimura's Tsurugidake: Ten no ki (The Summit: A Chronicle of Stones) is an epic tale, modestly crafted according to traditional guidelines. An intransigent macho administration makes shortsighted decisions while a group of bold workers heroically carve new ground. Elsewhere lines are crossed but respect is maintained as openminded resiliency takes into account alternative points of view.

In fact, apart from the military administration, respect permeates every aspect of this film and it was comforting to watch as people didn't get bogged down by petty differences for 139 minutes.

The result is a subjective victory for two tenacious teams who refuse to let the pursuit of an intractable ideal disrupt their herculean achievement.

Sticking together. Trying to find a way. Accepting that the realities structuring certain professions are simply larger than life. And continuing to strive onwards even though survival instincts consistently question the logic of your perseverance.

The creation of this film directly corresponds to the endeavours bravely undertaken internally and externally by its cast, a harmonious collaboration firmly sustained between subject and object.

La sacrée

Fertility. Structure. Beer.

Dominic Desjardins's La sacrée has it all, and as its lighthearted romantic-comedic aura ferments, a jovial buzz is effervescently disseminated.

The Franco-Ontarian town of Fort Amiable has seen better days. The economy has yet to rebound from the closure of the local canoe factory and while the local residents remain upbeat, they still hold serious reservations regarding their future.

Enter François Labas (Marc Marans), son of the former canoe factory's owner who is blamed for the undesired closure. He seeks to wed a wealthy cosmetics heiress (Marie Turgeon as Sofia Bronzeman) but must impregnate her before wedding bells can ring. Unfortunately, he's sterile, and broke, and in danger of having his intricate web of devious lies exposed, thereby spoiling his plans for the unforeseen, and leaving him blindly tethered to the unknown.

Can the legendary La sacrée beer, locally brewed by the residents of Fort Amiable in the past and reputed to actively assist in the reproductive process, reinvigorate the lads and facilitate his dreams?

Or will he lose his favourite game and be turned out in the streets with nothing but credit card debt and incomparable charm to sustain him?

As he perseveres.

A picturesque portrait of a resilient conman, La sacrée provides opportunity for the dynamic while distributing limits to their productivity. Presenting a cheerful cast of sprightly characters, examining the marketing potential of the clarified anglicisme, suggesting that love can be truly exciting if and only if it builds upon a volatile foundation, and consistently transitioning from one pristine Northern Ontario scene to another, La sacrée enlivens the traditional struggling small town narrative, while thoroughly making use of the sacrament of confession.

And the supporting cast is given plenty of room to manoeuvre as their innocent hopes reflect a cohesive pastoral communal ideal.

The first feature comedy to be made in Ontario entirely in French.

The First Grader

Post-colonial Kenya. A public education system is introduced. Free education for all is announced. The vast majority of new students are children.

But one 84-year old former member of the Mau Mau resistance who fought against the British seeks an education as well. Determined to learn how to read and write in order to have a better understanding of his surrounding worlds, and read for himself what is written in a letter he received from the government, he stubbornly adheres to the rules when his initial attempts to gain access are rebuked, and is eventually given admittance to an overcrowded rural classroom.

Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo) becomes a peculiar presence at school but one whom facilitator of learning Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris) finds endearing. The administration does not share Jane's sentiments and consistently reminds her that by 'everyone' the government means 'every child' and that they already do not have the resources to teach every child and would be incomprehensibly overwhelmed if every adult sought a free education from grade 1 onwards as well. Their statistical analysis coalesces with the community's jealous censure of Maruge's activities to make life exceedingly difficult for both teacher and learner.

But they endure.

Justin Chadwick's The First Grader is a powerful film that demonstrates the enormous benefits that can result from exceptions, or, in this case, literal applications, when the practical ethical results outweigh the economic forecasts. Obviously with scant resources at their disposal a Department of Education would be unable to educate every illiterate citizen right off the bat, let alone every child, but seeing how only an extremely small percentage of such citizens over the age of 20 would choose to be educated with children, why not make an exception for those who do, instead of blindly upholding a rigid principle?

Taxation is at the heart of the matter and the question of whether or not you want to pay higher taxes in order to ensure your children/relatives/friends/neighbours mature in a dynamic learning environment fully equipped with engaging professionals and resources (the same ones provided for students of private schools) that vigorously nurture and develop their gifts?

Maruge's gifts are nurtured and developed and he has a positive influence on his fellow classmates as well. His struggle to learn functions as a prominent example of someone courageously seeking to receive the same remarkable educational opportunities that many people in Western countries simply take for granted.

Starbuck

Donating sperm for cold hard cash.

The thought's likely crossed every man's mind but for Starbuck's David Wozniak (Patrick Huard) it reappeared again and again until he had earned more than $20,000. Never thinking that his donations were particularly fertile and would eventually be used to father over 500 children, he continued to live his carefree life, working for his father's boucherie while racking up $80,000 in debt with a group of thugs.

But his sperm was used to father 533 children and over 100 of them become curious in regards to the identity of their fecund dad and come searching after discovering the fertility clinic's lack of diversity.

David is somewhat taken aback to discover he has over 500 children but can't help but wonder what his legion of offspring are like. He refuses to admit his identity and they decide to try and discover it through recourse to the law, but as the legal proceedings progress, he begins to anonymously search them out one by one thanks to an envelope of corresponding portfolios with which he is provided before the beginning of the trial.

The children are surprised by the pseudo-guardian angel who keeps appearing in times of need yet take a shine to his adolescent enthusiasm.

The group of thugs to which David owes $80,000 are less beaming and decide to make things more difficult for him and his family as time passes.

His strong and determined yet sweet and loving partner Valerie (Julie Le Breton) also does not find his youthful ethos to be picturesquely scintillating after discovering she's pregnant, and proceeds to intensify his real world pressures all the more.

As a matter of consequence.

The film's hilarious and surprisingly light-hearted considering its subject matter. Emphasizing the importance of working for family if things such as following a schedule or pursuing best practices don't come easily to you, Starbuck also accentuates the benefits of family when it comes to discovering innovative solutions for complicated unanticipated problems, while subtly investigating different generational attitudes towards religion, championing a social framework wherein nurturing is directly proportional to responsibility, highlighting the enormous benefits/debilitating pitfalls of constantly embracing spontaneity, and thoroughly cultivating the value of friendship.

Ken Scott's background portrait of Montréal captures the city's intense dynamic cultural mosaic, presenting scene after scene of enlivening multidimensional detail, while riding a bike or taking a stroll through town.

Cinematography by Pierre Gill.

Moneyball

Brad Pitt must have loved Moneyball's script at first glance. He's given the majority of screen-time and only one other actor is provided with the lines to contend a memorable performance. The film's about a baseball general manager's (Pitt as Oakland's Billy Beane) struggles to introduce a new style of management/recruitment/strategizing in order to field a playoff contender with a limited budget, the style being based on sabermetrics, the specialized objective analysis of baseball statistics gathered from actual game-time activities, notably a player's on-base percentage. Pitt lectures, wheels, trades, demotes, admonishes and deals while throwing things around and confidently battling formidable egos. The film effectively demonstrates what it's like to champion the new within a set of firmly established guidelines that have been unquestionably governing the order of things since they were set in place and consequently naturalized through the act of unconscious repetition. Risks must be taken. It all must be laid on the line. A number of unanticipated factors and potential points of diversification must be calmly and patiently ignored/incorporated as their rational characteristics challenge or correspond to the plan in question.

The film's a lot easier to watch if you're a baseball fan whose interested in the trials of an innovative general manager. Lotta baseball goin' on and your response to the predictable trajectories may be more enthusiastic if following a team's condensed unheralded controversial season interests you.

Or maybe it won't, I don't know.

The relationship between Beane and his daughter (Kerris Dorsey as Casey Beane) offers a distraction and adds a familial dimension to his professional predicaments. Apart from his relationship with his daughter, he definitely lives and breathes baseball 24/7 each and every day always. Was impressed with Jonah Hill's reticent yet incisive performance, exemplifying the possibilities which occasionally exist for recent graduates who aren't afraid to challenge the establishment.

Tree of Life

Smoothly flowing gently falling slightly billowing lightly floating metaphors, a series of remembered events stitched together through fluid dreamlike sequences, delineating foundations, from which identities are constructed. A father, a mother, a family, a routine. A strict routine, a strict father, a housewife, a code. Mr. O'Brien (Brad Pitt) unwaveringly sticks to his code whereby his rule is absolute and his every whim, non-negotiable. His wife acquiesces, his children grow, he arrives at work on time, tithes week-in, week-out. A subjective interpretation of a governing structure attempts to supply youth with a disciplined set of ground rules from which a reasonable degree of economic stability can be confidently expected, through the years. No discussion, no questions, just stilted secure repetitious order blindly and diligently recreating itself, again. There's a lot of depth to the scenes in this film and Malick poetically intertwines manifold transitions with incredibly versatile images which in themselves create a byzantine subtext whose hydra-like character challenges the narrative's status quo.

But I don't think it's meant to do this, it seemed more like Malick was supplying as much beauty as he possibly could to suburbia, to a conservative way of life, using a surrealist form to structure his traditional content, with instinct guiding the positioning of his imagery as opposed to planning, whereby Tree of Life develops a naturally secretive grace, as it bids farewell to one dramatization of the North American middle-class.

On the one hand, it elevates patriarchal dispositions to a cantankerously coy precipice, taking content that has been recycled ad nauseum and demonstrating that it can continuously be insightfully replenished if you're willing to put in a little time and effort.

On the other, it eclipses sundry previous manifestations of this particular vision to the point where it seems possible that it's trying to put an end to this storyline once and for all, playing the ultimate winning hand, the graceful capitalist end-game.

Don't mean to be applauding Tree of Life too much. I found the seemingly random quotes which accompany much of the imagery to be irritating (especially since they're supposed to have some sort of ethereal quality) and was happy to comfortably rest my eyes here and there, as Mr. O'Brien and his children had yet another coming of age moment.

It would be a great film to study more closely and definitely leaves the door open for multiple critical accounts which can be situated within various intellectual markets in order to facilitate conceptions of particular ethical viewpoints from which the effects of diverse cultural phenomena can be momentarily diagnosed.

Naturally graceful, or a graceful nature, either way Tree of Life has me examining this dialectic, and has, for me anyway, instilled it with a remarkable life force that I'll find difficult to ignore for some time to come.

This is where film can be different from reading yet just as powerful. In a book like In Search of Lost Time you come across dialectics constantly to the point where you've been bombarded with so many you suffer from intellectual overload. Sometimes it's nice to take one and use it as a general frame in order to study its vicissitudes specifically, and so on.

Paris, Texas

The most beautiful film I've seen since viewing Emir Kusturica's Underground is Wim Wenders's Paris, Texas. It felt so great to be watching a movie where the soundtrack, cinematography, direction, editing, script and acting are harmoniously united and thought provoking throughout.

Two brothers, both married, one with a child, one without. One brother is successful and living the suburban dream, the other suffers a breakdown when his marriage collapses and disappears for four years, leaving his son in his brother's care.

He suddenly surfaces after collapsing on the floor of a rural diner in Texas, the attending doctor finding his brother's phone number on a card in his possession. Contact is made and his brother (Dean Stockwell as Walt Henderson) arrives to convince him to come home. But Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) refuses to talk and is reluctant to return as he can't find the psychological means to face the pressures of the life he left behind.

But Walt slowly and patiently encourages him to forgo his fear and travel to Los Angeles to be reunited with his son Hunter (Hunter Carson). As the two hit it off, Travis begins to dream of the family life he left behind, and his thoughts turn towards a rapprochement with love interest Jane Henderson (Nastassja Kinski).

Two dimensions subtly and shyly debate throughout, both in relation to what's best for Hunter. He's living a happy life with Walt and Anne (Aurore Clemént) and was basically ditched by Travis who mysteriously disappeared for 4 years, contacting no one. But Travis is his father and not everyone negotiates the trials of a struggling marriage convoluted by an unrewarding professional life seamlessly. He obviously lacks certain qualities that are traditionally aligned with conservative conceptions of maturity. But his endearing childlike gentle curiosity is matched by his modest caring dreamlike individuality to encourage you to hope that he can raise Hunter and be a strong father whose sympathetic disposition nurtures his son's gifts.

Suddenly you find yourself embodying the symbolic, keeping your dreams alive through the related possibilities presented by the imaginary. But the real's presence remains a consistent challenge as unforeseen developments, financial predicaments, and social consequences consistently demand dynamic discursive responses, from which a new set of circumstances arises, wherein the framework has been realigned yet is still dependent upon historical spectres whose often misremembered anti-contextual vitality refuses to easily permit any stable sense of well being, and so on. The weight of these power struggles can often be too much which results in a victory for the real who consequently presents a means by which to attain the imaginary whose potential objectivity is decreased significantly (you have neither contacts nor resources but are free to consider whatever you like).

And time passes and co-habitation becomes impossible and the bitter force of the split internally collides with the initial passion of the romance at indeterminate intervals throughout the course of the day resulting in a potential psychological stalemate if there's no alternative which presents itself, whatever it might be.

And time continues to pass and realities continue to exist and forgiveness and explanations begin to discover an outlet which wasn't present during the height of the competition and the option for peace unexpectedly presents itself.

In an exceptionally touching scene Travis and Jane discuss what happened, why it happened, how. Leading up, Wenders's direction leaves us in a state of incredibly anxious anticipation before delivering a patient, stunning, tear jerking piece of temperately crafted cinematic perfection, as the real, symbolic, and imaginary momentarily crystallize.

Soundtrack by Ry Cooder, cinematography by Robby Müller, editing by Peter Przygodda, adapted by L.M. Kit Carson, written by Sam Shepard.

Dolphin Tale

Dolphins, swimming around, investigating things, discussing various topics, demonstrating interest, responding playfully, gregarious and cheerful, mischievous, resilient, diligent, ebullient. I've always enjoyed watching dolphins go about their dolphin related business and Charles Martin Smith's Dolphin Tale provides plenty of dolphin focused activity.

There's just one problem.

Winter, the dolphin about whom this tale is told, has had to have her tail removed after complications resulting from being entangled in a crab trap. The Clearwater Marine Hospital is dedicated to her rehabilitation, but after she learns to swim by moving her back from side to side instead of up and down (as she would had she a tail), it becomes apparent that her spinal cord won't be able to withstand the unnatural movement, meaning her future is in jeopardy.

Enter Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), the boy who helped save Winter from the crab trap. Winter takes a shine to Sawyer and responds more positively to his care than to that of her other attendants. Sawyer's cousin (Austin Stowell as Kyle Connellan) unfortunately has his legs damaged in an explosion which sends him to a hospital specializing in prosthetics.

Which gives Sawyer an idea.

Perhaps a prosthetic tail can be made for pesky Winter, thereby saving her spinal chord and ensuring that she will be able to swim till an old age.

Will this tail be ready in order to showcase Winter at an event designed to raise funds to prevent the Clearwater Marine Hospital from being sold to a corporation and turned into a hotel?

Only time will tell.

Watching the film will also tell, and if you want to see a somewhat cheesy yet inspiring and uplifting story wherein a shy disengaged youth learns to make friends and become a contributing community member (even though he has no love for prepositional phrases), full of plenty of exciting shots of a dolphin who won't let things like not having a tail keep her down, Dolphin Tale is for you. And even though there are two single parent families within and their children become good friends, the father and mother don't establish a romantic relationship, which is where I thought the script was headed.

To learn more about the Clearwater Marine Hospital Aquarium and follow Winter's adventures, visit here.

Godspeed

Appetites, duty, faith.

Struggling to rediscover his gift from God, an alcoholic adulterous healer's family is slain while he lies in bed drunk with another woman. Charlie Shepard's (Joseph McKelheer) resultant collapse is magnified by the intensity of his dereliction as he blindly seeks to realign his reason.

With a mangled Bible in hand.

A young girl by the name of Sarah Roberts (Courtney Halverson) reckons she can help and comes to beg Charlie to use his healing power to save her father. Charlie had tried to heal her mother years ago only to fail. But in the process Sarah fell in love with him and now possesses the only remedy capable of healing his cataclysmic lesions.

Her tender loving care.

Unfortunately her father's dead and she really wanted him to heal her psychotic brother Luke (Cory Knauf) who as it turns out blames Charlie for his mother's death and proceeded to murder his family consequently.

Yup, Godspeed's examination of the dark side is pretty frickin' bleak. Its most redeeming quality is its almost total lack of positivity, a harmonious atmosphere as black as Satan's dreams on Christmas, unwavering and unrepentant, apart from one beautiful scene, made all the more radiant by the surrounding darkness, which situates itself on top of the mountain of shadows and patiently transmits its amorous message.

To the faithful.

Not really one to watch with your grandparents, unless they like hopeless bucolics within which everyone suffers and lunacy is given room to brazenly regurgitate its demented motivations, which could be the case.

Contagion

Wasn't that impressed with Steven Soderbergh's Contagion. It successfully manages several different plot threads and introduces a wide variety of characters, positioning them in various socio-political quadrants as they react to the spread of a devastating global plague, establishing friendships, watching as loved ones die, exploiting the situation for personal profit, falling victim to the ludicrous ambitions of a culture of desperation. It starts out well, getting right down to it, not spending much time investigating historical details while still encouraging interest within its accelerated format, disease, widespread contamination, diagnosis, containment. But as it unreels, it inconsistently delivers its subject matter, some scenes astutely demonstrating the talents of its superstar cast, others falling flat and causing you to wonder if Soderbergh ran out of time and didn't have the resources to encourage multiple takes. I suppose that if everything is 'normal,' or the world isn't distinctly suffering from the effects of a plague, and then the disease quickly spreads and disseminates chaos, it makes sense to have orderly and traditional opening scenes followed by poorly executed bourgeois hokum (the film itself is infected). This device can work exceptionally well if the director carefully crafts a seductive self-awareness. I didn't spot such self-awareness within Contagion, however. It seemed more like actors with established reputations running through the motions, as if they had taken Law and Order or CSI's format, tweaked it for the big screen, made a number of definitive, instantaneous, unalterable conclusions based upon a shallow degree of ready made research, waited for the content to easily slide into its manufactured mindsets, threw in something heroic yet disengaged, and gingerly cantered towards an incredible turn out at the box office. Some scenes and performances stand out and it was better than mediocre, but still, a very formulaic piece disguised as hip and innovative entertainment, quietly fading into the trivial.

The Change-Up

The Change-Up introduces another comedy wherein a male friendship is composed of one person who is responsible (Jason Bateman as Dave Lockwood) and another who lives a carefree day-to-day lackadaisical freestyle (Ryan Reynolds as Mitch Planko). While Lockwood's mannerisms are prim and proper, Planko's are slapdash and inappropriate. While Lockwood tries to be a strong respectable family person, Planko smokes weed all day and is still interested in raw doggin' randoms.

And so on.

But their friendship endures nonetheless, the historical nature of their bond trumping and bringing together their disparate personalities.

In more ways than one.

As fate would have it, one evening they decide to urinate in a fountain at the same time while simultaneously stating that they wished they had the other's life, after which they wake up the next day having switched bodies, forced to live that other life that they had spontaneously stated they wished they had (while urinating).

The rest of the film's mildly amusing while Planko tries to bluff his way through a merger that Lockwood worked on tirelessly for months and Lockwood tries to star in a soft porn flick, etc. Maybe amusing's not the right word. There's a lot of shock comedy straight from the sewer that is relatively unexpected and difficult to watch. I found it more surprising than amusing although I was amused by the surprises.

Content switches form and is provided with a significant degree of freedom due to the historical nature of that form's condition, and, with a little coaching, manages to improve on its initial foundations after coming dangerously close to destroying them completely.

But like the old change-up pitch, you expect it to come in fast and furious and instead it slows down and fades.

Old idea scatologically revitalized oscillates from one extreme to the other before falling flat.

The Change-Up.

Alien vs. Ninja

There was a delay with the subtitles in the copy of Alien vs. Ninja I rented the other day, and the translation would appear on the screen 20 to 30 seconds after the sentence had been spoken, if it appeared at all. It didn't really matter too much however inasmuch as I could gather what was going on simply by watching (there are a group of ninjas, aliens arrive out of nowhere, they fight).

The film's a lot of fun, because, on the one hand, when the heroes stop to discuss things, it seems as if it's taking itself rather seriously, while, on the other, whenever battle or the comic relief is introduced, it's obvious that it is well aware of its ridiculous nature.

Excessively serious ridiculousness is a winning combination in my books, in the realm of kitschy film production, meaning Alien vs. Ninja worked for me.

It may not have worked if I had a better grasp of the linguistic momentum, but the exaggerations were striking without being overbearing, the ways in which director Seiji Chiba catered to his audience's tastes were appreciated, logic was appealed to and ignored depending on the improvisations of the design, aliens fighting ninjas equals good, potentially entertaining possibilities are ignored in favour of bizarre fluctuations, and classic sci-fi franchises such as Alien and Predator are unabashedly lampooned, while Chiba borrows heavily from their storylines nonetheless.

Perhaps Aliens and Ninjas fighting in a campy over-the-top romp with spur of the moment production values isn't for you, I really don't know, but if you're interested in a bit of lighthearted nauseating questionable roguishness, Alien vs. Ninja will cater to your needs, while causing you to recklessly twist and squirm.

Before or after basketball practice.

The Help

Boldly displaying the ugly dimensions permeating a culture whose social fabric is thoroughly racist, Tate Taylor's The Help situates us in Jackson, Mississippi, and demonstrates how difficult it was for African Americans to either express their points of view or hope for a better life within.

Not to say that it's any easier now, Taylor just situates her narrative in the past in order to mitigate the shock of investigating current pervasive racist realities, thereby making her message easier to digest while enabling it to reach a broader audience.

This strategy works effectively for the aforementioned reason but it also ignores the fact that there are still systematic racist discourses influencing sundry public and private spheres whose destabilizing affects are as vicious as they are subtle. It's not a matter of thinking that things were like that 50 years ago and they're fine in the present, it's a matter of reexamining the present in order to discover the ways in which racist attitudes continue to disable so that 50 years from now our cultures will be all the more inclusive, and so on.

The film presents an aspiring writer, 'Skeeter' Phelan (Emma Stone), who finds the ways in which her African American compatriots are treated revolting, seeing how their wages are low, there is no possibility for advancement, they are treated like slaves, and have basically no means by which to defend themselves. She seeks to disseminate their voices in the form of a book which collects and transmits their stories. This is no easy task due to the legal ramifications of challenging Mississippi's segregated society, so said stories must be collected clandestinely, pseudonyms must be employed, specific geographic locations cannot be identified, and during the collection process appearances must be kept up as usual.

Two maids, Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), agree to share their stories at great personal risk and as the Civil Rights Movement intensifies many of their friends sign-up as well. The book is released, it has an impact, there's a happy ending.

I found one aspect of the ending troubling, however, in regards to the ways in which Minny is offered full-time employment with the Footes (Jessica Chastain as Celia and Mike Vogel as Johnny). Internally, the ending works insofar as Minny's career had been threatened by a rumour spread by her former employer and she now no longer has to worry about putting food on the table. But she's offered full-time employment within the same set of circumstances within which she was previously employed, albeit with a much more enlightened couple. Obviously one book isn't going to magically uproot and transform decades of oppressive practices and suggesting that this had happened would have made The Help seem somewhat flippant. But if the Footes had made a stronger commitment to trying to redefine things so that Minny didn't have to work as a maid for the rest of her life, thereby suggesting that they were trying to open up a broader commercial space for her within which her talents could flourish, The Help would have packed a stronger progressive punch into its already sturdy, innovative, repertoire.

The stifling nature of being any married woman in a culture defined by strict patriarchal gender roles is intelligently illustrated as well.