Top Ten Films of 2014

The following presents my favourite 10 films plus honourable mentions of films that I saw in theatres during 2014 that weren't considered for oscar nominations.

I had trouble deciding which was 4th, 5th, etc., but I was able to choose the top 3, in no particular order.

Top Ten Films of 2014

Top 3

Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu)
Mommy (Xavier Dolan)
Citizenfour (Laura Poitras)

4-10

Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood) (Tran Anh Hung)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski)
Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm) (Xavier Dolan)
Finsterworld (Frauke Finsterwalder)
La Vénus à la fourrure (Venus in Fur) (Roman Polanski)

Honourable Mentions

Bird People (Pascale Ferran)
Gone Girl (David Fincher)
St. Vincent (Theodore Melfi)
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)
Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann (The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared) (Felix Herngren)
The Drop (Michaël R. Roskam)
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer)
Jodorowsky's Dune (Frank Pavich)
Rhymes for Young Ghouls (Jeff Barnaby)
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn)
Bears (Keith Scholey and Alastair Fothergill)

Unbroken

Opposites react in Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, as true strength resiliently responds to the abject whims of contemptuous jealousy, the byproduct of feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing, a modest olympic runner's withdrawn yet irrepressible spirit unwillingly begetting torture, as a lowly pathetic subordinate seeks to cowardly assert himself.

The film's straightforward, a solid accessible account of wartime atrocities unpretentiously layered with both camaraderie amidst suffering and religious sentiment to feature forgiving frequencies while vilifying the wicked.

I find thinking about forgiveness as opposed to revenge leads to peace of mind, you just have to watch out for people who exploit the forgiving for their own ends, and approach each situation on a case by case basis.

I thought the film progressed well, smoothly using the flashback to build character in the beginning, finding ways to keep the narrative flowing while plane wreck survivors are lost at sea, accentuating the terrors of war, lauding independence in the face of brutality.

It's perhaps 15 minutes too long, perhaps because they were truthfully following the actual events of the story, the best scene still coming near the end, stronger minor character development in the last 45 minutes would have worked to its advantage.

That seems to be the way many films are set up, the hero, the villain, no devil in the details, centralized contained conflict.

Information networks have already been established within the POW camp when Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), the Torrance Tornado, arrives, and the film doesn't focus on escape.

They are located near Tokyo which would have made escape somewhat futile.

If not commanding in its absurdity.

Foxcatcher

The regalia of dedication and commitment, the steps to take, one by one, routines, platforms, workouts, sparring, success breeding opportunity introducing patronage, competing forms of professional logistics, an olympic gold medal winner is given the chance to train with one of the wealthiest men in America, as opposed to his fellow olympic gold winning average joe heart-of-gold brother, difference embraced, independence, appreciated, yet the accompanying affluence and opulent caprice problematize traditional approaches, leading to profound psychological disturbances, as he is disciplined and punished, for adopting the regimen foolishly implemented by his surrogate father.

Who loves wrestling, but, unlike Mark Schultz's (Channing Tatum) brother, knows little about the art of coaching.

Balance, order, masters, servants.

His brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo) is confident and rational, aware of his exceptional strengths, and not willing to be toyed with.

The frustrated worker who moves up too quickly, the successful middle-class force, and the spoiled oligarch then proceed to battle wits in a repressive atmosphere which Dave doesn't fully comprehend as he follows the strategy that has lead to his extraordinary accomplishments.

Form and content unite in Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher to restrainedly grapple with differing varieties of freedom.

Psychologies of the gods.

Lamenting luxurious liabilities.

Casting by Jeanne McCarthy.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

They squeezed many a film out of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and I loved going to see them all, none of them blowing me away like Star Wars or that cartoon I happened to see on television during a blizzard when I was like 6, but I am much older now, and tend to be blown away by different types of narratives.

Greed is the sin dominating The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, as Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) succumbs to dragon sickness and refuses to share his gold with others.

Others who sheltered him.

Others who protected him.

A delirious dream sequence brings him back to his senses and team Thorin joins the battle, the battle that dominates most of the film, it's a cool battle I guess, the fifth army still indisputably my favourite, as it was watching the cartoon as a child, this time with werebear accompaniment, brilliant move, even if Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) didn't figure prominently in the action.

The film also productively deals with the unfortunate hardships facing the people of Esgaroth, as they struggle with their new situation, food, organization, lodging, required and sought after, possessing few if any possessions, a leader emerges amongst them.

Other strong features include Tauriel's (Evangeline Lilly) multiple appearances, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), feisty as ever, the focus on teamwork, albeit begrudging teamwork, and concepts like loyalty and honour, mischievously played with as egos clash and contend, which seems to always happen in these films.

But really, why did we have to see so much Alfrid Lickspittle (Ryan Gage)? He's like the worst character.

In battle, why doesn't Gandalf (Ian McKellen) cast more spells? Wouldn't that ease up the pressure a bit?

Who let Lee Pace (Thranduil) get away with that performance?

So much drama, so much pettiness, so much angst, so much fighting.

Quinctilius Varus, where are my eagles!?

Loved the Bard (Luke Evans).

Star Wars starts up again next Holiday Season.

Stables, Franz Marc

Blinding bright evolving dawn
asymmetrically responds
like guilded orchards swift the sight
illuminates azure delights

who patiently await to bound
across the countryside's unwound
furred forests bursting forth in song
while critters briskly trail along

the raccoons curiously swaying
moose upright politely braying
porcupines enshrine their quills
in evergreen persisting wills

they leave their lodge to sprightly gallop
riders galvanized enveloped
within nature's urbane breast
feathers fetchingly attest

to light attentive in the glades
the bower's bounty ricochets
from branch to stone to shade to ripple
omnifloric fertile tickles

plunge through fathoms jive in jest
sustainably imbibe invest
bequest resounding intimates,
reverberate, the wilderness.

Rueil près de Paris, Maurice de Vlaminck

Peaking through the forest's gates
at this strange forbidden place
senses overwhelmed prohibited
renowned refinements hid

beneath such odd fey cavelike structures
behind each wall delicious scents sure
fired seductive cakes and rolls
cheeses, plums, and puddings sole

admirer taught to remain hidden
stories of rejections smitten
sit back think observe and stare
honey combed pure Frankenbear

off to the sly blueberry patch
the bees be stinging surly wrapped
up in their bustling haughty hive,
the forest's introspective stride.

La Plage à Nidden, Max Pechstein

Flushed ecstatic twinned arrivals
exploration's trim archival
greetings curious and sane
intercultural exclaimed

expressions new found interplays
from dawn 'til dusk uncertain phrases
qualifying unbeknownst
emerging intellects in hosts

caught up with questions, certitude's
didactic reveries, the clues,
at first to bridge the conversation
proceeds hence sans hesitation

lightning lips eccentric lotions
balms facilitate the motions
who can say just what was said?,
communication's nascent thread.

Congcong Nanian (Back in Time)

Hard luck high school communist romance takes centre stage in Yibai Zhang's Congcong Nanian (Back in Time), five friends, hormonal hearts throbbing, social revelations pressurizing, a tender look back at innocent desires, the magnification of seemingly insignificant events not so insignificant in terms of personal depth and growth, their affects shockingly uplifting and bewilderingly entertained, courage forging a psychological frame of reference within the young psyches, its creation confusing in its definition and covetous of supplementary material, subsequent dreamlike narratives searching for these definitive moments, their emotional mechanics insulating the eternal in a resounding depiction of bliss, youthfully sustained, through the passing of the years.

I think the trick is not to think, "oh, it was so much better back then," but to think, "that was amazing, what I'm doing now is alright too, and the future looks good as well."

The friends have to learn to cope with unfortunate disruptions in their unpredictable routines as they leave high school to pursue different goals, and the world opens up with unforeseen temptations.

The film's a fun exploration of relationships and love, maddeningly elevating foundational convivialities, naivety descending into revenge and horror, with a celebration of the good old days, and redemption in the end.

I kept wondering about restrictions on filmmaking in China while watching as government propaganda repeatedly and hilariously popped-up throughout.

There are a bunch of great communal shots, visually emphasizing the benefits of teamwork.

But I was wondering if government film making restrictions were too harsh to nurture the development of a young Chinese Jean-Luc Godard, which would be a shame, considering how much Godard has done for France.

Basketball has the green light.

I have faith that these restrictions may loosen up a bit, as the middle class continues to prosper, because after I had these thoughts, characters from the film wound up in Paris, a good sign for me anyways, and perhaps, for the future of Chinese filmmaking.

I did like Congcong Nanian, I'm just thinking, there are 1.? billion people in China, and the economy is rapidly expanding, the potential for previously unconsidered revolutionary developments in filmmaking are limitless, especially if the censors become hip to alternative forms of expression.

Not simply who can make the most explosive violent films.

But who can make the most thought provoking intellectually accessible poetic reflections on issues of universal humanistic resiliencies, poignant in their multilayered insights, developing an exceptional Chinese filmic frame of reference, to grow and develop over time.

Perhaps it's already there, I don't see many films from China.

If it's not, trying studying what they've done in Québec.

They are making it working here.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

There are so many problems with this movie.

Huge, huge big budget screw up.

It's crafted like you're supposed to like it, like its implausible encounters, flat conversations, mediocre foreshadowings, and tawdry special effects are so infallible that you'll love them because they're attached to a well known biblical story, and not to love them, is to critique that story itself.

The bible deserves better than this.

Scientists are directly critiqued as are advocates of global warming as scientific explanations are delivered for a series of God's plagues, which continue to harass the Egyptians because they obviously can't stop them because in the context of the film they're caused by God.

Homosexuals are treated disgustingly and violently, undoubtably to fuel anti-Gay marriage initiatives, but also to congratulate homophobic bullies, as if segregating and victimizing a group of people is okay, in a film about freeing the oppressed, thoroughly and disgracefully revolting.

Of course the gay character occupies a position of power which he exploits for personal gain, making it difficult to critique what happens to him.

But it's odd that apart from Nun (Ben Kingsley) he's the only minor character to have multiple one-dimensional lines stretching across the film, drawing attention to him throughout, so that we can be sure it's him when death comes calling.

There's no character development in Exodus: Gods and Kings apart from Moses (Christian Bale) and Ramses (Joel Edgerton) who bromantically duel par excellence as fate divides them from their fraternal longings.

It's far too focused on the central characters, I don't care if one of them is Moses, you need secondary levels of strong character development to support primary exchanges, not just the odd subservient line thrown in here and there.

This also creates deep complementary layers of productively dialectic action.

Too top heavy.

Oddly, an Egyptian tells a prophecy and it comes true, thereby validating pagan practices which if I'm not mistaken are unjustifiable if there is only one true God.

Moses is a reasonable man and I would have liked his character if every scene he was in wasn't short and to the point, Ridley Scott even just tacks on the ten commandments like they're a box to check on a spiritual grocer's list, the short perfunctory scene disrespectful of their monumental importance, to be sure.

Doing too much in too short a period of time, and the film's 150 minutes long, an agonizing 2.5 hours, constantly moving forward while cumbersomely dragging its ostentatious feet.

In a film about freeing slaves the only characters they develop, and it's not like they're developed that well, are individual rulers with dictatorial powers.

This is okay in the context of the film for Moses, for he is just, but bad for Ramses, because he is not.

Ramses even survives when the Red Sea drowns his army, standing alone on the opposite shore to Moses, like they're trying to set up a sequel.

Give me The Ten Commandments over this film any day.

The Exodus action film; I'm surprised Ramses and Moses didn't start fighting with the Red Sea closing in.

It's like they're indirectly critiquing Gods and Kings by spending so much money on such a piece of crap.

For shame.

Belle & Sebastian

I had trouble growing up finding bands that I really liked during the '90s. I liked Blind Melon, Radiohead, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Tragically Hip, Beck and Ween, but none of them ever made an impact like the Beatles, Stones, Pink Floyd, Zeppelin or David Bowie. They wrote cool music, but never stunned me with albums like Rubber Soul, Exile on Main St., Animals, Led Zeppelin or Ziggy Stardust, albums that I listened to over and over again, and still love listening to, they're simply outstanding.

I figured I was being unfair because '90s bands were new, meaning I couldn't pick and choose amongst multiple albums, many of which had been lauded for decades.

Still, none of the aforementioned '90s bands were releasing albums like the ones I've mentioned which led to disappoint if not boredom, a sense of feeling disconnected from the times, not really much of a concern, but I couldn't really talk about music without boring people and often didn't know what people were talking about when they talked about music, which was isolating, when circumstances weren't lighthearted.

People would recommend things, I didn't like their recommendations, and so on.

Then one day I came back from working in the bush two hours north of Cochrane, Ontario, to bush camp, and I heard some co-workers listening to this band I had never heard before. While I listened, I had a Twin Peaks moment, a moment of instant overwhelming fascination, a moment where I realized I had to figure out who this artist was and then listen to/watch/view/read as much of their material as possible, the same thing happened while reading my first paragraph of In Search of Lost Time, and while I watched John Elway lead The Drive; I asked them who the band was and they snottily replied, Belle & Sebastian.  

After the contract was finished and I returned home, I went and picked up a copy of Tigermilk and was completely blown away. Here was an album that was on par with my favourite material from the '60s and '70s yet different enough to forge its own unique identity. Songs about misfits who didn't fit in yet still longed for friendship or companionship, I listened to it over and over again, still listen to it, I tried to quit smoking once and listened to it 7 times in a row, I had found a '90s band that really worked for me, and it was amazing.

None of my friends liked them.

Until years later.

But their lyrics, Stuart Murdoch's lyrics, and some of Stevie Jackson's, Belle & Sebastian's George Harrison, stuck with me, I mean, he worked the word melancholy into a song and it didn't sound pretentious, it was like bliss, if their characters were sporty they were stars of track and field, so many wonderful songs about people who didn't fit in, I absolutely loved them, still love them, still love listening to them regularly, you can compare them to people, but I think Murdoch's lyrics defy direct comparisons, they're that original.

I never tried to write like him, I always write like my myself, I have plenty of influences, and Murdoch's definitely one of them, and I let what I listen to/watch/view/read percolate in my subconscious and it undoubtably formally surfaces while I'm writing my own material, but if it hadn't have been for that sense of, "we're isolated weirdos and that's awesome" that I got from listening to Belle & Sebastian, I probably never would have had the confidence to keep going for so many years.

It was like I was part of a community.

In my head anyways.

They also use strings, horns and keyboards regularly which all usually fit into the music I love. I can never understand why bands don't incorporate strings, horns and keyboards into their music if they can; all they do is enhance the music.

Nicky Hopkins.

Who's a contemporary Nicky Hopkins?

Tigermilk, If You're Feeling Sinister, and The Boy with the Arab Strap rival Zeppelin 1-3, Let it Bleed-Sticky Fingers-Exile on Main St., and Hunky Dory-Ziggy-Stardust-Aladdin Sane in terms of back-to-back-to-back mind blowing consistency.

I already love Nobody's Empire.

Can't wait to hear all of Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance.

Cindy Lou

Insufficient data hyped
glacial shackles harnessed ice
piecemeal pungent pawned progressions
settling in like convalescent

crises cast divisive shallow
struggles shocking stiffed as callow
sympathetic cries profusive
shell shocked solemnized inducive

critiques gradually contest
envisioned sorrows for the rest
the bottom line Scrooge unrepentant
walk free changes openly contend

for rights for freedoms merry
points of view blissful contrary
seasoned spirited and bright
their light illuminates the night.

Jingling.

The Homesman

The callous and the cavalier, upstanding non-traditional direct and driven, courage, at home, with faith in the Lord, Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) accepts a challenge, a calling, to save the souls of three hopeless wives, whom stark privation has psychologically deranged, longing for bygone days, the future, The Homesman's depiction of frontier life generally lacks the overdone resilience of pioneering spirits, brutal realities aggregating impoverished still born dreams like despondent cynical destitute waves of bustling bitter contempt, Cuddy stands out, having endured and overcome social and natural hardships, strength, vision, fortitude, the product of her religious necessity, assignments, iron clad dues.

She seeks a man.

And discovers one.

He tragically arrives, windswept and woebegone, worldly and weathered thick and thin wits having left him in need of assistance, yet capable of repaying a debt, still too in/transigent to lay back and cuddle, too independent, too mad.

A team.

They forge a team and set out across the prairie to do the Lord's work, his knowledge pertinent and bound, still too mired in misfortune, to recognize eternal signs of beauty.

It's a lesson in harsh patriarchal limits ignoring sound opportunities based on preconditioned ideas the absurdities of which are sorrowfully conceptualized.

No matter what the age, no matter what the station.

Sadness.

Loneliness.

There is redemption in excess which only exacerbates the age.

Time is built into the script like cold hearted bone.

Bleak but well done accept for the editing at points and the occasional scene which could have used a few more takes.

Nice to see Barry Corbin (Buster Shaver).

Bird People

This one's sneaky.

About halfway through, as Gary (Josh Charles) decides to abandon his responsibilities, I was thinking, "okay, this would make a much better novel, I need to know what this character is thinking, why is he acting this way, apart from the panic attack, more detail, more psychology, without said value-added information, this film's becoming desolate, I have no reason to sympathize with him, no reason, to care."

I thought the film was awful but there were signs that director Pascale Ferran wanted me to think this, a number of shots, including one of Audrey (Anaïs Demoustier) standing by a window, which seemed like extraordinarily well captured moments of unconcerned bubble-gum bliss, like ads for soap or candy bars but exceptionally well done, bearing artistic imprints, working with the content, their exceptional qualities tenderly embracing the beautiful, finding art in lives where banalities pervade, revelations, serendipities, flowing with the material while subtly standing out, making a statement without suggesting anything, banality dematerialized, the life hidden within surfacing, rejoicing.

Then there's this, what?, are writers Ferran and Guillaume Bréaud on acid?, switch, which seems ridiculous and totally out of place at first, but then, as the subsequent action progresses, it's like this is incredibly beautiful, so much fun to watch, to take part in, logic and preparation be damned this is one of the coolest surprises I've seen in a film in years, joyous while remaining vigilant (there's a cat), so glad I didn't walk out, you can see why it's playing at Cinéma EXCƎNTRIS.

Patient, delicate, exploratory, curious, a continuation of the voyeuristic theme that doesn't seem intrusive or flighty.

It's a very cheeky film yet illuminatingly subtle, Ferran playing with her audience, setting it free from predictable preconditioned patterns of observation, tempting it to embrace something new, a soothing transformative catalystic swoon, the art of mesmerizing, discourses of the beautiful.

Intérieur d'atelier, Henri Matisse

The benefits of contemplation
pluralized alive gestations
resting, hidden, rarely seen
in backrooms lying in between

resounding triumphs torn apart
like pyrotechnic cuisinarts
false start their dusty residues
wholeheart tangential subterfuges

syphoned shorned supracompacted
youthful mature geriatrics
stacked and stocked to circaswarm
a feeling tense quaintly forlorn

adorned Herr cries emphatic symbols
chiming synchronistic tingles,
chance, it beckons from within,
what's waiting there in terms of kin.

Portrait du violoniste Emil Wittwer-Gelpke, Cuno Amiet

fingerling frosh fickle callowing highs
hindered pristine purchased serialized
elements flushed flummoxed interspersing
yearnin' mistrust comma Madame Za-Zing

jollyranched stoked burnin' quizzical clue
fire swept hearth coax the didgeridoo
elongate parched feigning microbes impart
simple swift strings spurning grouchy cold starts

fiddle me flights soaring through the azure
rumbled respites whirlwinds gingerly skewered
sleuths suckling truths induced badgering time
burrowed within shrewd perpetual minds

not really quite sure what I should do
candlelit nights or Duluth's point of view
showmanship plights Shamans turnin' it round
halogen heights sprinkled seminal sounds

The House of Pan-Du, Paul Gauguin

To shift, reflect, upon the shore
vibrations stitched together, sworn,
penultimate surreal expanse
awaiting thunderstruck romancing

storms confiding synergies
waves alarmed yet still at ease
Sirens coasting through surfeits
treasures lying 'neath the breach

albeit swimming through the depths
with whales the guiding counselled vets
caressed like Mile-End's intertidal
sing song reticent revivals,

spiralling circumlocution
hallowed man's curated cruisin'
wherefore art thou?, minke, fin,
deliberate, contexted spins.

Citizenfour

I always found it odd that suddenly there was this relatively free electronic network that I could use to communicate with others, read the news, shop, bank, play games, book tickets, do practically anything I wanted to do, sitting at home, using my computer.

I understand next to nothing about how it was constructed yet eventually started using it so much that I found it was an integrated inextricable part of my life, an unprecedented development, I started to think we were living in the luckiest moment in human history, and still sometimes can't believe our good fortune, although reservations began to settle in a while back.

With most of my life up online, it began to occur to me that this information could be manipulated in the wrong hands, and used for some bizarre counterproductive purpose, the likes of which never really occurs to me, I don't see why that would happen, I do watch a lot of movies though, the possibility of which still subconsciously disturbs me, however, in the background, at times.

But I figured, whatevs, I live in North America.

I'm Canadian, we have rights, a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, guarantees that you can speak freely, discuss things rationally, irrationally, criticize things as you see fit, without having to worry about being watched or going to prison.

Freedom of movement, equal opportunity, public libraries, freedoms to gather, all of these things that we didn't have hundreds of years ago but have now because previous generations fought for and created them so that our lives could be somewhat more free.

Citizenfour chronicles how the American government has access to all kinds of private information shared between electronic devices and how it can illegally use that information to potentially imprison you for speaking freely about some kind of oppressive instance which at one time would have been the subject of a riveting public debate.

There's no escaping it.

I don't see how you can stop this.

Law enforcement officials are supposed to need warrants to search your private information.

It shouldn't be available to them 24/7 because some lunatics launched the 9/11 attacks.

But it seems like that was the reason why the internet was suddenly available for free for everyone, or at least part of the explanation, giving law enforcement agencies the power to bypass constitutional rights to privacy, on Obama's watch, so that they can access a fluid, hip, integrated police state, your entire life available to the authorities, shimmering in the ether, billowing in the cloud.

Snowden's account of what can be known about someone based upon their online footprint is astounding.

Movements predicted, potential conversations held at specific points, expected patterns of behaviour, etc., I got used to the potential for this a long time ago, figuring it was a possible hazard for anyone who writes about politics, but still wish it weren't so, not an easy thing to get used to.

Snowden risked everything to expose abuses of power by the American authorities which bypass constitutional rights to privacy so that everything Americans do can be monitored and scrutinized.

He didn't just suddenly make the information available online, but worked with reporters like Glenn Greenwald to slowly reveal the truth about the illegal activities that have been sanctioned for years.

He should be welcomed back to the United States as a champion of individual and collective rights and freedoms, and we shouldn't have to wait 30 years to see this happen.

A truly exceptional individual.

What an American.

The Theory of Everything

I think Stephen Hawking deserves better than this film.

Providing someone who made a unique globally recognized contribution to the study of physics with something as obvious as this, is unfortunate, in my opinion.

Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) meets his future wife Jane (Felicity Jones) in the opening scene, there's no build up or potentially disrupting frenzy induced courtship kerfuffles, it's just, oh, they meet in the opening scene, and it's obvious they're going to get married, and other obvious things keep happening, like 2+2=4, more obvious than that even.

There is the illness.

Hawking struggles with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis throughout, but in terms of dissertation production or locking-down his true love, or having an illustrious career, there's no struggle, the best possible things keep happening, and it's like he never had to make any effort; there must have been effort; there must have been sacrifice.

A struggle, something to break up this crystal clear laundry list of exceptional and deserved preeminence, the film's like hugging your favourite teddy bear, Hawking isn't a teddy bear, he's bad ass, as he's demonstrated over the years with appearances on shows such as The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and The Big Bang Theory, indubitably.

Okay, there's a bit of a bad ass dimension in The Theory of Everything, and this is a feel good tribute to a remarkable person, whose comic spirit and extraordinary tact created ground breaking works, which, I'm assuming revolutionized the study of black holes.

It's not a cheeky mouthy neat unconcerned flip take on the life of a brilliant physicist.

But you can still express both bad assness and wholesome amicability without being cheek or flip, a shot of Hawking watching Black Belt Jones for instance, mixed in with a discussion with a student about Žižek, substituting actual moments from his life for these examples, and keeping them coming throughout the entire duration of the film.

Perhaps he loves bears, who knows, you don't get the details in this script, it's too general, too focused on achievements, and marital milestones, the big picture, lacking the subtle intricate fragments that hold that big picture together.

I don't really think there's some kind of unifying equation out there that can define and delineate everything, but I do think the potential for limitless expansion exists as time progresses.

I used to wonder about the Metrons on Star Trek: The Original Series (honestly, Star Trek isn't in this movie?) and how they managed to reach a higher plane of existence than the crew of the Starship Enterprise.

I theorized that reaching that plane required a universal understanding of a single idea, I've probably mentioned this before, consciously, whereby everyone on the planet thinks the same thing at the same time, at random, something beautiful, like bear cubs playing or homemade blueberry pie, thereby unlocking the door to an expanded collective Metronesque consciousness, everyone transforming into a spiritualized immaterial consciousness at once, like particles of light, or reticent radiation.

Not really the kind of idea you want to put into practice due to associated expenses built in to its potential quackery.

How can humanity become more like the Metrons though?, that is a compelling question.

Where's the Star Trek?

Some sort of whacky black hole discussion in relation to underground science-fiction agendas.

Marriage, marriage, marriage.

Boring.

Zebrascular

Dimply dunked, into the lemon juice hive;
starlit spunk, gin jaded tenements rise;
discreetly fleeced, horn jacket high jinks espouse;
für elise, cracker jack cascading stout;

wintergreen, I've seen Serenity's shy;
spoiled smokescreen, subtropic sundry disguise;
cherubin, chuckles hallucinating;
theremin, hypnotic haystack cha-ching;

stencilled state, heuristic hassle praline;
intonate, heard that curricularly;
hieropith, fern herckin' pyropenzance;
Holly split, I got it, catamatrance;

sherbert sought, hamhockéd hullabaloo;
camelot, swing socket circles will do;
that's my hunch, acting up on the kowtow;
burly bunch,  redecorate, you know how;

Countersign, cluster and . . .

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games return, and President Snow's (Donald Sutherland) grip on his domain loosens as he attempts to augment his stranglehold.

Revolt is in full swing and the people who have nothing are risking their lives to dismantle his order of things.

But they're disorganized, in need of both a communications network to coordinate their freedom fighting and a voice to articulate their common goals.

So they can combat Snow's minions as one.

Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) must decide if she can provide the people with that voice, with that superhuman strength which will give them the courage to persevere.

To sacrifice.

Her situation is extreme.

A tyrannical program of terror has been suffocating free speech and universal human rights for 75 years within her realm, forcing people to work excruciatingly long hours for nothing, at gun point, leaving them with no time to spend with their families, using media to convince them such practices are divine.

Showing off the wealth.

Murdering those who protest.

Mockingjay - Part 1 is bleak but how could it be otherwise?

It's about an unwilling leader coming to terms with their accidental heroism while living underground and fighting an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

There's no cream or sugar.

No solace.

It still illustrates the end game of tyrannical political programs and the hopeless situation within which its proponents hope to enslave their opposition, who then have no hope but to spend practically every hour of the day working, so they can come home at night and crack open a can of beans, and then watch luxurious images of excess on their television screens.

Mockingjay even shows how the opposition creates propaganda to fight back, calling it propaganda, something I never thought I'd see in a mass produced American film.

Its politics remind me of those from the South Africa Nelson Mandela describes in Long Walk to Freedom, without the focus on race.

How people can treat other people with such disgust makes no sense.

I often think there's a different bible, one where Jesus chills with the rich and viciously punishes the poor for being lazy.

This would explain why tyrannical leaders sometimes seriously promote religion while prominently catering to the interests of the highest bidder.

Balance is the key.

Again, countries like Norway and Sweden seem to have found a working balance, a secular form of Christianity, where the wealthy can still have lots of shiny things and the poor don't have to ingratiatingly prostrate themselves.

Canada's quite a wealthy country as well.

We used to be a leader on the world stage.

Embracing patriarchal buffoonery isn't novel, it's been around a long long time.

The potentiality is built in to postmodern frameworks.

But such frameworks also support countless more cohesive cultural alternatives.

Back to the film, I would have ended it as soon as Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) was overcome.

It is Part 1, and didn't require its own specific ending.

They must have debated that.

CFL Playoffs, Grey Cup Pick

Hamilton Tiger-Cats/Calgary Stampeders: Calgary has, just, sort of dominated all season. Finishing with a 15 and 3 record, making it look easy versus Edmonton last week, cruising, chuckling, advancing. It's been boring. I've never seen a more boring number 1 seed. The Tiger-Cats have been playing gritty determined edge-of-your-seat do or die football since September 1st, a Labour win versus Toronto, making the big plays when it matters, Collaros emerging as a formidable offensive threat, their defensive digging deep then shutting down the opposition, chewing the fat, finding a way, refusing to yield, incensed conditioned fortitude. Head Coach Kent Austin, who has a reputation for being offensively minded, did the seemingly impossible this year, and turned Hamilton's defence around. The Cats have the defence. Collaros is leading the offence. This season won't end with another boring Stampeder win, but with a stunning come-from-behind Hamilton Tiger-Cat victory, bringing the Cup back to Steeltown. Picking the Tiger-Cats. Go Tiger-Cats Go.

Diplomatie

The abominations of the Third Reich in ruins, the allies surrounding and closing in on Nazi Germany, General von Choltitz (Niels Arestrup) is tasked to obliterate Paris, ordered, commanded, focusing on its most prestigious architectural venison, to aggrandize Berlin, as it shatters, and prepares for annihilation.

But his command centre betrays him.

A Swedish consul has been watching (André Dussollier as Raoul Nordling), listening, strategically planning his alimentary counterstrikes, voyeuristic rhetoric, announced, risked, deployed.

Competing ethical disciplinary conceptions argumentatively converse, the fate of one of the world's most cherished cities hanging in the balance, militaristic and magnanimous aesthetics desperately franchising disparate souvenirs, time has run out, every syllable must be weighted and choreographed, quickly, rapidly, while seeming logical and scientific, prolongated micropassions, iron set aflame, rigid principled adherence, to jingoistic madness, roasting on the pyre.

He must be saved.

His subordinates would lack his discretion.

Minuscule macromovements.

Abeyance in the heavens.

Diplomatie pokes and prods the cultural and the historical like saintly pensive prose, fortune, tact, and understanding, coalesced to spindle posterity.

Embattled importunate persuasion.

Sailing in the wings.

Baby Doll

A flinch, a pain, assuring candid
ploys to credit gerrymandric
roots set in like throbbing metric
versed partitioned indirected

bluffs she's wearing splintered shades
recalcitrant translucent phases
grilling portents stretched and tucked
into permissive antitrusts

I must express sentiments dear
and clasp a wholesome cavalier
sheer wizened feint fond a capella
spirit strong yet wintered hella

spree assorted styles intended
caramellic thymely scented
hush slip slide upon the snow
impossible indeed to know.

Interstellar

Times have changed, and centuries of polluting irresponsibly and unaccountably have left the Earth's soil predominantly barren, unsupportive and lifeless, the survivors carrying on, old pastimes still cherished, historical insights curiously revisited, a voice from the future, codes risen in dust, a father's love for his family, paramount, indeed to be sacrificed.

The big picture.

To do it all again, or make alternative choices.

A mission which cannot be refused.

There's no time to panic, no time, to hesitate.

It doesn't use scare tactics, Interstellar's quite reasonable, scientific.

There are options, pros and cons, we must do this, and hope there's enough time to find a solution.

Elements of the classic Western are reliably built into the script like quiescent caregiving sweet nothings, or an afterthought, a reflex, a calm level-headed proactive reflex, hindsight's compendium, temperately transitioning to science-fiction, its environments still cruel and unforgiving, and wild, with neither monsters nor civilizations, just will power and the unknown, assignments boldly navigated.

Survival.

Some wild cards are thrown into the mix which rely more heavily on the tropes of science fiction, an intergalactic clue, an explosion of self-interest, but they're skilfully intertwined, Interstellar quietly ascending in investigative baby steps, from the micro to the macro, mellowly maturing, to blow you away in the end.

I preferred Inception, and Inception's ending, but the same mix of cognitive entertaining emotive rationality still humanizes Interstellar, and its climax is as strong if not stronger, depending on which film you prefer.

Nolan suddenly creates a bucolic, like Birdman's bucolic foil, after having spent so much time in dreams and Gotham City, outstanding career move, this director is multidimensional.

It's worked into the script.

CFL Playoff Picks, Finals Round

Another round of the CFL playoffs is upon us this Sunday. Here are my picks for the upcoming games:

Montréal Alouettes/Hamilton Tiger-Cats: why did these two teams have to play in the Eastern Final? They're practically identical. Both played strongly at home, struggled on the road, both finished with 9 and 9 records after starting the season dismally, Hamilton's defence allowed 395 points to be scored, Montréal's, 394, but the Tiger-Cats's offence did score 57 more points, and that's including all their problems in the red zone. And I really think that's what it comes down to. The Alouettes are hot, having crushed B.C. last weekend 50 to 17. They scored at will and looked unbeatable but the Lions didn't put up much of a fight. Hamilton's defence stymied Montréal the last time they played and are coming off a full weeks rest determined to assert themselves at Tim Hortons Field. They split their 2 regular season games, both teams winning at home convincingly, the Tiger-Cats closing out the season with a huge win over the Alouettes in a must-win situation. They're so evenly matched it's difficult to say, but I think that if Hamilton doesn't turn the ball over in the red zone the game is theirs. A close, tenacious, hard fought battle for the ages, smash mouth embittered football, Tiger-Cats by 4.

Edmonton Eskimos/Calgary Stampeders: the top two teams in the CFL meet for the fourth time this season, the eighth time they've met in the second round of the playoffs since 1990, Calgary having won five of those games, the last having taken place in 2001. Calgary owned the Eskimos this season, winning 3 of 3, on their way to finishing with a 15 and 3 record. Edmonton was a decent 12 and 6 and held on last week to knock off the Roughriders, but their three losses at the hands of the Stampeders wave extremely bright red flags that Calgary is destined to win this one. It's still the battle of Alberta. It's still only one game. Edmonton could very well show up and corral an overconfident Stampeders team, stealing one on the road, to return to the Grey Cup on Nov. 30th. I'm doubting this will happen. I don't mean to sound boring, but the odds are too highly stacked in Calgary's favour. Picking the Stampeders. For their fourth win versus the Eskimos this season.
 

St. Vincent

Concealed tender attachments, buried beneath a gruff miserable parched exterior, foul to the uninitiated, frozen finicky finesse, a babysitter, Bukowski shorn and shackled, providing advice, caring for the next generation, a single mother's compensation, working as duty requires, loving and trusting yet unsuspecting, situation confronted, solution, agreed upon, he will care for my child, I will work and have faith in benevolent common decency, the grip and the gristle, asserted hardboiled exactitude.

Opportunity hasn't knocked for struggling Vincent MacKenna (Bill Murray) for some time, then one day it bounds and pounces, his skills and acquired knowledge valuable once again, a sympathetic listener, there, to learn from his life's lessons.

Sleaze and pettiness have taken root over the years, but within their ornery sizzles, character and sacrifice still remain.

Bullies therefore are confronted.

Harrying fortunes assay.

I didn't think St. Vincent would be so well done, but it slowly and slyly reaps inversed inventive concessions, atlantic rapscallions, an impounded sense of goodwill and understanding, hanging on the edge, making ends meet, taking necessary risks, combusted communal curmudgeons.

It's not too cheesy, it's not too perverse.

Melissa McCarthy (Maggie Bronstein) takes a secondary role within and I thought an extended scene with her and Murray mutually fuming, both of them possibly throwing things, would have worked well.

They interact a number of times, but their encounters are too short and sweet, too openly one-sided.

Murray is fantastic though.

So's the kid (Jaeden Lieberher as Oliver).

Naomi Watts too.

Nice to see her showing up in films again.

Complex.

Nightcrawler

This film's way too heavy on the psycho for me.

It follows a creative innovative narcissist on his rise to the top, as he tenaciously works to excel, diligently researching his subject to gain a strategic edge, maximizing his manipulations to leverage a precise position.

A competitor recognizes his strengths and offers him opportunities which he ignores, trusting to his own professional instincts, obsequiously going at it alone.

The small fry.

The competitor winds up seriously injured.

The troubled succumb to his designs as he continuously provides them with material to advance their own interests, graphic shots of increasingly violent disturbances, communal misery, cracked and capitalized.

No ethical considerations, just raw carnal base savagery, risk, action, advantage, success.

Murder.

Films like The Talented Mr. Ripley pulled this off in the past, but they usually contained a potent ethical element, a sense that the psycho is brilliant yet deranged; Nightcrawler celebrates Louis Bloom's dementia (Jake Gyllenhaal) like it's some kind of demonic virtue, the fact that he breaks the law repeatedly while abusing unwritten professional codes more of a high-five than a diminution, a harvester of death, moribundly reaping.

Without a sense of impending doom, Nightcrawler becomes a sadistic shock-and-awe jitterbug, he obviously would have been arrested, the ending like a strychnine-laced lollipop.

Gyllenhaal's performance is strong and his confidence inspiring but it's like the rest of the world is an infantile blush, possessing no agency, after the opening moments anyways.

Too focused on the individual.

Lacking the threat of consequences.

Revelling in exploitation.

The unregulated flow of capital.

Dumb and Dumber To

This film's hilarious.

They don't just concentrate on the immediate joke, rather, they breast stroke through calamitous clefts, halting their progress to consider alternative ideas, persevering to find stable solutions which help them achieve their goals, their environments providing complimentary laughs like fleeced lubricated spawn, onwards and upwards, heave, ho.

The pork chop.

Fireworks.

A train.

The drive home.

Couch fort.

In the bathroom.

A return address.

The right thing to say.

Kitty, cat.

Lloyd (Jim Carey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels) take none to kindly to the imposition of authority, harmoniously expressing their grievances, fully aware that they have been wronged, a ludicrous examination, of jocose power relations.

Some of the situations are a bit of a stretch, lol, good ideas that move the plot along and make for ridiculous commentaries, it must be hard to find ideas to so successfully move a plot like this along, but Harry does last a bit too long at the KEN talks, even if he occasionally exposes weaknesses in various experiments.

What impressed me the most is the undeniable fact that Carrey and Daniels haven't played these characters for twenty years and they still play them so well, with the same raw sophisticated juvenile agility, they're brilliant, an improvement on the original in my opinion, they've still got it, how, did they pull this off?

I don't know if I preferred Dumb and Dumber To to Anchorman 2, I'd have to see them both back to back, twice, the first night watching Anchorman then Dumb and Dumber, the next, watching them again in reverse order.

What a potential cross-over.

Limitless.

Fury

Sadistic circumstances, engendered by power mad xenophobic imperialistic bombast, retreating, hunted by freedom fighters, the Fury of the Allied Forces, annihilating the remnants of Nazi Germany, near the end of the Second World War, still, mired in combat.

Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) was amazing.

My favourite character to emerge from war-related American cinema in the last 30 years.

By 30 years, I mean ever.

Let's make another film starring Aldo Raine, once again, killing Nazis, but this time stick him in a tank, once again, in command of loyal subordinates, dedicated to reasserting, the magnanimity of the free world.

The free world is not always magnanimous.

One of his loyal subordinates is new.

Green and foolhardy, he is unprepared for battle.

Yet battle engulfs him, and he must quickly acclimatize himself to its demented terrors, its requisite insanities, to become part of Aldo's team, thereby taking responsibility for his own actions.

His acclimatization permeates the film, which is generally another, mass produced somewhat cool entertaining ra-ra we won World War II flick, focusing on the greenhorn's shock, Fury, then saved by an unexpected scene.

Suddenly everything stops, and domestic bliss is upon us, patient and forgiving, miraculous medicinal mercy.

The scene shifts from the blissful to the hogtied, however, as the confines of the present, tacitly shriek euphonics in memorial.

Unexpected and outstanding.

The Germans are divided into the good and the bad, the civilians and the SS, the former, liberated, the latter, condemned.

Perennially.

Thermocline

Dialogue can't pay attention
who's that trekking through the clenched in
caffeinated diuretics
spooled and shifty flanged obstetric

moist boston au chocolat,
addicts thronged like Shangri-La's
prose captions feigned hey curly Sue
that subtext cranks the carcajous

a' wand'ring through their landscape barren,
undetected by the Terrans,
sursis avec le trio deux
contact shimmer dictate-le

admit i was indeed distracted
folios and jeans contracted
hypoallergenic twinkles
viral syncs in feral single.

Chomp chomp.

Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Spiralling prosaic haunting indecision, contraction instigated, distraction, procured, a play must be performed, negative emotion dominating, that voice, that voice which collegially condemns, internally and externally, belittling, haunting, there are specific time limits, the exceptional exceptionally parades, tender loving affairs, perpetual motion, angst rehabilitated, worst case after worst case, coming together, working, in unison, taking things too far, hold tight, flip, perform, do what you have always done, resolve strengthens, misgivings matriculate, swoop, soar, Silencio, glide on the currents like a nuthatched pin cushion, Birdman, Michael Keaton, what happened to Michael Keaton?, he disappeared, I thought, it's bound to be sold out, it's starring Michael Keaton, just like the '90s, purchase advanced tickets, line-up like Batman, she makes out like she did in Mulholland Drive, the soundtrack's embedded, bejewelled, it can't be extracted, necrophonic needlework, the lines, the perfectly delivered palatial lines, discursive krypton, in motion, in constant motion, assert, lose it, discuss, advocate, temporally sketched to last a lifetime, impotency notwithstanding, harness the haunting perpetual motion, aloofly pepper with speeches and scenes all of which are capable of standing alone, united to etherealize commercial artistic bedlam, for applause, for fortune, if I were Tennessee Williams I'd orgasm, Birdman, Birdman, Birdman, syntheses within syntheses, a kind word, still a movie, it's still a movie, it never loses sight of the fact that it's still a movie for entertaining, mesmerizing, a kind of charming magical cinematic awareness simultaneously celebrating and criticizing the medium, without appearing sentimental or confectionary, I shouldn't have used the word magical, a failure, I fail, flotsam flickering and flailing, taking note, sprawling to capture this ingenious tenure, this incomparable sight, this modest, coy, Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), in the act of creation, it reacts anew.

CFL Playoff Picks

CFL playoff action kick-starts this Sunday. Here are my Eastern and Western Semi-Final picks:

B.C. Lions/Montréal Alouettes: The only teams B.C. has defeated since August are Ottawa and Winnipeg. The Alouettes finished the season strong, winning 8 of their last 10, upsetting against Calgary in the process. They met twice in July, and the Lions were the only team to fall to Montréal during the disastrous first half of their season, before Jonathan Crompton took over at QB, although B.C. did crush the Alouettes two weeks later, sans Crompton. Still, this seems like an open and shut case, Montréal playing well down the stretch, the Lions, imploding. It's still only one game, and depends on which teams show up. The game's in Montréal. The Alouettes are going to show up. They're playing well on both sides of the ball. Picking Montréal.

Saskatchewan Roughriders/Edmonton Eskimos: Edmonton has home field advantage yet the Rider faithful will add an embittered voice. Kerry Joseph is starting for Saskatchewan. It's a great story. Return from retirement to once again contend for the Grey Cup with the team whom he led to Grey Cup Victory in 2007. 7 years ago. Times have changed but the Riders enter the 2014 playoffs as last year's Grey Cup champions, Edmonton, having missed them in 2013. The Eskimos finished the season respectably, winning 4 of there last 6, 2 of those wins coming at the expense of Saskatchewan, but backup QB Matt Nichols is starting the game, although starter Mike Reilly may see playing time as well. The Riders struggled to win after Durant went down, losing 6 of their last 8, although they finished the season with a win versus Edmonton. A Saskatchewan win is a much better story, but Reilly may play if Nichols struggles. The Riders have the historical momentum, but Edmonton has outplayed Saskatchewan this season. Picking the Eskimos.

Dislike it when I don't take a road team.

Maps to the Stars

Is it possible to take a sterile excessive stale antiseptic and fill it with enough dry 40% neat conversations to soberly materialize a fumigated aesthetic, like sparkling versatile antithetical lard, an affordable Naked Lunch, its sacrificial form industriously high-strung, its intellectual content flowing with literary immiscibility, which, on the one hand makes you feel like insecticide, on the other, like a priceless set of handcrafted heirlooms, David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars, a restrained hard-lined masterpiece of elitist horror, a subdued synthesis of the mundane and the maniacal, stronger than both Cosmopolis and A Dangerous Method, inflammable family histories, seductively liaising, emphatically, eviscerated?

It is, Cronenberg's patient strategic mix of obnoxious refinements, youthful misgivings, and childish incredulity, slowly building its complex web of serendipitous interconnectivity, makes you wish you were about to pleasantly throw up after having spent $627 dollars on a bottle of scotch, like gentrified gentility, frenzied fire starters, was that Mr. Mugs?, all-knowing and ever-so-loveable Mr. Mugs?, shot down by 21st century infantile ennui, prevented from teaching his lessons, consigned, forevermore?

Bashful, so difficult to blend these elements without being overtly pretentious or inadvertently condescending, still allowing them to preserve their autonomy, pulsating, integrated, heterogeneity.

It's somewhat of a satirical take on both these potentialities, expertly derelicted, by a master who continues to innovate.

Reminded me more of his early texts Stereo or Crimes of the Future than A History of Violence or Eastern Promises.

His roots.

Back to his roots.

Carboniferous

The granite's riveting recess
lies glacially astride

the forest's trenchant tomes caressing
fauna to confide

the wilderness's incremental
temperance in riddle

accustomed to tempestuous
complacent airtight fertile

grounds infused and grounds fire roasted
grounds to brew microcosmosis
grounds enfeathered pitching plush
bewitching symphonies straight flush

adjustments plume the hidden polished
chirping privy to the knowledge
cloistered capped enriched conundrums
mellifluous betwixt the earth and sun

I walk past where I saw the snake
who rattled to pronounce its place
to rest upon a bed of stone
when a train arrives to shock the zone.

*Not entirely sure that the snake rattled, but it did make a noise that resembled rattling and I therefore thought it might be a rattlesnake. After the possible rattling, I detected it in my peripheral before immediately moving in the other direction. Much to its amusement most likely. I should have stopped to get a closer look but was worried it would lunge and strike. It was about 3.5 feet away.

Gone Girl

Just what goes into sustaining a successful marriage, what is that secret critical ingredient for ensuring the preeminence of your conjugal bliss?

Mad blind overwhelming desire may wear off, especially if the couple in question doesn't role play or at least dress-up from time to time, possibly as their favourite Star Trek character, and if the initial hard-pounding insatiable craze dissipates, the arduous work necessary to recapture its incandescence sets in, both participants required to reimagine its stringency, dedication and commitment, adhered to as pluralizing factors.

In David Fincher's Gone Girl, Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) refuses to abide by such an adherence, succumbing to adulterous lechery, slowly destroying the love of his spirited partner.

Mistake.

Or mistakes, seeing how he's been ignoring her for years while living a life of sloth off her trust fund, after having moved from New York City (where he worked as a writer) to Missouri, much to wife Amy's (Rosamund Pike) dismay.

He's a jerk, he blames it on her, total jackass.

But he has no idea that Amy's pure psycho.

The film's divided into two halves, one focusing on Nick as he comes to terms with his inextricable predicament, the other which brings Amy into the mix, focusing on her troubles on the road, until a crucial accidental resurgence, of the romantic love which at one point defined her.

Kierkegaard style.

At first I thought the introduction of Amy was an unfortunate twist.

I figured the film would slowly continue to suffocate lacklustre Nick, his tension inimically increasing, a high-wired harrowing stench, accentuating paranoid asphyxia.

Amy's introduction eliminates this tension, replacing it with alternative constraints which infernalize her psychotic scenario, which is rather excessive, considering that she could have just left him.

But her passion demands vengeance, vengeance which she seeks eruditely, revelling in the media's saccharine sensationalization, before rediscovering that lost kernel of youth.

There's a great sequence where she's robbed after letting her guard down, the sequence diversifying the film's wedded hysteria by injecting minor seemingly ineffectual characters, who become common denominators in the subsequent action.

Gone Girl has plenty of variability, strong major and minor characters, ridiculous yet plausible logistics, competing disastrous degenerations, polarities within polarities, a sympathetic coach, an amorphous yet easy-to-follow blend of media, family, legality, and law enforcement, Proust is mentioned twice (in uncomplimentary fashions however), desperate strategic planning, and a non-traditional take on victimization.

The ending's solid, a bizarre reversal of what's-to-be-expected, the film's myriad depressions, sentimentally sanctified.

Quite dark.

Quite good.

Not my favourite David Fincher film, but you still see why he's one of America's best.

Horns

Cast out.

Disbelieved.

Betrayed.

Punished.

Horns begin to grow on young Ig Perrish's (Daniel Radcliffe) head as his beloved hometown accuses him of the murder of his one true love, Merrin Williams (Juno Temple), Ig valiantly proclaiming his innocence, searching, desperately, for the murderous guilty party.

Unbeknownst to him, in the beginning, his horns unwittingly command everyone he encounters to reveal their darkest secrets, or embrace violence and/or sexual desire, as if they're dislocating a contingent of vice, irascibly disdained, savagely enacted.

This proves rather confusing.

As does the film, which is a bizarre blend of the sentimental, the ambiguous, and the ridiculous, irreverently devout, as deduced by its spry submission.

The sentimentality seems to be appealing to its youthful market, juxtaposed with the ridiculous, which is generally subscribed to adult behaviour, to vindicate cracks of teenage rebellion, coming of age compartmentalizing certain tendencies, to outrightly misbehave, in preparation for the reign of jouissance.

But as Horns takes a moral turn, as Ig's investigation bears fruit, it becomes unclear whether or not the film is being serious, in which case it becomes quite tiresome, or pretending to be serious while revelling in playful incongruities, what's actually happening being rather serious, and sentimental, the situations themselves devilishly corny, and ridiculous, in which case the film excels.

Hence the ambiguity.

If this is what director Alexandre Aja intended, it's a stroke of maudlin genius, don't think about what's happening, just focus on what's being depicted, graceful in its contrite subtlety, overcoming the bounds of placated smarm.

If not, the film collapses during its final third, the irreverence which sustained its peculiar plea, giving way to a uniform banality.

Need to see more of Aja's work to reach a conclusion.

La Guérisseuse

Glide and leap from branch to branch
stash each morsel's crumbly campy
crisp nutritive sustenance
beneath the sky's enflamed distant

conception of confined repose
solace enshrined wood nymphs a' dozing
through nocturnal sombre sweeps,
cozy reclined ransomed retreats

for nestling like infurred unfolded
fairly tensed and gently scolded
denizens of scripts unrolled,
infatuated sauntered scrolls.

Attested.

John Wick

A surprisingly well crafted visceral revenge flick, a frenzy attuned to instinctual reflexivity, just in time for Halloween, John Wick delivers a fast-paced sophisticated personalized bloodbath, continentally conceived with considerations for respect, an elite world of criminals, immaculately imploding.

Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a legendary assassin who retired to settle down with his wife who then died, leaving behind a small dog to remind him of her.

He goes for a drive in his automobile one day, and the son of a Russian gangster requests its sale.

He refuses and drives away.

The son then visits him in the middle of the night, beats him senseless with the help of his goons, _____ the dog, and steals the car.

Wick wakes up the next day composed yet enraged, in preparation for an insane rampage designed to express his dissastifaction.

It's a very basic plot, but the visuals, dialogue, music, acting, and combat scenes crystallize a uniform carnal indignant balance, almost Lynchean in terms of surreal elegance, comedy awkwardly yet cursively situated to allow the film to concentrate on internal affairs (the police aren't involved [editing by Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir]), the invincibility factor realistically deconstructed inasmuch as Wick almost bites it a number of times, saved here and there, by trustworthy old friends.

I think the cast and crew really took the making of this film seriously which could be why it stands out.

Casting by Jessica Kelly and Suzanne Smith.

Look for David Patrick Kelly.

Probably didn't have to be quite so violent.

Adieu au langage (Goodbye to Language)

Blessed burnished cinematic, obscurities, stylizing in/coherent poetic exemplars, compartments, of, of symbols fletched with ornamental reliance condoning visualized adherence to vague linguistic polarizers, of; of authoritative intrusions into burgeoning contentments inquisitively dictated like frozen morning dew; of frost and dusty book jackets intertextually precipitating sundry points of view, condensed and ephemeralized with aloof poignancy, crafted in jaded thematic miniature.

Concerned nonetheless.

With the capacity of purpose to historically deflect imaginative horrors subjugating the passions of one's youth.

With engendered protests libidinally interacting to stretch beyond predetermined boundaries and sustain notions of limitless conjugal impunity.

Of joy.

With animalistic contemplative assured responsive discipline, attempts to harangue, roll over, sit, fetch.

For cinema.

For history.

For classics.

If I were to canonize films many of Godard's would be considered.

I do prefer them when their narratives at least attempt to focus on a plot, however, more like narrative critical inquiry than philosophic filmic treatises.

Abstractly entertaining.

Santa Fe

I could not have been accused of staring
as she cleverly came bearing
down upon my innocence
with brazen mischievous intent

her looks implanted in the mirror
energetic crystal clear her
confident thoughtful syntax
steam whistling nerves cannot relax

these nascent symptomatic teasing
iridescent partial pleasing
rumoured underscored perchanced
reflections, nurtured in a glance.

Tech savvy.

Dracula Untold

Dracula revisited, often portrayed as a vicious bloodthirsty tyrant, recast as a loving devoted father, husband, and ruler, willing to risk everything to secure the social prosperity of his dominion, brought up as a warrior, who excelled beyond limitation, against his will, trial by fire, impeccable excretions, having returned home a free man, to govern his people with wise, trustworthy gentility, through the art of thinking critically, and the continuous deployment of tribute.

Yet battle once again demands his obedience, a battle that can't be won through earthly means, and a pact is made with transcendent deviance, limitless power, for an insatiable thirst for blood.

Thus the iconic villain is torn, invincible at war, romantically condemned by his true love.

It's a different take on Dracula, Gary Shore's Dracula Untold, the latest vampiric franchise to tenderly and ravenously strike.

It's alright.

Somewhat cutesy at times, which is odd for a mass produced vampire film, making derelict lesions and hallowed imperfections seem direly quaint by comparison; however, its protagonist is rational and his love undying, his fidelity to the centuries, like twilight's eternal fountain.

Missed Jarmusch's Adam a bit while viewing, but it's unfair to compare the two visions.

Glad Jarmusch made that film.

Jodorowsky and vampires?

It's not too late.

Note to terrorist lunatics, here's a much more effective way to approach things critically.

Kill the Messenger

An instance where the opening credits are more seductive than the film itself, Kill the Messenger struggles to live up to its illuminatingly opaque origins.

These credits suggest an intense clandestine submersion into a frantic treacherous linguistic labyrinth by shyly presenting the cast and crew as if they're integrated non-factors in the film's journalistic fabric, integral to its action, but secondary to its impact, thereby foreshadowing a hectic clueless ambiguous submission, like The Insider, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, or The Big Sleep, byzantine yet driven, augmenting competitive professional agencies.

The film's content contains such aspects.

Journalist Gary Webb's (Jeremy Renner) life becomes a paranoid misery after he writes a story about the Reagan Administration's possible flagrantly hypocritical role in its war on drugs, applauded and awarded at first before failing to gain traction due to its extremely controversial nature.

He's cast out.

The film's form doesn't match this content well, however, as it follows Webb's path too closely, making it too comfortable and accessible by streamlining its focus.

Had a number of scenes been introduced to take the emphasis away from Webb, in order to diversify its plot by complicating its narrative structure, thereby examining the film's politics, the film's deeper issues, more variably, Kill the Messenger would have been more captivating in my opinion.

Scenes on the ground examining the contemporary Nicaraguan situation, the results, perhaps.

There are some slight diversifications but they're too residual to effectively detach themselves from the storyline and create a compelling subconscious dialogue.

The subject matter they present is still important however.

Undeniably, Webb's life ended in tragedy after he pursued the truth with the highest possible goals.

This fact is emphasized in the film.

Which functions as both enlightened tragedy, and cautionary tale.

Wavelet

It grooves from nothing going on
to hardwired switchblade dead-end drawn
out sideways zagged splayed serpentine
equestrian ragged surfaced climbing

up towards respiring streets
condensed circuitous retreats
a pint, a loaf, a wheel, a glance,
encapsulated happenstance

perspiring produced sing-song packs
among alighting toyed hijacks flin
flon the minted green eyelashes,
zigging xylophonic stashes

mellowed out the thief's exchange,
the roundabout coerced disdainful
ruckus, hey, it was plus 23,
October's cranked preferred degrees.

Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann (The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared)

A pinnacled piña colada, perchanced and periodized, passively strolls through an entire century, piercingly riding its waves, aloe primavera, alert gestations, blindly yet acutely detonating his trade, Forrest Gump's Benjamin Button teething Archer, hypnotic happenstance, turn that screw, Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvann (The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared) flashes back to tumultuous times, with ironic blissful candour, serendipitized tailspins, explosively tiptoeing, from one cryptic epoch to the next.

After escaping from a retirement home to the fury of the underground's Never Again.

Friendships blossom.

A team is assembled.

A sentiment's thrust.

Through the coming of the ages.

Poetically refining what it means to blunder, the situations he finds himself within seem rigged with ideological dynamite.

Franco's saviour builds an atomic bomb to end the Second World War before sterilizing the Commies on his way to becoming a stayed bilateral messenger.

Destined for paradise.

This film has depth; it playfully reimagines twentieth-century carnage with the casual indifference of an essential tribal fluidity, unconscious forward motion, courting precise precious movements.

Impeccable comedy.

It's even family friendly, in the best possible way, like Amélie, with a loveable elephant.

Could have worked Ireland in somehow.

The Giver

Meticulously manicured impartial immersions, the plan, plans within plans within plans, permeating every existential aspect, monitoring, coordinating, harmonious atonal strategically serviced scripts, requirements, nothing out of the ordinary, pharmaceutical synchrony, burnished, witnessed, tanned, The Giver, kindred subjects of Landru, converses with The Third Man, sonic scientific sterility, empiric equilibrium, disciplined and unified, microscopically maintained.

Everything fits within a cohesive holistic whole.

But there's no longer any joy.

No exceptions to the rules.

History's legends have been assigned to one aged caretaker, who sacrifices his knowledge to uphold the new order.

But a protégé is chosen from the ranks of his culture's youth, to share in his burden, to preserve the memories of lost time.

Emotional bombardments proceed to alienate through shock as questions hitherto beyond reason maddeningly dare to forsake.

Exfoliate.

Threadbare.

A classic examination of totalitarian benevolence.

Maudlin yet sane.

Preferred The Third Man.

Picadillo

shift-slide twist and shuffle
the 6 am hustle
a beaming bright rustle
joyful industrial

shock to my fatigue's slumbering lens
the morning's alert striking powerful cleanse
worth ten times its weight in roasted Sumatran,
gentle green beans, generous fashions

able to lightly align the day
with breezy injections of modest fair play,
as dragonflies drift, dodge dare to question
what conjures such radiant awakened lessons

in whatevs what-wills and wherewithalled risen
conscious inquiring roundabout prisms,
to keep your eyes open's the meaning I'm sure,
and nourish a sun shining dazed jolicoeur.

Raj Mahal

Exotic fire-cracking vertiginous sail,
a bar set too high to surmount without fail,
a lifetime regarding inveterate flames,
trustworthy tethers, preponderous grains,

scattered encircled preserved parched and settled,
conscious their words nurture versatile revels,
tilled with incomparably staunch tactile mirth,
colossal impartial tectonic smirks,

shyly observing the passage of time
while visitors challenge, converse clash and rhyme,
the seasons extend peripheral sanctions
to which they portend impertinent patient

means through which they withstand their pleasures,
roll with the punches, principled leisure,
stalwartly centralized laissez-faire temples,
showcase their works, like cross-fired credentials.

Belle & Sebastian Mom

Come along now lil' junior,
for a night spent in rapture,
laze in the wondrous lyrical pasture,

soak-up the essential spry disregard,
be yourself completely,
curate the stars.

A Most Wanted Man

Characteristic candour gruffly composes a brilliantly crafted intricately strategized plan, its nascent dexterity depending on several delicately interconnected volatile fusions, frenetic feasibilities, orchestrated by a rough hands-on been-there-done-that fulcrum, A Most Wanted Man, time pressurizing each micromovement, immaculate manoeuvrability, necessarily set in motion.

Definitive coordinates.

Explosive potential.

Gut-wrenching grizzle.

Temporally repleted.

Günther Bachmann's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) team must expertly function, however, these spies are situated within a competitive international pride, lofty liaising lions, trust, an oppressive factor, guilt, too remote to consider.

Ripe with treachery.

And contention.

Easier to follow than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but not as astounding consequently, A Most Wanted Man provocatively sets the stage, then allows Philip Seymour Hoffman to prosper.

There aren't many diversified variables (surprises) after the operation's set in motion, it's very smooth, but Hoffman's performance supplies enough excruciating angst to augment the film's comfortability with bona fide substantial grit.

I've now seen Richard Burton, Gary Oldman, John Hurt, and Hoffman in film adaptations of John le Carré's novels, and would love to see another starring Daniel Day Lewis and Tom Hardy.

A Most Wanted Man's timing is perfect considering the continuing advances of ISIS.

The Skeleton Twins

Crippling depressions cope with mundane predictability as a brother and sister are reunited after an attempted suicide in Craig Johnson's The Skeleton Twins, mundane predicability in regards to the lives their leading, not in relation to the film, which is a sensitive reflective chill occasionally brash comment on the applicability of predetermined roles, the individuals who play them (wife, husband, actor, . . .), the results of their interactions, and the coming together of kindred spirits.

The sister, Maggie (Kristen Wiig), is married to a boring yet supportive excessively positive husband (Luke Wilson as Lance) who provides her with stability but strongly lacks an exhilarating thrill factor, which she finds with other men while taking different courses after work.

The brother, Milo (Bill Hader), has been struggling to find acting work in LA, and after drinking too much one night, decides to take his own life.

They meet up for the first time in 10 years shortly thereafter and Milo then decides to return to his hometown in upstate New York to live with Maggie while he recuperates.

They're both somewhat bipolar, and suicidal, so when they're getting along, we're treated to witty caustic unconcerned distracted deadpan takes on living, and when things break down, things often breaking down after something great happens, things turn ugly, vindictive and spiteful, each trying to play a parental role as the other screws up, historical controversies complicating things further.

Neither has had much guidance that has helped over the years, and both crave regular adventurous stimuli to transcend routine frustrations.

It's well-acted, well-written, and the best comedic drama I've seen since Stand Up Guys.

I don't think I've ever seen two former Saturday Night Live actors perform so well in a film this low key and striking.

They convincingly struggle with issues of life and death in a relatable way complete with thoughtful advice which isn't over the top or endearingly ridiculous.

Wilson's great too.

Casting by Avy Kaufman.

Frangelico

Elfin guardian of the night,
her staff a missive stroll's requite,
attired like stringent pastel truths
each step invoking ancient proof

of prescient awkward independence
confidence amends its sentient
honours guilded step by step
heraldic passion's palimpsests

discovered where the water flows
in luscious neon calicos
enchanted by this lunar dream,
a living breathing sight unseen.

Fire in the Blood

It's hard to believe that medicine is available to alleviate the suffering of millions of impoverished global citizens, and, that due to associated 'prohibitive' costs, they're left to die because they can't afford treatment.

According to Dylan Mohan Gray's Fire in the Blood, pharmaceutical companies are the most profitable in the world, but their obsession with increasing their profits primarily and treating the sick as an afterthought is disturbing; always thought curing illness was the primary function of discovering cures for illness, mistaken was I, holding on to a drug's patent so that you can monopolize its sale to people who have no alternative and then jack-up the price is the primary function, recently formalized by the WTO's adoption of TRIPS.

It's revolting.

The film is about the struggle of many African countries to receive access to antivirals which combat but don't cure AIDS, allowing people who contracted it to live a relatively normal life.

A brilliant doctor from India,Yusuf Hamied, created a generic alternative, produced and sold it for a fraction of his American competitor's price, but the sale of his drug was initially not permitted in many countries due to their governments acquiescence to the demands of patent holding pharmaceutical giants, whose stranglehold on the free market was more voraciously tightened by TRIPS.

Apparently these companies don't even spend much on research and development, the majority of R & D for new drugs being funded by the public sector. Why governments don't patent the drugs discovered through such research and then sell them at affordable prices is bizarre, such sales prolonging the lives of their tax payers, thereby increasing tax revenues.

In my opinion, religious organizations should be passionately defending the rights of poor people to have access to affordable medicine.

Isn't this issue profoundly more important than whether or not gay people can get married?

They're gay. They love each other. They want to get married. Who cares? Love knows no difference.

Fire in the Blood mentions how the costs of potentially life saving drugs are becoming prohibitive for many Americans as well.

Prices keep going up, wages keep staying the same.

Another serious problem.

The Drop

Patience, understanding, questions, commitment, caring modest consistency, observant faithful hesitancy, towing the line, doing the right thing, balance and order, let's see what happens, Michaël R. Roskam's The Drop follows humble Bob (Tom Hardy) as he works, interacts, and serves, loyally playing by the rules, cautiously keeping to himself, never directly causing a stir or ruffling any feathers, maintaining a sense of fair play, strictly aware, of his strengths and limitations.

Hardy puts in a strong performance. Bob's character is quite different from those he dynamically brought to life in Inception and Star Trek: Nemesis. Bob doesn't show much emotion, but Hardy adeptly uses this hindrance to his advantage, notably as he gets to know potential love interest Nadia (Noomi Rapace), carefully and artfully redefining stoicism thereby, never falling out of character, reserved, peaceful, true.

Strong performances all around, causing me to wonder whether or not Roskam studied and/or worked with David O. Russell, who also excels at creating insightful entertaining high-quality sophisticatedly acted films for mass markets, thoughtfully enlightening nocturnally invested narratives, until I rediscovered that it was Roskam who directed Bullhead, after I wrote this, which can compete with Russell's best work, The Drop can as well but maybe not with American Hustle, although perhaps he still is in contact with Russell.

I thought it was odd when Cousin Marv (James Gandolfini) decides to collude with Eric Deeds (Matthias Schoenaerts) because Deeds is obviously nuts and therefore too indelicate for his scheme, but this fact does intensify Marv's desperation, highlighting that greed leading to desperation ferments bad judgement, subtly juxtaposed with Bob's decisions, both sets capable of distilling ruin.

Detective Torres (John Ortiz) rounds out the script, showing up whenever it started to occur to me that his plot thread wasn't receiving enough screen time, his comments adding a romantic quality to The Drop's final moments, his conversations, playfully examining the divide between law and order.

Solid film.

Breakfast Pizza

Was thinking the other day that breakfast pizza is a good idea.

You take some eggs, mix them in with tomato sauce, worcestershire sauce, and spinach, spread the mix all over some pizza dough, add bacon, sausage, ham and/or various veggies and cheeses, and then bake the result posthaste.

I'd grab a breakfast slice first thing in the morning.

Yes I would.

Dip it in maple syrup.

Get on it people at Pizza, get on it.

Zodiak

What's that you say,
caught my attention,
a supple confident extension,
it's strange in fact, that's all I heard,
stunned that cunning bollybird,
predicaments regale intense
competing twilights affluently
stationed, fastened to the shore,
awaiting singsong sonic scores.

Chirp chirp.

Mommy

Heartbreaking confused insurgent rage pervades Xavier Dolan's Mommy, violently exploding in fits of uncontrollable wrath, volatile and destructive, furiously limited by social, familial, educational, and economic restraints.

But these outbursts liaise with the tenderest consoling spirited charms of a thoughtful caring bold youth hoping to find a way to fit in, unable to play any role besides King.

It's a brilliant fusion, truly brilliant, the best Canadian film I've seen, on par with the best cinema the international community has to offer, Arcand, Maddin, Egoyan, and Cronenberg have a genuine inheritor in Dolan, who's cultivating new ground for Canadian film, and living up to his potential.

Undeniable oscar calibre.

I don't write this lightly.

The youth's struggles are situated within a socio(a)political legal frame successfully supported by a direct honest account of his actions, to provocatively generate cogent debate, regarding individual freedoms, or the curtailment of one's liberties.

Steve Després (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) is free.

Dolan beautifully captures his freedom again and again, twirling a shopping cart, smoking while preparing a meal, synthesizing the joyous and the manic, the sincere and the coerced, to present a less sadistic Clockwork Orange, set within impoverished circumstances, reason and madness aligned to contend.

He doesn't get the basics.

He cannot serve.

It's like he has the constitution of a viking warrior, devoted to his family, requiring constant battle, too undisciplined to acquire any plunder, too wild to learn how to begin.

Contemporary ancient emergence.

If only he played sports.

What a fearsome running back he could have been.

His mother's supportive struggles and practically ideal patience gradually break your heart, as incident after incident disintegrates her resolve, the scene where she dreams of his future, still producing genuine tears.

That scene's too well done, too well timed.

Too unfair.

Discourses of the beautiful, the psychological, the political, the mad, resplendently yet carnally united in a downtrodden brazen familial peace, an illustrious rampage, so delicate, so refined.

So crushing.

So free.

Controversial scenes.

Excellent soundtrack.

Still prefer Tarantino's soundtracks, but this is a good one.

The Congress

A thought provoking hypothesis concerning the future of acting descends into dystopian banality as Ari Folman's Congress transforms its initial personal conflict into a convoluted cultural malaise, the leap from the subjective to the universal itself profound, its execution entangled in histrionic thickets.

Computer generated cults and combines engulf the narrative's characterization in a co-opted corporate/revolutionary temporally and physically unbound constraint, which dialectically plays with animation and the corporeal to enticingly comment on a general contemporary lack of concern with poverty and alienation, the individual escapes or s/he suffers, and/or escapes and suffers, with no plan in place to improve downtrodden standards of living.

The relationship between selling your character to a studio through the process of having it duplicated by a complex array of computational codes thereafter used in whatever film the studio sees fit, regardless of whether or not you approve of the role, seems to have been commercialized en masse, individuals escaping to an animated realm to avoid finding solutions to real problems, this realm, probably representing current obsessions with the internet, which can be a remarkable tool for activism and engagement, enables individuals to become their own ideal self on the upload, leaving everything behind in the construct.

Or not. I don't know. This film's a mess. I felt like I had the flu watching its second act. I like complex takes on the byzantine nature of sociopolitical dynamics, but the acts don't communicate well with one another, there's no chrysalis, they just happen.

Without this communication, the film needs to stand tall on its own thereby encouraging you to see it again, like Mulholland Dr. or Lost Highway, and The Congress, with its misplaced animation, becomes too melodramatic and opaque, its structure obfuscating its outputs.

As an obscure piece of relevant cultural commentary it succeeds.

As an enduring film, I'm not so sure.

Metronome

Evanescent radiation
detected in minute displacements,
gazes resting passively
subjective sights expressing glee

fully entranced sought after jives
unknown reflex materialized
surreally active timid jests
perchanced distracted coy subtext

id relishing each act adorned
with accidental flippant forlorn
movements t'wards what lies ahead,
those fragile seconds, shyness sheds.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

Barren.

Gut-wrenched and jagged like bitter metallic grist.

Seductive intransitive loyal strands besmirched in brazen castor.

She's in control.

He can't be beaten.

Youth and femininity seeking independence, suffering as their gifts intend.

Manipulation.

Honesty.

Power crushing its seamless outfoxed score, insurgent violence, brutally resigned.

Limits unextinguished.

Doctored dilettante adoring.

Lessons in lesions.

Just another day.

Its consequences sear its combatants with infernal fetching flames, talk, cheap, destined knees.

Full-scrapped and infiltrating, the cold calumny collapsing, its monstrous festered grip, clenching clasped constabularies.

Reactivity.

Its suffocations.

Its distance.

(I wonder if Christopher Lloyd's [Kroenig] performance was a tribute to that of Harry Dean Stanton in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me).

Let's be Cops

Decision making is confidently yet wryly chastised throughout Let's be Cops, the story of two down-on-their-luck friends who have moved from Ohio to L.A. in search of alternative opportunities.

Chastised yet rewarded.

Alternative opportunities they have found but financial stability alludes them, and one, who is unemployed and regularly relives his youth by playing pick-up football with neighbourhood kids, remains confident it's within their reach, while the other has second thoughts about their future's sustainability.

After misunderstanding the dress code for a masquerade themed reunion, they find themselves walking-the-beat dressed-up as policepersons, and, after having been mistaken for actual policepersons, decide it's in their best interests to play along, taking on organized crime shortly thereafter.

It's kind of funny at times, I liked the characters, and it uses some solid tricks, like introducing a third, wacky member of the team when Ryan (Jake Johnson) and Justin's (Damon Wayans Jr.) chemistry wears off, but there are far too many gaping holes in its reality based plot which aren't backed up by sensationally outrageous outcomes, therefore ironically requiring the suspension of too much disbelief, the improvised situations the partners find themselves within entertaining enough, their logistics, even after they're discovered, built on far too shaky a foundation.

There's something to be said for layering ridiculous scenario after ridiculous scenario on top of a bed of ludicrous jocularity, each hiccup emphasizing courage and adaptability, boldly venturing into the unknown to make a difference, responding positively to multiple bellicose bumps in the road, like launching a petition at change.org.

This strategy works better in a film less attached to quotidian coordinates however, even if said coordinates are somewhat endearing, like a comfy, fluffy, pile-driving pillow.

This strategy works quite well at change.org.

Torrential

To care for tenements in stride
cyclonic crests carefreely glide
their skill adventure's cultivation,
swirling heights, insatiation,

confiding steps and strategies
to move in time within unceasing
streams concocted by the strain
of discipline's resigned refrain

cast out their line's truthfully stake
their steeped extracted scintillates
upon the restless sensual surge
whose wild ecstatic tastes converge

to synthesize each performed lesson,
within communal incandescence,
elastic, paced, in constant motion,
reverberating zephyral notions.

In symphony.