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.