Stagecoach

A method of travel once widespread and common effectively navigating the wild frontier, transporting people 'cross rugged uninhabited tempestuous forbidden exhaustive terrain. 

The sturdy stagecoach led by agile beasts 🐎 resiliently determined to reach sundry locations, forthright and steady disalarming reliable stalwart steads industriously envisioned. 

Things were somewhat more divisive back then and uptight crusaders could run you out of town, in John Ford's Stagecoach indubitably indeed we find alternative dispositions hitching a ride.

The alcoholic doctor dipsomanically settles in serendipitously next to a whiskey salesperson, a notorious gambler respectful of gentility also joining the stealthy coach.

The journey will take them through hostile lands where the ancient citizens have not been consulted, the domain historically occupied by them their inherent disfavour no doubt justified.

The army will only follow the passengers for a relatively short distance before departing. 

The telegraph line has also been cut.

The resonant danger lurid and taunting.

I had the wrong idea about ye olde Stagecoach I thought it had more of a stiff upper lip, but several of the characters elaborately entwined don't necessarily follow paths straight and narrow.

I was surprised to see that the trusty John Wayne was playing an escaped convict in search of bloodshed, not a lawman or general or pilot just a lovestruck honest to God cool reckless kid.

Those in possession of non-traditional tendencies are given room to orthodoxly manoeuvre, the doctor abandoning liquor to deliver a baby, the lady of the night inspiring conjugal love.

The interrelations between the three cultures the Spanish and British and Native compatriots, are melodiously presented in ethereal song before troubling antipathies erupt once again.

I'd like to learn more about the 17th and 18th centuries and how often British peopled joined Native tribes.

I suspect it happened much more often than imagined.

Details perhaps found in the Library of Congress.

Until then compassionately note that Stagecoach is an entertaining reflection of the times.

Well beyond austere considerations. 

With a tenderhearted endearing finale.

The Holdovers

As Christmas approaches, a severe depressed teacher is suddenly stuck with a pressing burden, to monitor the activities and structure the days of a small group of children at a private school.

The children were left behind for unfortunate reasons their grief somewhat turgid, and to make things worse the ornery prof gives them lengthy flush days full of challenge and study.

Instinctive rebellion athletically simmers as the taut strict injustice wholeheartedly incapacitates, alcoholic coherence and ancient civilizations acerbically mustering seditious resolve. 

When the surprising introduction of chill unexpected adventurous pastimes makes itself freely known, and a former dismissive and angst-ridden parent turns a bucolic leaf and picks up his son. 

He also takes three of the other kids leaving only one student to be chastised and disciplined, the student desperately trying to contact his mom but she can't be reached at the resort where she's staying.

The resident cook still performs her duties as the Holiday Season ominously howls.

Helping the instructor try to loosen things up.

As the frustrated teenager dismally exfoliates. 

It's a traditional woeful bitter look at hard-boiled excessively critical regulations, as they gradually let go of their uptight ceremony and warmly embrace something much more public.

It reminded me of A Christmas Carol (1951) and how Scrooge had to once spend Christmas at a boarding school, until his adoring sister finally convinced their father to let him come home to celebrate together.

Imagine Scrooge the child, bright and decent, despondently stuck at school for Christmas, with Scrooge-the-elder, jaded and unfeeling, scheduling his activities throughout the day.

Scrooge vs. Scrooge the malignant metastases overtly arrayed through pomp and circumstance, slowly learning to get along as the stilted teacher incrementally lets go.

Perhaps if he'd been sent to the military academy he would have wound up more like Ebenezer, the Scrooge-like prof through an act of kindness embracing lithe spirits and altering his destiny.

Much more serious than many a light happy-go-lucky convalescent Christmas film.

That may find a lasting audience amongst the people who listen to the people whom no one ever bothers to care to listen to. 😎

Hud

Three generations of a ranching family actively live together in the American mid-west, father and son at ethical odds while the observant grandson comes of age.

Gramps (Melvyn Douglas) is an honourable man who takes responsibility for his actions. When it becomes apparent that his herd of cattle might have foot and mouth disease, he doesn't try to sell them for scandalous profits. 

His son Hud (Paul Newman) on the other hand only sees an enormous loss, and would have sold the cattle to his neighbours and spread the problem across the land.

He also cavorts around town with other men's wives out in the open, and routinely gets into fights and drinks too much and has a furious temper.

Thus, two visions of America irascibly compete home on the range, one steady and trusted and true the other only seeking crass self-fulfillment. 

They're consistently at venomous odds and don't freely beat around the bush, it's plenty awkward intergenerationally so, how do you progress in such heated circumstances?

The grandson (Brandon de Wilde) isn't sure what to do both the adults offering disputatious alternatives. 

The next generation of an adventurous country caught between competing undefined dreams. 

I reckon it's generally like this from one unique epoch to the original other, integral factors and intermediary zones cultivating community while self-obsessed visions tar with the same brush.

There isn't much ambiguity here it's clear to me Hud's quite the rapscallion, and there's nothing sublime or misunderstood about his way of life, he's just a first rate self-centred jerk.

There's something to be said for community building for playing a role big or small in such construction, perhaps not requiring mandatory parades or laudatory ubiquity, but still with a general sense of collective well-being (like you find in Québec).

There are thousands of chill roles to play and many aren't that bad if you show up and work, although things can be tricky from time to time, I try to keep quiet, unless my silence offends.

In one scene from Hud grandpappy relates how the munificent cow built so much of their culture, providing material for clothes and other things while also encouraging nourishment.

I immediately thought of the millions of bison who had historically resided on the plains. 

There was a built in network of ranching way back.

What a tragedy, how things unfolded.

*Not the Broncos win on Monday night versus Buffalo. That was amazing. 🏈

Tender Mercies

A famous country & western singer who's been idle for several years, finds himself broke in an unknown hotel one sobering scant perplexing morning (Robert Duvall as Mr. Sledge).

Fortunately goodwill blossoms and he's offered a job taking care of the property, food and lodging worked into his cheque, it's not the greatest but it seems trusted stable.

As things become familiar, the owner takes a shine to his polite down home reckoning, and he responds with amorous accommodation the two soon marrying each for the second time.

Mr. Sledge has trouble with alcohol and solemnly recognizes he needs to steer clear, but sometimes it isn't as easy as just watching TV off the beaten track night after routine night.

He may have given it up but he once travelled from town to town, and had a solid reputation for endearing songwriting which earned quite the living far and wide.

A young group of struggling musicians discover his whereabouts and come a' callin', he's certainly not interested at first but slowly relaxes and responds obligingly. 

Will he be able to reforge a bond with the estranged daughter he hasn't seen in years (Ellen Barkin as Sue Anne)?

While learning to write songs once again?

And settling in with his new family?

Mild-mannered tame observation calmly generating commitment age old, convalescence coordinating calibrations reanimated rutabaga rapture.

The perfect recipe to get-back-at-it no immediate pressure no media exposure, just tranquil peace at play within inquisitive familial fulcrums.

The glitz and glamour while lucrative and shocking perhaps abounding with eclectic reliability, may detach creative peeps at times, from the habitual contemplation that led to so many of their hits.

With so many different people creating in different ways it's by no means a rule, but I love how The Rolling Stones created their best stuff on the run from the law in the French countryside.

Cities are fun since there's so much variability dependably mutating and chaotically harmonizing.

But there's still novelty in the countryside deep down, if you sit back and listen to the offbeat proclamations.

Not the ones that cross the line but that hasn't happened much in my experience.

It's a unique world abounding with novelty.

What's available, not what you can't buy. 

The Power of the Dog

Inherited prestige respectfully maintained calm settled prudence rambunctious accord, the arduous management of a prosperous ranch producing tensions through divisional labour.

The less gifted compassionate brother humbly seeks the domestic life (Jesse Plemons as George Burbank), and finds himself smitten with a hardworking lass who successfully runs her own popular business (Kirsten Dunst as Rose Gordon).

The other bro is habitually suspicious of any glad-handing enamoured newcomer (Benedict Cumberbatch as Phil Burbank [outstanding performance]), and prefers rough and tumble emphatically coarse hands-on physical quotidian forays.

But marriage soon dawns and with it not only a new likely permanent intelligent influence, but also a shy otherworldly distraction who makes a poor fit with bellicose life.

The productive bower audaciously enlightening belligerent desires for risk and privation, must suddenly accept appeasing elements which may even at times utter contradiction.

But even more, there's a nerve-racking secret that could incite revolt upon their orderly lands.

Or lead to comic disorganization.

Or catastrophic open truths.

It's a haunting solemn new age Western thoughtfully investigating masculine culture, from complementary bucolic perspectives, that have severely re-emerged as of late.

A way of life whose requisite content has not doubt mutated hectically for millennia, still embodies formalities immemorial assertively nuanced in varying degrees.

George takes the logical approach wisely accepting the rigid code, while leaving room for something more that may also integrate feminine cultivation.

Strength is a relative term and has myriad applications beyond what you can lift.

Why embrace strenuous impediments?

When there are so many new developments to ease your burdens!

A way of life I suppose, it's tough to give things up, especially if they're psychologically associated with good times from your youth, and corresponding senses of invincibility. 

Trying new things can help establish new paths to explore and consider, however.

While at times old methods hold true.

Nothing like a bit of old school trial and error.

Blended with postmodern reliability. 

Key Largo

*Spoiler alert.

An idyllic break far off in southern Florida, with fish to catch and an ocean to sit by things seem like they couldn't be better.

The bar is stocked, his hosts eager to see him, for he brings sought after news (Humphrey Bogart as Frank McCloud), of a son and a husband's final days in combat, they can rest easy, peace reassured. 

The hotel they've owned for quite some time has several additional guests, however, who have paid handsomely to be left alone and are none too fond of visitors.

Initial contact is rather abrupt the antagonism slowly but surely increasing, it's readily apparent that something disquieting has callously called and rascally roosted.

They were just hoping to quietly reside while they made their lucrative deal, having left the bright lights behind and travelled there by boat.

A hurricane approaches and the law keeps stopping by, in search of two escaped convicts who may be innocent of any crime.

Those visiting, those renting, those fleeing, those having lived there for many a year (Lauren Bacall as Nora Temple and Lionel Barrymore as James Temple), find themselves at the mercy of concurrent clashes socioculturally and torrentially bound.

The menace invariably metastasizes as Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) malevolently emerges, with enough time to exchange bits and pieces of fascinating troubled grandiose discord.

McCloud courageously counters with peaceful dreams inspired by World War II victory, Rocco testing his mettle forthwith, there's little McCloud can do in the foreboding fray.

Key Largo may be somewhat too blunt for fans of The Maltese Falcon, as the bellicose lack of subterfuge leaves little room for mystery.

If searching for frank exclamations boldly jettisoned with antiquated daring, Largo may prove rather sporting, nevertheless, if not too headstrong or overpowering.

Still saturated with humble belief multilaterally composed, competing psychological imaginations excavated from the same cultural bedrock.

A chaotic lament for guiltless freedom still wildly critiquing ethics duty bound, as dreams of a world reborn come to terms with extant realities.

Indigenous characters suffer in the background for they can't enter during the storm, and two of them are shot having done no wrong having taken refuge in a reputed sanctuary.

Duty does win out in the end and bucolic romance is bravely restored.

Not without having been assailed.

Competing beliefs, convergent ideologies. 

Mank

Coincidentally, I had no idea this film (Mank) existed when I started writing about movies from a different age during the pandemic (different ages), that seemed to me much more daring and literary than 21st century outputs, as the idea applies to mass markets and their obsession with sequels, and not the less commercially oriented laissez-faire narrative scene.

It's difficult to situate Mank within a specific scene since it was released by Netflix (without being too obvious), whose matrices cover a wide divergent spectrum, and often impress when they aren't bewildering.

I would argue that the room for creative endeavour (and have previously) within Netflix (and other online streaming sources) is vast and modestly expanding, it's a different business model less dependent on advertising (as far as I know) and perhaps therefore retaining more vital independence (flush with cash).

I don't see many films like Mank or The Irishman or Marriage Story or Roma on Netflix (that's quite a few good ones come to think of it), but to have thought I would have seen such films on their site 10 years ago would have seemed utterly preposterous.

I shouldn't be too hard on contemporary cinema for lacking my oddball literary qualifications either, its current strengths are fantasy and adventure, not that it's impossible to blend the two (see William Gibson).

Besides I forget ye olde mutations as they apply to unexpected epochs, when suddenly there's a tangible utopian surge that hasn't been calculated through strategic planning (Aliens).

Who knows when it's bound to erupt but I think it's best not to search for it or attempt to cultivate it.

Just hopefully become viscerally aware when it happens (different styles, different tastes, relativity).

While keenly focusing on independent cinema.

Mank heads back to the '30s and '40s to recapture a waylaid aesthetic, eventually abandoned as tastes transformed and the unforeseen reimagined cinematic life.

It follows prominent screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) as he writes Citizen Kane in alcoholic dismay, and reflects upon the just calamitous social confrontations that motivated bygone days.

A series of flashbacks leading to conflicts with a daring ambitious headstrong Orson Welles (Tom Burke), loves lost and uncompromised confidence spearheading bold mischievous caricatures.

Just think something up and pitch it if you have to come up with something.

In flux to subtly entertain.

People who are tired of boredom.

*Just to be clear, I find strategically planning in the arts to be somewhat dull, or to lack the excitement oft generated by spontaneous endeavours. Not that planning something isn't important, it's just that if the plan is too strict, it may miss out on many thrilling accidental opportunities. I suppose not planning something leads to mistakes, but playful mistakes are so much more fun than preplanned pretensions.

**I do think strategic planning is very important when combatting a pandemic. I'm glad I don't have to make such decisions. Hospitals are being overrun and frontline workers must be extremely stressed. I've never seen a more serious no-win situation. Eventually, a vaccine will be available. Patience and prudence.

Written on the Wind

Two friends having grown up together remain collegially close as mature callings beckon.

Romance passionately translates reflections from one to the other, but Kyle (Robert Stack) seeks the damsel more readily, outmaneuvering alternative constructs.

His outlandish sister (Dorothy Malone as Marylee) has been in love with Mitch (Rock Hudson) for as long as she can remember, but he only sees her as family, which encourages rebellion.

They're some of the wealthiest peeps in Texas yet aren't detached or country club, preferring less ornate otherworldly enrichments to pretentious self-aggrandizement.

But young, Kyle seeks to raise young and encounters structural impediments, which leads to an excess o' corn, and generally swished saturation.

Mitch still loves Kyle's formerly blushing bride (Lauren Bacall as Lucy) but would never betray his friend, and even though she's somewhat flattered, she'll stay true to the bitter end.

The assiduous patriarch is none too impressed with the lackadaisical proclivities of his offspring, but he's too busy to run their lives, and they're far too independent.

Principled woe and abandoned happiness stoically blend within, to remain forever youthful, punishment Written on the Wind.

The first twenty minutes or so, the inspired improvised courtship, pull you in with literary enchantments, strictly spellbound as they subside, the austere tooth & nail.

Douglas Sirk holds things together enabling tragic tight-laced wonder, misfortune lamenting dreams, distressed dissolved exaggeration.

A solemn reverence for loyalty doesn't lack charming consistency, desire manifest and consequent yet forbidden barred ill-favoured.

The townsfolk hesitantly assert themselves to add poignant sociocultural depth, as demographics merge collide to interrogate what's left.

Acrimonious acclimations.

Antique shivers cloaked.

To have everything but what you want when it isn't even out of the question.

Friendly fusions immoderate misgivings distant lands picturesque pastures, if more had to be done perhaps everything would have seemed less demanding, like a light bit of sweet shushing distraction, honeysuckled spruce butterscotch haunts.  

A shake.

Camping.

Ye olde Yahtzee or Trivial Pursuit. 

Unconcerned with discourse immutable. 

Take it easy. 

Just the way things go.

The Verdict

A troubled lawyer stricken and saturated is handed a routine straightforward gift, just show up and take the money ($70,000) and the controversial case is closed.

That's a lot of dough for maybe 20 hours spent meeting clients and doing a bit of research, show up, converse, agree, sign, and it's 6 more months living free and easy.

But there was a time when justice and reason inspirationally dawned and motivated, their ethical objective illuminations stoically crafting truthful light.

He doesn't plea he takes the case re-emerging from heartfelt pitfalls, an old colleague from back in the day providing ample inclusive support.

But the judge is resignedly stubborn and ornately impressed by antecedent repute, prone to belittling and austere exaltations of the concrete master narrative.

The opposition is equally dismissive of his regenerative resolve, and has lofty resources and a dedicated team at its institutional disposal. 

A star witness suddenly disappears, leaving him without that much of a case.

But he digs deep and perseveres as jurisprudence comes 'a calling.

It's classic David & Goliath emitting resonant influential social justice, the honest driven innate perspicacity as level-headed as it is hardworking.

Truth indeed equanimically supports him as he clashes with litigious artifice, protocol and proper procedure favouring blunt ostentatious deception.

Theoretically the law persists beyond specific ideological constructs, each case consisting of unique arguments to be meritoriously considered.

Objective discerning judgment may lack attuned collegiality, but inasmuch as it upholds the truth it represents an unbiased ideal.

It's an ideal which cultivates fair play and resounding equality before the law, and is therefore fundamental to democracy insofar as it's apolitical.

The independence of a country's judiciary is constitutionally vital, and keeps impulse and ploys and caprice from wildly reckoning with fads unprecedented.

The Verdict seeks mercy and clemency far beyond authoritarian influence.

Legal objectivity favours both sides.

Through tried and true uncontested resiliency. 

Under the Volcano

Lost in lounging Kazonned bitterness maladroitly grossly soaked through.

Cajoled intransigent declamatory renown, submerged and settled ripe repository.

Embellished cranky lewd itinerant coy romantic tidal yearning, grim gargantuan grouchy gurgle disembodied unconcern.

Rugged rapids constant thirst evasive rapt recourse insatiable, lucid rash unshorn ebullient wayward raucous exhibition.

Clad austere informative upbeat plaid imposed distraught decorum, quartered diplomatic engagements prim and proper pristine palate.

Abandoned perhaps misplaced paradigmatic imperilled logistics, rhapsodic infidelity satchels sordid crazed acknowledgement. 

Portly purpose in/animate poise discordant rest imbibed resuscitation, fate forlorn contaminant drawn spruced emboldened consummate elixir.

What a performance a ride a calling a cataclysmic egad catastrophe, tragic melancholic brinkspersonship, some of the best acting I've ever seen (Albert Finney as Geoffrey Firmin).

The question of sobriety remains unanswered cloaked in marigold misapprehension, like lathered erudite haze sorely spread in enigmatic disjunction.

Woeful discourse, sincere regret, sheer limitless august mourning, blended with reprieve albeit slightly as his cherished wife (Jacqueline Bisset as Yvonne Firmin) returns.

Yvonne once proceeded freely and then caught his wandering eye, the noble falling for the ingenue who knew nothing of his cozy cluster.

Which was forgotten some time ago in periodic stifled remonstrance, and replaced with unchecked revelling sold surpassing primordial bounds. 

Moments of rich endearing tenderness and bold adventurous distraction attempt to alter his rash behaviour with delicate daring calm.

But he can't forget the affair and proceeds with reckless frank credulity.

Like a comet that's lost its light.

Constellated swath exasper.   

Postcards from the Edge

Constant motion, exceptional circumstances, wild indulgence, disorienting repercussions.

A blossoming actress well-versed in cinematic intrigue takes things multiple steps too far, and is sentenced to move back home.

She can therefore continue working after her overdose, even if incumbent oversight bewilders her resolve.

Things remain relatively calm, in Ms. Vale's (Meryl Streep) case anyways, but jealousy and deception neither flounder nor subside, as her mom (Shirley MacLaine) and newfound beau Jack Faulkner (Dennis Quaid) contend and philander respectively.

Explanations or reasons why disputatiously illuminate, as the struggling actress carries on.

Her strength is most impressive.

Her talent, undeniable.

Postcards from the Edge honestly presents a cerebral state of affairs.

Even though the situation's quite serious, lighthearted charm reveals resilient subtle character.

Blending in both sympathy and censure.

It resists impulses to sound too preachy and consequently doesn't infantalize.

It doesn't let anyone off the hook, but doesn't overflow with guilt or blame either.

I didn't know Carrie Fisher was such a good writer.

Postcards excels at offering versatile soul searching conversations between parent and young, examining the thought provoking envy that aggrandized their lives in show business.

But it's not simply envy, the envy's mixed with support and compassion, these beacons emitting clever conversational poise that tries not to offend as it resists temptation.

If it's blunt, it isn't overstated.

The conversations become more and more genuine as the film progresses, and director Mike Nichols gives them plenty of time to bloom as they patiently generate their own lifeforce.

Vale and Faulkner have some good arguments as well.

Some people who overdose don't get to return to work so shortly thereafter, so Postcards is a bit hands-on fairy tale.

But if forgiveness and mercy are to constructively abound, who's to critique such remarkable developments?

Cool film.

Wasn't on me radar way back when.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan

A child reaches out to his favourite television star, and as fate would have it, he amicably responds.

Years later, transformed into an assertive young man, the fan discusses their correspondence with a none-too-keen reporter.

For something as innocent as a literary exchange, frail controversy abounds, the boy's life at school assailed, the star denying any involvement.

He was transitioning at the time to augmented cultured renown, replete with haywire strained theatrics, and their accompanying dis/enchantments.

As isolated feelings shocked and enervated, he became increasingly fraught and torn.

Both troubled penpals engage in heated exchanges with their mothers, youthful angst exploding, less dramatic knots unnerving.

Neither quite at home yet settled.

Pronounced and blunt misgivings.

The Death and Life of John F. Donovan tills new mainstream ground, its innovative form both strength and weakness, as thought duels with emotive viscerals.

Impassioned feeling erupts at times, defined by aggrieved adolescence, and it makes an impact inasmuch as it startles, and critiques with unhinged fury.

These scenes aptly reflect wild destructive rage, and they make dismal embittered sense, and they're rarely encountered with such derisive vehemence, like sure sighted succinct storms.

When I think about the scenes, their style indeed seems quite well-chosen, especially if you've ever lost or seen someone lose your/their temper, and let loose vitriolic condemnation.

But they're a classic example of honest hands-on realism clashing with deceptive fantasy, insofar as the raw echoing sincerity doesn't fit the upscale production.

I can't criticize them for being histrionic because the situations they dispute are akin to exaggeration, but it's still discomforting to watch as they shriek and tantrum, and the poor mother looks on despondent.

Dolan's arguably a master of such scenes and it's nice to see they weren't held back, to see him workin' his style pseudo-studio, and I'm wondering if a rushed schedule left him directing in haste, because his more independent features capture such frenzies with ironic delicacy, and leave you overwhelmed with comatose disbelief.

A learning experience.

A stepping stone.

Who knows what happened here?

It's a cool enough story that's super melodramatic.

But the abrupt pace lacks the composure of his earlier work.

So it depends on how you like your melodrama.

I like refined melodramatic ridiculousness.

Missed the boat on John F. Donovan I'm afraid.

Rocketman

Abounding with characteristic irresistible melody, Rocketman presents the early life of Elton John (Taron Egerton/Matthew Illesley/Kit Connor).

By no means like warm fuzzy lighthearted hot cocoa, it hits hard at John's blunt childhood trauma, while illustrating how it affected his sudden rise to fame, and led to years of conflicted unrestrained hitched soul searching.

But it's not all that depressing, that's just the frame his actions are depicted within, and at times it overflows with chill wonder, rich with doubts and expedient sublimation.

He was younger once, not so long ago, and although the details of his youth aren't elaborately nuanced, we learn that his father (Steven Mackintosh as Stanley) never loved him, his mother (Bryce Dallas Howard as Sheila) could be mean, and his grandmother (Gemma Jones as Ivy) recognized his talent, which began to flourish at a young age.

He could play anything he heard and write soulful original music, the former winning him a scholarship at Britain's Royal Academy of Music, after which he found himself leading memorable bands.

Rocketman features his lifelong working relationship with gifted lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), and how the two have productively worked together for a mind-boggling 5 decades strong.

With Taupin's lyrics John wrote so many enduring classics, many of which are still played regularly today, and shot them into the stratosphere in the early '70s, from which they've never really descended.

But the excessive wealth and wild lifestyle took its toll, especially considering that he fell in love with his hard-edged manager (Richard Madden as John Reid), who was strictly a man of business.

Rocketman's recalled through a series of defining moments John shares with a self-help group after seeking aid to attain sobriety.

According to the film, he was never really that rowdy, that vain, that hostile.

That much of a prick.

On the contrary, he was a humble brilliant laidback musician who wanted to showcase his talent but didn't do anything excessive to gain recognition, like a really fun cool guy whose ambition was acknowledged without spectacle.

After he became a star his outfits were flamboyant but that was and possibly still is part of the show, part of the thrill of seeing him perform.

Costume design by Julian Day.

The film's musical biography so it isn't overflowing with details from John's life, but the music's enticing and creatively interwoven to sympathize, emphasize, ritualize, and contextualize, reimagining so many great songs, with a damn fine new version of Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting.

It doesn't shy away from presenting hardships but in so doing adds depth to John's character, the chosen details resonating with significance, his style still diversifying to this day.

An incredible artist.

And a cool guy too.

Taron Egerton puts in a great performance.

Gentle intense life.

Destroyer

Overwhelmingly consumed by guilt and vengeance, a forlorn detective wearily trudges on.

Notoriously dishevelled, she struggles to deal while attempting to advise her restless daughter.

Having once infiltrated a heist prone entity, she lost everything after she failed to act.

And the individual who's haunted her for 16 years has finally resurfaced, within her reckless domain, his sights set on lucrative crime, boldly flaunting arrogant tension.

She continues to break the rules she's never followed to desperately gain an edge, and accidentally finds herself mired in steep misfortune.

Spiralling swiftly down.

Wildly reckoning sincere uncertainty.

Destroyer flexes gritty wayward concrete confrontation to adjudicate chaotic perception.

From flesh wound to break to hemorrhage to paralysis, it scoops up the lugubrity in piles of distraught doom.

Aptly succeeding at presenting direst woe, it's a little too blunt for my tastes, the intervening scenes lacking the visceral nuances that hold films like To Live and Die in L.A. or French Connection together, shocking violence erupting like periodic head shots every 8 minutes or so, or body checks in a hockey game, except that after each check the play stops and doesn't resume again, and then it suddenly starts back up and there's another check shortly thereafter before it stops again, this pattern repeating until the film's solid ending.

It's obvious that the filmmakers are capable of crafting something more subtle and nuanced and steady and memorable, something less discontinuous, or something that artistically cultivates discontinuity, but perhaps budget constraints got in the way or Destroyer's an initial offering from a fledgling craftperson, still learning to brew something less pulpy and generic.

It does function as an effective warning against both corruption and revenge however, Erin Bell's (Nicole Kidman) dismal distillation a potent reminder to let things go, no matter your gender, to move forward at some point after a period of grieving, and apply yourself with resurgent vigour to whatever tasks eventually present themselves.

Books and films and paintings and television provide limitless options to promote either contemporary or retro lifestyles.

As do sports and the daily news.

Even if even The Guardian is remarkably grim these days.

That used to be the advantage it held over The New York Times for me.  It wasn't so grim. And didn't focus on the United States so much.

It's nice when you meet people who are also living in the present regardless.

A present that isn't consumed with grasses greener.

Where resilient people make the most of their present means.

And occasionally sit back chillin'.

When all their work is done.

Vox Lux

Brady Corbet's Vox Lux wildly envisions tumultuous reasonability clad in disputatious aggrieved apotheosis facilitating chaotic calm.

Beware what transpires within, for it's a most uninhibited tale, executively brandishing dysfunction, perilously prophesizing unimpaired.

Like all stories, it begins, a school in a small town no less, where a distraught child assaults his classmates and takes many innocent lives.

It's appalling that lawmakers aren't taking measures to prevent such atrocities, especially after so many brave American young adults have appealed for political conviction.

So many years after Bowling for Columbine, these shootings still take place with horrifying regularity.

Mass school shootings or mass shootings of any kind are so obviously not acceptable and arming teachers to stop them is sheer utter madness, total insanity, extreme irresponsibility, just nuts, such events don't simply happen, they're the product of blind mismanagement, and legal steps should have been taken to prevent them many many many years ago.

Celeste (Natalie Portman/Raffey Cassidy) survives the shooting at her school and writes a song to express her grief, a song which capture's a grieving nation's attention, superstardom awaiting thereafter.

But with superstardom comes unexpected pressure, Vox Lux necessitating improvisation as the unanticipated interrogatively fluxes.

How to diplomatically respond?

When even her most humble words provoke sensation?

It's unhinged and perplexing and preposterous and disorienting when you think about it afterwards, Vox Lux's argumentative acrobatics and substance abuse fuelled rhetoric leaving a byzantine trail of grandiose unorthodoxy in their wake, realities so disconnected and otherworldly it's like they orbit the heart of an imperial pulsar, which radiates untethered brilliance partout, and neglects consequence with refrained spry spectacle.

Yet it's so real, the film seems so plausible, so concrete, so distinct, passionately yet prohibitively brought to life by Natalie Portman and Jude Law (The Manager), like a down to earth fairy tale that's as ludicrous as it is homemade, like a supernatural cookie cutter incarnated in mortal shade.

Bafflingly improbable yet so irrefutably sincere, Vox Lux resonates with raw animation as if a misfit god has awoken from eternal slumber, and what a performance she gives in the end, this former child star who's been nurtured by shock and scandal.

Exhilaratingly conjuring.

In visceral artistic balm.

Approach Vox Lux with caution.

Outstanding alternative mind*&%^ cinema.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

A struggling writer (Melissa McCarthy) finds herself burdened with debt and stuck in the unmarketable fringe.

The rent's three months overdue, her cat's sick, her agent insults her, and she's just lost her job.

Somewhat of a recluse, a misfit, a misanthrope, a prickly pear, she sticks to her preferred hard liquor and settles down to stiffly agitate.

When suddenly an old acquaintance emerges (Richard E. Grant), a holds-nothing-back consume-whatever rough-and-tumble maelstrom, the two cultivating hospitable least resistance as they begin revelling in blunt parched mischief, a literary filmic modus operandi insouciantly scarifying thereafter, like a perky hangover maladroitly banished, or a banana split covered in red wine gravy.

Boldly.

She begins forging letters from deceased prominent authors and he helps her sell them after the FBI catches wind.

She likely would have written something noteworthy of her own beforehand had she just sat back and written something.

Setting her own limits then challenging them.

Like Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Read other books though, enjoy them, devour them, don't worry if people criticize you.

Proust even wrote, "mediocre people generally believe that to let oneself be guided by books one admires takes away some of one's independence of judgment, [whereas the best people] feel that their power to understand and feel is infinitely increased [by contact with greatness]"(from "On Reading" as quoted in Benjamin Taylor's Proust: The Search).

Proust has an ingenious quote for so many demotivating doubts artists face.

And the judgments they encounter.

Peppered throughout his writings like garlic infused bannock.

Impoverished enrichment.

Incandescent flow.

Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? comedically enriches sloth to parasitically bewilder recrudescence.

Its poetic good times inflate the freewheeling to emancipate hope and thwart desperation.

Melissa McCarthy finally has a companion piece for Bridesmaids and Richard E. Grant keeps things spry.

I disagree with Lee's methods but can't deny her talent, a lazy way to imaginatively conjure, which revitalized dull conversations nonetheless, even if their contents were strictly anathema.

Worth seeing.

A Star is Born

With a voice as multifaceted as Brooklyn or a night out on Duluth, effervescently reverberating with transformative emotional characterization, sweetly orchestrating discursive labyrinths, purpose delineating fluctuating climax, the in/conclusive communally narrativizing, the independent meteorologically summarizing, Lady Gaga (Ally) firmly embraces the silver screen, irrepressibly showcasing her vast talent, chanting out with distinct virtuosity, enlightened like a seaside glade, I've never listened to her before, what an exceptionally mesmerizing performer.

Starring in a film that struggles to match up.

Although it starts out well as an alcoholic superstar (Bradley Cooper) suddenly decides to check out the local nightlife after another successful performance.

To his immense good fortune, he's lucky enough to discover a local talent whose versatility is as profound as it is unknown (Gaga).

The film excels as the two meet and Ally is instantaneously recognized.

But as the praise keeps rolling in, and rolling in, and rolling in, its gritty edge is blandly dulled, and as Jack's addictions correspondingly get the better of him, the result is a depressing descent into cold reckless shadow.

A Star is Born is just too obvious, not in the good we know this is tacky and we're making fun of ourselves kind of way, but in the bad you're supposed to be taking this seriously kind of way.

And it's super long.

Often when I see something this bad I'll go see something else and write about it instead, to avoid hurting feelings, but I don't have time to do that this month, and therefore, must proceed.

But I won't say much more.

Immediacy can be a useful device but when things are this instantaneous everything just falls apart.

Rapidly.

In terms of making a film, not going with the flow when performing live.

Man.

My mind's too full of negativity.

I think the expression is, field day, or you could have a field day with this one.

Some great performances though.

And some funny family moments.

The first 40 minutes are really good.

Bummer.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

I suppose I write about pastis, or red wine, or craft beer, from time to time.

This may give the wrong impression.

Do I enjoy drinking the exceptional craft beer brewed in Québec and elsewhere?

Yes, many of them are quite good.

Red wine and pastis, also quite good.

But, after one too many parties 15-20 years ago, I found ways to generally limit my drinking that enabled me to actually enjoy what I drink, instead of just drinking whatever.

Moving to a city where English isn't the primary means of communication and having to find work helped, as does having to start work between 5 and 6:30am most of the time.

The most important rule: stay away from the hard stuff.

Just one if there's a brand you particularly like, and enjoy it slowly after a hard week of dedicated work.

Plus never drink if you're sad or you feel like you have to, and take your time while you have a drink, take it easy, orinoco flow.

If you feel like you really have to have a drink try drinking something non-alcoholic like soda or orange juice or something with pineapple. Drink 4 or 5 of them. Keep your thirst occupied.

It's way less expensive than alcohol.

And can be healthy in some instances.

There's also non-alcoholic beer.

But come on.

That's disgusting.

Gus Van Sant's Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot looks at several lives destroyed by alcoholism, focusing primarily on a quadriplegic cartoonist named John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix).

He hit the hard stuff full-speed-ahead one night and wound up immobilized for life.

He's super mischievous though, he doesn't let the misfortune get him too down, zipping through town on his motorized wheelchair like it's a Lamborghini, finding artistic ways to express himself and a corresponding job at a local paper.

It helps that he finds a cool partner (Rooney Mara as Annu), and an Alcoholics Anonymous group whose grizzly empathy helps him tone it down a notch or two.

Strange film

Tough fucker.

It defies expectations inasmuch as you'd expect it to depict John suffering intensely, despair pervading throughout in order to function as a solemn indictment.

It's still gloomy, Callahan's confined to a wheelchair and can hardly move, and he does break down at times, but Van Sant showcases his inspiring resilience as well, like an odd blend of the Le scaphandre et le papillon and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, with hints of Almodóvar.

Well-acted, directed, perhaps too light considering the gravity of the situation, but there are some heartfelt moments of acknowledged bitter regret too.

And teams.

Teamwork.

The cartoons are funny but remember making light of the intense suffering of others can have horrendous consequences if it's applied politically.

If you can't come up with something else that's funny, it's possible that, you suck.

Or are extremely lazy.

A glass of wine and then bed for me.

I swear cultural osmosis has taught me a French secret.

I also spend more freely than I used to.

And still like going out from time to time.

Juliet, Naked

A long-term relationship, once overflowing with amorous bounty, has fallen into a state of blind extraction, one partner remaining guiltless as the other pans and prospects, crass dismissive routine having disenchanted glib absorption.

Duncan Thomson (Chris O'Dowd) is quite successful for someone who's become even more enamoured with the music of his youth as he's aged, a rare highly-specialized peculiarity who's found both stimulating employment and an irresistible mate without having to adjust his lifestyle, at all, like an uncompromised established radical nerd god I suppose, who may have been diagnosed autistic if he hadn't learned to tame distracting obsessions, level-headed if not unique, examining non-Dickensian media pedagogically throughout the day.

Annie Platt (Rose Byrne) is also a success yet puts up with more bullshit than most women I know would for five minutes. She's spent too many years acquiescing and it's unfortunately resulted in stalemate.

When suddenly, as if a rival divinity decided to mystify his or her earthly spiritual contemporaries, she writes a critical review of the artist Duncan fetishizes, and shortly thereafter, that very same singer/songwriter, one Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), makes first intuitive contact.

Crowe's soon visiting town after attending an hospitable family reunion close by (he's from the States and Annie lives in Britain), and the two hit it off even though/because they're both rather charmingly unsure of themselves.

Multiple characters offering myriad commentaries accompany them as they exchange goods, stewing an atypical bourgeois pot roast of sorts which narratively generates free-flowing conceptual sustenance.

From Annie's worldly lesbian sister (Lily Brazier as Ros Platt) to her town's mayoral sensation (Phil Davis as Mayor Terry Barton) to the subject of an old school photograph (Ninette Finch) to Tucker's thoughtful son Jackson (Azhy Robertson), an active international urbanely pastoral assertive inoffensive multigenerational cluster thoughtfully protrudes, constant flux radiating concerted solitude, domestic clutches loosening vows seized.

Unmarried vows.

Whatever.

The main characters aren't one-dimensional pin-ups either, evolving crises and resurgent settlements interrogatively finagling initial semantic outlines, as a matter of psychological flexibility openly conciliated, in spite of pretence recalled.

Tucker Crowe isn't ideal or anything, but he's changed and is much more responsible than he used to be.

Breakdowns still regularly accompany his daily regimen, often brought on by legitimate grievances cunningly wielded by jaded yet prosperous former lovers.

Wives, partners, fans.

Children he's never met.

Duncan is a bit of a douche but you still feel for him when Crowe bluntly and insensitively ignores his questions, even if from Crowe's point of view he's that guy.

Juliet, Naked is a laidback multilayered serious comedic piece of exceptional screenwriting (Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins), convincing personalities innocently/frankly/charitably/maturely/helplessly/judiciously observing otherworldly circumstances, while remaining committed to personal affairs which romanticize anaesthetic sensation.

Dozens of cool little ideas and points of view expertly weaved into a funny unconcerned profound teacup tapestry.

It doesn't acknowledge how ridiculous it all sounds.

Adroitly so.

I'll keep coming back to the hospital scene again and again, which was much too short.

Perfectly timed ending though.

Indian Horse

The legacy of the residential school system which afflicted generations of First Nations children still reverberates today.

A problem with taking religion too seriously, as noted by many others I'm sure, with institutionalizing it and using it to guide governmental policy, is that the people operating within such a bureaucracy don't think they derive their power from fallible mortal men and women, they believe it comes from an all-knowing supreme being, and if they think that they are correctly acting in the interests of a supreme being, that somehow they logically figured out what that being actually wants them to do, it's a completely different kind of managerial ego, because everything they do is sanctioned by perfection, and if their interpretation of his or her omnipotent designs is legally and politically considered to be nothing less than perfect, they tend to believe their actions are irrefutably just.

No matter how cruel.

The residential school presented in Indian Horse doesn't even teach the students real world skills like mathematics or logic, rather it focuses on meticulously studying the bible as if its compelling stories will help them learn how to become accountants or lawyers or doctors.

Thus, as multiple other sources have noted, many students didn't have the skills to find any job whatsoever after graduating, and since many of them had been systematically abused throughout their formative years, many fell into a dire cycle of drug addiction and alcoholism on the streets.

And were plagued afterwards by uninformed cultural stereotypes which developed.

It's not something you just shake off and forget about.

Indian Horse examines a colonized people doing their best to play with a deck stacked against them.

Racism ubiquitously assaults them as they boldly compete, as they regularly face daunting challenges.

One student is gifted athletically and seems poised to make a name for himself in the NHL (Sladen Peltier, Forrest Goodluck, and Ajuawak Kapashesit as Saul).

But he faces internalized demons and mass cultural characterizations that turn the most thrilling time of his life into a harsh struggle.

He would have made a huge difference for any team that had signed him.

If the goal is to win hockey games, why does anything other than one's ability to help teams win matter?