Yojimbo

A small town in the Japanese countryside embraces bleak internal conflict, as a local chieftain compassionately decides to give his business to his only son.

Such a traditional act cumbersomely enrages his right-hand man, who spent his life helping him build up the business and in turn expected to take over one day.

Unable to reach an agreement they furiously square off with uncompromising angst, then slowly chip away at each other's forces while desperately seeking a lasting advantage. 

When a grouchy itinerant samurai suddenly shows up within their village, curious to see what's going on yet hesitant to actively engage.

He eventually tries to side with one family (out of boredom) but then overhears a secret plot to murder him, which doesn't drive him to the other side but leaves him suspicious and self-absorbed. 

After conducting more hands-on research he has to admit the town's a mess, and even if he likes to cause lay mischief he still remains a conscientious man. 

That conscious soon put to the test when he learns of a family turn asunder.

Deciding to champion their holistic freedom.

He helps them escape only to be captured. 

A bizarre sympathetic embattled examination of a cunning jaded world-weary warrior, Yojimbo showcases immutable strength awkwardly juxtaposed with belligerent caution.

It's fun to watch as the brilliant samurai cleverly predicts what's going to happen, going over the different scenarios in his head as he makes decisions he'd rather ignore. 

Imagine a time long before the advent of automatic weapons when there was still honour in fighting, and it was dangerous to challenge the most-skilled who had been well-trained in swords and strategy.

But what a useless life for many who were hired to amass a chaotic gang, and lived only to fight in battles they couldn't win when corrupt overlords acquired them.

Emancipating the feminine and taking their viewpoints into active counsel with honest intent, can lead to a world more dynamically structured with other alternatives than organized combat.

So much of the world seems to have done this although in so doing some were left behind.

Who recklessly seek the old bellicose ways.

As long as they never have to do any fighting.

The Peanut Butter Falcon

Crafty strategic planning critical timing pugnacious pudding.

An iron clad tenacious second round deftly wrought greased up leviathan.

Another proceeds in error, thieving what could have been his, rather irritated by austere repercussions, well aware that he's truly at fault.

He responds with fury, as if he were legion and not mortal man, this time raging beyond heartfelt mercy, courageous reckless madness.

He has a good heart, he's just slightly insane, or at least doesn't recognize law, or authority, of any kind, unless it's done right by him.

He then saves a stranger from drowning, and they head out on the resplendent run, applying homegrown irate grassroots logic, heartwarmingly bidden, they build quite a raft.

Another proceeds in hot pursuit, unaware she's given herself away, do-gooding yet friendly and sympathetic, disillusioned by rules, expediency.

Does the wrestling school they seek still exist?, and is the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church) still there to train them?

They're sought after with sadistic scorn.

Which doesn't mean they can't fall in love.

The Peanut Butter Falcon flips the bird to prudence and regulations, and celebrates primordial will.

Self-righteous magnetism, as adamant as it is impulsive, organically orchestrates as it blindly flexes.

Tenderness and warmth await as compassion and understanding embrace agile elasticity, improvised reason contemplating with raw passionate substance, like wayward soulful jazz, harnessing modernist themes.

Paramount absurdity realistically toned in stereo, jukebox genesis ebullient bayou, madcap maestros unbound and breathless.

Luminescent unrestrained unrestricted dis/orientation, plunging to suffer quixotically, soaked in ir/reverent s(pl)urge.

Reemerging in familial consensus.

Ready for the great wild unknown.

Glad this wasn't made by Scorsese.

Why should forethought have all the fun?

Okay, one character applies forethought. He thinks he's locked down for life, and is therefore reasonably frustrated because he hasn't done anything wrong. The institution where he lives should have taken him out from time to time. A road trip or a day at the beach. Not just two or three rooms forever. That doesn't make any sense.

There's a cool fun sort of vibe within that you don't often see work so successfully.

Like an old school Larry Cohen film.

I think they had fun while they made Peanut Butter Falcon but still took everything seriously.

The feisty spirit of independence.

I highly recommend it.

A Simple Favor

Goodwill and zealous care giving fashionably articulate elementary communal grammar, A Simple Favor's domestic athleticism convivially contending in audacious absence, a mystery hauntingly captivating studious literature under composite examination, latent auspices duely animated, ambiflextrously endeavoured embroiled.

Beyond implicity.

Suspects torn.

Prudent assumption underestimates meticulous resolve as clandestine excursions regenerate volumes.

A writer (Henry Golding as Sean Townsend) caught between opposing factions caresses seductive leaves.

Mercies meddling concoctions settling dreams incarnate dispute.

Someone is guilty of murder.

Others vent droll miscues.

A film cleverly mixing the brave and the rash while tempting exclaimed propriety, delicately nuancing characteristics blandly dismissed for upholding traditions, alternative fascinations as experimental as they are devout, imaginative tremors subtly bracing reasonability, untamed emergence grasping shocks with steady calm, conceptions oft overlooked or undervalued diversified, to vindicate bourgeois innocence, and celebrate tact defused.

A proactive film capable of appealing to a wide audience, it's also so much more, like a rarefied precious eccentricity concealed yet scintillating in traction, mischievously whispering je suis essentiel, before phasing out of time with reticent cheeky indifference.

If films were still rented in physical stores and viewed with less distraction it may have been a vital exception for film lovers still immersed in the mainstream.

Boredom and desire play definitive roles which pose disquieting ethical questions while sorting through phenomenal intrigue.

I love Theodore Shapiro's soundtracks and have for quite some time, but I wonder why the music not written by Shapiro for the film isn't also available on a downloadable disc in the Itunes store, as compelling as it is with so many bright compositions.

Sandra Kendrick (Stephanie Smothers) is perfectly cast for the role (casting by Allison Jones).

I've noticed her over the years but have never seen her in something where she's clearly stood out.

Historical form and content.

Blake Lively (Emily Nelson), also good.

Comedic observations are worked in well and I loved it every time Sona (Aparna Nancherla), Stacy (Kelly McCormack), and Darren (Andrew Rannells) popped up, especially at the end.

The Vlogging's cool too.

Although the film shouldn't be thought of as educational, Paul Feig still brilliantly demonstrates how young directors can authentically work within Hollywood and still earn a respectable buck or two, throughout.

Loved it.

Costume design by Renee Ehrlich Kalfus.

Game Night

The weekly game night.

An unsung celebration of the studious and the knowledgeable during which sundry eclectic caprices heroically achieve cultural redemption, every foolishly frowned upon trivial impulse suddenly validated as if their mass accumulation was as generally admired as owning a car or playing a sport, nachos and salsa haphazardly served up raw or baked while crucially captious considerations undauntedly contend within diminutively prescribed limits, immediate artistic delineations and divinations juxtaposed with lexicographical ease, Pennsylvania Avenue, the spur of the moment strategic themes of the adorably innovative inculpable thesauri, trivially lounging, cloaked fissures, fonts, forays.

An uptight observant redheaded enforcer banished from their midst.

Past infidelities accidentally exposed introducing argumentative contention.

Reversed roles confounding traditional mating rituals as a perceptive relativistic ingenue inquisitively examines her date for the evening.

A couple struggling to bear young finds romantic sustainability as one representative demonstrates unconditional love.

For her reliable steed's unconscious trauma is preventing his troops from conceptually mustering.

The source of said trauma having just reappeared.

To recommence belittling and outperforming.

After having superciliously commanded: a change of venue.

Game Night brings family and friends together to diabolically transform team-based knowledge quests into mortal streetwise altercations invading private spaces intent on supersonically hedging fraternal marigold combat.

Not necessarily like that, however it does have an edge, and its insightful journeyperson script does delicately tread tightropes uniting bourgeois romance with impoverished plutocratic proclivities, in a homely horrorshow, fearlessly exonerating conjugal endeavour.

Did anyone notice Kyle Chandler's (Brooks) solid Leonardo DiCaprio pastiche (Inception)?

Is Rachel McAdams (Annie) the new Meg Ryan?

Limbrous isn't a word.

So I'll stick with almost mind-blowing.

Peter Rabbit

A daring ingenious mischievous rabscallion meets his earnest stuffy fastidious match in Will Gluck's Peter Rabbit, as the new Mr. McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson) grumpily takes up residence in the country, and young Peter (James Corden) still covets his family's stock victuals.

Nepotism has brought about McGregor's downfall, for after a decade of meticulous loyal service at Harrod's toy store, his sought after promotion was given to another.

A layabout relative of the owners in fact.

Yet after suffering a frantic breakdown, communal sympathy for his fellow untitled Brits doesn't take root in his furious consciousness, and rather than sharing his overflowing bounty with Peter and his hungry friends and family, he does everything he can, to keep them locked out.

But Peter is clever.

An intuitive understanding of electricity helps him to paternalistically galvanize McGregor's temper, although the desired therapeutic benefits are overwhelmed by fits of rage.

Nevertheless, McGregor conceals his antipathy for Peter from love interest Bea (Rose Byrne), who cherishes every moment she spends with the bunnies, and paints them adoringly when unconcerned with abstraction.

She likes McGregor.

And Peter knows it.

So after their mutually destructive shenanigans, many of which are excessively violent for children (McGregor has to stab himself with an epipen at one point), explosively fell a tree, which comes crashing through Bea's studio, Peter must decide if his selfish jealousy is worth more than a friend's happiness, after McGregor gives up, and quietly heads back to London.

By coming to terms with his former adversary, Peter outshines the vast majority of his much older contemporaries, and McGregor learns to share his bourgeois abundance, and embrace serendipitous succulence.

Thus, Peter Rabbit sticks it to ultraconservative Brit oligarchs who would still rather see the brightest most advanced commoners flailing in obscurity, than have their years of devoted service justly rewarded.

I suppose it's less confusing than seeing Peter hook up with Bea, even if it metaphorically suggests the British still frown upon bohemian romantic couplings.

Audacious artistry?

There's still work to be done.

The number of jabs delivered at France's expense suggest some French rabbits might show up for the sequel.

Une portée de lapins français?

If there is a sequel.

Who let Peter's allergy tirade into the film?

Bit of a shocker.

In serious bad taste.

The Post

Legal complications threaten the existence of The Washington Post after they publish government documents concerning executive American lies relating to the war in Vietnam, and the ways in which the unsuspecting public was scandalously misled about its necessity, in Steven Spielberg's The Post, wherein which the truth is jurisprudently vindicated.

A bold conscientious writer risks everything to photocopy and transmit the documents to the press, hiding out in a nondescript hotel room as the information first hits The New York Times.

The Post, also in the business of selling newspapers, 😉, is caught off guard without a competitive headline, and immediately seeks the clandestine source while Nixon's administration litigiously responds.

But its owner has recently taken the initial steps of transforming her paper into a public company, and controversial eruptions misclassified as shady dealings could seriously jeopardize the prosperity of its future (Meryl Streep as Kay Graham).

Her longtime and trusted friend Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks) manages The Post's daily outputs, however, and is dead set against letting those who started a war, even though they knew it was outrageously unconscionable, unlike fighting back in World War II for instance, off the public hook.

Thus, you have ethics, the correct move in this situation obviously holding the government to account for its domestic and international abuses, versus economics, or the possibility that making the correct move could result in both jail time and the loss of an historic voice, an historic newspaper, omnipresent politics overshadowed by the courageous stand.

Debates abound as to what course should be taken, and multiple opposing viewpoints passionately have their say.

Mrs. Graham is haunted by her patriarchal conditioning and the misogynistic paternalism that has dominated most of her life.

But it's still her decision to make, the bold reckoning resting on her magnanimous shoulders, and wisdom is applied when she makes it, bold risk in the extreme, altruistically disseminated.

The Post's a good film, a dynamic multifaceted script introducing and diversifying sundry distinct personalities as they lucidly dispute big picture questions within scant pressurized time constraints, with the interests of encouraging a more peaceful world, the freedom of the press, and more mature public debate.

The debates are convincing, differences and alternatives characteristically narrativized, determined brash eloquent strengths qualified with reasonable compunction, professionalism, journalism, prison, and friendship, perforating the discussions with apt interrogative logic.

A bit cheesy at times, but I think that's just how Spielberg brilliantly crafts intense complex potentially boring films that can be thoroughly enjoyed by adolescents and adults alike.

With Bob Odenkirk (Ben Bagdikian) and David Cross (Howard Simons).

Reading the news online is convenient but definitely not the same as sitting back with a paper.

Sometimes with online news it's like you have to know what to search for, regardless of whether or not it exists.

With the physical paper you can move from page to page and find compelling articles you never knew you were searching for, as easily as if you're browsing at Indigo or the local independent bookstore.

Come to think of it. 

I wrote about fluently translating cool from one language to the next last month, after which I was fortunate enough to see Gad Elmaleh perform as part of Montréal's Just for Laughs festival.

His performance seemed effortless, I'm sure he won over part of the crowd, and a lot of his material seemed cool in English, and was applicable to different demographics, so I would go so far as to say it's possible that he can fluently translate cool from one language to the next, inherent linguistic performance anxieties notwithstanding.

There's only one problem.

He went on after Seinfeld.

I hadn't seen Seinfeld do anything since the show he created with Larry David ended in the '90s (apart from guest appearances on Curb Your Enthusiasm), and I was impressed to see that he's still incredibly funny and relevant.

He's a true Master, and it was super cool seeing him perform live.

Now, like The Kinks going on after The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones opening for The Blue Oyster Cult, as mentioned previously, Gad Elmaleh went on after Seinfeld, and even though he was funny at times, I'm afraid I can't accurately judge whether or not his performance was cool, because it just didn't come close to Seinfeld's.

I admire audacity however, and choosing to deliver his act after Seinfeld's was an audacious decision.

Nevertheless, I would have to see him live without Seinfeld to judge if he was fluently translating cool from language to another.

Perhaps in New York someday.

Or in feisty discerning downtown Denver.

Boost

Friendships fiercely fraternized, habitual restraint mingling with wanton risk to wildly impress and collegially incarcerate, an idea, contrasts, audacity, accolades, admonitions, contrition, relapses, there's an intelligent way to go about things in films, in films I've seen there's an intelligent way to commit crimes, exercising extreme stealth, keeping things on the down-low, but young Anthony MacDonald (Jahmil French), recently suspended from school, likes to brazenly advertise, his mild-mannered accomplice (Nabil Rajo as Hakeem Nour) unable to withstand his will, their successful colleagues having stayed in business by remaining mature and sober, as bold youthful extravagance clashes with reticent age.

Hakeem's obligations leave him isolated, exhausted.

Duties to family, co-workers, culture, and friends, excruciatingly conflict as they seek the knowledge he's acquired.

But the only way to placate them without self-destructing is to expressly keep things zipped, zigzagged.

With staggering composure.

And multilateral calm.

Repercussions abound in Darren Curtis's Boost after two adolescents screw things up for hardened car thieves.

A slight taste of the spectacle leaves them ostentatiously entwined.

Balancing the headstrong with the pensive, the excessive with the shaved, Boost interrogates responsibility while matriculating resolve.

Demonstrating a sound understanding of the youthful confines of age, it fairly investigates cultural mis/conceptions to dialectically dis/integrate cunning hardboiled c(l)ues.

If you move here I wouldn't worry so much about becoming a Canadian, about fitting in.

It's one of those things where the more you try to do it, the less integrated you become.

Unless you're filthy rich.

Before you've lived through a couple of Winters people tend to doubt you'll hang around.

And after you have they may still not be that curious.

But they like to see familiar faces.

Have brief chats once in a while.

Even pay attention sometimes.

Like moving to most countries I suppose.

With a bitterly cold Winter.

If you're active though, and join some organizations and contribute something, you'll meet people.

Just give it some time.

Be patient.

And don't stress about it.