Web Spring

As far as I know, spiders spend a lot of time building webs.

They're not that concerned with acoustics.

Birds irritated one spider intensely however because they could produce such beautiful songs, and as far as he knew spiders could not, at least not up until that present day. 

But they could make distinct webs consisting of varying degrees of strength, in sundry shapes and manifold sizes, they had an advantage from that point of view.

What to do with all that variety that was the frustrating engaging question, how to create mellifluous sound from the tactile strings composing their webs?

Then one day he was out and about testing web strength with an expert eye, when a sudden downpour caught him off guard and he slipped and fell onto a nearby leaf.

Yet as he slipped one of his legs dynamically plucked a heartfelt string.

And a wondrous sound was breathtakingly heard.

Soon to be accompanied in rhythmic jive. 

It's a bit absurd to think about a spider's web like a versatile guitar string, as if the metallic nature of the pluck could be fibrously reproduced in nature. 

Still, a compelling idea to think about spiders chill and jammin', throughout forests across the land at different speeds and variable tempos.

I liked how little Caleb taught the others how to play, and in their boredom they eventually created unique communal sounds ensemble.

Since different spiders have alternative sizes the resonant sounds of the sprightly webs, make for symphonic amplitudes after tuned to sonorous threads.

50 or 60 spiders playing their web guitars with eight arms apiece, would make for quite the orchestral gathering as it certainly does within the film.

I loved when the birds took part and graciously starting playing the compelling music.

Spider symphonies adaptively enchanting. 

Naturalists through song. 

*It's cool to watch spiders build webs.

**How did they evolve to do that?

Moonfall

While conducting routine work in space, a strange Venom-like entity belligerently cascades, proceeding to wreak extraterrestrial havoc, its malice resulting in one fatality. 

Back on Earth the lead astronaut's (Patrick Wilson as Brian Harper) pleas find no bureaucratic quarter, and with no proof the higher-ups conclude that he was responsible for the accident (classic Aliens).

He loses his astronaut status and must return to civilian life, his marriage soon falling apart, it's a huge downer, but he keeps things cool.

Meanwhile, a self-taught scientific theorist works odd jobs to pay the bills (John Bradley), while finding creative ways to observe data, and taking care of his cat and mom (Kathleen Fee). 

He accidentally meets Mr. Harper one morning and unfortunately fails to impress, but his work gains more attention when NASA acknowledges the moon's shift in orbit.

In possession of a working theory regarding the moon's new alarming trajectory, the disgraced astro hooks him up with NASA (they're like a less/more campy Flash Gordon and Hans Zarkov), his old partner now its managing director (Halle Berry), the moon about to disastrously crash land.

They improvise a plan nevertheless and are soon extemporaneously space bound.

Destined to adventurously uncover.

Humanity's chaotic origins.

Moonfall's quite the ride the action's fast-paced and non-stop throughout, improbability delineating progression as each new leap is overtly field-tested.

It reminded me of Independence Day almost 30 years later Roland Emmerich's still got it, no doubt crafted through intuitive expertise, and first hand knowledge of cataclysmic virtual reality. 

Spoiler alert: loved how it took on A.I with an ingenious reworking of the Terminator thesis, it does seem likely that self-aware computers will cause quite the disturbance in the nanofuture.

That disturbance may counterintuitively save the planet or at least humanity's role upon it, however, the survivors forced to relearn old school ways to make the most of a world without technology.

Scouts will once again be a big deal and take their place at the forefront of society, while animal populations rapidly expand and our once limitless oceans resplendently recover.

You wonder sometimes about Roswell and if all this technology is somehow related (as I imagine many others have supposed).

But why would aliens want us to create A.I if it's indeed destined to objectively destroy us?

It could be a trap ingeniously devised!

To get us to annihilate ourselves to save on the costs of an invading army. 

😜

The Net

At the dawn of the Cyber Epoch when the emboldened internet was beginning to prosper, a group of clever yet malevolent programmers sought to gain unprecedented 😏 limitless access.

Yet they didn't prognostically count upon a lone systems analyst in Venice, California, who one day stumbled across a cryptic disc unwittingly exposing their dishonest loci (Sandra Bullock as Mr. Bennett). 

She doesn't microanalyze it however before heading to Mexico on vacation, her first extended break in years, she still comes equipped with an ample workload.

Including the coveted disc the existence of which is known by the terrorists, who track her to that very same resort and arrive enamorously a' callin'.

After escaping her seducer's clutches (Jeremy Northam as Jack Devlin)f she unfortunately crashes her impromptu zodiac, and miraculously survives only to awake to find her identity has been stolen.

Not just her trusty ID everything she owns is in fact gone, she tries to verify her identity, but beyond cyberspace she hardly knows anyone.

Plus her mother is struggling with amnesia and barely recognizes her devout care (Diane Baker as Mrs. Bennett).

An ex can assist but their history's awkward (Dennis Miller as Dr. Champion).

It's psychotically defined worst case!

I suppose the odds of this happening are slim but just to be safe if you spend a lot of time online, make sure to still maintain a physical real-world appearance perhaps with neighbours or friends or family (awkward! [just kidding {sort of}]).

I know it's fun to escape on the net and pretend like you're in a sci-fi novel, but the real world also has compelling features like endemic wildlife, cheese and wine.

I wonder how the doomsday scenario presented in The Net plays out on a daily basis, or if the companies hired to provide internet security still have insane access to private information. 

When even the Supreme Court can't seem to keep a secret, you wonder if something's up.

But the checks and balances spiral out of control first someone designs the system and then you trust them to implement it. Then you hire someone else to try to break into it and trust what they're telling you is precise. To be safe, you hire another company to secretly monitor the first enterprise in question. But what if they all went to the same school? 

And devotedly love Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk?

Billions to keep things safe on top of what we already spend on hospitals and schools.

Law and order aficionados can be somewhat too serious. 

But you may want flag waving zealots for these specialized jobs.

And pay them well, they must get offered incredibly high sums to misinform. 

Cool film from back in the day.

Still remarkably relevant. 

*I'm not critiquing Edward Snowden. I think he should be pardoned. He risked everything for everyone. He couldn't be more North American.

John Wick: Chapter 4

The world constantly mutating as unforeseen predicaments arise and challenge, the longed for permanent uniform consistency only a computational strategic plan away.

The sure and steady undeniably preferable to intermittent chaos and flagrant eruption, if you value life and inherent stability replete with potential and equal opportunity.

Should the sure and steady contain a flexible matrix designed to multidimensionally incorporate, manifold intricate wide-ranging disciplines, civil society may indeed emerge.

Should there be stimulating opportunities to earn a disposable income and freely spend it, the intense longing for the unattainable will surely fade into jealous oblivion. 

It's difficult to say where things are headed with the rise of the autocrats and the pandemic having changed things, attempts to re-establish a steady routine fraught with haunting manufactured doubts.

Nevertheless, unhinged contemplation remains emancipated within film and books, the freeform embrace of uncanny narrative hopefully still resolute and daunting.

I suppose in my mind there's a distinction between artistic independence and the political, whereas a book that revels in unorthodox imagination doesn't risk economic turmoil.

When I champion alternatives and divergent ways and means of doing things, I'm generally referring to the artistic world where innate novelty exhilarates. 

With politics the provision of affordable food and steady employment seem of the utmost import, variety no doubt a driving force in the playful unpredictability of a diverse culture.

People at work and people at play the harmless facilitation of curious ways, when people routinely introduce chaos to the political scene because they find dynamic variety threatening, it's indeed most unfortunate, the results playing out in various stages.

It's like John Wick (Keanu Reeves) fights for respect the unwritten codes many people abide by, having been sincerely disrespected himself he introduces the chaotic element.

He just wanted to be left alone and enjoy his retirement in genuine peace.

But he possessed incomparable skill.

Worth too much to far too many.

A king without a kingdom a CEO with no business plan, just pure impeccable authentic resiliency flourishing within a democracy.

In a democracy you can disagree without being sent to prison or a re-education camp.

Respect dutifully leading to traditional argument.

Totally love this franchise.

Along with Clancy Brown cameos.

Jingle Jangle

A brilliant inventor modestly celebrates his most recent creation's genesis, a free-thinking figure that consciously reckons with independent advancing foresight. 

But as he sets off to rest, his apprentice walks in to tidy his animate workshop, and he encounters the enlivened toy who turns out to champion corrupt self-interest.

The toy passionately convinces him to dishonourably steal their benefactor's book of ideas, and create a toy shop of his own to slyly compete and wickedly conjure.

The inventor is thoroughly devastated upon discovering his sudden misfortune, and loses the ability to create, his mind stricken with disbelief.

His business slowly fades and his wife and daughter grow more estranged with each and every glum passing day, 30 years pass in fact in total depression borderline madness crippled ambition.

His former apprentice has gaudily emerged as their realm's dazzling preeminent toymaker, furtively driven by the conniving contraption who never relents lets go subsides.

But so much time has woefully passed that another generation has nimbly ballooned, and Jeronicus's (Forest Whitaker) granddaughter soon comes curiously and cleverly and ebullient and pensively calling (Madalen Mills as Journey). 

Has she arrived in time to help grandfather realize his last vital dream?, before the bank reluctantly forecloses, on Christmas day, the timeline's obscene.

Fortunately, she's incredibly gifted, and at a young age rivals gramp's brilliance, and is therefore able to adroitly assist even if her ideas are initially unwelcome.

The most important thing he's lost is the belief he once had in himself, which is why his latest idea won't jive, won't exceedingly generate awestruck wondrous je ne sais pas uncontrived.

It's more like a film that takes place at Christmas than a supple salute to the season, although traditional spiritual surges assuredly sanctify seasonal synergies.

I suppose it's a sign of the times, that an ingenious toy would be full of deception, as opposed to lighthearted wonder, it's certainly not Cabbage Patch or My Buddy. 

Too much of an emphasis on immoral resolve in recent years to be shocked by a malicious toy, it's like themes oft reserved for horror have been whitewashed to critique widespread greed.

The new toy in question resembles E.T so perhaps it represents a manifest willingness to move past blunt impulses, and return to the less self-obsessed guidance of the 1980s, Foucauldian investigation pending.

Does Jingle Jangle's playful synthesis of machine and spirit foreshadow upcoming advances in artificial intelligence?

The rise of robotic humanism?

Computationally coaxing.

Hopefully not, hopefully hearts and hearths continue to flourish organic. 

There's nothing quite like biodiversity.

Born of ancient mutation.

The Hummingbird Project

Cantankerous competition, bitterly motivating high-stakes vitriol, necessitating vast fluid resources whose liquidity lubricates mass, encouraging dynamic cerebral calculations the practicalities of which harness synergy, theoretical computations duelling in concrete enterprise, boldly navigating luscious landscapes in hard-driven entrepreneurial schism, ingenious thought desperately relied upon as if novelty could be canonically conjured, and instantaneously set in motion, to quickly generate multi-millions.

The improbabilities surrounding Vincent (Jesse Eisenberg) and Anton's (Alexander Skarsgård) attempts to drill a thousand-mile tunnel between the New York Stock Exchange and Kansas, within which they plan to lay fibre-optic cable that will outperform their former employer's minions, are astounding and truly incredible, especially considering Anton has yet to figure out how to save the plutocratic millisecond, and mountains, malcontents, miscues, and maladies lie mischievously waiting, before they ecstatically break ground.

The confidence required to move forward with such a plan is mind-boggling to say the least, yet Vincent's undaunted and inspiring enthusiasm still persuades financial managers to invest.

Mark Vega (Michael Mando) and many others sign on to build the tunnel, their subterranean expertise as lively as their adventurous spirits.

But Eva Torres (Salma Hayek) unleashes pure fury after Anton quits, and boldly sets about to ignominiously destroy him.

With vast resources at her enraged disposal, and an alternative theory which Anton disputed, she sets out with devoted crews, to disenchant his blind flexible resolution.

It's as if Kim Nguyen's Hummingbird Project takes ludicrous Marvel heroics, rationally exclaimed in their own fantastic realm, and practically applies them to the world at large, a more fragile world wherein which failure is a possibility, superpowers are strictly relative, you do have to consult people, and the opposition isn't quite so evil.

Most of the time.

In fact, Anton and Vincent were doing rather well when they worked for Torres, not millionaire well, but well enough, regardless.

Nevertheless, Vincent emphatically believes in his enviable idea as if he possesses bold superpowers, and willfully embraces godlike responsibility with the daring conceit of courageous miracle.

It's a solid film, complete with the coolest chase scene I've seen in a while, and it wouldn't have been nearly as chill if Vincent had been questioned more critically in the beginning, if doubts had disabled his radical undertaking.

Legalistic and tunnelling superheroics combatively abound within, with no sincere guarantees, no legends, no magic, no assurance.

Cultivating the great beyond.

Great cast.

Realistic enough.

A Wrinkle in Time

A brilliant mind obsessed with unlocking physical secrets of the universe suddenly completes his work.

And vanishes into the unknown.

His family is overcome with grief and 4 years later daughter Meg (Storm Reid) remains maladjusted.

Falling grades and fights at school are causes of concern for mom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), even if Meg was standing up to bullies, even if depression prevents her from concentrating.

Her toughness earns her the respect of classmate Calvin (Levi Miller), however, before three mysterious women show up, who claim to know the whereabouts of her dad (Chris Pine).

Rational disbelief proliferates as impossibility is slowly deconstructed while the plausible conversely engenders hope anew.

Yet Meg must truly believe if she is to both battle The It with the fortitude required to earn her father's freedom, and daringly become the warrior Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey) knows she can be.

Perhaps saving little genius brother Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) thereby, while achieving beyond the limits within which she's terrestrially confined.

The It remains ill-defined but one of the scenes which takes place within its domain depicts unconcerned families enjoying delicious treats seaside stretched-out on the beach.

Meg can tell it's a trick for when she tries the food it indeed tastes like sand.

Perhaps then The IT governs the realm of illusion wherein which the wonderful is in fact nothing more than specks of dust, wherein which insubstantial reversals transform independence into servitude and integrity into humiliation, one ruler commanding all who share in its false pretensions.

Meg sees through this for she unconsciously grasps and stands up for the truth, no matter what situation she finds herself within.

Thus, like an academic, she is less concerned with the limelight or sensational accolades than humbly pursuing a devoted life of studious contemplation.

Like her father who leapt into pure discovery alone.

A Wrinkle in Time salutes the truth by polarizing the fantastic with remarkably realistic composure, as if being honest with yourself verifiably creates purest imagination.

Not as wild and enrapturing and unpredictable as I thought it might be, but still an illuminating journey wherein which courage vanquishes doubt to individualistically uphold something greater than oneself.

Critical.

Doctor Strange

Mind and body.

Interrelations.

Descartes aside, the only real indication that my body has a source code independent of my mind is apparent every time I arrive home and have to use the washroom. I can be out for a while successfully holding back with mind over matter but once my body detects an outlet in close proximity it vehemently takes control of my upcoming accelerated actions.

With sharp immediacy.

And irrepressible distinction.

Turning this peculiar relationship into something spellbinding, into something interdimensional, requires a unique set of skills begrudgingly acquired by one Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), which is more than just a rushed formulaic addition to the Marvel armada, don't get me wrong, I love the formula, it's a fun film to watch but doesn't measure up to Captain America: Civil War (with another 45 minutes it may have [Strange's conversion and training passes by too quickly and the intriguing practical applications of the supernatural are pinned-down by the action {too much brawn, not enough brain}]), it's also a metaphorical guide to the spiritual benefits of rigorously studying a subject or subjects that inspire you, whether they be sporting, artistic, scientific, or rhetorical, game tapes, books, experiments or debates imaginatively generating alternative realities for the eager student/teacher/coach/professional from which they can create agile plays, literary allegories, locked-down lightning strikes, or stunning arguments, synthetically, analytically, fictionally, environmentally, as do the Ancient One's (Tilda Swinton) pupils in Doctor Strange, with intergalactic active primrose.

The film metaimaginatively converses with technology to reflect upon spirit and multidimensionally interpose.

Macrodiscourses of empire and conquest having been thoroughly exhausted and replaced by micropastures of cerebral cyberspatialities, real world style, it seems that these are strange times indeed, which Marvel has entertainingly narrativized ad stock.

With the old school tradition of universal conquest still worked in.

Making millions off an American Honey style blockbuster.

That would be, philosophically humungous.

21st century style.

Loved the library.

*No Big Bang Theory cameos?

Concussion

Knowledge can be dangerous.

Scientific truths can shatter cultural conceptions with unpalatable clarity, the digestibility of which can be shockingly disorienting, necessities altruistically spiced to inaugurate alternative conventions, innocently diagnosing with undeniable evidence based cohesion.

The relationship between such truths and the world of commerce is often fraught with antagonism, bees dying, artificial dyes triggering hyperactivity, polarized further by differing religious convictions, journalists debating pros and cons, politicians commentating and legislating, the propriety of the popular, late breaking news.

There's nothing like NFL Football.

There's no other league that compares in terms of ambitious astonishment and electric excitement, of epic contrasts, of sheer will and impeccability.

Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith), an exceptionally educated man, was born in Nigeria, and didn't know that the NFL was the vigorous pulse of the sporting United States after moving there.

Even if he had known, it wouldn't have stopped him from discovering chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a condition acquired from severe head trauma that chokes the brain and leaves its victims incapacitated for life.

A brilliant man, he published his results hoping to change the NFL for the better, to provide players with more knowledge so that they could be more aware of the game's dangers, and encourage the league to conduct further research to find ways to take better care of its athletes.

The league responded oddly, worried that knowledge would harm future prospects, and I say oddly because they must have been aware that they were the most popular sport nationwide, the toughest and most dynamic, and could therefore take a slight hit to their image to support player safety.

But even the seemingly invincible worry about their mortality, and don't always make the decisions you would expect them to given their unprecedented success.

Concussion rationally presents Dr. Omalu's case and coherently proceeds to validate his work.

It celebrates the NFL and its players, recognizing its achievements while striving to help them achieve more. It's neither too sentimental nor too self-righteous and uses a trio of strong individuals (Omalu, Alec Baldwin as Dr. Julian Bailes, Albert Brooks as Dr. Cyril Wecht) who took serious risks to convincingly tell its story.

Smith delivers an outstanding performance, as do Brooks and Baldwin. I've never seen this character from Smith before and it's nice to see him diversifying his tenacity.

I don't see how you take big hits out of the game. If someone has the ball and they're trying to score and you don't hit them hard enough they will score and your team might lose.

There are only 16 games in an NFL season and each one is critical.

The ways in which the defensive and offensive lines interact can't change much either.

Penalties and fines for unnecessary or flagrantly violent excesses could perhaps be tougher, especially for repeat offenders.

The NFL is the toughest sport out there, although the NHL is also quite tough and has an 82 game season, with the strongest athletes who endure the most significant punishments.

If a player thinks that his future may be in jeopardy because he has received repeated blows to the head, it's a tough decision to retire when he could possibly play for 5 or 6 more multi-million dollar years.

There shouldn't be a stigma attached to choosing to retire should such a player choose to do so due to multiple head injuries.

That's one way perhaps to prevent some of the tragedies revealed in Concussion, recognizing that not only do you have to be extremely tough to play in the NFL, but that you also have to be extremely tough to walk away from the game.

A community of athletes that respects such a point prospers inasmuch as it upholds tough decisions made by its members while remembering the contributions they emphatically made to their teams.

Enduring the pain.

Any given Sunday.

Love & Mercy

Bill Pohlad's Love & Mercy takes a touching look at gentle brilliance and the jealousy it unwittingly incites, the vindictive and the voracious perched to pounce, asserting themselves through dismissive abrasive cynicism.

Preying on the gifted.

The film romanticizes Brian Wilson's (John Cusack/Paul Dano) stealth, his steady patient creative orchestrations, the insights, the voices, the exacting yet understanding care playfully attached to his work, the fun humble spontaneous personality that nurtured love in those that could see his beauty, childlike wonder and awe maturely mastered to crystallize ecstatic movements, multifaceted maestro, coy imaginative visionary.

He faces three main challenges in his personal life, one that isn't too serious, another Beach Boy trying to (boringly) keep things simple, to move away from the experimental yet relatable path his force was cultivating (Brian writes everything so it's easy for him to ignore him although he becomes increasingly hostile), his father, who can't accept his exceptional success, who goes out of his way to brutally put him down, thinking he's regained control of the family by doing so, he can't let go, and a psychiatrist who traps him in a hellhole, controlling every aspect of his life, treating him like a spoiled two-year-old child, as opposed to a musical manifest.

There's a lot of pressure when it comes time for him to write.

A loving woman, Melinda Ledbetter (Elizabeth Banks), then enters his life and seeks to turn things around.

The legalities are daunting.

But she's full of angelic zeal.

It's a solid film, entertainingly profound, smoothly mixing the provocative and the popular, paying tribute to Wilson's legend in both form and content.

Examining his trials, his genius, his humanity, elevating the individual, critiquing the callous and the cumbersome.

He wrote everything.

He added layers upon layers of complementary sounds.

His genius still shines like seductive sweltering serenity.

And he was rewarded with contempt and isolation because of a mental illness.

That makes no sense.

None at all.

*I'm no genius, but I always did well in school when I applied myself and like what I come up with a lot of the time.

Although there's always room for improvement.

It's cheesy, but the trick to avoiding the destructive influences of jealousy is to love what you have, what you're doing, while still looking to change and grow, at different speeds, governed by circumstance, and be happy when you see that your friends like what they're doing too.

Works for me most of the time anyways.

Popsicles.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Can't say I've spent too much time watching the Mission: Impossible films, but as far as thrilling, accelerated, turbulent action movies go, Ghost Protocol is a success, as Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) improvises his way through another set of death defying circumstances, this time without the assistance of IMF.

Split-second decision making is instantaneously necessitated as plans see their counterpoints meticulously materialized through the systematic art of strategic vivisection.

Such decisions are supplied with as much logic as can be rationally fastened to their temporal limitations in order to obtain their furtive objectives.

Such logic need not be brilliantly qualified, but must possess enough cohesive extensions to readily trick its antagonists into falling for its deception.

If these extensions lose their psycho-material appeal, the related temporal limitations become increasingly restrictive.

Requiring an ass kicking.

Hunt and his innovative team still manage to move undetected from Moscow to Dubai to Mumbai with enough resources at their disposal to technologically infiltrate seemingly inextricable defensive infrastructures without being backed up by headquarters.

Agilely keeping an ace in the hole.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

A murderer has avoided detection for decades. A journalist's reputation has been publicly ridiculed. A brilliant young researcher's incredible talent flourishes. A family's dark secrets seek revelation.

Patterns lie hidden within eclectic sources. Technological expertise facilitates their synthesization. The resultant thesis can be investigated with meticulous precision. Alternatives and subterfuges staggeringly structure the aggregate.

David Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a sombre subterranean endeavour. Deeply digging into clandestine contrivances frenetically attempting to function without restraint, it descends into the feverish dementia affluently prospering beyond the restrictions of amicability.

And exorcises demons.

Ostracized individuals use their resourcefulness to disentangle an established privileged network from within and bring its mastermind to justice.

Having recreated a foothold within their culture's social fabric, divisions remain which prevent them from socializing on their gains.

I was crossing the railway tracks by the lumber yard. The lumber yard was filled with different kinds of wood. The wood formerly composed a nearby section of forest. The forest was formerly home to the lumberjack who cut it down. He now has a clearer view of a nearby mountain and trains sometimes. I kept walking and took a sip of alpine bitters. Saw a racoon with nowhere to go. Belched. Alpine bitter belches are gross. I like belching cola products. Brilliant. I'm brilliant.