When We Were Kings

It's tough to determine the varying degrees through which codes classify sensations, but the boxing legend introduced in When We Were Kings as Muhammad Ali is like the bona fide quintessential genuine.

I've never seen an athlete so at ease while rapidly sharing points of view, with pinpoint provocative picturesque poignancy, I have to admit, I was a bit overwhelmed.

Without rehearsing he sincerely presents multiple compelling thoughts and observations, without worrying how they'll be interpreted, or what people might shockingly think.

It's pure ironclad honest discourse which doesn't hesitate or pause, and also has cool things to say, what an incredible entertainer.

With idyllic public relations, Ali expertly holds the crowd, with carefree innocent freeform inspiration, like he truly was touched by God.

Perhaps brought about by character gained by his refusal to fight in Vietnam, the essential prominent humanistic integrity righteously disseminating goodwill and purpose.

With the advent of social media and the extra layer of thoughtful scrutiny, media sensations face quite the struggle when suddenly engaging the critical public.

And even though you would think remarkable variability would generally spread with unconcerned expression, the age old mass marketed commercial prejudice still seems to be manifesting one-dimensional stereotypes.

It seemed like within an open-minded spectrum composed with respect and multilateral dignity, alternative ideas would resoundingly flourish in what's oft referred to as friendly conversation.

Not in terms of the monstrous dissonance chaotically cultivated by the resurgent far right, nor the exceedingly suffocating rules prudishly administered by the far left.

But a less lucrative and spellbinding continuum bound to sell far fewer newspapers, wherein which less sarcastic and vitriolic peeps fluently inquire and delve and reckon.

Nevertheless, I imagine that even within the quasi-totalitarian discourse, Muhammad Ali's imaginative voice still would have wondrously shone through.

With ethical poise and cultural understanding, literally like no other mass media sensation, it's like smoothly flowing poetic jazz music freely offered with upstanding nerve.

I wholeheartedly recommend When We Were Kings to anyone who deals with media.

A crash course in vital fluidity.

Presented in verdant balm.

Bon Cop Bad Cop 2

Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 playfully revels in the aggrandized extravagance to be expected from an over-the-top sequel, the higher stakes like the going rate for energetic extrinsic jukes, personality charismatically fuelling covert operations, with enough clandestine viscosity to effervescently lubricate cool.

David Bouchard (Patrick Huard) and Martin Ward (Colm Feore) accidentally meet once again when Martin shows up one night to obliviously bust Bouchard's cover.

But spur of the moment strategization pugnaciously preserves David's stealth, and he's even able to infiltrate the underground more securely thereafter, or at least in the wild immediate aftermath.

Back at it again.

They're a bit too chummy throughout parts of the film though.

Bouchard's working undercover for Sȗreté du Québec while Ward monitors his activities for the RCMP, a situation that allows them to cleverly comment on Canadian Federal/Provincial relations, but they meet in person so frequently over the course of a few days that at times it seems more like a buddy comedy than serious cloak and dagger artifice.

But I'm missing the point here, for I did want to see these characters constructively and/or contentiously interact throughout, with a latent French/English cross-cultural subtext warmly characterizing their debates, so it was fun if not odd to see them start up new chats so regularly, inasmuch as it delivered what I was after.

A rowdy new character named MC (Mariana Mazza) adds a lot of synergistic technological spunk to their conversations as well.

Intergenerational acuity.

Hyperreactive charm.

Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 not only poses the question, "how can I be bonner and badasser than Bon Cop Bad Cop," but also asks if it can simultaneously lampoon sequels that ostentatiously rely on such a stratagem by incredibly taking things to supreme heroic levels which maximize the immaculacies of coy endearing pith!

Loved it.

I've never seen a Canadian/Québecois film go bigger, and I applaud similar initiatives to come, initiatives that even barely approach that which Bon Cop Bad Cop 2 has achieved, has accomplished, as international ambassadors of campy Northern wit.

Look for Jameson Kraemer (Middle Brook Police Officer 1).

He impressed with his scene on the bridge.

It's hilarious when Bouchard finds himself locked up in a small town American jail, the English/French Canadian fluencies from the first film enlightening Canadian/American diplomatic ties in the second.

Go big.

It would be hard to go much bigger.

But I would love to see them in space!

Trying to take down intergalactic warlords Xavier Dolan and Don McKellar?

Familial dynamics continue to codify a compellingly complicated filmscape.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!

Incisively inclined to meticulously mitigate, Byomkesh Bakshy (Sushant Singh Rajput) lucidly exfoliates the devils in the details, from facade to haste to postage, instantaneously accessing each and every complicit pact.

Indubitably.

This curation doesn't wistfully pry, rather, he gracefully inspects subterfuge and dissimulation like a distraught determined sloosh, ingenuity modestly asserted, the collection of facts, the gathering of precipitates.

Not really a film noir, there isn't a sense of perpetual oppression or an ambiguous translucent hue, Bakshy's too green to be jaded, to successful to be shorn.

More like Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes films, its subject matter gradually becoming more grandiose as Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! progresses, it still does frequent the underground while avoiding the police, Bakshy's insight surveying both realms to serialize ingenious constellations.

Characters curiously come and go, the convivial confessing like crisp contraband, the wicked revelling in their byzantine confessions.

It's well designed, the seemingly insignificant worked into a greater vision, characters reappearing just when I was wondering what had happened to them, logical license and casual constructs, solid crescendo, youthful passion making danger seem fun.

Whenever it appears like it's going to far, Bakshy's detections cleverly level things out.

Intense yet chill.