A Tale of Summer

A trip to the beach a nice seaside locale enrichingly equipped with chillaxed amenities, the undulant waves and spirited climate effortlessly producing rhythmic sessions.

Waiting for his partner to eventually show up, Gaspard makes another clever acquaintance, who fluidly abounds with interest and insight and has ample time to relax and ponder.

They hit up clubs and hike and wander discussing various random topics, l'amour intently and curiously considered as inquisitive inquiries bear luscious fruit.

His girlfriend takes her time arriving and another woman makes her interest known, one to whom he gives a newly written sea chanty which she helps perform laidback at her uncle's.

He keeps writing and focusing on music while the girls intriguingly present new questions, neither committing nor rejecting nor preferring as summer breezes tranquilly flow.

When his partner finally shows there's a lot already happening in his life.

As pressure mounts to make a decision.

He plays it cool and functions on instinct.

A much less volatile account of people in the act of falling in love, almost without fits and explosions like the mutual infatuations enamour affectionately. 

Without concentrating on love and relationships the continuous dialogue is diverse and thoughtful, examining books and songwriting and individuality it honestly showcases cerebral discourse.

Can he help not being able to make a definitive decision when reasonably tasked, with so many options suddenly available which he didn't initiate or request or engender?

Word choice becomes more and more important as time progresses and feelings intensify, recourse to multifaceted poetic displacements swiftly losing ground to logical accuracy. 

What a summer to exactingly spend overwhelmed with desire and heartwarming expenditure, no doubt conducive to vigorous shanties intuitively written in heart-throbbing throes. 

Life steps in in the end and gives him a way out of the binding dilemma.

Longing and daydream thereby contracted.

Creative efficiency consummately obscured.

The Night Before

3 confidants, and an annual tradition, a' revelling on Christmas Eve to the tune of friendship and jocularity, rekindling the strength of their amicable bonds each and every year to celebrate the intensity of camaraderous humour, age having decreed that due to the build-up of maturing responsibilities this will be their last irreverent outing, itinerary set, rejuvenating synergies pending.

As an added bonus this year, three tickets have been acquired to attend a secretive party, known for its legendary merriment, coveted by young, old and middle-aged alike.

Will the mysterious counsel of a local pot dealer enlighteningly guide their way as they descend into the night and encounter both shenanigans and loves lost?

And will the magic of Christmas single-maltly convince them that the bonds they have forged congenially transcend time?

As a matter introspective.

A fun thought provoking feelings evoking tenderly rowdy illumination of adult aspirations, The Night Before suspends pretensions of the rational to festively define what is sane.

Note that its definition bizarrely blends the buddy comedy and the Christmas classic to hazily establish a disjointed sense of the revelatory.

But when form aptly reflects content, our role models evolving over the course of an evening of regenerative confusion, who I am to argue with logistics merry making?

Jingle, bells.

Miley Cyrus impresses.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

They squeezed many a film out of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and I loved going to see them all, none of them blowing me away like Star Wars or that cartoon I happened to see on television during a blizzard when I was like 6, but I am much older now, and tend to be blown away by different types of narratives.

Greed is the sin dominating The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, as Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) succumbs to dragon sickness and refuses to share his gold with others.

Others who sheltered him.

Others who protected him.

A delirious dream sequence brings him back to his senses and team Thorin joins the battle, the battle that dominates most of the film, it's a cool battle I guess, the fifth army still indisputably my favourite, as it was watching the cartoon as a child, this time with werebear accompaniment, brilliant move, even if Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) didn't figure prominently in the action.

The film also productively deals with the unfortunate hardships facing the people of Esgaroth, as they struggle with their new situation, food, organization, lodging, required and sought after, possessing few if any possessions, a leader emerges amongst them.

Other strong features include Tauriel's (Evangeline Lilly) multiple appearances, Bilbo (Martin Freeman), feisty as ever, the focus on teamwork, albeit begrudging teamwork, and concepts like loyalty and honour, mischievously played with as egos clash and contend, which seems to always happen in these films.

But really, why did we have to see so much Alfrid Lickspittle (Ryan Gage)? He's like the worst character.

In battle, why doesn't Gandalf (Ian McKellen) cast more spells? Wouldn't that ease up the pressure a bit?

Who let Lee Pace (Thranduil) get away with that performance?

So much drama, so much pettiness, so much angst, so much fighting.

Quinctilius Varus, where are my eagles!?

Loved the Bard (Luke Evans).

Star Wars starts up again next Holiday Season.

The Homesman

The callous and the cavalier, upstanding non-traditional direct and driven, courage, at home, with faith in the Lord, Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) accepts a challenge, a calling, to save the souls of three hopeless wives, whom stark privation has psychologically deranged, longing for bygone days, the future, The Homesman's depiction of frontier life generally lacks the overdone resilience of pioneering spirits, brutal realities aggregating impoverished still born dreams like despondent cynical destitute waves of bustling bitter contempt, Cuddy stands out, having endured and overcome social and natural hardships, strength, vision, fortitude, the product of her religious necessity, assignments, iron clad dues.

She seeks a man.

And discovers one.

He tragically arrives, windswept and woebegone, worldly and weathered thick and thin wits having left him in need of assistance, yet capable of repaying a debt, still too in/transigent to lay back and cuddle, too independent, too mad.

A team.

They forge a team and set out across the prairie to do the Lord's work, his knowledge pertinent and bound, still too mired in misfortune, to recognize eternal signs of beauty.

It's a lesson in harsh patriarchal limits ignoring sound opportunities based on preconditioned ideas the absurdities of which are sorrowfully conceptualized.

No matter what the age, no matter what the station.

Sadness.

Loneliness.

There is redemption in excess which only exacerbates the age.

Time is built into the script like cold hearted bone.

Bleak but well done accept for the editing at points and the occasional scene which could have used a few more takes.

Nice to see Barry Corbin (Buster Shaver).

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Justin Chadwick offers a selective charismatic altruistic account of Nelson Mandela's (Idris Elba) life in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Significant events from Mandela's heroic trials are qualitatively condensed then narratively harvested.

It unreels at a fast pace but Elba's calm committed confrontational resolve surreally subdues the passage of time, tantalizingly transforming 30 seconds into two-minutes-forty, proactively producing captivating capsules.

A good companion piece for 12 Years a Slave in terms of the differing approaches adopted to biographically elucidate, McQueen cultivating a shifting pyrodactic panorama, Chadwick proceeding more traditionally.

Chadwick doesn't shy away from presenting the difficulties associated with actively pursuing disenfranchised political agendas, and the toll Mandela's sublime idealism takes on his wives and children are dis/comfortingly displayed.

His first wife leaves him but his second never yields in her championing of his cause while he's imprisoned, suffering jail-time and countless indignities consequently.

Their breakup after he's released is perhaps the most unfortunate disengaging of amorous affections I've ever come across.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela (Naomie Harris) kept the fire burning brightly throughout his 27 years in prison and seeing them part is tragic if not earth shattering.

But Mandela believed in a non-violent working solution and when provided with the opportunity to politically enact one, engaged.

Taking the resultant monumental fallout in stride.

Not a saint, perhaps, but definitely, a person of steel.

The Fifth Estate

The Fifth Estate's cold calculated construct of Julian Assange (Benedict Cumberbatch) maintains that he's a driven well-meaning intense prick whose inability to bend resolutely cost him dearly.

Guilty of high-tech intractability.

The portrait's possibly unfair.

It was a simple matter of redacting articles posted on WikiLeaks so that the names of covert individuals mentioned within them would not appear and the individuals themselves would likely not be violently punished (murdered) afterwards.

Not such a simple matter for Assange, according to The Fifth Estate, however.

He was determined to publish leaked articles in full on principle to demonstrate that he wasn't doing anything to hedge the truth.

I respect this on principle, but when people's lives are at stake I do have to agree with The Fifth Estate's condemnation of the practise, Assange being unable to recast his image as his freedom fighting persona gained international traction.

The problem in the film is this.

Assange rightfully despises tyranny.

It's what he fights against.

Tyrants tend to kill people.

In The Fifth Estate, as WikiLeaks's reach exponentially extends, it becomes clear that Assange is a general of sorts, more of a supreme commander, and that by releasing unredacted documents, he has the power to sacrifice troops for what he considers to be the greater good, but he still sacrifices troops nonetheless, somewhat carelessly, I might add.

So on principle, he makes decisions that could have cost people their lives, people who may have been fighting for the same things using different methods, when he really didn't have to, he could have redacted the documents without ruining them, which causes him to become tyrannical himself, an unfortunate development for such an heroic person.

What I loved about The Fifth Estate was its examination of history, contemporary history, how many of its characters are aware of the monumental changes the internet has brought about, like Gutenberg's printing press on hyperactive culturally enlivening intergalactic booster juice, The Guardian's Nick Davies (David Thewlis) offering some notable insights, moving the film away from the severely intensifying interactions between Assange and Daniel Berg (Daniel Brühl).

Looking forward to reading/viewing what other biographers have to say about Assange over the upcoming decades.

Compelling person.

Brilliant colossus.

The Butler

Periodically piecing together various volatile historical tracts, intergenerationally sketching a people's hard beaten path, sustained successful service slowly evidencing sophistication and ingenuity, facets which for some archaic reason required proof, proof that wasn't that easy to come by due to multileveled systemic oppressions, which persist, and committed confrontational activism, manifesting different variations on a theme, familially questioning particular forms of engagement, Lee Daniels's The Butler functioning as a practical ideological switchboard, easy to follow yet deep and hard hitting, well suited to wide audiences, proper.

Considering the potent surge of what's being described as the new racism, this is an important film.

The Butler's a good starting point for young secondary students interested in learning more about 20th century American history as well, since it broadly condenses many important developments and personalities, thereby making them accessible, while setting them up with oppositions to avoid having things appear too simplistic, these elements serving to encourage further study.

It also demonstrates that your occupation or income doesn't necessarily limit your ability to play a role in the world at large.

Imagine what could have been done with web 2.0 back then.

Out of sight.

Starsky & Hutch

Starsky and Hutch.

Back at it again.

Although, this film was released 8 years ago so perhaps 'again' isn't the correct word to be using here, but, since I'm viewing it according to the dynamics of the ways in which the second decade of the 21st century is influencing my writing, the term 'again' can therefore be thought of as being applied appropriately, give or take that there's still a lot more I need to learn about globalization.

Much much more.

That being said, I still don't have much to say about Starsky & Hutch.

To literally break it down, it takes two psychological law enforcement extremes, one which is so anal retentive that it alienates everyone and is consequently regularly forced to find new partners, another with an approach that is so laissez-faire that it can smoothly make contacts and move about suavely but can't effectively get any work done, and slowly synthesizes them throughout as they grow and come to function like a strong resilient team.

Alternatively, in regards to its comedic aspects, I didn't find it as funny as I probably would have in 2004 but I may not have found it that funny back then either.

Cool car though.

Alright, I'm really not that into motorized vehicles.

Just trying to sound cool.

Fun to ride around in sometimes though.

I'm not cool.

L'amour fou

Examining the life and times of fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent, Pierre Thoretton's L'amour fou lucidly injects a sober biographical sketch with an informative alluring amorous solution.

Within we discover a prolific artist prone to depression and substance abuse whose innovative vision redefined and enabled various voices. An avid art collector, he acquired a vast array of works over the years whose particular features were loosely situated within the specific temporal coordinates of a constantly transforming personalized aesthetic.

Much like Charles Swann.

Primarily framed by the accounts of lifelong partner Pierre Bergé, St. Laurent's trajectory is characterized by brilliance, success, and mental illness. Their relationship endures as Yves creates and Bergé manages, a stable juxtaposition of art and commerce which survives their passion's deterioration.

What Saint-Laurent achieved throughout his lifetime is remarkable, resulting from the ways in which he consistently reinvented himself while continuing to cultivate his insight. The film could have elaborated to a greater degree on the latter part of his engagement, his personal life and idiosyncrasies enjoying more screen time throughout. He's often portrayed as an undeniable genius whose only destabilizing lesions were self-inflicted. There must have been more controversy associated with his pursuits, controversy that could have been focused on more acutely than Bergé's role in his life story.

But the film's about crazy love, and Bergé's role in Saint-Laurent's success was paramount. L'amour fou only presents a brief introduction to their union, and although this introduction provides a significant amount of anecdotal refreshment, it principally serves to encourage further investigations.

Which isn't so bad.

La Captive

Imprisoned by his theories, obsessively recycling miserable forecasts regarding his relationship's future, driven by jealousy, and tortured by ideals, Simon (Stanislas Merhar) interrogates his desire in Chantal Akerman's La Captive as Ariane (Sylvie Testud) helplessly perseveres. At least that's what happens in In Search of Lost Time and La Captive follows the text closely enough to suggest that this is what's happening in the film. Bored and frustrated by his inability to create, Simon abandons his attempts to prove himself intellectually and focuses his attention on Ariane's past. Convinced he can understand her present motivations through recourse to her anecdotes and observations, he pursues his goal of categorizing her purity. Being incapable of distinguishing fact from subterfuge, his objective investigations quizzically qualify the labyrinthine other. Leave it alone, let bygones be bygones, just have a good time. Take it easy, relax, drink some wine, she's likely done everything you're considering, twice. Without the guidance of American pop culture to rely upon, Simon sinks deeper and deeper into the abyss. In the end, Ariane does the only thing she can to allow him to find an answer as he assiduously scours the ocean searching for his peace of mind.

A lot of the depth from the fifth part of Proust's novel is lost in La Captive's translation. Françoise (Liliane Rovère) and Simon's Grandmother (Françoise Bertin) don't make an impact and Mme Verdurin's famous snub of M. de Charlus is absent. I don't know how you could have worked the later into a film that's less than three hours and doesn't include some kind of internal narration but an attempt would have been nice. At least a scene with M. de Charlus. The long empty corridors and lengthy nocturnal shots point to Simon's troubles within the novel but without more material it's difficult to capture Proust's incessant meticulous analysis (but it was still fun to write about it as if it's there). But La Captive isn't meant to relate to In Search of Lost Time religiously since it's a film that is only based on the novel. Bearing this in mind, greater liberties with Proust's masterpiece could have been taken (although it's so revered taking such liberties requires disciplined audacity! [I suppose Simon's Grandmother does die in The Guermantes Way]). But Akerman's probably sick and tired of hearing devotees of the novel complain about what's missing in her well-crafted film and it does possess a morosely anxious distraught internal consistency that's rigidly maintained throughout. The moral: don't try and ever love anyone while consistently falling in love. And have multiple extensive lies which you trust ready by your side when loving so that one day you can convince yourself that you've found something to hold onto.