Hopscotch

Routine exception clever coordinates inchoate introduction compassionate spawn, familiar fraternity neutralized networks mutual limburger lynchpin liaisons.

Intricate reconnaissance fluid expedients delicate interactive international nougat, systematic habitual collegial recognition emphatic cautionary loquacious logic.

Officious oversight inaccurate onslaught misaligned matrices clippity-clop, disengaged highlights inordinate vireo fantastic flight disciplined inspiration.

Holistic happenstance brilliant foundations spontaneous bullwhip matador mosey, excessive entitled hyper-reactivity magnanimous model turnpike transmission.

Malleable movement motorized maestro land-air-and-ocean beatific breeze, centripetal atrophy sorghum surveillance novel expectations diabolical whimsy.

Temperamental tutelage acquiesced admiration bamboozled predictions subsumed zinzilla, splayed distended torrential tarot inelegant ambience awkward vigil.

Hop-skip-and-a-jump splotch-clocktopus intrigue convivial controversy dilettante diction, mendicant mojo swoop-and-swirl-scimitar immaculate mercantile mirthful misanthropic. 

Frenzied fulminations gaunt galavanting obscured trajectory discursive dissonance, inexact pinpoint saccharine ceremony Bangladesh fleece curricular traction.

Furtive intermittence imprecise intersection olfactory intermingling Goldilocks gong, insoluble pellet rocky solution unstable bunker viscous virtuoso. 

Captivating construct surfeit shenanigans lighthearted lacuna tantalizing toro, uphill elevation praiseworthy poignancy individual index cardshark contemplation.

Exoteric risk infuriating tentacle extreme temperance ocular cult, new moon neophyte starstruck serendipity jungle gymnastics wilderness warren.

Piecemeal orchestration emboldened hypotheses fugacious fortunes mischievous maven, Horton-who handiwork erudite craft incisive brouhaha frenetic fuel.

Laidback long field definitive drives contracted lithe smoothly-flowing gesticulation, gridiron gallantry medieval mentat mandolin mojo audible jazz.

Classic post-World-War-II distrust of authority.

Walter Matthau given 'er.

Ye olde George Baker cameo. 

Cool chill take on the old school spy film. 

Kameradschaft

A giant coal mine smoothly stretches from Northern France into agile Germany, both countries in hearty pursuit of abundant resources with industrious zeal.

But as the mine expands and diversifies far beneath the hospitable surface, disquieting developments awkwardly erupt which necessitate chill respective sagacity.

An extended blaze in this lucid case threatens the French side of the massive mine, which they continuously hold off until it overwhelms their sturdy equipoise. 

On the other side of the border, their German counterparts learn of the hardship, and passionately agree to send a rescue team complete with supplies to aid their brethren. 

There are dissenting voices but humanity vanquishes their lack of grace, and inadequate comprehension of goodwill as emphatically applied to angelic standing.

A bold attempt by G.W. Pabst to inspire collegial international relations, and combat the destructive swell ignominiously spreading throughout postwar Germany.

Imagine such alternative thoughts publicly co-existed with the infernal Nazis, and directly challenged their despicable ideology with warm compassionate multilateral friendship.

Within ye olde Kameradschaft we find initiatives which championed the European Union, with multiple languages and ways of life interdependently prospering ensemble.

Would Russia not be welcome one far off day if it abandoned its mad aggression, and devastating obsession to be as powerful as the democratic United States?

Black and white, Jewish and Arab, native and immigrant, does it make that much difference, is it not politically preferable to compassionately unite for common causes?

Look at the destruction in Palestine look at the savagery of the Oct. 7th attacks, is there not an infinitely more suitable way to conduct their alternative codes of conduct?

Don't you want to raise children with the peaceful knowledge that one day they'll do the same, instead of filling their minds with hatred to fight a war with no end in sight?

The sad thing is that before Oct. 7th things had relaxed a great deal in the region, and peace had thriven for so so long that uptight restrictions were widely placated.

I urge anyone in similar situations not to act aggressively should similar restrictions relax, and rather continue to cultivate peace until one day you have a European Union.

But it shouldn't have to come to such bitter malevolent ends.

If people pursue mutually beneficial camaraderie. 

One day one step at a time. 

20 Million Miles to Earth

Sometimes the art of decision making puzzles keen observers, as they wonder why a specific course was taken, when so many others could have been adopted.

At others the decisions seem apt, well-attuned to the unexpected circumstances, perhaps lacking in thrilling variety, but still well-suited to the agenda at hand.

Politically speaking, I suppose every decision undergoes polarization, livelihoods earned through creative dissonance, the maintenance of strict partisan argument, stirring the pot, as the saying goes.

But regardless of the critical impact, decisions must be made every day, decision makers confident in their reliability, critics happy to point out their errors.

Blindly following decisions is rather undemocratic, insofar as an inclusive politic innately encourages lively debate, but partisan instincts complicate this principle with redeemable awe, culture flourishing somewhere in between, as artistic analysis entails balance.

In the film under examination, a Terran spaceship returns from Venus, carrying wild extraterrestrial cargo, crash landing in the Mediterranean. 

Local fisherpeeps witness the crash and venture forth to lend a hand, managing to rescue two crew members, before the ship plummets to the bottom of the sea.

International relations swiftly invigorate a quizzical yet receptive dialogue, as the United States explains to the Italian government that one of their crafts has returned from Space.

The coveted alien specimen miraculously washes ashore, and is found shortly thereafter by a village boy, who quickly sells it to a visiting zoologist.

Earth's environment proves hearty for the specimen who expands at a remarkable rate, soon rivalling the size of an elephant, once no bigger than a sprightly squirrel.

After it escapes decisions must be made regarding its potential capture, and what to do with it if it can be held, prevented from inquisitively exploring.

The surviving colonel knows that it's generally harmless within its diminutive form, but it's grown to such a large size, that the local police have become quite worried.

Fortunately, the colonel knows it can be restrained by electrified nets, and is able to nimbly catch it, before the realization of bland destruction.

But where should they take the shackled beastie?, that question remains unanswered.

Until it's decided to bring him or her to Rome.

Locked down for close observation.

Rampaging potential pending.

Why it wasn't left to roam the countryside while feasting on sulphur deposits isn't explained.

The alien's changing proportions reflect conflicting accounts of its natural physiology. 

It's in fact a peaceful beast.

Unaccustomed to grand incarceration. 

Liu Lang Di Qiu

In the not too distant future, our sun can support terrestrial life no longer.

Seeking to avoid humanity's extinction, countries around the world internationally forge the United Earth Government.

And it is decided that a new sun must be sought in the Alpha Centauri system, and that Earth must be propelled there by gigantic fusion powered thrusters strategically located around the imperilled globe.

As the Earth's rotation ceases, after the jets are turned on, colossal tidal waves shock the surface dwelling population, many others eventually finding refuge beneath its inhospitable crust.

These subterranean cities bravely incubate civilization and boldly rear the next generation with feisty underground enterprise.

But Earth's path leads it too close to miserly Jupiter, whose cruel and voracious gravity gravely threaten interstellar propulsion.

Fortunately, two mischievous youths, a brother and sister no less, have recklessly made their way to the frozen surface, strict punishment swiftly awaiting, as massive earthquakes malign worldwide.

Little did they know, when they set out that day, that they would become integral leaders in a wild improvised effort to reignite the disabled thrusters and break free from Jupiter's clutches.

The world desperately requiring resolve.

The planet galactically inducing their reckoning.

Frant Gwo's Liu Lang Di Qiu takes sci-fi to another level, courageously imagining the most distraught of extremes, then audaciously presenting them with enriched hope-fuelled probability.

Manifold variables are symphonically strung as tumultuous dispersals chaotically sizzle.

Catastrophe strikes with dependable fidelity as constant threats harken cold glacial stark entropy.

Team-based integrity internationally coalesced accentuates cooperative benefits that unleash instincts eternal.

Identity politics challenge concepts of belonging as shortsighted prejudices are critiqued and exposed.

The world, faced with an overwhelming discombobulating uprooting discourteous challenge, comes together to thwart impossibility, ensuring continuous life thereby, plus innovative infused prosperity.

As it should to combat global warming.

In an unprecedented aware multilateral interconnected age.

It would have been cool if there had been more animals in the underground cities.

A planetary meow.

An altruistic bark.

The Girl in the Spider's Web

Ideas that should have been shelved.

Desire that should have been sublimated.

Illicit ingenious technology.

Too tempting for sheer mortal vice.

Its mastermind (Stephen Merchant as Frans Balder) comprehends its extreme power and foolishly seeks its destruction.

Alone.

Yet he requires impeccable stealth to retrieve it and possesses not the requisite skill, nor the essential rationalized paranoia that should accompany such rash endeavours.

Considering the value.

His plan relies on a presumed lack of suspicion.

Steal it, acquire it, destroy it, quickly, before anyone realizes what's been done.

He wants to destroy FireWall to keep it out of the hands of those who covet it, without realizing they're watching at all times.

And soon a device which can unlock the codes for nuclear weapons worldwide is in terrorist hands, along with its gifted creator's son (Christopher Convery as August Balder), his father's accomplice related to their cypher (Sylvia Hoeks as Camilla Salander).

One Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) must resiliently contend nothing more, backed up by the loyal Mikael Blomkvist (Sverrir Gudnason) plus an agile unknown thoughtful factor (Lakeith Stanfield as Ed Needham).

The room for error's non-existent and the playing field's level, driven experts coldly strategizing, extreme limits, boldly reached.

If actual people were thinking of creating something like FireWall, I would state, "please don't create something like FireWall, existent geniuses capable of doing so."

Would it not be cooler to find a way to use computers to learn dolphin?

Or animal in general.

I was listening to lynx calls online one day and thought they sounded similar to the static you used to hear while devices communicated with one another through phone lines in the days of dial-up internet, which led me to the idea that an electronic device could be created to interpret what animal sounds mean, one which perhaps utilizes digital twin technologies albeit without comprehensible linguistic references (I suppose if such a device worked without references it could solve many communication problems).

I thought this idea was likely quite ridiculous and was going to keep it to myself but then saw Clara, wherein which a fictitious professor challenges his students to find the sound of the data, and thought perhaps I had accidentally found something.

And added the digital twin stuff today.

The Girl in the Spider's Web diabolically impresses, fast-paced cerebral orchestrations delineating cause in flux.

Ye olde, whoops, we really shouldn't have done that, anxiously seething sans menacing pause.

Globalized recourse imagines a Bond film with a rogue self-reliant female agent, its intrigue an international spectre, its ingenuity a bespeculative double o.

Held to crippling account for the one victim she left behind, two sisters fuzed adroitly adjudicate misperception.

I liked the characters and the situations they found themselves within, clever action ploys catch and release, creative use of the all-seeing panopticon.

Didn't there used to be laws about watching everyone everywhere they went all the time?

They weren't discredited were they?

On the last page of a paper copy of a newspaper that no one bought?

Lost in the twitter deluge?

Suppressed by great blue cries?

Pacific Rim: Uprising

The mighty Jaegers have slain their Kaiju foes.

And the world is at peace once again.

Jaeger legends still equip Earth's global master narrative with sublime exemplars of self-sacrifice and heroism, nevertheless, a technological behemoth has found a way to automate their gallantry.

Yet co-creator Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) doesn't know that a former global saviour, one Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), has fallen for the Kaiju brain he infiltrated 10 years ago, and keeps in his apartment, and as a result of their secretive romantic mind-melding, has betrayed humankind, and placed homegrown Kaiju brains within each and every hard-driven robot.

Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), son of warrior Stacker Pentecost, and Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), son of Clint Eastwood, are unaware of this development as they drift once more, their friendship still persisting, even if conflict once dealt it a crippling blow, world security having brought them together again, to save the planet from Kaiju attacks, round 2.

The Kaiju-brain-led-Jaeger-automatons (sort of like Krang in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) maliciously situate themselves at strategic points round the Pacific Ocean, and thunderously begin generating new breaches.

Before loyal Dr. Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) can shut them down, 3 Kaiju ascend from interplanetary oceanic depths, eventually merging to form, a monstrous ÜberKaiju.

The fate of the world may rest in the hands of one orphaned girl (Cailee Spaeny as Amara Namani), who builds her own Jaegers, and may find herself kicked out of the Jaeger training program.

For actions prohibited.

One cataclysmic day.

Pacific Rim: Uprising may lack the jaw dropping ridiculous blend of kitsch and sophistication that frankly yet elegantly adorned the original unheralded masterpiece, yet if you loved number 1 it's certainly a must see, for its characters battle Kaiju once more, and the stakes are just as high, if not even more catastrophic.

Disappointments, second chances, ingenuity, treachery, motivational speeches, teamwork, rivalry, love.

Positive attributes abound within, yet it's still quite rushed, rather impatient, like its crafters wanted a finished product as soon as humanly possible, and didn't take the time to add the refinements that made the first instalment so appealing.

Still fun though.

Much better than Independence Day 2.

Immediacy can generate a lot of compelling narratives, but it shouldn't be used to rashly justify wildly improbable scenarios, unless they're delicately timed and patiently brewed.

Another thirty minutes may have helped.

Looking forward to round 3.

Rich with inherent intergalactic instabilities.

Looks like Russia and the States are training for a good old fashion arms race to jump start their economies.

Madness.

Sheer utter madness.

See my Die Hard 5 review.

That moment as a North American when you realize other countries within the world are having relations with one another that aren't entirely focused on what's happening in the United States.

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.

A Most Wanted Man

Characteristic candour gruffly composes a brilliantly crafted intricately strategized plan, its nascent dexterity depending on several delicately interconnected volatile fusions, frenetic feasibilities, orchestrated by a rough hands-on been-there-done-that fulcrum, A Most Wanted Man, time pressurizing each micromovement, immaculate manoeuvrability, necessarily set in motion.

Definitive coordinates.

Explosive potential.

Gut-wrenching grizzle.

Temporally repleted.

Günther Bachmann's (Philip Seymour Hoffman) team must expertly function, however, these spies are situated within a competitive international pride, lofty liaising lions, trust, an oppressive factor, guilt, too remote to consider.

Ripe with treachery.

And contention.

Easier to follow than Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but not as astounding consequently, A Most Wanted Man provocatively sets the stage, then allows Philip Seymour Hoffman to prosper.

There aren't many diversified variables (surprises) after the operation's set in motion, it's very smooth, but Hoffman's performance supplies enough excruciating angst to augment the film's comfortability with bona fide substantial grit.

I've now seen Richard Burton, Gary Oldman, John Hurt, and Hoffman in film adaptations of John le Carré's novels, and would love to see another starring Daniel Day Lewis and Tom Hardy.

A Most Wanted Man's timing is perfect considering the continuing advances of ISIS.

The Berlin File

Setting a new standard for fast-paced intricate multilayered action packed films covertly concerned with international relations, Seung-wan Ryoo's The Berlin File's depth frantically conceptualizes a practical competitive bellicose ideological maelstrom, wherein interpersonal integrity can trump engrained national antimonies, as the ambitious pretentions of a jealous privileged communist usurper stereoscopically attempt to remagnify its vortex.

Good communists and bad communists.

Respect for North Korea?

Deconstructive hypoallergenic hyper-reflexive expedition.

And a remarketable union.

The issue of trust gravitationally staggers through myriad ulterior transitional focal points until a specific set of exceptional checks and balances produces an ephemeral allegiance, an amicable diplomatic extract.

The film's tight chaotic suction implodes near the end as a protagonist and his principal enemy square off like traditional martial marionettes.

Still pretty cool.

Both of the main male communist characters can be thought of as members of North Korea's materialistic pantheon, but the bad one's father occupies a high ranking influential yet corrupt position in the country's militaristic elite.

The other is an extraordinary citizen whose unyielding belief and support have strengthened his iron constitution.

Whether or not he can continue to exercise his commitment to his country, even though an everlasting magical freedom guaranteeing surplus seems somewhat fantastical, not that one shouldn't attempt to realize aspects of it through parliamentary means, depends upon that country's commitment to him.

Hoping there's a sequel.

Sort of like the anti-Die Hard 5.

Argo

It should be noted that Ben Affleck's Argo takes bold steps to attach the responsibility for the hostile anti-American attitudes presented by some Iranian citizens displayed within to the political activities of American and British authorities of the 1950s, and that it is these same authorities who are in/directly responsible for the subsequent rise of madpersons like Ahmadinejad.

It should also be noted that this may not be the wisest time to be releasing a film which displays passionate anti-American feelings amongst those very same citizens, due to the potentially volatile dynamics of our current historical period, although, perhaps my reluctancy to endorse its timing could be a sign of my own hesitancy in regards to taking great risks, which Mr. Affleck, in creating this film at this particular time, has certainly done.

I myself believe that an incredible secret has been kept in Iran based upon my viewings of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Maryam Keshavarz's Circumstance, common sense, and a conversation I had six years ago in passing, that being that many, perhaps even a vast majority of Iranian citizens, don't care whether or not they develop an atomic weapon, have no wish to go to war with Israel, and simply want to peacefully work, live, laugh, love, and travel in a clean environment, like citizens in every other country, without having to be afraid all the time.

Yet I have no idea what you do when a lunatic like Ahmadinejad is in power (or George W. Bush for that matter) or how to go about diffusing the situation.

There are scurrilously ambitious people who seek power and consider everyone else to be like them. They employ reprehensible tactics to achieve this power, and, thinking everyone else to be like them, seek to prevent others who aren't like them from employing the same tactics to usurp them.  This attitude is applied nationally and internationally. Seeing conspiracies everywhere and fearing violent reprisals, they conspire violently, thereby creating that which they feared in the first place, vaingloriously spreading misery.

Argo goes a long way to prevent the spread of misery in its best scene by cleverly intermingling different realities facing American and post-revolutionary Iranian citizens, a scene which shows the Americans laying the rhetorical groundwork to 'make' a fake movie while Iranians try to punish the American and British imposed Shah who butchered them for decades and managed to find sanctuary in the States afterwards, a scene which pulls its American audience into the Iranian situation, its frame reminding them to bear in mind that the events depicted took place in 1979, 33 years ago.

In one of Star Trek the Next Generation's best moments Worf (Michael Dorn) commends his son Alexander (James Sloyan/Brian Bonsall) for choosing the path of peace (Firstborn).

Yes, Worf highly honours the path of peace.

By creating a film which exoterically tackles an extremely important contemporary international political phenomenon with the goal of saving lives or preventing a war, which places the situation within a controversial militaristic, governmental, and individual historical context, Ben Affleck's created quite a film, its exoteric qualities capable of entertainingly reaching a wide audience, and perhaps having a lasting affect.

As if to say, if you thought there was anti-American sentiment flowing through Iran 33 years ago during a volatile time of historic change directly caused by the meddling of American and British authorities, imagine how much there will be if an actual war is started, for decades, centuries, to come.

It doesn't have to be like that.

Not at all.

Men in Black III

The clandestine Men in Black security force is back to monitor Earth's alien activity in the franchise's third instalment, Men in Black III, fully loaded with neuralyzers, inexhaustible technological and knowledge resources, a law enforcing odd couple, and monumental temporal distortions.

Just in time for Summer. 

If the darkness is literally thought of as a nocturnal limiting force within which means of generating light must be creatively produced in order to enable vision (fire, candles, electrical lights), and this literal example is then metaphorically transferred to the domain of patriarchal construction (Men in Black), then perhaps this film is saying that one of the ways in which the male traditionally tends to visualize attempts to quarantine the unknown (the feminine, difference, egalitarianism) is by interminably equipping solid and steady agents of cultural homogeneity with flashy gadgets and binary intergenerational banter which provides the elder with a stubborn and taciturn way of expressing himself (he's seen everything before and seeks to waste no time discussing things) and the younger with an endless supply of frustrated curiosity.      

In Men in Black III we find Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones/Josh Brolin) at work preventing the public from preserving extraterrestrial information. Traditional heteronormative difference is supported while gender bending is not. Of the two most prominent female characters, one is motherly (she has a prominent position in the present but doesn't directly take part in the action), the other, a criminal (who dies early on).  Agent K, who reads the entire menu every time before ordering the same thing, is the more elderly of the two (while the options have multiplied, he remains resistant to change). After Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) heads back in time and kills him, Agent J's present turns into a war zone as aliens invade to destroy the Earth. After travelling to the past to save his partner, Agent J is pulled over because police officers are stopping every African American driving a nice car. Agent J has stolen the car and is African American. Now, he has stolen the car to save the perseverance of an unyielding content permanency in order to prevent the Earth's destruction. Meaning that if the side effects of this permanency had been successful in the past they would have resulted in their own annihilation (Agent J escapes).  Yet those very same side effects are indirectly legitimized by Agent J's actions. Which also include monitoring difference to ensure that its multidimensional presence doesn't have a disruptive effect.  

The Men in Black films do directly acknowledge and imaginatively fictionalize the existence of well funded secretive agencies designed to prevent the public from learning, but don't seem to recognize that this is problematic, since they're made to look fun and hip yet rigid and combative.

Like a euphemistic police state.

Which isn't very bright.

The Dictator

Okay, let's take a big piece of autocratic shit, give him plenty of time to express himself, strip him of his privilege, place him within a formulaic situation which usually exemplifies redemption, and use his despotic voice to ambiguously promote substantial social democratic initiatives.

While satirically making light of reprehensible realities in order to suggest that disengaged nihilism can make one actively receptive to anything.

In an unrestrained salute to decadence.

Equating the structural socio-economic realities of dictatorships with those found in democratic countries makes a powerful point, representative of the Occupy Movement, perhaps attempting to speak to some who ignored it by encouraging their revulsion not only to Aladeen (Sacha Baron Cohen) but also to the formula creatively used to try and generate knee-jerk sympathy for him.

Without the revulsion, however, a socialist/fascist dialectic presents itself wherein socialist initiatives (multiculturalism, universal healthcare, public education, freedom of speech, . . .), which progressively attempt to provide workers with agency so that their voice can play a meaningful role in the ways in which an entity (a business, corporation, parliament, school) conducts its affairs, are sadistically separated from their collective foundations by acts which attempt to convince them that since they have this agency, this voice, this individuality, they are therefore no different from your average plutocrat/monarch, and should consequently regard collective actions as being beneath them, seeing as monarchs often have more important things to concern themselves with than the impoverished concerns of their subjects (which are pervertedly generalized as being the result of morally corrupt characters).

The relationship between Aladeen and Zoey (Anna Faris) in The Dictator examines this dialectic by having a tyrant work at a collective organic grocery (Free Earth Collective).  While working, Aladeen demonstrates his complete lack of social understanding (monarchs are not like workers) and Zoey is so naive she ignores the multiple signs indicating Aladeen's sadistic tendencies.

And after Aladeen employs a stiff upper lip to improve her business's efficiency she marries him and helps to introduce a number of ineffectual political reforms within his home country.

Hence, The Dictator rashly sanctifies a maniacal potentate to level out the Western/Middle Eastern political playing field while indicating the need for change by wickedly evidencing how disengaged things have become.

There's a lot of corruption out there but for every Stalin there's a Tommy Douglas.

Greece is not Norway, Sweden or Finland.

Your vote does matter.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Wasn't as impressed with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows as I was with Guy Ritchie's first instalment. Holmes's (Robert Downey Jr.) remarkable wit and resilient problem solving skills are once again prominently on display and his whimsical interactions with Dr. Watson (Jude Law) continue to entertain. The fast paced reactive comedic drama moves the plot along with picturesque pinpoint precision. An erudite athletic warrior who constantly goes out of his way to massage his own ego still seeks to prevent the masters of war from obtaining their goals. And the meticulous attention to detail worked into his split second evaluations commands a heightened degree of respect as the concept of awareness receives a veraciously sharp intrepid exposition.

But these elements aren't tied together particularly well.

Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) struggles to maintain Holmes's level of acute alacrity. Some of the novelties which worked well in the first film such as Holmes's pugilistic propensities take up too much time in Game of Shadows to the detriment of his observational acumen. While the dialogue energetically motivates the action while hypothesizing/researching/analyzing/synthesizing the script seems like it was written with an equal degree of haste and more care could have been taken to include harmonious linguistic formulations (some incredible synergies would have resulted had these been in place)(linguistic formulations whose appealing character could have matched the intellectual intensity of the action). Having Holmes attempt to halt the escalation of a major European war places him in a position too grandiose for the execution of a successful first sequel (it's too over the top). And the female characters become static cardboard cutouts as the action progresses, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) having been poisoned in the opening moments.

While exciting enough and possessing a rationalized frenetic frequency, Game of Shadows attempts to move beyond the constructs of its predecessor too quickly while relying on them too strictly, and comes across as rash rather than bold, violently crashing into the sun.

Contagion

Wasn't that impressed with Steven Soderbergh's Contagion. It successfully manages several different plot threads and introduces a wide variety of characters, positioning them in various socio-political quadrants as they react to the spread of a devastating global plague, establishing friendships, watching as loved ones die, exploiting the situation for personal profit, falling victim to the ludicrous ambitions of a culture of desperation. It starts out well, getting right down to it, not spending much time investigating historical details while still encouraging interest within its accelerated format, disease, widespread contamination, diagnosis, containment. But as it unreels, it inconsistently delivers its subject matter, some scenes astutely demonstrating the talents of its superstar cast, others falling flat and causing you to wonder if Soderbergh ran out of time and didn't have the resources to encourage multiple takes. I suppose that if everything is 'normal,' or the world isn't distinctly suffering from the effects of a plague, and then the disease quickly spreads and disseminates chaos, it makes sense to have orderly and traditional opening scenes followed by poorly executed bourgeois hokum (the film itself is infected). This device can work exceptionally well if the director carefully crafts a seductive self-awareness. I didn't spot such self-awareness within Contagion, however. It seemed more like actors with established reputations running through the motions, as if they had taken Law and Order or CSI's format, tweaked it for the big screen, made a number of definitive, instantaneous, unalterable conclusions based upon a shallow degree of ready made research, waited for the content to easily slide into its manufactured mindsets, threw in something heroic yet disengaged, and gingerly cantered towards an incredible turn out at the box office. Some scenes and performances stand out and it was better than mediocre, but still, a very formulaic piece disguised as hip and innovative entertainment, quietly fading into the trivial.

Up the Yangtze

Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze examines the genesis of the Three Gorges Dam within China and its affects upon a family and various citizens. The ways in which the dam's ethical ends are contradicted by its constructed means are prominently highlighted as the not-so-well-off are bullied and forced to move without compensation. These bullies are contrasted by the administrators of a tourist organization who dismiss an employee for only looking out for himself, perhaps suggesting that only those in positions of power have the wherewithal to define. The cross-section of tourists presented is juxtaposed with the plight of the common people as they travel the catered results of a modern engineering marvel while searching for signs of ancient traditions. A well executed profound documentary which provides an insightful glimpse into the tectonic realm of the human factor, Up the Yangtze challenges the designers and implementors of massive public works projects to remember the present needs of their future benefactors while also illustrating the virtues of a social safety net.