The Prince of Egypt

Misjudged the title of this one.

I thought it was going to present an old school Egyptian tale, one that I'd never heard before, and offer insights into the culture that definitively flourished for agile millennia (I'm curious and I don't know that much about it).

Obviously that wasn't the case and The Prince of Egypt is in fact Moses, and the film examines the famous Exodus that led the Jewish people to new lands.

I was still surprised to see a cartoon showcasing such a revered and solemn tale, with animated pluck and illustrated mischief not grim and stately sombre discord.

Moses is a bit of a punk and habitually revels at play within, causing great disturbances as he teases Ramses who may inherit the civilization.

Ramses is worried because his absolutist father isn't quite so sure he would govern wisely, that he may be too soft indeed to effectively administrate something so vast and historically imposing.

Moses assures him he'll be okay before running into his actual family, who left him freely cast adrift on the fertile Nile so long ago.

Upon discovering his Hebrew roots Moses reacts with sympathy and compassion, for an enslaved people sincerely struggling to maintain balance and upbeat order. 

He leaves his life at the palace behind and takes up their cause with concerted gusto, notably after God commands him to nimbly help his struggling overlooked and crippled subjects.

I don't mind interpretive takes on biblical legends postmodernly accentuated, the literal accounts and associated stories often coming across as far too dull.

In an age of multivariable invention is it not crucial to flexibly adapt, and even embrace alternative interpretations reflexively recharacterizing biblical myths?

When I consider that Moses parted the Red Sea for instance and I imagine it through a parliamentary lens, it's as if the centre-left-red wanted the Hebrews to remain in Egypt, and at one time the far-left-red agreed with them.

But then Moses's messianic savvy was able to convince the more compassionate far-left-red otherwise, and as the red politicians at large debated his clever points, the Jewish people escaped emergent and free (the government wasn't paying attention because it was arguing so much).

It actually sounds a lot cooler with the sea being parted by a sympathetic God.

But is that the only way the story can be told?

For a God, wouldn't it be boring? 

Yesterday

It's mind-blowing how many memorable songs the Beatles wrote.

In such a short span of time.

In 5 years they released Help!, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles (The White Album), and Abbey Road, in just 5 years they released 7 of the best albums ever recorded, albums that didn't fade with time or grow stale, 7 albums, 5 years, not to mention Let it Be or everything from their earlier years, how did they release that much high quality original material in such a short span of time?, it doesn't make sense when you consider the history of pop music, there's no other band that produced that much quality in such a short period, others have come close, but haven't achieved the same level of astonishing brilliance.

You sometimes have to wait three years for contemporary artists to release a new album, and then it isn't even that good, how long does it take talented artists to write 10 songs I ask you, how long!, how long!

It didn't take the Beatles that long, and assuming they weren't extraterrestrials posing as gifted songwriters while they let loose for a remarkably productive sojourn on Earth, the question of how they superlatively merged quality and quantity so effortlessly in such a short period, a feat that has never been duplicated although many bands have had impressive runs, makes me think they were either just the most gifted songwriters to ever fortunately meet and form a band, a group that used its fame productively, that didn't self-destruct when their popularity become overwhelming (even after they stopped touring), or that the music industry changed so much in their wake that its current makeup won't permit the release of so much monumental material due to the corresponding mass hysteria it generates, as if the goal of denying the release of brilliant material is plain and simply to manage crowds, or prevent people from wildly enjoying themselves, as if they've classified unconscious bliss, and reckoned it an unfavourable commodity.

It could be that the Beatles set the bar so high they discouraged a lot of potential songwriters from seeking genius, so many talented young people worried about being like them instead of zeroing in on their own creative selves.

But if they discouraged some, they inspired many others, who perhaps never would have insisted had they not grown up listening to them intently.

So many songs I still love listening to for what must be the millionth time.

They diversified their material with every album after the early years.

Why has there been no one else like them?

They were much stronger together than they ever were as solo acts.

Yesterday imagines a world where the Beatles never existed, but one struggling singer-songwriter (Himesh Patel as Jack Malik) still remembers all their songs.

He's an instant success when he starts playing them live and suddenly finds himself on the threshold of superstardom.

It's a feel good film blending hope and miracles to find romance through a lack there of and integrity in its most spellbinding.

I think the world'd be worse off if the Beatles never existed; they not only wrote some of the best pop music I've heard, but they also inspired so many other artists to give 'er.

The "if they had never" question doesn't make sense of course since "if they had never no one would have ever known".

I do know though, and I'm glad I've spent so much time listening to their music regardless.

Because of Ferris Bueller's Day Off no less.

My favourite album, Rubber Soul.

Damned innovative.

Aloft

Isolated helpless superstitious promise, the only hope for a mother's incurable child resting in the hands of a weathered witch doctor, desperation, the unknown, an attempt to reach into wild undiscovered mystic knowledge potentially hosting scientific truth/s, cures, poetic miracles, gifts, afflictions, a reliance upon the yet to be explained medical hardware built into environmental consciousnesses, humanistic crucibles, penicillin in a beam of light, tactile chemotherapy, the mother refuses to believe only to find she has what it takes, tragedy tearing her family apart, a reluctant, crippling, emotional commitment.

To belief.

Trust.

The event's shocks leave her other son permanently withdrawn, difficult but stable, cultivating an archaic art.

The consequences of a devastating decision lay waiting North of 60, forlorn forgiveness, buried beneath the ice.

It's an incredibly dark film, Claudia Llosa's Aloft.

Well done though.

A depressing desperate joyless aesthetic meticulously matriculated like the resin of pure hopelessness.

Not very cheery.

Well acted, Jennifer Connelly (Nana Kunning) and Cillian Murphy (Ivan) given more room to manoeuvre than I'm accustomed to seeing, not that I've seen all their films.

Well structured.

It challenges you to believe or condemn, take a side, consider, which is always a huge risk, commendable in its execution.

I don't deny the existence of miracles, things that can't be explained.

I do believe they can't be explained because our knowledge still lacks the means to comprehend them however.

It may, always.

Trying to intuitively reproduce them is a sketchy calling.

They can't be explained.

That's why they're so fascinating.

Motivating.