For the first time today, I was politely asked to leave my apartment for an hour in order to accommodate a roommate's (foiled) assignation. Got to take his jeep for a drive.

I think the next time he reminds me that I left my shampoo bottle in the wrong place in the shower I'm going to call him a filthy adulterer.

Fool for Love

Robert Altman's Fool for Love is one of those dark sombre romances that's almost more fun to write about than watch. The basic plot is traditional. A gorgeous woman (Kim Basinger as May) is in love and has been in love with a cowboy (Sam Shepard as Eddie) whose no good for her for over a decade. She tries to overcome her desire by dating someone less bold (Randy Quaid as Martin). When the two subjects of desire meet, an otherwise viscid, enigmatic, nocturnal love story suddenly has all of its secrets revealed, candidly, confidently, and non-chalently, a shocking synthesis of opposites cheerfully and disconcertingly materialized. This portion of Fool for Love's script, by clarifying the details the rest of the film has so cleverly hidden, carnal forbidden details forged by desire's twisted and recalcitrant whims, seems to be saying that if a polar synthesis is unleashed in order to explain two sets of taboo miscalculations (one the direct result of the other), while order will be briefly restored, that order's chaos will not be able to withstand externalized vindications. Hence, while the love remains, the situation becomes even more surreal.

I allowed myself to believe that what she had said was true for 15 minutes.

Habit

Pent up nothing just
constant routine desire one
smoke two smokes smoking.

Rar rar rar.

Due Date

As you enter your fourth decade, you may find getting along with people difficult, especially if you're not interested in fucking people over, or, are very interested in fucking people over. If you're interested in fucking people over, you'll get along well with your brethren, but any sort of genuine affection is always mitigated and diluted by an underlying creeping sense of dread, which can lead to misery if not alleviated by church on Sunday (or a weekly chat with a psychiatrist). If you're not interested in fucking people over, you'll seem odd, and the ways in which you interact with others will be judged as suspect and counterproductive, as if you don't want a three storey house, although there will be an unspoken respect for your good nature that underlies your social interactions. Todd Phillips's Due Date takes a representative from both of these categories and sticks them on a road trip together from Atlanta to Los Angeles. Peter Highman (Robert Downey Jr.) simply wants to make it back to L.A. for the birth of his first child while Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifianakis) has a meeting with an agent in Hollywood. The relationship between their personalities is very Plains, Trains and Automobiles, although the consistently awkward and ridiculous scenarios have been crafted for a 21st century audience (like the difference between Back to the Future and Hot Tub Time Machine or Growing Pains and Family Guy). It's sort of like high-strung lackadaisical perseverance meets care-free trusting tactless generosity while co-ordinating various provocatively inane exchanges on an uplifting heroic comedic adventure. Will an enduring friendship be the result and will Ethan and Peter learn to fuck each other over productively by openly caring for one another? My favourite Todd Phillips's film to date.

Novocaine

While growing up in the 80s I was a huge Steve Martin fan, so I decided to give Novocaine a shot recently even though its reviews are predominantly negative. And it's obvious that those reviews are negative because Novocaine is simply to smart for its own good. It's well written insofar as its melodramatic presentations and pronouncements are consistently subverted by ridiculous subject matter that simultaneously lambastes and reconstructs several film noir 'motifs' in order to ironically elevate the whole kitschy kit and kaboodle. It's like director David Atkins is giving Martin the chance to make fun of the ways in which Steve Martin films were typecast during the 90s by allowing him to return to a more atypical role, like those from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid or The Man with Two Brains. In fact, Atkins plays with mass conventions and characterizations within in order to reinvent and reinvigorate filmic constructions, notably with his police officers and femme fatales, thereby providing an unpredictable treat for the conditioned status quo, by destabilizing the manufactured organic link between characters and occupations. Which opens up the comedic spectrum and explains the vituperation.

Kevin Bacon's first scene is outstanding.

Tsotsi

Gang leader David (Presley Chweneyagae) has a bizarre crisis of conscience after stealing an automobile in the first twenty minutes of Gavin Hood's Tsotsi. Used to spending his time organizing petty robberies with the help of his friends, David suddenly steals a car on his own only to find a baby nestled in the back seat. Horrific and haunting childhood memories demand that he care for the child in order to make amends for his father's abuse. In the meantime, the child's parents use their power and influence to vigilantly search for their offspring.

Tilling complicated ethical ground, Tsotsi illustrates how a troubled individual uses the rewards gained from criminal activities to transform his attitude regarding community living. Hood is clear to point out that the opportunities in David's neighbourhood are slim and a life of crime one of the only options. As David learns more about the art of parenting, his personality changes and he develops a more inclusive set of social principles. And then he is arrested, but on his own terms.

If you take someone who is relaxed seriously you may lighten up.

Most of what you learn from relationships comes from interacting with whomever you happen to be dating. As you spend more time together, such interactions become more complex as a historical layer begins to unconsciously affect things. As the years go by and several relationships pass, patterns develop, and from these patterns generalizations regarding the sex of your partners suggest themselves, while love's euphoric magnanimity obfuscates and obliterates them. From these patterns, characteristic statements and reactions are generated and as time passes they become more complex and diverse. As a consequence, if you rarely date anyone, you set yourself up for sincere misfortune while engaging in the act of dating, for your lack of understanding of these statements and their corresponding reactions will leave you consistently confused as you suffer beneath the weight of your partner's experience. Hence, it's better to date people whom you find banal and uninteresting than to wait for that special someone, even if this means that love's euphoric magnanimity will not obliterate the patterns suggested by your experience, so that when that special someone comes around you don't alienate them by being consistently frustrated by their cultural savvy.

Note: beware of falling in love with someone whom you initially find uninteresting, for when they realize that you love them they will punish you for your initial indifference, the nature of said punishment directly corresponding to the degree of their remaining love, and if they do still love you, it will likely be worse.

Furry Vengeance

Roger Kumble's Furry Vengeance is actually a lot more than an annoying comedy with poor bear representation and far to many repetitive scenes. It's also an attempt to indoctrinate children with an eco-friendly racist attitude regarding globalization (I suppose this is about as progressive as Republicans get). As the film unreels, real-estate developer Brendan Fraser (Dan Sanders) plans to turn a forest into a subdivision and cash-in both professionally and economically. But the forest's residents are aware of his ambitions and set out to annihilate them. As time passes, Fraser realizes that the animals are simply trying to protect their families in the same way that he is trying to protect his, and he consequently takes their side in the order of things. But his change of mind angers his Asian American boss who was trying to raise the related development capital from a group of East-Indian industrialists and all hell breaks loose at the annual town festival. And the reconstituted American champions the rights of his community and India and China are prevented from ruining the American landscape. Children should be spared the ways in which films like Furry Vengeance attempt to xenophobically and racistly indoctrinate them, and it's a shame trash like this received a widespread mainstream distribution.

Definitely miss smoking but I think I've quit this time for good. Every day I had smoking to look forward to, always there for me, never letting me down, yelling at me, or complaining that I'm tired and don't want to do that. It's as if the people at Smoking are saying that if something's there for you and it never lets you down it will take up a significant portion of your income, make you smell really bad, and slowly kill you over the years. That's messed up.

Red

I liked Robert Schwentke's Red even though there's not much to it. I recommend it if and only if you're searching for a mildly entertaining brain numbing occasionally amusing action flick wherein several old-school big names (Helen Mirren, Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine) give a Space Cowboys salute to their careers. I was glad to see Brian Cox included in the cast. Even though his career hasn't had as many leading roles, he's definitely demonstrated a robust dynamic multidimensional integrity over the years (as if casting personnel Deborah Aquila and Mary Tricia Wood are saying "you, Brian Cox, are the ultimate mainstream supporting actor"). The next generation is represented by Karl Urban who has demonstrated his abilities in films such as The Chronicles of Riddick, Star Trek, and Pathfinder, and he resignedly holds his own throughout. The film vilifies American atrocities committed in Central America during the 1980s and while this is good it's as if its structure is saying that it's to bad it took the American mainstream 25 years to catch up. The internal dynamics point out how hard it is to prevent such things from happening if you're solely concerned with advancing your own personal agenda, unless that agenda is designed to prevent such things from happening.

It's important to mention the details of your social dynamic to both the shy and boisterous individuals who may seem like they aren't concerned with its fluctuating composition. For if no one ever mentions anything to them, they may start trying to deduce what's happening based solely upon body language and innuendo. You can learn a lot from doing this but nothing's ever certain, and mistakes, though rare, are often made. Mentioning actual truthful details may save them some trouble, especially if this goes on for years and the grip separating hypothesis from fact slips away.

Something new has shown up on your desk. It's nice but you're busy and it's not that important to you so you don't acknowledge its presence. Eventually, someone mentions it to you in the hopes of gaining some recognition for its delivery, assuming that you haven't noticed it yet. But you have noticed it and you mention this fact to their shock and surprise. Now, in this situation, it's better to say that you didn't notice the item in question until that moment, for trying to explain that you had noticed it earlier but didn't say anything is much more complicated and your co-workers likely won't believe your explanation. Because these kinds of things really matter to them and they would have said something had they been in your position. If someone had left a nice poem about the autumn or a delicious snack on my desk I certainly would have said something.

I hate it when medication toxically mixes with your nicotine patch and causes you to throw up before morning coffee, and, this is the closest I've ever come to being a yuppie.

[Make that two days in a row where medication has toxically mixed with my nicotine patch to make me throw up before morning coffee!].

I suppose that in order to learn a new language you can be neither proud nor content.

Suppose it would be great if elected representatives actually fought for the rights of their constituents as opposed to those championed by their party. But the United Farmers Association of Alberta tried this in the early twentieth century and they found that because their members were voting with the interests of their communities in mind, they could barely pass their own budget. Meaning that democracy often doesn't work in a democracy.

La dernière fugue (The Last Escape)

A son struggles with his conception of his father as that father tries to maintain his place at the head of his household during Christmas dinner. But Parkinson's Disease and a generally ornery disposition have lead that father's family to openly revolt against his traditional authority. While taking a break, family members André (Yves Jacques) and Sam (Aliocha Schneider) consider the notion that perhaps euthanasia is the best solution, seeing how their patriarch (Jacques Godin) remains mentally lucid but physically and spiritually destitute. Their long suffering matriarch (Andrée Lachapelle) isn't adverse to the idea (especially after the father mentions that he no longer wishes to go on) and Léa Pool's La dernière fugue (The Last Escape) crisply examines the resultant subject matter. But is it the patriarchy itself that has Parkinson's and are we watching a sentimental salute to an eclipsed cultural stranglehold whose vilification of marijuana and strict gender roles doesn't productively jive with the 21st century? Pool's film doesn't directly suggest this and she delicately pays respect to different generational attitudes within, providing multiple viewpoints with terse, spur of the moment exclamations. The speed at which everything takes place is suspect as is the sudden ending, but the overt manner which Pool adopts in order to launch her investigation is pronounced and bold and refreshingly open.

So you've approached a situation with preconceived notions regarding how things will unravel, while maintaining a cautionary approach which takes into account unpredictable variables. As time is built into that situation's framework, patterns develop that have been seen before and experience suggests certain qualifications. If you are dealing with a disruptive genius, they are hoping to convince you that these patterns are absolute, in order to watch as you begin to engage them confidently. Then, when you are feeling calm and relaxed, the patterns suddenly change, since her or his test was judging your ability to adapt and contend after having been seduced by comfort.

There you have it. Your roommates are fighting and you feel like taking a side. But you can't take a side because your roommates are old friends and have a firmly established amicable relationship. If you take sides with one, the other will start scrutinizing your activity meticulously and use his or her research to defame you in the other's eyes. Since they already have a strong bond, they will then transfer the enmity engendered by their friendship's hiccup towards you and revitalize it accordingly. I wonder if marriage councillors use this technique as a strategy.

At least I know that throughout the day I always have Proust to whom to look forward. His writing guarantees me a degree of unmitigated joy each and every day and has done so for the past 3 and a half years. Like walking through the streets of Montréal after drinking a pint of Trois-Pistoles, Proust's writing encourages a creative open-mind while obscuring the day's misfortunes. Every time.

I find it hard to believe that every Conservative riding in Canada unanimously supports the long-gun registry. I'm not surprised that this hasn't been brought up in our predominantly conservative media outlets however. By never questioning this 'harmony,' it's as if several editors are trying to subliminally disseminate a myth of conservative homogeneity which hopes to unconsciously convince people that the Conservative Party is 'united' and 'pure,' and therefore 'trustworthy' and 'austere,' which is nonsense.

Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis

Answers and questions. Definitions and commitment. Meaning and possibility. Love. Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin féminin situates and interrogates his uncertain conception of Parisian ideology within a diverse realistic quotidian brand of surrealism which effectively simulates a dynamically fluctuating resolution. Practically searching for truths and realizations in accordance with predetermined principles can have a disillusioning affect when trying to place them within one's expectations of an other, based upon interpretations of historical interactions, especially when such principles are being simultaneously synthetically analyzed. But this doesn't prevent Paul (Jean-Pierre Léaud) from continuing to interact with and observe his community as partner Madeleine (Chantal Goya) becomes a pop star. Many scenes are robust, showcasing differing points of view quickly and acutely yet calmly and pensively, while eating breakfast in a café for instance, the actors eating and drinking throughout, like a well-executed preplanned orchestration of randomly improvised daily life, with just enough absurd happenings to make sure it isn't taking itself to seriously. Stop analyzing things and you may have an easier time unless analyzing things makes you happy (assuming happiness is a possibility). Cultural tropes (interviews for pop magazines . . .) are subtly satirized and recast to reelevate their "insert your adjective" recognitions. I have no idea what this film is about. And I used a lot of big words.

The Social Network

I'm on Facebook every single day. Mostly just to play Scrabble but also to see the news items etc. that friends have designated as worthy of sharing. And to see who is adhering to the art of creating compelling Facebook Profile Status Updates. It's not the easiest thing to do although its analysis depends upon which of the myriad factors one's disposition chooses to exalt as wrought iron synthetic principles at that specific time, which depends upon how that day's events have individually affected his or her historical constitution. Even if you have principles that you always apply it depends upon how those principles align themselves with and are interpreted by your personality's unique composition at that given moment. I'm just trying to say that it must be fun being a judge.

David Fincher's The Social Network examines how Facebook came to be, placing its provocative genesis within a generally non-judgmental framework. Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is distraught regarding a relationship that has gone sour and engages in cybershenanigans in order to reestablish his sense of self. Said shenanigans impress three other students who resultantly share their idea for a social networking site, hoping that he will join their team. However, believing he can improve on their idea and develop it on his own, with a little help from his friends, Zuckerberg breaks and predominantly partners with his best friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield) instead. But differing philosophies concerning how the company should be managed significantly rupture their bond, and the film unreels by staggering two simultaneous lawsuits with the practical details composing their judicial trajectories.

Zuckerberg comes across as exceptionally shrewd and benefits economically and culturally if not socially from his endeavours. The film's well structured (especially the opening scene), thankfully providing unnecessary depth for some of its characters while realigning our attention every couple of minutes or so. Generalizations regarding personalities are delivered incisively (internally speaking) and the difficulties of fantastically capturing the legal realities disrupting Zuckerberg's life are handled well (the scenes are terse and kitschy yet volatile and characteristic [the form 'distilling' the undergraduate personality]). Sean Parker's (Justin Timberlake) introduction effectively breaks up the narrative, functioning as a transformative bridge much like that in David Bowie's "Changes." And although the breakdown of Zuckerberg and Saverin's friendship is a little tough to take, at least its resolution sees some ethics transferred to the world of business. After lengthy, expensive, legal proceedings.

Well, I'm about to check Facebook for the 16th time today in order to see if that ukelele jam's still on for tomorrow and whether or not I can score a Scrabble bingo. Why did T_______ post that picture? That's not going to go over well. I would start my own zoo but you can't design it from scratch and I want a zoo that only contains different types of bears. This kind of functionality isn't present people . . !