Timbers

So close a balmy 9 degrees
sun streaked addendum Pyrenees
raspy imputin' ground to dust
below un autre wintry thrust

four weeks floored sentenced could be more
before the Spring settles the score
the middling forecast seemed so bright
now acquiesced transisting flights

the end of March so freaking near
to blooming effervescent sheer
tensions built-up like barnyard flint
yet sublimated 'neath the printed

blurred tangential absurd rout,
took it easy just to flout
its icy grip on fact and rumour,
no choice but to endure its humour

trenchantly.

Kong: Skull Island

Could it be that islands still exist, prehistorically penetrating legend and myth with unbridled evidenced imposing extant luminosity, persisting undisturbed in majestic unrecorded intransigent galed shadow, a roar, a whisper, more lively and crisper ecosystems biologically invested in atemporal ontological sincerity, harmony, in other words, crépuscule, a delicate balance, a ferocious bottom line, lost in leisure in starlit environs, vigilance required to consummate freedom, at home in the pacific, empirically thine?

I would write that the adventurers weren't ready for their quest if it wasn't for the fact that nothing could have prepared them.

But I suppose the nature of questing demands a forged psychological allegiance between ill-preparation and adaptability, immediacy continuously generating an agile improvised awareness, which is narratively applicable to the epic in hand.

Characters descend on the ancient generally undiscovered home of King Kong in Jordan Vogt-Roberts's Kong: Skull Island, a chaotic campy realistic yet improbable, and therefore emancipating, energetic exploration of the quaintly forbidden.

Their goal is scientific yet commercial and thus the military's aid is bromantically secured.

Friendship, collegiality, professionalism, and love, populate the script with wild rhythmic versatile denizens, its cosmopolitan lodge fertile if not frenzied, the unfriendly monsters ready to eagerly devour those with too much or not enough innate courage.

Plus random soldiers.

But Kong protects them which trigger-happy Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) cannot comprehend as he attempts to kill him to right misperceived wrongs.

His attempts are obviously pigheaded but they do aptly reflect mad extremist methodologies.

The explorers, military personnel, and scientists, curiously encounter an old pilot from World War II who was forced to make his home on the island as well.

He survived by living with an Indigenous tribe who Kong altruistically protects from voracious giant lizards.

Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly [it's classic John C. Reilly :)]) represents the Indigenous people in the film, stands in for them as they (literally) fade into the background, and Packard refuses to listen to his tooth and nail.

Would the ending not have been more striking, more memorable (alright, Kong's fight with the Lizard King is memorable but the surrounding material isn't so much [okay, they escape on a boat, I'll remember that, but . . .]) if the Indigenous peoples stopped Packard before he tried to kill Kong, and everyone then escaped having understood the logic of their decision?

Such a development would have functioned as a salient metaphorical critique of the Vietnam war which otherwise isn't critically examined.

What I'm trying to say is, it would have rocked if Skull Island went Avatar.

With Kong still fighting the giant Lizard of course.

It's still a lot of fun, the new King Kong movie, and, as a matter of fact, I couldn't help comparing it to Planet Terror and Machete Kills since it unreels with a similar more family friendly aesthetic.

There are moments where it captures the magic that makes those films stand out, but the sequels will have to dig deeper for me to mention their names in the same breath.

Again.

I still recommend the film.

A great March release.

I was worried about March this year.

But so far it ain't so bad.

A United Kingdom

It's bizarre how something as wonderful as two people falling for each other can have so many painful consequences, and how surrounding support networks, which are also supposed to be amorously bound, can suddenly disappear after the declaration, in an appeal to what the slighted individuals oddly refer to as shame.

It seems more shameful to me to cast out a loved one for following their heart and deciding to live with/date/marry . . . the person they hold dear.

People have been writing similar things for millennia because the problem has persisted for millennia and adults often don't consult 5 year-olds for solutions to such matters, even though in such cases the youngsters often possess a much clearer understanding than the mature grown-ups scorned.

In terms of race anyways, unless their parents have corrupted them at an early age.

When Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike) and Prince Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) engage in Amma Asante's A United Kingdom, and then marry, their contentment is multilaterally assaulted.

The British government is relying on its South African income to stay afloat after World War II , and since Khama is the hereditary heir of what eventually becomes Botswana, the South Africans, who have just enacted apartheid, are enraged by his betrothal to a white woman.

Correspondingly, his family, who have been begrudgingly living for decades under pretentious conservative British rule, sees their marriage as an affront to African dignity, the coddling of the colonizers, and regards their happy union with contempt.

The politics of empire are obviously quite complex, and if an important revenue stream is dammed up, ways will be found to ensure it continues flowing.

Thus, Khama is blocked in his attempt to begin governing his domain as the British cut him off after his uncle (Vusi Kunene as Tshekedi Khama) betrays him.

But democratic appeals to the British and Bechuanan public generate sympathy for the controversial lovers, and a working solution begins to materialize.

A lot of unforeseen trouble for the young couple.

Who steadfastly remains harmoniously united.

A United Kingdom breaks down the best and the worst of sociopolitical matrimonial relations to champion integrity as opposed to bland disgust.

Family friendly yet bold and powerful, it romantically digs deep to forge new ground, celebrating ethical reimaginings of the political, and two tenacious nestlings, who were fortunate enough to fall in love.

Willikers

Forty freakin' jammed backbeaters
piled-up boasts encroached me peepers
onslaught sudden massive dump
shuts down the metropole's rib rumped

kickslammed 'man Winter's sporty gambit
instrumental scales pedantic
crock the throng or dive right in
expelling steeped Ungavan gin

walked in to banks immobilized
a surly crank blinded sore eyes
just sank on down and took a seat
and watched machines accost the street

in punishment absurdly shining
mad unleashed wild western grinding;
one night's excessive serenade
conspicuous in stout refrain

I'll say.

Logan

Fascist forces of dull simplicity have driven mutants to the brink of extinction in James Mangold's Logan, but a few remain, carving out a meagre living while doing everything they can to conceal the beauty that defines their superlative difference.

Rather than cultivating an inclusive public sphere wherein which difference is free to flourish, that difference has been isolated and weaponized by monstrous geneticists intent on rearing invincible super soldiers to achieve militaristic objectives.

But these gifted children fight back, escape, avoid capture, one of them eventually finding Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) who have been living off the grid in severe destitution.

She's (Dafne Keen as Laura) hunted of course, intense battles erupting everywhere she goes, the death count extremely high as the trio travels from Mexico to North Dakota in search of a secretive promised land.

And a family.

There's a very tender scene where they all sit down to dinner on a farm and warmly discuss different topics, a rare moment in superhero films that briefly and humbly exemplifies everything they've been fighting for.

They're reminded shortly thereafter that for some insane reason their idle happiness enrages conformist obscurities.

Suffocatingly.

Patrick Stewart delivers a remarkable performance.

He often has a leadership role that doesn't display much vulnerability, but in Logan he's quite helpless and therefore given the opportunity to heartbreakingly act beyond the borders his characters often rivetingly apply themselves within.

An outstanding supporting role.

Logan's like no other X-Men film.

It's much more stylistically concerned with the human factor than special effects or introducing a wild array of compelling new characters.

Identity, community, belonging, loneliness, rage, and bigotry still drive the narrative, but they're examined less explosively, with more realistically tender tenacity (when the fighting stops), as if X-Men films truly are applicable to global sociopolitical debates, debates within which their characters dynamically distinguish themselves.

A fitting salute to Hugh Jackman who has thankfully been bringing Wolverine to life for the past 17 years.

So many irresistible moments.

Only the death of Captain James T. Kirk effected me similarly.

Who knows, maybe huge assholes with tons of power will stop militaristically expressing themselves while crushing other people who aren't like them some day.

That kind of bullshit doesn't seem to fly in the EU much thankfully.

Currently.

Difference really is a wonderful thing.

When it thrives, the scientific, artistic, and religious benefits are extraordinary.

It's why we have cars, electricity.

The internet.

Refrigerators.

If the people who invented or discovered these things had been callously excluded and beaten down throughout their lives we'd still be living in the dark ages.

And those assholes would still be in charge.

Nurturing contempt.

Ruling with imperialist ambitions.

Recklessly waging war.

To satisfy capricious whims.

Angry Inuk

I don't think I could ever kill a seal or a dear or a pig or a cow, but, as mentioned previously, I do eat meat and understand that somewhere down the line the lives of the animals I consume are cut short, that someone else brought their lives to an end, and they may earn their livings by engaging in such activities.

It's different if the species is threatened or endangered, or animal babies are involved, or if people are eating a species with a slow reproductive rate, but husbandry usually doesn't manage species at risk, as far as I know, the inherent cruelty of many aspects of factory farming notwithstanding.

Keep raising your voices and such aspects will change, all you have to do is frustrate a business's bottomline.

Several of the animals I eat are quite cute, however.

They're all quite cute.

I've considered posting pictures of them on my fridge to remind me not to eat them but still haven't gotten around to it.

Man I love steak.

Still, I'm glad there aren't massive industrial entities harvesting seals along with pigs and cows, but if some people in remote areas where there are no alternative economic opportunities want to hunt them, and sell products made from their skin etc., I see no problem with this, since the seals in fact flourish in abundance.

The seal population in Nunavut, for instance, is much higher than that of its human residents, meaning that if such residents want to hunt seals and sell boots and parkas made from their hides afterwards, I can't rationally critique such commerce.

Alethea Arnaqua-Baril's Angry Inuk takes a hard look at the EU's decision to ban the sale of seal products within its domain, and the effects that that decision has had on small communities in Nunavut, Canada.

Before the ban, the communities were earning enough money to support themselves, and people in Europe may not know that a 12 pack of ginger ale can cost as much as $82 North of 60.

After the ban, these communities were still (are still) able to hunt seals for subsistence purposes if they could afford to buy gas for their snow machines, but without markets to sell their seal products, they couldn't afford to do much else, the ban on the import of seal goods having effectively crushed their only economy, and left them dependent on government assistance.

They sustainably harvest a small fraction of the seal population and if allowed to do so can support themselves with dignity and respect.

I therefore support a reversal of the ban.

I find it hard to stomach that the EU props up the veal industry, which is extra revolting, the mass slaughter of baby cows, the systematic mechanized profit based mass slaughter of baby cows many of whom are restrained from birth, and it won't support a handful of Inuit hunters shooting free seals in the wild who have grown to adulthood outside of a cage.

Baffling.

I've heard that centuries ago working people in England desperately wanted to eat meat because the upper classes generally were the only ones who could afford it.

I think that if you transported many of those workers to the 21st century and showed them the unbelievably miserable lives many animals lead in order so that the majority of North Americans and Europeans can eat meat, over a billion deaths weekly according to some sites, they may return to their time(s) lacking their former jealousies.

Or currently, currently send oblivious citizens to a slaughterhouse and have them stay there for a week, invisibly, so they can see how the animals are treated when the workforce thinks no one is looking.

Factory farms can become organic.

It may only raise the cost of a big mac by 35 cents.

Governments could also subsidize the transition.

While subsidizing the cost of food North of 60.

Canada's population North of 60 is around 114, 970.

If the oil and gas industry receives massive government subsidies every year, there must be some money lying around to bring the cost of a 12 pack of ginger ale down to $7 in the far North.

If food costs come down and the Inuit can market seal products again, you've got a thriving aboriginal success story.

That's not only good press.

It's also solid humanity.

Angry Inuk, a must see documentary.

Shame on you Greenpeace.

Shame.

Heimlich

Mist envelopes Ula's comp

Cinderellic gothic font

rubric Thewlis Montevid

incessant incandescent mint

interpreted yearling my fallow

undulating rhythmic mallow

zested manifested hock

absented unfermented plop

hammocked ion regulator

herbs verdure laconic cater

gorged on vinous sentiment

to till surmising soils extant

munch.

Forushande (The Salesman)

Honourable codes parlay filings frosty, high stress politesse addressed immaterials, expectations, blame, a role, a play, residual sin licentious spaces, jasmine, tremors entrenched repute resounding, a home makeshift explicit riffs callow, advanced notification withheld as fictional and realistic threads intertwine to obscure an artistic commitment, the adoption of a foreign text from a less patriarchal period and country (?) expressing thoughts and desires strictly forbidden, blended with alternative signs of subterranean dissatisfaction to question free thought as if it's a supernatural challenge, as if the artist is being challenged by God, a progressive man on the Iranian scene must internally confront strength, shock, and shame, obsessive disdain, turmoil exhaustively cultivated.

His wife's willing to forgive.

Emad (Shahab Hosseini) spends so much time thinking vengeful thoughts that he overlooks Rana's (Taraneh Alidoosti) suffering as rage slowly consumes him.

She was the victim, she was the one who was attacked, but throughout Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman Emad is more concerned with personal honour.

He critiques the system within which he was nurtured but is still a product of that system and when the real clashes with his noble imagination the sublime does not judiciously compensate.

Women shortsightedly relegated to a subservient role.

The salesperson interrogates to enlighten yet struggles as he surfaces.

The film brilliantly examines his tortured soul, but is also a product of its circumstances, and focuses far less time on the feminine.

A purgatorial predicament.

Igniting bitter flames.

En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove)

A routine lifetime, sturdy crystalline productive disciplined rigour, shocks and surges and synergies refreshed and reconstituted, dis/ingenuous gravitas, im/pertinent shallows, crises, crucibles, cubicles, companionship, curmudgeony coca, grumpy old bear, shattered inveterate disrepair, friendly yet fiendish, stubborn yet understanding, a bleeding heart with no tolerance for stupidity, a prognostic paradigm, tired of living alone.

An unwilling multicaring master of quotidian ceremonies seeks to end it all after having grown none too fond of his lonely predicament.

Yet every suicide attempt fails as curious neighbours inquisitively interrupt him.

In search of aid.

Will the attempts stop as Ove (Rolf Lassgård) accepts his necessary role or is the loss of his wife simply too much to ignore?

To unburden.

I should have just called him an aging romantic.

Old school know-how, postmodernly applicable.

Comedy, tragedy, dismissals and outrage fluidly blend and contradict as Hannes Holm's En man som heter Ove (A Man Called Ove) proves that life's worth living.

From driving lessons to guidance counselling to children's stories to a complimentary spade, the film ironically employs a grouchy weathered patriarch to communalize arabs, gay people, eccentrics, regular joes, and the happy-go-lucky.

Captivatingly so.

There are moments where people air their grievances only to be briskly reminded of the greatness they have undeniably achieved.

According to Ove's incisive summaries.

But the film isn't preachy, such dialogue is expertly woven in to avoid seeming too emotional, to counterintuitively use implausibility to capture something realistic.

I don't know much about what's happening in Sweden these days, but I can claim that En man som heter Ove internationally and often hilariously synthesizes the left and the right while pretending like it'd rather be stretched out on a couch watching reruns of Cheers, or the Swedish equivalent of the celebrated American sitcom.

Sort of like hot chocolate.

Points to make, style to consider.

Ove may not want to do anything ever, but whenever he attempts something, he engages full-throttle.

Occasionally expressing road rage.

Pewter

Scurvy scrimp cerveza blue
ze bubbly brewmeist polkashoo
improved knock knock halcyon mastiff
polygon eclectic passive

yurts reverse clutched clover glide
cerebral beadled bonafide
maligned recess nerve-wracked adjacent
casper intimate East Asian

maven instance flashlit gnaws
unravelled frazzle licked and pawed
yeehaw seesawed pronounced imbalanced
portals orbital allowance

beached.

Toni Erdmann

The unexpected smile, the medium coffee spontaneously upgraded, surprise Thai food, microbrasserie du Lac St-Jean, discourses of extemporaneity startling and surprising with lighthearted charm and velvety enchantment, extracurricular cuddles, subtlety delicately embraced, yet it doesn't have to be so cozy, so huggable, the art of introducing mild-mannered bizarre yet keenly shocking escapades to a routine having been disruptively cultivated by a few, mischievously mutating manifestations genuinely juggling various psychologies in sundry situations to produce desired wtfs?, perfecting their grasp over a lifetime, to pluck up and stack anew.

Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann addresses such potential by placing a loveable creative comic within a corporate crucible, his goal, to cheer up his successful yet sad daughter, who's living the high life yet shovelling the coal.

She's none too impressed, but dad (Peter Simonischek) keeps showing back up equipped with alternative personality.

She can't deny that he's funny.

Nor that he radiates goodwill.

But it's not really a comedic film, not really a drama either, Toni Erdmann's more like a brilliant presentation of the seriously awkward which patiently and articulately synthesizes different lifestyles to hilariously and sensibly simplify choice.

Films that are almost three hours long which cleverly clasp your attention the whole way through are a rare treat, especially ones which realistically examine so many different aspects of the human predicament without directly moralizing, judiciously justifying scenario after scenario instead which simultaneously intensify while lightening lives lost and lounging.

Material taken on the road.

There's a chill extended shot which builds Erdmann's character early on. He's sitting next to an elegant stone wall which resembles aspects of a wild ocean that's been thoughtfully tamed.

Throughout the film he playfully interjects harmless doses of character to sharply strung financially volatile vectors, character which appears wild at first, but he does so with such well-timed respectful controlled im/precision that nothing ever wantonly swerves out of control.

Chaotic stability critically conditioned.

The script reflexively blends hierarchical configurations with nimble finesse and stressed out soul.

The last 25 minutes are so freakin' good.

Monster Trucks

Prudent planning can effectively ensure that environmental economics create jobs for adventurous workers while collaboratively caring for diverse ecosystems.

The plans can't be drawn up as quickly, and the people potentially living on the sought after lands have to be consulted, compensated, but since these projects often create billions in revenue, is it really that shortsighted to spend an extra 120 million?

It's like cleaning your house.

I don't like living in filth so I regularly sweep up and do the dishes.

Doing these chores helps me to avoid illness plus I don't stain my socks just by stepping on the floor.

It's win win.

The environment's like a massive house, some would argue it's God's house, God's country, and leaving behind toxic pools and/or terrain supersaturated with oil upon which nothing can live turns that verdant mansion into a disgraceful unkempt sofa you'd find at the dump, not at the cool free section of the dump where good natured citizens drop off used furniture, the dumpy section of the dump, i.e, the dump.

It's basic health and sanitation.

Sure, profits rock, but living in harmony with nature's what profit's all about, the environment's undeniably a priceless gift that has gingerly inspired people for countless generations and recklessly compromising its ancient integrity to make a quick buck foolishly belittles the daunting majesty that illustriously defines it.

Think I'm being foolish?

Think again.

Imagine New Brunswick's population increased to 17 million.

There are around 17 million people currently living in the Netherlands according to Siri, a country similar in size to NB.

Currently, if you live in New Brunswick, it's easy to spend time alone in the countryside because there aren't that many people living there compared to Holland and space is relatively abundant.

So I'm told.

(No one has told me that).

Increase its population by 16.25 million and that abundant space becomes precious as it decreases, and sustainably maintaining what's left becomes even more intuitively paramount.

I'm sure with the additional people it would still be just as beautiful.

But that's a much larger mass to deal with.

In Chris Wedge's Monster Trucks, a new species is discovered after greedy Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) digs too deep in search of even more wealth.

His monstrous avarice accidentally relocates actual (loveable) monsters who live within those depths and curiously resemble giant bulbous octopi.

Fortunately, gentle yet tough young Tripp (Lucas Till), who's having difficulty getting along with step-father Rick (Sheriff Rick) (Barry Pepper) and doesn't seem to notice that Meredith (Jane Levy) likes him, finds one of the beasties and affectionately names him "Creech."

Before long, a team is assembled, including a reluctantly brave scientist (Thomas Lennon as Jim Dowd) with a guilty conscious, and they're off to save Creech and his kind from the development which would lay their subterranean realm waste.

Their quasi-exobiological ecosystem.

Don't forget Danny Glover (Mr. Weathers).

It's family fun that makes great viewing after an extended hike, or rides on the métro and bus, environmentally aware without any mercantile misgivings, in bold, it cleans up its mess, while metaphorically promoting markets for biofuels.

Mass markets for said fuels can become realities if there's enough consumer demand.

Make some environmentally friendly automobiles and trucks that cost under $30,000 and run on alternative energy sources and that demand may materialize.

It would help clean up the air we breathe.

And make a huge difference, here on homestead planet Earth.

Likely below ground as well.

Loved this film.

Radish

Chiclet corpuscule concisely
macarooned unlit and nightly
jargonned 'dorphined hutched soirées
out mandolinned ruckus okay

the beat dry yeast deplete Orion
dormant corpulent pun fryin'
hither zither buckled mew
the pitch assigned and quaintly stewed

'dledoo the flue sunup sundown
I'll docket ledgering profound
surmounted brisk neon arcade
'a wintering Lewiston Maine

'scertained.

Oscar Picks 2017

Again, very difficult to make these choices. So many wonderful moments. So many outstanding artists.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Nicole Kidman (Lion)
Actor in a Supporting Role: Jeff Bridges (Hell or High Water)
Cinematography: Linus Sandgren (La La Land)
Costume Design: Colleen Atwood (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them)
Film Editing: Tom Cross (La La Land)
Makeup and Hairstyling: Joel Harlow and Richard Alonzo (Star Trek Beyond)
Music (Original Score): (La La Land)
Production Design: David Wasco (La La Land)
Short Film (Animated): Patrick Osborne (Pearl)
Short Film (Live Action): Kristof Deák and Anna Udvardy (Sing)
Visual Effects: Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff (Kubo and the Two Strings)
Writing (Adapted Screenplay): August Wilson (Fences)
Writing (Original Screenplay): Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster)
Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman (Jackie)
Actor in a Leading Role: Denzel Washington (Fences)
Directing: Denis Villeneuve (Arrival)
Picture: Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner (Moonlight)

*Wow. I left thinking La La Land had won. But the regular doors to the complex were locked so I had to leave through a restaurant. Where I discovered that Moonlight had in fact won. La La Land was an amazing film too. But a Moonlight win is so freakin' awesome.

La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle)

Adrift unwilling splash immersion.

Unsettled erupting micromissive.

Beached a slumber fitfully sprained.

Awash.

Excursions verdant fruitful splendour.

Swirling marine exposure.

Rebirth. Escape. Dispatch.

Awash.

Repeat, then driven, driven wild, an uncharacteristic fusion steeped in visions manifold inflects unexpected leisure, immaculate pleasures deeply unfolding lifelong treasured dreams canopied, mystiqued, indiscreet wide-open vast panoramic environs, steady shimmering shifting surging intensities, furlong density, expansive imaginative sprite.

Bold red turtle, transformative undefined enigmatic variations, eternal interventions in matters emergentally sound, forever traversing labyrinthine realms, poetically sacrificing as life creeds incarnate.

La tortue rouge (The Red Turtle) patiently and passively pulls you into its mature yet childlike embrace with cozy caresses and blanketed calm.

A truly relaxing way to spend some time lost in ageless wonder, it's as sensitive as it is surprising, emotional yet cerebrally thine.

Loved the crabs.

Julieta

Clandestine cordial crests revisiting past traumatic emotionally eviscerating relations, quotidian delineations, condemnations, obfuscations, a literary protocol perspicaciously pinpointing buoys and beacons and estuaries and islets, in revelation, orchestration, a confession, contemporary embraces confused by the disappearance, the sudden creative seclusion, infused with relapsed resuscitated cursive, gently and gingerly discovering clarifications whose lucidity exponentially envisions myriad alternative past contingencies, a roll call, a characterized crucible oceanically encapsulated, answers which question themselves, which everlastingly ensure, that their author never simply asks why?

The details of a former life haunt a convalescing classics expert (Emma Suárez as Julieta) after an unexpected encounter bears mythological witness.

Pedro Almodóvar makes a film based on the writings of Alice Munro.

Could there be a more tantalizing artistic synthesis?

I haven't read Ms. Munro for years (a mistake) but I loved reading her short stories in my twenties.

From what I remember, they often modestly yet incisively examined themes that might have seemed too light if they hadn't been treated with such soberly mischievous assured congeniality, like reading an unconcerned humble playful virtuoso, visiting a store in a small town that has that Amélie item for which you've been unconsciously searching for an unspecified period, or spending time with thoughtful friends who haven't turned bitterly sarcastic.

Her stories also stood out because they consistently contained memorable realistic conclusions, valuable advice that actually made you stop and think, that taught you how the world works without destroying or vitriolically critiquing something.

Like a mom.

I was worried Julieta wouldn't narrativize along these lines but was pleasantly surprised with the results.

A kind, sympathetic, bold yet hesitant film, it articulately pulls you into its struggles without preaching or pontificating about sleuths right and wrong.

Delicate strength.

With a stunning closing image that made me want to visit the Spanish countryside (cinematography by Jean-Claude Larrieu [Carrieu]).

I wonder what Jeff Nichols, Steve McQueen or Derek Cianfrance would create from Alice Munro's texts?

That would be cool if they became a bucolic rite of filmic passage.

Goulash

Marketed me blinds imputed
stressless daily grind reputed
supersized zen frosted freelance
backlit sky hopped-scotch 'tecedant

Unicron unwrapped astride
finagled hypnoturpentine
'tis thine expletive circadian
outlied nutritious courted penned

spun lounging yarn wriggled portrayal
glossed the costs with Yarmouth ladle
Fraggled fritz harrumphs alpine
the strung out surge all down the line

ursine.

Fences

Friendship, family, filaments and filibusters, Denzel Washington's Fences (based upon the play by August Wilson) encloses dreams and protests and confrontations within a patriarchal shard, not that there isn't a willingness to entertain, as long as his fam remembers who's regally legion.

Potatoes and lard.

He's sacrificed a lot to responsibly take care of things, but his personal experience blinds him to the realities facing his youngest son (Jovan Adepo as Cory), who has a shot at playing professional football, even if dad had to spend his career on the sidelines (baseball).

The answer lies within the stories he dramatically tells, stories which enthusiastically explain how the United States changed over the course of the last 40 years (the film's set in the 1950s), meaning that if America's current composition is resoundingly different from that within which he wildly grew up, the tough lessons he learned through his trials may no longer directly apply to his son's struggles, a son who may therefore have opportunities that were cruelly denied him.

He can't understand the new, he can't comprehend change.

He's hard on his wife Rose (Viola Davis) as well, delivering a devastating blow just as their lives start to become less burdensome.

No settling into old age.

No moving on to greener pastures.

It's not as sad as all that when you listen to him telling his tales, nevertheless, when you watch as he multidimensionally exhales fiction, reverie, and fact.

Denzel (Troy) delivers a brilliant performance full of love, contempt, joy, confusion, understanding, obstinacy, fear, and courage, if you ever wondered why he's been so successful for the last thirty years, Fences offers distinct evidence, as Washington proves that he's far beyond playing typecast roles, that he can indeed competently display intricate multilateral e/motions.

While playing a regular guy.

Viola Davis excels as well.

The film's reminiscent of adaptations of Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee plays, an expansive, caring, sophisticated, realistically controversial examination of real people living hard lives, who aren't afraid to share extended thoughts and commentaries.

Lives being lived, power struggles crisp and bold.

Brief moments of tantalizing largesse.

Rustling through rhythms.

Struggles struck and starchy.

Electric portions.

Passengers

A shocking revelation suddenly shatters a crystalline credulity with excessive reactive disillusionment.

Their relationship was advancing quite well.

The ethical dilemma causes grief-stricken Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) sincere concern for months, the internal debate despondently intensifying his loneliness, his robotic companion (Michael Sheen as Arthur) unable to supply compatible warmth, as their massive craft continues thrusting through space.

With almost one-hundred years until it reaches its destination.

"She's so beautiful, lying there, undisturbed, at rest, at peace, what a comfort it would be if she were to wake, she would one day undoubtably forgive me."

Expressing contempt along the way.

While creating an interstellar Eden.

When the rest of the voyagers woke-up decades later, it must have seemed quite incredible, a wild romantic story to found their new colony's literary tradition, slowly transforming into myth over the centuries.

Cardamom.

Morten Tyldum's Passengers succumbs to overcome love's enmity everlasting.

A tortured soul redeemed through a courageous act which generates mercy as a matter of bold reckoning.

Ways are found to keep things moving as the dangers of a small cast taking up all the screentime are creatively confronted.

Oddly seeming like an oblivious arranged marriage or a clever reimagining of Michael Gottlieb's Mannequin, Gottlieb doesn't show up in spellcheck?, Passengers still excels at justifying its misgivings, while mischievously encouraging luscious tactile growth.

Entropically inclined.

'Til loves saves civilization.

Love the comments it makes about the discrepancies between first and second class tickets, the second class passenger undeniably integral to the vessel's survival.

Brier

Consummate condensed confections
inarticulate detections
ageless nameless miscellany
impulsive swaggering surfeited

broil despoiled uncoiled ignition
locks chip-chop flip-flop conditions
lavender assured tangelo
frisky out-of-sync mint jelloed

mellow maestro plaid initial
lumberjacked surmised down thistle
covenants revised opined
on sweltering St. Valentine's

inclines.

Hacksaw Ridge

The subject matter presented in Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge makes it difficult to critique the film, which presents an incredible account of an extremely brave unique complicated conscientious objector who formidably served his country during World War II.

Without ever handling a weapon.

In fact, he's one of a small group of soldiers who have received the American Medal of Honour over the years for exceptionally defining undeniable heroism.

He's the only conscientious objector to have received it.

The film follows him from rural upbringing to painful basic training lumps to terrorizing combat zones while patiently crafting a resilient character unyieldingly dedicated to non-violent principles.

His acts are inspiring and noteworthy and it's surprising that they haven't been commercially disseminated until now.

One Desmond T. Doss (Andrew Garfield), of Lynchburg, Virginia.

Hacksaw Ridge succeeds at simplistically creating a multileveled accessible innocent narrative which ethically yet practically blends individual rights with communal commitments to curiously juxtapose the stubbornly naive and the obliviously stern.

It leads the pack in terms of mainstream domestic American war films released in 2016.

But a best picture nomination? A best director nomination?

Outrageous.

Let's take a brief look at a list of war films that Hacksaw Ridge hopelessly fails to live up to: The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, Patton, The Thin Red Line, Anthropoid, Inglourious Basterds, Come and See, The Killing Fields, Apocalypse Now, Platoon, MASH, The Terminator, Phoenix, Schindler's List.

Favourable arguments aside, the true story is, that if this film wasn't about one of the most courageous Americans to have ever lived, Mel Gibson's even more of a laughing stock than he was after he released The Patriot.

Sylvester Stallone and Robert Rodriguez like to make guys-guys films too but at moments they also share extremely touching heartbreakingly sensitive artistic observations that soulfully, tenderly, and masterfully break it down.

Without the built-in emotions related to militaristic combat.

It still could happen someday with Gibson.

He's obviously been redeemed.

Plenty of more time for success.

Live by Night

Ben Affleck's Live by Night could have been could have been could have been.

It champions multicultural reflexivity as opposed to rigid dictations as its extremely honourable Irish gangster hero Joe Coughlin (Affleck) makes the right moves to sanctify in sacrifice.

Teamwork is essentially adorned with crucial combative exteriorized comeuppances as partner Dion Bartolo (Chris Messina) provides extrajudicial reckoning.

Idyllic forbidden rapturous love bountifully blossoms in different contexts while Joe comes to terms with his unheralded prestige.

A real-world high-level inevitability permeates each action but isn't enough to prevent thought from rationally entreating.

From using honest North American know-how to level-out the playing field.

There's just one problem.

It's too perfect.

All of its calculations and conversations are just plain-old too noble, too wonderful, everything works out too well, it's far too comfortable for a gangster film.

Some loose ends, please.

Instead of feeling worried or anxious or fearful or nervous I just felt complacent, there's no suspense, it was like I was watching a bright mathematician prove a trigonometric identity, or checking out reruns of a favourite dark family friendly show.

Live by Night explains why the term hardboiled was applied to books by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, or indirectly to films by John Huston or Howard Hawks.

Without the hardboiled aspect, you wind up with Live by Night.

Which I may have loved in my youth.

But couldn't get into mid-life.

Sprigs

Round trip rustic residential
peach concrete palm beached essential
modicums implicit pause
confessions nestlin' twigs jigsawed

caw caw endorsed disputed quillo
porcopined transmuted thrillo
trig cosigned tangential bloom
intrepid drag tropical zoom

resumed albeit full of Rosy's
sprocketed fluidic cozy
wear and tear aware received
unseeded au contraire indeed

conceived.

Super Bowl Pick

New England Patriots/Atlanta Falcons: I'd say the pressure's on New England to win this one. Not to say there isn't any pressure on the Falcons, but they aren't playing to astronomically define intoxicated professional athleticism. In terms of American Football. Both offences are great and the Patriots have the better defence, the better defence making the difference in many a recent Super Bowl. I just hope it's a close game. The playoffs have been littered with blowouts this year which has been kind of boring. Nevertheless, I think Brady vs. Ryan should make for a legendary Super Bowl. With a final score of 30 to 27. Picking Atlanta. Caw, Caw, Caw.

*Well that was exciting. I can't believe I just watched that.

Run it . . . kick the field goal.

Run it . . . kick the field goal.

Lion

Lion tenderly applies a limitless open-armed robustly supple characterization to family by plucking two children from a labyrinthine abyss, and gently ensconcing them within the logical wild.

Cohesive collocation.

Improbability abounds at the heart of this familial bloom, which literally represents the realization of a dream, of a belief, of a mother and father seeking to viscerally inscribe a humble message on the optical bedrock of vision, the odds against little Saroo (Dev Patel/Sunny Pawar) ever finding a safe home having been astronomically high, after he fell asleep on a train in rural Northern India, and woke to find himself hundreds of kilometres from home.

Long before the reliability of Google Maps.

Memories of his lost family haunt him in Tasmania, however, and as he seeks not to cause his adoptive mother (Nicole Kidman as Sue Brierley) any distress by keeping his thoughts to himself, he winds up causing her more pain due to his inexplicable self-imposed isolation.

She opens-up to him in an incredible revelation.

What a performance.

Lion excels at internationalizing instincts warm and dear, complicating them through the art of imagining, strengthening them by nurturing responsibilities.

It covers a lot of temporal space which reduces complex relationships to stock familiarizations, apart from Saroo's illuminating conversations with mom, the impact of one scene alone transporting the film to another dimension.

The desperation Saroo feels after finding himself alone in Calcutta is also captured well, perhaps the film could have used another 30 minutes to ensure this refined sensitivity proliferated throughout.

With additional scenes showing the family growing and flourishing dis/harmoniously as one.

Still, a great film with a wonderful ending, beautifully, if not too rapidly, expanding upon convivial conjugal conceptions, thereby globally validating the local, while stabilizing wholesome fantasies in stride.