It may seem then
that my analysis
on occasion
is lacking depth.
Or that it's simply
balderdash,
recurring
stoic steps.
But within
ev'rything resides
the keys to
one and all.
A hub can
be attired with caps
whose peaks
address the ball.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Starsky & Hutch
Starsky and Hutch.
Back at it again.
Although, this film was released 8 years ago so perhaps 'again' isn't the correct word to be using here, but, since I'm viewing it according to the dynamics of the ways in which the second decade of the 21st century is influencing my writing, the term 'again' can therefore be thought of as being applied appropriately, give or take that there's still a lot more I need to learn about globalization.
Much much more.
That being said, I still don't have much to say about Starsky & Hutch.
To literally break it down, it takes two psychological law enforcement extremes, one which is so anal retentive that it alienates everyone and is consequently regularly forced to find new partners, another with an approach that is so laissez-faire that it can smoothly make contacts and move about suavely but can't effectively get any work done, and slowly synthesizes them throughout as they grow and come to function like a strong resilient team.
Alternatively, in regards to its comedic aspects, I didn't find it as funny as I probably would have in 2004 but I may not have found it that funny back then either.
Cool car though.
Alright, I'm really not that into motorized vehicles.
Just trying to sound cool.
Fun to ride around in sometimes though.
I'm not cool.
Back at it again.
Although, this film was released 8 years ago so perhaps 'again' isn't the correct word to be using here, but, since I'm viewing it according to the dynamics of the ways in which the second decade of the 21st century is influencing my writing, the term 'again' can therefore be thought of as being applied appropriately, give or take that there's still a lot more I need to learn about globalization.
Much much more.
That being said, I still don't have much to say about Starsky & Hutch.
To literally break it down, it takes two psychological law enforcement extremes, one which is so anal retentive that it alienates everyone and is consequently regularly forced to find new partners, another with an approach that is so laissez-faire that it can smoothly make contacts and move about suavely but can't effectively get any work done, and slowly synthesizes them throughout as they grow and come to function like a strong resilient team.
Alternatively, in regards to its comedic aspects, I didn't find it as funny as I probably would have in 2004 but I may not have found it that funny back then either.
Cool car though.
Alright, I'm really not that into motorized vehicles.
Just trying to sound cool.
Fun to ride around in sometimes though.
I'm not cool.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
The Dark Knight Rises
Not feelin' it for The Dark Knight Rises.
Don't get me wrong, the rapid pace and intelligent script make for an entertaining thought-provoking film, packed tight with a judicial balance of solid and cheesy lines/imagery/situations, set within an armageddonesque scenario which exemplifies the apotheosis of campy mainstream political drama basking in subtly sensational ludicrousy.
Note that it's just a movie.
Within however, the villain Bane (Roger Hardy), who works in the sewers and is backed by some of Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) excessively wealthy competitors, has been using construction workers and freelance thieves to launch a strategic attack which will incarcerate Gotham City's entire police force, set up a kangaroo court to 'judge' the wealthy, get his hands on a source of limitless energy that can be turned into a catastrophically destructive weapon, the whole time acting like a person of the people.
It's a bit much.
And the ways in which construction unions are depicted is frustrating.
Of course it's just a movie, within which Bane is a fanatical lunatic who employs absurd methods to achieve insane objectives.
I mean, what person of the people would destroy a football stadium?
But making him a 'person of the people' does cunningly vilify genuine persons of the people like Franklin D. Roosevelt (who still had to operate in a political dynamic which encountered expedient matters I'm assuming) which is problematic.
He is financed by the excessively wealthy, as mentioned earlier, which logically states that plutocrats are theoretically capable of using popular tropes to achieve despotic ends, thereby making Bane's adoption of the label 'person of the people' all the more problematic.
But this doesn't mean individuals who come from privileged backgrounds don't care about structural issues relating to poverty, individuals such as Jack Layton, and want to try to do something about them using legitimate political methods (pointing out a social democrat's rich upbringing is a divisive tactic used by the right to discredit them, from what I can tell anyway).
Having a source of limitless environmentally friendly power that can be turned into a weapon of mass destruction is also problematic, inasmuch as it indirectly vilifies alternative energy sources while propping up the nuclear/petroleum-based-product status quo.
Obviously, when your economy is seriously dependent on this status quo (see The End of Suburbia, 2004) and the ways in which its revenues fuel social programs, you can't simply change everything overnight without causing mass unemployment (perhaps I'm wrong here, I don't know, but it seems to me that if your economy is functioning with a significant deficit, large scale structural changes to its infrastructure will be disastrous unless they can definitively generate mass profits in the aftermath [which is a pretty big risk to take if you're not flush with cash]).
But at the same time, not trying to find environmentally friendly alternatives to the petroleum/nuclear power base that can't be turned into WMDs or be inexpensively integrated into the grid is equally disastrous (I suppose while searching for such power sources it's important to hire people to continuously monitor whether or not their construction can lead to the creation of WMDs [obviously enough {perhaps this isn't so obvious: it took a very long time to cap the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 because they weren't prepared}]).
People often call me naive, but, whatever: "It was all the more [troublesome] because by nature I have always been more open to the world of potentiality than to the world of contingent reality"(Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, vol. 5 [I don't think I'm like Proust, I just love reading In Search of Lost Time]).
Hence, as an escape, I did enjoy The Dark Knight Rises, but I can't support some of its structural issues inasmuch as, according to this viewing, they aren't very progressive.
There is the issue of Selina (Anne Hathaway) however who is trying to change her life around but can't due to the ways in which her criminal record prevents her from finding employment.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Take 'em or leave 'em.
Don't get me wrong, the rapid pace and intelligent script make for an entertaining thought-provoking film, packed tight with a judicial balance of solid and cheesy lines/imagery/situations, set within an armageddonesque scenario which exemplifies the apotheosis of campy mainstream political drama basking in subtly sensational ludicrousy.
Note that it's just a movie.
Within however, the villain Bane (Roger Hardy), who works in the sewers and is backed by some of Bruce Wayne's (Christian Bale) excessively wealthy competitors, has been using construction workers and freelance thieves to launch a strategic attack which will incarcerate Gotham City's entire police force, set up a kangaroo court to 'judge' the wealthy, get his hands on a source of limitless energy that can be turned into a catastrophically destructive weapon, the whole time acting like a person of the people.
It's a bit much.
And the ways in which construction unions are depicted is frustrating.
Of course it's just a movie, within which Bane is a fanatical lunatic who employs absurd methods to achieve insane objectives.
I mean, what person of the people would destroy a football stadium?
But making him a 'person of the people' does cunningly vilify genuine persons of the people like Franklin D. Roosevelt (who still had to operate in a political dynamic which encountered expedient matters I'm assuming) which is problematic.
He is financed by the excessively wealthy, as mentioned earlier, which logically states that plutocrats are theoretically capable of using popular tropes to achieve despotic ends, thereby making Bane's adoption of the label 'person of the people' all the more problematic.
But this doesn't mean individuals who come from privileged backgrounds don't care about structural issues relating to poverty, individuals such as Jack Layton, and want to try to do something about them using legitimate political methods (pointing out a social democrat's rich upbringing is a divisive tactic used by the right to discredit them, from what I can tell anyway).
Having a source of limitless environmentally friendly power that can be turned into a weapon of mass destruction is also problematic, inasmuch as it indirectly vilifies alternative energy sources while propping up the nuclear/petroleum-based-product status quo.
Obviously, when your economy is seriously dependent on this status quo (see The End of Suburbia, 2004) and the ways in which its revenues fuel social programs, you can't simply change everything overnight without causing mass unemployment (perhaps I'm wrong here, I don't know, but it seems to me that if your economy is functioning with a significant deficit, large scale structural changes to its infrastructure will be disastrous unless they can definitively generate mass profits in the aftermath [which is a pretty big risk to take if you're not flush with cash]).
But at the same time, not trying to find environmentally friendly alternatives to the petroleum/nuclear power base that can't be turned into WMDs or be inexpensively integrated into the grid is equally disastrous (I suppose while searching for such power sources it's important to hire people to continuously monitor whether or not their construction can lead to the creation of WMDs [obviously enough {perhaps this isn't so obvious: it took a very long time to cap the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 because they weren't prepared}]).
People often call me naive, but, whatever: "It was all the more [troublesome] because by nature I have always been more open to the world of potentiality than to the world of contingent reality"(Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, vol. 5 [I don't think I'm like Proust, I just love reading In Search of Lost Time]).
Hence, as an escape, I did enjoy The Dark Knight Rises, but I can't support some of its structural issues inasmuch as, according to this viewing, they aren't very progressive.
There is the issue of Selina (Anne Hathaway) however who is trying to change her life around but can't due to the ways in which her criminal record prevents her from finding employment.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Take 'em or leave 'em.
Monday, August 27, 2012
2 Days in New York
The artistic, political, familial, conjugal, critical, social, quizzical, spiritual, sexual and psychological creatively intermingle in Julie Delpy's 2 Days in New York, wherein free-spirits lackadaisically/audaciously/petulantly/mendaciously contend with both the pretentious and the vituperative, in the pursuit of playing a specific role.
These roles themselves, when abstracted, transformed into symbols, placed within a fluctuating in/determinate semantic matrix, in/determinate depending upon the rhetorical convictions of the urges to clarify (and the resultant multi/bi/lateral counter-clarifications), fluctuating inasmuch as difference guarantees the establishment of multiple points of view (many of which temporally fluctuate within themselves [unless you write this kind of thing]), can produce multilateral takes which nurture an inclusive body politic wherein manifold outlooks survey their surroundings, i.e., Web 2.0.
The film itself isn't really my style but I appreciate the dynamic complexity within which it's exoterically expressed.
Employing the spice mélange.
These roles themselves, when abstracted, transformed into symbols, placed within a fluctuating in/determinate semantic matrix, in/determinate depending upon the rhetorical convictions of the urges to clarify (and the resultant multi/bi/lateral counter-clarifications), fluctuating inasmuch as difference guarantees the establishment of multiple points of view (many of which temporally fluctuate within themselves [unless you write this kind of thing]), can produce multilateral takes which nurture an inclusive body politic wherein manifold outlooks survey their surroundings, i.e., Web 2.0.
The film itself isn't really my style but I appreciate the dynamic complexity within which it's exoterically expressed.
Employing the spice mélange.
Magnifica Presenza (Magnificent Presence)
Radiating an offbeat, gentle, luminescent reflexivity, Magnifica Presenza's Pietro Pontechievello (Elio Germano) works in a bakery while striving to become an actor.
After renting a house, he's visited by the ghosts of a theatre troupe (Compangia Appollonio) who worked for the resistance and were betrayed by their feature during World War II.
They strike up a friendship and their influence ameliorates his performance while imbuing his social interactions with experimental antiquated idiosyncrasies.
Awkwardly yet humanistically elevating while humorously tenderizing an artist's ambitions, subtly suggesting that blending the contemporary with the historical can lead to a broader understanding of one's self, or the surmounting of socio-cultural barriers (the stigma of homosexuality) more suited to a different time (within the film's temporal boundaries the stigma of homosexuality isn't prominent), and simultaneously warning against and romanticizing the internalization of the cult of the hero, Magnifica Presenza lovingly offers a clinical diagnosis of loneliness alongside a curative aid.
Boundlessly allusive and reticently merry.
In the mind's eye.
After renting a house, he's visited by the ghosts of a theatre troupe (Compangia Appollonio) who worked for the resistance and were betrayed by their feature during World War II.
They strike up a friendship and their influence ameliorates his performance while imbuing his social interactions with experimental antiquated idiosyncrasies.
Awkwardly yet humanistically elevating while humorously tenderizing an artist's ambitions, subtly suggesting that blending the contemporary with the historical can lead to a broader understanding of one's self, or the surmounting of socio-cultural barriers (the stigma of homosexuality) more suited to a different time (within the film's temporal boundaries the stigma of homosexuality isn't prominent), and simultaneously warning against and romanticizing the internalization of the cult of the hero, Magnifica Presenza lovingly offers a clinical diagnosis of loneliness alongside a curative aid.
Boundlessly allusive and reticently merry.
In the mind's eye.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
L'Incrédule (The Skeptic)
Two couples forge a spur-of-the-moment friendship in Federico Hidalgo's L'Incrédule (The Skeptic), after which a small business is inaugurated whose indeterminate outputs whimsically delineate the ambiguous.
The service they provide is known as the Charuflauta, which, from what I gathered, is a cure for loneliness.
None of the characters are able to definitively describe it, however, or figure out whether or not they should seek payment for their efforts.
When their first clients require a practical application of their abstraction, the comedic results lampoon the melancholic while stultifying the hyper-analytical.
Great film, mischievously mixing a broad array of sociological, personal, financial, artistic, and conjugal intersections, loosely framed within a recurring photographic motif, which establishes a reverberating ontological/epistemological dialectic, in order to clarify a sense of belonging.
Cheeky, uplifting, indecisive, self-assured.
In regards to the encapsulations of the concretely abstract.
The service they provide is known as the Charuflauta, which, from what I gathered, is a cure for loneliness.
None of the characters are able to definitively describe it, however, or figure out whether or not they should seek payment for their efforts.
When their first clients require a practical application of their abstraction, the comedic results lampoon the melancholic while stultifying the hyper-analytical.
Great film, mischievously mixing a broad array of sociological, personal, financial, artistic, and conjugal intersections, loosely framed within a recurring photographic motif, which establishes a reverberating ontological/epistemological dialectic, in order to clarify a sense of belonging.
Cheeky, uplifting, indecisive, self-assured.
In regards to the encapsulations of the concretely abstract.
Monday, August 20, 2012
To the Poetic
Did I ever mention that
I found myself a hobby?
Subjective takes on filmic tastes
on behalf of which I lobby.
One works with raw material
and they can manufacture;
snapshots plain, ethereal,
the fugacious enraptured.
Social democratic films which
encourage inclusive thoughts
resonate respectability
and fluid tactile flocks.
Of course not every film can follow
this prescriptive method.
And I can't always write within its
ethos unreflective.
And I don't want to simplify
the democratic spirit.
Wherein divergent points of view
contend, liaise and steer it.
Piecemeal change ensures the health
of multifaceted collectives.
Bellerophonic letters help
to nourish this perspective.
Say what you will about my style,
it's good enough for me.
A playful nimble coy agile
mundane dexterity.
I found myself a hobby?
Subjective takes on filmic tastes
on behalf of which I lobby.
One works with raw material
and they can manufacture;
snapshots plain, ethereal,
the fugacious enraptured.
Social democratic films which
encourage inclusive thoughts
resonate respectability
and fluid tactile flocks.
Of course not every film can follow
this prescriptive method.
And I can't always write within its
ethos unreflective.
And I don't want to simplify
the democratic spirit.
Wherein divergent points of view
contend, liaise and steer it.
Piecemeal change ensures the health
of multifaceted collectives.
Bellerophonic letters help
to nourish this perspective.
Say what you will about my style,
it's good enough for me.
A playful nimble coy agile
mundane dexterity.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Total Recall
Whether or not the action within the Total Recall remake takes
place solely within Douglas Quaid/Hauser's (Colin Farrell) mind or in
the film's objective domain is obviously up for debate.
The evidence for both sides is provided within a functional formulaic opposition between two states, one who owns the means of production (The United Federation of Britain/UFB), and another who is forced to work within them (The Colony/Australia).
The rest of the planet is uninhabitable due to prolonged chemical warfare.
In the onset, Quaid/Hauser has become bored with the status quo and decides to check out Rekall, a notorious company who can directly plant living memories within your mind. After arriving, he chooses the secret agent program (with the double agent option) and just as he's about to drift off, seconds after he's intravenously hooked up, security forces rush in.
For the rest of the film he's a pseudo-double agent (Hauser) who has had his memory erased and replaced with the persona Douglas Quaid. He instinctively remembers details of his former life, usually gut reactions which help him escape UFB traps, but cannot reconstruct the big picture.
His situation directly relates to a bewildering recurring dream he's been having, prior to visiting Rekall.
I probably should have paid more attention to the myriad chase sequences and mushy one-liners that predominate afterwards, for it's likely that within their action/delivery lie clues designed to disambiguate Total Recall's 'dreamscape.' But said sequences and one-liners are abundant and I found myself zoning out after a while.
However, before Quaid enters Rekall, the one-liners are delivered with a self-reflexive gritty disengaged realistic dexterity.
After entering Rekall and then travelling to the UFB, Hauser's first olympian flight is characterized by constantly shifting ground and split-second opportune life saving reflexes, in short, the stuff dreams are made of.
Yet, as many people find themselves looking for permanent work, often having to travel and compete to secure it, their terrain constantly shifts, working for a year here, another there, perennially stuck in a probationary period.
And while searching one must often use brief inter/national/provincial/regional expressions while communicating.
Quaid knows who he is. There's no doubt in his mind as to his identity nor to his historical path.
Hauser has to rely on hidden messages and/or direct support/condemnation, mired in contradiction due to his supposed status as double agent, apart from the messages he's left behind for himself, and his actions, to formulate a stable I, oddly mirroring the establishment of a dream identity, albeit purely rational within the space's systemic parameters.
His sudden epic coercive confusing circumstances require a leap of faith which he makes, choosing to fight for the oppressed (the UFB has run out of land and seeks to invade the Colony to take theirs), which he does with the aid of his stunning versatile partner (Jessica Biel as Melina) while his former wife (Kate Beckingsale as Lori Quaid) does everything she can to stop them.
And an enigmatic individual whose personality reflects the end of history prevents the colonialization while enabling the creation of a social democratic state, amidst cheers and celebrations and a giant advertisement for Rekall.
Is this resolution too good to be true?
Well, in order to openly discuss the legitimate claims of oppressed workers in the post-9/11 age of austerity while working within a domain that regularly produces works designed to infantilize them, it makes sense that such a discussion would have to take place within an ambiguous framework in order for everyone involved to avoid any imperial entanglements.
At the same time, if the narrative does take place solely in Quaid's mind, it's designed to provoke critical discussions of the ways in which the military industrial complex is using pop culture to substitute images for reality in order to disrupt collective left-wing political actions by situating them within the cult of the individual, thereby making them seem unattainable (director Len Wiseman having taken control of the means of production).
Meaning that either way, Quaid is Hauser.
The evidence for both sides is provided within a functional formulaic opposition between two states, one who owns the means of production (The United Federation of Britain/UFB), and another who is forced to work within them (The Colony/Australia).
The rest of the planet is uninhabitable due to prolonged chemical warfare.
In the onset, Quaid/Hauser has become bored with the status quo and decides to check out Rekall, a notorious company who can directly plant living memories within your mind. After arriving, he chooses the secret agent program (with the double agent option) and just as he's about to drift off, seconds after he's intravenously hooked up, security forces rush in.
For the rest of the film he's a pseudo-double agent (Hauser) who has had his memory erased and replaced with the persona Douglas Quaid. He instinctively remembers details of his former life, usually gut reactions which help him escape UFB traps, but cannot reconstruct the big picture.
His situation directly relates to a bewildering recurring dream he's been having, prior to visiting Rekall.
I probably should have paid more attention to the myriad chase sequences and mushy one-liners that predominate afterwards, for it's likely that within their action/delivery lie clues designed to disambiguate Total Recall's 'dreamscape.' But said sequences and one-liners are abundant and I found myself zoning out after a while.
However, before Quaid enters Rekall, the one-liners are delivered with a self-reflexive gritty disengaged realistic dexterity.
After entering Rekall and then travelling to the UFB, Hauser's first olympian flight is characterized by constantly shifting ground and split-second opportune life saving reflexes, in short, the stuff dreams are made of.
Yet, as many people find themselves looking for permanent work, often having to travel and compete to secure it, their terrain constantly shifts, working for a year here, another there, perennially stuck in a probationary period.
And while searching one must often use brief inter/national/provincial/regional expressions while communicating.
Quaid knows who he is. There's no doubt in his mind as to his identity nor to his historical path.
Hauser has to rely on hidden messages and/or direct support/condemnation, mired in contradiction due to his supposed status as double agent, apart from the messages he's left behind for himself, and his actions, to formulate a stable I, oddly mirroring the establishment of a dream identity, albeit purely rational within the space's systemic parameters.
His sudden epic coercive confusing circumstances require a leap of faith which he makes, choosing to fight for the oppressed (the UFB has run out of land and seeks to invade the Colony to take theirs), which he does with the aid of his stunning versatile partner (Jessica Biel as Melina) while his former wife (Kate Beckingsale as Lori Quaid) does everything she can to stop them.
And an enigmatic individual whose personality reflects the end of history prevents the colonialization while enabling the creation of a social democratic state, amidst cheers and celebrations and a giant advertisement for Rekall.
Is this resolution too good to be true?
Well, in order to openly discuss the legitimate claims of oppressed workers in the post-9/11 age of austerity while working within a domain that regularly produces works designed to infantilize them, it makes sense that such a discussion would have to take place within an ambiguous framework in order for everyone involved to avoid any imperial entanglements.
At the same time, if the narrative does take place solely in Quaid's mind, it's designed to provoke critical discussions of the ways in which the military industrial complex is using pop culture to substitute images for reality in order to disrupt collective left-wing political actions by situating them within the cult of the individual, thereby making them seem unattainable (director Len Wiseman having taken control of the means of production).
Meaning that either way, Quaid is Hauser.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Take this Waltz
Disorientingly positioned between two socio-cultural persuasions (traditional vs. open marriage),
one, familiar, cozy, predictable and solid, option 2, unknown, spicy,
spontaneous and in inspirational flux, Take this Waltz's Margot (Michelle Williams) struggles to choose a specific gravitational counterpart, their contradictory forces amorously messin' with her mind.
Associated risks and issues of comfort are respectfully juxtaposed with daring intoxicating improvisational interest.
As
if a beautiful funny intelligent woman rediscovers that sensuous spark
that unrecognizably redefined her as she let herself go in the arms of
another, and it becomes increasingly difficult to dialectically
distinguish her two suitors.
Until
earthly realities draw attention to the responsibilities of the
symbolic and the imaginary must be qualified by a degree of
practicality.
An escape, a happy
place, something blissful, is required, where, perhaps, when
emotionally tied to demanding conflicting relational engagements, one
can reassert a transcendent sense of self while existentially weighing
their details against their general affects, one which functions as a
secret personalized counterpoint to that generated by the partner's
enigmatic propulsive particle, from which balance can be dependently
realized.
Having interiorized and subjectively promulgated the gaze of her subjects of desire.
And negotiated a flexible impervious pact.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Still Life No. 53, Tom Wesselmann
Sparkling sunkissed
concentrated quenched
exponential plush
stationary constitutional
pulsating productivity.
concentrated quenched
exponential plush
stationary constitutional
pulsating productivity.
Grabbers (Fantasia Fest 2012)
A peaceful island is resting quietly off the Irish coast, congenially
taking care of its daily business, relaxed and chill, content and
thirsty, relatively unconcerned with the partitions of the mainland,
enjoying what little they have with everything they've got.
But after an austere by-the-book officious smartypants arrives from Dublin for a two week shift, strange things begin to happen.
A pod of deceased whales washes up on shore.
Residents and fisherpersons disappear.
A bizarre unclassified squidlike creature is caught in a lobster trap.
Who has given birth to young seeking to feast on human blood.
This means local constable Ciarán O'Shea (Richard Coyle) must give up drinking in order to save the village when papa comes searching for his imprisoned mate, and his by-the-book superior must tie-one-on for the first time.
In fact, since the aliens can't digest blood infused with alcohol, the entire town is invited to a local tavern, where there is a piss-up of biblical proportions, mirthfully unrestrained, at first, on the house.
Celebrating the love of stiff pints while comedically and romantically illustrating how they can effectively fight off bloodsucking monsters, Jon Wright's Grabbers jovially and collectively serves up a round of experimentally crafted filmic fermentation, torrentially tapping a traditional reservoir, to insouciantly distribute an ironic distillation.
Brazenly brewed.
But after an austere by-the-book officious smartypants arrives from Dublin for a two week shift, strange things begin to happen.
A pod of deceased whales washes up on shore.
Residents and fisherpersons disappear.
A bizarre unclassified squidlike creature is caught in a lobster trap.
Who has given birth to young seeking to feast on human blood.
This means local constable Ciarán O'Shea (Richard Coyle) must give up drinking in order to save the village when papa comes searching for his imprisoned mate, and his by-the-book superior must tie-one-on for the first time.
In fact, since the aliens can't digest blood infused with alcohol, the entire town is invited to a local tavern, where there is a piss-up of biblical proportions, mirthfully unrestrained, at first, on the house.
Celebrating the love of stiff pints while comedically and romantically illustrating how they can effectively fight off bloodsucking monsters, Jon Wright's Grabbers jovially and collectively serves up a round of experimentally crafted filmic fermentation, torrentially tapping a traditional reservoir, to insouciantly distribute an ironic distillation.
Brazenly brewed.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Interior No. 2, Tom Wesselmann
Split-second
transitive pep
introspectus
technoprotuberance
ventricle vestige
subconscious skyline
coastal currency.
transitive pep
introspectus
technoprotuberance
ventricle vestige
subconscious skyline
coastal currency.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Roller Town (Fantasia Fest 2012)
Rollin' along; roller skatin' down that road.
Bringing disco, back to life.
Haligonian comedy troupe Picnicface insert their distinct brand of hypertense laissez-faire creepy yet ingratiating socio-cultural commentary into their first full-length film, Roller Town, overflowing with the same cerebral mix of nostalgic innocence and nauseous necromancy that nauticalized their television show, ironically transmitted through a vicarious fundamental frequency, which fetishistically elevates the construction of a permanent sense of psychological well-being, localized and qualified by an irresistibly naive belief in the eternal values of pop culture, avatarized with direct access to the divine, while criminally agitating its impending neuroses.
A lot of the jokes/situations have an immediate impact (are funny) while many of them seem like they were deliberately set up to just be as inane and I-don't-give-a-fuck as possible. But when you think about them afterwards it's these inane moments that lacked depth that make you laugh and want to see it again.
Which isn't that easy to do.
Bringing disco, back to life.
Haligonian comedy troupe Picnicface insert their distinct brand of hypertense laissez-faire creepy yet ingratiating socio-cultural commentary into their first full-length film, Roller Town, overflowing with the same cerebral mix of nostalgic innocence and nauseous necromancy that nauticalized their television show, ironically transmitted through a vicarious fundamental frequency, which fetishistically elevates the construction of a permanent sense of psychological well-being, localized and qualified by an irresistibly naive belief in the eternal values of pop culture, avatarized with direct access to the divine, while criminally agitating its impending neuroses.
A lot of the jokes/situations have an immediate impact (are funny) while many of them seem like they were deliberately set up to just be as inane and I-don't-give-a-fuck as possible. But when you think about them afterwards it's these inane moments that lacked depth that make you laugh and want to see it again.
Which isn't that easy to do.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Les Aventures de Chatran (Fantasia Fest 2012)
One day Chatran's living with her mother and siblings on the farm,
the next, she's floating downriver in a wooden crate, timorously
preparing herself for life's unexpected verisimilitudes.
Her friend Pousquet chases after her and is always there in her time of need.
As her hesitant curiosity cautiously explores her new environment's mysterious terrain, collecting eclectic sensory stimuli as she travels through the countryside, a steady approach is diversely enacted, aided by her instinctive elasticity.
Making friends while avoiding the overbearing.
And verdantly investing in deciduous synergies.
Her friend Pousquet chases after her and is always there in her time of need.
As her hesitant curiosity cautiously explores her new environment's mysterious terrain, collecting eclectic sensory stimuli as she travels through the countryside, a steady approach is diversely enacted, aided by her instinctive elasticity.
Making friends while avoiding the overbearing.
And verdantly investing in deciduous synergies.
L'expresse
Sit down, exhale, observe, consider
this and that chance occurrence.
Store, stand up, reorientate,
unlatch and turn convergent.
One foot, two foot, three foot, four,
there are signs expressing meaning;
they randomly present themselves
as gazes swerve entreating
thoughts which meld mosaic mixtures,
straightforwardly clandestine.
Vibrating vivacious urban scriptures,
percolated zip-lines.
Whereupon lie varied distinct views,
ciphered in combinations.
Mortar, stone, pictoral tomes,
lodging secure displacements.
And as you move a constructed current
rushes forth with life.
Focused dreams wishfully wake
as syntheses entice.
this and that chance occurrence.
Store, stand up, reorientate,
unlatch and turn convergent.
One foot, two foot, three foot, four,
there are signs expressing meaning;
they randomly present themselves
as gazes swerve entreating
thoughts which meld mosaic mixtures,
straightforwardly clandestine.
Vibrating vivacious urban scriptures,
percolated zip-lines.
Whereupon lie varied distinct views,
ciphered in combinations.
Mortar, stone, pictoral tomes,
lodging secure displacements.
And as you move a constructed current
rushes forth with life.
Focused dreams wishfully wake
as syntheses entice.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Trishna
Aesthetics clash with socioeconomics after a brief period of romantic resignation in Michael Winterbottom's Trishna, where love is permitted to bloom if it knows its place.
Although, as it becomes increasingly clear that that place, due to the different circumstances into which the partners were born, will involve prolonged periods where the dependent lover, Trishna (Freida Pinto), must submit to whatever desire her wealthy benefactor adopts, immediately and without question, her thoughts and feelings being considered by him to have been forfeited in return for the employment and luxuries with which he provides her, said blooming soon morbidly decays.
There is no balance, no give and take, just a one-sided narcissistic vacuum taking full advantage of its power and privilege.
Trishna's father doesn't help much either being more concerned with honour and saving face than his daughter's trauma.
And a shy, modest, beautiful impoverished woman, who was only searching for things such as respect and a voice from her partner, wanders off into the desert alone, while school children sing a song celebrating equality (it's a powerful scene in terms of strengthening the left in India).
Having symbolically used her realistic imagination to ceremoniously slice through the imaginary real.
Although, as it becomes increasingly clear that that place, due to the different circumstances into which the partners were born, will involve prolonged periods where the dependent lover, Trishna (Freida Pinto), must submit to whatever desire her wealthy benefactor adopts, immediately and without question, her thoughts and feelings being considered by him to have been forfeited in return for the employment and luxuries with which he provides her, said blooming soon morbidly decays.
There is no balance, no give and take, just a one-sided narcissistic vacuum taking full advantage of its power and privilege.
Trishna's father doesn't help much either being more concerned with honour and saving face than his daughter's trauma.
And a shy, modest, beautiful impoverished woman, who was only searching for things such as respect and a voice from her partner, wanders off into the desert alone, while school children sing a song celebrating equality (it's a powerful scene in terms of strengthening the left in India).
Having symbolically used her realistic imagination to ceremoniously slice through the imaginary real.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Portions of the Floor from Galeries du Parc
Checkered solitary sequence
secreting sea and sky.
Swiftly swirling concrete easement,
effervescent dyes.
A little lively spatial screw
sits silently at rest.
Beneath the stationary staples,
its conception coyly flexed.
The other wheel's seductive sphere
shoots forth a fountainhead.
Wherein mists bathe the passers-by
unbeknownst to their tread.
Hidden within the commercial blueprint,
the seraphic artisanal stitch.
A chance to balance lightning's sunder
with viscid pictoral pith.
secreting sea and sky.
Swiftly swirling concrete easement,
effervescent dyes.
A little lively spatial screw
sits silently at rest.
Beneath the stationary staples,
its conception coyly flexed.
The other wheel's seductive sphere
shoots forth a fountainhead.
Wherein mists bathe the passers-by
unbeknownst to their tread.
Hidden within the commercial blueprint,
the seraphic artisanal stitch.
A chance to balance lightning's sunder
with viscid pictoral pith.
To Rome with Love
For a summer in Rome, an office clerk finds himself thrust
into the spotlight, his routine reflections hyperbolically
sensationalizing influence, as an architect revisits his youth to bring
back to life/cross-examine his most serendipitous subject of desire, a
young communist lawyer contends with a retired opera producer when it's
discovered that his humble father can sing exceptionally well, and a
married couple, in town for a potentially prosperous employment
opportunity, find themselves accidentally embracing exotic extramarital
affairs.
Felicitously framed by a traffic cop's dissolving point of view.
The conditions of which inculcate calisthenic creativity.
Romantically mingling the celebrated with the starstruck and the ordinary with the hyper-intensive, while evoking the nimble necessity to unearth metaphorical mirth within corresponding pscyhoanalytic observations, Woody Allen's To Rome with Love's palpable playful pluck picturesquely procures impressionable popularizations, and salaciously serenades atemporal condensations.
Fidelity strengthened through chance, temptation tethered to testimony, regret distinguished from revelation, and dreams evanescently alighted.
A virtuosic variation on a theme.
There's a lot more to it than that.
Felicitously framed by a traffic cop's dissolving point of view.
The conditions of which inculcate calisthenic creativity.
Romantically mingling the celebrated with the starstruck and the ordinary with the hyper-intensive, while evoking the nimble necessity to unearth metaphorical mirth within corresponding pscyhoanalytic observations, Woody Allen's To Rome with Love's palpable playful pluck picturesquely procures impressionable popularizations, and salaciously serenades atemporal condensations.
Fidelity strengthened through chance, temptation tethered to testimony, regret distinguished from revelation, and dreams evanescently alighted.
A virtuosic variation on a theme.
There's a lot more to it than that.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) (Fantasia Fest 2012)
12 Indigenous tribes are living harmoniously amongst one another in
the late-18th/early-19th century in the mountains of central Taiwan,
when imperialist Japanese forces invade.
Their harmonious relations are highly aggressive inasmuch as manhood is achieved by cutting off the head of a member of a surrounding tribe.
The conquerors see things differently however and colonize said tribes in order to put them to work maximizing the economic potential of their natural resources.
Decades pass, and a once proud warrior culture is reduced to back breaking poorly paid labour, alcohol abuse, suffocating ethnocentric taunts, and the systematic depletion of their ancestral hunting grounds.
And respect for their traditions is anathema.
Yet the knowledge that rebellion is akin to mass suicide keeps them at bay, until the situation proves too belittling to be endured forever after (no treaties whereby they could maintain their way of life were negotiated and signed).
And a revolt is launched.
The ways in which director Te-Sheng Wei depicts the revolt incontrovertibly turn one's stomach, as the legendary Mona Rudao (Da-Ching, Lin Ching-Tai) and his Mahebu people express their revenge.
Obviously I was cheering for the downtrodden Mahebu but my support was structurally challenged as they massacred every Japanese person in their village.
The challenge being the result of the generation of an internally cathartic traumatic absolutist aesthetic, which chaotically yet rationally glorifies battle while championing the enslaved, accompanied by a feminine voice singing a haunting lugubrious lament, working within and celebrating the traditions of the vanquished, without hesitating to showcase their warlike being.
A being which I'm not used to inductively digesting.
The rest of Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) practically answers Camus's cliché contention that the only properly philosophical problem is suicide.
Assuming that's a cliché by now anyways.
And its response heroically illustrates the fearless spiritual will of a fierce uncompromising people, forced to adopt extreme methods, dedicated to their way of life, refusing to passively perish.
As time goes by.
Their harmonious relations are highly aggressive inasmuch as manhood is achieved by cutting off the head of a member of a surrounding tribe.
The conquerors see things differently however and colonize said tribes in order to put them to work maximizing the economic potential of their natural resources.
Decades pass, and a once proud warrior culture is reduced to back breaking poorly paid labour, alcohol abuse, suffocating ethnocentric taunts, and the systematic depletion of their ancestral hunting grounds.
And respect for their traditions is anathema.
Yet the knowledge that rebellion is akin to mass suicide keeps them at bay, until the situation proves too belittling to be endured forever after (no treaties whereby they could maintain their way of life were negotiated and signed).
And a revolt is launched.
The ways in which director Te-Sheng Wei depicts the revolt incontrovertibly turn one's stomach, as the legendary Mona Rudao (Da-Ching, Lin Ching-Tai) and his Mahebu people express their revenge.
Obviously I was cheering for the downtrodden Mahebu but my support was structurally challenged as they massacred every Japanese person in their village.
The challenge being the result of the generation of an internally cathartic traumatic absolutist aesthetic, which chaotically yet rationally glorifies battle while championing the enslaved, accompanied by a feminine voice singing a haunting lugubrious lament, working within and celebrating the traditions of the vanquished, without hesitating to showcase their warlike being.
A being which I'm not used to inductively digesting.
The rest of Sàidékè Balái (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale) practically answers Camus's cliché contention that the only properly philosophical problem is suicide.
Assuming that's a cliché by now anyways.
And its response heroically illustrates the fearless spiritual will of a fierce uncompromising people, forced to adopt extreme methods, dedicated to their way of life, refusing to passively perish.
As time goes by.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake)(Fantasia Fest 2012)
Presenting a comic romantic over-the-top ultraviolent musical,
wherein bourgeois values resolutely seek to pacify a versatile
tumultuous rogue, the undying and overpowering intensity of love
unwaveringly guiding their reformative resolve, streetwise unconditional
consistent combative tenacity governing his, Takashi Miike's Ai to Makoto (For Love's Sake) does
not refrain from elaborately executing every consummate class cliché
ever created, sensationally synthesizing quixotic and hardboiled
extremes, relentlessly reproducing unerringly awkward amorously
explosive motifs, in the implacable pursuit, of emancipated
co-dependence.
Group dynamics repetitively insist that young Makoto Taiga (Satoshi Tsumabuki) obediently pay his respects, but as their challenges are uniformly discombobulated, his limitless disenfranchised individuality, and consequent unwittingly seductive magnetism, remain intact.
Attaching a monetary value to the ability to maintain specific ideological viewpoints, while catastrophically choreographing their constructive affects, Ai to Makoto pugnaciously parodies the domain of rehabilitative reckoning, while chaotically kitschifying the practice of revenge.
For love's sake.
Group dynamics repetitively insist that young Makoto Taiga (Satoshi Tsumabuki) obediently pay his respects, but as their challenges are uniformly discombobulated, his limitless disenfranchised individuality, and consequent unwittingly seductive magnetism, remain intact.
Attaching a monetary value to the ability to maintain specific ideological viewpoints, while catastrophically choreographing their constructive affects, Ai to Makoto pugnaciously parodies the domain of rehabilitative reckoning, while chaotically kitschifying the practice of revenge.
For love's sake.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Cosmopolis
A brilliant young billionaire, having maintained his fortune by
grammatically applying the mathematical rhythms of nature to the
metaphorical constructs of his social interactions, something like that,
philosophically travels throughout New York in his cork-lined limo,
calmly discussing various subjects with his astute personnel,
occasionally stopping to chat with his literary wife, protests pulsating
outside, historical echoes allusively gyrating, definitive risks
annihilating his wealth, the pursuit of pleasure conjugally detected,
security forces requiring guidance, meaning, substantially, trying to
break its way through.
On his way to have his hair cut.
Operating within a conscious surrealistic intellectual structure spatially adorned with sudden startlingly ephemeral enactments (momentary dreamlike logical displacements), wherein questions of tangibility become remarkably fluid before alternatively reverting to their previous states, David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis examines an individual's steady response to a shockingly increasing barrage of multilayered financial, cultural, and, derivatively, psychological derailments, whose consequent disruptions cannot be experientially sublimated.
Mr. Packer's (Robert Pattinson) unaffected emancipated solution attaches a horrific qualification to the concept of freedom.
Even when Cronenberg zeroes in on the cerebral, he can still find other ways of exemplifying his roots.
On his way to have his hair cut.
Operating within a conscious surrealistic intellectual structure spatially adorned with sudden startlingly ephemeral enactments (momentary dreamlike logical displacements), wherein questions of tangibility become remarkably fluid before alternatively reverting to their previous states, David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis examines an individual's steady response to a shockingly increasing barrage of multilayered financial, cultural, and, derivatively, psychological derailments, whose consequent disruptions cannot be experientially sublimated.
Mr. Packer's (Robert Pattinson) unaffected emancipated solution attaches a horrific qualification to the concept of freedom.
Even when Cronenberg zeroes in on the cerebral, he can still find other ways of exemplifying his roots.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Et maintenant on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?)
A remote village in Lebanon remains technologically isolated from its
surrounding politico-cultural environment which erupts in a religious
war. Seeking to ensure that no more of their children are needlessly
slaughtered, its Christian and Muslim female inhabitants unite to
distract their masculine counterparts. However, regardless of the fact
that they know nothing of the war, tensions between these men have been
increasing due to sacrilegious activities that have inspired
retribution.
Trying to covertly manage the vindictive violence proves challenging.
A challenge to which these heroic women stalwartly, respond.
Exercising a seductive mix of the expedient, the temperamental, and the divine, Nadine Labaki's Et maintenant on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?) fictionally verifies how destructive overtures can be pacified within pressurized time constraints.
Certain aspects of the solution they facilitate may have practical applications beyond said constraints, although reflecting upon whether or not their means justifies their ends pasteurizes acute ethical dilemmas.
Nevertheless, a powerful film with a progressive message, Et maintenant on va où suggests that a rural dynamic can play an influential role in the byzantine global mosaic, as a matter of perseverance as opposed to pride, or acceptance as the foundations of transcendence.
Trying to covertly manage the vindictive violence proves challenging.
A challenge to which these heroic women stalwartly, respond.
Exercising a seductive mix of the expedient, the temperamental, and the divine, Nadine Labaki's Et maintenant on va où? (Where Do We Go Now?) fictionally verifies how destructive overtures can be pacified within pressurized time constraints.
Certain aspects of the solution they facilitate may have practical applications beyond said constraints, although reflecting upon whether or not their means justifies their ends pasteurizes acute ethical dilemmas.
Nevertheless, a powerful film with a progressive message, Et maintenant on va où suggests that a rural dynamic can play an influential role in the byzantine global mosaic, as a matter of perseverance as opposed to pride, or acceptance as the foundations of transcendence.
Moonrise Kingdom
Stoic particular oddities are seamlessly intertwined with a general
reconceptualization of a stilted romantic American summer vacation,
framed through recourse to a revitalized instructional capacity,
championing the ingenuity of two young outcasts, demanding that those
who neglected them altruistically unite, with the aid of Bruce Willis,
as the peculiar becomes the pertinent and vice versa, discussion
engenders understanding, the resulting text overtly incarnates visceral
dialectics, melodramatically idealized by the pursuit of love.
Regardless of the structural impediments firmly bulwarking a sustained historical social reverberation, Suzy (Kara Hayward) and Sam (Jared Gilman) courageously escape to the wilderness which created it, only to find their commitment to one another strengthened all the more, after having been discovered.
Underground authorities are then enlisted to creatively sanctify that which has been forbidden.
And as the heavens thunderously strike back, only s/he whose bravery eclipses his/her intellect can function as saviour.
And the Moonrise Kingdom shines forth.
Having been integrated into the system.
Regardless of the structural impediments firmly bulwarking a sustained historical social reverberation, Suzy (Kara Hayward) and Sam (Jared Gilman) courageously escape to the wilderness which created it, only to find their commitment to one another strengthened all the more, after having been discovered.
Underground authorities are then enlisted to creatively sanctify that which has been forbidden.
And as the heavens thunderously strike back, only s/he whose bravery eclipses his/her intellect can function as saviour.
And the Moonrise Kingdom shines forth.
Having been integrated into the system.
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