Maple mocha symphony
rippling floral felicity
a greyish squirrel perched near the sky
chitters, chats, proclaims, imbibes
A branch is snapped, the movement settles,
cicadas shimmering their mettle,
wooden seats, a stone firepit,
recall the Summer's carefree grit
lured to this spot, sequestered secrets,
jaunty luminescent creatures,
leaves gently wrestling, a chipmunk takes
the time to scamper past then break
after my eyes locate her path,
her settled sojourned trenchant tracks
create a dizzying array
of zigzagged charts and mirthful plays
towards what lies beyond the ridge,
beneath what flies, aligned with penchant
outstretched reclined billowed branches,
sudden bursts, of staggered stances.
*Had to include the beaver who slapped his or her tale at me as I kayaked away somewhere within.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Remember being disappointed when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was
released in 2003. I liked it when I eventually rented it, but still
couldn't shake that "I wish they'd just left it alone" feeling, which
had inspired my initial hesitation.
Watched it again a couple of times last weekend and was seriously impressed. It's arguably better than T2 although it depends upon what time in your life you view it/them.
T2 was great when I was a kid (it's still good [I also watched it last weekend]). The apocalypse is averted, the future remains open, and things can reattain a level of relative normalcy if the trauma can be creatively dissimulated.
Solid sci-fi, convincing absurdity, collaborative outlook, intact.
T3 represents a sequel which strategically follows a similar pattern to its predecessor(s), revisiting familiar scenes and situations in order to socialize on the franchise's precedents, while reimagining them with enough mutated historical ingenuity to subtly transmit an evolutionary code.
Without screwing things up.
Such revisitations are done at great risk for if the scenarios fail to entrance, the predecessor/s quickly begin/s to appear more appealing.
T3's resolution is somewhat less innocent, however (it's much less innocent), which, for those of us who saw T2 when they were 12 and T3 many years later, while still remaining in possession of the firm environmentally friendly conscious T2 shyly promotes, fictionally nurtures a degree of realistic despondency, brought about by an increasingly monolithic technocratic agency's dismissal of environmental concerns (the environmental movement, from what I remember, was stronger in Canada in 1991), by directly working its principle audience's growth into the script, bizarrely taking into account different trends and fashions, while harshly yet romantically preparing them for the post-symbolic (notably when John [Nick Stahl] resignedly yet affirmably utters a cliché when he's flying to Crystal Peak with Catherine Brewster [Claire Danes]).
Hence, within T3, a pagan dimension in touch with the eternal timeline and its intertemporal distortions (whether or not these distortions should be viewed as part of the eternal timeline is up for debate but the evidence provided by T3 suggests they should not) intervenes and ensures that two somewhat unwilling individuals are given a fighting chance to subvert an inevitable machinismo (to continue to fight for a more collaborative playing field against forces possessing incontrovertible resource rich 'class-oriented' biases)(the timeline is reconstituted to the best possible version nature can provide after which its 'unwitting' agents must generally fend for themselves).
And who has returned with updated loveable psychological subroutines? None other than the converted patriarchal killing machine who saw the light (was reprogrammed) and began using his organic metallurgic abilities to protect humanistic interests instead (himself). Much of what his counterpart from T2 learned flows within but now that Mr. Connor's older and realizes what he's up against, his counterarguments to that created by his significant other's interpretation of his childhood memories occasionally lack his youthful antagonistic conviction.
After surviving the intermediary years, he comes to understand the T-101's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) no-nonsense methods.
Mechanically, T-101's primary adversary is a younger more flexible model, but even though he's an older design, this doesn't mean he can't compete.
In regards to the dialogue established by the changing feminine gender paradigms culturalized by the gap between these two sequels, in T2 the only strong female character with knowledge that would make a significant historical difference is locked-up in a mental institution; in T3 the feminine is split, one character representing independent unyielding destructive technocratic oppression, the other, bourgeois stability transformed (consequently) into a fierce warrioress.
In regards to identity, as far as John and Catherine Brewster go, and ignoring the acute crisis the T-101 must face, T3 seems to be suggesting that if you're unclassified or professional (notably in the "you're not exactly my 'type' either" exchange), and if democratic institutions become so diluted that their impact no longer bears any teeth, or a well-funded psychological campaign produces a wide-ranging cynicism regarding their effects even when they're still capable of bearing fruit, you'll both be stuck necessarily contending with an entrenched systemic opponent who had been modestly brought to heel after the Second World War.
Try and think about what Barack Obama would have been able to do then.
Which seems to be T3's prescient message, which could explain the lacklustre reviews it received during the George W. Bush Era. I don't know. But it takes the risk of bombing due to the ways in which it relies so heavily on T2's format and manages to ironically cultivate greener pastures to the contrary, which is a sign of bold writing, and great filmmaking (directed by Jonathan Mostow, screenplay by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato).
And the Dr. Silverman (Earl Boen) scene is priceless. I'll watch it again just to see that alone.
There's more humour within too, notably the ways in which the 'asocial' terminators affect those they meet, my favourite line being "and, the coffin," subtly reflecting the difficulties the eccentric encounter on a regular basis.
Oh, and considering how much revenue Judgement Day generated, it's hard to believe that it took 12 years for them to release Rise of the Machines.
Watched it again a couple of times last weekend and was seriously impressed. It's arguably better than T2 although it depends upon what time in your life you view it/them.
T2 was great when I was a kid (it's still good [I also watched it last weekend]). The apocalypse is averted, the future remains open, and things can reattain a level of relative normalcy if the trauma can be creatively dissimulated.
Solid sci-fi, convincing absurdity, collaborative outlook, intact.
T3 represents a sequel which strategically follows a similar pattern to its predecessor(s), revisiting familiar scenes and situations in order to socialize on the franchise's precedents, while reimagining them with enough mutated historical ingenuity to subtly transmit an evolutionary code.
Without screwing things up.
Such revisitations are done at great risk for if the scenarios fail to entrance, the predecessor/s quickly begin/s to appear more appealing.
T3's resolution is somewhat less innocent, however (it's much less innocent), which, for those of us who saw T2 when they were 12 and T3 many years later, while still remaining in possession of the firm environmentally friendly conscious T2 shyly promotes, fictionally nurtures a degree of realistic despondency, brought about by an increasingly monolithic technocratic agency's dismissal of environmental concerns (the environmental movement, from what I remember, was stronger in Canada in 1991), by directly working its principle audience's growth into the script, bizarrely taking into account different trends and fashions, while harshly yet romantically preparing them for the post-symbolic (notably when John [Nick Stahl] resignedly yet affirmably utters a cliché when he's flying to Crystal Peak with Catherine Brewster [Claire Danes]).
Hence, within T3, a pagan dimension in touch with the eternal timeline and its intertemporal distortions (whether or not these distortions should be viewed as part of the eternal timeline is up for debate but the evidence provided by T3 suggests they should not) intervenes and ensures that two somewhat unwilling individuals are given a fighting chance to subvert an inevitable machinismo (to continue to fight for a more collaborative playing field against forces possessing incontrovertible resource rich 'class-oriented' biases)(the timeline is reconstituted to the best possible version nature can provide after which its 'unwitting' agents must generally fend for themselves).
And who has returned with updated loveable psychological subroutines? None other than the converted patriarchal killing machine who saw the light (was reprogrammed) and began using his organic metallurgic abilities to protect humanistic interests instead (himself). Much of what his counterpart from T2 learned flows within but now that Mr. Connor's older and realizes what he's up against, his counterarguments to that created by his significant other's interpretation of his childhood memories occasionally lack his youthful antagonistic conviction.
After surviving the intermediary years, he comes to understand the T-101's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) no-nonsense methods.
Mechanically, T-101's primary adversary is a younger more flexible model, but even though he's an older design, this doesn't mean he can't compete.
In regards to the dialogue established by the changing feminine gender paradigms culturalized by the gap between these two sequels, in T2 the only strong female character with knowledge that would make a significant historical difference is locked-up in a mental institution; in T3 the feminine is split, one character representing independent unyielding destructive technocratic oppression, the other, bourgeois stability transformed (consequently) into a fierce warrioress.
In regards to identity, as far as John and Catherine Brewster go, and ignoring the acute crisis the T-101 must face, T3 seems to be suggesting that if you're unclassified or professional (notably in the "you're not exactly my 'type' either" exchange), and if democratic institutions become so diluted that their impact no longer bears any teeth, or a well-funded psychological campaign produces a wide-ranging cynicism regarding their effects even when they're still capable of bearing fruit, you'll both be stuck necessarily contending with an entrenched systemic opponent who had been modestly brought to heel after the Second World War.
Try and think about what Barack Obama would have been able to do then.
Which seems to be T3's prescient message, which could explain the lacklustre reviews it received during the George W. Bush Era. I don't know. But it takes the risk of bombing due to the ways in which it relies so heavily on T2's format and manages to ironically cultivate greener pastures to the contrary, which is a sign of bold writing, and great filmmaking (directed by Jonathan Mostow, screenplay by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato).
And the Dr. Silverman (Earl Boen) scene is priceless. I'll watch it again just to see that alone.
There's more humour within too, notably the ways in which the 'asocial' terminators affect those they meet, my favourite line being "and, the coffin," subtly reflecting the difficulties the eccentric encounter on a regular basis.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Bullhead
Symptomatically and jaggedly pluralizing the personal psychological
affects of a sudden all-encompassing disillusionment, while intricately
stratifying a diverse bombastic barrage, literally interjecting his film
with bellicose doses of testosterone, Michaël R. Roskam takes Bullhead and cacophonically synthesizes a man with his husbandry, as he tries whatever he can to surreptitiously distend.
An event. A transformation. Perseverance. Sublimation. Shock. Disintegration.
The wind in the willows.
Or the cyclone in the spruces in this instance. Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is one volatile powder keg lacking the deflammatory passions which may have softened the blow.
But apart from scintillatingly nocturnalizing a tragic character study, Bullhead complacently, cerebrally, and chaotically economizes its 'subject matter,' potently intensifying a somewhat underrepresented particular submergence, while using it to indirectly comment upon Belgian social interactions.
If Mr. Vanmarsenille represents the local, then the local is diversified, then regionalized (the regional possessing a nationalistic nuance), and then subjectively traumatized, historicized, and atemporalized, while the film retains a selective degree of objectivity (which dissipates near the end), the catalyst of said trauma triumvirately functioning within the local, regional, and national domains, with romantic, familial, comic and veterinary issues exhaustively adorning its multiplicity.
Mr. Roskam knows how to get things done (screenplay by Michaël R. Roskam).
It offers a potential counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, one film focused primarily on a individual's parenting struggles within an environment theoretically dominated by the personal, the other's less subject-centric caricature working within one hypothetically attempting to produce a less hostile bilateral congregation, both lamenting static subjective growth.
Stress. They're both, full, of stress.
I recommend Bullhead for lovers of multidimensional cinema but be prepared cause it's rather dark.
I kind of think of it as a stubborn grouchy emasculated subdued rowdy intellectual action film to which you must pay strict attention.
Calamitizing the maintenance of an ideal.
Which blindly obscures what's beautiful.
An event. A transformation. Perseverance. Sublimation. Shock. Disintegration.
The wind in the willows.
Or the cyclone in the spruces in this instance. Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts) is one volatile powder keg lacking the deflammatory passions which may have softened the blow.
But apart from scintillatingly nocturnalizing a tragic character study, Bullhead complacently, cerebrally, and chaotically economizes its 'subject matter,' potently intensifying a somewhat underrepresented particular submergence, while using it to indirectly comment upon Belgian social interactions.
If Mr. Vanmarsenille represents the local, then the local is diversified, then regionalized (the regional possessing a nationalistic nuance), and then subjectively traumatized, historicized, and atemporalized, while the film retains a selective degree of objectivity (which dissipates near the end), the catalyst of said trauma triumvirately functioning within the local, regional, and national domains, with romantic, familial, comic and veterinary issues exhaustively adorning its multiplicity.
Mr. Roskam knows how to get things done (screenplay by Michaël R. Roskam).
It offers a potential counterpoint to Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, one film focused primarily on a individual's parenting struggles within an environment theoretically dominated by the personal, the other's less subject-centric caricature working within one hypothetically attempting to produce a less hostile bilateral congregation, both lamenting static subjective growth.
Stress. They're both, full, of stress.
I recommend Bullhead for lovers of multidimensional cinema but be prepared cause it's rather dark.
I kind of think of it as a stubborn grouchy emasculated subdued rowdy intellectual action film to which you must pay strict attention.
Calamitizing the maintenance of an ideal.
Which blindly obscures what's beautiful.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Arcas
Fictitious nascent
slumbering wake
torpid testaments
Holistic parables
impulsive veritable
license
Installed profusion
withdrawn diffusion
scriptorium
conditioned improvised
melodic tartan
chants
slumbering wake
torpid testaments
Holistic parables
impulsive veritable
license
Installed profusion
withdrawn diffusion
scriptorium
conditioned improvised
melodic tartan
chants
Samsara
Ron Fricke's Samsara takes upon itself the modest task of
pictorially presenting an interdimensional panoramic account of a
synthesized set of (free)ranging semantic variables, a fluid
rhetorically viable atemporal mosaic whose effervescent movements are
acoustically interwoven according (perhaps) to the harmonics of three
itinerant factotums, who practically reverberate throughout the
humanistic theoretical continuum, giving birth to hope, sculpting
immobility, and choreographing the infinite.
The paradox discovered by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation's All Good Things . . . offers a tool through which to begin cultivating interpretive comprehensions, although in Samsara said paradox seems to be critically oscillating in a cyclical undulation, in order to craft, what Fredric Jameson might describe as, an ontology of the present.
The only other film I've seen recently whose form, in varying degrees, produces similar affects, is Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, and the two films arguably create a matrix through which to compare the means by which two distinct historical periods use/d their cultural clay to mold multidimensional discursive globalized narratives.
I don't recommend watching The Holy Mountain unless you're into alternative cinema.
But to return to Samsara, I would contend that it suggests that the wisest thought-systems/ethical outlooks simultaneously celebrate the production of structured delicate intricate symmetrical collective masterpieces and their peaceful destruction (the Mandala), thereby humbly attempting to temporalize the eternal.
At other points, it presents incredible naturalistic syntheses of truth and illusion, concretely stylizes exhilaration, offers an absurd example of unfettered patriarchal ambition, interdisciplinarily collocates ancient forms with contemporary contents, patiently juxtaposes opulent and impoverished extremes, counterbalances manifold individuals with sundry groups, alternates the crushing affects of monosyllabic monstrosities with those of incarcerated liberation, conducts the best variation of a lament for the loss of an integrated prolonged cultural artistic fusion I've ever seen, and brilliantly equates both the means of mass production and its 'unforeseen' and mind boggling consequences/circumstances.
Without saying a word.
The apotheosis of philosophical realism metaphorically materialized? An emission/admission of im/mortality? Ostentation saturated with social justice? Pinpointed timeless reciprocal constructivism?
It takes the cinematography from The Tree of Life to a whole new level (cinematography by Ron Fricke, shot on 70mm film).
Best film I've seen in a long time.
The paradox discovered by Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation's All Good Things . . . offers a tool through which to begin cultivating interpretive comprehensions, although in Samsara said paradox seems to be critically oscillating in a cyclical undulation, in order to craft, what Fredric Jameson might describe as, an ontology of the present.
The only other film I've seen recently whose form, in varying degrees, produces similar affects, is Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, and the two films arguably create a matrix through which to compare the means by which two distinct historical periods use/d their cultural clay to mold multidimensional discursive globalized narratives.
I don't recommend watching The Holy Mountain unless you're into alternative cinema.
But to return to Samsara, I would contend that it suggests that the wisest thought-systems/ethical outlooks simultaneously celebrate the production of structured delicate intricate symmetrical collective masterpieces and their peaceful destruction (the Mandala), thereby humbly attempting to temporalize the eternal.
At other points, it presents incredible naturalistic syntheses of truth and illusion, concretely stylizes exhilaration, offers an absurd example of unfettered patriarchal ambition, interdisciplinarily collocates ancient forms with contemporary contents, patiently juxtaposes opulent and impoverished extremes, counterbalances manifold individuals with sundry groups, alternates the crushing affects of monosyllabic monstrosities with those of incarcerated liberation, conducts the best variation of a lament for the loss of an integrated prolonged cultural artistic fusion I've ever seen, and brilliantly equates both the means of mass production and its 'unforeseen' and mind boggling consequences/circumstances.
Without saying a word.
The apotheosis of philosophical realism metaphorically materialized? An emission/admission of im/mortality? Ostentation saturated with social justice? Pinpointed timeless reciprocal constructivism?
It takes the cinematography from The Tree of Life to a whole new level (cinematography by Ron Fricke, shot on 70mm film).
Best film I've seen in a long time.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Elena
As a barren particular is brought into the forefront, behind which
rests a model representative of flight, stationary and passive, pensive
and solitary, the image's distinction begins to slowly fade, before,
after a fellow aviator arrives, it is subtly and universally
interiorized.
What follows is an expertly executed yet modestly matriculated morphology, wherein each member of a seemingly content couple exercises their predetermined propensities to finance a younger generation.
Hypocrisy and deception abound.
Historical preference bifurcates.
Galvanized wit is rewarded.
And opportunity will not be displaced.
Andrey Zvyagintsev adopts sparse means to inculcate a breathtaking exemplar, which suggests that the film's form undeniably upholds Elena (Nadezhda Markina), although an internal cross-examination, mischievously interjected by its music, which preliminarily tricked me into believing Elena is simply a collusively cheeky quotidian parody of your traditional blockbuster, sustainably supports the case's other systemic suitor (original music by Philip Glass).
The imaginary factor is brilliantly lubricated by Elena Lyadova's (Katerina) provocative pirouette, volatile yet absorptive, as she self-indulgently tears up the runaway.
Melancholic film.
What follows is an expertly executed yet modestly matriculated morphology, wherein each member of a seemingly content couple exercises their predetermined propensities to finance a younger generation.
Hypocrisy and deception abound.
Historical preference bifurcates.
Galvanized wit is rewarded.
And opportunity will not be displaced.
Andrey Zvyagintsev adopts sparse means to inculcate a breathtaking exemplar, which suggests that the film's form undeniably upholds Elena (Nadezhda Markina), although an internal cross-examination, mischievously interjected by its music, which preliminarily tricked me into believing Elena is simply a collusively cheeky quotidian parody of your traditional blockbuster, sustainably supports the case's other systemic suitor (original music by Philip Glass).
The imaginary factor is brilliantly lubricated by Elena Lyadova's (Katerina) provocative pirouette, volatile yet absorptive, as she self-indulgently tears up the runaway.
Melancholic film.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Impressed by Peyton Manning's debut with the Broncos and the play of the team as a whole.
Pretty excited about the rest of the season.
Not worried about the Ti-Cats.
They could easily be 6 and 4 and are averaging 29.7 points a game.
All they have to do is keep scoring and tighten-up their defence in order to make a run at the Cup.
Make a run.
I mean win.
Pretty excited about the rest of the season.
Not worried about the Ti-Cats.
They could easily be 6 and 4 and are averaging 29.7 points a game.
All they have to do is keep scoring and tighten-up their defence in order to make a run at the Cup.
Make a run.
I mean win.
Teddy Bear
A tough, trusting, reserved, youthful 38 year-old bodybuilder, unfamiliar with the feminine sex and generally unable to generate first contact, spontaneously departs to an undiscovered country, having no desire to insurrect a moral nemesis, or the wrath of dawn, where, too upright to cross the final frontier, he sticks to his game plan, hits the gym, and serendipitously discovers that for which he has been searching.
In Teddy Bear, the motion picture.
The film's a calm, patient, joyful, timorous study of a caring athlete, dedicated to his calling, possessing practically no knowledge of worldly affairs, coyly proceeding from one day to the next.
If you've no interest in celebrating a strong contemplative investigation of ageless dreams or oedipal blunders, you may find that Teddy Bear lacks the flexibility continuously recycled in many a phantasmagorical flick.
But if you desire to humbly enjoy a robust quotidien reflection which elevates the passive struggles of an underexplored muscular happenstance, or any of the other things I've already mentioned, it just might work out, with multiple rep potential, without making much of a stretch.
In Teddy Bear, the motion picture.
The film's a calm, patient, joyful, timorous study of a caring athlete, dedicated to his calling, possessing practically no knowledge of worldly affairs, coyly proceeding from one day to the next.
If you've no interest in celebrating a strong contemplative investigation of ageless dreams or oedipal blunders, you may find that Teddy Bear lacks the flexibility continuously recycled in many a phantasmagorical flick.
But if you desire to humbly enjoy a robust quotidien reflection which elevates the passive struggles of an underexplored muscular happenstance, or any of the other things I've already mentioned, it just might work out, with multiple rep potential, without making much of a stretch.
Mahler auf der Couch (Mahler on the Couch)
Felix and Percy Aldon's Mahler auf der Couch is well orchestrated.
They take a predictable story, let you know what's going to happen from the outset (the scores shown during the opening credits covered in prose), challenge you to pay attention anyways, and then provide a sombre, despondently energetic, physically and psychologically active rendition of a successful composer's troubled personal life, complete with a traditional Freudian (Proustian) resolution, minimalistically yet grandiosely conveyed.
The narrative follows a traditional artist who humbly employs a Highlander maxim both professionally and conjugally which simultaneously propels and curtails his development.
The film's form is noteworthy insofar as it biographically serenades the standard interviewing technique comedically nuanced in Mike Clattenburg's and Ricky Gervais's/Stephan Merchant's (Trailer Park Boys and The Office having been released contemporaneously) different mockumentary television shows, within an autobiographical soundscape, as Mahler (Johannes Silberschneider) attempts to reestablish an I with Freud's (Karl Markovics) help while referencing data based upon the ways in which his psyche has internalized the potential praise/disdain/indifference/misgivings of his admirers/competitors/friends/family, thereby atonally harmonizing its classical unconscious rhythms with multiple indeterminate perspectives (while remaining ripe with emotion).
Barbara Romaner (Alma Mahler) impresses as 'she' attempts to break through.
If I've ever heard anything written by Mahler, I'm unaware.
They take a predictable story, let you know what's going to happen from the outset (the scores shown during the opening credits covered in prose), challenge you to pay attention anyways, and then provide a sombre, despondently energetic, physically and psychologically active rendition of a successful composer's troubled personal life, complete with a traditional Freudian (Proustian) resolution, minimalistically yet grandiosely conveyed.
The narrative follows a traditional artist who humbly employs a Highlander maxim both professionally and conjugally which simultaneously propels and curtails his development.
The film's form is noteworthy insofar as it biographically serenades the standard interviewing technique comedically nuanced in Mike Clattenburg's and Ricky Gervais's/Stephan Merchant's (Trailer Park Boys and The Office having been released contemporaneously) different mockumentary television shows, within an autobiographical soundscape, as Mahler (Johannes Silberschneider) attempts to reestablish an I with Freud's (Karl Markovics) help while referencing data based upon the ways in which his psyche has internalized the potential praise/disdain/indifference/misgivings of his admirers/competitors/friends/family, thereby atonally harmonizing its classical unconscious rhythms with multiple indeterminate perspectives (while remaining ripe with emotion).
Barbara Romaner (Alma Mahler) impresses as 'she' attempts to break through.
If I've ever heard anything written by Mahler, I'm unaware.
Lawless
John Hillcoat's Lawless ballistically perforates a hostile approach to rapid wide-scale systemic change, polemically posturing various players within a bucolic dynamic in order to counterpoise federal and local reputations.
The year is 1931 and prohibition and the great depression are taking their toll.
But dozens of Virginian bootleggers in Franklin County have found ways to circumvent the prudish law while ensuring the availability of steamwhistlin' scratch.
Their business has its share of internal and external dangers, but if their entrepreneurial caution, confidence, and charisma is combatively backed-up, should the situation demand, it's possible for them to get by.
The film's social demographic places egalitarian commercial race relations in the underground, using its most formidable character to deconstruct Southern stereotypes without hesitating to allude to their pernicious influence.
This accomplishes the following: African American customers (unfortunately) occupy the underground but said occupation is directly (and vivaciously) displayed (bigots can spread their hate but they can't suffocate your spirit). Segregation's pernicious influence on the other hand is indirectly showcased on main street. Such an opposition realistically situates racist cultural dynamics within an historical paradigm while simultaneously suggesting that said paradigm isn't as prominent (in certain areas) as it used to be (without resorting to pointing out how bigoted things can be outside of the American South).
By making the underground activities lively and inviting, and those flourishing in the forefront antiquated and distasteful, Hillcoat subtly contemporarizes his narrative without aggrandizing it, thereby formally instituting a reversal of fortunes.
These commercial relations commence sharpening Lawless's predominant (and much more blunt) focus upon allowing local jurisdictions to settle economic matters according to their own industrious proclivities, the ways in which they particularly interpret the universal, one step at a time, or at least without dismissive, infantilizing, violent authoritative impositions.
Its narrative is quite different from Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning, wherein federal authorities seek justice according to the somewhat peaceful (and necessary) application of the law only to be stymied by local thugs (after which 'authoritative impositions' are 'enacted').
Lawless is of course more concerned with underground economies and identity transformation (or solidification), and Special Agent Charlie Rakes's (Guy Pearce) psychopathic abuse of his power to 'tax' and/or crush small businesses during an economic crisis, while using his knowledge to intimidate people as they try to grow/change, is grossly counterproductive.
His exaggerated character represents both the reputation a lot of city folk have for using their 'wit' to consistently enflame the age-old urban/rural antimony, and the ways in which many federal law officers likely abused their authority when transferred to the South (can you break down an institutionalized culture of segregation by treating everyone bigotedly?).
But he bats heads with the Bondurant Boys whose (justifiably) invincible reputation and refusal to back down on certain matters of principle have garnered them considerable respect within (and outside of) their community, although Forrest's (Tom Hardy) adherence to the doctrine of fear generates problematic socio-ethical questions.
I suppose if you live in an excessively violent location you need to physically maintain a resolute persona that demonstrates that it won't take any shit.
But who the hell wants to live like that?
It's like cultivating paranoia instead of grain and such methods will have significant detrimental longterm effects.
Nevertheless, Lawless's explosive yet clever refusal to allow the South to be characterized according to a set of generalized notions, which legitimately carry substantial historical weight but at the same time demonize those who lived within a system without operating according to their divisive rules, tenaciously operates within an incendiary critical domain whose approach to achieving social democratic objectives isn't so light and fluffy.
Although it does ironically employ the cult of the individual (an individual family) to achieve them.
The year is 1931 and prohibition and the great depression are taking their toll.
But dozens of Virginian bootleggers in Franklin County have found ways to circumvent the prudish law while ensuring the availability of steamwhistlin' scratch.
Their business has its share of internal and external dangers, but if their entrepreneurial caution, confidence, and charisma is combatively backed-up, should the situation demand, it's possible for them to get by.
The film's social demographic places egalitarian commercial race relations in the underground, using its most formidable character to deconstruct Southern stereotypes without hesitating to allude to their pernicious influence.
This accomplishes the following: African American customers (unfortunately) occupy the underground but said occupation is directly (and vivaciously) displayed (bigots can spread their hate but they can't suffocate your spirit). Segregation's pernicious influence on the other hand is indirectly showcased on main street. Such an opposition realistically situates racist cultural dynamics within an historical paradigm while simultaneously suggesting that said paradigm isn't as prominent (in certain areas) as it used to be (without resorting to pointing out how bigoted things can be outside of the American South).
By making the underground activities lively and inviting, and those flourishing in the forefront antiquated and distasteful, Hillcoat subtly contemporarizes his narrative without aggrandizing it, thereby formally instituting a reversal of fortunes.
These commercial relations commence sharpening Lawless's predominant (and much more blunt) focus upon allowing local jurisdictions to settle economic matters according to their own industrious proclivities, the ways in which they particularly interpret the universal, one step at a time, or at least without dismissive, infantilizing, violent authoritative impositions.
Its narrative is quite different from Alan Parker's Mississippi Burning, wherein federal authorities seek justice according to the somewhat peaceful (and necessary) application of the law only to be stymied by local thugs (after which 'authoritative impositions' are 'enacted').
Lawless is of course more concerned with underground economies and identity transformation (or solidification), and Special Agent Charlie Rakes's (Guy Pearce) psychopathic abuse of his power to 'tax' and/or crush small businesses during an economic crisis, while using his knowledge to intimidate people as they try to grow/change, is grossly counterproductive.
His exaggerated character represents both the reputation a lot of city folk have for using their 'wit' to consistently enflame the age-old urban/rural antimony, and the ways in which many federal law officers likely abused their authority when transferred to the South (can you break down an institutionalized culture of segregation by treating everyone bigotedly?).
But he bats heads with the Bondurant Boys whose (justifiably) invincible reputation and refusal to back down on certain matters of principle have garnered them considerable respect within (and outside of) their community, although Forrest's (Tom Hardy) adherence to the doctrine of fear generates problematic socio-ethical questions.
I suppose if you live in an excessively violent location you need to physically maintain a resolute persona that demonstrates that it won't take any shit.
But who the hell wants to live like that?
It's like cultivating paranoia instead of grain and such methods will have significant detrimental longterm effects.
Nevertheless, Lawless's explosive yet clever refusal to allow the South to be characterized according to a set of generalized notions, which legitimately carry substantial historical weight but at the same time demonize those who lived within a system without operating according to their divisive rules, tenaciously operates within an incendiary critical domain whose approach to achieving social democratic objectives isn't so light and fluffy.
Although it does ironically employ the cult of the individual (an individual family) to achieve them.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Joker
Wow. There's a lot goin' on in this film.
Antiquated misunderstood terminologies are cartographically forsaken for reasons of self-preservation only to remain fluid within their own internal landscape within which a lyrical agrarian dynamic flourishes in isolation.
Until external structural constructions cut off their carnivalesque currents.
Enter Agastya/Sattu (Akshay Kumar), a community member who tackled adversity and found himself a job attempting to establish communications with radical otherness within an international setting.
His talents are extraordinary and he returns home with his adventurous wife (Sonakshi Sinha as Diva) to altruistically put them to work.
The lone village is situated along the border of three Indian states, and he hopes to negotiate a resolution (a communal pact) with one of them in order to resurrect its crops.
While doing so, he adapts to local customs out of respect for their traditions.
Finding no bureaucratic streamline, he employs his knowledge of the sensational to create a spectacle, based upon one appropriated from another domain, with the aid of compatriots, which intrigues the media.
They promptly capitalize on the reconceptualized market as the villagers begin to exchange services for currency.
But a competitive dimension seeks to expose their fantasy's reality which results in the expansion of its theatrics and the intrusion of the American military.
Meanwhile, the three states attempt to incorporate that which they previously disregarded.
But when radical otherness miraculously appears, it becomes apparent that the misunderstood antiquated terminologies that had been topographically eclipsed possess the means through which to intergalactically communicate, and a gift is presented.
The gift enables the village to refuse each of its suitors and remain independent.
Unfortunately, it will also introduce an industrial peculiarity (at the beginning of the film the village has no electricity).
It's quite the present . . .
Yet hopes remain high and Agastya's wit is unmatched, which suggests a sanitary synthesis between two polar means of production loosely intertwined by an improvised intermediary stage.
Scintillatingly scored and jocosely choreographed.
Antiquated misunderstood terminologies are cartographically forsaken for reasons of self-preservation only to remain fluid within their own internal landscape within which a lyrical agrarian dynamic flourishes in isolation.
Until external structural constructions cut off their carnivalesque currents.
Enter Agastya/Sattu (Akshay Kumar), a community member who tackled adversity and found himself a job attempting to establish communications with radical otherness within an international setting.
His talents are extraordinary and he returns home with his adventurous wife (Sonakshi Sinha as Diva) to altruistically put them to work.
The lone village is situated along the border of three Indian states, and he hopes to negotiate a resolution (a communal pact) with one of them in order to resurrect its crops.
While doing so, he adapts to local customs out of respect for their traditions.
Finding no bureaucratic streamline, he employs his knowledge of the sensational to create a spectacle, based upon one appropriated from another domain, with the aid of compatriots, which intrigues the media.
They promptly capitalize on the reconceptualized market as the villagers begin to exchange services for currency.
But a competitive dimension seeks to expose their fantasy's reality which results in the expansion of its theatrics and the intrusion of the American military.
Meanwhile, the three states attempt to incorporate that which they previously disregarded.
But when radical otherness miraculously appears, it becomes apparent that the misunderstood antiquated terminologies that had been topographically eclipsed possess the means through which to intergalactically communicate, and a gift is presented.
The gift enables the village to refuse each of its suitors and remain independent.
Unfortunately, it will also introduce an industrial peculiarity (at the beginning of the film the village has no electricity).
It's quite the present . . .
Yet hopes remain high and Agastya's wit is unmatched, which suggests a sanitary synthesis between two polar means of production loosely intertwined by an improvised intermediary stage.
Scintillatingly scored and jocosely choreographed.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Friend of a Friend
Restless awakening
limitless threshold
felicitous materialization
habitual introductions
convivial conversation
sartorial serendipity
expeditious evaporation
memorial salutation
limitless threshold
felicitous materialization
habitual introductions
convivial conversation
sartorial serendipity
expeditious evaporation
memorial salutation
Friday, August 31, 2012
Quadrycles
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.
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.
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.
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