chaos-rampant

I do not doubt Beyonce's commitment to impress with extragance, to try and be more imaginative than usual in her norm, or to empower with what she sees as value for the community.

I also do not expect singers and songwriters to be able to make great films, or the opposite. I would not expect Kubrick to make a great pop record. It would take genius to be able to do both, happilly no one has to be that to express himself in any format.

So I move past the space-age visuals, emerging from ancestral huts and spiritual desert here; the effort is for 'symbolic' imagination. The story is Lion King on which she worked; the son who is cast aside and must return to reclaim his kingdom. And all this as tropes for her community.

But what I do miss here and consequently rate this low is the visual language that would speak about black experience from within its world just as, say, Aretha Franklin was able to do in music. I would like to see Kendrick Lamarr attempt the longer visual narrative.

There's a glitch that doesn't show my ratings for movies so it doesn't show up. I rate this low although an Oscar hit.

Why? I am probably in the main target audience. The template is, of course, Cassavetes, and I'm a huge Cassavetes fan. The idea is to set up the moment and then when you'd expect us to just about be out of the room we stay in the room, and keep there, the effect is an expanded horizon.

It is loud, the characters are gratuitous, everyone seems to be yelling and pulling. These rooms are smashed up. But Cassavetes is all of those things so what's the matter? The idea is also that the two protagonists will fall in unlikely love, or we'll have to parse as if maybe they do, while of course having to consider there's money and aimless caprice involved. And that's fine too.

But it has shallow observation to offer, for this viewer at least. There's only Cassavetes' form, somewhat, with none of the deep love for playing and baring self. And you'll see that when we do shift place, jumping to Coney Island, or back at the strip club, we don't have cosmic import in the jump. We're just here to yell and pull in simply a different place than before. The difference is between mastery and competence.

It was fun to spend time with these two. In terms of Beatle lore there are more essential visits, this one wins in the improvised feel. We jump around in the Beatles timeline reminiscing odd bits.

Rick is a courteous host and the experience oozes with every observation. In terms of music they are both huge of course and changed the landscape forever.

But above all I was struck here by Paul's nimbleness. He is the narrator with Rick only having to gently produce him, pull up a song to jog stories. Watch how he mimics music with his voice, pantomimes, relates a story, then picks up a guitar and strums something up. He will later sit down on the piano, or get up again and nod along with the music, still youthful.

Watch this to see effortless energy. I wish we can all age as gracefully fulfilled.