 and weapons, for which he could have gotten up to 40 years, according to the Philly Voice, and he testified against the murderers and did no time in his own case. That's what Manafort was supposed to do. It's not that complicated.
Also on the Manafort subject, I hope this isn't too obvious, but the fact that none of the crimes with which Michael Flynn, Michael Cohen, and Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have been charged with feature direct collaboration in a Russian conspiracy doesn't mean they never committed any crimes on those lines.
such as one seldom sees in real life, but exactly what the authors of the law were afraid of. Flynn is also guilty of taking illicit foreign emoluments, as a retired military officer, in that Moscow junket of December 2015 with Jill Stein, as far as I'm concerned, though trying to bust him for it may lead to undesirable complexities.
In any case we don't know exactly what crimes they committed in these connections, even though we do know they committed something, because Mueller hasn't charged them. The reason for that is ridiculously easy to explain. The reason for bringing any charges against them at all at such an early point in the investigation (October through December 2017 for Papadopoulos, Manafort, Gates, and Flynn, while Cohen's indictment wasn't known until August 2018) was to get them aboard as cooperating witnesses. But to indict means laying out details in public, and that could mean cluing in Junior, Kushner, Big Donald, and their lawyers as to what Mueller does and doesn't know about the big crimes, the ones the "process crimes" like lying to the FBI are covering up, which include (especially for Mueller, that's his remand) the Russian conspiracy.
So Mueller's job was to indict them on some crime that had as little as possible to do with that, and then take their conspiracy testimony in private.
Luckily, the defendants, some liars and others career criminals, had given Mueller plenty to work with and he was able to charge them all without revealing almost anything; you'll remember we know about the Manafort-Kilimnik interaction with the polling data only because he lied about it when he was failing to cooperate after the guilty plea, and Manafort's lawyers did such a shitty job of redacting it, perhaps on purpose, that journalists were able to read it. That one incident is to me the proof that the whole theory is correct, that there is lots of material on "collusion" that the special counsel's office is keeping close.
And it worked pretty well, they all decided to cooperate. Except Papadopoulos, in his shifty-ass small-ball way, and Manafort on the grand psychopath scale, didn't mean it and haven't done anything they were supposed to do.
Anyway, we don't know what Manafort, Flynn, and Cohen did with the Russians not because they didn't do anything but because Mueller isn't ready to say, and the storylines we invent to fill in the evidentiary gaps aren't getting less probable (the way some journalists are seeing it) but more so, in the fullness of time.The dystopian future. Who among us cinephiles has never seen a single science-fiction story in a distant, or not so distant future when the world as we know as devolved into a society we’d never want to be a part of. They are the stuff of our nightmares. The robots have taken over and control everything. The dictators who we democratically elected into office crushed all opposition and rule with an iron fist via a police state. We finally made first contact, only the aliens were of the less benevolent kind and humanity must free itself from slavery. Call it speculative fiction. Given the world’s current climate, literally, the concept of eco systems crashing and destroying human societies is another topic ripe for speculative fiction. Enter Vesper, a French-Belgian-Lithuanian production.
From the writing and directing duo of Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper, Vesper follows the survivalist exploits of its titular heroine (Raffiella Chapman). A 13-year-old girl, she does everything around the run down house in the woods where she and her ailing father (Richard Brake) live. The outside world is mortally treacherous since the planet’s eco-systems went berserk due to human interference. New flora abounds that kills unsuspecting humans. Many people perish in grisly ways. There exist pockets of humanity that survive in seemingly prosperous citadels founded around the world. Vesper and her father are not so fortunate, but the girl works diligently to synthetically create new plants and food seeds for their survival. Her world is rocked (as if it hadn’t been already) when a citadel based two-person aircraft crash lands. Vesper rescues one of its survivors, a woman named Camellia (Rosy McEwen). Perhaps in return Camellia will help Vesper’s family seek refuge in a citadel.
Describing Vesper is an interesting exercise. It’s a film that changes pace for each of its 3 acts. Ultimately, they come together to tell a reasonably coherent story, yet the disparate pacing and plot points the directors choose to focus on in each act can leave viewers disappointed. If anyone reading this review can’t read between the lines, the main point is that Vesper has a middle act problem. It’s unquestionably the slowest of the three, not to mention it is the least exploratory from a world-building perspective. That in of itself may speak to the picture’s modest budget. It strives for some impressive money shots on several occasions, but the fact of the matter is Vesper was not made with Universal, Warner Brothers or Disney money.
The damning question therefore may be: does a film with big ideas start strong to hook the viewer and risk slowing down later? Or is the better tactic to save the best material for later? The opening sequence to Vesperis, all in all, gripping. Panoramic wide shots of the terrains the protagonist must traverse to go from one place to another are terrific. The set design for strange, massively tall structures that look like buildings made of wood strikes the imagination. Even the way in which Vesper interacts with her father intrigues and amazes. Somehow the man’s conscious is encased in a little floating metal box that communicates through a speaker. It’s never explained how the technology works, or what the fleshy substance inside the case is, yet the oddity suffices to grab attention.
Having not looked at the cast list before heading in, the sudden appearance of Eddie Marsan is another surprise. He plays Vesper’s uncle. A harsh man, he lives nearby at a farm where food seeds are cultivated and sold to the citadel. Another side business involves somehow using the blood of humans to help citadels bio-engineer people for labour. Marsan is stern and gritty in the role. 
According to what has been written so far, Buozyte and Samper deliver a visually imaginative, thought-provoking film about survival, sustenance, and the spirit of innovation. Well, mostly but not completely. The middle act drags things down to a snail’s pace. Gone are the explorations and discoveries into the woods, replaced with heart-to-heart moments between Vesper and Camellia. The latter begins to fill the role of the mother our heroine lost many years ago. Vesper clings to the hope of finding her one day. Discussion of the animals who used to populate Earth, showcasing some of Vesper’s genetically engineered plants, debates about how to get to the citadel, attempts to crack the DNA code of seeds to create food for everyone, etc. It isn’t that none of it is interesting. The issue is that it ruins the pace.
When the third act begins the movie suddenly throws a bunch of intense action at the screen. It’s decently staged and executed (with a less than subtle nod to Star Wars) but feels just as much at odds with the second act as the latter did with the first. Characters are blasted at, certain plants get violent, an inexplicable yellow goo transforms into poisonous fumes. The final half hour is an action thriller. Interspersing the action beats with the methodical drama would result in a more balanced film.
Vesper is ambitious. What it lacks are better calibrated ebbs and flows. The highs are cool, the one big, long low is ultimately boring. Today’s food industry is already doing some of the things depicted in the film. Companies research, test, approve, patent, and sell manufactured foods and pesticides. Vesper takes that reality and tosses into the dystopian blender. A shame. The seed of greatness is somewhere in this movie.
The fact that the authour is from Montreal probably explains his atrotcious use of the English language. Dictators take down their opposition not “opposite” and nobody is “regaling” in this review because that is an incorrect use of that word. If he is going to write reviews in English I suggest he takes an English As A Foreign Language course.
Fair points. The “opposite” was a silly typo. “Opposition” was obviously the intended word (don’t worry. I understand the difference). I also changed “regaling” to “reading” if mostly because the previous word felt a bit pompous on a re-read.Pyrenocarpon

Pyrenocarpon is a genus of lichenized fungi within the family Lichinaceae. It is monotypic