on dexter's everything is illuminated

DEXTER: EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED shines as the best episode so far in season 5. where the shocking aftermath of MYBAD didn't quite paid off to the dramatic urgency needed, ILLUMINATED puts in perspective the protogee teacher relationship between dexter and Lummen: the episode plays with her increasing ill formed obsession and the realization that there's truth in her clouded judgement. "there are some experiences so powerful that change your DNA" dexter. the episode also has one of the funniest moments of the show provided towards the end by masuka's twisted-explicit-explanation-visuals of the two murders.

on super 8

Latest Spielberg production claims to be a nostalgic slide of a vision that a younger Spielberg himself envisioned and explored during his early, and to my opinion the peak years of his career.
SUPER 8 comes across as a collection of slides pertaining to different time periods where the remembrance is a tribute of cumulative work: a photoesque Montage linked by a narrative that revisits an early style that ultimately goes no where but back to the nostalgia left by the same lost style.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film quite a lot, more than I'd like to admit; but the film feels scrambled, turned into a mechanical homage that aimes at many, but bullseyes at none. From the initial invokation of the GOONIES til the ET, gone wild and on steroid, climatic conclusion, the film felt like a mixture of everything that Spielberg has succeeded doing in the past: sense of adventure, brotherhood in the face of crisis, aparatic explosions, community, collective fear and horror.
To my taste, the film is a cinematic resume that pitches important works of Spielberg's career without caring for a coherent narrative.

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I wanna love again

I wanna feel warm and cherish the amazing feeling of love; even if it's a mental estate that lasts for so long, it sure is extraordinary.
No one can deny that having the privilege to love is incalculable. Even if It's a one way venue like most of the times, it still blissful.

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stellar snubs

The OSCARs ended, and the academy clossed the list of its nominees and awarded its winners. I'm happy that this year was broader in terms of genre, style, and budget; we had blockbuster films like INCEPTION and last minute rare gems like THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT and THE KING'S SPEECH. It's really pleasing to see how Hollywood is making an effort to include variety each year. Unfortunately, the academy couldn't have finalized a list of nominees without leaving out plenty of talent that for some weird voting fashion couldn't fit in among the contenders. To my disappointment, some of my very own favorites did not even make the cut nor get the recognition that such nomination represents. Talents like TOM HARDY in INCEPTION, TILDA SWINTON in I AM LOVE, CHLOE MORETZ in both KICK ASS/LET ME IN, and ARMIE HAMMER in THE SOCIAL NETWORK were left incredibly unnamed; through out 2010, they received such critical and audience acclaim for the amazing job that literally stole and continues stealing the spotlight, whenever they are on scene.
The support that TOM HARDY brings to INCEPTION is simply a joy. When he's introduced, we're right away presented with one of the most interesting, suave-ly played, and yet minimalistic characterization on recent screen. Hardy's character seems simple: direct, playful, charming, with expertise, one dimmentional, and easily identifiable as loyal. But the quality lies in the caliber of Hardy's performance; he inadvertently gives us an amazing JAMES BONDesque incarnation that breathes certain similarities but with a freshness and appeal that complement the cast in any level. Here's to you Hardy, in my opinion you're among the best supporting actors of the year.
I AM LOVE is a story about an aristocratic housewife that for years has dedicated her life to serve her family: a foreigner resident in Italy around the turn of the millennium. Through TILDA SWINTON's character, we get a glimpse in the life of the rich, charismatic, and powerful family that's strengthen by tradition and continuity. In fact, the sense of continuity is such a strong theme in the film that any matter that seems to rock or even alter the everyday life of the family seems like a threat. And if you've seen the film, SWINTON's relinquish to absolute passion becomes that unwilling, over the years dormant, and unthinkable threat for the dynasty. SWINTON is an actress that exudes sensuality without falling into the mundane. She delivers one of the most amazing portrayal without considering that she had to learn Italian with a Russian accent; SWINTON is already one of the best leading actresses of 2010.
Few young actors make such prominent and striking performances without going over board but by providing the right amount of credibility and life to its characters; in the case of ARMIE HAMMER in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, he gives us two characters that outstand with subtly and charisma. They're in fact the antagonist/victimized force in the film. twin brothers that differ from each other like ATHENA differs from ARES:one is the diplomatic strategic face of war, while the other one is the sheer passion to confront and destroy. Before THE SOCIAL NETWORK, I had no idea of who ARMAND HAMMER the actor was. It took me a long while in the film to discover that both characters were one sole actor. The acknowledgement blew me away because of the brilliance and royal treat that is watching HAMMER two timing act. You can read my previous blog on THE SOCIAL NETWORK where I talk more about HAMMER'S performance: a best supporting actor, in my opinion.
No other actress received as much positive buzz online, verbally, and on paper as last year's revelation CHLOE MORETZ. She became an immediate sensation in KICK ASS where she performed an aggressive ninja like trained vigilante: her arsenal of brutal kicks, punches, slices, and even R rated dialogue impulsed her to the front on one of the year's most gruesome and bizarrely satisfying comic-action films. KICK ASS reminds me plenty of WATCHMEN another film based on self proclaimed super heroes/ vigilantes that confront crime in a brutally close to reality without super powers world. The biggest difference is that KICK ASS is inhabited by adolescents that seek to change society for a better good. MORETZ introduction is literally a purple hurricane of kicks and swords. She is in fact the real deal where the protagonist is a wannabe trainee. I felt shocked and yet compelled by MORETZ performance in KICK ASS that I couldn't believe how much brute energy was coming from this young character. Aside from the highest level of violence found in recent teen action flicks, KICK ASS pushed and punched the envelope in teen comic action drama; where MORETZ is the centrifugal force behind it.
But later that year, MORETZ put aside her mask and cold purple raging nature to give us an even more perplexing performance in LET ME IN. The vampire horror flick came out in a time where girls and vampires have only one association, TWILIGHT. The expectations were not greater than your next vampire B rated film, but as already stated on her previous work, MORETZ overexceeds any conventional role. LET ME IN proves to be a true surprise cinematographically and in character drama: this contempo interpretation of the Swedish LET THE RIGHT ONE IN completely pushes the envelop in terms of overall performance. It's critically superior to its predecessor. MORETZ contribution of both tender and lethal nature is remarkably moving. The creepy scenario of a more than platonic first time romance for both protagonists is more in touch with human nature than any love/forbidden affair in recent films. Needless to say, it puts many teen-adult on screen romances to shame. LET ME IN shines with a splendor that engulfs its viewer in a tale of a lonely predator that kills for survival and yearns for an unknown life otherwise of her own. MORETZ simply tackles with assertion the complexity of the character, and the result is one of the most fascinating vampire portrayal in years. To me, CHLOE MORETZ is already a best actress Oscar winner that sets the standard high for kids performances in film.

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on the assumption,"I THINK THAT I'VE MET MY SOULMATE"

I just heard my friend saying, " I'm so happy. I love him a lot. I really think that I've met my soulmate this time." How many times have people committed the mistake of confusing one from the other? Probably countless of times, but none is to blame cause in all of us lies the urgency to feel deeply connected to someone. Where does the differenciating line is drawn though? In the notion that a soulmate and a life companion are two similar but not identical cells; they r both easyly confused, specially when a special dementia, love, introduces itself.
For example, a soulmate is someone that seemingly has been by your side forever, and yet ironically you just met. It's the overwhelming DEJA VU of feeling compatible with someone u rarely know from the get go. Someone that you got along and trusted , since the first moment. It could be a best friend male/female. It's a certain love that's deeper than a physical attraction or even sex itself: Which it is here where the biggest difference resides. It's a love that's inexplicable. It's far from being lustful and not quite brotherly either.
A life companion/partner, it depends severely on the attraction of the body: that love is born from an ever growing infatuation. Unlike the described soulmate love, the life partnership love is beneficial. It strives to obtain something desired, which in this case is physical. The resulted love comes as a side effect.
This theory doesn't reject the miracle that rarely in life, both forms of love are born as one. It's a precedent that comes seldomly. Many claim it, but it's rare like a jewel. Just like my friend, it seems that everyone that he matches with seem to be true soulmates for him; soulmates that usually ranged between 2-5 weeks duration.

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on "Dancing on my own"

Don't know, if any of you have heard the new song "Dancing On My Own" by Swedish artist ROBYN, the point is that the song resonates with such a lingering truth. The truth that I invoke of is of that one that lurks and swarms us all, at a certain point or several in our lives when we need to corroborate a fact in our own flesh.
There's a saying that denounces the necessity that humans have to slap ourselves from dreamy lies, even the blissful ignorance, as many call it: "eyes that ain't seeing, heart that ain't feeling." It's precisely what many of us do, when confronted with hard wake up calls that linger around us latently, but we are always the last ones to accept it.
The affairs of the heart are the most common and painful ones to confront. Even if we live in a romance that is sinking, we still refuse to accept defeat; so we enshroud that destination with a mist of lies, fantasies, and hope. The more we conceal it, the farther we get from the truth. Although it never takes the pain away, it fools us by believing our own lie: a dimension that has only one perspective, which is our own desire to retain something lost.
Being the victim of an adulterous relationship always breaks down our most sanctum defenses. It leaves us full of insecurities that are forever present in us. It's our part to control them or let them rule our future affairs. The thing is that we may see all the signs, witnesses, and even substantial proofs that something is afloat. Something that was under dark waters, and later it deliberately swims on the surface. Taking the side of the adulterous ones, it might be an unconscious desire to be caught and be forced to pull the plug on a comatose relationship; we even opt to lie or be lied in order to avoid hurt. Confrontations are often dreaded; Although there are a few that look for reasons to ignite arguments, in order to find that courage required to take out what's burning for the longest inside and deal with it. Oh how I do truly wish that honesty will shields us all from pain, but that same shield can cause us even greater grief. And yet the inability to see beyond the thickness of our own fog of hope prevent us to accept and hear the flagrant voice of reason. We reside in the shadow cause we feel safer in the bitter-sweet gap of denial. Until we don't see it with our own eyes, then there's no definite evidence. What's even beyond pain is to know and live with the corrosive doubt: suffer in pain, and yet put up a good face to keep our beloved one close and perhaps fool ourselves that the extinguished spark is not entirely gone.

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the notion of horror

"I sat there witnessing my friend watching in horror and squirming as the bad guy cut the protagonist's body into pieces..."
What can be said about the new genre of slash-horror movies that is not but just a visual feast of challenges that inadvertently puncture the senses: those that directly act on the aesthetic of the human body. Mutalitalion comes in practice as the overwhelming antagonist. It becomes more than a craft, style, or medium of affliction; it shamelessly usurps the source of terror. Mutilation evolves from being a tool to becoming its own mind and hand. The notion of horror lies not on the maniacal being executing the crime, but on the fashion, on the execution itself.
Slash horror films depend severely on its presentation. Since the antagonist is a staged execution, the audience needs to see it happen in order to be sensationally disturbed; let's remember that what we see appeals first to our senses than to our emotions.
Emotions are perceived by what cannot be seen or physically conjured. After the body finishes to sense a pinch, the brain scans it and identifies it as a feeling: pleasurable, painful, ticklish, bothersome, etc. As soon as the feeling presents itself, then a series of flashes right down the memory bank of our brain will project an unconscious association that yields an emotion. Emotions are the responses of a projection that takes place inside the mind. Take it as the reaction of an audience at a movie theater watching a film. Emotions are the result of that connection established between the feelings and the memories; Hence an emotion is born from what's not present, but what it used to be. On the other hand, Slash horror plays with the senses. It relies on the feelings of discomfort, pain, suffocation, and agony. It's a kind of horror that's more related to the flesh than any other.
Let's not talk about the birth of the slash horror genre, but maybe the main references created by the horror film fest of the 70-80s. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, FRIDAY THE 13TH, HALLOWEEN, CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and many others helped tremendously in the embodiment of the slash genre. All of the films mentioned above, they harvest a field that was only seeded before by films like THE EXORCIST, SALEM'S LOT, and THE OMEN to simply mention a few prominent ones: the exploitation of the occult. Even with today's technical advances, the 70s-80s continue to reign supreme as the most macabre and horrific golden age in horror cinema. But why did they triumph and remain? Looking back at the style and mythology, it's due to the violation of something that presented to be more valuable than the body: the rape of virtue.
Everything about true horror boils down to Religion. The stigma achieved during the 1970-80s horror cinema, it's of a violation of the sacred; innocence, purity, virginity, goodness, faith, family, and love are the members mutilated. The price is damnation to the trespaser: a virulent agent that will spread the disease of death until hell opens up to swallow it or heaven provides redemption. Good versus evil at war from a metaphysical plane where the flesh is the subject of punishment. It's from here that the original horror springs; the idea of losing the ultimate sanctuary.
Imagine being taken by surprise by a storm, we run under the rain not taken care that the body is exposed to the harsh weather because the idea of knowing that a shelter is waiting provides us with certain relief. Incorporate the notion that there would be no haven or sanctuary that relieves us of any suffering. Translated to religion, it becomes the idea of no after life, no heaven, no paradise, no punishment for the wicked nor reward for the martyr. The violation of the sanctum, of what is considered upwholly, embarks us into an increasing fear of desolation.
But what about films like NOSFERATU, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARY, FREAKS, and even the avant-garde THE HOUSE OF USHER from the silent era? These films in their own right introduced early cinema audiences to the sheer meaning of the macabre. They also pioneered the feeling of desolation as a means of fear. They form part of the conception that help the 70-80s violation of virtue theme. They'r a great reference to explore and analyze independently, since the silent horror cinema has a more focussed attention on topics of tabooism, and the well exploited enigma of mortality.
By mortality, I imply the psychological abhorrence that humans have toward the grotesque and death itself. Early cinema masterfully captures the emerging phobia of 1800-1900s afflictions of the body; where simple diseases presented bigger risks, incomprehensible heart conditions that killed w/o fully having a scope of the cause, the recently discovered paranoia of being buried alive, the deformities caused by unknown physical malignities, etc. All of the above were outrageously even dreaded more after the long and arduous battle during the 1700s to control the European chaos known as the Smallpox Pestilence. The horror of the silent cinema is more emphasized on the philosophy and romance, just like the early German epic DESTINY portrays it, of the biggest affliction ever: the fear of our own mortality. Either a divine punishment or a satanic curse, the silent films tackle the matter with a reverent philosophical nature that's unavoidable, fearsome, and again enigmatic. In the other hand, the 70-80s see death with curiosity. The matter is mysterious, but with less reverence; the directors boldly abuse death, as the means to achieve the fear factor. People are no longer afraid of death, since it happens too frequently, too casually, and too shallow. In the 80s and even contemporary horror cinema, people are more afraid of the style/medium in which they meet death. In some paradoxical instances, death becomes the escape and salvation from the tormented flesh; physical pain turns into the source of fear.
Going back to the idea of sanctuary, death becomes the only shelter possible that provides release; in some cases, the terror hunts its victims even while asleep. NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET mitigates the body by violating the realm of dreams. Even at sleep, there's no rest possible for the characters. The desolation is highlighted by invading the sanctuary of the bedroom. The menace is so intimate and close that the horror transforms the simple act of falling asleep into a relentless prosecutor; the idea of closing our eyes without knowing what dwells inside that darkness became the nightmare itself that haunted many viewers during the 80s and even 90s.
For THE EXORCIST, the mutilation and aggravation of virtue is accentuated on several principles: innocence, faith, and the sanctity of family. It's this last one that true terror uses to cross the screen and perpetuate a timeless fear on the viewer. The trespaser invades the nucleus of the family and betrays it by assaulting in any form (soul, mind, body, and virtue) the member most innocent of all. In my case, it isn't the green vomiting nor the spider-crawl walk down the stairs that gives me the greatest shock; but scenes like the bed shaking and the back and forth throw on the bed that successfully hunts my memories. I find a connection in those childhood memories where I spent hours sick at home. There's no denying that those scenes have a close rapport to the defenseless of a child during illness: where loneliness, hallucinations, and nightmares torment the mind, while the body fights the ardor of a fever.
To have horror is to find that alarming state of mind where all hope is lost. It's the act of drowning in our fears. For me, the horror caused by the slash horror flicks is of a different indolence: of a lesser nature compared to the horror classics. There's something about the slash horror genre that doesn't perpetuate. It simply plays with nerves by causing a visual discomfort. Just like a paper cut, we r not terrified of them cause they happen casually and often, but if we see it happening on others it triggers physical discomfort. As soon as the sense of discomfort leaves, there's no fear or substantial feeling that lingers. For me, true horror is that one that alters our reality and shifts our beliefs by breaking in into anything that we sanctify: that one that dismembers our most valuable virtues. Here's my notion of horror.

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