The Power of 'Love': A Visual Assault

The other day I opened my Netflix and found Gaspar Noe's mixed-reviewed film Love and, having heard the buzz regarding it's explicit depictions of sexuality that many question its merit as art, I knew I had to watch it.
The film follows the story of Murphy, a young 20-something American man that is self-indulgent to the core. While studying film in France, he meets a girl named Electra whom he dates for year before sleeping with another women, Omi, who becomes pregnant. The news ends the relationship between Murphy and Electra on a very devastating, intense note. Years later on a dreary day, Electra's mother calls Murphy to ask him if he has heard from Nora, because she has not and is worried given Nora's suicidal tendencies. The news causes Murphy to reminisce about their time together, time spend rich with shared drug use and sex.

The film is sensationalized for it's raw depictions of sex--which were unsimulated. Bordering between art and pornography, Noe manages to assault the senses with stunning visuals and, when it was shown at Cannes, its presentation in 3D. The effect is quite interesting, and leaves a "looking into a fishbowl" impression. Noé is so captivated by the idea of breaking the boundary between art and pornography that neither the story nor the sexuality "flows".  Some may be shocked by the hardcore scenes in Love, but there is barely any spontaneity or heat.

Diversity at the Oscars

Although in my last blog post I touched briefly upon Leo and his outstanding performance in The Revenant, this post is about how unfair it will be if he wins. For many years, the academy has lacked a sense of diversity, therefore most of the winner, in fact 74% of them are white. This is a huge problem with film, and in the world in general. Truly, this world is run by the "white man" and because of that most of the lead roles in hollywood are of white people, but interestingly enough, those roles that are of minorities are usually supporting roles. This year was a little different, we saw Will Smith in Concussion,

As we all know the Oscars are films biggest award shows highlighting the best pictures, and performances of the year:

But did you take the time to notice, that none of those people are not of the white race? In fact last year the academy had a similar issue:

Those people are all white too! Basically the academy is saying if you are not white, your not in! But this truly is not just a problem with Hollywood, its a problem with the entire world.  

'Lip Sync Battle' Spike TV

Lip Sync Battle is a new show that premiered earlier this month [April 2, 2015] on Spike. If this show sounds familiar the reason may be because you watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.  "Lip Sync Battle" was a game that Jimmy played with some of his guests that he had on his show.  This show on Spike is a spin-off of that game but is taken much more seriously and the actors use props and back up dancers and plan out a routine for round 2.

When you hear that these actors are lip syncing songs you may think it can't be that entertaining, but it really is! If a celebrity I like performs of course I enjoy it more, but even celebrities I don't really know that well do a really good job. It seems like all of the guests have been practicing for at least a week before performing it.

Here is one of my favorite original battles that was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, this was a special one because Will Ferrel, Kevin Hart, & Jimmy were all battling against one another:

Now look at how Spike TV took this game to the next level! 

Watch what I believe is the best lip sync performance so far on this show.

Anne Hathaway chose Wrecking Ball, by Miley Cyrus. Anne doesn't just lip sync the song but reenacts parts from the music video! 

Click Here to Watch!!!

I give this show a rating of 8.7/10. This show has a great host, LL Cool J who always seems to know what to say. This show gets a rating high within the eight's because Chrissy Teigen is a "Color commentator" on the show, so there is literally never a dull moment in-between acts. This show is constistently aesthetically pleasing and if Spike can continue to get A-List celebrities to battle each other, I think this show will continue to be a big success! 

It Follows

                                          "It doesn't think. It doesn't feel. It doesn't give up."

The new horror film It Follows has recently been receiving a lot of attention from both critics and viewers since release. Argued to be one of the scariest films released in years, this movie tells the story of a teenage girl that is chased by an unexplicable force after she has an abnormal sexual encounter after a date. Directed and written by David Robert Mitchell, this film has been said to be extremely original in both its story as well as its lingering psychological effects on the audience.

Maika Monroe plays the main character Jay, our main character that contracts the supernatural being after her sexual encounter with a boy named Hugh, played by Jake Weary. The premise of this film is that there will forever be a monster slowly moving closer and closer to Jay, solely because she had sex with Hugh. The monster can take any form that will help it to get close to her: a friend, a family member, or the form of a fear of hers. It can only walk, but it always knows her exact location. During the course of the film we follow Jay as she and her friends attempt to escape the monster as well as figure out the origin of the disease.

Although I am usually someone who greatly dislikes watching horror films, I actually loved It Follows. I find horror films that rely mainly upon jump scares, quick cuts, and sporadic camera movement to be scary are usually cliché and predictable. While Mitchell did use some of these tactics, the terror in this film comes from the acting, the well developed plot, and the terrifying premise. This film has clear symbolism of how sexually transmitted diseases act as a burden, forever following and shaping your actions. The horror of this film comes from this sense of always being followed, or having to look over your shoulder and watch every step you take. Instilling a feeling of paranoia in the viewer gives It Follows a different horror factor than most other films. I highly recommend that everyone take time to see it in theaters to achieve its full affect. 8/10

The Divergent Series---- Divergent to Insurgent

   

The Divergent Series was written by Veronica Roth.

DIVERGENT is a thrilling action-adventure film set in a world where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues.

The society that Beatrice "Tris" lives in is divided into five fractions.

These are: Abnegation, Erudite, Dauntless, Amity, and Candor.

Divergent was directed by Niel Burger and produced by Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher, Pouya Shabazian. 
 This coming March 20, 2015 the second movie of the Divergent Series --- Insurgent will be released.

Insurgent is said to be filled with even more action than the last however, there has bee some rumors that the book ending could be altered to please fans. As opposed to leaving the fans such as myself with a said ending of a lot of the main characters dead, producers are searching for a more "happy-ending" causing an array of feels amongst fans. There is much that is expected of this movie by many fans such as myself.

I personally feel that the books are more intriguing then the movie maybe because I know certain things are going to happen..

Twilight Series
Hunger Games Series
The Maze Runner
The Divergent Series

Have all disappointed me in at least one way or another ... but have occasionally made up for it who knows .. We'll see. Until next time!

Happy Spring Break.

NBC's mini-series 'The Slap'

If you haven't heard about this show yet, you may be able to guess what this series is about from the title. The Slap on NBC, is a revamp of the Australian series The Slap, but the American version is not receiving the same good reviews that the original did.  The first time I saw the trailer for the show, I didn't think they could make a series about a single incident. I also didn't think the show would work because they were promoting it as if the audience would decide if Harry (Zachary Quinto) was right or not to slap someone else's child. So I thought the whole series would be about Harry going to court for a long trial, and the jury would decide his fate based off of the audiences tweets about their opinions.

     Here is the trailer for the series:

As planned I didn't watch the pilot of this show when it aired two weeks ago [Feb. 12, 2015]. Then the days following the premire I mostly heard bad reviews about this show.  I was shocked to hear that there were rumors that this series could get canceled. I thought this show couldn't be very good if it's a mini-series with 8 Episodes and it might get cancelled! 

 When I saw the pilot on Hulu, I just had to see it for myself.  Something I like about the show that I didn't know before watching, was that each episode is narrated and follows a different character. The first episode follows Hector (Peter Sarsgaard), "The Slap" happens at Hector's house while celebrating his 40th Birthday. After seeing the first episode I thought it was good enough where I wanted to see the next episode.  Maybe I went into this show with such low expectations that I enjoyed it more.  I saw the second episode that is about Harry, and I don't want to reveal any spoilers but you learn a lot about Harry's character after the episode.  I thought the second show was better than the first and I am planning on watching the third episode after it premiers tonight. There are other conflicts happening in this show besides just "The Slap", which I'm glad about.  There seems to be more drama building up, and I want to see what happens!  The Slap is a decent drama, that is good enough for me to want to keep watching.  This isn't one of my new favorite shows but I am planning on seeing the next six episodes.

'Real World: Skeletons' The 30th Season

I haven't watched a lot of MTV shows in the past few years, but the other day I was looking through Hulu and came across the new season of The Real World. I thought I would give it a try because during my teen years I used to enjoy other seasons of The Real World and it has been a while since I watched reality TV.

Many of us are familiar with the premise of The Real World, where a group of people that don't know each other live in the same house for serval months while it is documented by an MTV crew. This show starts with seven new roommates who all seem like they just want to have a good time, even though they might not get along with each other all the time. What is new about this season is that  after the first few episodes where the roommates get to somewhat know each other; MTV starts bringing a "Skeleton" from one of the cast member's past. A "Skeleton" in the show has pretty much been a person that would be one of the last people you would ever want to see again, that shows up to the house and typically, immediately starts new drama!

MTV is trying to create more drama by bringing in a house guest that they know the cast will not be happy to see.  As entertaining as this show is I feel like it has to be scripted or the producers tell the cast members what to do to some extent.  What I find weird about this season is that there seems to be a phone in the house that is a connect line to the producers, several times a cast member will pick up the phone and complain to the producers which feels weird while watching a reality TV show.  Also it seems a little set up the way the cast members talk about something and then what they were speculating actually happens moments after, this could be just the way it is edited but I still believe the cast members know more about what is going on then they lead you to believe.  I decided to keep watching the show because it is entertaining and I watched enough episodes where I want to see what happens next as well as see how the cast will survive the "Skeletons".

I'm not going to rate this show on a scale because I feel like you watch this show to be entertained and can't really take this show too seriously.

If you love drama, cat fights, raw emotions, and reality TV then this show would be the one for you!

Time traveling to the year 2015 'Back to the Future Part II'

Most of us have seen the Back to the Future movies, but it may have been a while since you've seen Back to the Future Part II, where Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) & The "Doc" (Christopher Lloyd) travel 30 years to the future!

They travel to October 2015 to prevent Marty's future son from getting arrested and sentenced to jail.  

I enjoyed seeing what they thought the year 2015 would have been like technoolgy wise, and unfortunately we are still years away from some of their "future" predictions.

Some of my favorite things they predicted for the year 2015:

Perfectly accurate weather, down to the second. It would be very nice to know exactly when the rain would stop/end. They showed that it was possible to put a mini dehydrated pizza in a "Black & Decker Hydrator" and have a full size pizza in seconds! I wonder if this technology of hydrating food will ever be invented.

I also liked how they thought clothes would be in the year 2015. They showed Marty wearing a self adjusting jacket, that could also dry itself automatically when wet. 

I love the Nikes with "Power laces" that Marty wore. I am surprised we haven't seen anything like these yet, hopefully Nike will actually make these in the near future. 

One thing I can't see catching on is "Kids" wearing their pants inside out, that is one fashion trend I hope never happens. 

One thing I feel that this movie did predict really well for how the future would be, is how much we are engulfed in media. There are deleted scenes I watched from this movie that I wish they kept because it may have been their best predictions. The scenes are of the future Marty coming home from work and going to talk to his son. His son is not just watching TV, but watching multiple programs at once. Marty wants his son at the dinner table, and the only way his son agrees is when Marty gives him these glasses you put on and can watch two shows at once.  I feel like we are getting close to a world like this where people use media 24/7. 

^Here are the scenes I wish they kept in the Movie^