El viento de la zozobra

se acercó repentinamente

tal como predijo la

meteorología del luto

salió de la boca

de un profeta listo

para quemar los dioses

como la aguja que pincha

la piel y el centro del universo

el viento, con cara de Guillermo

nos entregó una ducha de palabras

sin puntuación ni pausa

evitando confundir

su dialecto

con la imperante realidad

de lo que muere diariamente.

Poemas Nihilistas

Enjoy this parody from Guillermo on Jimmy Kimmel from a scene out of the New Moon trailer. I lul’ed. It’s supposed to be dubbed for fans in Latin America, but uh, it’s still in English, so no worries there.

This film has been going through my mind for the past few days, and I love it. There are just so many memorable moments in it that exemplify the magnitude of image and sound—I can hear The Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin Jack Flash” and drunken evil laughter every time I think about the scene where that crazy Johnny Boy walks through the fiery red lit bar in slow motion as the camera follows in front of him. “I talk about penance and you send this through the door. Well, we play by your rules don’t we? Well, don’t we?” questioned Charlie’s catholic conscience right before the Rock n’ Roll music blasted. Is this hell? No, this is Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973).

After the directing the Roger Corman produced film Boxcar Bertha (1972), Scorsese was advised by John Cassevetes to make a more personal film. In contrast to The Godfather (Coppola 1972), Mean Streets portrays the dirtier and grittier side of the New York City gangster life, which was something that Scorsese was constantly surrounded with while growing up in Little Italy. The film’s main protagonist is Charlie (Harvey Keitel) an Italian-American small time gangster trying to rise in the ranks of the mafia by working for his old school Mafiosi uncle, Giovanni. He is a seemingly devout catholic that quotes the bible, but often doubts his faith in his mind. Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro) is Charlie’s erratic and crazy childhood best friend, who owes money to everybody on the block and most importantly, the loan shark, Michael. Charlie is in a secret relationship with Teresa (Johnny Boy’s cousin) and feels the need to help Johnny Boy out with his debts, both of whom his uncle has advised him to stay away from. Charlie thinks he can’t be saved by the church, but in the streets he can, and in the end, he will experience the meaning of sacrificing himself for others.

It’s no surprise to anybody who has seen Goodfellas (1990) or Casino (1995) that one of Scorsese’s famous tropes is the use pop music as the film’s soundtrack either diegetically or non-diegetically. Its influence on younger directors is easily recognizable in films like Resevoir Dogs (Tarantino 1992) and Boogie Nights (Anderson 1997). There are other films that may have had a pop track for a scene before Scorsese, but Mean Streets is the first film to use pop music extensively and as an indicator of the set time period. At a party later in the film, one of the characters requests that they play “one of the old ones,” on the jukebox, which is indicative of the strong connection the characters themselves have with the film’s music.

Look familiar?

Look again.

The voiceover in the film is used quite uniquely opposed to its conventional use as a story commentator. Just like in Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut 1960), a different actor did the protagonist’s voiceover, which creates a disassociation, or distanciation, between the external and internal character. (Coincidentally, the protagonists from both films are named Charlie.) In Mean Streets case, Scorsese actually recorded his own voice as Charlie’s self-doubting catholic conscience. In the introduction scene while the screen is black we hear, “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it,” and then it immediately cuts to Charlie abruptly waking up in his bed as though he had a nightmare. We are led to presume that those are his thoughts and inner conflict, which later in the film becomes much more evident. At one point, his thoughts become so over bearing that he unintentionally says them out loud in front of Johnny Boy and Teresa, but still in Scorsese’s own voice.

As seen from the images above and below, the color red seems to reoccur plenty of times in the film and hold great significance symbolically. The first taste of red we get is in the first bar scene where it looks like it is completely drenched with bloody red by lights as we listen to Charlie’s voiceover talk about the two sides of “the pain of hell.” Incidentally, the place does look like what hell is thought to be—hot like “The burn from a lighted match increased a million times.” Thus the color red is associated with evil, danger, and to a certain extent Charlie’s catholic religion for the rest of the film. Inside the blue car that Charlie drives with Johnny Boy and Teresa to escape from Michael, hangs an ominous red sign of the horns amulet from the rear view mirror. It looks just like the Hook ‘Em Horns sign, except that in “Sicily the red corno or horn is the most popular amulet against the evil eye.”* It later proves to have no effect in fending off Michael or preventing Johnny Boy and Charlie from getting shot on the neck and hand, respectively. I’m not religious myself, but I think Charlie’s newly made hole in his hand and the blood that squirted everywhere from Johnny Boy’s neck is somehow representative of Jesus’ sacrifice and the “blood” Catholics drink during communion. Also, there’s a funny line said before they get attacked by Michael; Charlie runs a red light and Teresa tells him to slow down to which he responds with: “What does red mean?”

I definitely believe Mean Streets was the first film that qualified Scorsese as an emerging American auteur during the Hollywood Renaissance. Like Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1958) before him, Scorsese’s breakthrough film was a very personal one, almost autobiographical. I think we are lead to believe that both Charlie and Johnny Boy each represent one side of Scorsese—the unselfish side and the self-destructive side. Also, as any good Hollywood Renaissance film would, Mean Streets delivers plenty of violence, nudity, and profanity to go around for everybody.  This film is so great that it offers so much to discuss about that I didn’t even tap into.

* “Gangster Priest: the Italian American cinema of Martin Scorsese” by Robert Casillo, page 209

Hola, probando

Tirez sur le pianiste (Shoot the Piano Player)(1960) is Auteur Francois Truffaut’s second feature film after his internationally successful and critically acclaimed French New Wave film The 400 Blows (1959). In stark contrast, Shoot was very disliked by the public and thus a box office failure. Also, it is his most experimental—meshing genres like comedy, drama, and film noir together, which display his love for American film with a personal French touch, and exploring new film techniques. Shoot is loosely based on an American book called “Down There” from author David Goodis, which Truffaut became interested with during the filming of his short Les mistons (1957). Charlie Kohler is a mild-mannered piano player at a bar when one night his brother, Chico, lands into some trouble with two gangsters and comes to him at his work for help. Charlie soon gets involved with the criminal underworld and in the process falls in love with the waitress, Lena, who reveals Charlie’s past as Edouard Saroyan, a famous concert pianist.

Who is Charlie Kohler?

Right in the beginning of the film we see Chico running away from a car in the dark streets à la old Hollywood gangster films.  He suddenly trips and knocks himself out with a light post. And then, inexplicably, some stranger slaps him awake and they start having a completely irrelevant conversation about marriage, love, and women in general, as they walk down the sidewalk. Once this chance encounter is ended with the conversation, Chico starts running again as though that conversation had never occurred. This is something that probably throws a lot of viewers off and may find it to be irrelevant to the story. It appears to be fragmented narrative, but I think the dialogue actually becomes somewhat relevant later on in the film as this seemingly gangster film also becomes into a love story. The conversational topic of women amongst men reoccurs many times.

Truffaut really experiments with the use of voiceovers throughout most of the film. As opposed to using voiceover to narrate the film and push the story, in Shoot we hear what the timid Charlie is thinking at a given scene. For example, after Charlie helps his brother escape from the gangsters, we see him play on the piano with a worried look on face and hear the voiceover say, “Wish him good luck”, which he then actually does so. We later begin to develop a sense that there is a dichotomy between what he is actually thinking and what is happening in the narrative. This juxtaposition of the visual and the auditory, is another one of Truffaut’s experiments that may have irked the viewers because of the typical coherence between sound and image that they were accustomed to seeing in films, especially Hollywood ones. Hearing Charlie’s thoughts gives us the opportunity to go inside his head and make the film more subjective, thus emphasizing the disassociation between the character’s mind and the narrative world. In the scene where Charlie walks Lena home, we hear his voiceover contemplating what he should say in order to break the silence and how he should ask her if she wants to go somewhere for a drink. On a side note, Charles Aznavour (a famous singer in real life) who played Charlie didn’t do his own voiceover work because Truffaut felt Charles’ voice was not soft or poetic enough.

"It'll look odd if you don't talk."

I think Truffaut’s strong sentimentality towards tough street children is one of his many reoccurring auteur themes. One can clearly see quite a bit of The 400 Blows in this film with the character of Fido, Charlie’s younger brother who is played by an actor that has also appeared in 400 as the kid in the classroom that doesn’t know how to work with his ink pen. In this film though, we see him exit a convenience store with milk and run inside a building, only to reappear immediately at the top of it. He then drops the milk on a car beneath where the two gangster of the film are in. It’s further reminiscent of 400 when we see him run in the street and get away from the gangsters via the school entrance. Fido was not a character in the novel, but by addition of him in the screenplay is evidence of Truffaut wanting to show his juvenile troublemaker self again.

I really liked Shoot, but I’m not sure why. It’s one of those films that after watching the first time one feels ambivalent about, which isn’t until one puts it into context and actually think about it more. So, I find it to be a difficult film to pinpoint on exactly why I enjoyed it like other French New Wave films, or other European Art Cinema films for that matter. Was it the unconventional characters? The quick mood shifts in one scene from serious to funny? The biggest thing I admire and respect about films like Shoot is its desire to explore cinema’s potential and saying, “look what I can do with a fraction of your budget” to all the hack, unimaginative filmmakers.

For my paper I will research a Hollywood legend by the name of Gary Cooper. First off, I have never seen a film with Gary Cooper, but my interest in him sparked when I saw a promo in TCM about his film roles and personality off screen (he would take immediate naps in between shooting scenes.) As I watched the film clips in the promo, Cooper struck me as a ‘40s equivalent of a ’60-‘70s of Clint Eastwood—cool, soft-spoken, rugged, and an overall man’s man.  After, some quick research I began to like him even more for I realized he wasn’t just a Hollywood actor but also an American icon of masculinity. His roles ranged from playing heroes in westerns to playing the common American man, which may be accounted for his great appeal on average American audiences. I will mainly focus on the peak of Cooper’s career, which began in the late ‘30s and ended with the decline of Hollywood’s Golden Age (late ‘40s). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Capra 1936) and Sergeant York (Hawks 1941) are two films that display the range of lead characters Cooper could play, so I will definitely watch them for my research. Two sources that I plan on consulting are “The Last Hero: A Biography of Gary Cooper” by Larry Swindell and “Putting on the Ritz: masculinity and the young Gary Cooper” by Jeffery A. Brown.

Ed D. Wood’s Plan 9 From Outer Space is the antithesis of a good film. Yet many of us are fascinated by it. We call it ‘the worst movie ever’ yet we say we love it. Is it simply its cheesy dialogue and cheap production values that draws us toward it? Or is it the preconceived notion that Plan 9 From Outer Space doesn’t take itself seriously that gives us the gratification we receive when we enjoy film after it meets our set of expectations? I think that’s why I enjoyed the film. I had a sense of what it would be like after watching A Bucket of Blood (the first B movie from the fifties I have ever watched) last week at our screening. I expected all the typical tropes of a B movie, i.e., recycled plots, forced acting, not-so-special effects, and overall cheapness. And it completely delivers in all its glorious B-ness. In its own right, I would consider it a masterpiece.

After reading Ed Wood’s name come up many times in movie message boards and looking up many of his films, I never actually bothered to go rent and watch any of his world famous B classics. So, Plan 9 From Outer Space was my first Ed Wood experience, and it was definitely a positive one. What just really pleases me is the overall cheap aesthetic quality displayed in all aspects of the film. From start to finish, Wood seems to have managed to, in one way or another, give Plan 9 its famous quality. And without the consistency of its cheapness, the film would’ve lost its aesthetic pleasure. In the final narrative scene where everybody is standing looking up at the burning flying saucer, Paula’s mouth moves unsynchronized to a clearly post-production dub. Of course by the end of the film I became so accustomed to seeing such B-ness that I was just waiting for some sort of film error. So by having that noticeable sound error in that scene, it gave me this feeling of the film coming full circle.

In two days (October 23, 2009) my Flickr Account under the name guillermogg will expire.

During the time I’ve had that subscription many people have used and enjoyed my photos.  Some of the uses my pictures have had under the Creative Commons Licence 3.0 are:

• Being used as part of a book for tourism in Spain,
• others have been used in Power Point Presentations that I found going around online,
• and other pictures have been used for an iPhone application for tourism in the US,
• many others have been posted in different websites all over the Internet.

Since the creation of my Flickr Account, more than 122,000 people have visited my site.  And I hope many more will continue coming to them.

If you are interested in giving me a Gift Certificate

that is worth for the one year subscription please follow this link:

Thanks a lot and here are some links to different picture sets I’ve made,

Comida

29 photos  | Edit

Vacaciones en Chile, 2009

105 photos  | Edit

50 Most Interesting Pics -…

49 photos, 1 video  | Edit

NYC, USA – Summer 2009

486 photos  | Edit

Central America

46 photos | Edit

Top of Santa Maria Volcano,…

173 photos, 1 video  | Edit

San Petesburgo – Rusia

415 photos  | Edit

Copenhague

191 photos  | Edit

Noruega

573 photos  | Edit

Suecia

176 photos  | Edit

» More Sets

Será culpa del fracaso escolar del que tanto hablan el que lleva a algunas personas a leer y no saber analizar lo que leen, sacar un análisis final del texto que se les pone delante equivocado.
Me refiero ni más ni menos al incidente ocurrido entre el presidente de Extremadura, “Guillermo Fernández Vara” y el presidente del FC Barcelona “Joan Laporta”. El incidente lo podemos leer en la web de RTVE.
Bien, ahora llega la comicidad del asunto; resulta que me llegan eventos creados por Tuenti (red social) en los que la gente expresa su repudio hacia Joan Laporta por insultar a Extremadura. Si la gente supiera expresar lo que de verdad lee y analizar las noticias no tendríamos este tipo de problemas. Las personas que dicen que Laporta ha insultado a Extremadura son ese tipo de personas que están buscando la mínima para saltar con cualquier cosa, ya que Laporta ha tenido el incidente con el presidente de Extremadura, que a mi, sinceramente, no me representa.
No me representa, ni me representará ningún político, ya que como escribí en una entrada anterior son todos unos mentirosos. De modo que, Laporta puede insultar a Vara todas las veces que quiera, ya que a mi como extremeño no me afectará.

El tema de los problemas entre Cataluña y Extremadura viene desde hace mucho tiempo con gente como Lluís Suñé o Luis Buñuel, pero eso son cosas de las que no voy a escribir hoy y a saber si escribiré algún dia.

Cumple de Guillermo, y preparando para la marcha. SM.

Entre el FLIPA y que la nominada está a punto de irse, ayer por la noche salimos a cenar y a tomar unas caipirinhas. Mi máximo aliciente para salir era ver a la Governadora Wilma de Faria, ella es la que manda en Rio Grande do Norte, el estado donde se encuentra Pipa. No la vi y me habría encantado, teniendo en cuenta la pinta que tiene. ?A que es una mezcla entre Mayra Gómez Kemp y Angela Lansbury?

Y mientras esperábamos a la Governadora (no me he vuelto idiota, es que en portugués va con V) fuimos bebiendo. Como Rogelio, el camarero, me iba dando conversación, la noche se alargó. Nominada se ha revelado como una gran conversadora y la verdad es que lo pasé muy bien con ella. También con Guillermo, un jardinero argentino bastante peculiar (una mezcla entre Rosendo y los Milli Vanilli).

En fin, que me acabo de levantar y me he hecho un bocata de queso y tomates y un zumo de naranja. El café me lo ha hecho una se(n)ora en un bar. Y mucha agua para compensar el azúcar y el alcohol de las caipirinhas.

Sigo sin ir a la playa, me da mucha pereza. Pudiendo saltar de la hamaca a la piscina, ?pa qué me voy a ir hasta la playa a que me muerda un delfín?

En breve habrá fotos en el blog, está viniendo desde Ibiza el cable mágico.

Una cosa más: todos aquellos que me dijisteis “te iré a ver, te iré a ver, te lo prometo”: ?dónde estáis?

Gulliermo, ex-guitarrista de Sabbath, en un concierto en la sala Durango el dia 15 de Agosto de 2009.
Hecha con una Nikon D40.

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons.

En una final apasionante Juan Martín Del Potro se consagró flamante campeón del US Open 2009 ante nada menos que Roger Federer, número uno del mundo, por 3-6, 7-6 (7-5) y 4-6 y 7-6 (7-4) y 6-2.

Federer fue superior a Del Potro en el primer set. Con un arranque demoledor, el suizo se colocó rápidamente 3-0, con un quiebre en el segundo game. Supo mantener esa ventaja para cerrarlo 6-3, con un juego sólido: buen servicio, ataques, cambios de ritmo. El repertorio al que nos tiene acostumbrados Roger.

Parecía que se repetía la historia en el segundo capítulo. Del Potro comenzó en el saque ese set, se puso 0-40 enseguida y una doble falta lo terminó de dejar break abajo. Federer aparte no mostraba fisuras. Cuando sacó 2-1 y el argentino tuvo por primera vez chances de quiebre, volvió a jugar como un número 1 para sacar adelante la situación. Todo mientras le complicaba la vida a su rival con su envenenado revés con slice. Difícil no pensar que era tema casi liquidado, al menos para el segundo parcial. Hasta que el suizo se puso 5-4, 30-0 arriba con su saque y Delpo empezó a dar todo lo que sabe, para quebrarle finalmente con dos passings geniales. La historia llegó al tie break y ahí el tandilense aprovechó su tercer set point para cerrar arriba en 7-5 y ponerse bien en carrera. A pelear de igual a igual entonces.

El tercer set vio a Del Potro manejando el partido con todo su repertorio y esa potencia que estremece. Llegó a su momento más alto del partido cuando logró quebrarle a Federer en el séptimo game. Pero algunos errores -acaso nervios lógicos por todo lo que se jugaba- le impidieron confirmar el break. La mejor prueba de que Delpo seguía en buen nivel fue que otra vez dispuso de una chance de break en el game siguiente. Y otra evidencia se sumó al ver al suizo inusualmente nervioso y en un diálogo áspero con el árbitro cuando el argentino pidió la revisión de un fallo por ojo de halcón. Pero ahí llegó otra vez lo inesperado. El argentino cometió dos dobles faltas cuando estaban 30 iguales y así quedó dos sets a uno abajo. Una ventaja demasiado grande en un partido que había amagado con inclinarse del lado de Delpo hasta poco antes.

De nuevo en el cuarto parcial el argentino demostró que está destinado a cosas grandes. Primero le quebró a Federer en el quinto game para volver a soñar. Un nuevo tropezón devolvió al suizo al partido. Llegaron al tie-break y nuevamente el argentino dio una muestra de carácter. Aprovechó un solitario mini quiebre y logró el 7-4. El drama llegaba a un quinto set.

Del Potro salió con todo en el quinto, para no dejar que Federer reaccionara, después de no poder cerrar el partido. Del Potro consiguió un quiebre en el segundo game, se puso 3-0 arriba y manejó esa ventaja para quedar a un paso de la gloria, esa que alcanzó cuando Federer sacó 2-5, ese juego que le permitió comenzar un festejo tan grande como inolvidable. Tuvo dos match points que no aprovechó, pero en la tercera oportunidad no falló. Ya es leyenda Juan Martín del Potro, el nuevo campeón del US Open.

fuente: http://momento24.com/

Video del Partido

Imagenes de la final en Estados Unidos:

Imagenes fuente: http://www.canchallena.com

And it’s about time!

If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan like me, you’ll be glad to know that The Hobbit is finally coming to the big screen!

The heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien and a movie studio that produced the blockbuster “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy have settled a lawsuit over the films’ profits, it was announced Tuesday.

The out-of-court resolution clears the way for a two-film prequel based on Tolkien’s novel “The Hobbit” and will benefit charities around the world, according to a joint press release announcing the settlement (read the full story here).

Why do I care?

The Hobbit was one of my favorite books when I was younger – right up there with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Were you aware that J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was a Christian?

Were you aware that he played a major role in C.S. Lewis coming to Christ in 1931?

For those of you that don’t know, C.S. Lewis is the author behind the popular Chronicles of Narnia series, though he is arguably even more well known for authoring nearly twenty books on Christianity as well as many insightful essays.

Many are not aware, but The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia are all considered Christian literature. The themes wrapped into the storylines come directly from the pages of the Bible, and that’s no accident. Both Tolkien and Lewis had a message to share … that of Jesus.

Interested in learning more about Tolkien’s Christian beliefs? Order this book. If you’d like to learn more about Lewis’ beliefs, order this one.

Lord willing, I’ll be in line to watch The Hobbit opening night.

Hi, my name is Guillermo. I hail from a suburb of Dallas called Garland, which isn’t as boring as it sounds. I just transferred from UTA and would like to transfer in to RTF. I consider myself a cinephile, not because I watch a lot of films, but because I enjoy viewing films more than once to dig a little deeper into the story and try to analyze every aspect of the film. Also, I started getting into graphic novels just this past year.

(Pictured) The shirt of ultimate wisdom.

By taking this class, I hope to be exposed to a number of older and important films such as Gone with the Wind, which I can’t wait to see at the Paramount Theater for the first time this weekend. I find it to be a good thing that I have never seen it, because otherwise I would have seen the DVD version on a TV which most films are not meant to be seen in that manner.

(Pictured) Inspirational Dutch comic.

Some older films that I really enjoy are The 400 Blows (Truffaut 1959), Vertigo (Hitchcock 1958), The Grapes of Wrath (Ford 1940), Viridiana (Bunuel 1961), and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick 1968). I think we should wait at least 35 years before a movie can be considered to be old or a classic. I would put The Godfather I & II (Coppola 1972, 1974), but that’s just on anybody’s list. For some more recent and contemporary films that I like: Boogie Nights (Anderson 1997), The Wrestler (Aronofsky 2008), Goodfellas (Scorsese 1990), There Will Be Blood (Anderson 2007), American Beauty (Mendes 1999), and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006 Del Toro). Now for the walk of shame: Citizen Kane (Welles 1940), It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra 1946), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone 1967), and anything else by Alfred Hitchcock other than Vertigo.

(Pictured) Shameless, thy name is Stephen Colbert.

“All About My Mom”

August 31st, 2009

“Something happens today, something else will happen tomorrow.”

That’s really the motto of this show, isn’t it? Shane, in his numbed and disconnected state, is the poster child for the series, accepting of the idea that if something goes bad today, you might as well just shrug it off and move onto tomorrow, when something similarly terrible is going to happen. Shane got shot, a shot meant for Nancy, but rather than send him into some sort of depressive state it seems like he sees this world (if not reality, which we know has little to no connection to this sensationalist fable of sorts) clearer than he’s ever seen it before.

Whereas Nancy Botwin, she has never seen this world clearly. She is impulsive and in over her head at every turn, making decisions that she knows she will eventually regret but struggling to stop herself, to really right herself on this particular journey. At the end of this, the show’s fifth season, Nancy finds herself surrounded by people who are suddenly seeing the world in a different light. Andy has grown up, purchased a minivan and proposed to Audra. Celia has decided she’s set on doing what Nancy did, and looks to regain power of her drug dealing future. And Shane, young and formerly naive Shane, decides to take matters into his own hands when it matters most.

What separates this finale from every other is that it seems as if the show has accepted its identity: it, like Shane, accepts that something happens today and something else happens tomorrow, and that this season’s cliffhanger will not be the last for the show. While this season has had its quirks, and has been perhaps the most different of any season, where it succeeds is in its clarity: the actions undertaken in the finale are cleaner, more precise, than they’ve ever been before, but with an opportunity for consequences as complicated as the show has ever dealt with.

Which, if not quite what drew me into the show into the first place, at least feels like a consistent and effective dramatic purpose for the aging series.

There’s been some criticism of this season in the fact that it’s been so disconnected from the original storyline of the series. And, it’s true: Nancy has been out of the direct insanity of the drug trade, or even criminal activity, for weeks now. Ever since Nancy moved into Esteban’s house, the show has been playing with a false domesticity, which was for me a welcome change. Nancy’s life has always been heavily uncertain, chaos begetting chaos and never allowing her to truly settle down. Here, she had that opportunity for a man who seems to actually love her, and thlife e show kind of stops with her to give us a glimpse of what that life might be like. It’s a chance for the life they never got to have, in other words, once Judah died. When Nancy chose Esteban over heading to Europe on the run with Andy, it was because even with all of the curtains one would have to erect to hide the various subterfuges (Nancy using the pregnancy to hide her ratting out Guillermo, Esteban killing people left and right, etc.) she could at least test whether she could actually have what she had lost all those years ago: a normal life.

Of course, her life was never normal: the domesticity that many complained about, and that the show fast-forwarded in order to get to, was always going to fall apart. What I liked, however, is how it fell apart in different ways than one might expect. In many ways, none of it was Nancy’s fault, up until the very end. She didn’t have anything to do with Shane getting shot, as that was entirely based on Esteban’s reckless marriage to her not fitting with Pilar’s election plans. Esteban’s political problems, similarly, were because of Nancy but because of decisions he made, not her own. It was really not until that final moment, when Nancy’s one decision (to have Guillermo kill Pilar) comes back to haunt her. Pilar confronts her with the fact that she knows all about it (Guillermo is on her payroll, apparently), and that more importantly she’s willing to go after Silas and Shane (who are extraneous to her plans for Esteban). But again, before Nancy can do anything about it, someone else intervenes, in particular Shane with a croquet mallet (since he couldn’t find a golf club).

On the one hand, this is certainly one of the most screwed up situations the show has presented to us, what with Shane now being a murderer. And unfortunately for Weeds, a show which relies far too heavily on the “Previously On” sections of each episode, it was pretty well choreographed by the strange focus on the Ignacio golf club beating incident that pre-gunshot wound terrified Shane. The show, in terms of its narrative, seemed to take on Nancy’s persona all season, which is why a lot of Shane’s development happened under the radar. Nancy hasn’t been paying complete attention to Shane, focused as she was elsewhere, which she views as neglect leading to him getting shot, but which actually just keeps his rather screwed up self behind the scenes long enough for us to see his arc (from conniving thief to bird-killing mugger to repentent teenager to numb gunshot victim to croquet killer. I think it’s the most complete arc the character has ever gotten, and I felt it fits in with the show’s usual cliffhanger structure.

There are a lot of unanswered questions, though. For instance, we don’t know if Shane was acting out of self-preservation (protecting his mother, himself and Silas from her having heard her conversation) or whether he was simply following through on the same impulse Nancy had, attempting to make their family normal again by eliminating an obstacle to that happiness. If it is the latter, then Shane’s madness has taken a particularly premeditative turn, proving that in some ways he’s Nancy without a conscience, willing to do as she wishes she could without waiting for luck or a group of angry Armenians to take care of it. If Nancy was like Shane, this would be an entirely different shot – instead, it’s the same show it’s always been, with Nancy dealing with cleaning up a mess that she wanted to have happen but not quite in a way that so directly involved her.

I have my issues with Pilar as a character, at the end of the day. I don’t quite understand why she wouldn’t just kill Nancy and be done with it, in some ways: she was willing to stage her murder before, so why not just do it again? She clearly owns Esteban, so why would she go after her children (obviously the messier job) when the grieving widow and newly single father angle would work just as well, and take Nancy out of the picture? I was really expecting her to reveal to Nancy that someone else had taken that shot, just to complicate matters further, but instead, we’re to believe Pilar was just that evil. It makes it all a bit too simple, which goes against part of Weeds’ charm in terms of the moral grey areas these characters tread in. It’s going to make for an interesting sixth season, but there were some shortcuts made to get there.

The other cliffhanger we get is interesting in that I’m not sure I really care all that much. I like Alanis Morissete in this role, and have found Andy’s more mature side to be quite clever (he still has some snarky lines, but they seem more pointed when he’s not playing an idiot seconds later). However, this was rushed to the finish line in a way that really gives it no credit whatsoever. The marriage proposal was out of left field, a convenient reason for the interesting structure of last week’s episode (which I saw late and therefore didn’t review) and to push these two together just long enough for them to walk into the house to find her creepy stalker with a crossbow. Andy leaps away in terror, leaving Audra to fend for herself, and you have your “cliffhanger.” It just didn’t connect with me at all: I like Audra, especially her excitement at the thought of more gunshot wounds, but I don’t envision her as a permanent part of the series and as a result don’t particularly feel worried about her potential grisly fate.

I care somewhat more about Celia’s quest to do as Nancy did, which I find more intriguing than the show does in some ways. For me, this is a really interesting way for the series to return to its roots with a speculative perspective, with Celia asking the question that we all ask to some degree: how did Nancy do it? We presume the answer to be luck, as certainly she faced many roadblocks and should have died by now (Silas says himself that he partially stayed to protect her, feeling like that luck has to run out at some point), but there was something about Nancy that made it all work at the same time – dancing on the table during her runs for U-Turn, for example. Pilar’s masseuse refers to her as a warrior, armored and ready for battle, and while that’s a bit too generous she certainly is particularly suited for this role in some ways. Celia doesn’t have those qualities: she’s savvy, no question about it, but she isn’t quite as smart when it comes to dealing with people and when things go wrong. They’d make a perfect team, really: Celia deals with the schemes (selling the weed with the makeup was genius), Nancy deals with the heat, and they make some serious money. Celia’s current team will still struggle witht his, but with the Feral Dog as the muscle and the return of Sanjay (which won’t last, with his commitment to 30 Rock taking precedence, but is still enjoyable), we get to see what it would have been like if Nancy had been in control from the very beginning.

What this season has done is really bring things around full circle, even if it’s a fundamentally different show than it was before. This isn’t a reboot, but rather a return to the familiar conflict between the criminal and the domestic. Nancy finds herself dealing with the ways in which the criminal (or in this case the criminal elements of the political) undermine her family unit, as complex and screwed up as it is. Silas and Shane, rather than off on storylines on their own (Silas’ weed store now a memory, his MILF a distant one), are Nancy’s dependents, living under her roof and playing sons and brothers before teenagers or adults. And through Celia, the show is returning to the basic premise of selling marijuana, but in a way that feels almost like a tribute to Nancy’s initial operation, a chance to see how things would have gone without her rabbit’s foot. It’s the kind of setup for a sixth season that makes it feel like it could be the last, with Nancy’s attempt to turn back the clock to a domestic life falling apart while the rest of the show goes back to the beginning to see, perhaps, where it all went wrong.

And I like it. No, the show’s not perfect or as good as it once was, but it has felt very sure of itself this year. Its moves were quick and sharp, skipping time and being deliberate with what we see and when we see it. There is something confident about that, perhaps bordering on strident, which gives the show a different purpose. Before, the uncertainty of the show was part of how it operated, seeming languid and slow-paced during the middle of each season as they transitioned from setup into climax. Now, everything feels carefully placed and purposeful, a welcome change that doesn’t return us to Season 1’s uncertainty, or Season 2’s sudden downfall, but rather a newly self-aware Weeds, just as there is a newly self-aware Shane.

Cultural Observations

• I’ve got money on the sixth season starting with Shane’s perspective on the events of the final few minutes – without know how much he heard, it’s hard to really place the event in terms of his psyche, and that’s going to be something the show has to deal with. A new POV seems like an effective way to do so.
• Esteban’s daughter turning out to be a heroin addict was awfully sudden (we really saw no signs of it before?), but it did offer that nice moment where Andy got to call Nancy out on gloating. Esteban did insult her own parenting skills, so it was a nice comeuppance if ultimately an empty one since Esteban has to go and be all sad about it.
• Not sure if Demian Bichir is sticking around next year, but I absolutely demand that Cesar remain. One of the problems with this season was taking these hardened criminals and integrating them into Weeds’ sensationalist world, and I felt that Cesar’s occasional bits of humour (his stuff with the Sliders here) delivered in his terrifying monotone were the way that comedy/danger gap was bridged effectively throughout the season.
• Matt Roush at TV Guide, in his review, reminds me of the Deodorant scene, which really does emphasize the power of women over men in this particular universe (although do kids then trump women, considering the final croquet shot?). It’s a theme that really does resonate, but yet at the same time feels undermined by the fact that we know Nancy is never full in control, nor can she handle Pilar’s man-dominating position with the same cold-hearted gaze.

Continuing his conquest of as much as he can possibly handle at one time, Guillermo Del Toro has been attached as the producer for the big screen adaptation of DC Comic’s body possessing paranormal detective, Boston Brand, more commonly known as Deadman. I think it’s safe to say this movie will have a pretty dark tone, though Deadman commonly lends himself to a dark type of comedy.

Not only has Del Toro been attached to produce, but Nikolaj Arcel has been attached to direct the film as well. Deadman will of course be created under the Warner Bros. film banner, as all DC Comics properties are (at least there’s SOMETHING DC has over Marvel for movies). I almost lost track of this amidst the barrage of Marvel news today, but I prevailed.

If you haven’t noticed, Jimmy Kimmel Live is my favorite late-night talk show. I think Kimmel is great, his monologue is hysterical and his skits are always top-notch. Let’s not forget that parking lot security guard Guillermo is comedy gold.

Tonight Shaquille O’Neal will make the rounds on Kimmel, and I’m sure it’s going to be fantastic.

Here’s Shaq’s appearance on The Tonight Show from two weeks ago.This was a two-part interview, so if you want to watch the rest…

Shaq is the NBA’s best entertainer of all-time, hands down.

Yeah, I post about him a lot on this blog, but how can I not? The guy is non-stop, and he’s not just doing it on a webcam, he’s on TV, entertaining us all.

Manuel and Jude were the last to join the packs through the back door, both with dangerous smiles.

“We’ll stop just southwest of the city. We’ve counted about 25 different imps running around the edges. Now I need to warn you-”

Barrett snarled at Manuel through barred teeth. Clearly, Barrett felt the warning was unnecessary for their skill level. Manuel ignored him.

“These are not your typical minions. They can communicate. We’ve not seen anything like it and we can’t keep up with their breeding. One tiny scratch from their nails or teeth and you’re through. At least, that’s what happens to humans.” Manuel chuckled loudly and Ariel hissed.

“Shall we?” Jude motioned to the rest of the pack.

Manuel’s chuckle twisted into a rumbling growl as he bent forward. Muscles exploded, tripling his already enormous size. His snout extended flashing, a pearlized set of front dangerously sharp teeth.

Jude patted Seth’s shoulder and shifted quickly to join Ariel and Barrett.

Seth curled forward and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath to relax his restrained senses. Unfamiliar smells and sounds from miles away rushed through him, allowing his brain to quickly identify their origins. The female coyote three miles north west scurried across ground, scattering bits of sand as she headed in to her den. The slinking of a snake coiling underneath a pile of rocks for warmth was six miles to the north. Four heartbeats of men and women nearly ten miles west of them were laughing too loudly around a camp fire crackling in the night, spilling alcohol in their raucous movements. Seth could hear and smell everything within range. The alcohol was tequila, cheap tequila, and dripped slowly onto the sand as one male wobbled to sit in a lawn chair that creaked beneath his weight. It was this reason he chose to restrain his senses when not needed. It was too much to focus on the situation occurring in front of him and nearly 500 different situations occurring around him at the same time. He was flooded with too much information at once and it was easier to act more human when his senses were restrained. Besides, he didn’t mind not knowing everything that was headed for him. He enjoyed a bit of surprise now and then.

His heart began pounding swiftly behind his rib cage. His heart swelled with fresh, oxygenated blood. His ribs jutted forward and lengthened down his torso to make room for more efficient lungs of a greater capacity. All of his blood vessels from his face down to his toes, enlarged to accommodate the increasing heart rate and racing blood. His body worked speedily, flooding tissues with adrenaline and oxygen. Seth felt invigorated as his cells strained against their new found power, engorged and replicating rapidly. The feeling all at once of all his muscles readily tearing and repairing themselves, at one time in Seth’s past had caused great pain, but now this was a welcomed torture. He knew it would be over soon enough and being slightly masochistic, the pay off was well worth the ache.

His leg and arm bones throbbed with pain as they stretched out and away to accommodate his new weight and strength. His snout and jaw, expanding with all of his other body tissues, extended forward into a wolf-like structure. His natural teeth were further exposed and pronounced by the shifting mandibles.

His body, almost instantly, had just exploded from the inside out into a completely new shape, a horrific shape. He belonged in a story of monsters, not of valiant heroes defending mankind. And yet, that’s exactly who he was; a hero for mankind.

Seth leaned back on his hind legs and smelled the fresh night air through his nostrils. He blinked a couple times to adjust to his new eyesight. Despite losing the vibrant colors of the world around him, it allowed him to focus in on the great detail several meters ahead of them. The light pollution, once unnoticeable by his human eyes, glowed off the horizon from Mexico City, lighting up a small sliver of the night sky.

Two wolves with deep brown eyes, most likely Manuel and Jose, nudged their heads to the east toward the capital. All of their breaths were visible as they panted. The moisture in their snouts condensed in the cold air to form puffs of clouds.

The two packs looked in the direction Manuel and Jose were pointing too. They were able to travel great distances faster in these forms than on human foot. Their mammoth size gave them the advantage of a long gait, a stride barely matched by a car traveling highway speeds.

Manuel slung his head back to the group. He grunted with great effort and jolted forward toward the city.

All at once, they were running together. They were an organized, pack of werewolves tearing through the desert at an immense speed. Sand was kicked up by their paws, as they clodded the surface of the barren floor and threatened anything living just beneath it by the sound of it. Seth looked over at Ariel, Barrett and Sam, who all had cheerily left their tongues hanging out the side of their mouths like eager dogs running after a twig.

He had to laugh to himself.

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Jose peered an eye over at Manuel and Juan. They appeared to have an unspoken conversation between them in the split second their eyes met.

“Aren’t you worried about any minions?” Jose questioned with a sideways glance at Seth.

“No, we’re not afraid. I’m more worried we won’t find her before they do. I’ve handled my fair share of minions.” Seth wiped his mouth and placed his napkin next to his plate.

“You wouldn’t be interested in some minion slaughtering before you leave, would you?”

The men had paused in their food shoveling to look at the Europeans for a response. Seth and Sam looked at each other slightly confused.

“Where are their minions?”

“In Mexico City.”

“What?” Jude nearly choked as he tried to swallow a large gulp of his drink.

“You have a few minions in a major city and your sitting here eating?!” Seth stood in shock. To allow God’s enemy to run rampant through your host area was repulsive to him.

“It’s more like a few hundred minions. Maybe thousands?” Jose shrugged. The blank stares confirmed their confusion. “Well, it’s like a pest problem. You squash the ones you find and more pop up.”

“How do you have a constant influx of minions in Mexico City?” Seth’s heart skipped a beat at the thought being able to fight. It had been a few decades since an organized pack was needed to handle some minions.

“We don’t know. It’s been a daily struggle. If we wait too long the public start to notice.” Manuel took his chalice and tilted his head back to drain the glass into his large mouth at once.

Seth could feel the ripple in Jude’s heart beat. If he was this thrilled about it, he could only imagine how loud Michael’s heartbeat was on the other side of him. The pack was eager to participate.

“Sounds like something we can help you with.” jumped Ariel. Seth noted it was the first thing he said the entire evening. The pack was definitely excited about the possibility of stretching their muscles tonight.

“Wait. We will not hurry ourselves into a battle when we’re here for something else.” Seth peered at Manuel across the table closely. His blue eyes were set on Manuel’s analyzing the proposition.

“How do you have a constant issue with minions? Your pack can’t handle them yourselves?”

“Well, two of our brothers are out training the new pup. So we could use the help. Six experienced pack brothers should want to join in the fun. Unless, you’re afraid your old age won’t allow you to keep up with us.” Manuel smirked.

Clearly he was taunting Seth. He could feel the pulse of his group increase in unison and their begging to join in on the hunt pulsed through the air. Seth was amused at the banter.

“I believe we weren’t planning on leaving until tomorrow morning. I think we can squeeze in a run through Mexico City.” Seth smirked back at Manuel. “What are we up against?”

“Imps.” Manuel sucked the air through his front teeth.

Barrett stood in reaction, unable to restrain himself. “Let’s go.”

Jose and Juan barreled over in laughter. “It has been a long time since you guys have seen any fun.”

Manuel stood. “We’ll meet out back in five minutes. Unless you girls have anything you need to take care of or if you decide to chicken out, I suggest you do it now.”

The air barely moved as the swift movements of men from both packs took off through the church, racing to the back door. It had been too long since Seth was given the opportunity to work together with his pack in a hell-sent onslaught. It had been centuries since working with another pack entirely. He had to admit to himself, he was thrilled.

He realized his mere pause had left him alone in the mess hall. He darted through the maze, cut corners and dashed into hallway after hallway while making his way to the back of the cathedral. Guards knew better than to be out after hours.

Seth became acutely aware of his senses. Often in his human form, they became overwhelming and his personality was difficult to keep intact. He had learned over the last millennium or so to muffle the senses in to a dull ache. His head often swam with smells, heartbeats, heightened sounds and the effort involved in restraining his muscles.

When he opened the back door to the outside grounds, five mountainous creatures loomed over him. Their pristine fur glistened in the blue moon light with hues of auburn and sienna. Their chest muscles heaved in anticipation. The four blue eyes smiling at Seth told him Barrett and Ariel had already phased; they were roused and ready for the hunt.

Seth heard four ear-piercing growls behind him. Sam, Michael, Vittorio and Juan had phased. Their panting sounded eager.

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