“Straw Dogs” Unleashes Dustin Hoffman, Badass

There was recently a movie called “Straw Dogs” starring Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgard (aka Eric Northman from “True Blood”).  Like the Nicolas Cage version of “The Wicker Man”, it was a remake of a much better film. To be honest, the “Straw Dogs” remake isn’t nearly as bad as the Cage “Wicker Man”, it’s not even a bad film. The original is just much, much better.

Directed by the legendary Sam Peckinpah (“The Wild Bunch”), known for his extreme violence and hard-boiled themes, the film is set in the time it was released, 1971, but given the locale it might as well have been today. In the film, American mathematician David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman) goes to the tiny village of Wakely in Cornwall, England where his beautiful wife Amy (Susan George) grew up in order to have the peace and quiet he needs to work.

Staying at her vacant and rustic family home, the young couple has plenty of time together, but things aren’t going well.  Basically, David wants to work and Amy is bored.  She keeps trying to get his attention, but he gives her little because he’s trying to work.  Being in a remote area of England, where to this day technology can be spotty, she has nothing to keep her occupied other than books and records.  So she feels neglected.

What makes matters worse is they decide to have work done on the house, and the men they hire to do it happen to be a rough bunch Amy hung out with before she moved away.  They’re led by her former boyfriend, Charlie Venner (Del Venney), who still has feelings for Amy, and he and the men make no secret of ogling Amy whenever they’re around.  They’re driven to a frenzy one day when they see Amy undress through a window, and there’s a question of whether she knew it and did it for the attention.  Maybe, maybe not.  The effect is the same.  Their interest is piqued and Charlie, who already thinks David is unworthy of Amy, decides to take her back.

Immortal controversy

Charlie hatches a plan to take David hunting with the group.  While they’re all out, Charlie sneaks away, heads back to the house, and propositions Amy.  She refuses, and in a famously controversial scene, he forces himself on her.  To his surprise, one of his friends followed him back to the house, and when Charlie is done he demands his own turn at gunpoint.  The scene is no less controversial or brutal today than it was 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, in the village, Janice Hedden (Sally Thomsett), daughter of the boisterous Tom Hedden (Peter Vaughan) , a drinking pal of Charlie and his gang, has been flirting with Henry Niles (David Warner), a mentally disabled gentle giant.  Because of an unknown incident in the past, Henry is constantly reminded by his brother to leave women alone.  Reminding often means a slap to the face.  And Henry has been leaving women alone, but Janice won’t leave him alone, despite the warnings of her father and his friends.

One night, she takes things too far and Niles accidentally strangles her. He flees and is hit in the road by David and Amy, who take him back to their home.  Finding Janice, Tom Hedden and Charlie go on the hunt for Henry Niles.  They eventually arrive at David and Amy’s home and demand that they give up Niles.

Brutal siege and standoff

David knows the men will kill Niles, and refuses to release him.  The men begin a siege of the home with David and his wife doing their best to keep the men from getting into the house, and then dealing with them when they do.  Think of the climax of “Skyfall” without the automatic weapons.  Actually, “Skyfall” made me think of “Straw Dogs” and that was probably intentional.

In typical Peckinpah fashion this climax is extremely violent and full of suspense.  In the final moments Hoffman is convincingly transformed from a wish-washy nerd into a violent, clever, possibly sadistic killer.  And this climax is made more powerful in contrast to the very long, slow, action-free beginning of the film.

The film is a classic, masterfully directed with an outstanding cast, but it’s not for the squeamish.

“True Blood” Season 5 – The Best Season Yet?

While they may seem totally distinct, the popular cable series “Dexter” and “True Blood” have a few things in common.  Each has an amusing blend of gore, mystery, violence, sex, and tongue-in-cheek humor that have kept fans watching each season.  They also both recently rebounded from seasons many fans didn’t particularly like with very powerful seasons.

In the case of “Dexter,” Season 6 (reviewed herehttp://sogooditsscary.com/?p=37) aka “the one with the Dooms Day Killer” was okay but not great but Season 7 (reviewed herehttp://sogooditsscary.com/?p=168) , the penultimate season introducing Hannah McKay, was much better.  With “True Blood” Season 4 aka “the one with the witches” was okay but not great. A few fans I’ve talked to have said they won’t even bother watching Season 5 because after 4 the bloom is off the rose, interest is gone, the party’s over.

I’m here to say give the show another chance.  Season 5 is a lot of fun.  It may actually be the best season the show has had.

Tara become tolerable

 First, drastic measures were taken to make Tara (Rutina Wesley) less annoying.  From the beginning of the series she has waivered from being an irritant to gross and everything in between.  There really wasn’t much good to say about her until, in the last moments of Season 4, a glorious thing happened.  My pulse quickens at the thought.  A drug-crazed country werewolf blew Tara’s brains out and it was almost better than world peace.  Except it was the season finale, so we had to wait to see if she was really dead.  They could bring her back.  She might (gasp) live to annoy another day.

Well, she did.  Sort of.  But it’s okay.  After being begged by Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Lafayette (Nelsan Ellis), vampire Pam (Kristin Bauer van Stratten) turns Tra into a vampire because undead is better than all dead.  This turns out to be one of the best developments in the history of the show.  Not only does this make Tara much less annoying, it puts her under the control of Pam, who gets a lot more spotlight, and more Pam is a very good thing.

If you’re already lost, that’s because of a major difference between “Dexter” and “True Blood” – and that’s the amount of effort put into brining newer viewers up to speed.  ”Dexter” uses montage sequences at the beginning of each season and even each episode to quickly establish what has gone before.  The show also makes good use of brief flashbacks at key moments to help newer viewers along and remind us of who’s who.  “True Blood” makes no such effort.  There are occasional flashbacks or bits of expositional dialogue, but for the most part if you haven’t been watching the show you’ll have to play catch-up on your own.  Given that, while I could do a complete who’s-who of the characters and a summary of the premise of the show and plots so far, I’ll assume for both our sakes and the interest of time you have at least a passing knowledge.

Other plots

The central plot of the season is the return of Russel Edgington (Denis O’Hare), the 3,000 year-old uber-vampire from Season 3, last seen being buried alive in concrete by Vampire King of Louisiana Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer) and his sometime ally Vampire Sheriff Eric Northman (Alexander Skarsgard).  When the Vampire Authority learns that Edgington is not only alive but free, their leader, Guardian Roman Zimojic (Christopher Meloni “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit”) strikes a deal with Bill and Eric to bring him in dead or alive.  The deal being they do it or they die.  Bill and Eric deliver Edginton with help from Sookie and werewolf Alcide (Joe Manganiello),  but are pulled into a court intrigue plot with Roman and the Vampire Authority, whose members include Salome Agrippa (Valentina Cervi), the woman responsible for the beheading of John the Baptist.

As part of the political plot, we learn that vampires are divided culturally between “Mainstreamers” like Roman, who want vampires to coexist with humans for mutual benefit while feeding off of the Tru Blood synthetic blood product, and “Sanguinistas” who want vampires to be dominant and use humans as food.

At the same time, there is division among vampires, even on the Authority Council, who believe that Lilith, the first vampire, was divine and will return, and those who don’t.  Roman and Salome, the key members of the council, believe she was divine and guard a vial supposedly containing her blood, used for rituals.  Roman believes that he is being guided by Lilith to establishing everlasting peace with humans.  But treachery ensues and Edgington and Salome take control of the council as Sanguinistas, trying to start a war with humans in Lilith’s name.

Bill, who had been a vampire apologist, seems to comply with this, but Eric, ever the stubborn Viking, remains only because he wants to free his sister, Nora (Lucy Griffiths)  from the Vampire Authority.

The plot is really enjoyable because it gets Bill and Eric away from their standard role of pining for Sookie and helping to fight the monster of the season threatening Bon Temps.  Which leads to the other nice thing about the season’s central plot – no new monsters.  We already have vampires, werewolves, fairies shapeshifters, and witches on board and we see all of them this season.  It’s nice that we didn’t have to discover the sherrif was a closet mummy or alligator people in the swamp.

Terry’s background revealed

Another good plot finally looks into the background of Merlotte’s fry cook Terry Bellefleur (Todd Lowe), and the reason he suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after his tour of duty in Afghanistan.  While it’s sadly common for vets to come back from Afghanistan, Iraq, or any war with PTSD, since this is “True Blood”, Terry has a very unusual reason behind his, which we explore after he’s contacted by his former commanding officer.

It seems that after a night of drunken revelry, Terry’s unit accidentally killed a group of civilians.  One woman survived until the commanding officer told Terry to finish her off, which he did with two shots to the head and one to the chest.  With her dying breath the woman cursed the unit, a curse that is proving to be lethal.

Werewolves and shapeshifters

On the werewolf side of town, Sookie’s friend Alcide gets about 5 minutes to explore his feelings for her after she kills his former lover, who was the werewolf who shot Tara in the head.  Then he’s off to a new weregirl and determining who will lead the pack.

In related furry news, bar and restaurant owning shapeshifter Sam Merlotte (Sam Trammell) continues his relationship with fellow shapeshifter Luna Garza (Janina Gavankar) who is injured when they’re attacked by a Klan-like group of human purists wearing Obama masks.  Luna is also dealing with custody issues because the mother of her now-dead werewolf lover, killed last season, wants visitation rights, and ‘wolves and ‘shifters don’t get along. This situation is made worse late in the season when Edgington kidnaps the girl, who was in wolf form, to give to his lover as a pet.

For the most part this plot line is dull, with one notable exception.  When Luna is recovering from her injuries, the stress makes her shift into a double of Sam, which normally shifters don’t do.  For a few scenes, Sam Trammell does a great job portraying boy Sam Merlotte and Luna looking like Sam Merlotte.  He even has touching embraces and tender moments with himself and himself that are photographically seamless and hilarious.  Bravo sir, bravo.

Lafayette and Sookie

Lafayette has his own brief plotline as he deals with the repercussion of the death of his boyfriend Jesus last season and his developing magical powers.  When that’s quickly settled, he ties into other plotlines, which effectively shift his role from lead cook at Merlotte’s and Bon Temps’ supplier of V and other drugs to the town medium.

This is interesting because Sookie usually has the central role and technically she’s still there, though Lafayette seems to fit the role more naturally.  They both work at Merlotte’s, he’s Tara’s cousin, Sookie is her best friend.  He’s a medium with magical powers, she’s half fairy with psychic powers.  Yet somehow when Sookie comes in to a scene, such as the one where she visits Luna in the hospital, it’s a surprise to see her there.  The other characters are going along fine without her and then someone remembers that Sookie is supposed to be the main character and she should make an appearance.  It’s odd to see.

Sookie and her brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten) have their own plotline of course, but it’s relatively dull compared to the Bill and Eric/Authority storyline.  After the revelation that Sookie is half-fairy (isn’t Jason then, too?) Sookie is dealing with her heritage and powers.  Jason is pulled into the fairy world for the equivalent of a weekend bender and strip club visit.  When he returns, he and Sookie learn their parents, whom they thought drowned years ago, were actually murdered by a vampire.  They aim to find out who, which is the mystery element of the season

All in all it’s a very enjoyable season, with good exposure and development of all the characters, and some outstanding moments.  One thing I noticed was the increase in overall nudity throughout the season.  Anna Paquin didn’t appear naked this season, due probably to being pregnant in real life, which is why we also have a lot of head and shoulders and distant shots or her, or shots where she is partially obscured by furniture.  But most of the rest of the cast are frequently naked or scantily clad, and we have full frontal male and female nudity, which I found surprising.  When we have appearances from the vampire god Lilith (Jessica Clark) she is always fully naked covered in gore.  And while we usually see her from a partial distance, we see her from head to toe.  In another scene, the Authority have a human victim strapped to a table.  He is fully naked and not obscured in any way.

I didn’t find the increase in graphic nudity offensive or exciting, just curious.  It’s almost a progression, I just don’t know why.  In the first season Sookie was naïve and prudish, then later we had very intense scenes between her and Bill, and later her and Eric, in which all of them were naked.  Now there is frequent nudity, including full frontal.  I wonder if it’s to increase the overall intensity of the show, which is noticeable in terms of plot tension and stakes involved, or if it’s to keep people interested. Regardless, I look forward to the sixth season and will let you know how it turns out.