La Casa de mi padre

Will Ferrel's latest cinematic outing looks like a refreshing, pastiche action comedy and I'm really looking forward to it. It's exactly what Ferrel needs to revitalize after the turgid, lazy The Other Guys. All of his dialogue is in Spainish and it looks like they're playing with the Latin american action genre, somehow it looks explosive and ridiculous in a good way, without being too silly. The look of the film is smooth and intense complete with versatile slow mo camera work, which is unexpected considering this is the first feature from director Mat Piedmont who previously directed sketches for SNL.

A belated review of The Walking Dead

So I finally gave in and watched the show that everyone is going mental over. The last time I submitted to such a hype was for the Wire, so maybe hype isn't always a bad thing.

However, overall, I was quite disappointed with the 1st episode. I was expecting some sort of new twist on the heavily recycled zombie genre but there isn't much here that deviates from the conventions. Guy wakes up and the world is in ruins, meets other survivors who are skeptical at first and then after sharing stories and hope for their respective families become buddies then guy sets off to look for his family. The spark of the show lies in the format: because it is an AMC TV Drama, the director can take the time to build relationships and scenes. So instead of the Guy being confronted with hordes of zombies instantly as in most zombie movies, we get a gradual build up and thus witness the main character killing reluctantly and apologetically to blowing heads off with nonchalance. Also, more time to spare means the director can fill the hour with long, expensive reveal shots which become very tedious after the 4th or 5th time.

The Walking dead is a drama in the strictest sense: there are no wildcard characters who run around massacring zombies with a novelty weapon or zombies in funny costumes. So this is where the show tries to find its originality, by being completely humourless and so what you get is something that is reaching for the stark, realist, depravity of The Road but stuck in the colourful, usually spectacular world of the zombie movie and so all your expectations are let down.


I do think the show has potential, I hope there is more to the shallow characters and most of all I hope this isn't a really long, censored version of the road. Also, I've always thought it dumb to judge a show on its first episode, so onto episode 2!
Also, on a completely unrelated note: the library smells really bad today.

National association of student television awards!

Hello, just letting ya'll know that my weird ass sketches were nominated for a NASTA(see above ya'll). The ceremony will be on the 8th of April, so fingers crossed(but honestly, I'm honoured and humbled just to be nominated)
Thank you GUST!

January 31st, twentyeleven.

Good weekend. My family came to visit me which was exciting and refreshing. We walked a lot, saw everything, talked our jaws sore and had a great weekend. It was really good to see them after that grey, dull Christmas in Glasgow. Subsequently saw Black Swan too, which was very good although I do feel as Aronofsky is faltering between compromising to Hollywood and being his weird, intense self. The movie felt like it was missing a few integral scenes, a few moments of anticipation, some shifts in mood. the more you think about it the more it crumbles. But overall, it was a good movie, intense and simple.

Funny haha Hitler.

Adolph Hitler is omnipresent in modern culture, the name is universal. He is on the history channel every day, his name is commonly used as an insult, films, books, plays are constantly revisiting this era. The purpose of all of this is to constantly remind people of the brutality and malevolence of his ideology and his totalitarian campaign. Despite the chilling facts of his campaign, Hitler has been a fecund source of comedy since his rise to power in the 30s. The initial parodies are obviously propaganda, to stir and to inspire the soldiers and the work force. The best example of this is probably Looney tunes:

Hitler is drawn realistically but his voice is effeminate and I think he is talking about pumpkins. There are reels and reels of looney tunes bashing on Hitler. Another famous rendition is of course Charlie Chaplin as "The Great Dictator" but where Looney tunes is just bashing and bashing Chaplin, on the other hand, made a film where the dictator realizes he has become a monster and redeems himself with a heart-warming speech about change and universal love.


Chaplin's Hitler delivers a beautiful, optimistic speech fit for a great orator. It renders Hitler innocuous but whereas daffy duck bashes him on the head, chaplain attacks war itself. Chaplin's film infers that the world will prosper in peace once it is founded upon reason and tolerance. However, it kind of implies that all Hitler needed was a good talking to and he would have been sorted.

Then as the war ended and Hitler was defeated, the soldiers came home and time passed. In the sixties, Hitler re-emerged in the comedy world in a way no one really expected. Probably my favorite caricature of Hitler is in Mel Brook's "The Producers". This Hitler is played by a strung out hippy, he sings rock n roll and he is from Louisiana in other words it has nothing really to do with Hitler.


Your average Hitler caricature will be flamboyantly effeminate, he will have anger management problems and an inferiority complex. All of this is to render him and his persona innocuous and ridiculous. These caricature are a fundamental part of all political commentary but satirizing Bush for being a dumb ass and Obama for being christ is not the same as ridiculing Hitler. The fuhrer wasn't as much a politician as he was an emblem for the disgusting evil that humanity is capable of. Of course it is hypocritical for me to be so discerning when I enjoy caricature Hitler on a weekly basis(Hipster Hitler). The question I'm trying to ask(finally) is does this constant caricaturization of Hitler desensitize us to the violence of the past and thus making it harder for us to be shocked?

The period known as the "fear" is dated in historical document from 2013 until the insurgencies in 2016, but in reality it began with the election of DuClerc in France and Garza in Spain. Everything fell apart. The European Union crumbled like the ancient ruins of the civilizations it used for its foundations. The lessons we learned were forgotten. Modern civilization turned its back on morality and reason and donned its gruesome costume. I urge you not to misread this as hyperbole, I will most likely be persecuted for what I am revealing and thus it is vital that you understand this document as genuine. It would be easy to pin all the responsibility on the European union but that would be naive. The problem began in the political institutions but it was propagated by people on-line, on television, on the phone, on stage, on the front and back page. I accuse the media, the politicians and the businessmen but that path is a slippery one, I am also to blame for letting it happen and for looking the other way.

Rene DuClerc, was elected chef d'etat in France in the 20 election. He was a young man who won all the demographics over with his confidence and his apparent transparency. His opponent Thomas Dubrozny, belonged to the UMP, the conservative party that everyone felt had reached the end of its rope.I was 25 at the time and had been working as a freelance writer for one of the Parisian newsblogs so I was deeply invested in the election. Paris had changed immensely over the first half of the century. The administration was adamant in forbidding the construction of skyscrapers within the city limits but the city desperately needed some more commercial space to accommodate all the growing business. So there was a compromise: the development of skyscrapers was concentrated around the city. Now Paris is encircled by sky scraping walls of glass and metal, it is a very unnatural place to be. Parisians retreated further into the cocoon of the city and severed the tenuous link it had with the rest of the country. The days were short and the nights were replaced by an ever constant twilight.

DuClerc won the election mostly due to his massive restrictions on immigration and also because he sounded the more French of the two. I remember the day Dubrozny recounted the source of his "exotic" name, all of the newsblogs began insinuating the most ridiculous things about him and his "Slavic" mentality. About a year into DuClerc's residency at the Elysees all of the borders were sealed shut and France had trouble breathing. Her head was pumped full of blood, her eyes darted around terrified, her nostrils inhaling desperately, uncontrollable, she had finally broken. Suddenly, every article was entitled J'accuse and every writer described the corruption of foreign influence. Everything was boycotted.At the beginning it seemed ludicrous the television At the beginning it seemed ludicrous, one day you couldn't buy fruit from Portugal, a month later it was Italian restaurants shutting down. Meanwhile in Spain, French imports were being sent back, vicious representations of French people were broadcasted on Tv and online.

The transition into this xenophobia happened so smoothly it was terrifying. Fortunately, Paris was quarantined from the madness outside. The city became a center for refuge for the Spanish, the Italians, the Portuguese, the Germans and the countless others who watched their flags burn in their town squares. It had been 15 months since DuClerc won the election, when I met Tia, a Portuguese chef, working in a Rive Gauche restaurant.

Science Fiction novel 1

As they shook hands over the perimeter, instauring peace, new distinctions were being created to fuel the people on either side to destroy that illusion of peace. I watched the ceremony with horror. All the smiling faces waiting to attack. The provincial man and the city people unite in the galvinizing hatred. They are still letting people in but only because they have to. The people who squeeze over the borders are not people at all. They are imposters invading our culture and our history, vandalizing everything. What do I do? I don't feel like I am a part of either side but I have to make a decision. I have to escape, I might be able to go south but then again who is to say they don't suffer the same limitations? When I was little, people roamed and roamed for hundreds of miles without hindrance. Visas and citizenships were easy to get if you put in the time. People could visit the 38th parallel were a country was once torn in half by the distinctions, Americans could visit Russia and russians could visit America. I remember once my father told me about his brother who was assisting a diplomat, didn't even have to use airports or go through any identification system. They just flew wherever they wanted and were accepted almost everywhere.

It has been many years since the borders were brought down. I remember that period so well, it was so peaceful. It seemed like there had been abosolute chaos on either side of this calm period: The war leading up to it and the devastation following it. In order to explain why the leaders of the world adopted such an extreme policy, I need to clarify the important precursors.

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