Two Things I Didn't Know About Harry Shum, Jr.

First of all yowza. No wonder the girl dumped the guy for him.
I mean I sorta saw this one coming but I was willing to give one of the bigger guys the benefit of having the perfect body.

Second of all, did you guys know Harry was born right here in Costa Rica? Down where I live? Maybe not cool but some of us can never get enough useless trivia huh?
Speaking of which just how crappy was that season premiere? It was like deja vu from season one all over again...any of you liked it?

A ojos cerrados **

Director: Hernán Jiménez
Cast: Carol Sanabria, Anabelle Ulloa, Carlos Luis Zamora

A ojos cerrados is the kind of movie that relies on basic, sometimes cheap, means of manipulation to secure its "connection" with the audience. In its particular case it uses cute senior citizens to win half the battle in spectator acceptance.
When the movie begins, we meet Gabo (Zamora) and Maga (Ulloa) a couple who have been married for decades.
They have breakfast, quarrel, go shopping, sit in rocking chairs and do almost everything together. They live with their granddaughter Delia (Sanabria), a big shot executive on the rise who disregards her superior's orders but always gets the job done.
At home though, Delia reverts to a childlike state and rests on her grandma's lap while pondering the whys of life.
Things change when Maga passes away, leaving Gabo in a state of limbo with which Delia must deal on her own. They are surprised to learn that grandma wanted her ashes to be spread in the Caribbean Sea and here the director recurs to yet another handbook method of manipulation: the road movie.
During the trip to the beach, grandpa and granddaughter will obviously get to bond and help each other, but here the film runs into its biggest mistake, because we never really understand why they should be bonding to begin with.
We assume from the start that Gabo has become a father figure to Delia, so when the film begins treating them like strangers it gets lost in its own attempts at playing with feelings.
What's evident about A ojos cerrados is how disconnected the filmmakers are from the characters. These people feel like they were obviously written for the purpose of existing for the film's running time and then be just over and done with.
The characters then, are more prototypes (not even archetypes) of actual human beings and become puppets that move only to please the filmmakers' wishes.
This whole game is even more disturbing because the characters are practically asexual. We never know what happened to Delia's parents and even if an obvious explanation isn't necessary, the movie seems to pretend they never existed.
They obviously are the main connection between Delia and her grandparents and by cutting them off (more like castrating them actually) the film loses any evidence of sexual awareness.
Delia never mentions friends and much less boyfriends and her grandparents, straight out of a fairy tale, seem to have found her in a basket.
In the process, given how conservative Latin American society can be, turns the grandparents into saints and the movie into a phony attempt to create nostalgia for universal values that are basically concealing the truth

Donde duerme el horror *

Director: Adrián García Bogliano, Ramiro García Bogliano
Cast: David Rivera, José Castro, Michael Dionisio Morales
María Orozco, Gustavo Rojas, Ricardo Rodríguez Otoya
Rosibel Carvajal, Rocío Carranza, Haymo Henry Heyder

The real horror in this film lies in the fact that once it's over and the credits start rolling it dares to say it was partly inspired by Joseph Conrad.
If, like some of the characters in the film, Mr. Conrad could come back from the grave he surely would if only to keep his name out of this.
This film claims to be based on Conrad's The Inn of the Two Witches but it also says it's based on The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs and here's where one of the film's numerous troubles begin.
The writers not only adapted these tales but inserted them into a preposterous plot involving heists, bungee jumping, gulf war veterans gone mad and an array of ridiculous twists that not only fail to muster horror but also interest from the viewer.
The film begins when a band of thieves Mirlo (Rivera), Buho (Morales) and Aguila (Castro) rob and kill a man, not before they are cursed by a maid who ominously proclaims they will never live to enjoy the money they stole. That she does this while purposely showing her breasts is something that fails to make sense at any level, except int he fact that it fulfills the filmmakers love for any gratuitous sex they can get.
The criminals flee to a jungle hotel where some more supernatural shenanigans are going on. Hotel owner Miguel (Rojas) receives a cursed monkey paw from deranged Gulf War veteran (Heyder) who's more Colonel Sanders than former army member, who proclaims it will grat its owner three wishes.
Of course he fails to mention that in order to fulfill those wishes, tragedy will obviously ensue and as if the filmmakers were unsure of their ability to hook an audience with one good storyline, they get these two and use them as incoherent back up plans for each other.
While this could've had the charm of a Twilight Zone potpourri its inefficiency and dullness make it a total snooze fest in which the filmmakers find themselves trying to fulfill every single cliché from the bad horror movie canon.
It's a mystery how the people behind this movie were unable to even make this an enjoyable campfest, because the sequences are so exhausting and senseless that in the end it won't be horror taking a nap but the entire audience.

Of Love and Other Demons *

Director: Hilda Hidalgo
Cast: Pablo Derqui, Eliza Triana, Jordi Dauder, Joaquín Climent
Margarita Rosa de Francisco, Damián Alcázar, Alina Lozano

Based on the eponymous novel by Gabriel García Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons is a handsomely crafted picture that fails to stimulate anything other than the eye.
Set in Cartagena during the Viceroyalty of New Spain (although neither time nor setting are specified in the film) it tells the story of Sierva María (Triana), the young daughter of a Marquis (Climent), who after being bitten by a rabid dog is presumed to be possessed by the devil.
She is sent to a convent by orders of the Bishop (Dauder)-"we can't save her body but we can save her soul" he proclaims- where she is to be looked after by the nuns and exorcised by Cayetano (Derqui), a Jesuit priest who begins to doubt his faith after he falls in love with the girl.
Whatever might have been special about the magic realist touches in Márquez's novel, is reduced here to a series of random events that make no sense as a whole and certainly fail to engage the audience on any level.
The director is kind enough to let us know about some of the specifics, like the reason why Sierva María's copper hair is more than a meter long, but then she completely neglects strange events like the affliction that ails Sierva's mother (the underused but irrepressibly fierce de Francisco) or the events the nuns mention in chronicles as ghastly but we never know of.
Almost everything in the movie is meant to be taken for real just because it's written; the nuns are scared of Sierva, the Bishop exerts immense power over the entire colony, Sierva has demonic episodes...all this occurs because characters mention it but none of the actual repercussions are actually perceived at any time.
This affects the movie greatly when it deals with the forbidden love affair between the priest and the child (Sierva is only referred to as a child but the discrepancy between her appearance and the age she's supposed to have are quite confusing).
None of the actors evoke what can be taken as real emotion at any time. Triana is pretty but so lifeless that you really have to wonder how anyone could be intimidated, afraid or even attracted to her.
Derqui tries to brood but soon loses interest and turns Cayetano into a contradiction. He's supposed to be a smart man, versed in arts and languages but acts like a pawn at the service of a plot that doesn't know where it's going.
There is also a sense of disconnectedness between the time, setting and the multiculturalism of the accents heard onscreen, this might be hard to detect for foreign audiences but for Latin Americans should induce some head scratching.
The production is effective and some of the cinematography is gorgeous but the film never succeeds in becoming either romantic, cerebral or even entertaining.
With the richness of the central theme about faith turning into barbarism and an ethereal promise that is never fulfilled, this film like its heroine is in dire need of a soul.

Cold Water of the Sea **

Director: Paz Fábrega
Cast: Luis Carlos Bogantes, Lil Quesada Morúa, Montserrat Fernández

Cold Water of the Sea overflows with beauty to conceal the fact that it has nothing to say. Set in a Costa Rican beach during the New Year, the plot follows Rodrigo (Bogantes) and Mariana (Morúa) a young couple who travel to the coast so he can settle a business deal.
On their first night there they find Karina (Fernández) a seven year old who seems to be lost and tells Mariana of the hardships she endures at home.
The following morning they wake up to realize the little girl has disappeared. Rodrigo goes on with life as usual but Mariana is stricken in a different way and begins an introspective journey which unleashes past traumas and connects her to the girl in an unexpected way.
If all this sounds very Persona and Fábrega in a way is implying there exists a metaphysical connection between them (can they be each other? will rescuing one mean salvation for the other?) this is only suggested by forced methods of visual poetry and ominous silences.
The director assumes that by showing moments where "nothing" happens, the audience will be immersed into the profundity she thinks her movie has.
Therefore we have scenes where Mariana dives into a filthy pool (in an obvious "problematic cleansing" metaphor) or she sobs quietly answering "I don't know what's wrong with me" to her concerned boyfriend.
There is also a recurring theme of sea snakes lying on the shore; supposedly they come out due to the low temperatures in the sea water but other than for biological novelty's sake-and stunning visuals of course provided by cinematographer María Secco- it serves no real purpose within the plot.
Is the director suggesting that Karina is a snake? Is Mariana's past the snake? Like the phenomenon involving the reptiles, the whole movie is actually plagued with elements that intend to contribute to build something but make no sense and more than that, never engage the audience into the issues onscreen.
A past of sexual abuse is suggested with trickery, a physiological event that confuses instead of stating and we never understand why Mariana's profession is important to the plot.
Kudos though to little Fernández who builds her character in a way that we wonder if she's a victim or The Bad Seed. Her movements in front of the camera are as natural as they come and her eyes suggest enough viciousness and innocence to merit her a much better movie.
The adult actors fall under the director's spell and spend the whole movie underacting to the point of dullness.
We never understand why Mariana came with Rodrigo, then he disappears for several key scenes and seems to be annoyed by her more than he's worried.
Morúa, who probably intends well, never taps into the inner life of her character and as much as Mariana is driven by inertia, Morúa makes her every action too mechanic.
As appealing as the movie is on pure visuals alone, everything we watch serves no actual purpose but unlike something Bergman or Antonioni would've made, the void here feels unintentional.
It tries so hard to be symbolic and important that it forgoes the road of coherence (within its frame of course) in favor of a series of moments that truly never engage people watching or the characters within the film.
Why do Mariana's friends appear at the beach? Why is Karina's relationship with her mother so strained?
As the movie becomes more and more frustrating we witness other events that reveal that it's probably because Fábrega doesn't have the capacity to make something universal out of everything she wants to say.
She has problems contextualizing the movie for example and until the end, it's never quite clear for audience members (especially those who don't speak Spanish) that the movie takes place during the last days of December and once there they will be even more confused by very Costa Rican traditions that onscreen come off as completely different things (camping at the beach is easily mistaken as extreme poverty or even refugee camps).
While this means that the director perhaps didn't intend her movie for foreign audiences, the pseudo metaphysics, draggy narrative and psychological lack of depth in the whole thing, might imply that the only person meant to enjoy and "get" the film was the director herself.