Kill your Darlings (4 Stars)

True Stories #20

Name: Allen Ginsberg

Lived: 3 June 1926 – 5 April 1997

Film dates: 1943 to 1945

Film made in 2013

"Like all lovers and bad people, I am a poet".

This quote from the film is interesting. I noticed today for the first time that the English subtitles are different to the spoken text. In the subtitles the words are "like all lovers and sad people", and this is the quote listed in IMDB's quote section. I can guarantee you, Daniel Radcliffe says "bad people". It seems like he blundered, but I like the quote the way he spoke it.

"Kill your Darlings" is about Allen Ginsberg's formative years at university. He studied Literature at Columbia University, but he was expelled before graduating. (Note: he was re-admitted to Columbia University a year later, after the events of the film).

The main purpose of the film is to show Allen's relationship with his best friend, Lucien Carr. Lucien was a rebel, as far as literature was concerned. He wanted the banned books of the day to become compulsory reading at university. Lucien encouraged Allen to share his rebellion. The problem is, Lucien was a poor student with no writing abilities. He only had good grades because a former university professor, David Kammerer, wrote his essays for him. David and Lucien had been lovers, and now David was stalking him, working as the university janitor so he could be close to him. Lucien rejected his advances as a lover, but he still profited from David's help with his essays.

The film ends with Lucien killing David. Allen writes a defence for Lucien, which Lucien rejects. Then Allen submits the defence as his end of term paper. He's warned that if he doesn't retract the paper he'll be expelled, but he refuses to back down. The problem is that the essay dealt with the subject of homosexuality, which was a taboo subject at university.

Today is the third time that I watched the film. I can't say that it helps me understand Allen Ginsberg any better than I already knew him from his poetry, but it gives me a fascinating insight into American university life in the 1950's. I wish I'd been there. I wouldn't have been a rebel, but I would have enjoyed sitting on the sidelines watching the rebellion.

Success Rate:  - 3.5

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TV Series: Dexter Season 8

This is the eighth and final season of "Dexter". At least, it was planned to be the last season when it was aired. Eight years later a new series called "Dexter: New Blood" was aired on television. You can't keep a good psychopath down.

If he is a psychopath, that is. In the eighth season he seems to be losing the urge to kill. His desire for a normal married life is becoming his greatest wish. He lets victims go, with fatal results. It's as if the viewer is being asked whether it's best to kill those who deserve to die.

Season 7 ended on a cliffhanger, seemingly. Season 8 begins six months later. We pick up in casual conversation how Captain Maria LaGuerta's death was explained. Dexter is an expert at falsifying evidence, as we've seen repeatedly in the series so far. In most cases he hides the evidence of a killer, so that he can catch him before the police can identify him.

There's an unexpected twist in Season 8. Dexter meets Dr. Evelyn Vogel, a psychotherapist who was a friend of Dexter's father. She's an expert in psychopaths who used to work closely with the Miami Metro Police Department as an advisor. Harry Morgan turned to her when he realised that his son was a psychopath. Rather than institutionalise him, she recommended that he should be taught to channel his killing urges to do something useful. It was Evelyn, not Harry, who created Harry's Code. Evelyn sees herself as Dexter's spiritual mother.

Dexter is hunting for a killer who he identifies as Zach Hamilton, the son of a rich businessman in Miami. Dexter wants to kill him, but then finds that Zach is one of Evelyn's patients. Evelyn asks Dexter to help him channel his killing urges, so that he can also become a force for good. Dexter takes Zach under his wing, calling him his intern. I'm not sure whether or not that's intended to be a joke.

Zach's a quick learner, but Dexter has trouble trusting him.

Hannah McKay returns after escaping police custody in Season 7. She's changed her name in the meantime. She's now Maggie Castner, and she's married a casino owner with $700 million. A woman with her beauty can angle a rich man.

She never loved her husband. She just wanted his money. The only man she really loves is Dexter, so she has to get her husband out of the way. Usually she poisons her victims, but this time it was a spontaneous kill, so she just grabbed the nearest knife.

There are no complaints from Dexter. He loves her too much to punish her for committing yet another murder. He even helps her dispose of her husband's body.

Is it love or lust or a bit of both? Whatever it is, Dexter has difficulty maintaining eye contact.

Dexter takes Hannah and Zach on a road trip. This scene makes me laugh.

This scene could have come from a Quentin Tarantino film.

And now the family's all together. It gets funnier all the time. It's like Evelyn Vogel is hosting a serial killer convention.

Debra is not amused.

A lot of Season 8 deals with Debra. After shooting Maria LaGuerta at the end of Season 7 she's fallen apart. She quit the police force and she's taking drugs. She's got herself a new job working for a detective agency. It pays better, and she needs the extra cash for her new habits.

I haven't mentioned Angel's sister Jamie until now, even though she's been a regular character since Season 6. She's become the child minder (nanny) for Dexter's son Harrison. She's also in a relationship with Detective Joey Quinn. I've lost count of how many relationships Quinn has had.

A surprise addition to the cast is Niki, Vince Masuka's daughter. It's a surprise to the viewers, and an even bigger surprise to Vince, because he had no idea she even existed. She works as a topless waitress in a sports bar. It's the first time Vince has ever complained about a girl being naked.

The season ties up all the loose ends. Dexter fakes his death so that he can start a new life as far away from Miami as possible. Is he still killing in his new location? We'll have to watch the new series to answer that question.

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TV Series: Dexter Season 7

Merry Christmas! It's Christmas for Dexter and his family anyway. Before you start complaining, let me remind you that shops in Germany have been selling Christmas items since the middle of October.

I took this photo on 26th October. The shelves were stocked with Christmas candy while the Halloween candy was still on sale. Is it this bad in other countries?

Season 6 ended on a cliffhanger. Season 7 starts immediately after Debra witnessed her brother killing someone for the first time. Dexter makes stupid lies on the spur of the moment to justify what he did. He starts off calling the killing of Travis Marshall self-defence, which is a feeble excuse when Travis is lying wrapped in plastic on a church altar. It's only half way through the first episode that Dexter openly admits that he's a serial killer. How many people has he killed? Dexter fans have compiled a list of his confirmed killings, and Travis was the 126th.

There's some confusion about the number of people he's killed. At the beginning of Season 5 Dexter says he's killed 67 people, but that's not correct. He'd killed at least 96 people at this point. I'll write more about it in a future post.

The main opponent that Dexter has to face in Season 7 is the Ukrainian gang boss Isaak Sirko, but the season is more about Debra's development. She slowly learns to accept Dexter's nature and the justice that he carries out outside of the law. She even comes to the point where she asks Dexter to kill someone. Ironically, Dexter refuses. He's fallen in love with a serial killer called Hannah McKay. It's more accurate to call it lust. Dexter isn't capable of romantic love, although he does feel comfortable in a relationship with Hannah. She understands him, and he doesn't have to pretend to be something he isn't.

She's beautiful but deadly. She killed her first person when she was 15, stabbing a woman to death. As she grew older she preferred to poison her victims. It's not as messy.

She owns a shop that sells flowers, so she can grow her own poison at home.

Beautiful flowers and an even more beautiful woman.

I made dozens of screenshots of Hannah, too many to include in this post. Here's a small selection.

Dexter has to watch what she puts in his food.

The actress Yvonne Strahovski has a face which can charm any man. Even Dexter.

Hannah is too much for Dexter to handle. He attempts to kill her, but she straddles him and holds Dexter's own knife to his neck.

Merry Christmas?

There are other beautiful women in the TV series. Dexter's boss at Miami Metro is Captain Maria LaGuerta. In this season she begins to suspect that Dexter is a killer. The only person she confides in is Debra, not realising that she's protecting her brother.

Dexter's step-daughter Astor only appears in one episode. She's 14, but she looks older. Girls grow up fast.

She's growing up too fast. In this episode we find out that she's smoking pot. She claims that it's legal in some American states, but Dexter points out that for 14-year-olds it's illegal everywhere.

Debra sees things differently. She allows Astor to smoke pot when Dexter isn't around.

I like Debra, although I find her bad language offensive. She calls herself a potty mouth. Here's a subtitled sequence in a lift.

Do people really talk like that? It's awful!

Season 7 is a turning point for Sergeant Angel Batista. He's thinking about retiring from the police force to run a restaurant. He buys the restaurant, but he doesn't have it in him to quit the police. He runs the restaurant after hours. A second job.

Angel and Maria are arguing about Dexter. She's the only one who thinks he's a killer.

For all of the series' high quality, it still has faults. Look at the online news report. The last two paragraphs in the first column are repeated in the second column. That's sloppy. (Click on the photo to enlarge it).

This is an image that's frequently repeated in flashbacks. When Dexter was three he witnessed his mother being killed with a chainsaw. Detective Harry Morgan found him sitting in a pool of blood. It's suggested that this trauma is what made him a psychopath. Is that possible? I was always of the opinion that psychopaths are born as psychopaths and can't change.

Season 6 ended with a cliffhanger, and Season 7 also ends with a cliffhanger. Season 8 is the final season. I regret that it ended so soon. Maybe I need to watch it again.

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John and the Hole (2 Stars)

This is the 29th film in the Stuttgart Fantasy Film Festival.

Every year at the festival there's one film that excites people so much that it sells out. Films like "Mandy" and "IT Chapter One". They were both excellent films. This year the only film that's sold out is "John and the Hole".

So what's it about?

A 13-year-old boy called John finds a hole in the woods near his house. It's a partially constructed bunker that was never completed. It's impossible to get in or out without a long ladder. John drugs his family (father. mother and sister) and traps them in the hole. He leaves them in the hole for days, maybe weeks. 

There's also a meta-story. A mother tells her 12-year-old daughter Lily the story of John and the Hole. Then she tells her that she's leaving and Lily will have to live by herself.

That's it. That's the whole film. When it was over I was stunned by the stupidity. If the director was trying to give us a message, I missed it. Whatever it was that drew the crowds into the cinema, they were disappointed, based on the reactions of the people sitting around me. Some hazarded a guess as to what the film meant, but nobody liked it.

TV Series: Dexter Season 6

The sixth season of "Dexter" is the most controversial season of the whole series. It deals with Christianity, the world's largest religion. It's a religion that's inspired millions to love and millions to kill. It deals with people on both sides of the dividing line. Dexter, as a non-believer is caught in the middle. He makes friends with a religious man who he thinks might help him find salvation. At the same time he's hunting the religious killers who're trying to bring about the end of the world.

Dexter tries to find a place for his son Harrison in a Catholic kindergarten. The nun naively asks Dexter about his faith. She's confused when he says he doesn't believe in anything. I understand her. As a nun she lives in an isolated environment with others who share her faith. At the kindergarten the parents also believe, or at least they pretend to believe in order to make a good impression. Dexter isn't a hypocrite. He's open about his lack of faith. The nun doesn't condemn him. She's just amazed that a person might not believe in anything. She doesn't understand Dexter.

Dexter's initial reaction is to reject the kindergarten as unsuitable for his son. The next day he changes his mind. Just because he doesn't believe in God, it doesn't mean he wants his son to be a nonbeliever. Dexter doesn't want his son to grow up like himself.

The most fascinating person for me in Season 6  is Samuel Wright, known as Brother Sam. He used to be a thief. During a robbery he shot someone, and he was charged with murder, but the case was dismissed on a technicality. He interpreted this as God giving him a second chance, so he turned his life around. He became a Christian, and he began to preach to other criminals. He opened a car repair shop which only hired former criminals who had become Christians.

Dexter is dubious because he doesn't believe a man can change so much. In fact, all of his colleagues at the police station think that Brother Sam is only pretending to be a Christian. Dexter approaches him by delivering his car for repair. At first he intends to kill Brother Sam, but he sees that Sam is really a changed man. The two become close friends. When Dexter asks Sam how he lost the evil in his being, Sam replies that it's still in him and he has to fight it every day. Dexter tries to find a way to apply Brother Sam's new way of life to himself.

Travis Marshall and Professor James Gellar kneel in prayer. They see themselves as the chosen ones to bring about the end of the world. They consider themselves to be the two witnesses named in the Book of Revelation. In preparation, they commit a series of murders to create tableaus, pictures that are based on the prophecies in the last book of the Bible. Together they're called the Doomsday Killers.

Mike Anderson is a detective who's been transferred from Chicago. He's evidently a religious man, because he immediately recognises the religious symbolism of the tableaus. He's called to explain the connection between the murders and the Bible.

Dexter sits reading the Bible, hoping to find clues about the next actions of the Doomsday Killers. This doesn't mean he's starting to find faith. On the other hand, when his son is in hospital with appendicitis, he prays to God. It's an awkward prayer, and he doesn't know if anyone is listening, but he's talking to God, inspired by his friend Brother Sam.

In this season Dexter's sister Debra is promoted from detective to lieutenant. She looks very smart in her uniform.

But I prefer Debra in her casual clothing.

This is one of the Doomsday Killers, Travis Marshall, played by Colin Hanks. He looks so similar to his father that you'd know who he is even if you didn't know his name.

Travis Marshall, killing in the name of God.

In the season we see that Travis draws large paintings in preparation for the murders.

Dexter is shocked to see himself portrayed as the Beast.

This is the whole painting. 

The paintings were actually made by the artist Dave Lebow and digitally enlarged to become wall murals. He's an incredible artist. I'm impressed. Referring to the speed with which Travis seemingly paints, he says "I'm not that brilliant". Dave shouldn't be so modest. Brilliance isn't just about speed. I consider him to be brilliant.

Here are a few examples of the paintings used in the series. Click to enlarge them. The paintings are worth looking at.

The Whore of Babylon

The Seven Angels

Suffering

The Plague of Locusts

The Plague of Locusts (Close Up)

The Four Horsemen

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