MOVIE REVIEW: The Call (2013)

This is probably the most exciting movie I have watched that stars Halle Berry, who plays a calm and collected 911 operator named Jordan Turner, who is affected by the first murderous rage of a serial killer on a young girl named Leah Templeton Jordan was not able to prevent. Michael Foster is a man who works as a medical representative and has a family with two small children, as a young child, he suffered the death of an older sister which turned out to be an incestuous one.Foster has been killing girls who fit the blonde hair of his sister and scalping them to fit into a mannequin who's head is similar to that of his deceased sister.

Templeton's death greatly affected Jordan and for a time, she did not receive 911 calls. After some time, she somehow recovered and on one occasion, received a distressed call from a young girl named Casey Welson, who is kidnapped from a mall. After Foster's background has been identified, Jordan visits the former house Foster finds and finds a trapdoor. Upon entering, Jordan discovers that the place is being used by Foster to murder his victims. An altercation ensues and Casey is freed. In the ensuing melee, Foster was knocked out and before Jordan could call 911, Casey stopped her. Foster is then found tied and chained to a chair under the former childhood house of Foster that has since burned down and left for good. Jordan and Casey then leave Foster to die inside the unknown location with the alibi that Casey escaped and Jordan found her. Foster was shocked at this and shouts at Jordan to not leave him, at which Jordan replies: "It's already done." These are the same words Foster uttered to Jordan just before Leah Templeton was killed and before Casey's prepaid phone was smashed.

The movie was I should say, crafted to ensure a sustained suspense thrill for almost the entire time Casey was abducted up to the ending. Unlike most suspense thriller flicks, where the element of apprehension, fear and suspense ebbs and flows as the movie runs along, The Call managed to sustain and in fact heighten the thrill and suspense factor up to the end. It is also a plus that the ending is quite unexpected. Casey has learned to toughen it out in as much as Jordan learned to be steely about the entire thing.

I have always liked 911 shows, it's a one program that I really like, the system has helped thousands of people from virtually all sorts of problems. It was even reported at one time that E.R. doctors in one U.S. town dialed 911 because they could not figure out how to manage a patient! I just wish that something of that sort existed in the Philippines.

Overall, a great experience to watch and a tribute to the men and women who make the 911 system an effective service.

MOVIE REVIEW: Warm Bodies (2013)

A unique zombie movie to say the least. For one, it's actually a romantic zombie comedy where a human Julie and "R," a zombie, falls in love with each other. The story begins when Julie and his compatriots raid a place looking for supplies when they encounter R's group of zombies trying to find food. A fight breaks out where all but one of Julie's companions are killed or eaten alive. In fact, Julie's boyfriend was actually eaten by R, or at least his brain was. R likes to eat brains in that he can feel the emotions and experiences of the person who had it. That is actually what happened. R now "feels" the life Julie and Perry had after eating Perry's brain.

R brings Julie to R's favorite place to hang out, an abandoned airplane. R leaves and settles on a convertible where he relives Perry's experiences. Realizing why Julie fears him, he returns to give Julie a blanket. R could only utter a few barely audible words. Julie is perplexed. R is certifiably smitten by Julie and as he lay in a chair opposite Julie, his dead heart suddenly comes alive. The next day, R can now say words more clearly and he looks remarkably better, and is able to act more human-like way again. After requesting food from R, Julie goes out of the plane to escape but encounters a group of zombies in the runway. She runs back under the plane where R finds her and tells her to act like a zombie. Both make it out without an incident and return to the plane where Julie takes a meal.

Julie asks R to take her home, R is apprehensive, being that Julie just came, and wanting to spend more time with Julie, R requests Julie to stay a few days more. As each day progresses, R is becoming appearing more and more better and actually becoming more human - again. After being pursued by Bonies, a group of almost zombies who have irretrievably lost all traces of humanity, and who are fast runners, Julie and R are helped by M, R's best friend. Other zombies encounter the two but let them pass, they too are becoming more and more human.

Julie makes her way back to the enclosed human enclave where the uninfected and surviving humans are holed up. The leader of the enclave is Col Grigio, who is Julie's father. R comes after her and find his way to the place where Julie is staying with a friend. The two plan to sneak R into the enclave and had to do some makeover to make R look more human. Meanwhile, the enclave prepares for war as the Bonies increasingly  move towards the enclave, preparing to overwhelm the enclave. Julie tries to convince Col. Grigio that the zombies can be cured and were in fact turning to being human again. Col. Grigio is not convinced and tries to shoot R but is prevented by Julie's friend, which allows Julie and R to escape.

The zombies and humans unite to fight the Bonies and R becomes fully human again. Which is confirmed only after Col. Grigio shoots R and bleeds in the pool where Julie and R landed while trying to escape the Bonies.  The Bonies were eventually defeated and the zombies slowly learned how to live human lives again. The wall surrounding the enclave was torn down and the contagion was finally eliminated.

This is one movie that blends comedy, romance, zombies and the perennial human theme of love and belongingness. Unlike the typical zombie movies, Warm Bodies will actually make you feel hopeful about the future, about moving on after disasters and about the flexibility of human life. The storyline flows smoothly and seamlessly as the themes of love, romance, war and unity are played in the background. There is violence, but it is creatively employed beyond the mere use of violence for violence sake. Nicholas Hoult made R funny as hell without making him comical and buffonic.

MOVIE REVIEW: Dark Skies (2013)

A family of four is tormented by mysterious events in their house which began with food from the ref getting eaten, but only the vegetables, followed by liquor bottles arranged in a pyramid in the middle of the night, then the house alarm system being activated with all eight sensors tripping at the same time. The incident is somehow connected to the youngest member of the family, Sam, who seems to talk to this mysterious creature called the "Sandman."

The family's problem is exacerbated with mounting bills, the father's continued unemployment, and Sam's mysterious actuations such as shouting in the middle of a playground and sleepwalking in the middle of the night without him knowing about it.In one incident, a platoon of birds hit the family's house all dying as they do.

Daniel, the father of the house, seems to have some sort of an abrasion at the back of his right ear. When his wife observes this, he brushes it off. One night, Daniel sleepwalks  in the middle of the night and is observed by his wife Lacy, who finds him with mouth agape in the backyard suffering a nosebleed. Earlier in the day, Lacy wakes up at 3:15 in the afternoon, missing her appointment with a potential house buyer. In her dream she bangs her head in one of the houses she is selling while talking to potential buyers and wakes up with a forehead abrasion.

The family sinks into deeper trouble as Sam is found to have blue marks around his abdomen while being undressed for a swimming session. On the other hand, Jessie is found to have red marks around his body while playing with a neighbor in the woods. Daniel is suspected of hurting Sam while Jesse's neighbor is suspected by Daniel of "branding" Jesse.Strange things continue to happen in the household. One night Daniel visits Sam's room and while trying to wake him up finds that his eyes have been removed, Daniel is terrified and wakes up from his dream!

Hoping to find answers, Daniel and Lacy consult a certain Edwin Pollard and finds that they are not alone in their experience and that Mr. Pollard can only say that an alien entity, Mr. Pollard calls "the Grays" is "experimenting" on certain humans. With implants being inserted on select humans, which enables the alien entities to control their subjects and renders them virtual robots. Mr. Pollard informs Daniel and Lacy that the Grays will abduct the first member of the family who has experienced the Grays and the only way to prevent such event is to fight them with all one has, to show to the Grays that in order to get one of the members of the family, the Grays will have to fight too. Pollard impressed upon the Barrett's that they will have to make things difficult for the Grays in order to prevent Sam from getting abducted.

The family eventually preps for such eventuality by buying guns and Lacy getting a fierce dog. One night, the Grays attack the family home, with Jesse and Sam being asked by Lacy to hide in one of the rooms. Daniel fights off the Grays as they enter the house, firing off a shot using a shotgun at a bright white light in front of the main door. The family ends up barricading themselves in one room of the house, with the TV flickering in the background and the Grays surrounding them. Jesse is transported to another room in the house alone and sees Sam running away. Jesse chases after him and is again brought to the house Lacy was trying to sell. Jesse moves to the kitchen of said house where he sees his mother bloody on the floor shot by Daniel. Daniel eventually commits suicide. Jesse then sees Sammy running around the house, chasing after him, he comes to a room where he sees his friend and a girl who once kissed him watching TV.  Jesse realizes that everything was just an illusion and he is brought back to the house with Daniel, Lacy and Sammy looking in horror at him as he stands in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by the Grays. He was eventually taken.

Three months later, the family moves to a new house, minus Jesse. Trying to start a new life. As Lacy was unpacking a box, he comes across pictures of Jesse when he was much younger and finds pictures of the family minus Jesse and drawings with Jesse surrounded by the Grays done by Sam. A two-way radio used by Sam and Jesse to tell scary stories before bedtime suddenly hums, Sam answers and hears the voice of Jesse on the other end. The movie then ends.

The movie was a unique take on the sci-fi genre, with value family being given great importance. I don't know if it was even the intention of the writers to do such, but it gave the message that family is indeed everything in once life. For after all has been said and done, it is the family that we can truly rely on. Although s sci-fi flick, it touches upon the perennial themes of the human experience, that families have always been an important part of the human story - and will always be.

The movie was actually an amalgam of the elements that made X-Files famous, with themes from Fringe, Supernatural and even Touch (at least where it concerns the power of family). As for special effects, not much can be seen as the Grays were portrayed as nothing more than shadows lurking in the dark.

MOVIE REVIEW: Stranded (2013)

The movie stars Christian Slater (Col. Gerard Brauchman), Brendan Fehr (Dr Lance Krauss), Amy Matysio (Ava Cameron) and Michael Therriault (Bruce Johns) as astronauts stranded in a moon base after a meteor shower strucks their base, disables their communications equipment and damages the integrity of their base.

The problem starts when Cameron volunteers to fix the damaged ventilation system and picks up a meteor rock. Upon analysis by Dr. Krauss, he discovers that the innermost structure of the rock contains spores of an alien life-form. In the process of conducting research on the spores, Cameron suffers a cut from a test tube containing the spores. Fearful of being quarantined, she keeps this incident to herself. Eventually she suffers hallucinations and within a twenty-four hour period becomes pregnant and gives birth a an aline life-form which eventually escapes and kills Bruce Johns, also taking on his physical form. In the battle to contain the alien life, Dr. Krauss gets killed by the said life form after being trapped in an segregating chamber. In the struggle to escape from the moon base, Col. Brauchman is wounded by the alien life-form and together with Cameron, fails to get into the escape pod. The alien life-form however is able to get into the escape pod and launches himself out of the moon base into earth. Brauchman tries to send a message to Earth to terminate the pods passenger, to no avail as the alien life-form has already assumed a new menacing, semi-human form.

The movie was obviously on a low budget, with the moon base set clearly miniaturized. Poor job was done making the external view of the base look more realistic and not some sort of mega-toyland. The plot was not that exciting as the movie was based on Cameron basically trying to prove to the rest of the crew that she gave birth to some sort of a creature, although initially she was indeed hallucinating about many things. Acting was ok, but what can you expect, the story did not allow the actors to do more with their characters. For a sci-fi movie, I would rate the movie a C-. Alien effects were basic and "used."

The Evolving Face of Islamic Terrorism

The recent London murder of a British soldier, Lee Rigby, is a testament to the shifting face of Islamic terrorism. From the centrally planned terror economics of the pre and post 9/11 period, it has now evolved into the independently operated cells that it is today, no doubt because the relentless pursuit of drone warfare against elements of al-Qaeda's corporate structure as well as its organizational offhshoots has rendered them on the run 24/7.

Some pundits would question the propriety of labeling the murder of Rigby as an "act of terror" in the sense that terror is most often defined as an activity employed to coerce governments to do a certain act. As seen by the widely circulating videos of the attacker immediately after Rigby's murder, it is clear and apparent in no uncertain terms that indeed the act was to compel the U.K. government to cease and desist in its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So in that sense it was a terror attack and a terrorist activity. Organizationally however, terrorism is usually understood to be an activity by two or more men plotting to murder innocent civilians for the purpose of compelling a government from performing or ceasing to perform a certain or group of activities that the said government would not otherwise do. Without a doubt, the act was an act of terror and the lone murderer is nothing but a terrorist. Period.

An article written by Frida Ghitis published on Time.com caught my attention in that she asserted that "Some will rush to blame Muslims or Islam for what happened, but it's important to be clear and not to mince words. Islam is not the enemy. Muslims are not the enemy. Terrorism is not the enemy."

Ghitis also adds: "The enemy is the radical Islamist ideology that justifies any atrocity committed for political motives. The enemies are the people who promote this dogma and encourage others to engage in actions that offend and assault our humanity - and theirs."

Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, the Dutch former parliamentarian, author, speaker and renowned critic of Islam once said that Islam is a religion with not only a religious goal but also a social, political and cultural drive. Indeed, the history of Islam is a history of the convergence of its socio-religious-political and cultural influence in the lands it has conquered. Sharia is its socio-political side, the Koran is its religious foundation and Arabic is its cultural driving force. That is why Islamic scholars and religious schools would always teach the Koran, and read it, in its Arabic form only.

If we look therefore at the history of Islam since its founding in the 7th century, we will see that Islam is a militant religion by heart. It has always insisted on conquering non-Muslim lands and subjugating it under Sharia law. The Prophet Mohammad is a testament to Islams radical nature when he conducted at least six (6) major military operations in his lifetime, all by the way were successful. The spread of Islam from the Arabian peninsula was achieved by military conquest and not merely by the persuasive powers of its proselytizers.

Ghitis therefore is wrong to say that the problem is not Islam - Islam is the problem, at least its fundamentals are. As described earlier, Islam is a religion that does not only have a religious pursuit, it has socio-political and cultural drives too. Western writers would always insist that Islam is not the enemy, despite evidence to the contrary, they want to believe that Islam really is a religion of peace. It is not, and never was. Unless this is clear to western power brokers, then solutions cannot be defined because the problem is not properly identified.

Ghitis also asserts that the "problem is the radical Islamist ideology" when in fact the problem is the fundamentals of Islam. Islam has no radical Islamist ideology, it is a radical ideology. It's fundamentals are radical. There is no such thing as a mild Islam, only a non-practiced Islam. President Mohammad Morsy once stated in a television interview conducted by CNN that "there is no such a thing as an Islamic democracy." And unfortunately, he is right. To observe the Islamic faith is to be radical - because its tenets as expressed in the Koran are radical fundamentally.

The solution therefore is not to undermine "Islamic radicalism." There is no such thing in my opinion. The so-called Islamic radicals are really practicing the Islamic faith as its is written in the Koran - open in its interpretation in many cases nevertheless but certain in others such as the subjugation of women, murder of homosexuals and the conversion of infidels into its fold. The best antidote to the rise of Islamic terror is therefore the promotion of secular values, ideas, and principles in Islamic countries. Secularization is the best hope to combat Islamic terrorism, not compartmentalizing Islamic terrorism as different from Islam. This is easier said than done, Islam is notorious for its resistance to secular values and ideas. Even in Turkey, probably the  most secular and progressive of Islamic countries, legislation had to be enacted to force women not to wear the veil - and by extension, tame the radical nature of Islamic ideology.

Unless creative solutions are made available regarding the best manner of secularizing Islamic societies, then we will have to live with a militantly Islamic world in the next half a century, or even more. Unless of course an internal reformation occurs in Islamic societies regarding its militant nature reminiscent of the renaissance in Europe during the 16th to the 17th centuries that opened up the rigidity of Catholicism, the world will be in for a long, really long fight that can be comparable the 100 Years War between Catholicism and Protestantism in Europe in the last 1000 years.

DOCUMENTARY REVIEW: Religulous by Bill Maher

Watching this movie is like a reminiscing Michael Moore's epic documentary  Fahrenheit 9/11, dubbed by wikipedia as the highest grossing documentary of all time. But whereas Fahrenheit 9/11 talks about the politics of the Dubya's presidency, Religulous is its religious  equivalent.

Bill Maher explores the panoply of religious traditions in different parts of the world and one can see the irony of faith - it seeks to define the afterlife on the basis of the opinions written on ancient, culturally biased practices upon which the faith was born. As such, it is fundamentally prone to create rifts than build bridges. History has shown humanity how such beliefs have breed violence, death and suffering.

At one point, Maher points out that the ideas of Christianity concerning Jesus, his virgin birth, baptism, circumcision, suffering, death and resurrection is not even original. It brings to mind Christopher Hitchens assertion in his book "God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" that monotheistic religions, really referring here to the Abrahamic traditions, is nothing more than a "plagiarism of a plagiarism, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents."

I think the most important insight that the documentary inculcates is the utter lack of common sense, rationality and prudence that religious texts fundamentally contains and the constant denigration of human nature in order to cater to the vain glorious fetish of a jealous, murderous god who is actually a sadomasochist just to make the point that he created man with a free will to believe in him and his so-called commands and yet for man to choose otherwise is a sure fire way to eternal damnation. What a god he is indeed if he were truly to exist!

The docu clearly presents that finding solutions to the problems of this world is more noble and humane than obsessing about the delusions and magic of an afterlife.

TV SHOW REVIEW: 666 Park Avenue S01E13 (Season Finale)

I love this show. It was exciting, surprising, dramatic, scary, brutal, and actually insightful. Unfortunately, the season finale ends with a cliff hanger, and the story will never be continued as the show was cancelled after only one season.

After all has been said and done, the show's character Jane Van Veen finally chooses the side of evil, all in the fulfillment of her dreams, hopes and aspirations. Greed after all, and the especially the greed for wealth, power, money, fame and success at all cost - and yeah, for love too, is all too enshrined in the apex of self-glory.

The show explores the human drive for meaning, success and power over all others. The pursuit of worldly aspirations pushed to the limit, even at the expense of one's humanity. All too human, all too human. Gavin Durant has it all, power, apparently temporal and supernatural, dispensing people's hopes and dreams, at a price that is, and the price is the sacrifice of themselves, their loved ones, everything one values. Beside Gavin is his calculating wife Olivia, a woman who is classy, aristocratic, steely, ambitious and very supportive of her husband.

Henry Martin is the loving partner and soon husband of Jane who rises from  virtual unknown to become the City's newest council member with an ambition to be a mayor one day. The show is actually a stark reminder of how success, or its blind pursuit, can ultimately destroy one's life. The show too is a testament to the political misfortunes of some American politicians like former Presidential candidate John Edwards and his affair with a woman while his wife was undergoing cancer treatment - not so discreetly incarnated in the portrayal of Councilman Sullivan's downfall.

Riveting show, unfortunately cut short. Nevertheless, it's worth a watch and offers invaluable insights into the recesses of human nature.