Unconfirmed Reports (S05E02)

Airdate: January 13th 2008

Written by: William F. Zorzi Directed by: Ernest Dickerson

Running Time: 58 minutes

Season Five of The Wire arrived as a profound test of endurance – for its audience, its characters, and crucially, its creators. Where the preceding four seasons demanded patience through intricate, slow-burn narratives dissecting institutions, Season Five confronted viewers with a soul-crushing accumulation of bleakness, the logical endpoint of systemic rot laid bare over years. The streets of Baltimore and the lives within them seemed to have reached a terminal point of decay. Yet the burden fell even heavier upon Simon and his team: tasked with delivering a fitting, resonant conclusion to one of television’s most ambitious sagas, they were handed the poisoned chalice of a shortened season, its narrative scope necessarily constrained by external realities. It is within this crucible of heightened expectation and diminished resources that the second episode, Unconfirmed Reports, emerges – a flawed but fascinating specimen. It delivers what would have been the series’ most audacious, outrageous plot twist had it occurred earlier, yet its execution reveals the very tensions inherent in Season Five’s impossible mission: the struggle to balance thematic closure, character resolution, and institutional critique within a compressed framework, often resulting in narrative missteps and unsettling ambiguities.

The episode’s opening moments starkly illustrate the season’s pervasive, suffocating despair. Marlo Stanfield, initially operating under the misapprehension that the Major Crime Unit remains a threat, swiftly grasps the vacuum left by its disbandment. The surveillance operation, however flawed, was the sole institutional counterweight preventing Marlo’s absolute hegemony over West Baltimore through unrelenting, psychopathic violence. With it gone, the leash snaps. Marlo unleashes Snoop, Chris Partlow, and their terrifyingly efficient young protégés – O-Dog and the conflicted Michael Lee – upon the streets. The target? Junebug, whose sole transgression was the mere rumour of publicly questioning Marlo’s sexual orientation. In Marlo’s world, such lèse-majesté, even whispered, demands the ultimate penalty. The ensuing assault on Junebug’s home is chillingly clinical: a meticulously planned massacre where Junebug and his entire family are executed. Only two children survive – a boy spared solely because Michael, despite his conditioning, cannot pull the trigger on a child escaping, and a young child who evades death by hiding in a closet, later discovered by Kima Greggs during investigation. The sheer, casual brutality underscores how utterly the social contract has dissolved in West Baltimore, leaving only terror as governance.

Emboldened by this unchecked power, Marlo’s ambition escalates further. He attempts a dangerous power play against Proposition Joe, seeking direct contact with the elusive Vondas and the Greeks. To facilitate this, he visits Avon Barksdale in Jessup, leveraging his newfound wealth to recruit the incarcerated kingpin as a go-between to Sergei Matalov, the Russian enforcer within Vondas’ organisation. This scene is rich with irony and shifting loyalties. Avon, once consumed by bitter rivalry with Marlo, now sits contentedly within his own prison empire, the old hatreds seemingly dissolved by the shared reality of their diminished circumstances and the larger, more immediate threat Marlo poses to Joe. Avon’s willingness to broker this connection speaks volumes about the pragmatic, survivalist calculus that governs even the most hardened players when the institutional ground shifts beneath them.

Amidst this descent into chaos, Bubbles’ struggle for redemption offers a fragile counterpoint, though one fraught with its own painful ambiguities. Post-rehab, he diligently attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings, even finding moments of dark humour in recounting his past as a cautionary tale. Yet his sponsor, Wallon, delivers an uncomfortable truth: true recovery demands Bubbles publicly confront his role in Sherrod’s death – a burden he remains psychologically incapable of bearing. Instead, he seeks absolution through philantrophic deeds, volunteering at a soup kitchen. This evasion, while understandable, highlights the crushing weight of guilt and the near-impossibility of genuine atonement within a system offering no pathways for it.

Conversely, the institution ostensibly at the heart of Season Five, The Baltimore Sun, feels strangely peripheral in Unconfirmed Reports, treated almost as an afterthought. The primary storyline involves cub reporter Scott Templeton being assigned a seemingly innocuous column about an Orioles game. Struggling for inspiration, he instead presents city editor Gus Haynes with a heartwarming vignette about a 13-year-old wheelchair-bound boy who failed to raise enough money to attend the game. Haynes, a character widely interpreted as Simon’s fictional alter ego embodying journalistic integrity, is immediately suspicious – the lack of corroborating photographs, specific quotes, or verifiable details rings alarm bells. Yet his misgivings are swiftly overruled by executive editor James Whitting (Sam Freed), prioritising a positive human-interest story over rigorous verification. This scene, while establishing Templeton’s emerging mendacity, feels undercooked. More damningly, it fails to leverage the Sun’s potential as a central narrative engine, reducing the newspaper’s institutional critique to a single, somewhat schematic plotline about journalistic ethics under pressure. The episode misses the opportunity to deeply explore the paper’s internal power struggles, resource constraints, or the broader cultural shift undermining its relevance – themes promised for the season.

The episode’s true narrative pivot, however, lies in Jimmy McNulty’s irreversible descent. His simmering frustration with the glacial pace of justice, the disbanding of Major Crimes, and the sheer bureaucratic inertia of the BPD has reached breaking point. He returns to heavy drinking, suffers debilitating hangovers, and is reduced to taking the bus to crime scenes due to the department’s lack of functioning vehicles – a humiliating symbol of institutional collapse. The catalyst crystallises during a visit to the morgue. He meets Baltimore County detective Nancy Porter (Kristie Dale Sanders) and sees her partner, Kevin Infante (Anthony Mangano) arguing with wa woman over addict found with strangulations marks being not being treated as homicide, She explsins that those strangulation marks were made by paramedics mishandling the corpse during resuscitation attempts. Later, in a bar, McNulty listens as colleagues lament the media’s indifference to the hundreds of Black victims whose deaths go unreported, contrasting it with the national frenzy over a single missing white woman like Natalee Holloway. This confluence of experiences – the medical misinterpretation, the systemic devaluation of Black lives, the utter futility of his investigation into Marlo – ignites a dangerous idea. Following a final, desperate plea to his FBI contact Fitz, which fails when US Attorney (Robert Urla) refuses to act, McNulty makes his fateful decision: he will fabricate a serial killer preying on homeless men, staging a natural death as a strangulation to force media attention, resources, and political will onto the Marlo Stanfield case. The moral abyss he chooses to step into is presented not as sudden madness, but as the inevitable, horrifying culmination of years of institutional betrayal and personal despair.

Written by William F. Zorzi, a veteran Baltimore Sun reporter and Simon’s colleague, "Unconfirmed Reports" possesses undeniable strengths, particularly in its character moments – Bubbles’ fragile sobriety, Marlo’s chilling expansion of power, and the palpable sense of McNulty’s unraveling. However, it falls significantly short of the series’ top-tier episodes. Its most glaring flaw is a lack of cohesive focus. The Sun storyline feels tacked on rather than integral; the Junebug massacre, while powerful, lacks the deeper contextual exploration afforded to similar violence in earlier seasons; and McNulty’s pivotal decision, though thematically necessary, unfolds with a rushed intensity that sacrifices some of the meticulous character groundwork the show usually provides. The episode tries to juggle too many critical narrative threads within its runtime, resulting in several feeling undernourished.

This lack of resolution is most acutely felt in the episode’s final, deeply problematic scene. McNulty stages the "murder" of a homeless man. Crucially, Bunk Moreland is present. Bunk, portrayed throughout the series as McNulty’s moral compass, the voice of weary conscience and procedural integrity, refuses to intervene as McNulty plants evidence and manipulates the scene. The ambiguity is deliberate but ultimately unsatisfying: does Bunk suspect the truth and choose complicity out of loyalty or shared despair? Is he genuinely oblivious? The script and direction fail to provide sufficient clues, leaving the audience stranded in uncertainty rather than offering the profound moral complexity the moment demands. This is a narrative evasion, a consequence of the season’s compressed timeline preventing the necessary character beats to make Bunk’s potential complicity believable or thematically resonant.

The episode’s continuity with the prison storyline via Avon Barksdale’s return offers a moment of fascinating, if slightly baffling, character evolution, showcasing how power dynamics shift within the microcosm of the penal system. However, another scene feels jarringly anachronistic for modern audiences. Haynes, working late, wakes in the middle of the night consumed by doubt about a statistic in a pending story, rushing to verify it before the presses roll. While this perfectly captures the pre-digital era’s journalistic culture – where errors were permanent in print and midnight fact-checking was a sacred, if exhausting, ritual – it risks seeming quaint or even absurd to viewers accustomed to the constant, stealthy corrections of the online news cycle. The weight of that moment, the tangible pressure of irrevocable print, is largely lost without context the episode fails to provide.

Furthermore, the season’s perceived creative strain manifests in a scene that feels less like homage and more like unacknowledged repetition. The detail of the young girl surviving the Junebug massacre by hiding in a closet is a direct lift from Damage Done, a pivotal 1996 episode of Homicide: Life on the Street (on which Simon worked). While Simon’s work often pays tribute to Homicide, the reuse here, stripped of its original context and emotional weight, feels less like a meaningful echo and more like a narrative shortcut born of time pressure. It highlights a certain fatigue in Season Five’s storytelling, where the urgency of conclusion sometimes overrides the meticulous originality of earlier seasons.

Unconfirmed Reports is thus a microcosm of Season Five’s inherent contradictions. It contains moments of raw power – Marlo’s unchecked reign of terror, Bubbles’ quiet torment, McNulty’s catastrophic choice – that resonate deeply with The Wire’s core themes. Yet, it is hampered by the very constraints it embodies: a narrative stretched thin, key storylines underdeveloped (The Sun), critical character moments rendered ambiguous to the point of frustration (Bunk), and occasional echoes of past glories that feel derivative rather than inspired. It delivers the season’s central, outrageous twist – McNulty’s fabrication – with the necessary grim logic, but struggles to fully support the immense thematic weight it carries within the compressed framework. It is not a bad episode; it is a necessary, often compelling, but ultimately flawed one, bearing the unmistakable scars of a masterpiece attempting the near-impossible task of concluding its own profound, sprawling critique under duress.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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👋🏼 Hello, welcome to my review/opinion. This time, I'm here to talk to you about a series that I really liked.

“My Lady Jane” offers us a reimagining of the life of Jane Grey, who was proclaimed queen but was overthrown after only nine days in power and subsequently executed after being accused of treason. But what if Jane's story had been different?

Jane Grey is an intelligent girl, forced by her mother to marry a stranger for convenience: Lord Guildford Dudley, who harbors a dangerous secret. However, what begins as a simple marriage of convenience quickly turns into a struggle and conspiracy for the throne of England.

This series combines comedy, drama, romance, and a touch of fantasy. I had a lot of fun watching it; its eight episodes kept me completely hooked. The narrator, who interjects with witty and funny comments, is one of the best parts of the series. In addition, the animations used to explain certain things add extra value.

The chemistry between Jane and Guildford is excellent, and the actors did a great job. Emily Bader plays a strong Jane, a protagonist with a lot of personality and character, especially considering the historical period in which the series is set.

The supporting characters complement the story very well; I genuinely wanted to know what would happen to them. In addition, the series manages to balance the more dramatic moments so that it can be taken seriously, without sacrificing the comedy. In short, if you're looking for a story that guarantees a good time, “My Lady Jane” is a totally safe bet.

Extra:

• The soundtrack is excellent.
• It's perfect for binge-watching in one day.
• The series is based on the book, “My Lady Jane” by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows.

👋🏼 Holaa bienvenidos a mi reseña/opinión, en esta oportunidad les vengo a hablar de una serie que me gustó mucho.

"My Lady Jane" nos ofrece una reinvención de la vida de Jane Grey, quien fue proclamada reina, pero fue derrocada tras solo nueve días de mandato y posteriormente, ejecutada tras ser acusada de traición. ¿Pero qué pasaría si la historia de Jane hubiera sido distinta?

Jane Grey es una chica inteligente, obligada por su madre a casarse por conveniencia con un desconocido: Lord Guildford Dudley, quien guarda un peligroso secreto. Sin embargo, lo que comienza como un simple matrimonio por conveniencia se transforma rápidamente en una lucha y conspiración por el trono de Inglaterra.

Esta serie combina comedia, drama, romance y un toque de fantasía. Me divertí muchísimo; sus 8 episodios me mantuvieron completamente enganchada. El narrador, que interviene con comentarios ingeniosos y divertidos, es de lo mejor de la serie. Además, las animaciones para explicar ciertas cosas le añaden un valor adicional.

La química entre Jane y Guildford es buenísima, los actores hicieron un excelente trabajo. Emily Bader interpreta a una Jane fuerte, una protagonista con mucha personalidad y carácter, especialmente considerando la época histórica en que se ambienta la serie.

Los personajes secundarios complementan muy bien la historia, quería saber genuinamente que pasaría con ellos. Además, la serie logra equilibrar los momentos más dramáticos para ser tomada en serio, sin sacrificar la comedia. En resumen, si estás buscando una historia que te garantice un rato de entretenimiento, "My Lady Jane" es una opción totalmente segura.

Extra:

• El soundtrack es muy bueno.
• Es perfecta para maratonear en un día.
• La serie está basada en el libro, “My Lady Jane” de Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton y Jodi Meadows.

• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1457767/
• Platform: PRIME VIDEO

Rottentomatoes Rating

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Hola mi gente espero que todos esten super bien, feliz inicio de semana para todos y feliz viernes, la ediciòn de hoy, espero que sea de su total agrado.

“Tres destinos” fue producida por Venevisión en Venezuela, escrita por Humberto "Kiko" Olivieri. Esta obra llega a mediados de los años ochenta con un enfoque centrado en jóvenes de clase humilde que enfrentan decisiones que cambian sus vidas, aportando una mirada fresca sobre la movilidad social, el amor y el destino.

-Título original: Tres Destinos. -País de origen: Venezuela. -Canal: Venevisión. -Año de emisión: 1983 (aunque algunas fuentes indican 1981). -Guion: Humberto “Kiko” Olivieri. -Protagonistas: Flor Núñez como Luciana Cárdenas, Franklin Virgüez como José Ángel, Félix Loreto como Alejo. -Tema Musical: Luciana compuesto por Victor Jimenez.

Luciana Cárdenas estudia psicología y aspira a superarse; José Ángel trabaja como taxista y planea casarse con Luciana. Su padre, Cecilio, desea que ella sea profesional antes de pensar en matrimonio. Mientras tanto, Alejo pretende cortejarla, aunque él mismo revela tener problemas de intimidad. Josef Ángel es luego involucrado sin saberlo en una operación de contrabando en la fábrica donde trabaja de vigilante, y accidentalmente termina matando al padre de Luciana. Las vidas de los protagonistas entonces se ven marcadas por culpa, amor, destino y consecuencia.

“Tres destinos” se distingue por su retrato bastante realista de los jóvenes venezolanos de clase media-baja de la época, enfrentando no sólo el amor sino la presión social, la responsabilidad, y la culpa. Las actuaciones de Flor Núñez, Franklin Virgüez y Félix Loreto permiten una identificación clara del público con los personajes. El guion de Olivieri evita caer en únicamente lo melodramático puro al presentar un conflicto moral profundo: un acto involuntario que trastoca vidas, y el peso de la reparación del daño emocional. Desde el punto de vista de producción, la historia ambientada en fábricas, talleres, barrios populares contrastó con anteriores novelas que se centraban más en clases altas, lo que contribuyó a su frescura en su momento.

“Tres destinos” es una telenovela destacada por ser una obra que mezcla melodrama con reflexión social, y que pone en pantalla la realidad de jóvenes que “quieren más” y se enfrentan al costo de sus decisiones. Su enfoque sobre destino, culpa y justicia emocional la transforma en un buen ejemplo de telenovela contemporánea de su época.

Bueno mi gente bella, espero que sea de su agrado esta ediciòn de hoy, como siempre les digo, que seguimos rememorando las grandes producciones dramaticas de la tv Venezolana, y sin dudar alguna esta novela es una de ellas. Bendiciones.

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When discussing television’s Golden Age today, it is difficult to avoid often unflattering comparisons with Hollywood’s Golden Age. This includes studios that, deservedly or not, stand out as institutions of those eras. In our case, it is HBO, the American company that was among the first to recognise the potential of the new cable medium and, by breaking the constraints of content and form, gradually built a brand that would be enthusiastically embraced by all frustrated with the cookie-cutter output and censorship of cinemas and conventional television networks. In this regard, it is no longer alone today, but by paving the way for AMC, Netflix and other studios, HBO can now afford to spend $100 million or other previously unimaginable sums on a pilot or full television series seasons, distinguishing itself in many ways much like MGM did during Hollywood’s golden era—renowned for its lavish musicals and larger-than-life film epics—among the other business empires of Los Angeles’s dream factory. Therefore, it is no surprise that history has ensured a connection between these two entities, in the form of one of this year’s most expensive, eagerly anticipated, ambitious and prestigious television series.

Westworld, which was largely marketed as a sort of replacement for Game of Thrones—HBO’s golden goose of 2010s—had its origins nearly half a century earlier as a feature-length film produced by MGM. This provides a good opportunity for equally inevitable comparisons between its cinematic and television incarnations (disregarding the short-lived, quickly cancelled and likely even faster forgotten 1980 television series Beyond Westworld), offering a clear illustration of how things have significantly changed since 1973. Notably, MGM, unlike HBO, made its Westworld at a time when its best days were behind it, forcing Michael Crichton to work with a relatively modest budget for his directorial debut. This was reflected, among other things, in the film’s relatively short runtime, simple plot and characters, resulting in a movie that functions well on its own but, precisely because of its simplicity, serves as an excellent foundation for remakes. Crichton himself recognised this, repurposing the core concept for the far more famous and successful Jurassic Park. Thus, it should come as no great surprise that HBO concluded this source material could be adapted into a spectacle of similar calibre.

The extent to which Westworld is fertile ground for a remake is evident in how HBO’s version utilises Crichton’s original screenplay with almost no changes to any detail. Once again, viewers are transported to an indeterminate, loosely defined near-future world where a corporation named Delos has developed technology to produce robots that are nearly identical to humans in appearance, behaviour and other details. This technology finds its practical application in a Wild West-themed amusement park where robots provide services ranging from childish cowboy and Indian games to sex and the fulfilment of darkest fantasies. Of course, all this continues until things in the park go catastrophically wrong and the androids, asserting their physical and other superiority, suddenly begin massacring the guests.

Jonathan Nolan, who devised the series alongside his wife Lisa Joy, faced both an easy and a difficult task. On one hand, Crichton’s blueprint left him with exceptional freedom to answer the questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ what happened in the ill-fated Delos park occurred. On the other hand, the relatively simple story, which ran for just an hour and a half, needed to be stretched to at least 10–12 hours, incorporating somewhat ‘stronger’ characters, more intriguing subplots and ‘deeper’ content—all while concluding in a way that would form a reasonably cohesive whole and simultaneously provide a cliffhanger sufficient for a second season. The couple did not entirely succeed in this, but perfection was hard to expect from a project made under such high expectations.

The most noticeable difference between the new and original Westworld, or rather the creative decision made by the Nolans, concerns the shift in perspective. In the film, events were followed exclusively from the human perspective, whereas the series introduces the perspective of the androids themselves—or, as Delos’s technicians call them, ‘hosts’. They are no longer mere machines; the effort to make them as human-like as possible has led them to gain memories, and over time develop something akin to consciousness, beginning to question the true nature and purpose of their existence—a revelation that leads to the finale hinted at in trailers and throughout the series via the frequently quoted Shakespearean line about ‘violent delights having violent ends’. And when it is shown, quite explicitly, how they have all been subjected to years and decades of manipulation, violence and abuse, while viewers are simultaneously manipulated into seeing them as either human beings or a new level of evolution, the inevitable uprising seems justified.

To achieve this, however, it is necessary to portray things from the human side as well, i.e., to use human characters. This includes the park’s visitors, who, at least at first glance, play a third-rate role. The film’s nominal protagonist duo finds its equivalent in the characters of William (the excellent Jimmi Simpson), a man visiting the park for the first time who feels visible discomfort compared to his much more experienced friend and future brother-in-law Logan (Ben Barnes), who is far more relaxed and feels no qualms indulging in the often violent pleasures available to him. More striking is the decision for the television version to also have its own version of the main antagonist, whose moral alignment is suggested by his black attire; unlike the film’s Yul Brynner, who was a robot, in the television version this is a human—a visitor whose form of entertainment involves sadistically tormenting the helpless robots, which will only over time take the form of some quest for the ‘maze’, i.e., the park’s final, culminating attraction, which seems equally meaningless as the ‘hosts’’ search for meaning.

Also, at first glance, the depiction of ‘behind-the-scenes’ activities—i.e., the daily routines of the park’s workers and management, forced to ensure not a hair falls from the guests’ heads, constantly monitoring every move of the ‘hosts’ and perpetually repairing and redeploying them—appears far more intriguing for the plot. Nolan and Joy introduced another significant change here compared to the original: besides the ‘grunts’ at the bottom of the food chain, i.e., technicians and security teams, there are also Delos’s directors and the park’s creator himself, Robert Ford. Portrayed by the ever-reliable Anthony Hopkins, he is so compelling that it remains unclear whether he is a cold sociopath who relishes the ‘hosts’’ suffering like Hannibal Lecter, a mad genius, a quasi-divine figure who genuinely cares for the welfare of his mechanical children, or a combination of all these. Hopkins’ performance, however, is largely overshadowed by Jeffrey Wright, who is outstanding as Ford’s friend and long-time collaborator Bernard Lowe, whose workaholic lifestyle stems from a personal tragedy. On this level, however, Westworld has certain shortcomings, primarily because Delos’s staff includes several characters who are not sufficiently developed, and whose fates are irritatingly unclear by the very end.

A far more serious problem for Westworld is the same one that afflicted the original film. The first part—in which viewers become acquainted with the world and characters—is overly drawn out, and scenes sometimes repeat, even when this—as opposed to the depiction of the ‘hosts’ having to run through the ‘Loop of the Endless Day’ scenario thousands of times—is not particularly justified. Additional confusion arises not only from the distorted perspective of the ‘hosts’, caused by their susceptibility to constant memory erasure and alteration, but also from the fact that the narrative unfolds across several different time periods, making it unclear for certain scenes whether they occur in the present, past, or represent someone’s hallucination or false memory. It is only around the fifth episode that things begin to fall into place, and the first season starts to unfold at a conventional pace, albeit still not in a conventional manner. It is precisely then that the authorial stamp becomes most evident, whether through references to classic Westerns or the character of the frustrated British screenwriter (Simon Quarterman) hired by Delos to craft the ‘stories’ in which the ‘hosts’ perform, which can also be interpreted as a somewhat auto-ironic comment by Nolan on Westworld’s own creative process.

However, most viewers will pay far more attention to what has long been HBO’s trademark—explicit sex and nudity—than to the details. Here, the television version appears far freer than the film, which in many ways confirms the ironic reversal of the 1973 situation where fans of ‘freer’ content had to go to cinemas, as they could not be imagined on small screens (whereas today it is quite the opposite). Some of these elements seem unnecessary and exploitative, particularly the anticlimactic and utterly superfluous orgy scene in a Mexican town, whose sole purpose was to give the series some ‘edgy’ publicity. On the other hand, the series features far more nudity this time, which could even be said to be justified: the ‘hosts’ are far easier to repair and maintain backstage if they are unclothed, and in one scene, a character even attempts to justify this in a way that can be interpreted as a preemptive response by the series’ creators to puritanical critics. However, varying contractual clauses and different levels of modesty among the cast occasionally shatter the illusion; for instance, Evan Rachel Wood, portraying the ‘host’ protagonist Dolores, thanks to strategic framing, rear shots and other tricks, leaves far more to the imagination than her Norwegian colleague Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, who as the ‘host’ outlaw Armistice performs her most impressive action sequence in a birthday suit (having slightly less revealing PG-13 costume in the 2014 Hercules).

This impressive spectacle is provided by Westworld to its viewers in the final episode, which, despite this and numerous other details, is somewhat of a disappointment. Primarily, this refers to the irritating ‘cliffhanger’ that leaves the ultimate fate of certain characters—who one might otherwise assume would perish—far too open-ended. The same applies to the otherwise superbly portrayed character of Maeve by Thandie Newton, whose free will, or lack thereof, remains unclear, and whose actions, like her acquisition of near-divine powers at the very end, are inexplicable. Nor is Delos’s security team, which in an armed clash with the ‘hosts’ displays shooting ‘skills’ akin to Star Wars’ Imperial Stormtroopers, something Westworld can boast about. At least not for die-hard geeks who love scrutinising minor details and, during episode breaks, crafting imaginative theories about plot twists—many of which turned out to be correct. Despite everything, Westworld is nonetheless well-directed and superbly acted, providing viewers with more than enough entertainment to justify a second season.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)

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La trama se desarrolla en dos fases temporales porque se mantiene en el presente pero de pronto viaja al día de los hechos para dar algunas pistas, de hecho el primer capítulo inicia con la muerte de Dedee, sabemos que fue asesinada y solo podemos deducir que la pobre e inocente Gypsy fue secuestrada, pero no tenemos mayores detalles, estos van apareciendo conforme la trama avanza. Al principio logramos empatizar con esta pareja de madre e hija, conocemos su rutina y todo esto genera mucha ternura, pero a lo largo de la serie y conforme se va acercando el final, esta misma rutina se torna densa y obscura porque ya vamos obteniendo más información y detalles que nos ofrecen más contexto de los personajes y la situación.

Las actuaciones de todos estuvieron maravillosas pero considero que la mejor de todas es la de la actriz que interpreta a Dee Dee porque se puede notar el declive emocional de su personaje desde el inicio hasta el final de la serie, no es fácil porque dentro de la propia serie su personaje también debe actuar para tratar de transmitir compasión a los demás. Ella quiere proyectar una imagen de madre perfecta y abnegada, tierna y frágil, que haría cualquier cosa por su hija, pero al mismo tiempo hay ocasiones en que se muestra tal cuál es: obsesiva, posesiva e incluso agresiva.

Pero para ser más justa también me gustaría reconocer el trabajo del actor que interpretó a Nick (El novio de Gypsy) Porque hizo un muy buen trabajo. Su personaje tampoco era fácil porque debía interpretar a un joven desequilibrado, perturbado, pero que al mismo tiempo pretende ser normal

No creo que la serie haya buscado empatizar con Gypsy o justificar de alguna manera sus actos, amparándose en el abuso al que había sido sometida, sino que pretendía simplemente transmitir la verdad de los hechos, lo que sucedió sin pelos y señales, sin ocultar u omitir nada. Desde mi punto de vista es terriblemente injusta la decisión que tomó el juzgado porque si los abusos a los que había sido sometida Gypsy por parte de su madre era un atenuante, entonces también debían tomar en cuenta que Nick también tenía problemas, a leguas se notaba que no era normal, y sin embargo sobre él si cayó todo el peso de la ley, hoy en día está refundido en la cárcel mientras que Gypsy está libre, casada y feliz. Además tampoco podemos pasar desapercibido el hecho de que el síndrome de Munchausen por poder es una enfermedad, así que Dee Dee también estaba enferma, por lo tanto podemos deducir que las culpas están repartidas y que a pesar de que Dee Dee se aprovechó de mucha gente, también faltó fiscalización por parte del gobierno para saber como estaban siendo administrados los beneficios que ofrecía, sin embargo hubo médicos que no hicieron bien su trabajo y se dedicaron simplemente a rellenar y firmar formas sin mucho contexto, probablemente solo para cobrar el seguro médico.

En resumen, me encantó la serie, tiene pocos episodios como 8 o 9, no recuerdo bien, y me gusta porque no pierde el tiempo en divagaciones o escenas innecesarias, sino que va directo al grano, las actuaciones son muy buenas y logran transmitir las emociones y sentimientos de todos los personajes, algo que puedes notar con más intensidad si previamente lees o te documentas sobre la historia real, así que de verdad se las recomiendo mucho, por ahora me despido hasta una próxima oportunidad, dios mediante, les envío besos y abrazos virtuales 😘 🤗.

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You Burn Me

Get your popcorn ready with your favorite drink because it going to be an amazing movie

Starring: Nicholas Hoult as R the zombie

Teresa Palmer as julie

John malkovich as General Grigio

Rob Corddry as M, R's zombie friend

Rob Corddry as M, R’s zombie friend

Is definitely a good Romantic comedy and likewise Horror. So let's dive with it ** THE PLOT**

Warm bodies is such a romantic movie that caught my attention which is all about the lives of zombies but I was equally shocked because I felt and I was able ale to understand that zombies can entirely change if they are said to be in love

This movie happened after a terrible virus was seen whereby the virus was seen as a something which have almost turned all the humans into zombies and now the zombies are seen living in empty towns Always walking slowly and never talk much. What they are then know for is that the walk slowly as zombies they are and never think fast. Now let's say the humans who wasn't turned to zombies on the city were few and was been protected by a very tall wall. From that day the humans and zombies became enemies and they turn out to become afraid of each other and never meet peacefully.

Now the main character in the movie was the zombie named R. He never stands to remember his real name or any of his past but funny enough he was only able to remember that his name started with the letter R . Now in the movie R is not said to be a normal zombie ,he is said to be more smarter than other forms of zombie, he thinks more deeply and stores information very fast . Now he lives in a place called the airplane where he is able to collects music but he always wished he could be alive without knowing if actually he is.

Some other zombies are even said to be more worse than R and they are called Boney. This set of zombies have all lost their feeling and now looks like Skeleton and can never be seen as humans again because are are now very dangerous

Now one particular day this particular Zombie named R and some of his other zombie friends went out to look for food where they were able to find group of human beings including a girl which her name was Julie with her boyfriend perry and her best friend Nora immediately this zombies attacked them and R was able to kill perry and chops up his brain. Now whenever zombie eats the Brain they are able to see the past and memories of that particular person they haven't eaten the brain.

So after R finished eating the brain of perry, R was able to see the memories of perry with Julie that his girlfriend, he was able the memories of them laughing , teasing and that of their happy moments. Let say R was triggered with all the fun things which he has watched, this the made him to start Caring for Julie.

R then was seen as someone who so much cares about Julie that he never wants any harm around her which made him to took her to the airplane where he was living jus to ensure her safety. At frist Julie was scared because he saw R as someone who has killed his boyfriend but later on she started seeing R as a different being that R cannot speaks very well so they became friends and engage in all forms of conservation. Now this made Julie to realize that R was actually a nice and kind zombie not like other zombies

As R and Julie spend much time together, guess what something amazing happened R started noticing himself back to human that his heart can now beats and his skin became warmer and he begins to feel love. Now other of his friends zombie noticed the changes which made them to start recalling their life before they were turned to zombies

Now at a point Julie wanted to go back to where she belongs which is the human town, R insisted in following her because he never wanted to loose her. Now when they arrived at the human world they were able to meet Julie's father who is the head of all humans, but the amazing thing was that his father never trusted R does not trust R because he has this believe that all zombies can change at any time and attach their loved ones

Now don't forget that the other zombies called the Boney's do not like that R is already becoming a human and now guess what they did they quickly launched an attack to both the humans and other zombies. This made the humans and zombies to team up to fight this other forms of zombies called the Boney's because they are said to be more wicked than any other zombie

Lastly during the fight R get injured and was bleeding showing to the zombies that they can actually be turned back to humans and this helps to ends the war between the human and that of the zombies which made them all to start living together same with R and Julie.

Expecting all your Amazing comment All pictures are taken from the movie

SINOPSIS (IMDb) Layar (Nicholas Saputra), seorang bintang filem popular yang merasa bosan dengan kareer beliau, mahu membikin satu teater musikal mengenai sejarah keluarganya juga yang berkait dengan sejarah perfileman Indonesia.

REVIEW Salah satu perkara dalam filem yang saya amat rindui adalah dari segi musikalnya. Ia adalah satu element penting yang boleh mengangkat dan lebih men’drama’kan lagi sesuatu babak. Lagu tema juga penting. Lebih-lebih lagi dari filem-filem klasik Hollywood contohnya Star Wars, Jurassic Park dan Back To The Future. Dan juga dari filem-filem animasi Disney seperti Lion King dan Tarzan. Filem Hollywood musikal baru kesukaan saya adalah La La Land berkata tentang subjek industri perfileman di Hollywood, dan juga, kehidupan sebagai anak seni.

Tidak usah la diperkatakan tentang filem-filem Bollywood dan Tamilwood. Filem dan musikal bagi mereka berpisah tiada.

Di Malaysia, saya terus terfikir tentang Upin dan Ipin Keris Siamang Tunggal yang menggunakan khidmat orkestra untuk majoriti babak dari filem tersebut dan juga soundtrack. Dari tahun 1995, Pak Hassan Muthalib dengan Silat Lagenda dan kompilasi album soundtrack dengan penyertaan artis-artis terkenal tanahair. Lagu tema yang ikonik kekal di memori hingga kini. Filem Spilt Gravy yang ada lagu ala-keroncong yang dibuat khas. Tapi ya. Musik dalam filem memang penting. Tapi saya lihat kebanyakkannya hanya tertumpu pada segi visual.

Baru-baru ini Al-Jafree ada bercakap tentang lagu-lagu yang beliau gunakan, dalam kes ini, filem telemovie, Melur vs Rajawali. Lagu ‘Dipersimpangan Dilema’ oleh Nora yang juga berkait mengenai subjek filem tersebut. Sepanjang menonton filem Siapa Dia kelmarin, musikal pertama Malaysia yang terlintas dalam kepala saya adalah dari arahan Al-Jafree dan juga Dain Said iaitu, Senandong Malam. Tayangan di Ipoh beberapa tahun lepas masih dalam ingatan dan tidak mungkin saya lupakan. Lagu-lagu yang sedap dan juga berkait rapat dengan subjek filem iaitu kehidupan sebagai orang seni, dengan menggunakkan nostalgia kepada filem-filem dan lagu klasik dari zaman P. Ramlee sebagai cerita latar.

Kebetulan pada malam Tayangan Perdana beberapa hari yang lepas, saya dijemput oleh Brando Lee, bersama-sama Pak Hassan Muthalib dan juga Pak Letfee yang pada tahun 2003 terlibat dalam pementasan teater musikal Ronggeng Rokiah di Istana Budaya.

Dalam filem Siapa Dia, pengarah Garin Nugroho dan producer Faizal Lubi tidak bersembunyi tentang subjek yang dibincangkan. Iaitu sejarah perfileman Indonesia, yang amat dipengaruhi oleh peralihan masa dan sosial. Dari zaman Belanda, Perang Dunia Kedua dan juga kemunculan ‘pop culture’. Subjek yang jelas diangkat dengan musikal dan lagu-lagu yang sedap. Ditambahkan pula kesinambungan antara babak-babak dan lagu juga sedap dan tidak sumbang dan pelik. Seluruh filem adalah satu. Dari mula sampai kepenghabisan.

Garin berjaya menarik saya kedalam filem bersama protagonis Nicholas Saputra yang acap kali memecah ‘dinding keempat’ dengan bercerita secara terus dengan tarian dan lagu yang sedap dan menghiburkan. Saya yang sebenarnya masih baru dalam subjek filem baru juga mengenali nama Garin Nugroho. Dan sempat bertemu dengan beliau di sessi tayangan anjuran Pak U-Wei tidak lama dulu. Juga menonton filemnya Bulan Tertusuk Ilalang bersama Pak Hassan Muthalib yang juga berkongsi dengan saya tulisan beliau mengenai filem tersebut.

Dalam filem Bulan Tertusuk Ilalang, pada saya, ceritanya mengundang pada kritikan generasi muda yang kurang mengerti tata susila dalam menuntut ilmu dari seorang guru. Lantas takdir seni warisan itu sendiri akhirnya mati begitu sahaja. Dalam Siapa Dia juga Garin berbicara tentang subjek yang agak sama. Di penutup filem, di tunjukkan watak Layar (Nicholas Saputra) yang mengepalai generasi baru Indonesia dalam mengembangkan lagi sinema tempatan. Di Malaysia bagaimana?

Siapa Dia. Satu persoalan. Mahukan jawapan? Tayangan bermula hari ini dipawagam seluruh Malaysia.

Official Trailer

Hello! 💙

Para esta temporada de Halloween me he dedicado a hacer varias fotografías de retrato que poco a poco se las estaré compartiendo por acá esta es una de las primeras sesiones que hice, con maquillaje de calavera en un estilo muy estético, Pues en este caso la idea era hacer algo que fuese bastante actual, y en mi opinión creo que todo muy bonito. Como siempre al final las fotografías les dejo algunas imágenes detrás de cámara.

For this Halloween season, I have been taking several portrait photographs that I will gradually be sharing here. This is one of the first sessions I did, with skull makeup in a very aesthetic style. In this case, the idea was to do something that was quite contemporary, and in my opinion, I think it all turned out very nicely. As always, at the end of the photographs, I will leave you with some behind-the-scenes images.

¡Hasta la próxima, un abrazo!

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• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13062500/
• Platform: PRIME VIDEO

Rottentomatoes Rating

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