DAGSIN's Commercial Run 2019

Atom in front of Dagsin's Standees at the Rockwell Cinema Lobby

DAGSIN finally got its Commercial Cinema showings nationwide during Holyweek. Anne and I decided to show it during this particular week since the Catholic themed holiday coincided with our movie's timeline-- which starts the day before Palm Sunday and ends exactly on Easter morning. Like everything else, this decision had its merits as well as its problems. But none-the-less, we were thankful for the chance to show our first feature to as many Filipinos as was possible.

Despite our limited budget for the nationwide release, we were able to get a handful of media partners by giving them tickets in exchange for airtime. DAGSIN's trailer was aired twice a day on RJ's cable channel, while DAGSIN's two theme songs, "Harana Ni Justino" and "Corazon's Theme" were played over and over on a couple of Radio stations two weeks before the opening. Anne and I were also interviewed on "air" by each media partner.

Anne and I during one of our live interviews, taped and played with DAGSIN's theme songs.

The physical hard-drives containing the DCP files of the movie.

With the help of our post-house and partner in DAGSIN, Black Maria, we released our DCP's nationwide by renting their hard-drives and having them manage projection access to our locked files. Our local distributor, Silverline Media, took care of booking our showing dates, sending our trailer files, DCP hard-drives and our printed posters to each individual  theatre. 

Anne beside our poster in Rockwell.

Anne managed to get DAGSIN a Special Screening from Rockwell Cinemas, effectively making the movie available to the general public for exactly one week-- from Wednesday to the following Tuesday. The Special Screening, which we treated as our Commercial Premiere, was sold out a week in advance. As a special treat Ms. Lotlot De Leon, who played Mercy in DAGSIN, was present for the Q & A at the end of the screening. We ended up having dinner with a couple of our close-friends and colleagues who were there to support us.

Anne and I learned a lot from our experience in commercially releasing our movie for the very first time. All in all, we are happy with the general reception we got publicly and we are now ready for our next movie project!

Atom in the Glorietta Cinema lobby beside DAGSIN's poster.

Atom in the Greenhills Promenade Cinema lobby beside DAGSIN's poster.

Aria prominently displayed on the Rockwell Cinema lobby.

Ari displayed on the Rockwell Cinema lobby with Ben and Janine.

For my part, it was amusing to see something I have been involved with for years finally displayed in public. I was just trilled to see DAGSIN's poster lined up with other movies, particularly from Hollywood. My biggest kick was to watch my kids over and over, show up on the huge screen in the Rockwell Cinema lobby. It was an unforeseen bonus, but it certainly made all the hardships and the trials we had to endure in making and getting the movie shown well worth the effort!

-All the Photos are the exclusive property of Atom & Anne Mediaworks.

DAGSIN Opening Nationwide Today

DAGSIN is opening NATIONWIDE today, APRIL 20 (Sat.) in the Philippines.

 

 

Here is a behind the scenes interview of DAGSIN's main cast, talking about their roles in the movie.

 

 

--The video is the exclusive property of Atom & Anne Mediaworks. Any reproduction must have the explicit permission of the owner.

Dagsin in Theaters April 20 Nationwide

Dagsin will finally be shown in theaters NATIONWIDE starting APRIL 20, Black Saturday!!!! Many of you asked for it, so we have done are best to make it happen. Our UNIQUE HOLY WEEK inspired LOVE STORY will be available all over the PHILIPPINES at last!

 

Please support quality Pinoy Indie movies. PASS THIS NEWS to all your friends and family, and PERSUADE THEM TO WATCH to keep Dagsin in theaters-- still the best way to see movies that were intended to be shown on a theater screen! This might be your last chance to see our internationally multi-awarded movie on the big screen locally, so don't miss this chance!

We will announce the list of theaters as soon as it becomes available...

 

Creating Dagsin's Screenplay

!!!! SPOILER WARNING !!!! **Do not read if you have not seen the movie**

"Dagsin" ("Gravity" in English) took twenty years to evolve into a movie. I originally came up with the prototype of the story when I was still a film student at the Art Center College of Design in Los Angles in the mid-1990s. The original short-film screenplay was then titled, "This Mortal Coil," and it was submitted as an exercise/assignment for my Screenplay Writing Class. It was just eight pages long, and it only contained what eventually ended up as the "climactic scene" in the finished movie.



Tommy Abuel as Justino Razon, with Lotlot De Leon
as his adopted daughter Mercy and Sue Prado as his
Private Nurse Grace.

The original short script told the story of an old paraplegic resident of an American Retirement Home-- a wheelchair bound man (originally Caucasian) who recently lost his wife of fifty years. Wandering into their apartment after her Interment, he feels the weight of his sorrow so strongly that he decides to hang himself from the ceiling rafters of their bedroom.

I was going through a rough phase in my love life at that time that the Romantic in me chose to write about an ideal relationship, where someone was so in love that he would be completely devastated at the lost of his beloved-- a storybook type of Love Story. Besides, the idea of a wheelchair bound paraplegic man hanging himself with his feet still touching the ground yet powerless to escape his chosen fate (self-pity can soar with imagination), was such a strong poetic image, indelibly cinematic and memorable that it would guarantee me a good grade for the class!
   

Years later, the original seed concept for "Dagsin" resurfaces. After writing half a dozen full-length feature spec. scripts, I was looking for a short-film project to jump start my filmmaking career and "This Mortal Coil" was the prime candidate. So I began rewriting the original script, since I thought that the suicide sequence was not strong enough to stand by itself. But as I added simple flashback sequences, it started to get longer and longer. Soon, it was twenty pages long and that was just the backgrounder to the love story, I haven't even begun to say, what I really wanted to say.

By definition, a short-film is just about eight minutes long (or an 8-page script). Anything longer than that, and your chances of entering it in a major international competition gets slimmer and slimmer. Cannes for example only accepts 15 mins. maximum for their Short Film entries. Knowing that my story has potential beyond being just a short movie, and understanding that short films do not have a commercial market, I then committed to writing the story I really want to tell no matter how long the screenplay ended up becoming. During that time, I was already married for more than ten years (found a partner I want to spend my life with), had kids and recently suffered a Stroke. I wanted the story to reflect everything I have learned and have gone through in my life up to that point. Thankfully the first draft I wrote totaled just one hundred twenty pages in Movie Magic (Hollywood standard Screenplay Software) - which counts each page to be roughly equivalent to a minute of screen time.



Benjamin Alves as Young Justino Razon, Janine Gutierrez as Young
Corazon Bishop (Mrs. Razon) and Alex Diaz as John Bishop, Jr.
in the flashback sequences.

The first thing I incorporated to my original story was the flashback sequences. I knew by instinct that I had to make my viewers fall in love with my main characters first, for them to empathize with the loss they will be experiencing as the story unfolds. Making the audience spectators of the romance between Justino and Corazon from the beginning and making them experience the love that develops between the couple through the years, was my main goal. It was a deliberate decision on my part to make the film essentially a "Love Story" in terms of classification and genre, since the main theme of the movie even then was "only Love can save us from the pain and tragedies of life."

The historical breath and timeline of the story came naturally when I plotted Justino's life in reverse. By his present age, he would have been born in the 1920's and would have gone through World War II and the Martial Law era in the 1970's. The decision to place him at the front row of these major events as they unfolded was elementary. Since he was an action oriented man (idealistic, heroic and strong-willed) who would eventually be crippled by the very nature of human existence, making him an active participant in the critical periods of our country's history would effectively magnify the tragedy and irony of his fate. It was at this point of writing when I realized that Justino was a classic "Sisyphean" character.

The Story Behind DAGSIN's Awards

As of 2018, DAGSIN has garnered an amazing total of eighteen (18) awards worldwide, despite participating in only a handful (8) of film festivals. The movie's modest budget for both production, distribution and marketing limited our ability to maximise its potential worldwide. But inspite of this, DAGSIN gained traction on its own and attracted a sizeable fan base here and abroad. Here are DAGSIN's laurels...

18 Awards worldwide (the larger laurels), from only 8 film festivals (small laurels on the bottom).

DAGSIN's first award is from Cinemalaya for Tommy Abuel's Performance. It was a historic win, in more ways than one.

Despite his long and illustrious career, in both Stage and Screen working with legendary film directors like Lino Brocka, Mike De Leon, Ishmael Bernal, etc.--he has so far only received Best Supporting Actor trophies. His "Balanghai" for DAGSIN is in fact Tommy Abuel's first BEST ACTOR award.

Atom with Tommy Abuel after winning Best Actor in Cinemalaya 2016.

After Cinemalaya, Anne and I had to regroup, since DAGSIN had no budget left for any type of distribution, nor did it have funds for the sizeable application fees needed to enter the film "In-competition" to other film festivals. Fees were costly, since the application alone cost several hundred dollars (and do not guarantee acceptance), let alone the travel costs we have to incur in order to attend them. It is true that some festivals invite filmmakers to attend and wave fees. Even rarer, some actually provide travel and accommodation for free, but these are only available to established filmmakers that are wooed by the organisers to add cache to the event.

DAGSIN, being our first film, we resigned ourselves to the normal procedures and fees, so Anne and I dug into our own personal funds to begin applying to various festivals around the world around the end of 2016. We thought that the film could benefit from being an "Official Selection" from at least one or two festivals abroad. God answered our prayers and gave us a miracle! Out of the blue, DAGSIN got invited and afforded Anne and I an all expense paid (ticket and accommodation) trip to Kuching Malaysia for the ASEAN International Film Festival and Awards (AIFFA). DAGSIN's first international film festival was truly heaven sent.

Atom and Anne with the Philippine Delegation to AIFFA 2017

Anne and I were a part of a huge Philippine delegation that included local film industry icons, Nora Aunor, Jacklyn Jose, Cherie Gil and Bernardo Bernardo, as well as a contingent of Press and entertainment veterans. Although DAGSIN did not win an award in the festival, we got to bond with these fellow filmmakers and have formed friendships that hopefully will last a lifetime. While we were in Kuching, Anne got an email confirmation of DAGSIN's acceptance to our second international film festival, this time in Madrid.

Atom and Anne at the Madrid International Film Festival 2017 .

DAGSIN was nominated for four categories in the Madrid International Film Festival-- Best International Feature, Best Actress (for Lotlot De Leon), Best Editing and Best Costume. We WON BEST COSTUME!

Around the time we were still traveling in Europe, we again received great news-- DAGSIN received two nominations for the Gawad Urian (the Philippine counterpart of the Golden Globes) and three nominations for the PMPC Star Awards for Movies (Media Press awards). Anne and I arrived on the same night we attended our first Gawad Urian.

Atom and Anne with kids, Ari and Aria, at the 40th Gawad Urian Awards 2017.

Atom with kids, Ari and Aria, beside the Xian Lim (actor) at the PMPC Star Awards for Movies 2017.

Within a few weeks, confirmations of DAGSIN's acceptances to The World's Independent Film Festival (TWIFF) in San Francisco and the Guam International Film Festival (GIFF) arrived. Anne and I again booked tickets using our own funds to go to the U.S., with a stop-over in Guam on the way home. To save money, we stayed with my brother in Las Vegas, then drove to San Francisco with them. To our surprise, DAGSIN won BEST NARRATIVE FEATURE in THE WORLD'S INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL giving us our third trophy!

Benjamin Alves who was nominated for his acting in Dagsin, met us in Guam. Being a native son,  he stayed in his house with his family during the duration of the festival. Although Ben did not win for his performance, DAGSIN was honoured to be named CENTERPIECE FILM OF THE FESTIVAL!

Atom and Anne with the trophy for Best Picture at The World's Independent Film Festival in San Francisco.

Atom and Anne with Actor Benjamin Alves at the Guam International Film Festival 2017.

While Anne and I were still in the U.S., we received an unexpected news from Ms. Lotlot De Leon, who played Mercy in DAGSIN. She ecstatically relayed to our Daughter that DAGSIN had won  FIVE AWARDS from the URDUJA HERITAGE AWARDS, increasing DAGSIN's award tally at this point to nine.

The same day we arrived from Guam, Anne and I drove all the way to Pangasinan to receive our trophies with the other winners in Lingayen. DAGSIN had the largest haul of awards that day! Considering the fact that all the movies from 2016 both features and documentaries were nominated, the Urduja was DAGSIN's greatest triumph. It won BEST HERITAGE FILM, Atom won BEST DIRECTOR, Janine Gutierrez won BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (her first acting award), Marita Zobel won BEST ACTRESS IN A CAMEO ROLE (her first acting award) and Alex Diaz won BEST ACTOR IN A CAMEO ROLE (his first acting award).

Atom and Anne posing with DAGSIN's trophies from the Urduja Heritage Awards.

Within one year DAGSIN's film festival aspirations were more than fulfilled, so we decided to stop applying to other festivals. But our awards story did not end there. While we were in the U.S. we met with Filipino American actor Abe Pagtama and his son Gabe. They are the founders of a filipino film festival in Los Angeles called the Los Angeles Philippine International Film Festival (LAPIFF) and they invited DAGSIN to join. We wanted to attend, but their festival dates required us to go back to L.A. from Guam and we did not have the budget to do that on short notice. Surprisingly, within a few weeks after Urduja, we found out that Tommy Abuel won the BEST ACTOR AWARD in LAPIFF, his second acting award for DAGSIN!

Atom receives DAGSIN's awards from Abe Pagtama since we could not attend LAPIFF.

2017 had one more surprise before the year ended. The Philippine Daily Inquirer held its yearly Indie Bravo Awards, lauding the films that reaped honours for the country internationally, and DAGSIN was the recipient of TWO INDIE BRAVO AWARDS (plus the plush toy Guyito, the Inquirer mascot).

Atom and Anne with all the other awardees of the 2017 Philippine Daily Inquirer Indie Bravo Awards.

At the end of 2017, after garnering a total of twelve awards for DAGSIN, Anne and I decided to shift our attention to getting the movie distributed and shown locally and abroad. As a matter of fact, DAGSIN was originally scheduled to be shown in FDCP's Cine Local program in December 2017, but when SM Cinemas reneged on their contract we decided to retract the movie from their theatres.

Fortunately, 2018 added a few more awards to DAGSIN's laurels. The NCCA recognised our Costume Designer's work in the movie with an ANI NG DANGAL trophy, and the Film Development Council of the Philippines honoured DAGSIN with THREE FILM AMBASSADOR citations-- trophies for DAGSIN the Movie, for Tommy Abuel and for our Costume Designer (Jona Ballaran).

At the FDCP Film Ambassador's Awards night with team DAGSIN.

By chance, DAGSIN got a last minute invitation from the co-founder of the European Philippine International Film Festival (EPIFF), Ruben Soriquez (actor/director). He was so impressed with the movie after watching it in Los Angeles at the LAPIFF, that he strongly encouraged us to submit it for free. We were not able to attend the festival, but enthusiastically sent a copy of our film through the Italian Embassy by diplomatic pouch. DAGSIN won BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY and BEST ACTOR for Tommy Abuel (his third for DAGSIN), rounding our awards to eighteen in total.

Atom and Anne receiving DAGSIN's awards from Ruben Soriquez, co-founder of EPIFF.

--photos are the exclusive property of Atom & Anne Mediaworks.

Dagsin Cinemalaya Movie Trailers

Cinemalaya is two months away and everybody is gearing up for the Festival.

 

Atom & Anne Mediaworks was required to come up with two shorter Trailers (aside from tons of other requirements) to be used exclusively by the Film Fest, aside from the full-length version we released a month ago and the possible foreign version.  Here they are...

 

Dagsin's Official 30 second trailer:

 

 

 

Dagsin's Official 15 second trailer:
 

 

 

--Both videos are the exclusive property of Atom & Anne Mediaworks, Corp.

Dagsin Official Movie Trailer

Good news! I finally finished Post on my first full-length feature film "Dagsin," so I can now go back to blogging:))

 

Although principal photography only took ten days (seriously, we can shoot Philippine Indies faster than American Indies due to desperation and lack of funds; of course, with several 20+ hour days), actual shooting stretched for three months due to Murphy's undeniable Law-- actors pulling out last minute, actors getting sick, scheduling problems, transportation problems, you name it... Post Production took about the same length of time, again due to unexpected problems I am trying my best to forget. Reflecting on my experience this past eight months, making "Dagsin" was a virtual struggle against cosmic GRAVITY! The adage "no pain, no gain" should be the personal motto of every filmmaker!

 

But that is now all in the past. We made it, and making the next ones should be easier from now on (right????). Despite the struggle and hardship, it was fun and fulfilling most of the time. Anne and I learned a lot, and we have decided to do this as often as fate and financing would permit...

 

Here is the first proof of our labor, the full trailer of "Dagsin" (Philippine Version):

Watch it in YouTube: https://youtu.be/nE-kHyWwsR4

 --The Video is the exclusive property of Atom & Anne Mediaworks, Corp.

Merry Christmas

MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!!!!

 

As you all know by now, Christmas came early to me in the form of my first Feature Film "Dagsin." Please forgive me if I have not been updating this blog as often as I should these past few months, but I have been really busy...

 

Me with my new toy.

 

It has been a wild roller-coaster ride so far, but Anne (Producer) and I have somehow managed to keep our ship afloat. "Dagsin" has been plagued with all kinds of problems from the onset of Preproduction and each shooting day has been challenging-- Two of our actors have been ill and hospitalized, another decided to drop out in the middle of filming, the local government threatened to shut our production down more than once, we had to iron out a land ownership dispute situation for another location, and on top of all that, we had to fire someone from our team for gross misconduct and anomalies regarding the budget-- these are just the major ones! Talk about Murphy's Law... We are taking this all in stride because it has always been our goal to deliver the best work we can, once we set out to execute a project!

 

I am very grateful that I have finally been given the opportunity to finally make my movie and I thank God everyday for this blessing. I love making movies and I plan to keep doing it for as long as I can! 

 

I have not forgotten that this is also a photography blog, despite my other interests. So I am posting some of my still-photo work in the movie. I just realized recently that it is hard to be a director, cinematographer and photographer all at the same time, so I have recruited a second DP as well as a BTS photographer in "Dagsin" to complement my work.

 

Here are two promotional photographs I shot for "Dagsin," which I am giving to the actors as Christmas gifts:

 

Tommy Abuel, Lotlot De Leon and Sue Prado for Dagsin

 

Alex Diaz, Janine Gutierrez and Benjamin Alves for Dagsin

Veteran Actor Cast in Dagsin

...with veteran stage and screen actor Tommy Abuel

(reprinted from http://dagsin.blogspot.com)

The Dagsin family is very proud and happy to welcome multi-award winning veteran stage and screen actor Tommy Abuel in the lead role of Justino.

 

An actor with a long and illustrious career in both Theater and Cinema, Mr. Abuel is known as an "actor's actor," a consummate artist who internalizes his characters and brings them to life in the most creative way. He has been nominated for his work consistently since he began working in 1973 (has won for both stage and screen), and has worked with some of the country's most singularly artistic Film Directors including Lino Brocka, Ismael Bernal and Mike De Leon.

--Photo by Anne Prado-Magadia

My 2015 Oscar Predictions

 

Over the past several years, I have sporadically posted my pre-Oscar picks particularly when I believe that the year had a good selection of films in competition.

 

This year was an exceptional year for the movies, maybe because only the best non-blockbuster scripts gets funding beyond the slew of franchised animation, remakes, sequels, prequels, bestseller and comic book adaptations that come out from Hollywood these days.

 

Anyway, here are my picks for each of the major categories for the Academy Awards. I usually get 50% of them right. Let's see how I do tomorrow night:)

 

Postscript: The winners are out (my guess in red, actual winner in yellow). I got 8 out of the 14 categories I included here in this blog-- a 57% hit! I am getting better every year...

 

For some reason, I seem to be always in the money for Best Director and Best Cinematographer. I guess it just shows that I am really familiar with my chosen crafts ;)

 

BEST PICTURE

American Sniper

Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Boyhood - winner

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Imitation Game

Selma

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

 

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro G. Inarritu - winner *

Richard Linklater

Bennett Miller

Wes Anderson

Morten Tyldum

 

BEST ACTOR

Steve Carell

Bradley Cooper

Benedict Cumberbatch

Micheal Keaton - winner

Eddie Redmayne

 

BEST ACTRESS

Marion Cotillard

Felicity Jones

Julianne Moore - winner *

Rosamund Pike

Reese Witherspoon

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Robert Duvall

Ethan Hawke

Edward Norton

Mark Ruffalo

J.K. Simmons - winner *

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Patricia Arquette

Laura Dern

Keira Knightley - winner

Emma Stone

Meryl Streep

 

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Emmanuel Lubezki - winner *

Robert Yeoman

Lukasz Zai/Ryszard Lenczewski

Dick Pope

Roger Deakins

My 2014 Oscar Predictions

I have to apologize for my sporadic blogs these days, I have been uncharacteristically busy these last couple of months, that I actually had to work through the Holidays (during a family trip abroad). But we all have to make a living somehow, right? Anyway, I actually had a few hours of free time this Saturday morning, and I thought that it would be a great time to catch up on my Blogging.

 

What better subject to start 2014 than the Oscars right? I know more than a few people out there who hate this iconic Hollywood tradition with a passion.  But even the Academy's most stauch critics cannot deny that it is a global phenomena and that it is still the most anticipated award event for Cinema in the whole world.

 

As a filmmaker, I still celebrate the Oscars and look forward to the ceremony as an annual global tradition to celebrate the filmmaking skills at the most biggest and most financially successful "dream factory" in the world (at least in this era)-- Hollywood.  Like a forbbiden fruit, Hollywood still beckons  to filmmakers from all over the world, as the ultimate arena where they can test their skills against the world's best.  Hey, the Oscars is actually the oldest "Reality" program on TV.

 

So let the battle... I mean contest begin!

 

Here are my personal picks for 2014: 

 

BEST PICTURE

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Dallas Buyers club

Gravity - winner

Her

Nebraska

Philomena

12 Years a Slave

The Wolf of Wall Street

 

DIRECTING

David O. Russell

Alfonso Cuarón - winner

Alexander Payne

Steve McQueen

Martin Scorsese

"Metro-Manila" - Movie Review

British writer/director Sean Ellis at Sundance 2013

 

This film had won the Audience award for best World Dramatic Competition film at Sundance this year, and has been chosen as the British nominee for Best Foreign Language film at the 2014 Oscars.  I find all this slightly ironic, since it is a British made movie that dramatizes a very authentic Filipino story (film) at its core.  I guess, like most good dramas (and good art) that succesfully encapsulates a universal existential human dilema, it does not really matter who made it in the end.

The family's migration from idyllic countryside to the urban slums

 

British Writer/Director Sean Ellis' story was inspired by a scene he witnessed serveral years ago when he visited Philippines -- Two armoured truck personel wearing bullet-proof jackets and helmets carrying M-16s, arguing and screaming at each other on the street.  He could not forget the scene, wondering what they were arguing about and how it might have eventually ended.  It led him to develop a 20 page synopsis, which eventually became a full-length feature.

The story is simple, and quite typical for most Manila (and most Southeast Asia) slum dwellers.  A farming family driven by the hardship of life in the province decides to seek their fortune in the big city.  Jaded and naive, they soon fall prey to petty criminals who rob them of their meager savings and take advantage of their desperation.  A number of them end up becoming criminals themselves or get caught up in the seedy sex trade.

Oscar and Mai soon get employment at a huge personal cost

Sean decided to use both criminality and the sex trade in his story to magnify the direness of the couple's plight.  Despite their desperation, a lot of Manila's urban poor successfully navigate away from these illegal occupations.  Inspite of being reputed to be one of the worst cities when it comes to crime, corruption and the sex trade in Asia, a lot of Filipinos do manage to find decent work within Metro-Manila in the midst of rampant economic hardship and poverty.  So despite the characters' desperation in this movie, they do have choices beyond the ones they decided to take.  Sean Ellis was able to tell his story well enough, that it seems as if Oscar and Mai were locked-in to their fate.

Oscar caught in the web of (his mentor) Ong's machinations

But despite that sleek 'slight of hand' from a very capable director, I think the movie successfully delivers a gripping tale of human desperation pushed to the extreme.  The casting was perfect.  Jake Macapagal's portrayal of "Oscar's" innocence and decency was realistic; John Arcilla's "Ong" was on the money; and Althea Vega's "Mai" looks convincing.  The supporting cast also looked authentic in their parts, most of whom were not professional actors.

The Purge - Movie Review

Imagine living in a society where murder is legal one night a year...

"The Purge" is what can happen in the United States (or anywhere) in the near future, if 'freedom' is taken to the extreme.  Violence and murder are legally sanctioned by law to promote peace and economic health.  Sounds crazy?  I thought so too, when the movie began.
 

But the idea is intriguing none the less.   If we humans are really inherently violent, and that releasing our murderous impulses do result in relative peace and prosperity for the rest of the year, would it be justifiable to hold a 'hunting season' for killing en masse?  We sanction it for wildlife... and war... This movie makes us confront our darkside.  Just how far are we (collectively and individually) willing to go?

The family enjoying a brief calm, before the storm

 

A dystopian horror story set in the home of a relatively average (2.5 kids) upper middle-class suburban family, "The Purge" took me by surprise.  The plot is fairly simple: the father, a successful home-security specialist, 'locks-down' his house like an impregnable fortress for the 'Night of Purging.'  Given how the character is introduced and how the neighbors were acting, you knew right from the start that there was going to be an attack on him and his family that same evening.  The only questioned that remained was how will this attack be perpetrated, given the built-in barricade and state the art security system he installed his house?

The 'fortress' like house in the movie

 

The answer... through the kids.  Without them there would be no story and no movie to speak of.  I happen to have two kids, one girl one boy, exactly like the family in the movie, with roughly the same ages.  I may just have identified with Ethan Hawke's character too closely, but it certainly gave me pause for thought on how I can better educate my own given the moral dilema his character (James Sandin) was faced with.

James Sandin contemplating the fate of his family

 

His daughter was the first chink in his armor.  A teenager going through puberty, she is bored and unwilling to go along with their usual family routine.  Aside from her already stereo-typical teen angst, she has also fallen in love with a boy her father flatly disapproves of.  The boyfriend sneaks in with a gun that same evening to confront her father about their love-- the proverbial 'snake in the nest' dilema.  At first, I thought that the movie was playing towards the 'hostage' scenario I have seen in so many other films, where the boyfriend (or captor) abuses his hosts, maybe even calling in a couple of his friends to join in the fun.  But I was mistaken, it was just an appetizer for things to come.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I have not done a movie review in this blog for a long time and I am a little bit rusty... But I since I read the book before seeing the Movie, I thought it might be the perfect opportunity for me to restart.

Most are aware that "The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" is a bestselling novel before it was adapted for the big screen. Legions of fans are also anxiously awaiting the screen versions of the second and third books in the series -- "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest."  I am a little embarrassed to say that I am one of those fans.  Ever since I finished the first book, I wanted more.  I am now on the third book and I have to admit, a bit hesitant to finish it because it would be the end of a great adventure and the wonderful character of Lisbeth Salander. 

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander

Stieg Larsson, the Author of the Trilogy, was a controversial journalist and activist in Sweden.  He was a pro-communist political activist who trained female guerillas in Africa early in his life; he was also a photographer for the Communist Worker's League; and he was the editor of extreme left-wing publications like the Swedish "Trotskyist" journal Fjärde internationalen and Swedish Expo Foundation's (established to counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people) Expo Magazine.  When he was not doing his day job, he did independent research on right-wing extremism in Sweden, which resulted in his first book Extremhögern (Extreme Right). Larsson was instrumental in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organizations.  He was also an influential public debater and lecturer on the subject, reportedly living for years under death threats from his political enemies.  He died in 2004 from a heart attack, but there have been rumours that his death was in some way induced, because of the regular death threats he received as the editor of Expo.  Like all good writers, his characters were sketched from real life and are slightly autobiographic -- Writer/Publisher Blomkvist and Researcher/hacker Salander.

After Larsson died, three unpublished manuscripts of three complete novels (written as a series) were discovered.  The Salander Saga, published posthumously, has sold more than 65 million copies worldwide and have been made into movies (a Swedish version of the trilogy was made before Fincher's).  He wrote the novels for his own pleasure and did not attempt to publish them before he died.  Larsson actually had plans of writing more novels for the series beyond the three currently in print, because three quarters of a fourth novel was found in his a notebook computer, as well as synopses or manuscripts for the fifth and sixth books.  But alas, he died before finishing any of them. 

Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist