Dexter: Resurrection 1.8: The Enemies, an Evaluation

Checking in with a late (5 days after its streaming) review of Dexter: Resurrection 1.8.   For me, the episode indicated two things:

1. Dexter has three people or groups of people out to get him.

2. It's not clear, at this point in the season -- with just two episodes left -- which of these enemies if any will succeed.

It looked, at the end of episode 1.7, that Batista had a pretty good shot.   I thought, then, that Dexter would see he had no choice but to kill his former colleague from Florida.  But Dexter does a pretty good job of confusing and eluding Batista in 1.8, which leads me to think that Dexter may not need to do the worst to survive this danger.  Good news for people like me who enjoy even when Cuban food is just talked about.

That leaves Leon Prater (played by Peter Dinklage) and Charley his deadly sidekick (played by Uma Thurman).  In addition to being played by top-notch power-exuding actors, and even though they clearly don't agree on everything, the two are beginning to close in on what Dexter is and what he has done to Prater's precious club.  Charley is already telling Prater about her suspicion of Dexter, and judging by the closing scene, Prater is beginning to act on this.  And--

There's a third group: NYPD Detective Wallace and her associate Detective Oliva. Their wheels grind more slowly than Prater's and Batista's, who have personal grievances against Dexter (to say the least) and have no need to respect the law in New York City.  If I was forced to choose, I'd say this last group is mostly likely to succeed, or come closest to succeeding.

Dexter dying seems out of the question, first because it happened already and he survived, and second, Paramount surely wouldn't want to cancel such a superb series.  On the other hand, looked what just happened to Dexter: Origin Sin, which I'm still hoping will find a life elsewhere.

See also: Dexter: Resurrection 1.1-1.2: The Imposter ... 1.3: Killers and Prey ... 1.4: The Nefarious Club ... 1.5: Father and Son and the Watch ... 1.6: What's Half of Gemini? ... 1.7: Batista and Dexter in the Car

And see also Dexter: Original Sin 1.1: Activation of the Code ... 1.2-1.3: "The Finger Is Missing" ... 1.4: The Role of Luck in Dexter's Profession and Life ... 1.5: Revelations and Relations ... 1.6: On the Strong, Non-Serial-Killer Parts of the Show ... 1.7: First Big Shocker ... 1.8: Dexter's Discovery ... 1.9: Brian's Story ... Season 1 Finale: Satisfying

And see also Dexter: New Blood 1.1: Back with a Vengeance ... Dexter: New Blood 1.2: Dark Tendencies ... Dexter: New Blood 1.3: Fathers and Sons ... Dexter: New Blood 1.4: Harrison and Kurt ... Dexter New Blood: 1.5: No Satisfaction for Serial Killers ... Dexter: New Blood 1.6: Breaks and Arm Breaks ... Dexter: New Blood: 1.7: Dexter vs. Kurt ...Dexter: New Blood 1.8: The Hug in the Car ... Dexter: New Blood 1.9 One Down, One To Go ... Dexter: New Blood Finale: Superb, and I Didn't Like It All

And see also Dexter Season 8 Premiere: Mercury in Retrograde, Dexter Incandescent ... Dexter 8.2: The Gift ... Dexter 8.3: The Question and the Confession ... Dexter 8.4: The "Lab Rat" and Harry's Daughter ... Dexter 8.5: Just Like Family ... Dexter 8.6: The Protege ... Dexter 8.7: Two Different Codes? ... Dexter 8.8: "A Great Future" ... Dexter 8.9: The Psycho Son ... Dexter 8.10: Watch Out, Buenos Aires ... Dexter 8.11: "Not the Old Dexter" ... Dexter Series Finale: Solitude, Style, and a Modicum of Hope

And see also Dexter Season 7.1-3: Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 7.4: The Lesson in Speltzer's Smoke ... Dexter 7.5: Terminator Isaac ... Dexter 7.6: "Breaking and Entering" ... Dexter 7.7: Shakespearean Serial Killer Story ... Dexter 7.8: Love and Its Demands ... Dexter 7.9: Two Memorable Scenes and the Ascension of Isaac ... Dexter 7.11: The "Accident" ... Dexter Season 7 Finale: The Surviving Triangle

And see also Dexter Season 6 Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 6.4: Two Numbers and Two Killers Equals? ... Dexter 6.5 and 6.6: Decisive Sam ... Dexter 6.7: The State of Nebraska ... Dexter 6.8: Is Gellar Really Real? .... Dexter 6.9: And Geller Is ... ... Dexter's Take on Videogames in 6.10 ...Dexter and Debra:  Dexter 6.11 ... Dexter Season 6 Finale: Through the Eyes of a Different Love

And see also Dexter Season Five Sneak Preview Review ... Dexter 5.4: Dexter's Conscience ...Dexter 5.8 and Lumen ... Dexter 5.9: He's Getting Healthier ... Dexter 5.10: Monsters -Worse and Better ... Dexter 5.11: Sneak Preview with Spoilers  ... Dexter Season 5 Finale: Behind the Curtain

And see also Dexter Season 4: Sneak Preview Review ... The Family Man on Dexter 4.5 ...Dexter on the Couch in 4.6 ... Dexter 4.7: 'He Can't Kill Bambi' ... Dexter 4.8: Great Mistakes ...4.9: Trinity's Surprising Daughter ... 4.10: More than Trinity ... 4.11: The "Soulless, Anti-Family Schmuck" ... 4.12: Revenges and Recapitulations

And see also reviews of Season 3: Season's Happy Endings? ... Double Surprise ... Psychotic Law vs. Sociopath Science ... The Bright, Elusive Butterfly of Dexter ... The True Nature of Miguel ...Si Se Puede on Dexter ... and Dexter 3: Sneak Preview Review

Reviews of Season 2: Dexter's Back: A Preview and Dexter Meets Heroes and 6. Dexter and De-Lila-h and 7. Best Line About Dexter - from Lila and 8. How Will Dexter Get Out of This? and The Plot Gets Tighter and Sharper and Dex, Doakes, and Harry and Deb's Belief Saves Dex and All's ... Well

See also about Season 1: First Place to Dexter 

I Care A Lot: Evil vs. Evil

A here's a review of a top-notch movie with an original theme my wife and saw and much enjoyed on Netflix.  I Care A Lot is billed as "comedy, crime, thriller" on IMDb, and "black comedy" on Wikipedia.  Although there are some funny elements in this movie, it's the crime/thriller part that lifts it pretty high in the stratosphere as a movie to see.

[Spoilers below]

The best part of the story is the battle between two arch villains it sets up and portrays in appealing, escalating fashion.  Rosamund Pike plays Maria, who runs an ingenious scam in which she becomes the legal guardian of elderly people who or may not be mentally diminished, with Maria appropriates their assets for her own benefit and profit.  (I have no idea if this scam actually occurs -- I hope not, it's evilly clever.)  But Maria makes the mistake of doing this to Roman's (Peter Dinklage) mother Jennifer (Dianne Wiest) who has no real problems with her brain at all.   What Maria doesn't know at first but comes to realize with a literal vengeance is Roman is a Russian mobster -- someone as driven and sharp as Maria, and even more ruthless, along with a ready ability to use deadly force.

The battle between them is a contest to see.   And so is the twist upon twist in the end.  Maria against all odds survives Roman's attempt to kill her, she then lands Roman in a hospital but accepts his offer that they start a swindling-the-old partnership, only to be killed in the very last scene by an aggrieved son who could never see his mother -- because Maria wouldn't allow it -- and now his beloved, unfairly locked away mother has died (I told you there would be spoilers).

I felt a little bad for Maria, though she got what she deserved.  The ending -- that it's the overlooked peril that will get you -- has been a staple of everything ranging from crime to science fiction (Asimov used it in one his Foundation prequel novels in the 1980s), and it worked well in I Care A Lot.  That in itself, and the whole movie before, is something you won't even feel a little bit bad about seeing, and indeed should immensely enjoy.

Rememory: Hot and Cool Review

 I finally saw Rememory on Amazon Prime.  Or maybe I saw it a while ago, but forgot to review it.  As Todd, a middling-minor character in the movie aptly notes, "the mind forgets things for a reason".  No, Rememory wasn't that bad.  But it wasn't as good as it should have been, either.

As a science fiction film/psychological thriller about memory, it isn't in the same league with Total Recall (1990) or Memento (2000).  It's smaller and ultimately less important.  But it does have something going for it, in its story of a device that allows people to capture their memories, put them on the equivalent of a thumb drive, and see them again.  And it does have some good even memorable acting by Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones and Julia Ormand of lots of superb movies.

The plot concerns who killed the memory device inventor, Gordon Dunn.   The investigator - private, not for hire, but private as in personal reasons - is Sam Bloom (Dinklage), who is working through his own terrible memories of driving with his brother into a car crash which killed him (his brother).  We don't learn who was in the other car until close to the end, and that's a big twist.

The meat of the movie, though, is routine, as Bloom eliminates suspects who pretty obviously didn't do the crime, meaning you can figure that out without a memory machine.  But the first twist - before the one close to the end - is good:  Dunn killed himself.  [Big spoiler follows]

And the big twist?  Dunn and his wife (Ormand) are also suffering from a memory of a tragedy, the loss of their daughter.  It turns out that she was killed in a car crash - the very crash in which Bloom's brother succumbed.   We learn this when Bloom is able to view a memory stick of his own memories of the crash.

At least, that seems to be the explanation.   Why Carolyn Dunn (Gordon's wife) didn't have that memory - she was in the passenger's seat of that other car, Gordon was driving, and their daughter was in the back seat - is not entirely clear or explained in the movie.  The explanation, rather than shown, is instead a logical supposition based on what we're told about the memory machine allowing people to not just record but delete and change their memories.  And/or, the trauma of the car crash caused them both to have amnesia of the crash.

Which is ok, as an example of the power of McLuhan's cool - the power of ambiguous presentations obliging our minds to fill in the details.  But for the purposes of this movie, I'd have preferred a little more explicit (hot, in McLuhan's terms) detail.   Anyway, if memory and science fiction are your cups or glasses of tea - hot or iced - see Rememory.

 
 about institutional more than personal memory:  The Plot to Save Socrates