Film Review: Let the Right One In

I feel uneasy about summarizing ‘Let the Right One In’, because while I can beat around the bush all day regarding what it’s ‘about’; it is, when push comes to shove, a vampire romance (and horror) involving (pre) teens. I almost feel embarrassed reviewing it because of that. It is also a fantastic movie.

The Film is set in, shot in and spoken in Sweden and is based off a novel by Stephanie Meyers that is also set in and written in Sweden/ish. Oscar is the protagonist; a shy, bullied 12 year old boy who scrapbooks news articles about murders and genocides and likes to practice torturing his tormentors with a knife. Ellie is a lurky suspicious character and to the surprise of very few audience members a vampire. None of this dumb Twilight shit here though. When sun hits Edward he sparkles because hes fabulous. When sun hits these vampires they motherfucking explode.

Ellie is drawn to Oscars pre-school-shooting rage and teaches him how to confront his bullies (with a stick) and solve Rubiks Cube, while dealing with the guilt she feels over all the innocent people she and her guardian have killed to keep her alive. Both of them end up being confronted by the consequences of their actions but manage to save each other and end up eloping elsewhere.

Let the Right One In is a brilliant revival of the gothic genre with a delightful Scandinavian and Hans Christian Anderson twist. Dialogue is kept to a minimum leaving the audience guessing a lot as to what the characters are thinking, and perhaps a few more insights into the psyche of Ellie would have been nice. My only other criticism would be that alot of the side characters were introduced too late, with unclear or drastically unreasonable motives (the bully who wanted to cut out Oskars eyes: when does that ever happen?).

There are two ways to describe this film; one is as a R rated Scandinavian romance (which could be easily misconstrued), the other is as a teen vampire movie conjuring mental imagwa of sulking,sparkling fabulous male models. Neither seems appropriate for this ominous masterpiece.

Legend of Korra: Book 2 thoughts

Katara, Jinora, Tenzin, Bumi and Kya confront the new world.

I just watched the finale of Legend of Korra and Ive got to say I was pretty impressed. As always a few things got under my skin, but Im sure that is mostly my pedantic nature. firstly I noticed that in the last few episodes Korra and Unalaq, as well as Tenzin, Kya, Bolin, Mako and Desna/Eska were able to Bend in the spirit world. Im going to go out on a limb and assume I missed the explanation as to why this was possible, whereas in previous installments of the Avatar universe humans could only bend in the material world.

Secondly I feel that the events of the finale bring the biggest shift to the avatar world yet, which could either be a curse or a blessing. firstly Korra lost her connection with past avatars for tutelage and wisdom, which has often been called upon in times of need in both installments of avatar. honestly, Im not such a fan of adult Aang anyway, I think he’s  boring, but it could make learning avatar stuff hard with no more Gurus or past avatars. Also when Korra decided not to separate the material and spiritual world, she is not only contradicting the will of every past avatar (and presumably the human population as a whole) but also permanently altered the mechanics of the entire familiar avatar world.

Originally, the Avatar stood for the preservation and separation of the four nations and to act as a bridge between the physical and spiritual worlds. First came the unification of the four nations, now this and we are left to wonder; what is the role of the Avatar now? has this revolutionary and technologically advanced age surpassed the need for an Avatar? now that she has lost all spiritual contact with past avatars will she be reincarnated post-mortem, or will the avatar die with her? these thoughts trouble me greatly.

The Legend of Korra is bravely stepping away from the premise of The Last Airbender, to prove its worth as a show independently. but I am missing the characters and setting of TLA all the same. the feudal and mythological charm of TLA have gone, replaced by the steampunk and abolition of the spirit world we can see in the last airbender. One Book remains for Korra, titled ‘changes’. It will obviously be about humans and spirits learning to coexist as they once did, and Im guessing it will tell the story of’ the last avatar’ (AKA Korra) and how she helped create a peaceful world that no longer needs an avatar. I just realised that we havent seen Naga for around 5 episodes, and that Korra and Naga havent met since the early episodes. I hope they stay together in book 3, as I feel the animal guide is very much a part of the avatar experience.