True Blood Finale (Plus: Season 4 Awards!)

The final episode of True Blood's witchy season four had a cleft heart, one half beating only for past glories (i.e. Season 4 ... or even earlier seasons if their name is "Bill") and the other half beating for an imagined future (Season 5 if you'd like to get cynical about it). You could just about divide the sprawling cast down the center as to which half they belonged to, some characters hanging on to the past either tearfully, fearfully or violently (Marnie, Eric, Bill, Debbie, Hoyt, Arlene, Pam), others ready to forge ahead and move on with varying degrees of optimism, fear, and willpower (Sookie, Jessica, Jason, Tara, Sam, Holly & Andy). It's the very drama that infuses the episode's opening conversation with Jesus & Lafayette. Isn't that always the drama of the heart? 

Jesus and Lafayette (who is actually Marnie!) over breakfast eggs.

4.12 "And When I Die"
Not that True Blood thrives on "the universal". Most of us don't have to worry about malevolent spirits possessing our lovers, stabbing our hands over breakfast, duct-taping us to our chairs, and stealing our demon-headed magic while thrusting a butcher knife into our heart. But maybe Jesus, familiar with both violence-prone spirits and demon-headed Crazy, should've worried himself towards protection spells or some such! Goodbye Jesus (2010-2011) we hardly knew you. Goodbye Kevin Alejandro, go-to guy for "regular cast" killings (see also: Southland).

True Blood's season finale had a cleft heart but its body was divvied up into smaller pieces, drawn and quartered one might say.

If that sounds torturous, it definitely was... at least for the characters. And maybe some audiences members who wanted a more cohesive finale. More after the jump, plus best & worst of the season.

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True Blood 4.2 "You Smell Like Dinner"

Last week on True Blood I bemoaned the scattershot expository-heavy nature of the season 4 premiere but Holy Recovery. This show must have taken a hit of "V" last week because it came on supernaturally strong in the second episode of the season. If they keep this up we could be looking at a peak season. The show managed to pull at least a third of its characters (can we hope for two thirds?) back into a central plot (the emergence of a powerful new witch coven) in organic ways. It's the kind of braided multi-strand narrative that the best television series thrive on and which newly fanatical Game of Thrones watchers are going to eventually realize will never ever happen again on their new favorite show ever -- unless the production team ditches the source material for original stories -- but let's not get sidetracked!

What were those vamp whores up to this week?

'You want to call me that again?'

"You Smell Like Dinner" covers as much recap ground in its first half as "She's Not There" did in its entire hour while actually advancing the story. Jason is being held captive by his were-panther community and we learn why. The vampires at Fangtasia are still beset by Right Wing Christian groups -- Pam gets a particularly choice zinger in before hot-headed Hoyt gets a pumelling. Sam's shapeshifter friends become more interesting, particularly Luna. Eric continues his takeover of Sookie's house and life. He calls her "saucy" which is an impressively perfect word choice on behalf of the screenwriters given that it's 100% accurate, a bit old fashioned (he's hundreds of years old) and English isn't his native tongue.

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Yes, No, Maybe So: "Melancholia"

yes no maybe so ~ in which we determine how we feel about new movies based on their trailers.

Lars von Trier. Those three syllables used to excite me beyond any others in moviedom. I'm not sure where I lost the thread but ever since the brilliant Golden Heart trilogy (Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, Dancer in the Dark), it's been like the air slowly (very slowly) going out though I still find a lot to enjoy, respect and respond to in the films. So how about the wedding set MELANCHOLIA, von Trier's spin on the Apocalyptic Drama.

Yes. First things first, I have been a major believer in Kirsten Dunst as an actress and have been ever since The Virgin Suicides. I think that if she stays focused on her craft andgets the opportunities, two big "ifs", she will continue to surprise and evolve. I'm also delighted that von Trier cast Stellan Skarsgård and Alexander Skarsgård as father and son because that's always a treat in movies when people fictionalize their own realities.

All that and then then Charlottes? I'm in. Von Trier always gives his cast a lot of thematic and character meat to chew on... and then he makes them gag on it.

Is everyone in your family stark raving mad?

No. I don't get what Keifer Sutherland is doing here exactly and sometimes I suspect that Lars von Trier casts in a similar way to Woody Allen where he only vaguely pays attention to Hollywood and then is like "they're popular right now, right? Let's use them" and sometimes there is a lag in awareness or what not. And I do worry a bit about trying to do a Celebration style family drama AND an apocalyptic drama. Too ambitious?

Maybe So. Then again... this collision of genres might be completely fascinating. Von Trier's gift with indelible images -- and they're totally spoiling us with how many there are in this one trailer -- combined with how far he pushes his actors could make this truly special. And not to get all philosophical as we wrap up but should the apocalypse we always fear come, wouldn't it arrive and be experienced in a terrifyingly intimate way with friends and family and our neurotic interior monologues rather than with CGI explosions, a motley cast of strangers and Hollywood bombast?

This is actually the one thing i really loved about M Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002) though I didn't otherwise care for that movie and I never ever ever ever ever thought I'd cover M Night with Lars von, and I feel perverse doing so now. But watching that movie -- at least for the first hour, I thought 'this is how you'd experience something that was affecting the whole world.' It'd be how it hit you at home and what you saw on the news and what you attempted to piece together and how it affected you and your loved ones.

I am resounding "Yes" all told but I'm trying to keep my expectations down in lieu of Antichrist which I was too excited for, heard too much about before seeing it and was only thrilled by it visually.

Melancholia from Zentropa on Vimeo.

So what about you: YES, NO, or MAYBE SO?
Did Antichrist's wicked idea of a horror movie leave you ready for more or do are you hoping this is more in the harrowing Breaking the Waves human vein?