American Horror Story 5x03 Mommy / 5x04 Devil's Night

Yeah, so this is awkward - I didn't have the time to recap the episode last Thursday and then I kinda forgot to recap it. But I warned you it may happen. So we are doing the double feature today.

Last week's episode unfortunately showed us more of Alex. Is there anyone watching who actually cares about this arc? Anyways it turns out Alex loves her abducted son way more than her husband - whom she wants to divorce - and daughter - whom she throws the most epic side eye since Catelyn Tully. So Alex goes to Hotel and after being teased by Naomi Campbell's ghost (by the way don't you badmouth Zara) she runs into Holden and takes him home, because oh well what could possibly go wrong?

Crimson Peak

(spoilers!)
Before I discuss the many problems Crimson Peak unfortunately has, let's just get this out of the way - this is the finest haunted house in cinema since Alejandro Amenabar directed The Others, back in 2001. The house in Crimson Peak is a true marvel - beautifully designed, meticulously planned and definitely worth seeing on the big screen. As advertised, this is the house that breathes and bleeds - the wind sounds like wailing, the red clay spilling through wooden boards looks like blood. This house is truly magnificent and one of the strongest things in the movie.

Visual Parallels: A Single Man + The Hours

Stephen Daldry's The Hours and Tom Ford's A Single Man are both beautiful movies dealing with the subject of loneliness. The first follows three women, each living in different time, but each of them hopelessly stuck in their lives. The second shows a day of a man who lost his lover and is set on killing himself.

American Horror Story 5x02 Chutes and Ladders

This week at the Hotel we got to truly suffer trough the introduction and the following scenes featuring Finn Wittrock's character, we got to learn a little bit about Countess Elizabeth and we got a truly awesome black and white flashback which was so incredibly brutal I'm almost sure it would not be allowed to air in color.

We opened with Sally being sadistic to that raped dude and sewing him into the mattress. Then one of the Swedish tourists died after vamp kid fed on her and Iris and Liz Taylor along with the maid got rid of her body. Iris comes over to Elizabeth's room because she wants to speak with Donovan but he hides from her. Elizabeth tells him she wants to go out but he wants to stay in and watch House of Cards. So Elizabeth goes out on her own.

Simply the Best: 2009 - 2005

The Oscar season is almost upon us so I thought it would be fun to assemble a list of my winners in 5 big categories. I originally wanted to just share the list but once I started to write about these movies and performances the post grew so much I had to split it into three. So here is the second one with my winners for Best Picture and best performances between 2009 and 2005:

American Horror Story 5x01 Checking In

American Horror Story is back and what a triumphant return it is. Everyone was worried when it was announced that season 4 was the last one for Jessica Lange. Then everyone was even more worried when they found out that Lady Gaga, who apparently called Ryan Murphy expressing her desire to be on the show, will replace Lange as the show's leading lady. But people were worried for nothing because "Checking In" is a very promising start of the season and the most intense and atmospheric episode the show had to date.

Simply the Best: 2015 - 2010

The Oscar season is almost upon us so I thought it would be fun to assemble a list of my winners in 5 big categories. I originally wanted to just share the list but once I started to write about these movies and performances the post grew so much I had to split it into three. So here is the first one with my winners for Best Picture and best performances between 2010 and 2015. 2015 picks are likely to change but at this point I just want to praise these performances. Fury Road is safe where it is, though.