Alejandro Jodorowsky

  Lately I've been following the works of the artistic filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky. He's been said to have influenced the works of directors David Lynch and Nicolas Winding Refn. Back in the late 60s is when he began to debut his film career after studying theatre and mime under Etienne Decroux. He contributed alot to the genre of surrealist cinema and was a founding member of the anarchistic avant-garde Panic Movement of performance artists. His first feature titled Fando y Lis caused a huge scandal in Mexico which led to it being banned. His next film El Topo which was released in 1970 later being labeled as an "acid western" combining the traditional qualities of a western with 1960s counter culture.  El Topo is a very cool and bizarre film about a lone ranger played by Jodorowsky himself who embarks on a quest of enlightenment encountering very odd and memorable characters along his journey. He travels across a desert in search to defeat the four great gun masters in order to become the greatest gunman in the land. This movie was considered the first ever midnight cult film. John Lennon praised this movie and promised to fund Jodorowsky with $1 million dollars for his next project titled

"The Holy Mountain". The Holy Mountain also spread throughout the underground cult film circuit. It was characterized by its oddly unique characters and psychedelic scenery. It was describes as a surrealist exploration of western esotericism. He has also written books and regularly lectures on his own spiritual system, which he calls "psychomagic" and "psychoshamanism" and which borrows from his interests in alchemy, the Tarot, Zen Buddhism, and shamanism.

Oscars 2014 Recap

   To start off I was very pleased with the selection of films for best picture this year. Im glad that "12 years a slave" got best picture, I think it completely deserved it. The selection of actors and the performances in that movie were stellar. I'm proud for Lupita Nyong'o for her award winning best supporting actress, she's a very beautiful and intelligent woman. I really liked the blue dress she wore it made her look stunning. As for the best actor I predicted wrong thinking that Chiwetel Ejiofor would take away the oscar but Im proud of Matthew McConaughey for his achievement which makes me want to see Dallas Buyer's Club. I would also like to see Jared Leto's performance in that movie which earned him an award. I think Cate Blanchett gave a good performance in Blue Jasmine from what I can remember from that movie. Im still a bit ticked off that Gravity won 7 oscars, (talk about being very one sided...) Alfonso Cuaron should not have one best director, in my opinion 12 years a slave was a better directed movie. The Gravity also shouldn't have won best cinematography because mostly everything done in that movie was in front of a green screen, it shouldve gone to either 12 years a slave or the black and white black comedy Nebraska. Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza looks very interesting. I was also disappointed that best original song went to the commercial hit Frozen and not the moon song from the movie Her. Im very glad that 12 years a slave got best adapted screenplay and Her got best original screenplay. I loved the ideas and concepts and were presented in Her, having a very touching yet unusual story in a very likely kind of future. Its been a great year full of great films and I'm very interested in what is yet to come...