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SEASON ONE: A

Just how obsessed are we with killers? Enough to follow them weekly, religiously. We like to observe them from afar, pretend we’ve caught them and everything is okay, until next week. There’s only umpteen different CSIs on television. Millions tune in to see a wooden David Caruso, or a quirky William Petersen hunt the killers down. Then there’s Criminal Minds, Cold Case, and on and on. They just run into each other eventually. But one thing none of these get into is inside the mind of a killer. We peer into it slightly in a confession scene or when suspects fit a profile, but never in television and rarely in film do we really try to hear the thoughts of someone who enjoys the kill, but that was all before Dexter.

Based on the Dexter novel series by Jeffrey Lindsay, Michael C. Hall stars as Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst working for the Miami Metropolitan Police Department, helping solve crimes based on studying crime scenes and evidence. What lies inside Dexter though is a darkness known only to him, that’s far more insidious and dangerous than anyone around him can imagine.

Dexter was trained by his foster father Harry (James Remar), to blend in, and to abide by a code to set him apart from criminals. He knew as a child that Dexter was different, that he had demons in him, a proclivity to kill that he had seen while being a detective himself. Harry steered Dexter so he could wouldn’t kill innocents. Now Dexter fakes human interactions so that he can fit in with us regular folk. See, Dexter is a serial killer himself, but with a code: killing only those who live only to prey on others. The process only gets you so far, Dexter goes beyond that line. Way beyond.

Around him is a small circle of associates (he would never consider them friends): Debra, his sister and former Vice cop, new to the Homicide Unit; Lt. Maria LaGuerta (Laruen Velez) who is in charge the entire unit, has a thing for Dexter and hates his sister; Det. Angel (David Zayas) a cool fedora-wearing cat who wears masks of his own as his marriage is in shambles; Vincent Masuka (C.S. Lee) is Dex’s partner in the lab and is not your average token Asian because he’s always ripe for an inappropriate comment and Sgt. James Doakes (Erik King), the one officer who suspicious of Dexter. Finally there’s Rita (Julie Benz), his girlfriend and mother of two, damaged by her ex-husband’s emotional and physical abuse. She’s as far removed as he is and is the perfect companion.

Once acquainted with Dexter’s surroundings, the show has a large arc that spans the entire season. Another serial killer known as the “Ice Truck Killer” who cuts people up similarly to Dexter but drains the body parts of their blood before laying them out for all to see. He or she knows Dexter and what he does because he leaves clues in his apartment. Miami’s best serial killer may have met his match. With a great hook, there’s the question of who could it be. It’s obviously someone close to Dexter and there’s plenty of people to suspect keeping the entire season full of compelling and spine-chilling moments. Some episodes will cause your head to spin away but you can’t, instead you’ll find you rooting for the butchery to begin. You won’t recognize yourself by the end of the first season. Dexter just has that effect on people.

SEASON TWO: B+

The second season kicks off with Dexter’s “stash” being found at the bottom of the ocean and has been dubbed by the media, (regrettably by Dex) as the Bay Harbor Butcher. The FBI is brought in and Dexter must carry on the lie to Rita that he’s a recovering drug attic to cover up what he did to her ex-husband. Forced to lay low and go to Narcotics Anonymous, Dexter experiences going “clean” and loses his killing touch. All of his co-workers are assigned to SP Agent Frank Lundy’s (Keith Carradine) task force on the Butcher case except Doakes. Lundy was said to have been responsible for solving real murder cases, D.C. Sniper and Green River Killer and if anyone can snuff out Miami’s most treacherous serial killer, it’s him.

Dexter meanwhile wrestles with his psychological urges to kill while maintaining his one step ahead of his co-workers, eliminating anything that would link him to the Bay Harbor Butcher. But that’s not all, he has to juggle his sister living with him who is now an emotional wreck from the season one aftermath, and his relationship with Rita and the kids, which is crumbling. The show becomes increasingly inventive as the show steers away from the formulaic traps of (well, in this show anyway) our main character’s killing-a-week. But what keeps this season from being on par with the previous one is Lila Tournay (Jaime Murray). Posing as a sympathetic sponsor at Dexter’s NA meetings, this British bird creates jealousy for Rita as she’s able to relate to his inner demons. Since Dexter doesn’t have to hide himself as much with Lila, he lets his guard down and like a snake, slithers her way into his life until she’s a major problem. Her overt British accent is borderline fingernails on a chalkboard by the eighth episode and you’ll find yourself screaming at the television when she appears warning Dexter of her wickedness. The sophomore season of Dexter looks like a series’ ender but by the end finds a way to wrap everything up and stir up a lot of excitement for season three.

Dexter is just a new take on the weekly crime scene investigation shows that have littered the tube since CSI appeared. For the first time on film or television are we able to get inside the mind of the serial killer. Most times they are being chased, and we can only get hints of what they’re thinking through a profiler, or a confession scene. But Dexter takes you deep into that seedy part of your mind and asks you to take a ride beside Miami’s best serial killer. Is he a criminal, or a hero? Is he conditioned this way, or can he initiate real change into who he is?

VIDEO: A
Dexter is shot in high definition and transfers on both seasons are 1080p AVC-encoded and at 1.78:1 ratio. Miami is a city full of life, sunlit settings and places full of color. Exterior shots like a golf course or the everglades look sharp and bold. But the Dexter blu-rays really show off their strength in producing an extremely gorgeous scenes at night. Dexter does most of his work after hours and into the morning, but when the city is lit up or the sun is just about to rise or set, it’s like a postcard on your television. Because it’s shot in HD, nearly every pore is there to see on each actors skin. Freckles, blemishes, a little acne, it’s all there and I’ve always thought it to shoot in this format because so much can be seen.

AUDIO: A-
Both seasons have exciting English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio tracks that utilizes the strength of each channel. A mixture of 90% English and 10% Spanish Dialogue is well-heard front and center. Subwoofers lull in the background, at times to the sound of a heartbeat but mostly to accentuate the eerie and haunting score, otherwise it’s reserved for the impact of gunshots or music. Season two sees an increase in the lively Cubanismo music sprinkled around that illuminates a scene with brass instruments and the pounding rhythm section. From dogs barking to conversations at a crime scene, if something happens off camera or there’s a camera angle switch, all the respected noises are placed accordingly and accurately where they’re supposed to be heard. One of the show’s directors, Tony Goldwyn likes to take the camera and spin around the actors. In season one, he pans around Dexter’s boat as he’s dumping parts into the ocean and each speaker gets a kiss as the camera circles.

A Spanish 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track is also included in season two, an upgrade from the Spanish 2.0 Stereo track on season one. White English subtitles are available for the hard of hearing. Don’t think that’s going to allow you to translate when Spanish is spoken though. Unless the characters specifically translate in English, the subtitles are turned off and the context and method acting tells you what is being said.

EXTRAS
SEASON ONE EXTRAS: C+
Audio Commentary episode six, Return to Sender with Jennifer Carpenter, David Zayas, Lauren Velez and Erik King. This motley crew who play Deb, Angel, LaGuerta, and Doakes respectively watch the show like fans. It’s fun to hear them joke around and react to the acting like people who are experiencing it for the first time but do point out notes only actors would see.

Audio Commentary episode twelve, “Born Free” with series executive producers Sara Colleton, Clyde Phillips, and Daniel Cerrone. Not as fun as the cast commentary, but is not a waste of time. Again they watch more as admirers of the show.

The Academy of Blood (10:58) – Interviews with Steve Schliebe, a criminalist and real blood expert break down arterial spurting, shadowing and ghosting, blood dropping into blood, expiratory blood, and what can be read from the patterns of blood. This piece looks to be a string of podcasts strung together as Schliebe is introduced several times. Some editing would have been nice.

Witnessed in Blood (12:28) – is like a 48 Hours segment about a real murder case that was solved with blood spatter study.

Michael C. Hall Podcast SD (8:53) – Michael is interviewed about the complex character of Dexter Morgan.

First Episode of Dexter, Season 2 SD – it says the first episode of the third season, but in actuality it’s the first of the second season.

First two episodes of The United States of Tara – because Showtime wants to keep you on their channel, there’s a free sampling of the first two hours of the Diablo Cody-written/Steven Spielberg produced television show starring Toni Collette.

SEASON TWO EXTRAS: C-

The same two download-able episodes for United States of Tara from Dexter’s season one set are available here too.

Blood Fountains (1:00) – a brief little podcast on a promotional tour of Dexter that involved popular fountains across the country dying their water red so it looked like the bloody sets of the television show.

Ken Olson, Little Chino and Roger Hicks Profiles of three of Dexter’s targets as told by the “Dark Defender” each lasting around 1:40 are creepy little promotions for these three scumbags that Dexter gets his hands on in season two.

The best extras on season two are the Nine Podcast Interviews with each recurring cast member. Each one is around five minutes long, give or take a minute, and add up to one solid chunk of press interview fluff that fans would like to hear.

Overall Shock Value Season One: A / Season Two: B
Dexter is as gruesome as they come taking procedural detective television to another level. The lead character isn’t just unpredictable, he’s a psychopath too, and whether you agree with his ethics or not, Dexter ups the ante of the TV vigilante. The extras are reasonable for season one, but season two shows no major effort. Depending on how good your BD Live connection is will determine the level of enjoyment you’ll get out of these few supplements, but that shouldn’t sway you from tracking Dexter down in blu-ray and see everyone’s favorite serial killer in high def. Both seasons are available now and a three-season pack will also be due out in August 18 when season three comes out.

I Will Find You… I Will Kill You

Film: B+
The vigilante film had become a lost art for a while there. So prevalent in the 70′s through the early 90′s they’ve died down a bit when Arnie and Sly began to show their age and action films tried too hard or just not enough. There was something satisfying in Commando or Rambo, that’s rarely been revisited since. The Jason Bourne films steered Hollywood into a new direction, as the thrill of pursuit with high speed action found its place once again, reawakening the James Bond franchise. In comes the movie Taken, a film produced and co-written by fan favorite, Luc Besson, (Le Femme Nikita, The Professional) a guy who knows a thing or two about making films with intrigue, suspense, and action. Together with director, Pierre Morel, and fellow writer Robert Mark Kamen, they craft one of the tightest thrillers in a long time. It’s perfect in its pacing, its situation, and execution. There’s absolutely no fat in Taken, just a simple guy with the means to back up his words.

Retired government operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) just wants some normalcy in his life but no one listens. His 17-year old daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace) and friend Amanda deceive him by telling him that they are spending the summer with Amanda’s family. In actuality they are following U2 all around Europe free of any family or supervision. This comes at a time when Mills moved to LA, living in modest conditions to be closer to his daughter to try and repair the relationship he sacrificed while working for the government. Bryan’s ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen) has since moved on and is begrudgingly allowing him to see Kim on a limited basis, while rubbing in her new husband’s luxuries.

Kim agrees to check in with her father when she gets to Paris, and when she does, Bryan gets the call no parent ever wants to get. Witnessing Amanda being kidnapped, Kim frantically has some last words with her father knowing that she’ll be next. Instructing her to give him any clues she can, Bryan goes into survival mode and is forced to race the clock: get to Paris, and save his daughter from being a victim of human trafficking. It’s so simple and yet brilliant because it delivers on every note of what a film like this should be.

In a flash, Neeson goes from a can’t win daddy to an ass-kicking vigilante that would make Jack Bauer proud. He’s quite believable while doing it too. With an imposing stature combined with the fast-cutting style of French action cinematography you never get the sense that this guy is retired, as if he was a sharpened tool just waiting to be used. He’s resourceful and is constantly using the skills learned as an operative. Remember when Steven Segal broke onto the scene and in his early films you believed this guy could be a one-man wrecking crew. The problem was, he believed it too, a little too much. But Neeson plays the part to a tee, and we get lost in what he does on screen. We only wish we possessed not only the size, and skill but have the necessary connections to be able to wipe it clean from our record. In the end, it’s the ultimate wish fulfillment film, and the biggest ?I told you so.?

The Director’s Cut places four minutes of violence back in, and the box office success shows why the choices were made but as far as the story goes, those added minutes are important details that bring the desperation and urgency of a one-mission man. Unable to slow the film down to show emotion, Neeson is able to show that in subtle details in how violently he goes for these guys for example shooting for the head and multiple rounds unloaded. It’s enough to get a complete picture of what’s going through Mills’ mind. It’s not essential for the story because it played well enough in the theaters, but it does add another dimension to the main character, and hell, who doesn’t like seeing Qui-Gon Jin fuck people up?

Video: A-
Taken plays in high definition with a 1080p, AVC-encoded transfer in a nice wide 2.40:1 ratio. I absolutely loved how this film looked on blu-ray. In the daytime scenes you felt like you were there, but this film really thrived at night. The hues were lush, glowing in night scenes but never to the point of over-saturation. Skintones had warm amber quality to them, even Paris’ ugly corners looked lovely. Moments like the auction scene were as black as a coal mine, and really added to the seediness of it. Fox put out a very strong high definition transfer that has just enough grain to make you know you’re watching a film, but an abundant amount of detail and color show that Taken on blu-ray is anything but standard.

Audio: A
Taken has a great 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio audio track that has broad dynamic range and plenty of action for all channels of your home theater. Crowd noise like cameras flashing and idol chatter move behind you in the early concert scene when we get a taste of Bryan’s skills. Gunshots ping and patter all around as well. The car chase sequence in the construction site is a great chapter to replay and there’s lots of subwoofer activity. Nothing was mixed too strong or harsh, or too low. All of the different dialects are clear and distinctive blu-ray and is possibly one of my favorites this year as far as sound goes. Also available are a 5.1 Dolby Digital Spanish Track, a 5.1 Dolby Surround French track and subtitles in English Hard of Hearing and Spanish.

Extras: B-
Disc One
Toggling between unrated and theatrical versions can be done from the initial disc load or at anytime during the playback of the season.

Audio Commentary by Director Pierre Morel, Cinematographers Michel Abramowicz, and Michel Julienne this commentary is conducted entirely in French, with subtitles. It’s an entertaining track although it’s a little difficult to pick up who specifically is talking at the time since the voice pitch is so similar amongst the three of them. They crack jokes and talk a lot of the production and the artistic direction, and the shooting style at different points of the film. I just wish they could change the colors of those subtitles to yellow.

Audio Commentary by Writer Robert Mark Kamen talks about working with Morel and Besson, gives some French action film history, and the danger of losing sympathy for the main character, gets you in the mind of Bryan which I really enjoyed almost giving a reading of the novel version of Taken if there was one.

Black Ops Field Manual – is a picture-in-picture is a fun way to watch the film. Black boxes come up in the bottom left with real facts about black operative agents, their training, and some pretty scary statistics of human trafficking. There are just some astonishing facts putting Albania on the frontline of human trafficking offenders. At the top of the screen is a running tab of the distance Bryan travels, the Time Remaining in the story’s timeline that begins when Kim is taken, and a body count of how many people are injured and killed. I happen to watch this while listening to the Kamen commentary, which worked out pretty well.

Le Making Of HD (18:24) – is standard making of affair. Nothing out of the ordinary or particularly special just a bunch of fluff interviews with cast and crew.

Avant Premiere HD (4:48) – a neat split screen interview with Besson, Neeson, and Morel at the premiere of the film in France. As exciting as this event was for the crew who attended, it’s hard not to feel sad though when you see the late Natasha Richardson at Liam’s side.

Inside Action Side-by-Side Comparisons HD (11:05) – Six scenes (Peter Dies, Bryan Escapes Construction Site, Good Luck, The Interrogation, Bryan at Saint Clair’s, and Boat Fight) show how much changes from the on-location shoot to the final result after post production.

Trailers for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li, and 12 Rounds appear when you load the blu-ray and there’s one for Notorious in the special features.

Disc Two:
Digital Copy Disc for laptops, computers and other portable digital media players. It should be noted that it plays the extended cut only.

I’m Quite Taken – Overall Shock Value: B+
Taken is an action-packed 90 minutes that’s been trimmed of all the fat so it should be good for anyone’s diet of films along with those looking for some serious wish fulfillment. The extras don’t push this up another level but it’s a technically sound blu-ray with the trimmings and has multiple ways of viewing it. It’s a great little film that’s easy to get in and then get out, the true mark of a vigilante classic.

Ernie Estrella

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