2/19/2011

Las Aparicio




 Las Aparicio 2010


               Las Aparicio New clips from the Mexican television series featuring prominent lesbian characters and debuting in April.
Las Aparicio is sort of like … if you take Desperate Housewives and you kill off all the men and call it something entirely different, like: Lots of Widows and a Confused Lesbisexual. I’m sure that was one of the titles they threw around before settling on Las Aparicio. Aparicio is the family name. And it’s all about the women. Let’s meet the Fab Four:
Rafaela Aparicio – Matriarch, widow three times over, and badass rich lady. She’s all feminist wisdom and attitude. She’s all, “Grrrls, we don’t need no men. Burn them bras! RAWR!” But waaaay more subtle than that. 'Cause she’s a lady. But she will cut you.
Alma Aparicio – She’s the eldest daughter. She one of those people that makes you feel really unproductive and like you haven’t done anything with your life. She’s a doctor (Ph.D. not M.D.) and she owns a gallery and she runs a male escort service and she teaches classes. See? Don’t you feel like a loser?
Mercedes Aparicio – Mercedes is the mother of one bratty pre-adolescent girl named Isadora, who will probably grow up to be awesome like her mother but isn’t quite there yet. Mercedes is recently widowed because her husband died while sleeping with another woman. Mercedes is a bit broken and confused and angry at her husband and also angry at men that treat women like crap. I love her sort of a lot.
Julia Aparicio – Julia’s the youngest daughter and so she’s not yet a widow because she hasn’t gotten married yet. But she’s dating a fantastical jerk who sleeps around on her. She’s got a lot of feelings about all of that. But mostly, she’s got a lot of feelings for her awesome lesbian best friend, Mariana.
The story of our beloved las Aparicio begins in the family mansion where there’s a party in full swing. Except, wait, it’s not a party. It’s a wake. It’s a wake for Mercedes’ husband (the one that kicked the bucket while doing the nasty with some other woman). Here is where we learn that the Aparicio women are rumored to be cursed because all of their husbands meet an untimely death. My guess is that Doña Rafaela is a retired wizard from Hogwarts and she put a spell on the family that would protect all the women from a-holes. But I doubt it’s a curse. It’s more likely that they all died from being stupid

Julia Y Mariana      
             Julia is in this unfortunate relationship with a guy named um … I forget. Armando. Whatever. He sleeps around and she knows it. He tries to explain to her why he can’t be faithful by saying he’s a soccer player and women flock to him which just makes her go WTF at him. He then tries proposing to her, which doesn’t go over any better. She refuses. He asks her if there’s someone else and she pauses eeeeever so briefly before saying no. She’s obviously unhappy with him, but she doesn’t break up with him.
Mariana then interrupts this totally effed up conversation. Mariana is Julia’s best friend. Beautiful. Chef. Lesbian. A general bundle of awesomeness. Julia’s interruption effectively kills the conversation and Armando goes away. Julia thanks Mariana for her awesome timing. She grabs Mariana’s face and says, “I love you.” 






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Bloomington

Bloomington 2010

       

            Bloomington, a tale of sordid, Sapphic love between a psychology professor and an undergraduate student, is Fernanda Cardoso’s first full-length feature film.  Professor Catherine Stark (Allison McAtee) is a cougar on the prowl, infamous throughout the university for her lesbian liaisons with her students, and is generally feared by the student body a bastion of intimidation—some students even believe her to be a vampire.  Her newest conquest is Jackie Kirk (Sarah Stouffer), a doe-eyed, former child television star turned college freshman. The plot details the development and rapid decline of their relationship, as Jackie leaves school to return to acting, while Professor Stark gets the ax after the administration discovers her scandalous affair.
      Bloomington promises audiences another take on the sexy student-teacher dynamic, but it ultimately disappoints because the narrative lacks coherence, which is perhaps due to the remarkably amateurish editing of the film’s scenes.  When time is of the essence for the sustainability of intimate relationships, and when such emphasis is placed on the sustainability of intimate relationships, and when such emphasis is placed on the generational differences between Jackie and Catherine in particular, it becomes difficult to comprehend the intensity and depth of their relationship. In other words, the narrative disconnect that occurs as a result of shoddy editing makes it impossible to believe that the two have a serious, intimate relationship, which makes it impossible, in turn, to sense the dramatic sincerity of the relationship’s dissolution.(cherrygrrl.com/movie-review-bloomington)









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