Dexter: The Second Season
List Price:
Our Price: $20.04
You Save: $19.94 (50%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $14.95 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Michael C. HallBrand: Dexter
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: AC-3, Box set, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 636 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-08-19
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Showtime / Paramount
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- AC-3; Box set; Color; Dolby; Dubbed; DVD; Widescreen; NTSC
Movie Reviews of Dexter: The Second Season
Movie Review: Why can't Showtime get Dexter's Cubans right?
Summary: 5 Stars
Depending on who "fits" the cultural/ethnic/racial/political label created in the 1970s, Hispanics or Latinos can come from ancestries from around 20 or so Spanish-speaking nations in the Americas. I think that Europe's Portugal and Spain were also once in that group but are certainly no longer there, especially in the "Latino" label.
20 or so very diverse and distinct nations.
Disclaimers: I do realize that this coming issue of mine is perhaps a very jingoist issue, and I am also keenly aware that I've written about it before in a similar context but in for a different scenario. And yet the more that we become aware how culturally blind Hollywood is, the more they underscore their own cultural ignorance with minute mistakes that keep adding up to colossal mountains.
Last year I complained when Jimmy Smits, a superb actor on his own, was chosen to play the lead part in the CBS drama "Cane", a series about a wealthy Cuban-American family.
My historical issue was that although Jimmy Smits is a great actor, he was not what your typical Cuban sugar magnate would have looked liked in the racist Cuban society of the late 1950s and the Cuban-American refugee wave of the early 1960s. His casting for the part was intolerably historically inaccurate.
CBS picked Smits, a brilliant actor, I guess based on their perception of what a Cuban looks like (Smits is not of Cuban ancestry... his father, Cornelis Smits, was a Surinamese immigrant from Dutch Guiana, and his mother, Emilina, is Puerto Rican).
I suspect that because, like a lot of Cubans, the real Cuban person upon who Smits' character was based upon looked too "Anglo" and not enough of what Hollywood (and CBS) wanted all of us to think that Latinos should all look like, they hired a terrific Emmy-winning Surinamese actor who fits the sterotypical image of what Hollywood thinks Cubans should look like, to play the lead part.
Latinos are a culturally, racially and ethnically diverse group of people, and we're not all made of one mold, as Hollywood wants you to think.
So that was then, and here's what has me all spun up in a new tempest in my demitasse.
Currently my absolute favorite TV show is Showtime's "Dexter."
If you haven't seen this show, then go and buy these DVDs.
In the series, Michael C. Hall is absolutely brilliant as a serial killer who works as a blood expert for the Miami Metro Police while hiding the fact that he is also a serial killer. Dexter goes after bad guys, but he is still a truly disturbing psychopath pretending to be normal while killing bad guys left and right in a very orchestrated manner.
Dexter is television crime drama at its best. It is a brilliantly conceptual idea brought to life by really good actors and the gorgeous setting of Miami.
And because this show is set in Miami, several of the regular characters in the series are portrayed as Cuban characters, such as Dexter's boss, Lt. Maria LaGuerta, played superbly by Puerto Rican actress Lauren Velez and detective Angel Batista, also played superbly by Puerto Rican actor David Zayas.
Now enter season three, which introduced a new character, that of Asst. District Attorney Miguel Prado, another Cuban character played by, yep that's right: Jimmy Smits!
Smits is a terrific actor, and since by now he seems to be making quite a decent living playing Cubans on TV, the least that Showtime can do is hire some Cubans to write their Spanish dialogues for the series so that at least he can sound Cuban.
I know that this is pedantic, but everytime that Smits or the other "Cuban" characters speak to each other in Spanish banter, it is grating to Cuban ears to hear "non Cuban" Spanish being spoken.
Imagine that you are watching a foreign movie, let's say that it is a French movie... and all the dialogue is in French, and in the film there are two British actors who are playing American parts, and every few minutes they speak to each other in English, and instead of American English coming out of their mouths, what comes out is cockney English.
That's what (in my pedantic world of Virgos) I have to suffer everytime that LaGuerta, Batista and/or Miguel Prado talk in Spanish.
The straw that broke the camel's back a few episodes ago was when Miguel Prado (Smits) jokingly called Dexter a "filipolla" (or "gilipolla").
That's when I realized that the writer that Showtime has hired to write the Spanish for the series, not only has no idea about what Cuban Spanish sounds like, but also zero idea of what Latin American Spanish sounds like, as opposed to Castilian Spanish.
Having lived in Spain for a few years in my 20s, I know what that word means, which is essentially a curse word used by Spaniards; let me repeat that: Spaniards, to mean a-hole or jerk, etc.
I am almost 99% sure that no Cuban in Miami or Cuba or anywhere else in the Great Cuban Diaspora, has ever called anyone a gilipolla, unless perhaps they live in Spain and have picked up the term there... from Spaniards.
But in Miami?
A Cuban would have said "Maricon" or perhaps "Cabron." But fili/gilipolla? Nunca!
Now imagine those two Brit actors playing Yanks in my earlier French movie example, calling each other "gits" or "wankers."
Welcome to my pedantic hell.
And now for Showtime: My list of actor candidates who are actually of Cuban ancestry and thus a shoe-in for the part and who actually speak Spanish with a Cuban accent:
Andy Garcia (duh!!!! perfect for the part!... but probably too classy and too expensive to do TV).
Nestor Carbonell. He was great in "Canes" and also in "Lost City," although I think that he wears eye make up?
Mel Ferrer... ah!... I think he's dead.
Desi Arnaz... fine, fine... he's definately dead; but how about Desi Jr.?????
Jorge Perrugorria
Cesar Romero ... fine! I know that The Joker is definately dead.
Julio Mechoso
Ruben Rabasa
Victor Rivers
George Alvarez...
Showtime: call me.
Summary of Dexter: The Second Season
Genre: Television: Series
Rating: NR
Release Date: 19-AUG-2008
Media Type: DVD
Dark and sinister is the new sexy, thanks to Dexter, which in its second season has proven to be the most successful series Showtime has offered up yet. Remember how much you squirmed in your seat during the season one finale? Believe it or not, the premiere of season two felt like it could have been a season finale--because jaws were on the floor when the credits rolled. For being a supposed sociopath, Dex is pretty broken up about the gruesome events that concluded last season. The one and only person who could possibly understand him is six feet under, and it seems our unlikely hero is losing his homicidal grip. He?s even having a little trouble slicing up a few of his latest victims (from a murderous gang member to a chainsaw-wielding fiend from his past). Enter Lila (Jaime Murray, Hustle), a lady with a sweet British accent and a few dark secrets of her own. She seems to accept Dex for who he really is, and he finds himself feeling relaxed for the first time in his life. In contrast, his relationship with his girlfriend Rita (Julie Benz) has been stretched almost to a breaking point. The problem is, he should be anything but relaxed. Someone picked a poor place to go scuba diving off the Florida coast, and came across an underwater graveyard: Dex?s primo spot for dropping dismembered bodies wrapped in heavy-duty trash bags. Word about the "Bay Harbor Butcher" gets out quick, and the F.B.I. sends the best of the best, Special Agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine, Deadwood) to work alongside the police to sniff out Miami?s latest serial killer. This guy is no schlub, and Dex may have met his match. And, yes, Dexter gets to work with Lundy on a daily basis, which provides some wonderfully awkward moments. It certainly doesn?t help that the intuitively paranoid Sergeant Doakes (Erik King, Oz) is hot on Dex?s trail.
Season two of Dexter is all about decisions. Lila or Rita? Old code or new code? Run or fight? Right or wrong? Well, one thing?s for sure: When it comes to writing, casting, acting, and production, the makers of this show made all the right decisions. Michael C. Hall is simply superb as the title character. You?ll never find yourself more willing to genuinely root for a serial killer. It?s bloody liberating. --Jordan Thompson
Similar DVD Movies
Six Feet Under: The Complete First SeasonHBO Home Video; Release date: 2003-02-04; DVD
Best price: $14.29
Price in other shops:
Weeds: Season OneLions Gate; Release date: 2006-07-11; DVD
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Darkly Dreaming Dexterby Jeff Lindsay
Vintage; Published: 2006-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops:
Breaking Bad: The Complete Second SeasonSony; Release date: 2010-03-16; DVD
Best price: $13.99
Price in other shops:
Breaking Bad - The Complete First SeasonSony; Release date: 2009-02-24; DVD
Best price: $12.29
Price in other shops:
Dexter: The Fifth SeasonParamount; Release date: 2011-08-16; DVD
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
Dexter: The First SeasonParamount; Release date: 2007-08-21; DVD
Best price: $22.28
Price in other shops:
Dexter: The Third SeasonDexter; Release date: 2009-08-18; DVD
Best price: $23.99
Price in other shops:
Dexter: The Fourth SeasonParamount; Release date: 2010-08-17; DVD
Best price: $25.00
Price in other shops:
Dexter Season 1Release date: 2011-09-24; Amazon Instant Video; TV Series Season Video on Demand
Best price: $19.10