City of God: Revisited

I didn't sleep very well last night, for three reasons. My cousin's over here, and he wanted to watch Steven King's The Stand. So we watched the first 3 episodes (about 90 minutes each) and I couldn't keep my eyes open for the 4th (though I wanted to so badly). So I "went to sleep", actually I came and read my email, which includes the comments people wrote on my "City of God" thing. So I felt kinda bad about what I had written, and I knew that Nguyen was right in that I should use more detail because only doing so can you give a good movie review. Otherwise your just talking around certian issues/plot/etc... Plus, there's now way I'm going to get better as a writer or reviewer or whatever if I don't A)take critisicm or B) improve my style which is a slight point of this blog to begin with. So I had all that running through my head, and I went to toadpizza and enjoyed it thoroughly but didn't read it very carefully, just enough to be jelouse of your writing style. So I went to bed feeling dispondent over my post, and responses and ablity plus, I was still abit wigged out over the movie that I had watched and when I did get to sleep I drempt of "the end of the world" and a huge stand between Good Vs. Evil, and it's not the type of dreams I usually, have.

So today I woke up, and wanted to at least finish The Stand (which I haven't done yet) but Naomi and I need to drive my cousin back to Pittsburgh first. I just thought I'd clear up some stuff about my impressions on City of God, and there will be some spoilers, so if you are an anal freak (like I am) about not wanting things spoiled --DON'T READ THIS-- because Anal Freaks (like me) get annoyed when the slightest thing is spoiled for them. There could be some medium spoilig here so you may get more than slightly annoyed you might want to chainsaw my car in half.

So first off, I did really like City of God. It was a good movie. I liked at 2 or 3 of the characters supremely, and I understood all of them. The story tells a grisley tale of a boy growing up in the slums of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil-- just in case). His life (and the lives of all the other inhabitants) are dominated by the gangs that traffic marijuna, cocain and guns througout the neighborhoods. Rocket, or narrator and main character tries to stradle the fence between gangster and straight lace citazen. As you could imainge this becomes increasingly more difficult to do as he intertwines his life with fringe gangsters and girls. (Getting involved with girls can always lead to a downward spiral... (just joking) ;) so that's the plot.

I mentioned yesterday that I liked the movie because of the structure. That's still true. The structre takes you on wild race, and dosen't introduce you to the salient characters until it becomes absolutly necessary for you to meet them. It's genius.

The other thing I like about the movie, is seeing A) another part of the world, and B) I'm alway impressed with showing grisley scenes that make the audience feel uncomfortable. This movie has a few of these type things, but the most haunting to me (and thus most effective and maybe "best") is the one I'll describe for you. There's this bad gangester war lord guy, Li'l Ze right, and he basically rules the streets in The City of God. Well this "little" gang called The Runts starts messing up his turf. The Runts are 8-10 year old kids. They carry guns and vandalise, and basically wreak havoc on everyone. So Li'l Ze wants to send them a message, and he corners 2 of them, and asks each of them, do you want me to shoot you in the hand or foot? It was really nonchalant too, like he was asking "where's the wal-mart"? He then shoots a kid in the foot, and these little boys that act so tough, (but are literaly little boys) are now crying like a little boy would. It was a moving picture of the lifesyle these boys live, and a the fact that all of them are in WAY over their heads, even though they pretend not to be.

The other interesting factoid about the movie, is that when Li'l Ze is in charge of his area without being challenged by others, the whole slum is relativly safe. Street crime went down, people were walking the streets at night, no one felt unsafe, until someone tried to take over Li'l Ze's territory. The point is, I wouldn't have thought that by encouraging drug dealing the city would be safer than by trying to bust it. Did that make sense? It was just an interesting realization you know?

So the bottom line is, I did enjoy the movie, (though I watched Million Dollar Baby and though it's more depressing I think I liked Million Dollar Baby more, though I wouldn't take either of them on a desert Isle and watch either of them forever.) I liked it very much. I just can't feel like I should recommend it to people, because of the content. But Ben, I'm VERY glad you watched it, seriously. I think it's important or at least good for people to get out of their comfort zones when watching a movie, this movie certianly did that for me, and I imagine it did for you too, as it would all of you.

Keep it real. Dre :)

ps- (I hope I don't ruin it but this post is spelling error free, I just worded it, and it had no spelling errors. Whopee I didn't get my masters degree for nothing...)