City of God

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Cidade de Deus
or
City of God
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317248/

If you have not seen this film yet, see it. Even if you can't handle subtitles- this is a great flick.

The story depicts growing up in one of the Brazil's favellas/slums and the problem of crime. The story is compelling and interesting, and more documentary than fiction as it's based on true stories. One learns not only the story of one character growing up in the favella, but also you see the decline of the favella from a lower class housing residence to a slum, one sees the evolution of crime from gangsters as romantic heroes to merchantile despots. This will also give some insight to the problem of crime not only in developing regions, but also, and historically, in developed regions. Watching this film I thought of mob films in the US. In many ways superior to Gangs of New York (sorry Kharn) this is one that shouldn't be missed.

Let me add, get the DVD- there is a really good documentary on the DVD that is one of the best featurettes I've seen. While the film is mostly the story of a favella from the 1960s to the 1970s, the documentary will make things more current.
 
"and you know, it's great when you take a hot banana and... "


Great flick.
 
My uncle (Cesar Charlone) was the Cinematography director. He said the movie took almost two years to complete. What scares me the most is that he says that the reality is WAY scarier than the movie. He put it this way: Brazil's now-militarized police won't go inside Rio de Janeiro's favelas. Not without speaking to the chieftain before, at least.
 
That's the depiction I got in the documentary attached to the DVD. Definitely see the DVD for the featurette if you are interested in that. It's a war zone. What is amazing is when the Police chief says, "it is an unjust country with a corrupt police, and that is what the people want." Wow.

For those interested, another very good film involving crime among the urban poor- see Juice. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104573/

One scene in City of God, is when the drug dealers are arming just about everyone who wants a gun, and the violence that leads too. This raises the question if arming the public is a good idea for security. One has to question the NRA if arming the population includes arming the inner city poor and if the idea is really to continue the slaughter of inner city kids.
 
I have to agree, that particular policy is as naive as believing that banning guns will eliminate shootings.
 
And my mother wants to move to Brazil....I am going to be a dead sonuvabitch if I don't get street smart soon.
 
Haven't seen Oldboy. But Ichi the Killer was one of the dumbest flicks I have seen, no offense, and fairly disappointing. Sado-masochism seems to be the only real theme and in that sense it's a spectacle of violence.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042/

Now I don't mind violence, but I do want to see a movie. For example, I loved the Wild Bunch even when it was considered abhorently violent . But it had more of a story than Ichi and kept to it. Ichi just gets lost in the violence.

Ichi the Killer involves the hunt for a Yakuza boss who has run off with the money. But the core of the story involves the conflict of two characters, one a sadistic gangster named Kakihara who has no conscience nor heart, and one very twisted kid, Ichi, whose brainwashed into thinking his morally justified for his acts of killings.

It could have worked. I keep comparing it to Kill Bill. But it just seemed to get carried away with itself, and what could have been a good story got lost in the gore. I know it has quite a following, especially for those who love Asian cinema and ultra-violence, but it just didn't work for me.
 
well, everyone has their own taste, there is no reason to comparing.

I have more then 500 movies in my private DVD/DVDRIP collection, and Itchi was one of the better one I sow.


PS, I really recommend watching oldboy, I can prob set an FTP server if anyone interested.
 
SkynetV3 said:
My uncle (Cesar Charlone) was the Cinematography director. He said the movie took almost two years to complete. What scares me the most is that he says that the reality is WAY scarier than the movie. He put it this way: Brazil's now-militarized police won't go inside Rio de Janeiro's favelas. Not without speaking to the chieftain before, at least.
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The military police handles that kind of criminality, when they can`t enter the favelas the army is called in. Sometimes they give the fights live on TV, with heavy machine guns and really extreme military hardware, and the general population on the midlle. Crazy.

Skynet give your huncle a big hug, what a fantastic work.
 
welsh said:
Watching this film I thought of mob films in the US. In many ways superior to Gangs of New York (sorry Kharn)
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STFU noob.

(I have the flick on DVD, but my player broke down, so no watching it)

CC said:
If it was'nt for Master and Commander it would have been my movie of 2003. But M&C took it.
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Yeah, except for the following facts:

1. City of God is a 2002 movie, not a 2002 movie. Don't date movies by when they're released in the US, that's bloody stupid.
2. Master & Commander blew.
3. Lost in Translation is the best movie of 2003.

Sovz said:
If you are into foreign movies I would also recommend Oldboyhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364569/ , Ichi the killer http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042/ and some other bunch who’s name I cannot remember at the moment.
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This is a mistake I've seen made more than once.

"Foreign movies" is *not* a bloody genre of films, people. It's not like it lists amongst "western, comedy, action, foreign, romance" etc.

Ok, so it does in your local Stop-n-shop, but for chrissakes, people, foreign cinema is a widely diverse genre which once had American cinema beat in every aspect. But you can't list Fritz Lang's high experimental and innovating Metropolis alongside Pierre-Paul Render's highly experimental and innovating Thomas est amoureux. You can't list Vsevolod Pudovkin's brilliant Storm over Asia alongside Daniel Vigne's forgotten but brilliant Le Retour de Martin Guerre (on the NY Times top-1000 of all time list, I hear).

And worst of all, you can't list something innovating, intellectual and political as Cidade de Deus alongside a brainless body-masher like Ichi the Killer. I mean Battle Royale shares more elements with Cidade than Ichi, but it's still nothing like it. Why? Because one is a low-key thought-out movie made in South America and the other is by-the-book bloody "Asian cinema", which may be hyped into the skies in the US, but sadly only in such a way that the great sections are skipped for the kind of cinema Tarantino likes to watch when he's stoned.

Not that it's not fun, but if you're into Asian cinema you should watch the heroic bloodshed films of old, like John Woo's the Killer (a largely misunderstood film, but one of the greatest of all time) or A Better Tomorrow (the film that started it all, still brilliant). If you're into kung fu flicks don't waste your time on Sonny Chiba, but watch Woo-Ping Yuen's brilliant Iron Monkey or the legendary Hark Tsui's sublime Once Upon a Time in China (Wong-Fei Hung) trilogy. Or top it all of with the brilliant Takeshi Kitano, or grab back to Akira Kurosawa.

Too many people waste their times on what basically amounts to the "Steven Seagals" of Asia. Please.

Oh, and Tell me something is brilliant too. I hear Chinese Ghost Story is brilliant, but I keep failing to get my hands on a copy here. The first went out of production here, for some reason.

Then again...I hate to say this 'cause it sounds so movie-snobbish...I often have the feeling that Americans in particular and the Western World as a whole just "doesn't get it". They just fail the hypes in foreign cinema without ever doing some digging and some thinking about how great the things they skip are.
 
And worst of all, you can't list something innovating, intellectual and political as Cidade de Deus alongside a brainless body-masher like Ichi the Killer. I mean Battle Royale shares more elements with Cidade than Ichi, but it's still nothing like it. Why? Because one is a low-key thought-out movie made in South America and the other is by-the-book bloody "Asian cinema", which may be hyped into the skies in the US, but sadly only in such a way that the great sections are skipped for the kind of cinema Tarantino likes to watch when he's stoned.

Not that it's not fun, but if you're into Asian cinema you should watch the heroic bloodshed films of old, like John Woo's the Killer (a largely misunderstood film, but one of the greatest of all time) or A Better Tomorrow (the film that started it all, still brilliant). If you're into kung fu flicks don't waste your time on Sonny Chiba, but watch Woo-Ping Yuen's brilliant Iron Monkey or the legendary Hark Tsui's sublime Once Upon a Time in China (Wong-Fei Hung) trilogy. Or top it all of with the brilliant Takeshi Kitano, or grab back to Akira Kurosawa.

Too many people waste their times on what basically amounts to the "Steven Seagals" of Asia. Please.

Oh, and Tell me something is brilliant too. I hear Chinese Ghost Story is brilliant, but I keep failing to get my hands on a copy here. The first went out of production here, for some reason.

Then again...I hate to say this 'cause it sounds so movie-snobbish...I often have the feeling that Americans in particular and the Western World as a whole just "doesn't get it". They just fail the hypes in foreign cinema without ever doing some digging and some thinking about how great the things they skip are.
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Largest...quote...ever! And i agree with all of it.
 
The thing is it's hard to know in the US (and Canada too) what's going on in film outside of the US. You really have to go out of your way to even get info on it, and there are barely any cinemas that play movies from other countries. There's only 2 in Boston where you have a chance to see any "foreign" film, but only 1 of those shows modern films consistently and it's selection is pretty random. So the only way to really see any of these movies is to either import the DVD's or scour the internet for downloads of them, neither of which is ideal. Even with all the hype Ichi and Battle Royale have the only way most people in the US can really see them is to spend hours downloading them.

It's not like our video stores or retailers put a Von Trier or Kurosawa film in the Drama section or a Woo film into Action either - it all goes into "Foreign" and it's been that way since video was invented. Same with going to see films at the theater. I agree that it's stupid categorization and that it denies us a lot of great films, but that's the way things are here so that's the category that almost everyone who grows up here places non-US movies in. I understand it's annoying on many levels, but you can't really criticize someone too harshly for it when it's all they know.

By the way, what's a good nickname for us in the US? I can't use American since we aren't the only American country, and "US Citizen" is pretty cumbursome and annoying to read over and over again.
 
I felt that The Insider was a pretty good flick. The part where Crowe sits alone in his hotel room and looks at the building where he used to work was completely breathtaking. If you didn't know the true story behind the movie, you would have wondered if he was contemplating suicide, or killing everyone who worked there. I just love how the camera pans around him and the scene shows him remembering what his former life used to be like before he decided to go against the Tobacco Industry as he sits in that chair, looking outside the window. The music that plays in that scene completely is completely fitting and immerses the viewer.

I'd recommend watching it if you haven't already. Having both Pacino and Crowe make for a damn good movie.
 
SkynetV3 said:
And my mother wants to move to Brazil....I am going to be a dead sonuvabitch if I don't get street smart soon.
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Just an addendum... I did enjoy the movie too, and I will tell you now why SkynetV3 does not have to be worried about getting killed just for coming to Brazil.

Let's pretend you've never been to USA, and all you've ever know about USA was seen in movies. Let's keep on our hypothesis: now pretend every movie (or the ONLY movie) you ever saw about USA was on Beverly Hills, where everyone (in the movie at least) is overwelthy and spend the days drinking champagne and eating caviar or buying new cars and clothes to impress the neighbors. I am sure you'll agree with me that what the movie shows could never (even by the most naive audience) be taken as a general portrait of the whole USA (even if "based on real events").

Same happens here. Yes, the situation on Rio's favelas (slums on the hills) is indeed pretty much what's seen in "City of God", BUT it's just one very specific situation in one limited area (a very, very tiny one, specially considering the size of my country). Most cities here dont have even half of the violence you see in the movie, not even if you count all the crimes that happen during one year. Small cities are pretty much calm, countryside is, well, quiet countryside (except for a few problems in certain spots about land or gold) and I dont say it just cause I live in a calm condo. Heck, not too far from one of the outter walls of the condo is one area of low-class (poor) neighborhood. But I am surely glad that organized crime has not got clutches there; it's light-years away from the violence in "Cidade de Deus". No, thank you, you shall not judge a whole country by a small piece, and you can come without fear (unless, of course, you have the intention of going into Rio's slums. I only would go there if I was to make a documentary, and even so I would think twice. But if you come to any other place in Brazil (even other neighborhoods in Rio, the normal ones), wou'll be just fine.
 
Hmm, it all depends on where does she want to stay. All signs point to Sao Paulo. My uncle and his wife (my mother's twin) moved there. They live in a neighborhood/borough called Butantan. I heard its a very exclusive neighborhood with controlled access. Not scared now, tho I do need to get some smarts.
 
Butantã? :shock: Wow you'll be just fine :D

Hey just bear in mind Sao Paulo is a metropolis, over 20 (twenty) million people there,skyscrapers, metro, dozens of theathers, restaurants of every food you can imagine, any thing you can think of you can find in the city. It's nice. I like traveling there (but just for fun, cause I prefer living in a amaller city). The city of Sao Paulo is a center of business and culture, and if you consider its income and all, it's larger than many tiny countries.
 
Briosafreak said:
Largest...quote...ever! And i agree with all of it.
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Use it as your sig.

Lewl.

Montez said:
It's not like our video stores or retailers put a Von Trier or Kurosawa film in the Drama section or a Woo film into Action either - it all goes into "Foreign" and it's been that way since video was invented. Same with going to see films at the theater. I agree that it's stupid categorization and that it denies us a lot of great films, but that's the way things are here so that's the category that almost everyone who grows up here places non-US movies in. I understand it's annoying on many levels, but you can't really criticize someone too harshly for it when it's all they know.
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I know, I know, and I don't really blame the average American, but it is a problem in your cinematic attitude, and you miss a lot that often really is worth the trouble of searching. The abovementioned Retour de Martin Guerre is one of the most brilliant films of history, with fantastic acting and a compelling storyline (and it has Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, big plus) (just don't read the Imdb description. Spoilers. Fuckers)

Europe much has the same problem, tho', but we treat "foreign" cinema with slightly more respect, at least ranking it per country (Hong Kong cinema, Dutch cinema, Italian cinema) and often ranking it in subsections per country too (spaghetti westerns, French comedies, etc.) in the average video store.

Of course, even we Europeans, strangely enough, treat American cinema as "normal movies" and European cinema as secondary, which is really...well...stupid

But how 'bout tv? Half the movies I listed above I saw on tv. Especially French cinema is popular in Holland for tv broadcasts.

Mman said:
By the way, what's a good nickname for us in the US? I can't use American since we aren't the only American country, and "US Citizen" is pretty cumbursome and annoying to read over and over again.
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Yank.

HARHARHAR

PS: citizens of the UK call themselves "Brits", even tho' anyone living on the British Isles would be a Brit, which includes the independant Irish. So don't wory about calling US citizens Americans.
 
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