I was talking to a film buff friend of mine the other day and he told me that it was a good thing that he doesn’t have cable, because if AMC was part of his line-up, then he’d never leave the house.
“Oh man, I gotta go to work, but Karate Kid 2 is on!” (Hi John)
Today as I’ve been packing for my up coming trip to Calgary, I got what he meant.
Sometime this morning I turned the 52″ to channel 53 and let it ride on American Movie Classics for the rest of the day. I’ve been keeping an eye on this station since we moved here in last summer, and its usually a safe bet. So what was the first thing on today? Nothing other than a little film by the name UNCOMMON VALOR!
That’s a scan of the German DVD cover.
Released in 1983, the movie stars Gene Hackman as a retired colonel who goes into Laos to save his son whose been MIA for 10 years. (That’s MIssing In Action, not Paper Planes) By recruiting some of his son’s old army buddies, they train with the help of fresh faced army rookie, Patrick “Gunna Die” Swayze.”
While the film may not have been a stereotype of Vietnam / POW films at the time, it has since become not unlike a visual checklist of what to include in these types of movies.
Being with a flashback to establish how the soldiers got captured, Check.
Enlist a rag-tag group of grizzled vets which include; the explosives expert, the pilot, the stealth guy, the crazy guy, the black guy, the old guy and, the rookie, Check.
Make sure at least two “good guys” die in the jail brake, Check.
Have one character struggle with shell shock from the war, only to over come it when it count, Check.
Have at least one guy sacrifice themselves to ensure the success of the mission, double check.
The movie isn’t really all that bad, if not a little bit predictable. I didn’t mind all that much, it’s entertaining enough and kept me interested. What I found kind neat was the dudes who played the stealth guy and the crazy guy worked together again on Naked Gun 33 and 1/3.
AMC might just be the best thing for dudes who like movies. Most of the stuff they show isn’t great, but it’s usually decent, and usually a movie that a guy would like. They usually play stuff like The Magnificent Seven, Fire Fox, The Great Escape, and Red Dawn. (Wolverines!)
Filed under: feature story, vancouver | Tags: issues with multiculuralism, vancouver immigrants
When I did a google image search for “Chileans in Canada”, google tried to correct me. “Did you mean CHINESE in Canada?”
No, google. No I did not.
Here’s a picture of a volcano in Chile.
The other day my cousin, uncle, and I went to White Spot for lunch. My cousin is usually harping on my for not spending enough time with the family out here on the coast, so I try to have lunch with the guy and his pop, my tio, at least once a month.
So we were enjoying a nice meal of bacon cheddar burgers (three all around, just like the musketeers, my uncle said) when the conversation managed to steer it’s way towards that of race relations in the lower mainland.
You see, this uncle, my father’s brother, is not a natural born Canadian, nor is he of white/European descent. He, like my father and his 11 other siblings, was born in Santiago, Chile, and like most left leaning and forward thinking people, had to flee the country in the early ’70s because of the coup d’etat. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google “Pinochet” and have a look. It was a pretty gnarly time for all those involved. The family doesn’t like to talk about it much.
Anyway, my Uncle, and my whole family, is Hispanic. Or Latino, as he likes to put it. He has black, graying hair, a dark complexion, and speaks with a fairly thick Chilean accent. It’s pretty easy to tell that he’s is a member of a visible minority.
So he, and most of my family out here, lives in Richmond. Richmond is a suburb south of Vancouver Proper that is mainly populated by people of Asian decent. About 60% of people in Richmond are of a visible minority. I think I’m related to all of the Hispanic people there.
My Uncle started to talk about how multiculturalism doesn’t work, that it’s contributing to the ghettoization of Canada and that some areas don’t even feel like North America anymore. He told me a story about how thieves have been prowling his warehouse where his company keeps scrap metal and other equipment and how the RCMP won’t patrol the area because, he believes, he’s Latino. The then related it how Black and Latinos in the southern United States are fighting and killing each other and the police don’t raise a finger to do anything about it.
My cousin just came back from a month long trip from Mexico and he told me a story about how he was hassled by US Customs agents when he was trying to get back to Vancouver. A few agents took him aside and asked him if he was Mexican. He said “No, I’m Canadian.” They then asked him “Are you sure you’re not Mexican”
Then my uncle brought up how he was at the local rec centre, using the steam room when a gaggle of Asian men came in and started speaking Mandrain loudly to each other across the room. This made my Uncle very uncomfortable. He finds it very rude for people to have conversations in foreign languages in public, especially when other people are present.
“You’re in Canada, speak English or French, goddamit!” he said.
Just don’t.
Now, I know a lot of people out there are, like your truly, dig the ink and get totally jazzed at the thought of some new work adorning your flesh. Hell, if I had the money and the inspiration, my whole back would probably be covered in some serious needle work. But I don’t, so it isn’t.
Anyway, I right this because I came across a fellow asking for change the other day on Granville. He was striking up conversation with passers-by, trying to get a few coins so that he could maybe procure some sustainance, or at least booze. Not harm, no foul. I’m a big fan of street people.
But this one suit goes up the the fellow and tell him to get a job. The begger, whom I’m going to call Slappy for no reason in particular, takes this as a huge affront against his lifestyle. He gets angry and says something to extent that he’s tried but can land work on account of the giant freaking tattoo across his face. Three bright red perdurable scratch marks grace his cheek, with the effect of making it seem as though Slappy got in a fight with Wolverine and lost.
So Slappy was at a loss. No jobs for the face tatted. That is, unless you work in a tattoo shop or at the circus biting the heads of pigeons for cotton candy money
Not matter how cool it seems, or how rad Mikey Tyson is, or how much you want to be like that dude from Kubus and Bang Bang…
don’t get a tattoo on your face.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So today is Cinco de Mayo, a Mexican holiday in celebration of the defeat of the invading French. Personally, I always thought it was the Mexican day of independence, but what do I know, I’m not, nor have I ever been Mexican.
It’s a fiesta that celebrates the Battle of Puebla where the Mexican forces repelled the French and staved off a full on occupation. Although the French would later on take over the country and install Maximilian as Emperor, it’s the though that counts.
The real Mexican day of independence is on September 16th, so there’s that to look forward to.
Filed under: movie review | Tags: Iron Man, Iron Man Review, Robert Downey Jr., This movie is awesome
There’s something to be said about a man, who, through determination and the sheer force of will is able to overcome an obstacle. Oh and it helps when your determined sheer force of will comes in the form of a high-tech freakin’ battle suit-of-armor.
Like most super hero movies slated to be the first installation of a trilogy, they story of this summer’s action blockbuster, Iron Man, delves mainly into the origin of the man behind the Iron Mask. But unlike other origin stories, this one manages to hurdle all the other pitfalls that set the others back.
Taking the direction from the Marvel Ultimate run of the armored adventurer, Tony Stark finds himself taken hostage by militants in Afghanistan. With the help of a fellow captive / genius scientists, Stark tricks his captors and instead of creating a WMD for their own nefarious purposes, he uses the technology they supplied him with to create a walking tank capable of breaking he and his cell-mate out of their cave-side dungeon and to freedom.
After the ensuing boom-fest, Stark makes it back home with a new found look on like. Follwing his run in with the rebels, he realized what a blight his company’s weapons dealings have been on the world and vows to change the nature of his business, and with the help of his assistant Pepper Potts, his military contact Jim Rhodes and his newly refined super-suit, track down all of his wayward munitions that have fallen into the wrong hands.
But the road isn’t that easy to Stark. Obadiah Stane, his life-long mentor and second-in-command of Stark Industries has other ambitions for the company, and wants to send Iron Man to the scrap heap.
For one, never throughout the film to you feel like you see the main character abandoning his former self completely and coming out a completely different person. That’s one thing that’s always bugged me about the genre. Once the hero says “Welp, I better be a good guy,” he no longer acts like he used to. All of a sudden he’s a swaggering dudly do-right and the goofy twerp that he used to be can’t be found any where (I’m looking at you Spider Man). But Tony Stark, played masterfully by Robert Downey Jr., don’t suddenly loose his self-obsessed and braggart ways. In fact, instead of being humbled by the experience, he acts just the way you’d expect a billionaire, Richard Branson crossed with George Clooney-type, to behave. He has fun with his new toys and wants make sure that he gets all the attention that he can.
Although this film is dominated by the massive presence of RDJ / Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard to great jobs in their role. Jeff Bridges is great as Stane. His huge stature casts a long shadow over the comparatively tiny Stark, accentuating the final confrontation that much more dramatically. Oh and Paltrow does the impossible; she actually comes off as likeable.
If anyone but Marvel, John Favreau, and Robert Downey Jr. were involved with this production, it would have ended up coming off either patronizing or unlikable. In typical RDJ fashion, he takes a philandering spoiled rich-kid souse and turns him into a charming, endearing anti-hero, which is the core of the character to begin with. Had the creative reigns been taken from the bigs brains over at the House of Ideas, than we would have ended up with some pretty boy Patrick Demsy kind couche-tard blowing crap up while dropping stink-tastic one-liners, winking at the camera, because that’s what the audience wants, right?!
The cgi sequences were seamless and the action scenes were more than satisfying. Never did you feel like you were, ya know, watching a movie. But did feel like you were watching the best super hero film to date.
9 / 10
>SPOILERS<
Holy crap, and to have Nick freaking Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, after the credits with a fan-boys dream come true!
