Tag Archives: movies

The Story of Gonzalo Guerrero

Inspired, , , , , , , , , , ,

For those of you who enjoy a good yarn, and think like me that there is much in the history of the Yucatan that deserves a Coppola or better yet, Christopher Nolan treatment on the big screen, I would like to suggest a look at Gonzalo Guerrero.

Here’s a guy who is all old-school Spanish in the 1500’s and comes over to the so-called new world and, on a boat trip along the coast in a big old sailing ship and boom – the boat hits a reef and capsizes – leaving Guerrero and about 12 or 13 of his pals in a life boat, or perhaps clinging to a piece of timber, on which they reach the shore. Maybe they land photogenically on a sandy beach, or perhaps have to claw their way through twisted, mosquito and croc infested mangroves to land. I’ll leave that scene up to Christopher. Perhaps Emmanuel Lubezki can make it appropriately stunning, as this is the lead-up to the first interaction between the Mayans and the Europeans.

The Mayans meet them and, having somewhat of an appetite, promptly eat most of the survivors, keeping two of them alive for later. Dessert, perhaps? In any case, imagine the culture shock of these catholic Spaniards, meeting brown skinned natives painted in fearsome colors and speaking what surely to them must have seemed utter gibberish. A ‘Who Moved My Cheese’ moment, to be sure.

To summarize the rest of the tale, Gonzalo Guerrero goes native, adopting local hair styles and perforations and leading his new friends in battle against his former countrymen when they inevitably return with more ships in their thirst for golden treasures. His pal Aguilar, who is famous only thanks to his being a counterpart to Guerrero and who kept his Catholic faith and beliefs throughout and runs back to the arms of the Spanish crown at the first opportunity, is soon forgotten by the scribes of history. Gonzalo Guerrero, on the other hand is immortalized forever and is dubbed the ‘padre del mestizaje‘ or the father of all modern Mexicans, who have the blood of native Mexicans and Europeans coursing through their cholesterol-addled veins.

Is this a great idea for a movie or WHAT? Enough with scouring the archives and garbage bins at Marvel Comics. THIS could be a real blockbuster, folks!

 

Casual Movie Critic – Cell 211

Life in the Yucatan, Nada que Ver, , , , ,

This is a Spanish movie (ie from Spain) that has been suggested as a winner for several movie categories and people are talking about it. I went to see it and was, again, among a small group of about 10 people in the Gran Plaza movie theater.

The movie itself has myriad online reviews ranging from ‘absolutely brilliant’ to ‘whatever’ and my opinion falls somewhere in the middle. Certainly it’s better than the other two movies reviewed earlier, but that is not much of a challenge, although some of the so-called twists in the plot were expected and predictable.

It was, however, enormous fun to hear the original Spanish dialogue – especially all the colorful swearing! – and often required some real concentration because they speak so fast! If you don’t speak Spanish that well, you will most assuredly get nothing from this movie; and there are no subtitles, English, Spanish or otherwise, to fall back on.

Watch the trailer here.

Casual Movie Critic – The Expendables (Including The Movie)

Life in the Yucatan, Nada que Ver, , , , , , , , , , ,

Another film in theaters now here in sunny Merida.

When I was younger, I always thought it would be great to have all the action movie guys together in one movie. When I was younger.

Now that it has finally happened, the result is so bad as to be unwatchable. Unless you are one of those people who say ‘I paid to sit here and I am damn well going to stay here until the bitter end’, you will probably get up about 1/3 of the way through to just plain leave the theater.

I suspect that the fact that Sylvester Stallone directed, and I use the term loosely and generously, this rotten piece of celluloid, as well as receiving writing credit for it, is the reason it is so very very crappy. From the ridiculous gratuitous violence and the Rambo style shootouts where the good guys hit everyone and the bad guys can’t aim to the cartoonish and cliche South American dictator and his minions who speak Spanish with an American accent to the ‘beautiful’ latina heroine who single-handedly leads the oppressed villagers, to the ancient (how old ARE these actors now??) Stallone, Willis, Lundgren et al acting like they are in their 20’s, The Expendables is so stupidly bad on so many levels that it is difficult to process.

Unfortunately it is not funny bad, where you could at least laugh uproariously at the screen, but bad bad, where you just sit numbly until your brain explodes and you have to leave.

This movie is entirely expendable. Do not waste your money, time or neurons on this one. It is truly the worst movie I have been in the presence of in a long, long time.