omegaruth

Cary Fukunaga’s 2015 offering, Beasts of No Nation, is a stunning work of cinema from start to finish. The story revolves around a civil war in an unnamed nation in west africa. As with many depictions of worn torn africa, the tale is rife with it’s bad actors. The difference is in the depiction of the characters is BoNN, as truly dynamic and 3 dimensional, not your typical savage brutes as hollywood is so fond of displaying. At it’s core, it is a telling of the complete experience of a child soldier, and how one is made.

We begin with the lead, a young boy, Agu. Agu(Abraham Attah) lives in a village located in a safe zone, within a country ravaged by civil war. He is a precocious young boy, doing his best to have a normal life, as a part of his loving family while his country is falling to pieces. We see that even within the chaos, he keeps a positive outlook, that is until the inevitable happens, war reaches his village. Agu is forced to grow up fast when he is suddenly orphaned by the war and has to leave his home. Agu escapes to the bush, where is has the (mis)fortune  of meeting the Commandant(Idris Elba). The Commandant is heading up a local faction of rebels comprised primarily of young boys that he finds amongst the villages ravaged by fighting. He begins the process of turning Agu into one of his best soldiers, by promising him vengeance against those who murdered his family.

It is very interesting to see a movie of this caliber as a Netflix exclusive. Apparently, major theaters decided to boycott the films release by opting not to show it in the major theater chains in the US. This has caused some issue with the films’ ambitions to be considered for oscar nomination, as a film needs to have a traditional release in order to be considered. As of the penning of this review, there has been no verifiable showings in theaters, although we will see if that changes in time to make a difference.

Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 film is set in a “what if” scenario during WWII. The story begins with a Nazi Col. Hans Landa interrogating  a french farmer hiding the Dreyfus, a jewish family on his farm. After murdering the majority of the family, a young girl, Shoshana manages to escape. So begins the tale of the “Basterds”. The Basterds are a group of special ops soldiers under the command of Lt. Aldo Raine. They have been charged with one overall task, to hunt Nazis behind enemy lines in Nazi occupied France.

Lt. Raine recruits a group of Jewish volunteer soldiers for his mission. He feels that when the Nazis hear of a group of Jewish American G.I.s hunting them, instead of the other way around, it will instill fear into their hearts. The plan works splendidly, even getting the attention of Hitler himself who has placed a gag order on any surviving victims of Basterd ambushes, as not to spread further panic amongst the Nazi Ranks.

There is also the side plot of a now grown Shoshana Dreyfus, who has not allowed the hatred that she has in heart for Nazis to subside. She is the proprietor of a small movie theater, that prove to be of interest to the Nazi propaganda machine. A young Nazi “hero”, who also happens to be an actor and quite smitten with Shoshana, brings the theater to the attention of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Czar. She learns that High Ranking members of Nazi society will be at the gathering and along with her partner, begins to formulate a plan to exact revenge on the Nazis. Overall the film is solid and entertaining, even if not completely faithful to historical record

.

Spaghetti Western:These movies were originally released in Italian, but as most of the films featured multilingual casts and sound was post-synched, most “western all’italiana” do not have an official dominant language.^[3] The typical Spaghetti Western team was made up of an Italian director, Italo-Spanish^[4] technical staff, and a cast of Italian, Spanish, German and American actors, sometimes a fading Hollywood star and sometimes a rising one like the young Clint Eastwood in three of Sergio Leone’s films. Source:WIkipedia

Quentin Tarantino’s 2012 release “Django Unchained” has often been described as a spaghetti western, however, this could not be further from the truth. It is known that Tarantino has a particular fondness for older film genres, and the novelties of the “feel” of a type of movie, to that point, Django was filmed in the style of a spaghetti western. To let Tarantino describe it, the film is actually a love story.

Based on the old German BroomHilda folktales, the film follows it’s “Siegfried” character, Django, on his quest to save His BroomHilda(played by Kerry Washington) from the Dragon character “Mr. Candy”(played by Leonardo DiCaprio). Django is purchased by a German bounty hunter, initially to provide identification of fugitives. Upon hearing Django’s story, bounty hunter “Dr. King Shultz”(played by Christoph Waltz) and Django embark on an epic journey to free his love from her slavers in pre civil war era Texas.

GTC Promo from Omega Ruth Jr on Vimeo.

In this 2004 Remake of the classic film, all hell breaks loose in a Milwaukee suburb following an outbreak a Zombie Virus. The film centers around a group of survivors of the Zombie Apocalypse who shore up inside a local shopping mall. After losing a few of the group to various unfortunate circumstances, the decision is made to make a move to get to an island in the great lakes. In order to get to that island the group must endure a gauntlet of flesh eating zombies,as well as human physical frailties. WIll they survive long enough to escape this overrun city?

In this 1996 film, Billy Bob Thornton plays Karl Childers, a intellectually diminished man accused of a horrible crime. In the film, Karl, witnesses his mother having relations with the town’s smooth talker as a young boy. Having heard about the man’s reputation for not taking no for an answer he picks up a “Kaiser Blade”(a scythe) and kills the man on top of his mother, thinking that he was saving her. When his mother ridicules and chastises Karl for ruining her good time, he kills her with the very same blade. Karl then is remanded to a mental ward where he spends the majority of his life. Upon release, Karl returns to his hometown, where he struggles to reintegrate into society. He meets and befriends a young boy, and goes out of his way to protect him from the world that awaits him in this small Mississippi town.

Thirty-Nine years ago, Martin Scorsese released his first major release and most iconic film, 1976’s Taxi Driver. A Movie that would launch quite a few careers, it included the likes of Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, and Cybill Shepherd. The film revolves around Travis Bickle, an vietnam veteran, and loner. He dwells in 1970’s New York city in a mire of loneliness and confusion. Like many veterans back from the war, he is floating aimlessly, carried by the current of society’s outlook on the human condition. He finds work as a taxi driver and begins to throw himself into his work, spending his time in pornographic movie theaters. Travis has a dislike for the people that he calls human waste(pushers, pimps. and prostitutes), and longs for the day that someone will stand up and remove them from the streets of New York City. After an unsuccessful attempt to date his ideal woman, he decides to embark on a mission of vigilantism in order to clean the streets of NYC as he thinks that they should be. A solid film, awesome first foray as a major release, and testiment to why so many involved with the Scorsese film are considered to be Hollywood greats

.

TAXI DRIVER, Robert De Niro, 1976 – Everett Collection

In Martin Scorsese’s classic film, he tells the ultimate story of New York vigilantism, featuring a young Robert Deniro, and Jodie Foster. Deniro’s character is a taxi driver, and vietnam veteran, who is displeased with the way things are happening in the city. To make matters worse, Deniro’s character, Travis Bickle, is a socially awkward loner who spends his free time in peepshows and adult film theaters. WHen he finally gets the nerve it doesn’t go well when he takes his date to one of the theaters of ill repute. She rejects him, and he starts his downward spiral of exacting revenge on society, for not living up to his standards, even going so far as to attempt to assassinate a presidential candidate.He finds a sense of twisted redemption while rescuing an underaged prostitute from her captors while murdering them all, and becoming a local hero in the process. A strange film, but masterfully executed.

TAXI DRIVER, Robert De Niro, 1976 – Everett Collection

This film chronicles what can be construed as the rise of mexican drug cartels in the southwest, as seen through the eyes and experiences of three men. The movie begins with hunter Josh Brolin stumbling onto a botched drug deal, where he finds 2 million dollars in cartel money, a store of drugs, and a host of dead cartel members. He takes advantage of the find, which starts the entire ball rolling downhill. Tommy Lee Jone’s character, the local sheriff, is thrown for a loop when he is tasked with picking up the investigation of the massacre in his jurisdiction, while simultaneously trying to save Brolin’s life, trying to bring him in from being on the run, while he is being hunted by a cartel assassin. Enter Javier Bardim’s character,the psychopathic cartel hitman. He roams the texas countryside and cities, exacting his brand of cartel justice on those that he deems worthy of it. Often the decision to kill is left up to the result of a coin toss. The level of violence in this movie would be easy to dismiss as gratuitous, if taken outside of the context that the story is giving an example of how things got to be the way they are in the southwest over the last few decades. Not a feelgood movie, but definitely one worth watching.