The Dictator

By

Larry Charles

And

Sacha Baron Cohen

Do cheap and direct gags enhance satire or undermine it? It would all seem to depend on whether or not you’re laughing.  The Dictator tells the story of general Aladeen leader of the fictional country of Wadiya; his reign includes such ridiculous actions as replacing several important words in the language with his own name, and running in a race in which he shoots the other competitors.  Aladeen is forced to visit New York to give an address before the U.N. While he is visiting New York Aladeen is kidnapped by his uncle Tamir (Ben Kingsley) and replaced with a double. Now Aladeen must try and regain his seat before western style democracy is forced upon his people.

Describing the plot of a film like The Dictator really does it a disservice, since this film is not plot driven, instead the film is really a series of gags taking on Cohen’s numerous targets. Power mad dictators and foreign countries willingness to do business with them, eco-friendly stores, Israeli-Arab relations, American knee-jerk conservatism, and naïve political demonstrators all get skewered. Some criticism has been leveled at the film for it’s portrayal of Arabs, which is somewhat valid, but it requires one to ignore that every character in the movie is a broad stereotype.

Unlike Cohen’s previous two films, Borat and Bruno, his current movie features all actors, relying on improvisation to bring the same level of manic energy Cohen’s fans have come to know and love. Additionally the film features some nice supporting cast members, such as John C Reilly as a racist bodyguard, Anna Farris as a Health Food Store owner who Aladeen falls for, and Bobby Lee as the Chinese ambassador. During a recent interview with Terry Gross, Cohen stated that while working on the film Hugo he asked director Martin Scorsese advice on how to set up a good shot while improvising with large groups of actors.

What gives the film its extra punch is that it mocks not only abusive leaders such as Mummar Gaddafi on who Aladeen was based, but also the international community that allows such leaders to exist. To give you an example of the crazy, Gadaffi  kept and all female group of specially trained bodyguards, this wasn't one or two, around forty were with him in the later days of his regime.

 Egypt under Hosni Mubarak and Libya under Gadaffi were brutally oppressive regimes, which the United States, Britain, and other western nations were perfectly willing to do business with. When the Arab Spring arrived suddenly the West had always wanted democracy for these nations. 

Odd enough Gadaffi isn't the most evil man in this picture

Hosni Mubarak and a retarded man from Texas sometime before the Arab Spring.

Despots like the Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, or Bashar al-Assad in Syria exist, because the international community is often willing to support whatever leader is willing to sell oil and other resources at an agreeable price, or because world leaders prefer debates amongst themselves over taking any meaningful action. While The Dictator may not strike any bold new ground in cinematic comedy, it provides some solid laughs, which while often offensive, are rarely mean spirited. It’s a comedy that tries to make you think, but not that much.

Shawn Barron

05/24/2012

The Criminal Life of Archibaldo De LA Cruz

                                          By

                     Luis Bunuel

Desire can be a tricky thing, for some people it serves as a motivator for self-improvement.  For those individuals who can’t satisfy their desires, they may find themselves going a little crazy. Archibaldo Cruz’s desires are driving him crazy, but since his main desire is for murder that might be a good idea. Completed during Bunuel’s Mexican period, the film skewers machismo, infidelity, chastity, and of course the church. As with most of Bunuel’s Mexican film it takes a rather bizarre premise but keeps it easily accessible, by avoiding most of the narrative tricks of his later work.

The story of Archibaldo De La Cruz begins when Archie is just a boy; during the Mexican revolution Archie’s au pair is shot and killed. Since he was fantasizing about killing her by playing his mother’s music box, Archie thinks that he is responsible. Years later Archie comes in possession of the music box, and a desire to kill slowly forms in him. The music box’s innocuous song is distorted on the soundtrack, in order to represent the growing desire in Archie’s mind for murder. The recurring joke throughout the movie is that as soon as Archie is prepared to kill a woman, he is stopped, and some other force results in her death.

The film features many of Bunuel’s traditional obsessions; religious hypocrisy, unfulfilled desires, infidelity, and psychosis are all on prominent display. What struck me in watching this film is how drastically different it is from so much Mexican cinema which makes it to America today. All of the Mexicans in the film are aristocratic; consisting of old money, religious officials, and social climbers.  This is really a refreshing change, to see a Mexican film without drugs or gangs. The film also takes several pot-shots at loud, gullible, American tourists. The film is well worth checking out and serves as a nice companion piece to Bunuel’s earlier EL, which was the second feature on the version of Archibald Cruz I watched. Despite the film’s rather grim presence in manages to be really funny and even a little sweet in the end. If you enjoy offbeat comedies be sure to check it out.

                                                                  

                                                                  Adam Yauch

                                                            08/05/1964-05/04/2012

        Adam Yauch died of Cancer today he was 47. I first got into Yauch’s band the Beastie Boys in the summer of 1998 when Hello Nasty came out. What drew me in was the video for their song Intergalactic, it was a giant tribute to Godzilla movies, which I was really into at the time, and part of it was even shot it Tokyo!

        Ever since then Beastie Boys were I band I enjoyed, and linked with offbeat movies.  There video for Boy Movin' referenced Mario Bava’s wonderful comic book adaptation Diabolik. Spike Jonze directed the video for their song Sabotage as an elaborate tribute to cheesy 70s crime movies. The logo for Adam Yauch’s production company Oscilloscope was modeled after the old Toho logo. If you ever get to watch any of their videos they were always memorable, never boring, and often as it turns out directed by Adam Yauch himself. Yauch later got to direct a feature film, the documentary Gunnin for that #1 Spot, which was released by Oscilloscope.

        Around the time Yauch’s documentary was being released I was Living in New York and waiting in line to see Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol, which by the way is an amazing movie you should see, and right behind me was Adam Yauch. I asked him how his movie was doing, and he said he was getting a lot of good feedback; he was really friendly and talked about the movie for a few minutes. After that I went into the theatre and watched Tandanobu Asano, tear ass all over Asia. Everyone I talked to who met Yauch said that he was a really nice guy to them as well.

               One last thing, in the late summer of 1998 just as a guy in Afghanistan named Osama Bin Laden started popping up in headlines, and Clinton was bombing the parts of Afghanistan where he was supposed to be hiding, The Beastie Boys were winning an MTV Video Vanguard award.  Yauch took his time at the mike to criticize the bombing, as well as saying the Americans need to stop hating Muslim and Arab peoples and work towards building unity. There wasn’t a real loud response some cheers in the crowd but if you consider how many people were in the room it sounds like most people didn’t even know what he was talking about.

So goodbye Adam Yauch you were a talented man, a successful artist in many fields, a supporter of unpopular views, and a hip-hop icon. You will be Missed

                                                              

                                                               Tapeheads, 1988

                                         Directed By Bill Fischman

Making it in the world of entertainment has never been easy, compromise of vision, thieving producers, and being broke have always been major roadblocks. The protagonists of Tapeheads, played by John Cusack and Tim Robbins, face every conceivable obstacle toward their goal of success in the music video world. Released in 1988 the film serves as a time-capsule of some of the era, and while some of it’s jokes about Reaganism and early era music video may have dated, it’s critique of the entertainment industry as being full of minimally talented artist and thieving producers, is still spot on.

The film tells the tale of Ivan (Cusack) and Josh (Robbins) star as a pair of lovable losers, after losing their security jobs for turning their building into a party/music video shoot, they decide to break out and launch Video Aces. Their company struggles at first, early gigs are paid in fried chicken or on-spec (no money), however following and editing mistake the two are dubbed geniuses and may soon be on the way to fame and fortune. That is if they can avoid the secret service hitmen sent after them by Congressman Norman Mart (Cult Hero Clu Gulager). 

          
            Tapeheads came about primarily due to writer/director Bill Fishman and producer Michael Nesmith. Fishman only directed a few films besides Tapeheads and most of his career has been spent on music videos. Michael Nesmith had been a member of the pre-fabricated pop group The Monkeys and in early 80s he helped launch MTV. These two bring a lot of insider knowledge, and helped make the film’s numerous cameos possible, giving the film’s satire a good deal more bite.  Soul-Train founder Don Cornelius (R.I.P) appears as a producer who believes all jobs are on-spec, Ted Nugent (before threatening Obama) appears as a stereotypical rockstar, and Punk-Icon Jello Biafra mocks his obscenity bust, by appearing as an FBI agent.

Tapeheads did terribly upon it’s initial release grossing less then half a million dollars on a budget of ten million. It’s not hard to see why this film had difficulty finding an audience; it’s filled with insider jokes, episodic, and never takes itself seriously. That being said the movie is a blast, unlike so many movies where the actors seem to be mailing in their performance, you can see how much fun everyone involved is having. While some of the movies targets are now extremely dated, the notion of the entertainment business being run by sleazy crooks, and populated by naïve dreamers, seems as prescient as ever. So why not take a trip back to the 80s, as one character puts it “Let’s get into trouble baby!”