Escape to the Movies: Machete

Erick.S

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Gralian said:
Please, stop with the exaggerated 'SLOOOWW MOOOOO' voice bit, because it sounds ridiculously cheap. I know you do it for emphasis but it's painful to listen to!

Yay for no bleeped swearing as the poster above me said, definite positive there

The movie... Well, i'm sure the movie is fun, but it doesn't strike me as being my cup of tea. It looks just as brainless as the title (and trailer) suggests, and while it might be politically charged and well made and all the other points you covered, it can't shake that grindhouse feel and i can't help but associate that with a mindless gorefest of debauchery and an excuse to kill people in often over the top and hilarious ways.

I would argue that while (from what i could gather) the movie seems to be dissenting white supremacy(?) over (possibly illegal? i don't know much about the film) immigrants, it feels like there's a slight tinge of racism from those same minorities towards whites. "All whites are evil and we will kill them in gory ways and use violent weapons! We will make them our metaphorical *****!". I don't know enough of the plot to know if it's really portrayed in this way but it just seems to me from the video that it's an excuse for a bunch of minorities to get together and kick the shit out of white folk, even if they are supremacists. And it's discomforting. But then i suppose that's what movies like this are made for, to make you feel out of your comfort zone a bit.

I'm not saying any of the characters in the film don't have it coming, and i'm certaining not sympathising with 'white supremacy' in any way; i'm just saying that from a broader political spectrum we've gone from "the poor immigrants; we should understand their position" to "now immigrants have power and are becoming the more dominant peoples through means of violence" which feels just as one sided as what the movie is criticising. It stimulates the idea of a race-war over ideologies and in today's multicultural society where tensions are already high from sensationalist news stories and angry politicians this doesn't help things. As a white person, i feel somewhat threatened by the what the movie is suggesting. It certainly doesn't seem to promote cultural diversity. It promotes cultural supremacy
I was thinking along the same lines while watching the trailer and Bob's review.
Take the same plot, switch all the Mexicans with whites, and all the whites with Mexicans - you'll have everybody crying "RACISM!!!1" till their eyes fall out.

All I see is a bunch of criminals murdering people, and justifying it based on their ethnicity. Art? More like hate-speech with miniguns (which, btw, do not have an area-of-effect when mounted straight on a motorcycle).

On the good side, it's probably still better than 'the Spirit'. Probably.
 

Dhatz

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I'm marking this to my must-download-in-at-least-720p list right away.
 

KingPiccolOwned

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Casual Shinji said:
KingPiccolOwned said:
Casual Shinji said:
Well, if the political message in this movie amounts to nothing more than the usual "republicans are bad", it's probably going to be just as engaging as Avatar.
And exactly how engaging is that?
About [----] this much.
Yeah I can see that. Hey just for the sake of "What if", what would you think of Rodriguez doing a Gungrave, or Hellsing movie?
 

Casual Shinji

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KingPiccolOwned said:
Casual Shinji said:
KingPiccolOwned said:
Casual Shinji said:
Well, if the political message in this movie amounts to nothing more than the usual "republicans are bad", it's probably going to be just as engaging as Avatar.
And exactly how engaging is that?
About [----] this much.
Yeah I can see that. Hey just for the sake of "What if", what would you think of Rodriguez doing a Gungrave, or Hellsing movie?
Well, I never saw Gungrave, but Hellsing seems straight up Rodriguez' ailey I'd say.
 

KingPiccolOwned

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Gralian said:
I would argue that while (from what i could gather) the movie seems to be dissenting white supremacy(?) over (possibly illegal? i don't know much about the film) immigrants, it feels like there's a slight tinge of racism from those same minorities towards whites. "All whites are evil and we will kill them in gory ways and use violent weapons! We will make them our metaphorical *****!". I don't know enough of the plot to know if it's really portrayed in this way but it just seems to me from the video that it's an excuse for a bunch of minorities to get together and kick the shit out of white folk, even if they are supremacists. And it's discomforting. But then i suppose that's what movies like this are made for, to make you feel out of your comfort zone a bit.

I'm not saying any of the characters in the film don't have it coming, and i'm certaining not sympathising with 'white supremacy' in any way; i'm just saying that from a broader political spectrum we've gone from "the poor immigrants; we should understand their position" to "now immigrants have power and are becoming the more dominant peoples through means of violence" which feels just as one sided as what the movie is criticising. It stimulates the idea of a race-war over ideologies and in today's multicultural society where tensions are already high from sensationalist news stories and angry politicians this doesn't help things. As a white person, i feel somewhat threatened by the what the movie is suggesting. It certainly doesn't seem to promote cultural diversity. It promotes cultural supremacy
You sir (or madam), said everything about the movie that I am too damn ineloquent to be able to put in words.

You earn cookies.
Ice cream cookies.
 

KingPiccolOwned

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Casual Shinji said:
KingPiccolOwned said:
Casual Shinji said:
KingPiccolOwned said:
Casual Shinji said:
Well, if the political message in this movie amounts to nothing more than the usual "republicans are bad", it's probably going to be just as engaging as Avatar.
And exactly how engaging is that?
About [----] this much.
Yeah I can see that. Hey just for the sake of "What if", what would you think of Rodriguez doing a Gungrave, or Hellsing movie?
Well, I never saw Gungrave, but Hellsing seems straight up Rodriguez' ailey I'd say.
We need to show it to him.

Also here's an AMV (if you can stand them, as many I know can't) of Gungrave set to Alabama 3's Woke Up this Morning to show you what the show's about.
Enjoy.
 

GrinningManiac

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The Border problem in America is "one of the biggest debates in modern culture?"

Huh, I just thought it was the US version of the "Polish Problem" in Britain: Polish are coming over to make a living by willingly doing REALLY crap jobs REALLY cheaply because NONE of the British want to do those jobs, and yet the locals still complain that the Polish are "stealing Jobs" and "Not Being English"

Strikes me that there isn't a lot of argument for the USA side. Mexicans are being repressed and slightly discriminated, simple as, I think. Of course, if anyone in that area knows more about the problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
 

SomeUnregPunk

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HyperionToASatyr said:
I enjoyed this movie and all, but dammit, MovieBob, stop ruining my fun. Between this, last week's double-header of Piranha and Centurion, and the INCREDIBLY unacceptable review of Expendables before that, you've been getting damn pretentious. Action movies don't get better when they get smarter--they become genre hybrids, which are cool, but not straight-up action films. And Machete's political allegories weren't that heavy--such as they were, they were as much a sendup of the goofy, over-the-top political puffery of old blaxploitation movies like Super Fly and Shaft (or really any exploitation subgenre, for that matter.) So seriously, Mr. Chipman--get down off your soapbox.
He is not just recently getting pretentious. He is a professional critic and they are all pretentious pricks. He can not get off his soapbox when that box is his career.

I do want to know he thought of a true idie flick like "The room." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Room_%28film%29] Or for him to so a series of reviews or critical essays on movie genre he enjoys more instead of just doing reviews for movies that just came out. I did like his most recent Intermission article and found it a nice change from his regular submissions.
 

KingPiccolOwned

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GrinningManiac said:
The Border problem in America is "one of the biggest debates in modern culture?"

Huh, I just thought it was the US version of the "Polish Problem" in Britain: Polish are coming over to make a living by willingly doing REALLY crap jobs REALLY cheaply because NONE of the British want to do those jobs, and yet the locals still complain that the Polish are "stealing Jobs" and "Not Being English"

Strikes me that there isn't a lot of argument for the USA side. Mexicans are being repressed and slightly discriminated, simple as, I think. Of course, if anyone in that area knows more about the problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
That's certainly part of the issue for some people, but personally I don't care if they are coming over here to look for a better life, that's great that's what America was made for (in theory anyway). The problem that I have, with the whole issue really, is that people don't seem to be making the distinction anymore between a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant (and that's on both sides of the debate).
 

370999

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KingPiccolOwned said:
GrinningManiac said:
The Border problem in America is "one of the biggest debates in modern culture?"

Huh, I just thought it was the US version of the "Polish Problem" in Britain: Polish are coming over to make a living by willingly doing REALLY crap jobs REALLY cheaply because NONE of the British want to do those jobs, and yet the locals still complain that the Polish are "stealing Jobs" and "Not Being English"

Strikes me that there isn't a lot of argument for the USA side. Mexicans are being repressed and slightly discriminated, simple as, I think. Of course, if anyone in that area knows more about the problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
That's certainly part of the issue for some people, but personally I don't care if they are coming over here to look for a better life, that's great that's what America was made for (in theory anyway). The problem that I have, with the whole issue really, is that people don't seem to be making the distinction anymore between a legal immigrant and an illegal immigrant (and that's on both sides of the debate).
True here, no state has a problem with controlled legal immigration as it gives the government more people to tax. Governments do have a problem when the people coming into a state can't get a job and thus the state has to subsidies them or they are entering a state illegally and flouting it's laws, this being the problem in the American south with illegal Meican immigration.
 

Vrach

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Furrama said:
Intestines? Just a guess.
Yep, thought the same, willing to bet my money on it the way Bob announced it :p

Good review, might give this one a look see if there's nothing else in theatres and I have some time. As I'm not an American, the border crossing issue is a little moot to me (and your Wet feet, dry feet law seems as stupid as they come for one) and won't carry the movie on it's own, which leaves just the action. Which is fun, but in a "barbecue + beer + random movie" kinda fun. And even there it has competitors :\

HyperionToASatyr said:
I enjoyed this movie and all, but dammit, MovieBob, stop ruining my fun. Between this, last week's double-header of Piranha and Centurion, and the INCREDIBLY unacceptable review of Expendables before that, you've been getting damn pretentious. Action movies don't get better when they get smarter--they become genre hybrids, which are cool, but not straight-up action films. And Machete's political allegories weren't that heavy--such as they were, they were as much a sendup of the goofy, over-the-top political puffery of old blaxploitation movies like Super Fly and Shaft (or really any exploitation subgenre, for that matter.) So seriously, Mr. Chipman--get down off your soapbox.
Maybe he just doesn't like it straight up? *Ba-dum-tish*

Seriously though, he might just not give a flying toss for what you call a "pure action movie", everyone's got their preferences and I can't say I can disagree with him on that one, not even objectively
 

MovieBob

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GrinningManiac said:
The Border problem in America is "one of the biggest debates in modern culture?"

Huh, I just thought it was the US version of the "Polish Problem" in Britain: Polish are coming over to make a living by willingly doing REALLY crap jobs REALLY cheaply because NONE of the British want to do those jobs, and yet the locals still complain that the Polish are "stealing Jobs" and "Not Being English"

Strikes me that there isn't a lot of argument for the USA side. Mexicans are being repressed and slightly discriminated, simple as, I think. Of course, if anyone in that area knows more about the problem, I'd be glad to hear it.
I hadn't heard of the "Polish Problem," but it sounds like pretty much the same idea, yes - though here in the US the issue is "supercharged" by the additional elements of race and class divide.

The way it's broken down is, a few decades ago essentially ALL menial/service jobs "Unionized" to one degree or another, which forced most employers to pay a certain base-level of wages and provide certain insurances. Because businesses started to make less money when they were no longer allowed to screw their employees over, an increasing number of businesses started to delegate more jobs off to "under the table" employees who weren't "on the books" and thus could be paid lower wages. And since what Americans would call "low" pay is actually quite a bit of money in Mexico and other South American and/or Latin American nations, you quickly had a HUGE rise in people crossing the border illegally to do these jobs. And since what was good for the businesses was good for their political allies, the government and law-enforcement just largely "looked the other way" on illegal immigration for DECADES.

So now you've got people who've lived here "illegally" for several generations - who've started families and lived lives and who have children who are natural-born citizens - and a lot of them are starting to ask *Gasp!!* that they be treated like PEOPLE by a government that has benefited from their presence by ignoring it's own laws, and NOW suddenly it's a HUGE problem ;)

It's more complicated on either side, of course, but that's largely where the "anger" at the heart of this particular movie is coming from.
 

Aiddon_v1legacy

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Rodriguez recently commented on whether or not Machete is actually talking about the immigration debate. Answer: kind of, but not really. It's more a representation on how some exploitation films would base the plot around something from the headlines in the most arbitrary way possible cuz the movies were about killing or blowing shit up regardless. Here's the article:

http://www.deadline.com/2010/09/the-real-hidden-machete-message/