Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
#77
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Just like cabron.
Last edited by inri222; 10-08-15 at 07:05 PM.
#79
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Lots of fascinating storytelling in this one. Plenty of stuff I never saw or thought about before.
It only touches on the operations between the US government and cartels. It's a movie that doesn't waste a scene, and tries to sum everything up in two hours. I could have watched a 10 hour version. The level of shit the cartels do would really write a 10 hour movie itself.
The story starts in Chandler AZ (where I live). Had to giggle a little that something so grisly would happen out here in the suburbs. I know it's potentially around. But 90% of Chandler is typical suburbs. 10% is pre-1990 suburbs. Looks like it was actually shot in Albuquerque.
It only touches on the operations between the US government and cartels. It's a movie that doesn't waste a scene, and tries to sum everything up in two hours. I could have watched a 10 hour version. The level of shit the cartels do would really write a 10 hour movie itself.
The story starts in Chandler AZ (where I live). Had to giggle a little that something so grisly would happen out here in the suburbs. I know it's potentially around. But 90% of Chandler is typical suburbs. 10% is pre-1990 suburbs. Looks like it was actually shot in Albuquerque.
#82
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
When Alejandro said something like, 'Until 20% of Americans stop snorting and smoking this shit, this is how it is', I wanted to stand up and clap.
So pot is on its way to being completely legal. That's going to hurt the cartels a little (I'm sure they're preparing for the adjustment already). Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. will never be legal. We could talk about largely defunding the war on drugs. But that's not going to stop the brutality and chaos shown in Sicario.
It should play on the conscious of every drug user - the kind of industry and dealings they're funding. The message will never reach everyone. But it could reach the more affluent and self-aware, and help them make a conscionable decision and help them frame drug use in a different way. Sort of like people who are now more aware and careful where they buy their diamond rings. I haven't seen an anti-drug angle of depicting cartel violence and how heroin gets shit out into a toilet before you buy it from your dealer.
So pot is on its way to being completely legal. That's going to hurt the cartels a little (I'm sure they're preparing for the adjustment already). Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. will never be legal. We could talk about largely defunding the war on drugs. But that's not going to stop the brutality and chaos shown in Sicario.
It should play on the conscious of every drug user - the kind of industry and dealings they're funding. The message will never reach everyone. But it could reach the more affluent and self-aware, and help them make a conscionable decision and help them frame drug use in a different way. Sort of like people who are now more aware and careful where they buy their diamond rings. I haven't seen an anti-drug angle of depicting cartel violence and how heroin gets shit out into a toilet before you buy it from your dealer.
#84
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
When Alejandro said something like, 'Until 20% of Americans stop snorting and smoking this shit, this is how it is', I wanted to stand up and clap.
So pot is on its way to being completely legal. That's going to hurt the cartels a little (I'm sure they're preparing for the adjustment already). Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. will never be legal. We could talk about largely defunding the war on drugs. But that's not going to stop the brutality and chaos shown in Sicario.
It should play on the conscious of every drug user - the kind of industry and dealings they're funding. The message will never reach everyone. But it could reach the more affluent and self-aware, and help them make a conscionable decision and help them frame drug use in a different way. Sort of like people who are now more aware and careful where they buy their diamond rings. I haven't seen an anti-drug angle of depicting cartel violence and how heroin gets shit out into a toilet before you buy it from your dealer.
So pot is on its way to being completely legal. That's going to hurt the cartels a little (I'm sure they're preparing for the adjustment already). Cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. will never be legal. We could talk about largely defunding the war on drugs. But that's not going to stop the brutality and chaos shown in Sicario.
It should play on the conscious of every drug user - the kind of industry and dealings they're funding. The message will never reach everyone. But it could reach the more affluent and self-aware, and help them make a conscionable decision and help them frame drug use in a different way. Sort of like people who are now more aware and careful where they buy their diamond rings. I haven't seen an anti-drug angle of depicting cartel violence and how heroin gets shit out into a toilet before you buy it from your dealer.
Or folks can just watch Traffic.
#85
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
The mayor of Ciudad Juarez is upset about the movie's portrayal of his town as a vicious, murderous hellhole:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/wo...ark-times.html
As if the town was never like that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/wo...ark-times.html
As if the town was never like that.
#86
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Contains mild spoilers :
Denis Villeneuve Talks Sicario
On his cartel thriller and the upcoming Blade Runner sequel
http://www.empireonline.com/intervie...w.asp?IID=2074
Denis Villeneuve Talks Sicario
On his cartel thriller and the upcoming Blade Runner sequel
http://www.empireonline.com/intervie...w.asp?IID=2074
#87
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#88
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
According to this NPR article, it sounds like the cartels have recently (and purposely) diverted focus from Juarez.
The article also makes it appear that Sicario's depiction of violence is Juarez is a few years behind the times (murder went from 3000 in 2010 to 400 last year).
The article also makes it appear that Sicario's depiction of violence is Juarez is a few years behind the times (murder went from 3000 in 2010 to 400 last year).
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallel...turn-to-juarez
In downtown Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, Nelson Armeto and his brothers run a seafood restaurant called Pisces. Like other businesses owners in Juarez, they met with trouble beginning in 2008, when the drug cartels began demanding a monthly extortion fee.
"We received calls telling us we had to pay a quota, otherwise we'd get the business burned down, or a car passing by would be shooting up the place," he says. "They even threatened kidnapping us and even sometimes killing the employees."
With narcotraficante threats day and night, most people just stopped going out in Juarez.
"The fear, the terror, not a soul on the streets," recalls longtime Pisces patron Velia Contreras.
The city has suffered decades of violence, as hundreds of women working in factories there were murdered in the 1990s. Then came violent turf wars between drug cartels.
At the height of the violence in 2010, the official toll in Juarez was more than 3,000 killings. Many restaurants and clubs closed down or moved across the border to El Paso. The once-thriving nightlife ground to a halt.
But now, people are once again partying in Juarez.
After a few years of fear, Armeto says, he and his friends became numb to the violence. [This is clearly depicted in Sicario.] They decided to start going out on the town like they used to.
"YOLO," he says. "You only live once. It's kind of a religion where you go out and each day you live most you can, so if you don't have a memory that day, it's a wasted day."
"So let's go," I tell him.
This is something I definitely wouldn't have done a few years ago. But with the official death toll down to 434 last year, it seems safer.
With Armeto and his party posse, we head out to Avenida Juarez, just blocks from the border crossing. It's now dotted with bars and clubs — some new, others newly reopened. The oldest and most famous, the Kentucky Club, lost business but managed to stay open.
This is the bar where Marilyn Monroe is said to have famously ordered a round for everyone to celebrate her divorce from Arthur Miller. Frank Sinatra used to party here. So did a lot of famous Mexican movie stars and boxers.
Now that Juarez is once again a party town, I bump into Juan Fernandez, a member of Colectivo Wagon, an artist collective.
"I don't know if the city's less or more violent," he says. "But what I do know is I'm not afraid anymore. Not afraid of being here, of walking to my house. Probably two or three years ago, it was different."
No one can say for sure why violence diminished. There are lots of theories: One cartel gained control. The local police became militarized. The violence just moved on to a different part of Mexico.
Next, we head to Tres Mentiras, on another avenue that is once again alive at night. Live bands can only play traditional, brass-based banda music. It's now illegal in the state of Chihuahua for narcocorrido — or drug ballad — bands to go onstage with AK-47s, singing about the exploits of the drug lords.
On our way out, we pass a tough-looking private security guard with an automatic rifle, something you see a lot in Juarez. That may be another reason people feel safer going out, though all the weaponry is unnerving.
Before the night is over, we hit up four more clubs playing electronica and hip hop. We see teenagers from El Paso, college students from all over the world, and many, like Nelson Armeto and his friends, who just want to party like it's 2007.
But Armeto says they do have one fear: getting stopped by the police.
Police bribes — the mordida — is a tradition that began long before the narco wars.
"They are looking for every minor infraction. I mean, they are going to try to bribe us," he says. "Every time we go out, that's the No. 1 concern we have."
In downtown Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, Nelson Armeto and his brothers run a seafood restaurant called Pisces. Like other businesses owners in Juarez, they met with trouble beginning in 2008, when the drug cartels began demanding a monthly extortion fee.
"We received calls telling us we had to pay a quota, otherwise we'd get the business burned down, or a car passing by would be shooting up the place," he says. "They even threatened kidnapping us and even sometimes killing the employees."
With narcotraficante threats day and night, most people just stopped going out in Juarez.
"The fear, the terror, not a soul on the streets," recalls longtime Pisces patron Velia Contreras.
The city has suffered decades of violence, as hundreds of women working in factories there were murdered in the 1990s. Then came violent turf wars between drug cartels.
At the height of the violence in 2010, the official toll in Juarez was more than 3,000 killings. Many restaurants and clubs closed down or moved across the border to El Paso. The once-thriving nightlife ground to a halt.
But now, people are once again partying in Juarez.
After a few years of fear, Armeto says, he and his friends became numb to the violence. [This is clearly depicted in Sicario.] They decided to start going out on the town like they used to.
"YOLO," he says. "You only live once. It's kind of a religion where you go out and each day you live most you can, so if you don't have a memory that day, it's a wasted day."
"So let's go," I tell him.
This is something I definitely wouldn't have done a few years ago. But with the official death toll down to 434 last year, it seems safer.
With Armeto and his party posse, we head out to Avenida Juarez, just blocks from the border crossing. It's now dotted with bars and clubs — some new, others newly reopened. The oldest and most famous, the Kentucky Club, lost business but managed to stay open.
This is the bar where Marilyn Monroe is said to have famously ordered a round for everyone to celebrate her divorce from Arthur Miller. Frank Sinatra used to party here. So did a lot of famous Mexican movie stars and boxers.
Now that Juarez is once again a party town, I bump into Juan Fernandez, a member of Colectivo Wagon, an artist collective.
"I don't know if the city's less or more violent," he says. "But what I do know is I'm not afraid anymore. Not afraid of being here, of walking to my house. Probably two or three years ago, it was different."
No one can say for sure why violence diminished. There are lots of theories: One cartel gained control. The local police became militarized. The violence just moved on to a different part of Mexico.
Next, we head to Tres Mentiras, on another avenue that is once again alive at night. Live bands can only play traditional, brass-based banda music. It's now illegal in the state of Chihuahua for narcocorrido — or drug ballad — bands to go onstage with AK-47s, singing about the exploits of the drug lords.
On our way out, we pass a tough-looking private security guard with an automatic rifle, something you see a lot in Juarez. That may be another reason people feel safer going out, though all the weaponry is unnerving.
Before the night is over, we hit up four more clubs playing electronica and hip hop. We see teenagers from El Paso, college students from all over the world, and many, like Nelson Armeto and his friends, who just want to party like it's 2007.
But Armeto says they do have one fear: getting stopped by the police.
Police bribes — the mordida — is a tradition that began long before the narco wars.
"They are looking for every minor infraction. I mean, they are going to try to bribe us," he says. "Every time we go out, that's the No. 1 concern we have."
#89
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
I know what New York City was like during the 1970s and 80s. If someone makes a film set in that period and shows the city to be as crime- and blight-ridden as it was back then, I won't complain. But if someone makes a film set during the Giuliani or Bloomberg administrations and shows the city that way, I'll complain. That was the problem I had with Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. It showed a gentrified area looking the way it did during TAXI DRIVER 23 years earlier. It's not the view of the city I cared about, but the historical inaccuracy. Now, of course, under De Blasio, the city's starting to once again feel like NYC in the TAXI DRIVER era.
Last edited by Ash Ketchum; 10-13-15 at 09:45 AM.
#90
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Like I said above - if the cartels have diverted attention from Juarez, I think Sicario's display of violence in Juarez is a few years behind the times. But we're talking a few years. Production could have been underway during the shift. This isn't South Park.
I find it interesting that there was a sudden end. Going from 3000 to 400 murders shows that the cartels could align and stop this in a very short time.
#91
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
I know what New York City was like during the 1970s and 80s. If someone makes a film set in that period and shows the city to be as crime- and blight-ridden as it was back then, I won't complain. But if someone makes a film set during the Giuliani or Bloomberg administrations and shows the city that way, I'll complain. That was the problem I had with Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. It showed a gentrified area looking the way it did during TAXI DRIVER 23 years earlier.
Last edited by inri222; 10-13-15 at 10:00 AM.
#92
DVD Talk Hero
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Yeah, Manhattan in the 2000s is essentially an island sized Disney World with little pockets of personality every here and there.
#93
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/12/wo...imes.html?_r=0
In an email, Denis Villeneuve, the movie’s director, said the film was conceived in 2010 at the height of Juárez’s troubles.
“We didn’t have the intention to harm the citizens of Juárez with our movie,” Mr. Villeneuve said. “The people who are fighting for peace deserve our respect.”
“We didn’t have the intention to harm the citizens of Juárez with our movie,” Mr. Villeneuve said. “The people who are fighting for peace deserve our respect.”
#96
DVD Talk Ultimate Edition
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Del Toro gets a lot of well deserved praise, but I was also really impressed with Josh Brolin. He is just such a natural and so believable in this role.
Plotwise, the movie shares a lot in common with Training Day which is one of my favorites. The whole being a wolf to catch a wolf concept.
#97
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Why 'Sicario' is the masterpiece that it is
Warning : MAJOR SPOILERS!
http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/10/...xternal,manual
Warning : MAJOR SPOILERS!
http://moviepilot.com/posts/2015/10/...xternal,manual
#98
Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
I stopped reading that article very quickly. First of all he saw the trailer and expected an all out action movie (and was hoping to recommend it as such upon leaving). I never got this vibe at all from the trailers. Secondly, he walked out underwhelmed and only later realized how good it was. This shows how little taste he has. This film blew me away and anyone that has an ounce of film knowledge or appreciation will see its brilliance first time out. And lastly, this guy was underwhelmed by Fury Road when he first saw it? Yep. He's a moron.
#99
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Re: Sicario (2015) D: Villeneuve S: Blunt, Del Toro
Yeah. The trailers didn't give a hint that this was some action prominent type of film. Unless he saw TV ads or something. I can see how they might market it like that on TV.
#100
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I've gotten the sense that he marketing has been playing it up as an action flick, but most of the reviews I'm reading say it actually isn't, it's an intelligent and multilayered drama.