Hey! 
Us male brits are normal… ish
- Soul :goatee:
cough
im sorry but any american that says that really needs to look in the mirror…
all i can say is when i think of americans is your great president…
what a great man to lead your nation forward…
us brits are pretty normal really…
cough
got a bit personal then… sorry
hey guig0, don’t suck up to Kit, that’s MY job 
I just thought you could use some help
Ah… 
[FONT=century gothic]Star: i’m no american =) Bush is a moron, look at my sig[/FONT]
[FONT=courier new]guig0: sorry i take it back =) i knew i shouldn’t have said it now look what happened HAHA[/FONT]
anyways brits are cool…with their queen…and those gaurds that never move…oh well at least we have our mounties 
[SIZE=1]Alexandre Rodrigues as Rocket, a Brazilian teenager who chooses a camera over a gun in “City of God.”[/SIZE]
Gangs of Rio de Janeiro
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
In “City of God,” Fernando Meirelles’s scorching anecdotal history of violence in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, a fretful boy with the cute nickname Steak & Fries (Darlan Cunha), begs for a gun that would certify his membership in one of two rival gangs. “I smoke, I snort, I’ve killed and robbed,” he pleads none too convincingly. “I’m a man.”
Handed a weapon he doesn’t know how to use, this eager new recruit, whose voice has barely begun to change, rushes to join one of the clashing posses of armed children swarming through Cidade de Deus (City of God). A sprawling housing project built in the 1960’s on the outskirts of Rio and left to fester in a poisonous stew of poverty, drugs and crime, it has degenerated into a war zone so dangerous that visitors from outside risk being shot to death.
The movie traces the neighborhood’s decline over a decade and a half, from a sun-baked shantytown of earth-colored bungalows where the children while away the days in soccer games and petty thievery into a shadowy slum teeming with armed adolescent warriors.
The portrait of a boy soldier enlisting in a volunteer criminal army with an astronomical mortality rate is one of many profoundly unsettling images that jostle through the film. Another is a scene in which a gangster coerces a frightened boy, who has been poaching on his territory, to choose between being shot in the hand or the foot.
As the victim, who chooses the foot, hobbles away in agony, he is ordered not to limp.
“City of God,” which opens today in New York and Los Angeles, is the latest and one of the most powerful in a recent spate of movies that remind us that the civilized society we take for granted is actually a luxury. Although the police pop up now and again in Cidade de Deus, law and order are as scarce on these mean streets (just minutes away from one of the world’s most glorious beaches) as they are in the slums of 1860’s Manhattan depicted in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York.”
Anyone who once dressed up as a cowboy and played shoot-'em-up games with the neighborhood kids will wince with sadness as these packs of children cavort through the streets, flourishing real guns as though they were toys and chattering excitedly about murder.
“City of God,” which has already created a sensation in Brazil, was adapted from a best-selling novel by Paulo Lins, who grew up in Cidade de Deus. Its narrator, Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues), is a young photographer from the same neighborhood whose loose-jointed yarns follow the fates of a number of his childhood acquaintances. What saves Rocket from being consumed by the thug life around him is his passion for photography, along with his own comic ineptitude at crime.
The movie is divided into three chapters, each bleaker and more appalling than the one before; they parallel the intertwining destinies of Rocket and one of his childhood playmates, Li’l Dice (Douglas Silva). After growing up and changing his nickname to Li’l Zé (Leandro Firmino da Hora takes over the role), he ascends into a trigger-happy drug dealer and local kingpin.
“City of God” can be grimly amusing, as in the opening scene, in which Li’l Zé and his juvenile army amuse themselves by chasing a flustered chicken down the street. That ridiculous image introduces a note of absurdist humor that is carried forward by Rocket’s dispassionately chatty storytelling. From here the movie immediately flashes back to the 1960’s and Rocket’s recollections of a clique of adolescent outlaws called the Tender Trio, whose big-time criminal career begins with their robbery of a brothel.
As the story lurches ahead, the drugs become harder (cocaine supplants marijuana) and the weaponry more deadly. The second chapter, set in the 1970’s, focuses on Li’l Zé, now a grinning sociopath with an appetite for murder, and his reign of terror. The only thing keeping his crazier impulses in check is his lieutenant Benny (Phellipe Haagensen), a smart, good-hearted gangster with a hippie sensibility who eventually decides to abandon the criminal life. The farewell party Benny arranges for himself at which the merriment turns tragically violent (to the strains of “Kung Fu Fighting”) is one of the film’s most spectacular set pieces.
The final third, set in the early 1980’s, finds Li’l Zé’s empire threatened by an even younger crew of pre-teenage gangsters called the Runts (some of them only 9 and 10), who disregard his authority. It all builds to a showdown between Li’l Zé and a rival band led by Knockout Ned (Seu Jorge), a peaceable bus-fare collector who turns into avenging fury after Li’l Zé rapes his girlfriend and shoots his brother.
Rocket, meanwhile, cinches his escape from the criminal life when his sensational photo of Li’l Zé and his posse winds up on the front page of a newspaper. Resigned to being killed for exposing the gangster, Rocket instead finds himself hired by the publicity-hungry thug as a kind of court photographer. Most of the movie’s final bloodbath is observed through his camera’s lens.
If its panoramic scenes of street fighting recall “Gangs of New York,” the tone and structure of “City of God” are closer to Mr. Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” with which it shares the same attitude of brash nonchalance and fondness for tall-sounding tales.
Underscored by samba music, much of the treachery and violence unfold in what could be described only as a party atmosphere.
Because it was filmed with hand-held cameras on the streets of Rio (but not in Cidade de Deus) with a cast that includes some 200 nonprofessional actors, “City of God” conveys the authenticity of a cinéma vérité scrapbook. Cesar Charlone’s restless cinematography is a flashy potpourri of effects that include slow and accelerated motion, the use of split screens and a dramatically varied expressionistic palette.
As the movie’s frenetic visual rhythms and mood swings synchronize with the zany, adrenaline-fueled impulsiveness of its lost youth on the rampage, you may find yourself getting lost in this teeming netherworld. To experience this devastating movie is a little like attending a children’s birthday party that goes wildly out of control. You watch in helpless disbelief as the apple-cheeked revelers turn into little devils gleefully smashing everything in sight.
“City of God” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has scenes of violence and graphic sex talk.
CITY OF GOD
Directed by Fernando Meirelles; written (in Portuguese, with English subtitles) by Braulio Mantovani, based on the novel by Paulo Lins; director of photography, Cesar Charlone; edited by Daniel Rezende; music by Antônio Pinto and Ed Côrtes; art director, Tulé Peake; produced by Andrea Barata Ribeiro and Maurício Andrade Ramos; released by Miramax Films. At the Angelika Film Center, Mercer and Houston Streets, Greenwich Village. Running time: 130 minutes. This film is rated R.
WITH: Seu Jorge (Knockout Ned), Alexandre Rodrigues (Rocket), Leandro Firmino da Hora (Li’l Zé), Phellipe Haagensen (Benny), Douglas Silva (Li’l Dice) and Darlan Cunha (Steak & Fries).
ooooooooooooooh…um…okay =) i wonder if it was on tv anytime…btw G: do you watch mr. bean?
yep. why:q:
curious thas all…bean is one of the closest people in real life to homer simpson…
let me ask ya: what is makaveli? is it your real (last) name, or something else?
just curious, it´s a good name:)
no, its simply the alias of the rapper known as “Tupac” …he named himelf after machievelli who was a great philospher and military strategist and even faked his own death to fool his enemies…2pac is my fav rapper… =) where did you get guig0…is gugigo your real name?
LOL
bush is a fking retard. nice guy, lame arse president. God. Worst president ever. Really. look at unemployment, look at the economy. the american economy went down when bush was elected, not becuase of 9/11. and fk 9/11 too. we deserved it. the only reason bush wants war with iraq is to take the american eye off of the economy. thats it. its pointless. the guy is a dumbarse.
*Originally posted by morse *
**LOL
bush is a fking retard. nice guy, lame arse president. God. Worst president ever. Really. look at unemployment, look at the economy. the american economy went down when bush was elected, not becuase of 9/11. and fk 9/11 too. we deserved it. the only reason bush wants war with iraq is to take the american eye off of the economy. thats it. its pointless. the guy is a dumbarse. **
morse…what does that have to do with this thread?? lol i think you posted in wrong thread
Na dude, I stopped doing that a long while back. Yall were talking about bush earlier on…
But I can talk about mr bean. You see his movie? LMAO
*Originally posted by Makaveli *
**is gugigo your real name? **
well ok i always wanted to know this… how’s Guig0 exactly supposted to be pronounced? lol
*Originally posted by ahmed *
**well ok i always wanted to know this… how’s Guig0 exactly supposted to be pronounced? lol **
Guig0 is the screen version of my nickname (Guigo), and I think it is pronounced in english as geego.
I know Machiavelli, I have posted a few of his famous quotes here, but I never liked Makaveli to Machiavelli :-\
and, ahmed. what is it 
[SIZE=1]just joking ya :)[/SIZE]
Hey Guig0, that film you were talking about is on at the cinema, I noticed it. I might go see it. :beam:
- Soul :goatee:
go dude! You won´t regret it:)
plus, you´ll get to see a lil bit of the city I live on, well, the poor side anyway. :-\
