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Last night was Action Movie Night at the Braeburn. We had seven in attendance this time around: Tony, Jake, Ben, Ryan, Derek, Chris B, and myself. There would have been eight had Shobhit come, but he had a work shift from 5 to 9.
Without any context, I would have found this week's movie choice to be decent enough but ultimately forgettable, as happens semi-regularly with this group. In context, however, it was a very fascinating and illumination choice. It was a Brazilian film from 2010 called
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within.
Here's the brief review I wrote for
logging the movie on Letterboxd:
Apparently upon this movie's release in 2010, it became the most successful movie of all time at the Brazilian box office, beating Avatar.
I guess you kind of had to be there. From a modern, international standpoint, this film is a pretty straightforward, conventional, violent police procedural crime thriller. The many ways in which the government corruption depicted onscreen mirrored actual government corruption in Brazil, however, likely made it of far more personal interest to Brazilian audiences. There is greater enhancement of appreciation for the film when it gets sociopolitically contextualized, I'll give it that.
I learned some of this stuff while browsing the internet on my phone, because, particularly in the earlier bits of the film, I frankly just wasn't that interested in it. Corrupt police forces, a prison riot, blah blah blah. I have to admit now that I really wasn't giving the film the respect it deserved. Mind you, I still don't think it was
great—on Letterboxd I gave it two and a half out of five stars—but I might have gained greater appreciation earlier in the film had I been paying more attention. But hey, in my defense, I was learning about it!
Not only was
Elite Force: The Enemy Within the most successful film in Brazil to date at the time (2010), but it turns out it was a sequel—to a 2007 film called just
Elite Squad, with the same actor in the lead (Wagner Moura) and the same director (José Padilha—who, incidentally, also directed the 2014 remake of
RoboCop, which I never bothered watching). Curiously, while
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within got decent reviews (
71 on MetaCritic), the original, 2007
Elite Squad was pretty widely panned (
MetaScore 33).
And: as I noted already, the film reflects widespread government corruption that actually exists in Brazil, something for which the nation is actually kind of infamous.
All of that was interesting enough—to me, at least—but wasn't even the most fascinating way in which the film was contextualized. It turns out, as the group last night learned, Chris B is half-Brazilian himself. His mother still lives there, in a farming community a nine-hour drive outside of São Paulo. He spent holidays with her when he was a kid, and he said he remembered watching this movie on a small TV "in a hut" while visiting her as a teenager. He hadn't watched the movie since then.
He had also brought a dish of savory pastries he told us at the pre-movie potluck (something none of them have ever actually called it, but that's what it is) was connected to the movie. None of us could even fathom how it would be connected.
The food was
Pão de Queijo, a Brazilian cheese bread with a "slightly crusty exterior and a soft interior," which Chris bought from a local Brazilian bakery, called
Kitanda, that's now located right over on the corner of Broadway and John, and has been
since 2021. I've never gone there, and now I clearly need to.
When the movie ended, and just after Chris shared about his partial Brazilian heritage, I asked: So what was the food connection? He explained that it was a popular Brazilian snack. I guess there's some point in the film when you can actually see people eating them, which I clearly missed.
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I made pasta as usual as my food offering for the potluck. Bowtie pasta this time, a decent pasta sauce, which I shold have added more salt to but whatever. Ben came in with fried rice, which he went out of his way to note to me was vegetarian. I had so much crap at work already that I hoped to limit my food intake in the evening, but now I had to show my appreciation for the rice, so I had some of that as well. He actually left that behind in the end and so I took it; Shobhit had it for his dinner after work, as he got home only moments before I got back upstairs after the movie.
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THIS JUST IN— Craptastic, bad news: Jennifer's visit this weekend has been canceled.
At 10:15 this morning, she messaged me this:
So I’m sorry I have to do this but I have to cancel
I just left work cuz I feel like shit and came home have taken two COVID tests and tested positive on both of them
Shit. Jennifer has covid. So: she can't go to the Northwest Chocolate Festival on Saturday, which she bought a $40 ticket for back in August. She also can't come out for drinks at The Fog Room on Saturday night. Shobhit works on Saturday, otherwise I'm certain he would just come to the Chocolate Festival with me. I have a text out to Alexia to see if she wants to go; Jennifer sent me a photo of her printed ticket, which presumably can work with the QR code visible. Laney had already wanted to come to The Fog Room, but bowed out when we discovered you can only reserve the patio for parties of 2 and anything larger has to be inside the dining room—she needs the outdoor space. But, now she can take Jennifer's spot and we can still sit out on the patio.
We'll have to come up with another time for Jennifer to come and visit. At this point it may have to be sometime in the spring, what with all the holiday stuff happening between now and the end of the year. I suppose November still poses a possibility but it seems unlikely.
THIS JUST IN AGAIN— Alexia texted back. She can't do the Chocolate Festival. I tried Tracy next. Then I realized, shit! I should have tried Danielle before anyone at all. We made a commitment earlier this year to try hanging out at least once every six weeks . . . and then, we saw each other only once over the summer.
Luckily, Danielle has the day off and is available, and of course is very interested. Also! When I last saw her, it was because she had a last-minute available ticket to
Six at The Paramount. Now I get to return the favor! So, I'm very bummed that Jennifer can't make it, but this is a very satisfactory alternative.
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[posted 12:38 pm]
