2014-12-17 Bang Bang Club

2014-12-17     Bang Bang Club 

 

            'Everything' Cin said it better to your man Itchy the Cat just now, ' is a rom / com', this before during and after watching All Is Bright but before watching 'Bang Bang Club', the former starring a couple of Americans playing Quebecois guys selling Christmas trees in Brooklyn, the latter starring Ryan Phillipe playing a South African war photographer. 

 

            Any film daring to bad-mouth Nelson Mandela 'may not be long' - the coroner in Michael Apted's TAKE ON Martin Cruz Smith’s Gorky Park says it better to William Hurt's Chief Inspector Renko when Renko starts digging / too deep - 'for this world', and so despite the death-by-machete videed in this film both by Ryan's photographer and by this reviewer, his attention may begin to wander, it is after all the Christmas season, innit Electrified JC, 'my readers may have a hard time seeing these', the editor of the South African newspaper says it better before during and after videeing the pictures of the massacres, 'over / their cornflakes.'

 

            Soon enough the photographer is shagging the photo editor and driving around his 1980's car throughout J-Burg's shanty towns taking photographs morning noon and night.  Local types with spears and shields and more machetes try to warn the pack of White (hooker please, -id.) photographers away but guess what, no one / listens.  God love these war photographers and war correspondents - their preferred nomenclature, though not ©in (y)our man the humble(d) narrator of this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and Bang Bang Club’s, to ©in everything is preceded by 'war', the 'war' / is superfluous - but they must keep the ambassadors in these countries awake / at night, about to be beheaded by local and international thugs they are, or sure enough in this movie shot as collateral damage by the South African military in their armored vehicles, white as lilies these Africaaners soldiers are, to / a man, 'civil war' the poster on the wall of the bar where the photographers go to get rat-arsed after their days playing big boy shutterbugs, 'is not very / civil.'

 

            'School's out' the grizzled vet reporter drops the line inevitably to the young photographer played by Philippe as every white swinging Tom Dick and Harry and white war groupie in J-Burg gets arse-holed in the local watering hole morning noon and night.  Film goes South early, leaving the locals to their tribal wars to concentrate instead on the white photographers and their slick abundance, innit It, 'I don't date' the female photo editor protests it better too much to Phillipe's journo, before doing just that, 'photographers.  You stay up all night, drink too much, and you're / crazy.  And then' she drops the punch line almost as fast as they both drop /  trow, 'there's the bad / stuff', getting arse-holed in the local watering hole morning noon and night is all / we gots.

 

            Cin gets the adrenaline junkie angle - he used to get out more in the hal©yon p®e-®egime ze®o days and nights and decades, ‘the blood’ (y)our man Mickey Rourke’s Marv calls them better, or words to tht / extent, in Robert Rodriguez’s film Sin City - but not the bit about going into the hearts of darkness without armed guards, soldiers of fortune, ambassadors and attachés, and plenty / of them, 'send lawyers, guns, and money' Warren Zevon ®IP sang it better in his song of the same name, 'the shit has hit / the fan.'  Finally a Zulu warrior gets about as much hooch as (y)our man the humble(d) narrator ©in is allowed to cinsume under regime zero – none that four-lettered word - when another local in the film pours what’s left of a bottle of booze over him, before during and after his gang beat hell out of the Zulu (that's enough -id.), and then sets him / alight, sending lawyers, guns, and money is all / w ots.  

 

            For taking this photograph, Phillipe's photographer wins / the Pulitzer prize - you can't make up most of the plot twists and surprises that Cin videes in these films in the course of writing these reviews be©ause they do it / for you - 'there's no bang bang' Phillipe's photographer says it better before during and after returning to J-Burg from New York for the ceremony, despite some concerns that he might / not, 'over there', but it's not all bang-bang for Greg even after winning that prize, 'I had to tell him' a jealous arse-holed fellow-photographer at the bar in the film says it better of Greg's Pulitzer, 'what / it was.'

 

            Good times, Abdul the photographer from Israel shows up at the next Bang Bang Club morning meeting and off they all go to get them some more wa® po®n, and 'early morning' the U.S. Ma®ine ma©ho  in the Press Corps in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket says it better and lasciviously to his reporters when he assigns them the task of covering Ann Margaret's visit to Saigon, 'dew', ‘policia?’ the young South American child aksed his mother better in the shopping mall outside Montreal, apropos the two soldiers in uniform and (y)our man ©in striding through the mall on the way / to lunch – ‘jolly’ another Marine called himself and his fellow marines better in Full Metal Jacket, ‘green giants, striding across / the world’ – ‘no policia’ the child’s mother answered him better, and the name / stuck, ‘machos’, jully g®een giants is all / we gots.

 

            Course Abdul dies in Greg's arms, and Philippe does some serious How Does It Feel-ing for the other camera, the one that's filming him for the movie, in the 1980s car that the Bang Bang Club uses to drive around.  To be fair, Greg brings along his editor / leg-over when she akses, for the inevitable visit to the townships when he takes his post-Pulitzer (that's enough -id.) photos of the suffering South Africans.  Both of them are by the laws of Hollywood and of nature evidently more accustomed to being in front of the camera than behind it, but they try to be empathetic to the suffering they see all around them, for the sake of the camera that's in front / of them, meta that four-lettered word is all / we gots.

 

            'New York Times called' Greg name-drops the second time now, 'the spectre of Africa starving' the TV announcer says it better, before during and after the ©infamous picture of the Sudanese child being given the once-over by the vulture taken by Greg's colleague wins the second Pulitzer of the movie in as many hours, 'has attracted the world's attention.'  This photograph Cin actually remembers in what passes for his off-screen life that four-lettered word (hooker please , -id.) , how much of the rest of this is faction - like most of what passes for faction in this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and Bang Bang ©lub - is hard / to discern, certainly war photographers are nowhere near as dreamy as the ones depicted in / this film.

 

            'One day' Robert Duvall's Major says it better in Coppola's Apocalypse Now, 'this war's gonna / end', and the last act of this film concerns itself with what these dreamy big boy shutterbugs are 'asupposed to do after the latest conflict is over.  'Do you know what happened' a nosey parker journalista dares to ask Greg's colleague of the subject of the photo he captured with the vulture giving her the greasy eye-ball, 'to the little girl?'  Greg's colleague, given a cinexplicable back story of being a junkie in the film, doesn't know how to How Does It Feel about the question, ‘I don’t even know’ the divine Gywneth Paltrow’s fille Tanenbaum tries and fails to answer the question directed her way in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tannenbaums , and apropos her step-brother in the movie played by Luke Wilson, and the two of them having fallen / in love that four-lettered word, ‘how to begin to answer / that question’  - the war photographer  did nothing for the little girl as far as the audience knows, it’s the war journalist’s ultimate / conundrum – and for all this reviewer knows the question leads the war photographer back to his heroine / habit, La Horse is all / we gots.

 

            Course the photographers proceed to get knocked around, kidnapped or beheaded one by one, for drama, the first by the feckless UN blue helmets who shoot at anything / that moves, the second after messing around with an Africaaner rugby player in the bar and then head-butted, leading to the one and only chuckle in the film from your humble(d) reviewer, having been on the giving and receving end of the same, and more / than once, needless to say everyone in this film as in most films is arseholed 80 % of the time, or maybe that's ®egime ze®o talking - no it's not, (y)our man ©in off to his third office party in as many weeks tomorrow, this one to be held right in the office, where an exception has been made for the first time in 20 years that everone can bring their own booze into the office and get stinking / drunk, where he will have to sit there for the third time in as many weeks and pretend to have fun, hatched-faced and declining drink after drink after drink,  you have to be a hound of punishment to submit to regime zero, but enough / is enough, and the third time might be / the charm, he is of half of what's left of his mind to call in / sick for the occasion, “I’m pregnant’ of course the go-to line for why you’re not getting licquored up morning noon and night, and a recent one for his Muslim ©ubicombs ©olleague, ‘I converted / to Islam’ - until only your man Greg is left, looking for his next / fix, The End, ©inverted / to Islam is all / we gots.

 

            'You're alive' Cin says it better now to your man Scratchy the Cat, to book-end this WTFednesday edition of this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and Bang Bang ©lub,  'innit, Puss.'  Like his roommate ©in, when (y)our man Scratchy the ©at is after lying on the floor asleep it is hard not to mistake him without looking closely as being anything other than / dead that four-lettered word.  Yet like Lazarus innit Electrified JC the three of us will all awake of a Thirstday morning – and they never get any more / or less thirsty - and somehow manage to do it all / again, anything other than / dead that four-lettered word is all / we gots.

 

            Thanks for reading this Take This Thing Back to Baltimore me-moirs and Bang Bang ©lub.