![\"verdes.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/bywayof.net\/captains_crate\/images\/verdes.jpg\")
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Los Pasteles Verdes<\/b>: Angelitos Negros<\/b>, Reloj<\/b>, Recuerdos De Una Noche<\/b> and Te Amo Y No Soy Correspondido<\/b>
\nTaken from the album Recuerdos De Una Noche<\/b> on Gema (197?)<\/p>\n
I don’t know how it happened. One minute I’m wilin’ out chez moi<\/i>, eating luke warm lentil soup and ruminating on the finer things in life; next minute my homie Dave is on the phone: Yo, Willis…<\/i>–Mumble, mumble–…to the movies…<\/i>–Unitelligible–…my treat…<\/i>–Ambulence Passing–…calypto…<\/p>\n
“Sure thing!” I say. Like a fool, like a goddamn fool.<\/p>\n
Here’s what’s wrong with Apocalypto<\/b>: EVERYTHING. Plotless, pointless, exploitative, gimmicky, dull, trite, nauseating. Here’s an abbreviated list of sources that Melly Mel<\/b> grossly misappropriates or outright marauds on the course of this dizzyingly uninspired warpath: The Last of The Mohicans, Midnight Cowboy (think Ratzo’s touching departure minus the touching part), Indian Jones and The Temple of Doom, The Exorcist\/Shining\/6th Sense (Come on<\/i>, possessed children? Really?<\/i>), The Princess Bride (My name is Inigo Montoya.. Jaguar Paw…whatever), Run Lola Run (minus the red-haired femme and pulsing techno–which is to say a lot of running), Night of The Living Dead (Zombie head squirts, anyone?) and Tintin in South America (No joke.)<\/p>\n
Just. Plain. Awful. And sure, I might have guessed as much– but, as always, the hype machine worked wonders and a handful of beguiling critics tricked me into… well, hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
All of this has a point (I think).<\/p>\n
After the movie came to its merciful end, I returned home. Haggard. Angry. Depressed. (It’s a sorry state of global affairs, when a guy as effed-up as Mel Gibson can not only get a picture as bad as this one made, but actually trick people into buying into it.) The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. I needed to find some respite. Some comforting bastion to reaffirm my faith in life, in love, in mankind… and, most importantly, in the magic of America Del Sur<\/i>, as disassociated from Mel Gibson’s<\/b> Hollywood taint.<\/p>\n
(I used to dream about Mexico. And Chile, Peru, Venezuela. Idealized visions of great lands. The music, the culture, the language… Hell, I had been thinking about taking a trip down that way sometime in the near future… And now? Now what?)<\/p>\n