Movie recommendation

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

Last night I rented out and watched the indy flick The Lost City. If it's been posted about before, I apologize, but I figured it's a film you all would enjoy.

Andy Garcia wrote, directed, and starred in it and it's about the days leading up to and right after Fidel Castro took over Cuba. Basically, Cuba's political unrest threatens everything the protagonist, a club owner, values. It's a well-made film and the music's great. But what I really enjoyed about it is how it tells the truth about Castro's freedom-sucking regime. Saxophones become illegal because they were invented by a Belgian, and Belgium colonized Angola (Castro sent troops to help out the Communists there). Stagehands can't play cards because it's "gambling." A tobacco farm owned by a family for decades is seized by the state. Batista's dungeons become Castro's dungeons. Moreover, Che Guevara isn't portrayed as some counterculture hero or a cool guy. In this film, he's a murderous thug.

Anti-Communism has a bad name in Hollywood while Castro and Guevara have this radical chic cache, which makes this movie very refreshing (and it explains why Garcia had to make it himself.) It's a very pro-freedom film and I highly recommend it.

Comments

[derringdo.livejournal.com]

Amusingly enough, Tomas Milian, the actor playing Garcia's father, is a Cuban-born character actor who was noted for his hard-left politics when younger (supposedly partly in rebellion against his father, a Batista official), and often played Che lookalikes in spaghetti westerns about the Mexican Revolution. Guess he's not picky about paychecks :)

[tulleskirt.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved this movie. I'm Cuban myself and saw it with my mom and grandmother...the latter being the one who fled Casto and all his insanity. I mean...this movie was her story, and it was SO good to see something not Che-glory-saturated or whatnot.

Glad to see this great film mentioned!