The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada

To be buried three times… well, we do say third times a charm. I suspect however, that three, four hundred years from now, Melquaides body may be dug up by some futuristic digging device, and unintentionally buried somewhere else, and a thousand years after that, yet again no doubt.

The idea of a place where you lay your bones to rest is really only important for those who you were close to, and who lived while you lived. To Melquaides, Tommy Lee Jones’ character is one of those people. We are reminded here, intentionally no doubt, of Sam Pekinpah and his film The Wild Bunch. Tommy Lee Jones won best actor at Cannes this year, and if you see it, you’ll understand why. His character is fairly complex, he’s caring about his friends, but when someone kills a person he loves (that being the illegal Mexican immigrant Melquaides Estrada) shit really go sideways, and Tommy Lee Jones will show us all that he’s almost as bat shit crazy as Mel Gibson… almost.

It’s a good thing films like this exist. American film seems to get lost to slews of romantic comedies, Hollywood dramas, and huge explosion action films. It’s a comforting thought that as the most conservative and macho of all American genres, and maybe even the most conservative genre of the entire language of film, the Western is perhaps the most poetic. The western is truly our contribution to film, and it’s nice when even in the year 2006 we can be reminded of its relevance. Oh yeah, and it kicks ass.

!Qué ricas son las margaritas!

You know the feeling... chips, salsa, and margaritas. Winter, spring, summer, fall, makes no difference, it’s always nice. One, you can eat for virtually free, and two, margaritas. Only problem really is that margaritas at Mexican restaurants can be a little expensive, and generally a little week. So here’s what you do. Grab an Aquafina bottle… Evian, what have you, and fill it up with some cheap tequila from home or from the liquor store, put it in your coat pocket or purse if you have one, get a pitcher of margaritas, and when the waiter/waitress isn’t looking, spice it up a bit. That’s my trick, thought I’d pass it along.

April 12th, 1912

“They called it the ship of dreams, and it was, it really was,” spattered some old hag at a rather confused looking Bill Paxton. “Uh, game-over man?” he replied.

Thank god the Titanic crashed. I’m so happy all those people died helplessly, else there never would have been a dramatic adaptation made from the events to film. No Leonardo DiCaprio screaming he’s the king of the world from the bow of a CGI ship. No nude Kate Winslet, stuck graciously into a PG-13 film for all of us pubescent boys to gawk at. Thanks for making all those people freeze to death so we could sit in a warm theater and enjoy ourselves, many of us three or one-hundred times.

Thank god those Palestinian terrorists kidnapped Israeli athletes and murdered them, and thank god that Israel created an assassination squad to find those responsible and murder them, because Eric Bana, Geoffrey Rush, and Daniel Craig totally rocked in the movie version of these actual events. It was seriously awesome.

Now Oliver Stone is making a movie about 9/11, and Paul Greengrass is making a movie about the events of Flight 93. I’m so glad. In all honesty, I thought Hotel Rwanda was great, The Constant Gardner intriguing, I mean, there have been so many movies based on atrocious “actual events” that to list all of them would take me weeks.

However, the films themselves have purpose, they are intended to teach us about the past in hopes to influence our future decisions, creating awareness about the... oops I would love to finish but I have to go eat dinner and do some online shopping.