World’s Machoest Movie: A Title Fight
RED RIVER vs ONCE APON A TIME IN MEXICO
Here’s the segment of our little site where we pay tribute to a very special movie by pitting it against another movie and watching as they beat eachother into burger. The result isn’t pretty, but that’s what it takes to survive in the box with the World’s Machoest Movie. There are only two rules: 1)There are no rules 2)Disregard rule number one.This week we have a very southwestern collision of Cowboys and Gouchos in store for you as we pit the returning favorite John “Cake-Man” Wayne, against Antonio “Zorro” Banderes in a 2 hour battle for survival inside the box where only one man will be mui macho, and the other: mui muerto.
Reigning Champion: Red River – John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Walter Brennan
Tom Dunson left a wagon train and the woman he loved in Avalon to stake his piece of land just south of the Red River with a capable Chef (Walter Brennan), fearless teenage apprentice and sole survivor of an indian massacre (Montgomery Clift), and two compatible cows having sex like crazy, together they built the Red River ranch from the ground-up. 15 years later they’d branded ten thousand cattle, killed seven of poor Don Diego’s men and countless apache intruders (technically Dunson himself was intruding on their land, but whatever) Silly Tom, didn’t you know that Texas is a mineral rich state with no market for cattle? If only he and his team of roughneck wranglers could drive 10,000 head of cattle along the deadly infamouse Chisolm Trail into Missouri where a burger was worth it’s weight in gold, maybe then he could ease the pain from the deep loss of the woman he loved so many years before when he started this ambitious cattlequest.
The Contender: Once Apon a Time in Mexico – Antonio Banderez, Johnny Depp, Selma Hayek
General Marquez killed El Mariachi’s wife (Selma Hayek) and daughter (uh, some kid) 5 years ago just because he felt like it, now a crooked C.I.A. operative (Depp) offers him a mercenary job which will lead him to a final showdown with his nemesis and a final chance to avenge the murder of his family. The Mexican President’s aggressive policy has led to the uprising of rebels who’ve planned to initiate a coup d’etat against him, Bill Shakespeare style no less: a drug cartel boss (Willem “Coolest man alive” Dafoe) hires Marquez to betray his government and kill the president, leaving all of mexico in a state of unrest (I guess this sortof thing happens all the time in Messico(?)) A retired Federale recieves a tipoff from our crooked C.I.A. guy that Dafoe’s character plans to kill the president, this x fed has his own score to settle: Defoe’s character tortured and killed his partner a decade earlier. With so many guns coming into Mexico this final showdown can only end well.
The Fight
El Mariachi plays a sad, sad song for his murdered wife and kid. Tom Dunson, who’s true love was slaughtered by indians, wads all that hurt and pain into a little ball and tucks it away deep inside to rot and fester his mind as he ages. While El Mariachi tends to kill men sportingly, applies bullets to bodies (dead or alive) generously. Tom Dunson kills only when necessary, always giving his enemy one final chance to back down or be killed, but unlike the Mariachi, imposes hostile authority like a general leading his men to martyrdom. After Tom sends a man down the river he likes to read a hand tailored effigy over the grave, El Mariachi likes to rub on his guitar after bussin a cap.
The Winner and Still Remaining Champion: Red River
Cheech Marin and Selma Hayek worked hard to elevate this movie to a respectable level, then I saw Enrique Eglasias rub his mole on some chick and I thought “Shame on all of you for being in the same movie as Enrique Eglasias, the net cliche of everything messican! Maybe Kenny Rodgers could be in Hulk Hogan’s next movie hmmm?” Then things started really falling apart when the Mariachi’s drunken elder brother transformed his guitar case into a wheeled, remote control, exploding guitar case, and it occurred to me “oh…this IS cliche! What was I thinking?” I had guessed at that point that this movie was some horrible sequel of a semi-horrible original, and much to my not-surprise, it was actually the third installment of a trilogy, the original being only kinda-horrible (from what I’m told) Not only was it very horrible-sequel-esque, also a very comic bookish glimpse into the Mexican Mafioso where everyone wants to be El Presidente(?) but before they can must face Enrique’s flame-thrower guitar case, Cap’n Sparrow’s detatchable mock arm (I had a rambo action figure with the same talent once) and Willem DaFoe’s outrageous accent. John Wayne was gay, but still manages to out-macho even the roughest hombres south of the border, the winner: Red River
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