City Of God & City Of Men - Movie Reviews - 22 years Later | Ep. 54 | #UBreviews #CityOfGod

for a while now tiar I've been trying to figure out a way for us to Branch out even further in our um movie reviewing Adventures if you will right and it's been it's been difficult to try and reach out not reach out but try and like incorporate films from certain parts of the world okay parts of the world that we know black people are and that we want to um include in these reviews because that's what we're about right but then it was recently announced about 25 years it's been since the release of city of God it's become a huge uh Coke Classic and it's it's like the um magnum opus if you will of Brazilian uh films it's it's highly regarded and it was recently announced that there is going to be a new series that's going to be released on Max coming uh August 25th and I thought what better way to get into other parts of the world to finally make it to uh South America with our reviews then to go back in time and revisit this huge Legacy of a film what people will be surprised to know or maybe they won't if you've been watching us for a while you you won't be surprised about this and that is that Tiara somehow missed missed the [Laughter] [Music] uh they really be your own people they really do go ahead you know just somehow missed missed the um the peak of everything right but I I am glad that this is the case because we're getting two different perspectives here um as we go and visit this film this film and also the uh sequel that came later uh city of men we'll just kind of um be touching on both of them and discussing the legacy of the film but I say all that to say this for me going back and revisiting this I wanted to know if it's still held up at the time that it came out it became very critic Ally acclaimed um you could not go somewhere in my case the bootleg man and um not you know come across this film and even even when we were going in we were um deciding if we were going to do this or not I know that you were saying I always see this movie poster all the time but you had never like saw the film I don't know why for the life of me with that movie poster that they chose that image from o I'm so glad you said that I can't wait to get from the entirety of the movie you know but it's but it's become an iconic you know image so when people see it they kind of recognize it which you did you know y but um as we dive into this I want to know what you felt going into it since it was all new for you this is the the first time experience a lot of people hold this up as like they put this movie in their top 10 easily like of all times this movie has appeared on multiple lists of um highly acclaimed films top 100s top 20s you name it this film has been dropped in there since it's released in 2002 but um what did you know going into it other than what I kind of just like pushed you into and then also how did you feel going into it I knew absolutely nothing about this going into it um like you mentioned surprised no whatever again if you on people for real whatever um I knew nothing about this so I often enjoy when you make me watch things that I never seen before and that I probably wouldn't watch otherwise um but like you mentioned the movie poster for this was pretty iconic and I've seen it a thousand times you mentioned the bootleg man I probably seen it there I don't know if y'all remember Redbox or if y'all had that in your state or country or wherever you are we had Red Box where you can go and rent a movie and it would always be at Red Box and it was always an option and I always would skip over it um because funny enough like the movie poster didn't intrigue me and now that I've seen both movies I'm with UT I'm like what made them choose that still for the movie poster yeah and of course when that scene happened I was like oh this is it this is the moment and it's such a a small part of the story it's very strange that they chose that yeah so yeah yeah and so for I I I often wonder that too for the film itself though that particular scene since we're talking about the poster I'll stay there for a second but that particular scene is so well done it's so well shot and that particular shot is so freaking beautiful like that whole you know like H that Brazilian Beach like energy like they pick it up so well so I can see for the visual aspect like yes let's use this but the film is so big and it covers so much um in its story that I don't know why they ever landed on that I don't so that's that um so with the um new series that's coming out which is uh city of God the fight rages on is what it uh translates to um we actually get to see um now these pronunciations you know this is all Portuguese this is Brazil so something the way they're spelled is not how they would be said but we do see uh Al Alexandre Rodriguez if you will uh who played buscape AKA rocket um he's going to be reprising his role as um as Rocket in this new series where where city of men came in and gave us a more intimate story of two characters existing in that same world this new series seems to be a followup directly to the first film city of God so that I'm excited about and we also get to see a lot of um other characters come in and also being played by the same people so I did see in the trailer um that Bernice is uh coming back as well um Bernie so you'll see a lot of like familiar um faces and characters and that that I'm just excited about overall so that being said I just want to I just want to get into the overall um story so we'll start with um we'll start with city of God respectfully this um of the two films city of God of course is the Behemoth it's the like I said the Pinnacle it's a huge deal as far as um Brazilian films go it's that girl it's that guy it's it's just it's just it's just a really good film it received multiple like Oscar nominations and and all these things uh collected awards from all around the world and did well at film festivals all these things and I really just want to speak to like the legacy of the film as well as like some of the performances right yeah number one I I know for me I'm just going to speak for myself here I know for me when it comes to viewing foreign films I prefer to hear the native language and I'm okay with like reading the text right I'm okay with the subtitles um I always wonder though if one day I'll end up like being cockey a little bit because you know when you watch a movie Sometimes you kind of and if I could just get if I could just get one eye to do that and the other then I'm good right but but I've seen this movie so many times that I kind of you know know but I hadn't seen it maybe like I don't know maybe like eight to nine years since you know we decided to watch this so it was like you know revisiting something that brought me a lot of um really good memories so the story itself takes on a lot of um sociopolitical iCal uh issues some that still resonate today um as much as the movie itself holds up now um the elements and the things that are discussed in the movie still happen all the time you know there are still um young children growing up in the uh favillas um which um you could say another word would be like slums or um shanty town right um there's a lot of kids still grown up in these uh environments you know where um drugs are a big problem violence is a big problem police brutality all the things that we can relate to you see this is not something that is just ex exclusive to um you know what black people deal with in you know the ghettos of sa Paulo right um it's just something that we we all can relate to I think that's really part of what made it such a big like International International phenomenon other than the way it was shot okay so we'll start to get into some of the story here so uh this the movie opens up there's a chase scene with the chicken right iconic scene iconic scene but what I think that scene does successfully is it immediately like submerges you into the um the the world that we're meant to be in in a very unique way right and and the idea or the the thought to to go to start there and then Branch off and tell all the stories and then come back to that point this nonlinear um storytelling Choice yeah it was just brilliant but what you'll see because we're doing this in light of the new series that's um coming right so what you'll see is that they Revisited this iconic shot of uh buscape rocket you know being in the middle of the street he's in between the police and the Gang with um l z right l z l dice whatever you want to call him he's um in the middle of the street and they he's going to go and pick up the chick he has his camera and there's that shot that just spins around as he's looking between they actually bring that partic it's so oh Jesus I'm such a nerd they bring they bring that shot back in the in the trailer for the new series and it kind of it's a it's a really cool tie in to be like we're taking you back to this iconic moment but yeah when the when the movie started when it opened up before we started to Branch off into the other stories how did you feel did did you feel like you were in the thick of it were you immediately like intrigued or what I was cuz again I didn't really know what to expect I didn't look up the synopsis or anything and again the movie poster gives me nothing so I didn't know what to expect I didn't even know that we were starting with kids I didn't know that kids had played such a a huge part in this story I didn't know that we were starting in the 60s I didn't know any of that so to just kind of be thrust into it I was like all right okay cool and then you know subtitles it takes me a minute to get into it but what I like about this is that the story is so good that I forgot that there were subtitles and the cinematography which you already mentioned is so beautiful to where it's like dang like I'm I'm into this like few minutes in I'm in like so forget the fact that the subtitles and I'm like H I gotta sitay here and read this no I was in I was in early they had me you can you can always let me tell you something if you ever want to if you're vetting someone right you're on a date and you're trying to figure something out and you want to just test you know their um literal see go go and see a movie sure but go and see something that they got to read and then and then ask him afterwards say what did you think about that and you'll see if they were able to keep up or not you'll know what you got what you dealing with yeah but anyhow so we we start to Branch off and we get into some of the uh separate stories as well as um a very uh impressive um flashback if you will but one of the things I want to point out to you the um cu the film was so iconic for so many different reasons and one of those was the fact that the director when they were going to go and do the film The Director wanted to be as authentic as possible he wanted it to be as real as he could make it right and part of that was going into now they didn't actually film in the real um city of God rather a uh favilla outside of that and that was because you know they felt like it would be too dangerous to film in the actual location or whatever but still a lot of uh you know distinct uh similarities in the two but what they did is they went they went in and they recruited a bunch of you know real people to act in this film and so one of the um best performances in the film is our main villain okay our main villain in in um in the present time of the film and that is um played by Le now again Portuguese so I could be getting this wrong Leandro firmino who plays um who plays L and we see him at the beginning he's you know he's the leader of this gang he's running things he's running things all up and through the city of God okay that is an understatement but the actual actor who played him as an adult really had no intention of ever being an actor at all right really he was actually from him and a lot of PE a lot of of the other kids in the film were actually from um the city of God itself but he just happened to go along to the auditions with a friend he was just hanging out right so you know it's interesting so usually when that happens the person's like a side character right like I'm G use this example because it's fresh so I recently watched training day okay and I watched training day because I I remember listening to uh Club Shay a couple months ago and Terry Cruz was on there and he was talking about the scene where he was in training day and he was just like I just happened to be on set I was a bodyguard I was around they needed an extra I didn't have any speaking lines but I got to being a seene with Denzel so I hadn't seen training day since I listened to him talking about that on Club Shay Shay so I watched training day probably like a week ago and I was like dang like that's really iconic that like this is his first film but he really wasn't going out to be a part of the film right so it's a huge deal so like now you're telling me that this person was just like going as a tag along and ended up in this iconic film and usually when that happens the person's just like a a side character like Terry Cruz in Training Day you either you see it or you don't kind of deal but this is like a main character the villain that is huge definitely and these and these and a lot of these characters were based on um real life people um and it's it's interesting to watch it play out but what I will say is that as we travel in time and we go back to the 60s and we start to get the backstory of of all these characters as great as Leandro was his younger self was played by Douglas Silva baby Douglas Silva is arguably the standout performer in the entire uh first movie um rightfully so and and there was just so much like realness that was like you know pressed into this film because again you're getting a lot of people who are not trained actors they literally grabbed like 200 people threw them in like a little boot camp if you will and taught them you know how they would go about shooting a scene if they were in a gang this kind of thing and they went and did the thing right so you're getting real responses and performances I read somewhere that um the so we're back in time and there's a scene where uh goose goose is his um G his translated name but the actor let me see if I can find this real quick is um ronal deza des soza and he um he sees he sees a little kid he sees um Lil Z as a kid and this is after the motel scene okay and he he plans on leaving because things are getting too too crazy he plans on leaving um the city of God mhm he runs up on him he sees that he has money so there's that scene where he like slaps him and then other little kid starts laughing or whatever yeah what you don't know is that for about 15 days of shooting they they told ronal to pretty much go on just like bullied the little kid constantly okay to the point that when this scene is shot and he slaps him you're getting a real reaction because now the kid is like I'm done with this I ain't doing this right oh so it was like you know uh Will Smith when he slapped uh Chris Rock oh God he was sick of it he was sick of it I'm about to slap him for real sick but knowing that when you go back and watch the scene and you're seeing like these reactions right and you kind of see like he feels like he's gonna cry or whatever right all this it's it's real stuff because they're setting up things in order to do this right so to to clarify though so are you saying that Douglas Silva was not a child actor or was he a child actor originally no he was not he wasn't either oh wow he was not a lot of the a lot of the um performances were people who were um who were virtually unknown and that is again one of the things that just makes the film really iconic one of my um favorite scenes is the one that you get what cabera let me use the uh English name actually where so this is in the past by the way the 60s so the Tinder Trio which is a Shaggy Clipper and Goose okay but there a scene where um caber Shaggy ends up getting close to Bernice Roberto Rodriguez who actually went on to you know act more in like TV and things like this as well but um their their particular connection so when he when he sees her when when they're in the house and she's like you know just washing dishes all the buildup for their whole entire like romance M it's just like movie Magic PE like like I said the the poster was um our main character you know going after this girl Angelica with that he just thought was like you know a heartthrob and he just wanted to be with her she was so hot right Crush but the the best love story in the film as far as two characters to me are these two and so um there's a scene where they plan to leave she she well she she gives him an ultimat she's like I'm leaving I'm out of here either you coming with me or I'm leaving without you right and then they decide to leave together what they do is they hold up a guy in a car right yes the car stalls very Bonnie and Clyde yes very Bonnie and Clyde this is why it made it so it was so um just has so much depth to this scene but he they stop they stop a guy in a car okay in hopes of just getting in he's going to drive them out of out of of town right yep the car stalls and at this point the police who also crooked as all get out right yeah they they spot him and they they mean to go after him to to kill him right so when he gets out and at this point you're so invested in the characters you're so into the movie because this is so far in when he gets out he's pushing that car and they are just making their way to him and that buildup that you get it's just oh my gosh what I love about that scene number one of course the the story itself right but what I love about that scene is you're you're in the slums and you're shooting this and there's a there's a shot from That's supposed to be within the car right and the camera is just like shaking as if the car is moving and you see him from a distance just like running and he's like you know he he's pretty much defeated at that point yeah and they shoot him again I was like oh my God yeah but but but scen like that seems like that stick out to me so much that when I read this I I think I appreciated it subconsciously you know when I was younger and I wasn't shouldn't even been watching this but I was but as I'm older I'm just like this is so good but um what did you think about just the way that they were able to capture like certain emotions just like that scene I just described no I think I think it was really dope because it gave so much depth to the characters so much depth to the characters um because you can just look at this as like a bunch of boys from the hood who are bad and robbing and shooting and stealing and doing all these things but it really the way that they um had these like Side Story lines like showing Shaggy and Bernie's falling in love and then agreeing to leave together like stuff like that it really like it added more to the characters and made you like root for them as opposed to being like annoyed with them um so I really appreciated that and in that scene I I thought it was interesting the way that bernes she started to cry a little bit but she didn't like break down right like she held that together and I thought that was really interesting because they could have went a different direction they could have had her like you know screaming and falling out on the floor and being like very dramatic it wasn't that it was very much like she knew the type of man she was dealing with she knew that this was always a possibility and she also knew that she needed to move forward and so I don't know I feel I feel like I felt that in that small moment of her just like being in the car and being like having her moment but like knowing she got to move on so yeah yeah powerful scene yeah just very powerful scene one one of my favorites um overall and then there are a few other scenes that stand out to me but one thing I want to point out too is that for some reason and this isn't this isn't supposed to I don't think it's supposed to be the case but for some reason I found myself wanting to be in these spaces a lot of the time even though it's supposed to be so dangerous and so crazy um so we move further along into uh the present time which is like late 80s or whatever and that's where we get a scene where um where l l Zed Li Z he uh they're at a party right and the party is for Benny's going away Benny decides that he's leaving the city of God which and this was one of my favorite scenes which which was which was a lot the the overall storytelling because just like when L was a kid he stopped Goose from [Music] leaving and and shot him down also the way that they went about revealing just how bad off uh luzy was as a kid is it's just the reveal was crazy when they finally revealed him shooting the people down at the motel for example yo I I was like yes yes and and and you can you can see what like why this movie just was like so well received by so many audiences internationally because you would just would you don't even see movies being made to that degree now you know what I mean like thought out in that way because the reveal was just like so perfectly um placed that you didn't even and and you could be honest with me you didn't you know how you could sit back you be like I could figure this out I could I didn't see that at all oh and where they placed it I thought was really interesting because they could have showed that before when we were still in the 60s but the choice to show that later on as they were adults ohh yeah that was brilliant that was brilliant so when we so when we're at this party or whatever it's for uh Benny's going away and like I said it's it's almost poetic that just like he stopped Goose from leaving the um city of God Benny also got sto from leaving the city of God the only difference is that it wasn't from who it should have been from but that's you know neither here nor there one thing that I like is that this was the one scene that gave some Humanity to our main villain and they did it in a they did it in such a subtle way that I thought was brilliant and that was him you know trying to see if he can like you know dance with a girl right and he didn't have the courage to do it he wasn't set up that way he had been so entrenched with the street life and running this gang and his rise to power and being so ruthless that he had no ability to just come down from that and have a good time so when the girl rejects him the girl turns out to be um who they refer to in the American version that's knockout Ned knock out happened to be his girl and uh he decides that since the girl rejected him he's going to humiliate her guy right and then that scene sort of builds the visuals for that scene were perfect um when the DJ cues up the next song and the lights start going perfect perfect the flicker the strob light oh perfect everything about that scene was just well timed and well placed and and again when you consider the fact that these are untrained actors these are people who this is their first time on on camera people who had no desire to do this stuff when you consider that fact it's just that more that much more brilliant yeah but you say saying this now is blowing my mind I had no idea this is because like the whole time I'm watching I'm like yo they are acting n behind off like they are killing it that's the whole what I'm thinking the whole time and now you're telling me that these are not even trained actors these are people who just pulled up not not not at the time they weren't nowadays it's a bit different but yeah yeah but that was another scene that I enjoyed a whole lot overall I will say this about for or uh city of city of uh Gods is that it definitely every bit of praise the film got over the years and now to the point that it's become a cult classic and it's something that you can go and watch and it still holds up today it's still as powerful as it was when it came out all of that to me is well placed like yeah honestly the only downside the only issue for me is that they didn't win the big awards that they should have won in my opinion that that year so so why is that because I I did do some Googles afterwards and I did see that so so why you think that is you're talking about the Academy Award nominations right um at the end of the day it's still a um and especially at the time it's still a in an International Film right so the things that it did win was already Monumental for that aspect but then you also have to consider that the academy is you know an American based thing um to the point that they on the posters for example um if you go look back in the day the on the posters and promotional material they had like the um the gang lined up holding their guns as a steel but on the American poster they're all holding handguns like and when I say handguns I don't mean handguns I mean their hands as guns Allah Charlie Angels yeah so you know there was some sensitivity to that fact but also think about really what the um film is pointing out itself actual residents of the city of God back in the day were not pleased with the depiction of this film you know there were there were some Brazilians who were not like happy about it because it became a huge International success so there's several sides you know to the to the thing and the way it was received that I think hindered it from really getting what it uh deserved because acknowledging it are saying yes it wins in that way kind of okays some of the things that natives would have been you know having an issue with if that makes sense I guess it's more like um I mean it's the same thing with like black Americans you know we have certain programming that is now International and we may say oh this is ratchet like oh my God why are y'all showing this because it puts us in a bad light and makes it look like all of us are this or that and you know so I get that yeah yeah I and it's that it's that kind of notion so I don't know if if the academy was trying to stay away from that but to me I could see how one thing would while it looks great for the film itself may not be the same for others so before we get into city of men I'll say this and that is while this series seems to um this new series that was announced for uh Max seems to do a call back to City of God and re submerge us into this world the truth of the matter is for people who are in the know the success from the city of God itself just that movie alone mhm has always been constant since then right and so city of men actually started out as a series after the first film a TV series right okay and it had like um like I want to say like Four Seasons or something like that and then the film came in like 2007 so there's stories all throughout it so when you get into city of men as a standalone uh sequel what you'll notice is that in the movie there's like you know some flashbacks and things that happen and stuff like that that um would it's not necessary that you see the series before this uh sequel but if you had seen it in between the two films the um flashbacks and so on would make more sense because for city of men we follow uh different characters you may get confused when you're watching it because you're like wait a minute our main character looks like the kid from City of God and it it it is it is listen I had to look twice cuz I was like now I've seen this face before it's it's it was Douglas Silva all over again because he's definitely got a um Unique Look hilarious he looks like him hilarious and so he's he's playing uh Ace and then was darlan uh COA that's the actor and this movie more so um the pace is completely different let me say yes yes so while city of God is very dark it takes on huge um issues for social class uh crime uh racism all the things that happen in the in that world the um sequel city of men takes place and it focuses more so on young men who are uh coming of age in the same world that city of God has uh late out right mm yep and so for that reason it feels like a completely different um film however it still is executed greatly still we get the same director on board who cares about what is being told in this you know universe that he's now created right and so for me this is something that a lot of people Overlook because like like I said the um city of God became such a huge phenomenon that a lot of people when you say you know there's a sequel right they be like what really and this this is you know you could do this nowadays where people know about the first film have seen it several times over and still have never realized that they made a followup to the film you know and so I feel and you could let me know what you thought I feel like you can watch city of men out of sequence and still enjoy it as a individual story not even knowing that it comes from City of God you know absolutely do you think so yeah it could be a standalone thing did not necessarily have so many tie-ins to where you feel like you're missing something by not seeing the first one so yeah I totally different story but I will say it still had those elements of the first one and it had enough to where like if I'm a fan of the first one then I'm obviously going to like the second one because there's so many uh elements that are similar and I guess that's a shout out to the director yeah and then so this this film it's more so whereas like I said the other thing had focused on the just the whole world right this focused on just individual characters in in my mind and I could be wrong you let me know I feel like you would enjoy city of men a bit more as a just as like I said it's a standalone film because it is more so about like the relationships and you know some of the softer things uh some slight humors here and there you know and then the world is happening around it right that's affecting it so in my mind I think someone someone like Tiara someone with your taste would would would like city of men more by default had you never seen city of God of course right that's what I was going to say it's hard to say now because now I've seen city of God I will say though what stood out to me immediately was the difference in tone it wasn't as dark it wasn't as heavy but I don't know if I would think that if I hadn't just watched city of God you like this is D heavy like what is dark what is heavy it's a lot it's a lot going on so maybe I would have thought that I don't know we'll never know now right but I I do think that it it it holds its own um in the space that was created um another good thing to note is that after this after that film was released the second film the second feature film the um series continued to the point that our characters end up having sons of their own and you kind of get to see you know the generational thing happening but I think that's I think that only last maybe like maybe like two or three seasons after that because it would have just ended um in like 2017 2018 oh okay so when you actually look up the city of Men series The Run would be from right after the first film so like 2003 to 2017 2018 the dates I could be that's a long run but not not consecutively because like I said it was four seasons of the first iteration of the city of men and then the film and then after the film you know but that's still a long run for the characters that's a long run so there's an entire um if you wanted to get into the depths of the thing there's an entire world that has been you know created an entire series that if you want to really do the digging and find all the things um and then also this is at the time the you know middle 2000s where uh DVD collections and stuff were existing right so you could get the compilation of actual seasons and stuff like this so they exist out there um before I give my overall rating for the two films and things like this I do want to point out there also right um after so I want to say it would have been like 2012 that there was a documentary that was also released and this was this was um city of God 10 years later is is what um you can find it under and this particular documentary follows up with the actors the directors people who would just were you know involved in the film 10 years after its success and some of the things that um you get to you get to see and follow up with are you know who were able to Branch out and like you know have great success um previously for city of God we talked about uh the character knockout nid right well knockout is actually in real life a you know legendary at this point um musician Brazilian musician okay he's even got a a tit talk not a tit talk a uh tiny Des performance shut up that came out many years ago um but I'm sure they like re-released it and stuff like this um and that is uh Sue Geor who um who I'm talking about and he uh he also was in you know a couple of uh other Hollywood films and things like this and like ition uh mentioned before um a lot of our actors went on to do other things but in this documentary you also get to see the flip side of that one of the one of the deepest and most emotional scenes in this universe is in the city of God that uh first film and that is this is when you realize like our villain is a villain to the court that is when they go after the little kids and they Corner the kids yeah in the corner okay and there's a young boy young boy and in in real life he probably was maybe like six my God and I'm thinking the whole time I'm like how did they get this child to one cry on Q like that to get the Viola Davis snot running like how I'm tell you I'mma tell you how please tell me so what they said was so in the documentary that I mentioned by the way they end up following up with that kid as well and how he eventually he he was very sought after after that you can imagine I bet but how he eventually wanted to get away from it and he alludes to there being some you know Shady issues coming up in his lifetime like you know maybe some some things that he could have gone to jail for if you will and he just didn't want to do the acting life anymore but in that scene what they coached him on they found out that he was terrified of um the dentist like getting like a root canal kind of thing right and what they did was they worked with him and when it came time for him to cry was to think about getting you know like the dentist pulling your teeth oh he and that's how they got him to sob uncontrollably after getting shot in the foot yo but that scene oh my gosh oh my God that had me like my heart and again like I said to you before we started filming I was watching this I'm like did these kids get therapy and he was one of the kids I was thinking about did he get therapy for that because I knew that there would had to be something heavy that they had to tell him to pull out that emotion and it sounds like he did didn't yeah he didn't he didn't um a lot of a lot of people also talked about the kind of pay that they got for um these roles um so you know we're talking like some people got like 5,000 uh what do they call it what's it what is it in Brazil R R I don't know how to say it but let's say 5,000 is like nowadays cuz we're talking early 2000s 5,000 is like not even $200 something like that I'm not I'm not shocked at all some people got that um some of the um the actors in front more so um or leading actors maybe got like 10,000 and some of them even talk about the things that they uh you know did with their money right um and people people don't realize that again these are untrained actors in This film number one that makes it just so much more Grand when you think about the performances we get out of it but on the flip side of that is you get people who didn't ask for this kind of attention or fame right they get it and they're doing everything from going to uh Ken right right these are kids from the slums of Brazil never thought they would be in France right crazy yeah and there's a part where our um main uh actor who plays Rocket he um talks about being offered 10,000 not dollar okay they they they came to him at some point and they offered him 10,000 and it was either either you take 10,000 or we'll give you a percentage of um the box office if you will right him being you know young boy where he's from was like I need that 10,000 that's more money than I've ever seen yeah absolutely not knowing how big this film would get and not knowing the amount of money they would make internationally right yeah yeah so you know there stuff like that and then some people just you know were like you know oh yeah I pay my rent uh I think this was uh Sorge when they were asking him I paid my rent and um you know I got some groceries and some you know some necessities and that was about it you know stuff like this and when you like I said when you consider that fact the one thing that got to me the most was our main character okay meaning his face is going to always be synonymous with this movie no matter what that's why they bringing him back for this new series right to to solidify that but our main character says that you know he's going from traveling and doing this promotion going from film festivals Paparazzi in his face doing all this press and everything but the reality is he's like these people do not know how I'm living yeah that he goes back home he's laying on the top bunk and the raindrops are dropping on his face after this movie has been out okay so so you get that um the young lady who played um Roberta even though she went on to uh continued to act I'm not I'm sorry that's her name B they play Bernice even though she continued to act that did not come straight away you know so she talks about you know going back you know to the faelas and you know they being Wars breaking out while she's you know sitting there at the gate having a beer with her friends you know that the reality behind the scenes of this is that people for a long time did not consider things as far as films that could come out of Brazil to have any foundation or any substance and this film changed the the trajectory of the film industry in um Brazil right yeah yeah so they didn't even know the magnitude of what it would become but I'm excited to see these people come back and um do it again so in in essence it's like the best thing that happened to some of them and also the worst thing that happened to some people right but the truth of the matter is the city of God is so phenomenal that it's kept a lot of people working for 25 years now you know and that's that's a real blessing you don't get that a lot of that out of just like a individual film you just don't usually no so I'll give my final thoughts here and that is if never seen city of guy and I'm sure tiarra can attest to this it's highly recommended if you if you love Cinema if you love film if you love great storytelling if you want to watch something that is just like perfect from like end to end this is what I would recommend this is one of the ones that I consider to be up there as well and then when it comes to City of man the sequel if you enjoy Jo city of God and you get caught up in the world that's created and you don't want it to end right and you just want to you you know how you watch something and you sometimes wonder huh I wonder what that person that was sitting at the table yes and they when they started shooting or when they stole that car and tore up the man's shop I wonder what that person is doing city of man kind of does that it takes you deeper into the world but it's more focused and it's more centralized and it's you know it's individual stories all in all I would say together I'm going to do something new here that I never done before all right so you know our you know our radio system right I do and for a while it's been what it's been what I decided to do is making an executive decision after much thought is I wanted to give a rare prize out mhm so I decided you know when people give out rare prizes they they say oh you know here's a golden something right so now we have a golden rating we do oh yeah you won't believe it you won't believe who it is I'm scared actually I am going to rate this for the first time and this is going to be a rare gift that I give to some things I'm going to rate city of God along with city of men just as a whole thing a golden Denzel and I and it took me it took me a long time it took me a long time to to to come to this conclusion okay but yes this is something new for us but yeah all right well that's huge considering you are quite the critic everyone who watches this knows so that means you really really do love the city of God in city of men that's dopee yeah yeah it's it's it it just it's the bees [ __ ] knes man that be KN it's that girl the just just for what they were able to do with virtually nothing yeah right um taking unknowns and turning some of them into Superstars and the performances that they were able to get out of it along with the storytelling aspect along with the cinematography and the way things were shot like everything was just so well done things being shot on location nowadays movies feel so soulless because you're you're watching most stuff on a sound stage now you know and it's so rushed and like you don't get to you know you just don't get to you don't get as greedy as you got when these things came out I that's the one thing I am fearful about with the new series is how modern technology and the success and Legacy of the thing you know having a bigger budget and stuff like this how that does translate I'm I'm anticipating that but um overall yeah you can't you just cannot be upset with what they were able to do with this film and how it still holds up today but what about you what do you rate this well uh I didn't know we had a golden Denzel award we do now we do now I'm like what what could I have rated that but that you know we'll get back to that um this one well these two actually I'm gonna give them the same rating I enjoyed both of these I watched them uh back toback so not the same day but two days in a row um and I enjoyed it at no point was I bored at no point was I like I'm over this I I told you first five minutes I was in I was like all right we got subtitles we got Portuguese but that's okay I'm in cuz they got me um beautifully shot very beautiful way to look at Brazil a different way that we typically see Brazil and Rio de Janeiro and like how that's depicted I think in one of the movies that was mentioned too like this is a different this is different than what y'all see on a postcard or something like that I'm paraphrasing um but so I really enjoyed seeing that I mean beautiful beautiful um the storytelling A1 the acting A1 I'm still sitting over here like my mind is blown that you're telling me that so many of these actors were untrained at the time and just kind of pulled up I mean wow um I likeed seeing the variation of the way people looked I think that is like from what I can understand about Brazil is that that's an accurate representation of like Brazil that you have these different kinds of people sometimes in mainstream media we see a certain type of person from Brazil right um but in this you're you're seeing variations and I liked seeing that especially like they were in the favila and often times in movies and shows we'll just see black people but no it was all kinds of people in the fava so I thought that was interesting yeah as it is we know that but when you see it on TV or movies it's always like oh it's just the black people you know so I appreciated that um beautiful beautiful movie um great stories I appreciate that they're two Standalone stories as well there are tians but they're both Standalone you can if you really rock with one you could only just watch that one if you rock with the other one you you you don't have to necessarily do them together so I appreciate that I am interested now to see what this new series is all about I understand why you're excited about it I understand now why you were talking to me about it I'm like okay cool no I get it now all right I understand I get it um my only knock for this film is the movie poster I don't know why y'all did that I really do not know why yall did that and that is going to stick with me forever cuz why there was so many other shots so many opportunities but all in all I enjoyed both of these movies I'm so glad you made me watch them uh so I'm GNA give them both an Angela Basset hey hey hey so yes I say that to say this this was this was something that we that we just decid to do as a result of the uh announcement of the new series yep and this is our way of again including stories that are people that look like us but from other parts of the globe and I think that this is a great starting point for us to trekk into South America and see what they got going on down there okay all right but this again this is the Pinnacle so we'll it'll be interesting to see what um what we're able to discover now that we're starting to like dig in those areas okay as well so but I'm excited I'm excited for the series I'm excited for what this will bring and uh I'm just glad that you um are getting exposed via my recommendations me too thank you I appreciate that thank you so if you've been watching for this long we want to thank you for watching this um sort of exclusive visit um or revisit for me not tiar to such a iconic cult film you can always find me on Instagram at ton World on Tik Tok at tonw 2or you can also find ous blacks all over the social medias at ubiquitous blacks if you have any recommendations if you are uh privy to uh films from Brazil or other parts of South America that feature uh predominant blackafrican diaspora uh people please send it to us ubulus blacks gmail.com or you can leave your recommendations in the comments and let us know if we can uh find um some interesting com content that way if you're listen to this as an audio medium you can also send us fan mail you can send us a text you can let us know that way just go into the description of the episode and you'll see a a link that will say send us a text and that'll come directly to us we will check it out we review it and all that and then I'll say this if you want to support us on YouTube there's a super thanks button you can donate to us there on the uh audio medium in the description there is a show support you can support the show that way uh just follow the links it's pretty self-explanatory or you could uh just you can hit me up on Instagram and ask me for my cash app I'll send it to you you know but anything you do uh donate to the ubiquitous blacks uh show the platform will go into um making the platform that much bigger and better and we appreciate your watches your views all the things tiar where can they find you yes you guys can find me on the socials at tiarra takes it's t r a t a k s uncore or on my YouTube channel also Tiara takes come by say hello I'm over there doing travel content so stop by and see where I'm at in the world and maybe learn a few things about the places that I've been and if all else fails you can always find me on my website it's tarat tak.com and I'm just going to Echo Tron as I always do y'all we love suggestions and recommendations so please send things our way you can drop it in the comments or email it or send it you know all the other ways to to communicate heck apparently you can send a text now which is hilarious to me but I love it do that too um and if it's in Portuguese it's okay I will turn on subtitles I'm good so go ahead and send the things are wet you know you know that we really need to get down there it's true so if you want to send us you know uh an invitation to come visit sure let us know you know the one thing I I I meant to I meant to say this I meant to say this while we were talking about the thing but the one thing is I will always say this anytime I've went and like explored um Brazilian films or TV shows and stuff like this black people look so good why why we see we supposed to be in the sun we supposed to be in the sun the sun obviously it's I was thinking that when I was watching this I was like God everybody's skin looks so beautiful everybody looks so gorgeous always you know people they say oh do you want to go to Carnival do you want to go to car I want to go to the real one I don't want I've never been to a carnival because I I one time was going to go in the UK it's not the same I I want my first one I want it to be the real one well then let's go put on the list for next year let's go I think we I think we should do it I think we should do it let's do it so you heard it here first if you could donate to us so we can go to Brazil for the for the real Carnival then that would be greatly appreciated so that's all I got for today um yeah let's get out of here bye