Hey folks, Harry here with a look at BUS 174, a documentary about violence in the midst of Rio De Janeiro and I have to say... This sounds amazing. Here's hoping it every plays over here. Here ya go....

Dear Harry and Moriarty,  

    Gelogurte from brasilian website www.agalaxia.com.br again. How are you guys doing today?  

    I heard the documentary Bus 174 was finally getting released in the US. I don't know if you saw it but I know it will be screened at Sundance. You should really check it out if you have a chance.  

    Bus 174 is a movie about violence. About crime and how someone becomes a criminal. It's a violent look at the life of Sandro do Nascimento, a small time criminal that once hijacked a city bus in the middle of Rio de Janeiro. How he made the brazilian police officers look like fools for a whole afternoon.  

    It's a true story, of course. It's made of interviews with eyewitnessess, police officers, social workers and people who knew Sandro, and lots and lots of television footage that were broadcast live for the four and a half hours while Sandro was in that bus. At the same time, like parallel stories, they use interviews and photographs to show the rough and poor childhood of Sandro in a very bad neighborhood in Rio. How his mother got killed when he was just a little boy and end up living in the streets after that. He never knew his father and couldn't stand living with his aunt and cousins.  

    Besides that, it shows how inconpetent brazilian authorities can be. I don't know if you know the end of this story but I cant tell you, it's not pretty. And the worst of all is that the movie shows that it wasn't Sandro's or the cops fault (well, some of it was the cops fault), but society's. It's an ugly wound at brazilian's pride and director Jose Padilha makes a wonderful job sticking a needle into it and poking it until it gets infected. It shows that the world (or at least Brazil) is a toilet and that it's all our fault. It made me think about what I am and what I could be,  

    I tell you now that I come from a good family. I always had a roof over my head. I always had food on the table. Hell, I have my own DVD player in my bedroom, with a big TV and a nice stereo system. And I love comics. And for a long time I thought people were criminals, well... because they were bad. Because they didn't want to work or they couldn't find work so they would steal and kill. Well, that's a little truth in that. But this movie shows that it's our fault. That we turn our backs on people before they turn bad. And I could never see crime the same way again.  

    True story: a few months ago this guy robbed me. Surprisingly, he was very polite, very nice. Of course, he had a gun in his hand but he talked to me so friendly, so nicely, I was impressed. I was pissed off too, of course. This guy took my CD Player and something like 10 bucks. But I couldn't stop thinking of Sandro do Nascimento and how the things this guy robbed could be replaced.  

    The great thing is that Jose Padilha shows everything in such a competent way that you never get bored. It's a tow hour documentary and I thought it would become pretty redundant after the first 45 minutes, but it doesn't. There's this particular scene when Sandro is negotiating his release with one of the cops and I am almost sure that the movie he mentions is Stuart Baird's Executive Decision or Kevin Hooks' Passenger 57 when Sandro says that he would kill one of his hostages and throw him out the bus exactly like "the movie that was on TV last night". It's really interesting because the look in Sandro's face, it's like he is almost happy when he's talking to that cop, like if someone was finally talking to him and treating him with respect. Treating him like a human being.  

    This movie is great. It's Bowling for Columbine great and everybody should definitly watch it. Because this is not a movie about Brazil or it's violence. This is about human beings in general and how we could all be good if we weren't so selfish most of the time. It made me cry and feel ashamed of myself without ever being sentimental or trying to make you cry or feel ashamed. You just do because it shows life. And the best of all is not once this movie try to give you the answers. But it makes you question everything.    

   I love this movie with all my heart and soul and I hope that getting a release in the US finally makes it getting a DVD/VHS release. In my town (which sucks in terms of movie theaters by the way) it was playing in only one theater and not for a very long time. But hey, if most people watched the really good movies, we wouldn't even have to worry about McG directing Superman. I still can't believe Warner Bros. is doing this. Charlie's Angels Full Throttle being a complete piece of crap wasn't enough to show WB executives that McHack should never make another movie?  

    This is Gelogurte from the spaceship Agalaxia signing off.