Wagner Moura with the FilmDrunk Seal of Approval

UPDATE, 11-11-11. Elite Squad 2, now called Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, opens today in New York (gradually spreading to more cities through December). As a reminder, I’m reposting my original review from Sundance. Yes, it’s true, I was probably desperate for a good film at that point in the festival, but I think the hyperbole was warranted. I dare you to see it and dispute me.

Oh my God.  You guys, excuse me if I gush.  It’s just that, when you come to the Sundance Film Festival, you go in expecting a certain type of film.  You expect to see, as David Sedaris once wrote of student films, “grainy black-and-white movies in which ponderous, turtlenecked men slogged the stony beaches, cursing the gulls for their ability to fly.”

What you do not expect to see is a two-hour, Brazilian The Wire on steroids.  Again, excuse me if I gush.  I should really wait until I have some emotional distance from this experience before I try to write about it, to reflect a little first, but I don’t care. I’ve been standing in lines behind farting, greasy-haired weirdos and riding muddy, stinking buses all day long, and it was all worth it, because an hour ago I watched Brazilian director José Padilha choke out Michael Mann with his own nine-foot dick  (Padilha’s dick, that is). Without resorting to cheap hyperbole, I can report that it kicked my balls up my ass and shat them back onto my chest while two-hand tapping an Eddie Van Halen solo.  If that doesn’t make sense to you, you haven’t seen this movie. 

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"I love you, Mr. Jim, will you be my new Papa?"

You may remember late last year James Cameron visiting a group of tribes along the Xingu River in the Amazon basin (and if not, just look at the amazing pictures).  He’d been planning a documentary (in 3D, natch) on the tribes, following their struggle against a Brazilian dam project that would drown all their purple pterodactyl horses or whatever.  More bad news today, it sounds like Giovanni Ribisi just sunk his putt:

Brazil’s environment agency gave its definitive approval on Wednesday for construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, a controversial $17 billion project in the Amazon.
Government has said the 11,200-megawatt project, due to start producing electricity in 2015, is crucial to provide power to Brazil’s fast-growing economy. It will be the world’s third biggest hydroelectric dam after China’s Three Gorges and Itaipu on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.
Critics from singer Sting to Hollywood director James Cameron and environmental group Greenpeace have said the dam will damage the environment and harm thousands of people living in the region.
The 6-km-long (3.75-mile) dam will displace 30,000 river dwellers, partially dry up a 100-km (62-mile) stretch of the Xingu river, and flood large areas of forest and grass land. [Reuters]

More:

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FilmDrunkard Osky sent me this old video of Arnold Schwarzenegger checking out Carnival in Rio, and mother of God, I’m not sure a video could get much better than this.  That’s him in the banner picture, by the way, using his imaginary hand binoculars to get a better look at a girl’s butt. If you’ve ever seen his “in the gym I am cumming, backstage before a show I am cumming, everywhere I am cumming” speech from Pumping Iron, you know the man can be candid. But in this video, he delivers — while playing himself, mind you — what might be the most incredible line of dialog of his entire career:

“You know something, after watching the mulattoes shake it, I can absolutely understand why Brazil is totally devoted to my favorite body part: the ass.”

That, man… was my governor. (*plays “God Bless America” on Piccolo, streaming patriotic tears*).  I’m glad the submitter told me that the best part comes at the 4:30 – 4:50 mark, because after Arnold proclaimed his love for mulatto ass, made hand binoculars, roughly groped a girl in a thong, and motorboated another girl’s boobs inside the first three minutes, I would’ve assumed it couldn’t get any better. OH, BUT IT DOES. OH MY GOD DOES IT.

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After the jump, you can watch the trailer for Brazilian action movie Elite Squad 2, the highest-grossing Brazilian movie of all time (which plays Sundance next month).  I enjoy Brazil, as they seem to be a world leader in hot women, badass ass kickers, and not giving a f*ck.  If there were an Olympics of not giving a f*ck, Brazil would host, and nary a f*ck would be given.

The gritty Brazilian cop movie “Elite Squad 2″ has quickly become the country’s biggest homegrown film of all time, and is on track to surpass overall champ “Avatar.”

Brazilian trade magazine Filme B said on Wednesday that “Elite Squad 2″ has raked in about $59 million after a two-month run in theaters, eclipsing the 1976 release of “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands” as Brazil’s most successful hit. “Avatar” ended up with about $61 million.

“Elite Squad 2″ centers on a special police unit that battles armed drug dealers in a Rio de Janeiro slum. The film’s release coincides with an intensifying police and military crackdown in the beachfront city’s favelas ahead of the 2014 football World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Recent conflicts have left scores of people dead in two of the city’s most crime-ridden neighborhoods. [Yahoo/THR]

While it doesn’t look quite as impressive as India’s highest-grossing movie (so popular that people bathed the 61-foot poster in milk and threw flowers at the screen), it does have sweet-looking violence and strangely-translated subtitles.  So go to the for awesome trailings onward now!  Sh*t!

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Steven Seagal sure is staying busy.  No, to my knowledge, he’s not making a movie, but he did recently show up on Brazilian television (via CagePotato), this time giving advice to UFC light heavyweight Lyoto Machida, who lost his title to Shogun Rua back in May and is scheduled to fight Rampage Jackson this weekend.  And if his last instruction to Anderson Silva fell on deaf ears (come on, Anderson, where are the eye gouges? The karate chops to the spine?), perhaps he thought he’d have better luck with the superstitious karate guy who drinks his own pee. Either that, or Brazilian TV producers finally figured out what American ones have long known: Steven Seagal is pure gold.

If Steven Seagal is at all aware of the absurdity of an overweight, 58-year-old* B-movie star** giving a former UFC champion tips on how to fight, he gives us no indication of that.  Do you think he even knows what MMA is?  He said something about “Shogun”, but I’m inclined to believe he was referring to the actual Japanese emperor.  One thing is for certain: the man believes in himself.  This is like Tom Cruise training CIA agents.

No, I'm not being cute, that's actually pee

Here were of my favorite quotes from the video:
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