COCAINE COWBOYS / Billy Corben
October 21st, 2006 by Scott Marks
Cocaine Cowboys (2006)
Produced & Directed by: Billy Corben
Running Time: 106 min.
Genres: Documentary
Had I trusted my first impression, I probably would have bolted five minutes in after witnessing fuzzy home movies intercut with an equally fuzzy staged hit man spraying the screen with bullets. Hell, it could only get better. I stayed and it did.
It’s Miami in the 70s, a sleepy little retirement community with wide open borders. Coke, rum, pot, illegals, you name it, Miami had it all. Back then, Columbia’s Medellin cartel, controlled 80% of the cocaine trade. It got so you could hardly see the tops of glass coffee tables what with all the mounds of blow.
This shot-on-video documentary is told from the first hand accounts of three battle-scarred survivors: Convicted drug trafficker Jon Roberts, Mickey Munday, a pilot convicted of smuggling over ten tons of powder into the United States, and Jorge “Rivi” Ayala, un unrepentant contract killer currently serving four consecutive life sentences.
These boys were ingenious. Why risk transporting the contraband in their personal automobiles? Instead, they bought a towing service and stashed the dope in beaters that they hauled to their destination. If a cop pulled them over, which they never did, they had the perfect excuse: “It isn’t my car.”
Illegal drugs and violence invariably go hand in hand and it wasn’t long before Miami’s annual death rate neared 700. The police department had to lease a refrigerated truck from Burger King to house all the corpses.
Perhaps the most brutal figure in this unspeakably violent universe is Griselda Blanco, the “queen of cocaine.” Only a tough mother would dare name her youngest son Michael Corleone. Blanco’s never-ending battles with fellow drug dealers almost single-handedly brought about the bloodshed for which Miami became infamous in the 80s.
This is documentary filmmaking by the numbers. Shoot a group of interviewees with compelling stories to tell and pad them out with stock footage and news reports. Technically, it’s a nightmare. I can understand visual loss when bumping VHS up to high definition, but what’s the excuse for all the hideous contemporary interview footage? Was the director trying to make everything match?
As cinematically sloppy as it may be, the film never shies away from the hammering home the awful truth. Ironically, the drug trade helped fuel Miami’s building boom. While it never overtly crusades for drug legalization, I can’t think of a more eloquent defense.
Rating: 
Griselda Blanco 
Jon Roberts
Jorge ‘Rivi’ Ayala 
Mickey Munday
Director Billy Corban
Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical
THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN DISNEY DIGITAL 3-D / Henry Selick
October 21st, 2006 by Scott Marks
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The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Directed by: Henry Selick
Written by: Tim Burton, Michael McDowell
Genres: Animation, Family, Fantasy, Musical
Cast: Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon, Catherine O’Hara, William Hickey, Glenn Shadix, Paul Reubens, Ken Page, Edward Ivory, Susan McBride, Debi Durst, Greg Proops, Kerry Katz, Randy Crenshaw, Sherwood Ball, Carmen Twillie
Aspect Ratio: 1.66 : 1
Rod Serling didn’t known it at the time, but when he spoke about finding another dimension by turning a key and unlocking the door of imagination he was directly addressing the current state of film exhibition.
I have seen the future of movies and it is 3-D…I hope.
The depth expanding novelty process, which has been around since the twenties, saw it’s greatest rise in popularity during the fifties when it was dusted off as a means to combat the onslaught of television. With the exception of Hitchcock’s Dial ‘M’ for Murder, no other stereoscopic film bothered to utilize depth as a means of storytelling. Everybody just wanted to test the limits of those uncomfortable cardboard glasses.
Arguably, the single greatest exponents of 3-D gimmickry were the 3 Stooges. With all the pies and fingers aimed at the lenses there was little time left to stop and savor narrative and textural nuance. Continue reading THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS IN DISNEY DIGITAL 3-D / Henry Selick
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