Mr. and Mrs. Smith

If you haven't seen the movie yet, it isn't bad at all. Angelie Jolie is really hot in this movie.
But, check out the depiction of Bogota. It's the opening scene and a Huey Gunship is flying left to right on screen and it enters a valley with a town in it and there are explosions and smoke rising from several fires and then the words, "Bogota, Colombia 5 or 6 years ago." The town that is suppose to be Bogota looks like maybe 50,000 people live there in size and anyone that has been there will note it looks nothing like Bogota from the air. Then the scene with the cops. Uniforms aren't even close.
About the closest movie I have seen with a depiction of Bogota was "Clear and Present Danger". Close, but no cigar. Just something about how the streets were set up and the architecture wasn't right either. At least they made Bogota out to be a real city of 9 million people. But when you compare it to "Collateral Damage" it was right on the mark. Arnie's movie made it appear that Colombia was just a bunch of towns without running water.
So, when I saw "Sr. and Sra. Smith" I wondered if the production crew even looked up anything about Bogota on the Internet, let alone go to Bogota and see what it looked like before they started production. Yeah, yeah, I know it's just a movie, but no wonder folks back home think that Colombia is some throw back to the days of mud huts and dirt roads. I was talking to my Mom once and I told her that I lived on the first floor of an eleven story building. My Mom said, "Eleven stories? They have buildings that tall there?" My Mom is like most people in the States, she only knows about Colombia from what she hears on the news and that's usually only something bad. Then there are movies like "Sr. and Sra. Smith" which perpetuate this belief that Colombia is just a collection of dusty desert pueblos or a small town stuck in the middle of the jungle. Or, that there attack helicopters flying overhead shooting rockets into Bogota, fighting a determined offensive by the FARC. They made it seem like there were a ton of FARC troops in Bogota fighting the govt. troops. The gunfire was non-stop. Even when they got up in the morning, there was still gunfire and explosions shaking their room. Come on. But, you know, that's how people perceive Colombia that have never been here and that's because of how it is shown in movies and the news.
I mean, I not offended or anything, it is just a movie. Someone has to be the bad guys in a movie and Colombia does have a fairly bad rep. It's not like the country didn't earn it. But Colombia is trying to dig themselves out of the reputation hole. Only a guy like Uribe is going to be able to do that. Let's hope for another 4 years for the guy. Maybe one of these days someone will make a movie and not show Colombia as the country that Pablo built and the FARC and the other knuckleheaded groups are and have been screwing up. I personally think a comedy about Gringos looking for a wife would be the sleeper hit of the year. (Actually, that one may not be too far off in the future.)
So anyway, I had some time to kill as I am working late and thought I'd write.
Later Gators,
K