Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015

I fell asleep quickly and woke up at 5:30 with a cramp in my left calf.  Fortunately I was able to work it out rather quickly by pulling on my toes while massaging my calf.  I woke/got up at 8:30am.

Later this morning we ran out of LP gas.  This last tank lasted exactly 2 months.  Teresa informed me that Felipe is afraid of the neighbor’s dogs so we went up the hill to meet him with all 4 terriers following us.  Felipe’s grandson arrived with a new tank at noon for 45mil ($15).  The terriers gave him a hard time because he was on the motorcycle.  He had to stop when the killer dogs were waiting in the middle of the path until the terriers chased, or got chased, them away.  Teresa didn’t want Peter following the boy back down to the highway so I locked him up.  We went, with him carrying the empty, up the path and the killer dogs barked heavily but didn’t come out onto the trail.  Peluche, the brave one, went right up to the rottweiler hiding in the bushes and growled at him from a distance of 6 inches just daring him to do something.  The rottweiler growled but didn’t move an inch.  I think the rottweiler has met his match in Peluche.

The following is from Dave, Editor in Chief of Medellin Living News:

I'll admit it, I watched the full first season of Narcos on Netflix over the weekend. As I may not have time to write a full post, I wanted to share my thoughts here.

I found the episodes to be entertaining, and I'm glad it was shot in Colombia as I enjoyed the scenery, however in a lot of ways I felt Narcos fell short of the Colombian-made Escobar: Patron del Mal, which I reviewed on the blog previously. 

First, Narcos skips Escobar's early years and we pick up when he's already smuggling contraband (think stereos), and it ends with his breakout from La Catedral, the jail he built for himself in Envigado. What's in between requires much more than 10 episodes to cover.

Patron del Mal may have taken a little too long, but the time allowed for deeper character profiles. When prominent politicians were assassinated in Patron del Mal, I felt emotional as I'd gotten to know the characters and what they stood for.

In Narcos, we know them superficially at best, and when they die off, it feels like a minor plot point rather than a further escalation in Escobar's campaign of terror. 

Some of the characters portrayed just didn't stack up to what you get in Patron del Mal either. The lead sicario (hitman) in Narcos is called "Poison" and does not look Colombian to me, nor menacing.

By comparison, the actor portraying the hitman "Chili" in Patron del Mal did an amazing job, even though it was "Marino" who was technically portraying the notorious "Popeye."

Narcos is getting a lot of press right now, and this review in the Latin Post points out another big issue. In Patron del Mal, Escobar is the protagonist, and the clear lead character, whereas in Narcos, the story is told from the perspective of an American DEA agent (based on a true character).

This allows Netflix to take a formulaic approach, cleanly pitting American good guys vs Colombian bad guys (with a weakly portrayed Colombian government and police force somewhere in between). 

Narcos is like a Summer blockbuster: short, superficial, and entertaining.

For those who want to dive deeper into the characters and history, I still recommend Patron del Mal (which I can no longer find for free online, but is available on DVD via Amazon).

I watched 1941’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith (6.5) followed by Suspicion (7.5).

Teresa made popcorn and we started watching Limitless (7.4) and I drank a 600ml bottle of Coke.  A mistake that will become apparent in tomorrow’s post.

I took my sleeping pills at 11pm and went to bed.