LOS OLVIDADOS (1950)

Long before KIDS or CITY OF GOD there was LOS OLVIDADOS.

Set in the slums of Mexico City, LOS OLVIDADOS tells the story of a group a kids who have mostly been left to fend for themselves.  A few of them have parents but either their parents are non-functioning alcoholics, extremely poor or they just straight up don't care about their children at all.  Piles of garbage, (real onscreen) animal cruelty, dirt roads, filth, violence, implied sexual predator...the small world in which the residents of LOS OLVIDADOS live is a never-ending cycle of despair.

Our main character is Pedro, a young boy who's mother doesn't care if he ever comes home or not.  She doesn't even let him eat when he is there.  He spends the majority of his time hanging out with a rough group of boys.  Lead by the violent Jaibo, the group steals non-stop and entertain themselves by abusing handicap adults.  One day, Pedro witnesses Jailbo beating another kid to death.  This is the beginning of the end for Pedro.

Filled from beginning to end with negative images, LOS OLVIDADOS is a depressing film.  It's not as dark as more recent lost youth films, but for 1950 I imagine LOS OLVIDADOS was quite shocking.  When I first saw it decades ago I thought it was a masterpiece, but watching it again just now, it's definitely aged some.  It's still a wonderful film and required viewing for anybody serious about Cinema, but it's not quite good enough to make it into my Best Film category.  Hopefully one of these days we'll finally get a proper remastered release.

TWO-MINUTE WARNING (1976)

Ehhh.  I was expecting better.  More suspense, more disaster, more Charlton Heston topless.

It's football time, so 91,000 fans pile into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a bright sunny day to watch an exciting game between Los Angeles and Baltimore.  It's so exciting, in fact, that none of the 91,000 attendees notice the dude sitting on top of the scoreboard with a sniper rifle for nearly the entire game!!!  He's just sitting up there chilling, eating a Babe Ruth candy bar and staring down the scope of his rifle at various people.  Finally some genius on board the Goodyear blimp notices him and calls the cops.  They show up, brutalize a couple of innocent people and then eventually get around to confronting the sniper...94 minutes into the movie!!!  They do a horrible job at containing him and all Hell breaks loose.

As far as disaster films go, TWO-MINUTE WARNING is pretty weak.  The disaster (stampede) is all contained inside the stadium and if the police had done a better job of confronting the sniper nobody would have got hurt at all.  Top-billed Charlton Heston is alright as the police captain, but his role is very small.  The majority of the time is wasted showing the lives of various attendees: Jack Klugman as a idiot with a gambling problem, Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket, David Janssen and Gena Rowlands as a couple who's relationship seems completely based on how much they can bitch at each other, Beau Bridges and Pamela Bellwood as a married couple with two children, etc.  All of their stories are boring and failed at persuaded me to care about any of them.

Mild pace, lackluster photography, soulless direction, unlikable characters, weak disaster, a man getting "butt-stroked", low body count.  Not a terrible film, just dated and meh.