Brazilian Bombshell

So it occurred to me that there are two movies that I absolutely love that almost no one that I know has heard of. Those movies are Moon Over Parador and The Milagro Beanfield War. You would figure that this wasn’t so, because the former starred Richard Dreyfuss and the latter was directed by Robert Redford and had Christopher Walken in a supporting role. It occurred to me that these two movies had something in common, and that something is the wonderful Sonia Braga.

Moon Over Parador was a remake of a movie called The Magnificent Fraud , and the basis of the movie was copied in the more popular movie Dave. Richard Dreyfuss plays Jack Noah, a New York actor who is filming a movie in the fictional Banana Republic named Parador. While there, he does an impersonation of the Dictator. The Dictator dies soon thereafter, and his right hand man, Roberto, played by the late Raul Julia, forces him to act as the Dictator, with Julia as the real force behind the Government. Braga plays Madonna Mendez, the former Dictator’s girlfriend who thought that she could change things behind the scenes. She later becomes friends with Jack, and they become a dynamic duo. The coolest part of the movie is the late great Sammy Davis Jr. singing the national anthem, “Parador, Parador I love you. Your mountains, your beaches, your coffee, your peaches…”

The Milagro Beanfield War is about a land dispute between a small village in New Mexico and a big developer that wants to take the village and turn it into a resort. The land has dried up, and this public development company has control of the only source of water for farming, which is a stream that runs aside some of their properties. One day Joe, played by Chick Vennera, gets frustrated working in his father’s bean field. He kicks a piece of dirt and notices the water start to flow into his farm. He then gets the idea to steal water from the stream, and this starts a whole political hoopla. Joe’s bean field becomes a symbol for the town, the whole small guy sticking it to the man, if you will. Sonia Braga’s character is a political activist who is pretty much the driving force against the developers as well as the corrupt politicians. Other actors involved in this movie include Christopher Walken as the corrupt state policeman and the extremely multi-talented Rubén Blades as the kindhearted local Sheriff. I seriously can’t do this movie any justice with words, but I recommend it to anyone.

So many people probably haven’t seen either of these movies. But they would recognize Sonya Braga as the temporary Lesbian lover to Samantha on Sex and The City. Why do I like this actress so much? Well, maybe it is because I kind of need my own Bombshell. Now I know why people in my Dad’s generation liked Marilyn Monroe so much. Sometimes it is just good to have a dream girl. But I think that it runs deeper for me, because Braga is not only drop dead gorgeous, but she plays strong, smart, independent minded, and feisty women characters, and to me, that the is the epitome of sexy.