Posts tagged Mexicans
“Casa de Mi Padre” Worth a Couple of Chuckles
Apr 1st
“A Couple of Chuckles”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Casa de Mi Padre is Will Ferrell’s latest comedy, and the first thing you notice is that the title is in Spanish.
The second thing you notice about the “House of My Father” is that the entire movie is in Spanish, but with English subtitles for the benefit of those of us who aren’t fluent in Spanish.
Well, not the entire movie, because there are a couple of American characters in the story, which takes place in modern-day Mexico, and they speak what the Mexican characters call “American.”
Ferrell plays Armando, the son of a rancher, and at the beginning of the movie, Armando and his two buddies, Esteban and Manuel, are moving some of the father’s cattle to a new pasture, and Armando says, “I hope nothing bad happens on the way home.”
Then they witness an execution that was caused by the nasty drug business that is going on in the country and which will have ramifications later on in the story.
When the three rancheros get home, Armando’s brother Raul shows up with his fiancee, Sonia Lopez. Raul is the son that his father always loved, and if we hadn’t already figured it out, we learn that Armando is not smart, and his father always tells him that.
Armando also has a secret that we learn when he and Sonia go out riding together and they arrive at the Pond of Seven Tears, where Armando’s mother died when Armando was a little boy.
Armando and Sonia take a liking to each other, and Sonia tells Armando that his brother Raul is in the drug business, but Raul doesn’t sell drugs to their fellow Mexicans, only to Americans.
Unfortunately, Raul is trying to do business in the territory of the most infamous drug dealer, Onza, who also has a close connection with Sonia.
Well, you can see a showdown coming up, can’t you? As well as a Mexican standoff and a final shoot-out that is all the funnier because the participants are drinking and smoking cigarettes at the same time as they are blasting away at each other.
The movie spoofs telenovelas and B-movies, production values, and anything else that Ferrell could think of while memorizing his lines phonetically.
Casa de Mi Padre has a good ending, of course, and is worth a couple of chuckles.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
“A Better Life” A Wonderful Film
Jul 21st
“A Wonderful Film”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
A Better Life is a terrific film that deserves as much publicity as it can get, because otherwise audiences will probably overlook it and not give it the attendance it deserves.
It also has a simple story that might not be popular, because it is about the relationship between an undocumented foreigner from Mexico and his teenage son, who live in Los Angeles.
Carlos Galindo has a steady job as a gardener working for another Mexican’s gardening business, and he sleeps on the couch in the living room at home so that his 14-year-old son, Luis, can sleep in the bedroom.
When Carlos finds out that Luis has missed 18 or 19 days of school so far this year, he asks him, “You want to end up like me?” to which Luis answers “No.”
Luis has some resentment toward his father, because he blames Carlos for his mother leaving them, whom Luis never wants to talk about.
Meanwhile, the man for whom Carlos works, Blasco Martinez, wants to retire, and he offers to sell Carlos his beat-up truck so that Carlos can have his own gardening business.
To Carlos, he wouldn’t just be buying a truck. He would be buying the American Dream.
However, not only doesn’t Carlos have the $12,000 that Blasco wants for his truck, but Carlos doesn’t even have a driver’s license, and if he ever gets stopped by the police, he could be deported back to Mexico. That is why Carlos wants to try to stay “invisible.”
Meanwhile, Luis gets suspended from school for fighting, and Carlos is concerned that Luis has a fascination with gangs and might even end up in a gang.
Carlos asks his sister, Anita, for a $12,000 loan, promising to pay the money back and telling her that if it works out, everything is going to change. He won’t have to work on Sunday anymore and can spend more time with Luis, if Luis wants.
Anita loans Carlos the money without telling her husband, who she says is the cheapest man in the world.
So, Carlos buys the truck from Blasco, but his life doesn’t change as he had imagined. Almost immediately, the truck is stolen, and Carlos and Luis have to try to get it back while staying invisible.
A Better Life is a wonderful film.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Memorial Times and News
Jun 2nd
The US Coast gets hit with a new oil spill, Arizona gets breached by more immigrants from Mexico. Economist Nouriel Rabini (Dr. Doom) reports that there is still doom in our near future. In space news, NASA secretly launches its X-37 spy shuttle in hopes to find terrorists and begin the domination of space wars! Also college students are still partying like it’s 1999 more than 10 years later and here in Boulder it’s the Memorial Day Boulder Creek Festival and the 3rd year for us at Boulder Channel 1 to host a Live TV booth there come down and check it out if you get a chance.