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Most of these movies have a Spanish soundtrack many of them have English Subtitles. A couple are in French and Portugese. Some were included because they were interesting to watch in Spanish even though they were considered an English movie.
My current primary interest in life is learning Spanish and the Spanish movies stand alone. They are indexed and none of the other genres are. I also have watched a larger selection of Spanish movies than I have listed here. I am trying to bring the list up todate. There are a lot of really strange Spanish movies out there and some of them I have purchased because they might be interesting. The problem is that interesting was frequently misunderstood because my Spanish needs help in translating the subject of the movie and I ended up with movies I couldn't finish.
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Acosada en Lunes de Carnaval |
Al Otro LadoThis is the story of 3 children whose parents have gone to "the other side". I bought the movie because of Adrian Alonso, who plays the Mexican boy, Prisciliano. I had problems watching it. I got to where Fatima, the Moroccan girl, was led into a ships hold with a number of other children. She was eventually rescued by a Spanish woman. I missed what happened to the Ángel, the Cuban boy. Now that I now part of the endings, I will have to watch it again to see the whole movie. AlboradaThis is the first telenovela that I have watched from start to finish. When it was being shown on Univision, I had watched segments when I visited some Mexican friends. When it got really interesting, I had a translator(s). This led me to start recording the show. Unfortunately, I got interested too late because there were too many missing pieces that you needed to know in order to understand what was going on. One review I read said that it was the most popular telenovela after Amor Real. I have Amor Real but haven't found it nearly as interesting as I did Alborada. The time seting of Alborada was just before the inquisition was abolished in Mexico. It is during the time of sailing ships, pirates, swords, and muzzle loaders. The Spanish Catholic church is in control and many scenes may not make sense unless you understand some of the history of the church in Mexico. Of course, there were conflicts and jealous partners, which resulted in several duel being fought. You had all of the concepts of a daily cliff hanger. You also had a massive colusion that denied the strongest male part his heritage. In the story, the inquisition was abolished because of unjust punishment of the part played by Lucero. When they convert an extended show like this into a DVD release, it becomes much shorter. You have 4 dual sided DVDs which run just under 4 hours for each DVD. I watched it with Spanish sound and English subtitles. I alway try to follow the action in the movie and there were many sections where I did not need the subtitles. Everything was coming to a head and I watched the 4th DVD in one setting. The ending was happy but far too long. It was more like an in costume wrap party. Alicia En El Pais de Las MaravillasThis is a Spanish version of Alice in wonderland. This means that she follows a conejo and gets to meet raro pero muy interasantes gentes (strange but interesting people). I purchased it because it was for young people and my Spanish teacher has been telling us to watch movies for young people. The movie did not have any subtitles and there were a number of words that I could not recognize. It also didn't fit the concept of slow and understandable speech. In addition, the audio track is terrible. This added a great deal of difficulty to trying to understand the Spanish. AmelieThis was the movie that I decided that I loved Audrey Tautou. At least, I loved watching her act. When the Da Vinci Code movie was released, I was not happy to see Tom Hanks in the primary role; however, having Audrey play the grandaughter made the movie worth watching. After watching DVC, I couldn't imagine anyone being more appropriate than Hanks. The movie Amelie ended up with a really high IMDb rating. I enjoyed watching the movie. A number of reviews on Amelie are available on IMDb. Amor RealI have read that this is the number 1 telenovela as watched by the Spanish speaking Latin American fans. I haven't gotten into this series like I did Alborada. Amores PerrosThis was my first encounter with a film directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. This movie left me unsatisfied. I wanted to be entertained and it didn't do the job. The only one that he has directed that did that for me was Powder Keg, which was a BMW film. I think his films have too many layers and I want something much simpler. In "Amores Perros", you have three connected stories tied together by a terrible auto crash. This makes the movie too complicated. I also didn't like the dog fight. I can watch a video of a bull fight. Now, if you threw one of the dog owners in there and he had to fight for his life, I probably wouldn't have problems with the owner killing a dog because the dog may get him instead. Asesino en SerioI kept bumping into "Asesino en Serio" in the Spanish movie DVD area. I finally purchase it and find that they have made it so you can't play it on your PCs. The area that makes it readable on the computer has been destroyed physically. Having to watch it on either of my bad TVs instead of the hi-res computer monitor is really difficult to do. I finally broke down and watched it because my ADSL line from Verizon has gone flatline. My ISP has no working DSL lines. So, watching a movie in a boring setup is better than being totally bored doing nothing. I didn't get very far until I watched a scene that cracked me up. The part played by Ochoa takes a flash photo of a TV. For the unknowing, that blanks out the image and you get a photo of the monitor that looks like the TV hasn't been turned on. He has this great looking girl friend but she gets him too excited. They barely get started and El Comandante is done. He is basically conflicted. The killer is killing the women with pleasure and El Comandante can't satisfy his woman. The Comandante finally learns about the equivalent of a g-spot. When he presses it, the woman has an orgasm. If he presses it too hard, she dies. It wasn't much of a movie but Ochoa was the listed star. I liked his work in later movies such as "Without a Trace". Assassination TangoThis seemed to be a make work project for Duvall to direct and use his Spanish. He was a hit-man and was sent to hit a Argentine general. When he arrived, the general wasn't there. He was precise about setting up his projects, which meant we had to spend a lot of boring time watching him do the setup. I eventually came around to the point that he also showed much of the Argentine culture. I have come to love churros and watching the little vendor cart coming down the road calling "Churros y chocolate" made me very hungry. No matter what other interest I could add the movie was mostly boring. When I checked IMDb, it was rated under 6.0 and, for me, that is the break point for interesting movies. However, watching him learn to tango is worth one viewing. Aura, ElAura was not an enjoyable movie for me. You have a deluded taxidermist that keeps planning the perfect bank robbery. Finally, he goes hunting and decides to commit the perfect crime. I have watched 3 Argentine movies in a row and they were all the same - boring. Azul TequilaThis was harder to watch than I thought. It is a 48 hour telenovela. Bendito InfiernoYou have heaven's best (Victoria Abril) and the devil's worst (Penélope Cruz) battling for the soul of a puch drunk boxer (Demián Bichir). The Devils crew is led by Jack Davenport (Gael García Bernal). It is a little over the top. Buscando a LetiThis was a project of Dalia Tapia. The way the special features played her grandmother was quite racist and was always picking on Leti because of her skin color. So, you have a disfunctional family where the parents decided to go to Chicago and work leaving the grandparents to care for the children. The grandfather was born in Texas but was not documented. The Leti's parents magically get across the border without visas and end up in Chicago. The grandmother is always picking on everyone but the light colored grandaughter. This makes for emotional times for the children. Eventually, the mother comes back to Mexico, picks up Leti and takes her back to Chicago. Life wasn't any nicer in Chicago because she spoke Spanish and was teated like a dummy by some of her teachers. She also missed her grandfather terribly. Then, her grandfather dies and they go back to Mexico. Them dealing with the year after his death was the final chapter of the Movie. I watched it from start to finish. I really didn't enjoy it. I know people that are separated from the families and it was too close to home. I think it was written as a release and to remind us of how we can improve our treatment of people. I will watch it several times to listen to the Spanish. Cayo (la isla)Ivan, Julia, and Kike are a trio as children. They grow up and eventually Ivan goes to war. He tells Kike to take care of Julia until he returns but Ivan goes MIA and eventually Kike and Julia have an affair. Eventually, Ivan is found and Julia leaves to be with him. Kike feels betrayed. Most of the movie is about Ivan dying. He is told that he is terminal and goes home to the island. He needs to reconnect to Kike but Kike won't have anything to do with it.. He find the island Culebra. It provides emotional support but the government declares it to be a bird sanctuary and kicks Ivan off of the island. The island friends of Ivan go to war politically with the government and eventually win. Ivan is in the final stages and can't go back to Culebra. One of the big supporters turns out to be Kike, which provides an emotional ending. It fits into the development of flawed characters that eventually redeem themselves at the end that I like so well. Cayo only has a 4.9 rating on IMDb but I liked it much better than that. It is not one of your typical DVDs. You only have the movie. The only choice is whether you see the English subtitles or not. It kind of reminds me of "The mariachi" the first film of Robert Rodriquez's Mariachi trilogy but his DVD had a vastly superior menu. He made the movie for a little over $7,000 dollars and didn't have special stages and lighting equipment. He was the director and edited the film as he shot it. It looked harsh and had a kind of fake real life to it. Cayo is similar but doesn't have the fake personal situations. A bright shinning face with the sun behind them has alwayed looked fake to me. The lighting equipment gives you a softer shot and we have gotten used to it. Anyone that has had to deal with it taking photographs knows that it is not the real world. Cayo also obviously had a much larger budget than Rodriquez did. Dame ChocolateDame Chocolate made me squirm at the start. Rosita es una hija de la puebla and kept falling victim to the Remington family. There is a Mayan influence, such as the God of chocolate. The "chosen one" is important because they must add the secret ingredient to the chocolate. Grace takes advantage of Rosita. Bruce fell in love with her but the mother was in control. Rosita gets revenge but it is overkill and falls from grace. Having both families get back together is the rest of the movie. Dancer Upstairs, TheFew movies have affected me so profoundly as "The Dancer Upstairs" did. It is a complex movie that will leave you wondering. You may want to find out more. You may even feel a little guilty and think you should help. I felt all of these emotions. It wasn't until I met the tio of an amiga that I was finally able to relax. The tio was born in Arequipa, Peru and he explained how the corruption occurs. He also pointed out that any effort by an individual would not be measureable. He compared it to spitting into the ocean. You wouldn´t even see a ripple. Once you understand that, you can relax and enjoy the movie without feeling guilty. It is sort of based on the development of the Sendero Luminoso (Shinning Path) and the eventual capture of Abimael Guzman in September 1992. I had done a web search on "sendero luminoso" and decided to order "The Monkey's Paw" by Robin Kirk. At times, I think the God's protect the truly stupid actions by intelligent people. She went to Ayacucho, Peru in 1983. Her goal was to interview Abimael Guzman, an action that would have only gotten her executed. Eventually, she documented the life of the people she encountered during that timeframe. When it comes to poverty, the only America's country with worse conditions was Hati. I found the book really interesting because I can finally understand some of the conditions that nutured the SL. I recently added Dolby Digital 5.1 capability to my main computer. My TV has a power supply that is slowly dying. I spend much of my time on computers in my basement. So, I thought that adding the ability to watch DVD movies on one of the would be an advantage. DVD burners come with software that you can use to watch DVD movies. I don't have a large exposure but Nero Vision has a tendancy to be choppy on my AMD 1600+ XP running Windows XP Pro and PowerDVD 5.0 on a similar system with 2400+ XP does not have that problem. The conditions are fairly cramped in my basement and placement of 5 speakers and a subwoofer was not a problem. I just finished watch TDU on my computer. Everytime I watch it, I want to know more about the real policeman that caught Abimael Guzman. Agustine Rojas in the movie was based on General Antonio Vidal. There is an article called "Shining Path Leader's Capture Offers Lima a Second Chance" by Corinne Schmidt of The Washington Post. It is the most condensed write up about Sendero Luminoso that I have found. If you want to read the article, click the title and you can read the newspaper article. There are books on the subject but most of them are now out of print. The village side of the story can be seen in Paloma de papel. Paloma is fictional but is closer to the real situation of the villagers than Dancer is. A side effect from the Peruvian military side is Dias de Santiago. The Senderos are virtually gone and Peru didn't need as many people in the military. De NadieIt is an investigative movie and was not an especially enjoyable movie to watch. It follows illegals passing through Mexico from Central and South America. The movie claimed they are preyed on by gangs such as the Mara-18, The Mexican Police, and others. Getting to the frontier of Mexico and the USA seems to be a matter of luck. There were some people that went by "La patrona". They helped people going through because they needed help. At the end of the movie, they gave the status of the people they followed. Many were either dead or missing. I don't remember a happy ending for any of them. Dias de SantiagoThe plot of the story occurs after the fighting died down in Peru. They aren't needed to track down the Sendero Luminoso and you discharge them. Unfortunately, they don't have any civilian skills. They may try to pull something off like a robbery but do it with military timing and precision. Doña BárbaraIs a strong movie about the Arauca region of Venezuela in 1929. The only thing they didn´t play was some of the "música del llanero" I like to listen to. It was really a sort of "Man from Snowy River" but this time he lived in Argentina and one of his protagonists is a very sexy, beautiful witch.. It was also "R" rated instead of "G or GP". In so many of the scenes, you have these beautiful prancing horses with gaucho looking people on their backs as they went charging around. En la puta Vida (Tricky Life)I watched "En la puta Vida" or (Tricky Life) in English. One of the general definitions of a puta is a prostitute. A trick is a customer. It is a story about a pretty and trusting Uruguayan that is taken advantage of by her boy friend(s). Her dream of a beauty parlor is destroyed and she becomes a prostitute to earn money. She is in a vicious circle and how she gets out of the downward spiral makes the movie interesting. There were a lot of new words. Most of them were swear words and they went by so fast that I will not recognize them the next time I hear them. I liked "Sin dejar huella" or "Without a Trace" much better. It is more of a get away from trouble, which is always popping up, and get your wishes kind of movie. Escondida, La (The Hidden One)This is a classic Spanish movie that has been re-released on DVD by Ciudad Movies. It was filmed in 1956 and the quality is not that of a modern movie. FridaThis a basicaly an English - Mexican movie. It is about the famous Mexican artist Frida Kohl. Salma Hayek is an almost double for Frida. So, you have a movie about a famous Mexican artist and instead of being totally in Spanish, you have them speaking bilingual. I bought the movie because Lila Downs played the part of the singer in several places. You wouldn´t purchase Down´s CDs from her part in the movie but I bought the DVD movie because of her CDs. I would have been satisfied to just watch Lila sing but I found that the movie was much more than I expected. Chavela Vargas plays an ambiguous part. Her voice is not identifyable as female and you find out that she was one of Frida´s lovers. On the Frida soundtrack CD, Paloma Negra by Vargas almost gives me goosebumps. I don't remember ever buying or renting a DVD movie because a contante (singer) was playing a non-major part. I have started following the Mexican - American singer Lila Downs and watched Frida because she was in it. Her parts in the movie may not make you buy her CDs but listening to her CDs may make you buy the movie. I bought the soundtrack because there were several very strong, emotional songs in it. In addition, this is the only way to get the full song in some cases. The movie Frida is using Spanish like I do with my amigos de México. They talk in español and I listen. I say a little bit in Spanish. I had the English subtitles on but didn't need them most of the time to understand the Spanish. That was an emotional moment. My 5.1 Dolby digital system just seemed to vibrate when "paloma negro" or "black dove" was being sung. I have seen the name Chavela Vargas but never paid much attention. Now I will have to do some research. Hayek, in the special features, said she was one of Frida's lovers. There are so many twists and turns with this movie. There are side affects to seeing a favorite entertainer in a movie. For example, you never know how large your favorite entertainers are until you see them side by side with someone that you know their height. For example, when Selma Hayek is playing the school girl along side of Alfred Molina, you get the idea that she isn't very tall. I have read that she is 1.57 m (5' 2"). Molina looks like he could be an inch or two taller than me. He also looks a lot heavier. He had to add some bulk to play the part. I was also surprised to find that he was born in Britain. When Lila displays her full vocal range, it seems that she must be using her entire body as a resonating chamber. I always have cons (pros) and sins (cons) with anyone but I still find Frida gives me a chill to listen to it. I define that as a movie with an impact. I find that I am bothered by the sudden number of Communist heroes but I must be in the minority. La India MaríaThere are a number of movies about "La India María". The first one I watched part of was "Tonta, Tonta pero no tanta" or maybe "Dumb, dumb but no so much". María is played by María Elena Velasco. You have an Indian woman from the montains going into the big city where even crossing the street can be life threatening. Her primary mode of travel is a burro and you can imagine the slapstick humor that can develop. For example, what all can happen if you have María in the drivers seat of a pickup and it starts rolling downhill. The Spanish is simple; however, you probably need to be Méxicano to appreciate the humor. Even being raised by Méxicano parents may not be sufficient to appreciate the humor. The movies are still funny. You just won´t be rolling on the floor laughing so hard that you are crying. I have also watched parts of "El Coyote Emplumado", "Ni Chana ni Juana", "Ni de Aqui Ni de Alla", and "Sor Tequila". I got lost with out subtitles. LuminariasThis was one of those gems from the bargin box at Hastings. I rented South from Grenada and it looked like something I might only watch for 30 minutes and the box description on Luminarias looked more interesting. It was also only $2 and that was cheaper than a rental. Well the rental was a little bit strange but I finished it and tonight I watched Luminarias. It was a family project by Sal Lopez, Evelina Fernández and José Luis Valenzuela. Evelina and José are married and that makes it even more of a family project. It is about 4 amigas from East LA. You have the sterotype latino male and these 4 different latina women. They are not your stereotype latinas. They are strong, professional type women. They just happen to have hang ups and the movie is mostly about them getting together, talking, and solving some of their problems. Much of the movie is about what they go through getting reconnected with themselves. One reviewer compared it as a latina version of Sex in the City. I have not watched Sex in the City and do not know if that is true. He also gave it 10 of 10. It was not that good but it was a good 6/10. There were a lot of swear words used but they seemed to fit the situation. All of the main characters were flawed but most over came their flaws to find happiness. Maria Full of GraceI rented and then purchased the movie "Maria Full of Grace". Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is a strong minded teenager from rural Columbia. She feels trapped in her environment. She gets a job stripping thorns from roses before they are shipped from a rose plantation. There is a scene where she eats some sausage or something and reacts to the what ever she ate. She can't deal with the boss (jefe) refusing to let her go to the bathroom and quits. Her mother and sister need what she earned to care for Maria's sister's baby. Maria finds it really difficult to hand over what she earned to her mother. She does not feel responsible for paying for the medicine for the baby and resents being told to do so. Her mother tells her that the next payment from the job will be all hers to spend and that is when she tells them that she has quit. She doesn't know what she is going to do and a sympathetic person tells her about a job that involves travel. She needs the money and makes the decision to become a drug mule. Her friend Blanca decides to do the same thing because Maria has done it. Maria will end up carrying 62 pellets of heroin to the USA and Blanca carries 50 pellets. The payment is $100 per pellet. Blanca makes the point that $5,000 will build her parents a new house. The rest of the movie is about Maria's problems with being a drug mule. There is a lot of improv in the script. The writer, Joshua Marston, would let the actors read the script and 10 days later, they would try and do the scene. The actors would translate the scene into terms they could deal with. MFOG didn't affect me like "The Dancer Upstairs" did but it did make you more understanding of how people get envolved with being a mule. One of the sites had 97% of the people giving it 5-stars. I was one of them. I did a web search and one of the complaints that I read was about Marston's underdevelopment of the lead up to Maria's decision to become a mule. I agreed with their point but I also believe that you have to remember that you can't do a lot of development when the movie is only 101 minutes long. Mi Mejor EnemigoMi Mejor Enemigo takes place in December 1978 when Chile and Argentina almost went to war. The opening comments on the DVD box calls it the best of mankind and the worst of war. You have conscripts and some overly gungho people. Fortunately, more inteligent people are in charge but they can't admit that they had done something stupid and got lost. So, you have a lost Chilean patrol facing a lost Argentine patrol with people that deployed them eventually knowing that they are lost. All it would take is one stupid move for the confrontation to turn into a real war. Motorcycle DiariesI made the mistake of renting "Bullfighter" and "Motorcycle Diaries" at the same time. The problem is that I started to watch Bullfighter first. That was a mistake because Bullfighter is a really stupid movie. Then, when I got around to watching "Motorcycle Diaries", it just made me a little bit angry. Che had his idea of what was the solution and I didn't happen to agree with him. I guess it comes down to the attitude of "making everyone's life better" versus my idea of Communism, which I think of as "making everyone's life equally poor". As an example, I use Cuba. Life under Batista was bad but when Castro finally let his Communist stripes show, life got much, much worse. It is strange but some of the recent movies that have affected me the most deal with the life of the indigenous people of Peru. I think one of my dream places to visit is Machu Pichu. The 2 travelers visited it and Che couldn't believe that the Conquistadores would destroy Machu Pichu and then create Lima. The truth, as I understand it, is that the Spanish never saw Machu Pichu. They did destroy the society that supported it and, as a consequence, had the same affect. I still think Che had a point because I would probably have a similar opinion. As a revolutionary, Che caused a lot of trouble, which were eventually permenantly solved when someone shot him. If you don't get emotional watching his development into a Communist, it was not that bad of a movie. I enjoyed it enough to purchase. That means it passed my critical point. Oro Diablo (Devil Gold)Oro Diablo is a movie from Venezuela and is about life in a gold rush city. The Spanish is not complicated. It is mostly swearing and the same old comments. There is quite a bit of nudity because the daughter is forced into prostitution to pay off the gold that the miners think her mother was involved with stealing. I had the subtitles running but there were a number of sections where I didn't need them. It was also kind of depressing because life in the gold rush town was pretty wretched. Paloma de Papel (Paper Dove)"Paloma de Papel" (link is dead) is a production of Luna Llena Films. It was released September 23, 2003. This is a movie about a young boy named Juan and his encounter with the Sendero Luminoso (SL) or Peruvian Communist Party. The film is inverted because the first view of Juan is the young boy as he is in prison. Then, you see the adult Juan, just as he is granted amnesty and released. The first flashback view of Juan is with what looks like the Cordillia Blanco behind him. A point of data is that 25% of the tropical glaciers are on the Cordillia Blancos. At this point, you begin to see the story of Juan's life. Some of the moments are a little bit silly to me but I have never been to the Peruvian Andes.Through out the movie, you have awesome views of the Andes and then you are shown the terribly depressing life in an village. Juan saw too much and was basically kidnapped and taken to the training camp of the SL. The training camp is at 5,100 meters. When you watch them run, think about how you would perform at 16,000+ feet above sea level. When I see a typical high Andes person with their squat body, I don't think of it as a deformity but more as the developement of a highly efficient, high altitude body. In the movie, the SL try a lot of feel good things to make Juan feel like he belongs but that wasn't enough. One of the segments is where the SL is going to blow up an electrical transmission line and leave the mark of the communist "hammer and sickle" produced on a mountain side using the light from cans of burning material. The hammer and sickle display works but the government had mined the transmission line towers. One of Juan's friends steps on a mine and it blows his left foot off. The choice was life as a cripple or death. A doctor was days of travel from where they were. What would your choice be at that altitude? They write about the will to survive and Juan had it. He tried to save his village but they thought he was a decoy who had been sent by the SL to scare them. They were going to punish him but he got away. The SL came anyway and there was no defense because the villagers were hunting for Juan. In the shoot out, his mother is shot and dies in his arms. The surviving SL members leave the village. The army arrives and they put Juan in prison until he was a man. His hold on the past is making paper doves or "Paloma de papel". Eventually he is released from prison and there are flashback moments as he makes his way back to his village. The adult Juan is free but as he walks through the village, you know this is not an improvement. His family was dead. Life in the village had deteriorated even more. Adobe is something you have to maintain and he had been in prison for a long time. His old house was in shambles. Fortunately, he was able to find his 2 childhood friends. The 3 of them slowly recognizing each other and then hugging was as good as it got in the movie. This is not a movie to watch when you need something to sit down and enjoy. There is just too much emotional baggage to let that happen. It is probably pretty close to being a documentary similar to "Maria Full of Grace". On the other hand, if you buy the DVD, think of all good things that the movie has done. Fifty percent (cincuenta por ciento) of the filming was done in Ahuac and and the town didn't have basic services such as lights, drains, electricity or a properly asphalted road. They now have a proper road and electricity. One individual can't help an area but one film company can do a great deal. I was talked into watching Pan's Labyrinth by a neighbor. It was fairly highly rated and was in Spanish with English/Spanish subtitles. I thought it was a childrens story such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. There is too much violence by the Captain and it is too adult oriented in what Ofelia encounters. If it wasn't for the violence and language, it would be a good movie for younger people to watch. You have great emphasis placed on being told to do something and having something really bad happen when you don't follow instructions. The Spanish was such that my neighbor could follow it and that had to be a big surprise. Pasión de GavilanesThis is a multifaceted telenovela theme. You have 3 brothers seeking revenge after their sister commits suicide. The targets of the revenge are the 3 Elizondo sisters. The problem is that they fall in love with them. You have sexual harassment by a tall, totaly evil woman and many other evil people filled with lust for money and power. I repeatedly wanted to know why people were allowed to shoot at the Reyes brothers and get away with it. After a couple of rifle shots, there would be evidence left at the crime scene of who did the shooting. In a soap thriller, you don´t ask questions like this. The DVD version, which you can purchase, condenses 188 episodes into 15. Por la Libre (Dust to Dust)I don´t know how to describe this movie. There is so much testosterone from teenage boys being involved that you have to laugh at times. You also wonder which head is in control. By the time they get the ashes of their grandfather to Acupulca, they have been through a lot. Grandpa also left a few surprises behind for the family to reconcile. Sin dejar huellas (Without a Trace)Sin dejar huellas is a movie that I enjoy watching. The Spanish is simple. If you want to learn conversational Mexican Spanish, it is pretty close to what I hear. You can play it backwards and let it run forward again. You friends would get tired of ¿Que? after awhile. There are a number of new words. There are also numerous swear words. The English version on the subtitle would be my choice about 50% of the time. The rest of the time, I think the translator had a fixation with the f-word. With a little bit of development, you end up with a younger woman and an older woman that are trying to get away from trouble and eventually end up in the Yucatán area of México around the city of Cancún. They keep doing something dumb but the bad guys do something even dumber. The plot is mostly about this red Chevy that keeps trying to stop them. The windows are blacked out and it doesn´t have a license plate like a Federale automobile. The women stop by people, hide under bridges, force the red car into deep sand that will hold them until they can be towed out. Regardless of what the two bad guys do, the two woman continue to get away. I find watching mystery thrillers to be mostly irritating. I don´t believe that a normal person can overcome evil people like they do in the books. The way the ladies get away in this movie, on the other hand, is quite possible and almost comic. Jesús Ochoa plays the part of Mendizabel, a federale with a fixation on Ana/Marilu, the older woman. Ochoa does this macho Mexicano swagger really well. Since Mendizabel is out of control, his strange compadres are also out of control. The whole movie is about Mendizabel´s people trying to track the girls down and kill the indio but all the girls have to do is something simple and it puts them out of reach for the moment. That is all it may take at times. The ending is a little over the top but it is a good finish to an enjoyable movie. The only nudity is Aurelia breast feeding Billy. Listening to Aurelia's fixation with Norteño music made me go out and buy a boxed set of Norteño music. There is a local Mexican restaurant called Azteca, which is on my after eating walk-loop, and when they have good Norteño playing, I pull out the ear plugs from my iPod, which is always playing Spanish music, and listen to their music. When I first started listening to música latina, I listened to a lot of Norteño music but my taste in music has switched to less Mexican regional music and the fact that Without a Trace makes me want to listen to Norteño music is a kind of strange feeling. South From Grenada (Al Sur de Granada)I was in Hastings tonight and saw a movie called South from Granada. They only had 1 copy and I rented it. I find that only 1 copy means it is not expected to be rented by lots of people. It started out kind of strange. It kind of reminded me of "Behind the Sun". The plots were not even close to being similar but you were placed into a simple area where modern may be a new horse. There was politics, love, sex, and a developing love of the people. Don Geraldo (Gerald Brenan) arrived in a poor village to get away from a situation and ended up being a target for some of the women with available daughters. The movie was directed by Fernando Colomo and was based on a book by Brenan. It is about his trip to Southern Spain after he was mustered out of the militrary in 1919. I sort of enjoyed it but I stopped it 3 different times. A 6/10 might be a fair rating. One review called it light comedy but I didn't see much of what I would call comedy. SpinIt is about the Latin Music industry; however, to really like it, you have to like the Reggaeton style of Latin music. I haven't made it to liking reggaeton. I purchased it and that was a mistake. Under The Same Moon (La misma luna)I only found one movie released on 17 June 2008 that I was interested in. It was called "Under The Same Moon (La misma luna)". The movie is in Spanish with English subtitles available. It was about a mother that had emigrated illegally to the US and left her son with her mother. The grandmother dies and the boy takes off to find his mother in the USA. There was an interesting appearance by "Los Tigres del Norte" who picked up the boy and his grumpy, unwilling companion. They wrote a song that they sang for Carlitos in the movie as they were driving down the road to a gig in Arizona. I really enjoyed the movie. VolverIt took me almost 4 days to watch Volver starring Penelope Cruz. It had too many layers of overlaping stories. I would have to get up and walk and eventually, everytime I did this, I watched another movie. You have people hiding and letting people think they were dead. You had a daughter kill the husband after he exposed himself to her and was going to push having sex. Some of the sordid details should have been on the box. Maintaining the cover and letting people think they had died was really kind of funny. A non-talking Russian that likes to watch Spanish TV is on the farce side of things. It was interesting to hear Cruz sing. She wasn't bad. Her voice is a little high for my taste and cracked a few times. I like someone like Rosana Arbelo better. |