FanFare

Gael García Bernal stars in a biopic of the openly gay luchador Saúl Armendáriz, whose drag queen''exotico'' character Cassandro was known as "the Liberace of Lucha Libre." The movie follows his rise from low-level amateur to international fame, and his relationships along the way. 91/85 at RT, streaming at Amazon Prime and in theaters. Director Roger Ross Williams had previously directed a 14-minute documentary about Cassandro for the New Yorker, available here. [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Sep 28, 2023 - 5 comments

Corporate smuggling of South American killer bees into the United States results in huge swarms terrorizing the northern hemisphere. A small team of scientists work desperately to destroy the threat, but the bees soon mutate into a super-intelligent species that threatens the world. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown on Sep 11, 2023 - 0 comments

A young Mexican man's dream comes true when he gets the job of a lifetime at the hottest resort in Acapulco. But he soon realizes the job is far more complicated than he ever imagined. Staring Eugenio Derbez and Enrique Arrizon as old and young Maximo, supported by Fernando Carsa, Damián Alcázar, and Camila Pérez. Currently streaming on Apple TV and rated 100% on the Tomato Meter.
posted by autopilot on Oct 27, 2021 - 3 comments

When a journalist travels back to Veracruz, she is kidnapped by two people who believe she encountered an ancient evil at local ruins. [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin on Aug 30, 2021 - 1 comment

Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot. [more inside]
posted by Carillon on Apr 16, 2021 - 9 comments

Re-rewatch! As any child knows, Santa Claus lives in a castle in the sky high above the North Pole, the center of a surveillance network that spans the globe. Living with him is Merlin and an international horde of kids who sing and help him make toys. But the forces of darkness no like this, and so Satan sends his lieutenant Pitch to thwart his gift-giving journey, threatening the lactose-intolerant demon with eating ice cream should he fail. If you think that sounds crazy, it's only the beginning of this profoundly strange movie. Previously and again
posted by JHarris on Dec 23, 2020 - 1 comment

Rewatch! Big critters from out of a volcano attack the lands south of the border. It's the last episode of Season One. Previously [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 23, 2020 - 0 comments

The Mayan God of Death charges a young woman with helping him recover his throne in this dark tale inspired by the Popol Vuh. [more inside]
posted by miss-lapin on Feb 8, 2020 - 3 comments

"More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq." [more inside]
posted by kokaku on Jul 20, 2019 - 3 comments

Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complementary or if they strive to eliminate one another.
posted by chappell, ambrose on Jun 9, 2019 - 1 comment

Rewatch! Santa sees, hears, knows all. Up at his workshop in a castle hovering above the north pole he keeps his helpers, children from every nation. There they work on toys, singing all day long. They can do naught else, lest the forces of hell gain the upper hand. Fortunately Santa has the aid of Merlin and his magical inventions. Kind of a spin-off of the (nearly defunct) Santa's Workshop chain of theme parks, and deeply, deeply insane. Previously.
posted by JHarris on Apr 10, 2019 - 8 comments

Chef Samin Nosrat travels to Italy, Japan, Mexico, and California to learn about and demonstrate four of the fundamental building blocks of cooking, to teach and encourage home cooks how to think about their food beyond just following recipes. [more inside]
posted by dnash on Oct 29, 2018 - 16 comments

Last week (at one remove)....

• Trump reacts to outrage over his policy to separate the children of illegal migrants to the US from their parents, first by insisting he couldn't change it, then when the outcry became too great, changing it. Because he LIES.
• 7-11 courts controversy in Norway by advertising condoms on television and in train stations there a defense against chlamydia, which has especially high incidence rates there. The spots called Norway the "Land of Chlamydia."
• And Now: Local News Is Concerned About Teens
• Main story: Mexico, and their upcoming (well, yesteray's) elections, the largest in that nation's history. The approval ratings of their current President, Enrique Peña Nieto, went down to 12% from public anger over corruption. The show looks at a number of competitors for the top job, and their issues, sometimes considerable ones. The main story can be watched on YouTube (20m).
• And Now: Kathie Lee and Hoda Are Slowly Becoming One.

[more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 1, 2018 - 1 comment

Fred Dobbs and Bob Curtin, two Americans searching for work in Mexico, convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
posted by rhizome on Mar 28, 2018 - 8 comments

We're in the Old West! The owner of Rancho Bonito, Jimmy, is losing cattle to the quicksand bog. The local claim an ancient legendary beast is behind the losses, but Jimmy suspects foul play on the part of evil rancher and black marketer Enrique, whose thugs have been bothering Jimmy for a while. Helping him is his partner Felipe, and recovering alcoholic and Mexican stereotype and his son Pancho and Panchito. Matters are pretty tense between Jimmy and Enrique, and it doesn't help when Enrique's girl Sarita takes a liking to Jimmy either, so the two have a dust-up in town. Jimmy decides to leave town in order to protect Sarita. We're two acts down and nearly two-thirds through the movie. We're right on schedule for a traditional third act cowboy movie showdown, right? AND THEN THE CLAYMATION DINOSAUR ATTACKS.... It is no joke, that is exactly what happens in the movie. It's like they really wanted to make a Western, but could only get funding for a monster movie. It is the most stunning, least-telegraphed sudden left turn I've ever seen in a movie, and I'm including Monster A-Go-Go's ending in this. There is a particularly bizarre host segment in this episode where the bots nearly make not just Jonah but even the Mads hysterical with their antics. Episode 1105 is on Netflix. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on May 10, 2017 - 28 comments

Is anyone interested in a FanFare discussion of Ingobernable? All 15 episodes are available (on Netflix) for bingeing, so it might do well as a full-season post. [more inside]
posted by expialidocious on May 3, 2017 - 3 comments

SAMSON VS THE VAMPIRE WOMEN aka El Santo Contra las Mujeres Vampiros. "Solo un hombre de acero... de agilidad de pantera, es capaz de lucar contra las MUJERES VAMPIROS... y ese hombre es... SANTO!" Simply, in which a masked wrestler, who is a genius crime fighter too, struggles against the legions of Hell. This is probably the silliest premise of any MST movie (even Robot Monster's gorilla-with-fishbowl was obstensibly an evil space alien), but in Mexico there were over fifty El Santo movies, and they were wildly popular. El Santo himself was a tremendous figure, an actual wrestler, and even got an awesome pilot in 2010 for his own show on the Mexican version of Cartoon Network despite dying in 1984. But even these facts are overshadowed, to MSTies, by this being not only the end of Season Six, but also the final episode of the beloved "TV's" Frank Conniff. (Well, excepting a special appearance in one later show.) YouTube, with annotations! (1h32m) Premiered March 25, 1995. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Apr 5, 2017 - 8 comments

A meet-cute where two men discover their shared childhood fascination with a local mansion and the strange widow who lives there. Turns out that the widow has a dark past--her husband was Dr. John Romulus Brinkley, an eccentric genius and medical fraudster who built an empire in Depression-era America with a goat testicle impotence cure and a million watt radio station. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Jan 19, 2017 - 11 comments

An Academy Award-winning biography of Mexican artist and revolutionary Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage to mentor and fellow artist Diego Rivera into her self-portraits. [more inside]
posted by gemutlichkeit on Jul 22, 2016 - 1 comment

This week.... Brazillians protest against their president Dilma Rousseff and their legislature moves to impeach, although 60% of members themselves face criminal charges of some kind. Obama nominates Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Scalia's death. And Now: two segments on CBS This Morning's Awkward Sex Talk. Main story: Trump's proposal to build a border wall along the US/Mexico border. (YouTube 19m) Finally, Last Week Tonight begins to consider updating their All-Dog Supreme Court and asks the public to choose a dog for the event that Garland gets confirmed. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Mar 21, 2016 - 7 comments

This week.... New Zealand Prime Minister John Key answers surprisingly candid questions on radio. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, unpopular for his reforms, courts controversy with an insensitive TV commercial. A Copenhagen zoo's decision to kill a healthy two-year-old giraffe and feed it to the lions is followed up by the decision to kill two lions and their cubs, and another zoo in Denmark dissected a lion in front of a crowd. LWT helpfully produced an honest commercial for Denmark's zoos. Main story: Canada has an election tomorrow (er, by now, two days ago -- Justin Trudeau won). Cameo appearance by Mike Myers! YouTube (15m) And Now: A Student Passes Out Listening To Steven Harper Speak. (Two students, actually.) Finally, in response to the epidemic of quote misattribution by political figures and generally on the internet, LWT created a website to generate random misquotes from historical figures, definitelyrealquotes.com. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Oct 21, 2015 - 2 comments

An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by an elected government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico. [more inside]
posted by starman on Oct 17, 2015 - 16 comments

This week.... The US and Iran are on the verge of signing a historic nuclear arms deal. Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman escapes from prison by constructing a surprisingly elaborate tunnel a mile long. North Korea gears up to celebrate their "Liberation Day" with a concert by Slovenian band Laibach. And Now: CBS This Morning's Awkward Sex Talk. Main story: The fact that the US wastes 40% of the food it produces each year, and its consequences. YouTube (18m) Last Week Tonight produced their own, more honest version of an "American" cheeseburger commercial produced by Carl's Jr. [more inside]
posted by JHarris on Jul 21, 2015 - 4 comments

Frank is stuck in Mexico without a passport. Debbie is the only one who seems to care that Frank has been missing for 137 days. She’s made a shrine to him with a bottle of Old Style beer. [more inside]
posted by John Cohen on Feb 28, 2015 - 2 comments

John saves himself from the invunche by possessing himself with the demon Pazuzu, but before he can self-exorcise, Pazuzu takes control of his body and kills five gang members, landing John in jail.
posted by Small Dollar on Jan 17, 2015 - 6 comments

John and Chas investigate a child abduction in a Mexican convent as a favor to a member of John's Newcastle crew and discover the ancient forces behind the rising darkness. Back in Georgia, Zed's past comes back to haunt her.
posted by Small Dollar on Dec 13, 2014 - 7 comments

After making their way through high school (twice), big changes are in store for officers Schmidt and Jenko when they go deep undercover at a local college.
posted by mathowie on Jun 13, 2014 - 4 comments