La Misma Luna

I wasn't sure if this would work for me, what with the pretty face and all, but I was surprised by it. This is a good movie. Mexicans crossing a river are found by the Migra, and some are separated from the rest of the group. A small boy lives back in his Mexican home, his mother winds up in East LA. He's cared for by his abuelita, and gets a phone call from his mother every Sunday morning at 10. When his abuelita dies, Carlitos decides he'll go and find his mother. He's shown helping a woman who is a sort of broker {Doña Carmen 'La Coyota' } for those hoping to cross the border. That is a topic that is not discussed anywhere, that I know.

Going to a young couple who had contacted Doña Carmen, offering to smuggle peopleacross the border, as they are US citizens, Carlos pays them to smuggle him across. but they are stopped at the border, their nervousness giving them away. Cleared, they go, only to be stopped, and their car impounded, as they have outstanding tickets.

Carlitos loses his money, is almost sold to a child pornographer or pimp, and is rescued by Reyna, a woman who feeds Mexicanaborers who need the help. This is also a topic not commonly discussed; in fact, both are (and aren't).

The movie is a bit of a tear-jerker, and melodramatic, but it works. It is well made, the story flows, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Luminarias

Rated R, for language and sexuality. When a spicy Latin divorce attorney finds herself guilty of falling for her white and Jewish opposing council, her three single friends choose sides in the ongoing and often hilarious debate over race and sex.

Well, it isn't council, but counsel, as in attorney. A review in Imdb has the same error in a synopsis attributed to Echo Bridge Home Entertainment.

4 successful Chicanas meet to drink and chat about men, sex, being Mexican, and their problems arising from the combination of men, sex, being Mexican and having problems. One of them gives up sex as a sacrifice for Lent, and beseeches La Virgen de Guadalupe for strength to remain celibate all 40 days. An attorney defends a young Latina in court against her abusive husband, who wants joint custody of their son, and soon catches her husband kissing (of all things) a white woman. A therapist striving to be white, or accepted by whites, does not visit her mother in East LA and can't speak Spanish, yet brandishes a Chicana accent when she calls herself a Chicana. The fourth of the band can't find a decent man, has unresolved issues (having being called fea as a child among them), but soon falls for a Korean man.

The movie tries to explore racial pride, emotional ambiguity, and uncertainty in the face of 40th birthdays. It is in turns funny, touching, even insightful, but it does not work completely. There are too many cliches and stereotypes (the wise Latino man who happens to be a professor at UCLA, played by Cheech Marin with a wisp of beard under his lower lip that looks less Dizzy Gillespie than, what? Mandarin? and the uninhibited Latina aunts who don't watch their mouths but do watch male asses).

Yet, there are some nice performances and good points made. Evelina Fernandez plays the main character, Andrea, the attorney who prides herself on being a Latina, excoriates whites, and defends women against machismo. She falls for a white Jewish attorney, resists her husband returning after having announced he would marry a white woman, and lectures her son on not letting rage (sloppily defined as a legacvy of colonial oppression, or some such thing) overwhelm his Latino passion. In a nice twist, at the end the son, Joey, announces he has a girlfriend named Laura Johnson; his mother assumes she's white, and is surprised, when she meets her, to see she's black.

Still, a good film. 3 stars, of 5.

Sin nombre

Sin Nombre, sometimes also known by its international English language title Without Name is an award-winning Spanish language film written and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga , from Focus Features and produced by Amy Kaufman.

Parallel story lines of gang members and Honduran migrants riding the rails to the US border. The violence of the gang is demonstrated in the initiation of a young boy into the gang, in the gang leader's attempted rape of a woman who happens to be a gang member's secret girlfriend, and the robbery of migrants riding on top of a train going north. The film is very well made, and the story is enrapturing. I kept wondering if those who oppose migration into the US would be affected in seeing the determination, courage and grit of those hoping to get into the US to seek a better life.