Posted by paulrivas on: Sun 30th Jan, 2011

“In Mexico, it’s very difficult to make films – and to live,” explained the chilango director and güero Alejandro Molina in perfect English while his mestiza translator stood by silently.

It took Molina seven years to make De día y de noche, about life in a metropolis where residents are forced to live on either the day or night shift due to overpopulation.

Mexico City has been prohibiting certain cars from transiting on certain days of the week since 1989, but Molina said his inspiration for the film came from the city’s shift ten years ago to conducting all heavy transport operations at night. De día y de noche is memorable as a contemplative anti-Hollywood piece of Mexican science fiction, and ends with 15 minutes of no dialogue.

“Silence is maybe a good thing for us,” Molina shrugged.

Also remarkable is the aesthetic of Pre-Colombian structures as futuristic settings that inspired Molina to use Diego Rivera’s Anahuacalli Museum and the unique landscape architecture of the UNAM campus, where I studied Spanish in the trample-or-be-trampled Mexico City of 2000, as locations.

The only thing the interpreter got to translate during the Q&A was the term ‘telenovelas', which she nailed.

Go see By Day and By Night on Monday 1/31 at 2pm at the Metro 4.

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Tags: sbiff, c2sbiff, santa barbara, film festival, sbiff 2011, de día y de noche, by day and by night, alejandro molina

Posted by paulrivas on: Sun 30th Jan, 2011

Barcelona is the coolest city in Spain, and has a tradition of anarchism and squatters. Comic artists are unreliable fringe weirdos. Sex was big in the sixties. We all know these things to be true, yet who among us had ever heard of Manuel Vázquez Gallego, the original comic con?

Óscar Aibar addresses this oversight with El Gran Vázquez, a biopic by focused on the mid-1960s life of the anarchistic debtor bigamist comic artist. The film celebrates the picaresque scams Vázquez pulled in Barcelona as w ell as the comic strip they inspired, all at a time when Franco was executing subversives by firing squad. At the film’s resolution we learn that although he never had any money and went to jail three times, Vázquez still managed to treat seven women right and have 11 kids.

If you enjoyed Fletch, Crumb or the tv series Big Love, El Gran Vázquez is exactly the kind of movie you should brave the megaphones for.

Go see The Great Vazquez at the Metro 4 Monday 1/31, 8:05am or Wednesday 2/2, 1:20pm.

UPDATE: Apparently everyone read this and went and saw it and told other people, and now there's been a screening added Thursday at 10:30. 

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Tags: sbiff, c2sbiff, santa barbara, film festival, sbiff 2011, the great vazquez, el gran vázquez, santiago segura, óscar aibar

Posted by paulrivas on: Sun 30th Jan, 2011

Every big city in Latin America has slums at its edges and in certain of its corners. Brazil has more people than the US and three times the population of the next largest Latin American country. Why wouldn’t there be three films dealing with Brazilian favelas in a Santa Barbara festival?

Of those films, 5 x favela – agora por nós mesmos (the 'x' is read as 'vezes', Portuguese for 'times'), is actually five short films, which makes it the best bet of the three Brazilian slum movies: if one of the five sucks, fuck it, there’s four more that might be good! In fact, all five of these are good. The monoglot who presented the film said that the third one was actually his favorite, but why would anyone care what he thinks?

The subjects of this collection are a drug dealing law student, a child chicken thief, a cop/gangster/chick trio, kite enthusiasts on opposing sides of the river, and an electric company man who pulls emergency slum duty on Christmas. Taken as a whole, 5 x favela is an accurate treatment of Latin America slum life. Yes, that’s where the worst drug dealers are. Yes, everybody knows somebody who’s involved in something illegal. Yes, residents distrust the authorities for good reason. But most people are just trying to live normal lives.

Go see 5 x favela Monday, 1/31, 10pm at the Metro or Wednesday, 2/2, 7:40pm at the Lobero.

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Tags: biff, c2sbiff, santa barbara, film festival, sbiff 2011, 5 x favela, amaral, barcelos, bezerra, carneiro, felha, novais, vidigal

Posted by paulrivas on: Thu 27th Jan, 2011

Found at the Italian Grocery after yesterday's lunch rush.

Whoever wrote it probably believes, like I do, that the only thing worse than mayonnaise on a sandwich is condoms.

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Tags: no condoms, italian grocery, no mayonnaise

Posted by paulrivas on: Mon 24th Jan, 2011

His name is Romualdo. He goes to the flower market in LA at 3 a.m. to get the same hard-to-find Ecuadorian stuff you see at $150,000 Santa Barbara weddings. Then he rides up to SB with other international salesmen and sells $5 and $10 bouquets from 10am until 3-4pm. He has 20-30 bouquets in buckets, a total inventory of $250. He works in town often but doesn’t know what Goleta is. He lives in L.A., and can name every Chinese, Korean and Spanish channel by number.

It was September 11, 2010, and I advised the roadside Mexican that if he were prepared for any military transiting Modoc, he might make a few patriotism dollars. While we talked about how California used to be Mexico, he sold to two cars.

If only I’d had my Servicios Culturales Rivas cards on me that day, I might have a little bisnes by now offering legitimizing consultations to ambulant vendors. ‘Cops will assume you're illegal and people will assume you don't speak English,’ I’d explain, as passing cars saw friendly flower man chatting with smiling bike rider.

A friend of mine bought Mother’s Day flowers from a border brother at an offramp and was so pleased with the transaction that he considered investing.

How long has this been going on? Have you seen the mango cart ladies at Alameda Park?

The Mexification of Santa Barbara that brought us Lilly’s Tacos also brought a class of merchants who can’t afford Lilly’s Tacos.

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Tags: mexification, bisnes, servicios culturales rivas, vendedor ambulante en el gabacho, Santa Barbara weddings, roadside flower vendor