Once Upon A Time in Mexico and Matchstick Men are coming out in theaters this weekend. Once Upon is the third installment in a trilogy of movies including Desperado, and it stars Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. Matchstick Men is Ridley Scott's latest film and it stars Nicholas Cage as a conman. I'm really excited about both movies, and reviews will be forthcoming.
And both can be seen projected digitally at the Cinemark Legacy in Plano. I'm going to Once Upon a Time in Mexico tomorrow. I'll probably see Matchstick Men this weekend, but I have someone who wants to go with me, so I have to adhere to her schedule. I've also read some decent things about Cabin Fever, Hangman's Curse (based on the Frank Peretti novel) and No Good Deed (with Samual L. Jackson, based on a Dashiell Hammett story).
are you referring to El Mariachi as the first installment? technically, Desperado is a big-budget sequel of El Mariachi, a film Robert Rodriguez shot on a shoestring budget. just wanted to make sure i didn't miss anything, Rodriguez writes, directs, produces, and edits all of these flicks. i can't wait for Unce Upon A Time In Mexico.
pop quiz for yall: How did Robert Rodriguez fund for El Mariachi? Plus a bunch of people are still surprised that he did the Spy Kids Trilogy.
from www.imdb.com Filming Locations for Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) Guanajuato, Mexico Mexico Querétaro, Mexico San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico
Trivia for Mariachi, El (1992) This film initially cost $7000 to make. Director 'Rodriguez, Robert' raised $3,000 of the $7,000 by volunteering to be a human "laboratory rat". He was used to test a cholesterol reducing drug. Paid $100 a day for 30 days, he wrote most of the script while locked in the lab. Peter Marquardt was a fellow "rat", but could not speak Spanish. He delivered his lines from card held in his hand or out of shot. Most of the $7,000 was spent on film for the camera. The version seen in most cinemas has had approximately $1 million of post-production work and promotion behind it. Most of the guns used in the film were water pistols. However a few were real, borrowed from the town's police force. In a shot near the end of the film just after the Mariachi is pulled out of the yellow Ford van by Moco's henchmen there is a shot of Moco walking towards the camera. Behind him laying asleep on a bench is the cop who was meant to be on-set supervising the use of the weapons for that day. Rodriguez claims the other actors were "innocent" passers by. He gave them lines as and when they were needed. For the moving camera shots, Rodriguez sat in a broken hospital wheelchair and was pushed around. The movie was intended to go "straight to video". Sound was recorded with an ordinary cassette recorder and mike. The sequence with the pit bull terrier was shot specifically so that Rodriguez could synchronize the sound with the picture later. Rodriguez says he made the movie to "practice". Rodriguez was producer, director, writer, special-effect man, etc, the only job he didn't do was act, as there would be no one else to operate the camera. The guns which were borrowed from the local police station had a drawback, blanks could only be fired one at a time because they jammed the gun. Rodriguez fixed this in editing by "double-cutting" the gun firing then cutting to the bad guys getting squibbed with machine gun sound effects. Fairly early in the movie, Azul insists he only killed six of Moco's men, while Moco insists ten and the other four are credited to El Mariachi. Actually, Azul is responsible for the death seven of the men (the three hitmen in the opening, four in the bar) and Mariachi is responsible for three (two in the truck, one beside, leaving one unconscious). In his book "Rebel Without a Crew", Rodriguez explains that the gansters' peculiar names are meant as a joke: they are all nicknames the characters had as children but never outgrew. As such they are named La Palma (Spanish for "palm"); Azul ("blue"); Pepino ("cucumber"); Moco ("booger").
I'm not. Once you start having kids, it's natural to want to do something they can see and like. Plus, his short Bedhead was something of a kids story. There's an interview in the latest Premiere magazine with Rodriguez. He's an interesting fellow. Comes across like a nice guy, and he is good for Austin, the Austin filmmaking community and filmmaking in general (my personal opinion).
Peter Marquardt was my college roomate, and Robert Rodriquez is a personal friend. Robert and I were going to do a PC game together, I need to give him a call. I hooked up with Peter tonight at Fados here in Austin. What a small world. DD
"Darko Milicik is better than Yao Ming." - ChucklesG, a non-Rockets poster who is apparently so cool that he spends all of his time on a Rockets BBS. Dakota - That is freaking amazing. BTW - How is the Vivendi situation affecting you?
Anyone know when the Bill Murray movie is coming here? I see that it's been released on a limited basis right now.
Who's Darko Milicik?And why are you mad? I was telling people how your hobbit friends will be happy that you've returned to power.
Reviews from Yahoo on both movies: Matchstick Men: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1808409330&cf=critic&intl=us Once Upon a Time in Mexico: http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1807816319&cf=info
Came back from watching Once Upon a Time in Mexico, not too bad, I thought Desperado was better as in action sequences. But my friend said it best, Johnny Depp was in the movie more than Antonio Banderes, and thats not a good sign.
I'd agree (having just seen it), although, Depp delivers his usual spot on performance. The guy is just a good actor. But Desperado was definitely better. Once Upon a Time was decent, but a little too disjointed.
before i found out it was a continuation or whatever to deperado i just thought it was a new johnny depp movie. the previews don't even show much of banderas. depp is one of my favorite actors right now though so i'll check it out.
