“Y Tu Mama Tambien”
This Mexican import, which premiered in Wisconsin earlier this month to a sold-out crowd at the film festival, has now, thankfully, set up shop at the Westgate Theater.
Part comedy, part coming-of-age, all heart, “Y Tu Mama” tells the tale of two young guys using their hormones and a borrowed car to drive a beautiful women to a secluded beach for a relaxing getaway. Get your mind outta the gutter, the film offers more than any late-night cable flick (and most of the box office releases) ever could. The friendship between Tenoch and Julio is hilariously realistic as they spout insults (which loose no humor in the subtitles), trade sexual conquest stories and battle for the affection of their female traveling companion, who is not without issues (and a sense of humor) herself.
But it does have its bawdy side — with a title like that (translated “And Your Mother Too” for those of you scoring at home), how can it not be? Graphic scenes and crude remarks may be the order of the day to most college kids, but tu mama may be offended, so choose your movie-going companion with care. But it has payoff.
The juxtaposition of emotional storylines and Mexican historical and cultural lessons with the boys’ farts and tokes easily makes this one of the most interesting, entertaining and satisfying films of the year.
— AR
Justice bombing
So there’s this search engine called Google. It’s actually the best search engine available, due to the site’s crafty algorithm that is far above my com-sci competency. You have to trust me on this. Justice bombing uses the power of Google as fuel for a new breed of pranking/cyber-terrorism that can leave offending parties cherry-faced (at the least) to downright booted off their servers for doing something that is ultimately pretty stupid. Here’s how it works: Web user X types a term into Google’s search bar and (as everyone knows) a list of sites pop up. But do you know how that list is generated? It’s simply placed in a numerical order, with #1 having the most “pages” of links associated with the specific phrase, thus giving the power to the linker, not the linkee. What this creates is the possibility for a campaign of linkers to join together to make a specific site #1 on Google for a given term.
Justice bombs arise out of people with personal sites/weblogs joining together to fight the system, er, some dumbass. A recent example is when a San Francisco woman decided to fight the tacky voyeurism of the web by campaigning to have her site be linked as many times in the top 10 on Google for people searching for either the “R Kelly Video” or “Daniel Pearl Video.” Needless to say, she won. Try it out if you don’t believe me. Fight the man or mess with your friends via Google. It’s way cooler than throwing bricks.
— MR
“Better Luck Tomorrow”
This February, MTV Films announced they had purchased this Sundance picture about Asian American high school ruffians for a little under a million bucks. That’s good money for a film that was shot in three weeks on a struggling film student’s maxed-out credit cards.
The signing of “Tomorrow” is a landmark event for the pop peddlers, a move that is certainly going to set them apart from the base “Varsity Blues,” “Orange County” and that film about ants in Jerry O’Connell’s apartment. The film is stylish and breaks ground on the perception/stereotypes of affluent Asian-American teenagers. Director Justin Lin is forward-looking, with also a clear reverence to cinema’s canon (most specifically Martin Scorsese.). If this film is released uncut to the sterile MTV audience, controversy will brew. A good thing for the hypesters at 1515.
— MR
Blog of the Week
“Oh wow i am so wiped out. Les Savy Fav had me dancing like (insert something that dances a lot here). The best shows are the ones where you leaving with a fresh layer of sweat on your skin. I need to burn Go Forth next time i’m at the station.
Tomorrow me, todd and some dude named andrew go to chicago to see cursive. Todd has his moms car here with only a cassette deck with an alan jackson tape. It looks like i’ll have to sing for everyone.
Today at savers i got a shirt that says “cant stop singing” or something liket hat on it with a singing star picture. Then i got the awesomest cups. There are 5 and they are black plastic and they each have 2 gold zodiac signs on them.”
[http://www.deadjournal.com/users/harrycrankshaft/]
