Happiness Is Made In Mexico

Would you like to understand why Mexicans are the happiest folks on earth? Would you like to contract a little of that contagious gusto, rather than follow the herd of gringos who just want a reason and an audience for their misery as they stampede off the dying-with-dignity-but-no-fun cliff. If so, check out the film Hecho En Mexico. This is actually a documentary and a musical - a documentary musical - but it's not dull or gay. Only Mexicans can come up with crazy shit like this. I think it's illegal everywhere else.

Don't Support Contraband Savages

Contraband and Savages are films offering a taste of the drug-smuggling world. Contraband relates a journey on a container ship from Panama to New Orleans with cocaine, counterfeit bills and stolen art aboard. Mark Wahlberg does the deal with Diego Luna against his will and with a death threat hanging over his family. The movie provides a rare look inside these ocean transports, which play a key role in the global economy yet function almost like sovereign nations at sea.

Savages involves brutal Mexican mobs moving their marijuana into California. This means absorbing or eliminating "kinder, gentler" surfer dude grow-ops. Thus, warlords Salma Hayak and Benicio Del Toro muscle in on a weed partnership and menage a trois between a blonde beach babe, a pacifist hippie and an alpha male enforcer.

Father's Day Movie Sin Nombre

You don't see a lot of cute girls riding on top of trains across Mexico. There's a reason for that. In the film Sin Nombre (Nameless), a Honduran teen makes this long dangerous journey from Central America to the United States. That's not the worst. Like many Latinas who have several saintly names but no father, she falls in love with the first guy who shows her some kindness. Turns out to be a gang assassin with a price on his head. Mexican actors Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal have produced a travel movie with a potent Father's Day message.

Only God Knows Alice Braga's Destiny

If you've ever wondered how much shit can happen after losing your passport in a foreign country, this is your film. Alice Braga plays a U.S. resident who goes partying in Mexico. However, this party ends up taking her all the way to Brazil. Diego Luna is the hungry drifter who offers her a ride - in more ways than one.

Destiny (and/or stupidity) propels them southward against a backdrop of spiny cactus silhouettes and sultry Julieta Venegas tunes. The title Solo Dios Sabe means only God knows. The implication is that there's a path marked out for us, to which we must  generally succumb.