Hola Mexico series at Roxie screens best in Mexican cinema
Other highlights include “I Promise You Anarchy” (9:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 26), about two teenage lovers in Mexico City involved in the illegal blood trade; “Elvira, I Would Give You My Life, But I’m Using It” (7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 27), in which a woman’s husband goes out for cigarettes and never returns, and she wants to know why; “The Aparicios” (2 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28), about a family of women cursed to become widows; and “Paradise Lost” (8:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 28), a thriller set on a Caribbean island.
Mexico City has a great film industry that has produced not only Luna, but also best-director Oscar winners Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón as well as actress Salma Hayek, among many others.
Derided upon its 1979 release as “Star Trek — The Motionless Picture,” the film was lambasted by critics and fans alike for its all-talk, no-action approach and unimaginatively confining the entire story aboard the revamped Enterprise.
[...] no other “Trek” film has as relentlessly explored the scientific and philosophical concepts that made the TV show great: the search for humanity within a world filled with artificial intelligence; the battle between logic and instinct within our own souls.
[...] Kirk is a jerk in this one — and his ongoing battle with Decker (Stephen Collins), the officer he replaces as captain of the Enterprise, lends a dramatic tension missing in most of the other films.
[...] the later “Trek” films with the original cast, and eventually the “Next Generation” cast, had their own failures, and while I generally enjoy J.J. Abrams’ current reboot of the series, those are action films and not films that explore science and philosophy — the original Gene Roddenberry vision.
Walter Lang’s film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway musical seems antiquated now for many reasons, but remains an entertaining and colorful film.