MC Consensus: ¡A Huevo!

[Spinal]

Submit your FIVE TO TEN favorite films from Mexico and .... eventually .... I will give you a top TEN TO TWENTY. Films should have Mexico listed as a country of origin in IMDb. Hopefully, I won't have to make a ruling on this and it will be self-policing. But the purpose of the thread is to specifically address films that are from Mexico.

The point system is as follows

1st Place- 10 points
2nd Place - 8 points
3rd Place - 7 points
4th Place - 6 points
5th Place - 5 points
6th Place - 4.5 points
7th Place - 4 points
8th Place - 3.5 points
9th Place - 3 points
10th Place - 2.5 points

(Point system is weighted to give your top film a boost and to minimize the discrepancy between the films in the bottom half of your list.)

There will be no restrictions on short films. A list must have ten films to be eligible. If you list more than ten films, I will assume that the top ten films are the ones you want to receive points. If you do not list your films 1-10, I will assign the points from the top on down.

If you decide to edit your ballot, please make a new post indicating the changes. I will give at least 24 hours warning before tallying votes.

If, for some reason, you would like to like to submit your ballot via private message, I will accept those as well. However, your ballot will be revealed after the final results are posted.

You may begin now.

[Spinal]

Please note that for this thread I am lowering the minimum number of films on a submitted list to 5. Your list will be eligible if it has 5-10 films.

[Grouchy]

1. Los Olvidados
2. The Devil's Backbone
3. Amores Perros
4. The Exterminating Angel
5. Deep Crimson

[Yxklyx]

1. Santa Sangre (Jodorowsky)
2. Silent Light (Reygadas)
3. Miss Bala (Naranjo)
4. The Devil's Backbone (del Toro)
5. Los Olvidados (Buñuel)
6. Amores Perros (Iñárritu)
7. Y Tu Mamá También (Cuarón)
8. The Exterminating Angel (Buñuel)
9. Leap Year (Rowe)
10. Sólo con tu pareja (Cuarón)

[baby doll]

Highway Patrolman (Alex Cox, 1991)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
Los Bastardos (Amat Escalante, 2008)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)
The Young One (Luis Buñuel, 1960)
Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
NazarÃ*n (Luis Buñuel, 1959)

I need to re-watch Santa Sangre, Amores perros, Japón, and Battle in Heaven.

[baby doll]

Highway Patrolman (Alex Cox, 1991)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
Los Bastardos (Amat Escalante, 2008)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)
The Young One (Luis Buñuel, 1960)
Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
NazarÃ*n (Luis Buñuel, 1959)

I need to re-watch Santa Sangre, Amores perros, Japón, and Battle in Heaven.So I decided to number my choices.

[Spinal]

1. Los Olvidados
2. Y Tu Mama Tambien
3. Santa Sangre
4. El
5. Simon of the Desert
6. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
7. El Topo
8. Leap Year
9. Amores Perros
10. El Bruto

[Mysterious Dude]

1. Los Olvidados (1950)
2. Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
3. Canoa (1976)
4. The Exterminating Angel (1962)
5. El castillo de la pureza (1973)
6. Amores Perros (2000)
7. Simon of the Desert (1965)
8. Güeros (2014)
9. El lugar sin lÃ*mites (1978)
10. Duck Season (2004)

[Russ]

2. Silent Light (Reygadas)




6. Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)


...want to see this...

[Russ]

1. Santa Sangre (Jodorowsky, 1989)
2. Simon of the Desert (Buñuel, 1965)
3. Y Tu Mamá También (Cuarón, 2001)
4. Aventurera (Gout, 1950)
5. Victims of Sin (Fernández, 1951)
6. El Topo (Jodorowsky, 1970)
7. Angels and Cherubs (Corkidi, 1972)
8. Amores Perros (Iñárritu, 2000)
9. El Vampiro (Méndez, 1957)
10. Vera (Athié, 2003)

[Pop Trash]

1. Los Olividados
2. Y tu Mama Tambien
3. The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz
4. Santa Sangre
5. Like Water for Chocolate

[Lazlo]

1. Y Tu Mamá También
2. Amores Perros
3. Alamar
4. Sin Nombre
5. Silent Light
6. Duck Season
7. The Devil's Backbone
8. Los Olvidados
9. El Topo
10. Viridiana

[baby doll]

10. ViridianaI forgot this was a Mexican co-production. I guess I'll have to update my list (even though it strikes me as more Spanish than Mexican):

Highway Patrolman (Alex Cox, 1991)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
Los Bastardos (Amat Escalante, 2008)
Viridiana (Luis Buñuel, 1961)
Silent Light (Carlos Reygadas, 2007)
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962)
The Young One (Luis Buñuel, 1960)
Y tu mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)
NazarÃ*n (Luis Buñuel, 1959)

[Spinal]

Only 8 films have really separated themselves and I currently have a tie for 1st place. More votes would be desirable before we proceed with the results for this one.

[ContinentalOp]

1. Los Olvidados
2. Highway Patrolman
3. The Devil's Backbone
4. The Exterminating Angel
5. Amores Perros

[Melville]

I've got nothing. Battle in Heaven is the only one I'd really want to vote for. I should watch Reygadas' other movies.

[Grouchy]

I hope no Reygadas film makes the Top Ten.

1. Los Olvidados
2. The Devil's Backbone
3. Amores Perros
4. The Exterminating Angel
5. Deep Crimson

6. Él
7. Heli
8. El Topo
9. NazarÃ*n
10. Poison for the Fairies

I didn't make a Top 10 at first because I thought it would be too reiterative of the same directors, specially Buñuel.

[Spinal]

Thanks. That extra input helps flesh out a Top 10. I will start posting when I can find the time. In the mean time, feel free to add more ballots if you wish.

[Spinal]

#10

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/f73c69977b0d8c15c8b7f14c89271d 50_zpskaonjgp5.jpg
You are seven years old. You are a man. Bury your first toy and your mother's picture.


El Topo

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Year: 1970

A mysterious black-clad gunfighter wanders a mystical Western landscape encountering multiple bizarre characters.

Won Best Cinematography at the Ariel Awards.

Years later, Jodorowsky, ashamed of the part he forced his own son to play, invited him to his house. He went with his son to the backyard and asked him to dig. Inside the hole, there was an old teddy bear and an old picture of his mother, and he said: "Now you are 8 years old, and you have the right to be a kid."

"Scarcely less than [Kubrick's] 2001, El Topo is designed to exist as much on the big screen as within the mind of the viewer, where it can live or die according to whether it connects personally. It is no accident that the hero’s trajectory, mirroring the viewer’s, leads equally to enlightenment and to the apocalypse." - Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/simon-of-the-desert-movie-poster-1965-1020433634_zpsfoyznftu.jpg
I'm beginning to realize I don't realize what I'm saying.


Simon of the Desert

Director: Luis Buñuel

Year: 1965

Simon, a deeply religious man living in the 4th century, wants to be nearer to God so he climbs a column. The Devil wants him come down to Earth and is trying to seduce him.

Won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

According to Buñuel, the film's relatively brief running time of 43 minutes resulted from financial constraints. He had envisioned the film to be full length, roughly twice the length it eventually ran, but he had to wrap up production rapidly after the 18th day of filming because he was almost out of money.

"Buñuel’s film features some outrageous sights—a jet plane that flies overhead, whisking the action from the 4th century to a ‘60s New York discotheque; the devil as breast-baring provocateur; a coffin that scuttles along the desert floor like a torpedo—but there’s an underlying austerity to it too, rooted in the disappointment of a reality that falls short of faith’s noblest intentions." - Scott Tobias, The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#8 (tie)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/poster_03_zpsthtit5yg.jpg
*crickets chirp* *braying and mooing* *breathy, muffled screams* *the loud ticking of a clock*


Silent Light

Director: Carlos Reygadas

Year: 2007

In a Mennonite community in Mexico, a father's faith is tested when he falls in love with a new woman.

Won the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Won 5 Ariel Awards including the Golden Ariel (Best Picture), Best Direction, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actress (Maria Pankratz).
Won Best Feature at the Chicago International Film Festival.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.

Filmed in Plautdietsch, a dialect spoken by the Russian Mennonites. It was Mexico's official submission for the 80th Academy Awards, and the first film from that country not in Spanish.

"[Reygadas] photographs people and landscapes with a devotion as deep as the spiritual conviction that is his subject. Rarely has a film depicted religious experience with such power and clarity, bringing the audience uncannily, exaltingly close to a state of holiness." - A.O. Scott, The New York Times

[Spinal]

#7

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/tumblr_inline_ne4fjnR56u1qhyw6 3_zpsq3nu4itg.jpg
Paying Taxes Is Participating


Highway Patrolman

Director: Alex Cox

Year: 1991

An episodic look at a young man's life in Mexico's national highway patrol.

Nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Bruno Bichir) and Best Actor in a Minor Role (Farnesio de Bernal) at the Ariel Awards.

The musician James Rutledge released his early music under the name Pedro in reference to the central character in this film.

"This Highway Patrolman is no Robocop or Mad Max. In fact, the movie takes the whole police action drama as a form and turns it on its head." - Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle

[Spinal]

#6

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/el-espinazo-del-diablo-movie-poster_zpsedmnmgxs.jpg
Many of you will die.


The Devil's Backbone

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Year: 2001

After Carlos, a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War, arrives at an ominous boy's orphanage he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets that he must uncover.

Nominated for Best Special Effects and Best Costume Design at the Goya Awards.
Won Best Young Actor in an International Film (Fernando Tielve) at the Young Artist Awards.

This film is Spine #666 in the Criterion Collection.

"As with Cronos, his film debut, del Toro collaborates with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro. Together, they know how to cast even the most everyday objects in an eerie glow. Still, scary as it is, the film is distinguished most by its ability to tie its local tragedy to the course of history, and to capture a nation's loss in the melancholy of a single wandering ghost." - Keith Phipps, The A.V. Club

[Spinal]

#5

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/The-Exterminating-Angel_zpsh0zeyzts.jpg
Haven't you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.


The Exterminating Angel

Director: Luis Buñuel

Year: 1962

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave.

Nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
Won Best Supporting Actress (Jacqueline Andere) and Best Actress in a Minor Role (Rosa Elena Durgel) from Mexican Cinema Journalists.

Was banned in Russia because the idea of people not being allowed to "leave a party" was considered offensive and anti-government.

"Not only does this story undermine our confidence in our social institutions but it challenges our powers of cognition and perception, which are shown to be easily distorted by unreliable narratives. Perhaps most threatening, despite the emotional distance from the characters that Buñuel’s satiric vision grants us, we are ultimately forced to see that we in the audience are also objects of his attack." - Marsha Kinder, professor of critical studies in the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California

[Spinal]

#4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/Santa-Sangre_zpskwp3iuxb.jpg
Without me you are nothing. No one sees you and no one notices you.


Santa Sangre

Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Year: 1989

A young man is confined in a mental hospital after being traumatized as a child when he and his family were circus performers. He escapes and rejoins his surviving mother and the two undertake a grisly campaign of revenge.

Named one of Empire magazine's 500 greatest movies of all-time.

The line spoken during the death of the elephant is used as the opening line of "Whatzupwitu" - a song by Eddie Murphy and Michael Jackson.

"To call Santa Sangre a horror film would be unjust to a film that exists outside all categories. But in addition to its deeper qualities, it is a horror film, one of the greatest, and after waiting patiently through countless Dead Teenager Movies, I am reminded by Alejandro Jodorowsky that true psychic horror is possible on the screen--horror, poetry, surrealism, psychological pain and wicked humor, all at once." - Roger Ebert

[Spinal]

#3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/amores-perros_zpswgreiz24.jpg
It could be the last day of your life.


Amores Perros

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu

Year: 2000

A horrific car accident connects three stories, each involving characters dealing with loss, regret, and life's harsh realities, all in the name of love.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Won Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Won 11 Ariel Awards including the Golden Ariel (Best Picture), Best Direction and Best Actor (Gael GarcÃ*a Bernal ).
Won 3 awards at Cannes including the Critics Week Grand Prize.
Nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film from the National Board of Review.

The dogs seen fighting each other have their muzzles covered with very fine fishing line so they are unable to bite each other. For the scenes where the dogs appeared to be dead or dying, the animals were actually heavily sedated under the careful eye of the Mexican SPCA.

"There's a seething moral core in Amores Perros that uses the canine savagery as an entre to human brutality. By the time the film has slipped into its glorious, redemptive final movement, there's no mistake: Bite for bite, the people are worse, but they can be saved." - Wesley Morris, San Francisco Chronicle

[Spinal]

#2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ytumama_zpslqncgiyi.jpg
Life is like the surf, so give yourself away like the sea.


Y Tu Mamá También

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Year: 2001

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.
Nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Best Film not in the English Language at the BAFTA Awards.
Won Best Foreign Film at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Won Best Foreign Language Film from the National Society of Film Critics.
Won Best Foreign Language Film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.
Won 2 awards at the Venice Film Festival including the Golden Osella (Best Screenplay) and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for the performances of Gael GarcÃ*a Bernal and Diego Luna.

Diego Luna wore a prosthetic penis to appear circumcised. In real life, he is not circumcised. You're welcome.

"Yes, it's about two teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman that involves sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two Mexicos. And it is about the fragility of life and the finality of death. Beneath the carefree road movie that the movie is happy to advertise is a more serious level--and below that, a dead serious level." - Roger Ebert

[baby doll]

It's a good thing I decided to number my choices, as I think the Continent Op and I are the only ones who voted for/have seen Highway Patrolman.

[Spinal]

#1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/joel_harmon/ae920e84c6d0f88ce1a5bd589ce6d7 9f_zpsf77dfscj.jpg
I hope they'll kill every one of them before they born!


Los Olvidados

Director: Luis Buñuel

Year: 1950

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent and crime-filled life in the festering slums of Mexico City, and the morals of young Pedro are gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

Won Best Director at Cannes.
Nominated for Best Film from any Source at the BAFTA Awards.
Won 11 Ariel Awards including the Golden Ariel (Best Picture), Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Estela Inda).

When it was released in Mexico, its original theatrical commercial run only lasted for three days due to the enraged reactions from the press, government, and upper and middle class audiences.

"Although made with meticulous realism and unquestioned fidelity to facts, its qualifications as dramatic entertainment — or even social reportage—are dim. For it is obvious that Luis Bunuel, who directed and helped write the script, had no focus or point of reference for the squalid, depressing tale he tells. He simply has assembled an assortment of poverty-stricken folk—paupers, delinquents, lost children and parents of degraded morals—and has mixed them altogether in a vicious and shocking melange of violence, melodrama, coincidence and irony ... But why there should be this wild coincidence of evil and violence is not explained, nor is any social solution even hinted, much less clarified. A foreword merely states that the correction of this problem of poverty and delinquency is left to the 'progressive forces' (whatever they are) of our times." - Bosley Crowther, The New York Times, 1952

[Spinal]

1. Los Olvidados (58.5)
2. Y Tu Mama Tambien (48.5)
3. Amores Perros (35.5)
4. Santa Sangre (33)
5. The Exterminating Angel (27)
6. The Devil’s Backbone (25)
7. Highway Patrolman (18)
8t. Silent Light (17)
8t. Simon of the Desert (17)
10. El Topo (15)

The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (11.5)
El (10.5)

[Mysterious Dude]

Los Olvidados did a lot better than I thought it would do, considering its rather limited availability.