Rating: 
Summary: Controversial but thought provoking
Review: Like everyone else I bought this DVD after having heard of the great reviews. What I received was disappointing but also good in what I believe they were able to say to me.Yes, this is a simplistic, low-budget movie. But this movie does an excellent job of presenting what life is like in Mexico, particularly as it relates to the class structure in Mexico. Little things like the countryside, the shops, the Federales stopping traffic are all perfectly depicted. The primary focus of the memo of course are two young teenage boys struggling with drugs, alcohol, authority and sex. They meet a young woman just struggling. The movie covers their relationship and the tragic hidden secret. This movie will disappoint many. But for me I was able to find some nuggets and learn from them. I wish I had had the unrated version. The sex scenes IMO were short and two the point although they were very erotic. Overall, if you're buying this for the hype there is high liklihood you will be disappointed. Particularly if you have little experience with subtitles.
Rating: 
Summary: Very enjoyable
Review: My college English teacher was fond of saying that the American novel begins with Huckleberry Finn. *We* invented the rivertrip (then roadtrip) transformational genre. On that level, this movie succeeds brilliantly. Every road trip book or movie should be about transformation, whether it be "On the Road" or "Apocalypse Now" or my personal favorite, "Midnight Run." YTMT is faithful to the genre and had interesting, mostly believable characters to deal with. A couple of small points of dissent, however. I find the extremely long takes to be disturbing (think Hitchcock's "Rope"), and by the middle of the long takes I was struggling to see any minor flubs. The long takes actually took away from my suspension of disbelief, rather than enhanced it. Second, the omniscient voice-over I found to be unnecessary and manipulative. To me, it seemed principally to exist to provide snide, sotto voce political commentary. Unfortunately, in films it seems to be easier to tell us rather than show us.
Rating: 
Summary: Graphic coming-of-age story
Review: Y Tu Mama, Tambien ("And Your Mother, too") is the much-acclaimed comedy/drama by director Alphonso Cuaron. It is a coming of age movie about two sex-crazed teenagers who take an attractive woman of 28 with them on a road trip into the Mexican countryside, in search of a beautiful beach, which may or may not exist. The trio indulge their lustful passions (a lot), and the boys eventually grow up, sadder but wiser.
This unrated DVD is surprisingly graphic and is strictly for adults. It is also funny and poignant, and very enjoyable. It is the kind of film you will want to see more than once, after you learn the twist at the end. Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna play the boys with youthful bravado, enthusiasm, and honesty. Maribel Verdu, as the older woman, is dazzlingly sexy and sweetly vulnerable. The film is in Spanish with English subtitles. which in no way detracts from its enjoyment. I recommend this lusty film for adults. It is outrageous, funny, and sweet.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly disgusting and utterly sinful
Review: This film made me so sick to my stomach, but what's much worse is the fact that people are willing to accept this trash as "normal" behavior. I, for one, do not know a single teenager who did anything close to the "17 year olds" in this filth. But I guess me and my friends were too busy expanding our knowledge instead of burying our faces in carnal desires. Question- how do you sell a movie in the year 2003? SEX! Regardless of the consequences. And that's all this film is. There is no plot, and no characters, as far as I'm concerned.
This movie has no meaning. The sex is meaningless. In my day, sex with someone MEANT something. I simply do not see how this can be called art. And the acting? Please! Its just horrible. Its not art. Trash is all this is.
Rating:
Summary: A Frank Engrossing Diversion, but NOT Cinematic Genious
Review: By now this movie has become rather infamous as a result of its frank treatment of human sexuality, but while this is certainly central to the story and the relationships between the characters, it is a great disservice to the movie to view it merely in terms of its sex. The sex is only a part of a tapestry which attempts (with mixed success) to tie together many diverse aspects of Mexican life and culture into a portrait of the people that make up that country. More than any other movie I can think of, this film goes a long way towards presenting a culture (which is admittedly very different from the USA) to an audience in such a way that through the conduit of the two best friends the viewer feels somehow akin to them and as a result to that culture. From this perspective it is a wonderful movie about cultural understanding employing the medium of common human experience (the coming-of-age of the boys). I'm not sure if this was the filmaker's intention, or if everyone who sees this film will have a similar reaction to it. The language the two boys employed when speaking to each other reminded me of many of my own friends (which maybe doesn't speak well for the company I hang around in), but this really gave me a good impression of the directors' honesty and understanding of our common humanity. All this being said, when taken simply as a road movie (which is a good vehicle for other thematic elements yet not a very engaging element by itself) this movie is only mediocre. This is sad, because the film spends so much time developing the relationship between the three main characters that it distracts it from the commentary of Mexican life only to replace it with a contrived and poorly concieved overall commentary about the dangers and necessities of human pleasures and their relationship with human pain. I wish I could give this film a five for its clever narrative style, its frankness, and its broad all encompassing reach. Unfortunately, the film mistakes the vehicle of its social commentary for the real film, and while not spoiling it, making it much less interesting than it could have been.
Rating:
Summary: Tour Guides for the Mexican Odyssey
Review: I had resisted seeing this movie for months, but when I finally was introduced to "Y Tu Mama Tambien" at a party one evening, I was so spellbound by this hypnotic sexy journey, I found myself buying a copy the next day. The true story involves our witnessing the very moments that make life worth living, despite all the harships that life has to offer. Our heros are two young immature boys, at the beginning of their last summer of freedom. One is the son of a highly respected government worker and the other is from a small working class family. Their youthful friendship however is based on the games that children play, as they shrug off maturity and replace it with parties, pot and trying to live out fantasies. Then their tour guide comes in: the beautiful wife of the upper class boy's cousin. Both boys take to her quickly and fantasize about bedding her. To impress her, they tell her they are going to take a road trip to a beach that doesn't even exist. However, when the young woman finds out that her husband is having affairs, she asks them to take her with them and the boys plan out a journey to a Shangri-La that is as fictatious as their bold personalities. The Odyssey then begins, as the trio start their long journey to find a beach called "Heaven's Mouth". We then are left to examine the three and their short comings and inhibitions as they interact with strange minor characters along the way, have long discussions of friendship and the meaningfulness of their lives and begin to have sex with each other. One must then wonder what happens when the boys realize their fantasies are becoming realities and that their are consequences to the poor choices they make and the choices they have already made. "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is brilliant in the fact that no matter who you are, you can't help but get a sense of nostalgia from seeing the roadtrip you always fantasized about taking yourself. Each character represents a different way of life and we are exposed to the true nature of immortality and the fading of one's personal sense of glory. To keep the mood of this journey surreal, the film gives the audience a narration of the true story behind every character seen. We find out that a friendly fisherman will loose his job and his family will be forced into poverty and that the most noble characters will die alone and afraid. Despite these morbid distractions, it is refreshing to enjoy the very moments that our protagonists will cherish forever. The movie is very sexually charged and is full of both male and female nudity. Our heroine makes it her personal responsibility to teach her young travel companions what sex and love really is. Despite the fact that boys are practically ten years younger than her, she sleeps with one of them, causing a lot of tension in the car ride. To make up for this, she sleeps with the other one soon after. These actions lead to the deterioration of the boys friendship, in which their fighting exposes a whole history of betrayal between them that has gone undiscussed. When their woman companion threatens to leave the car trip, the boys are forced to make ammends, but must reevaluate their relationship - of course, this leads to a climax of all three characters having sex together, releasing all inner desires and frustrations. This of course will seal the end of their friendship, their journey to Heaven's Mouth and the end of their youth, for when they return home, they must prepare to enter the adult world. Though this movie appeals to younger audiences, one must remember that the sexual content and vulgarity is high and the themes will take age and experience to go fully appreciated. Watch it now and you will love it, then watch it a few years and it will be perfection.
Rating:
Summary: Truth about life and the lust to live it
Review: Fascinating film. The director did a fantasic job in bring many different facets of mexican life to the surface for the viewers o witness. Many ways, the movie was enjoyable, however it is movie that sticks with you and makes you think. The movie in many ways begs to be controversial, provoking, and truthful. It seaks of human nature, and society norms of young teen males. much of the movie conveys how much young youths lust after the pleasures of life: Sex, boasting, and intoxification. In the background and very visible is the contrast between the city life and rural mexico, the contrast of teens microcosm vs. the rest of life. This movie does a great job of displaying what life is like in Mexico. Also, the movie takes you through a journey of two boys friendship as it learns to deal with truths, and learning what happens to lives as we lose trust, as we face the hurts. The movie penetrates the depths of a persons soul and asks you "Do you accept that?", "Could you see yourself doing that?" and what is really important self-respect or friendship. The movie also explores sensuality in different ways, that are real, yet hidden since they deal with uncovering our own shame about the topics.
This film is worth watching more than once. As negatives, the presentation is a very simple, and at times seem bland and uncreative. However, it was almost like watching a documentary, which in part contributed to the realism of the film.
Rating:
Summary: Hey...isn't that Spanish for "Weird Science" ?
Review: This mildly diverting road movie/buddy film from Mexico doesn't break any new cinematic ground, but should make most movie buffs sit up straight for 105 minutes. If you bought all the hype that initially surrounded the film, you are bound to be let down, so it is best to dive in with an open mind and lowered expectations. The story centers around two teenaged pals enjoying that mythical "Last Summer" before college, career and adulthood beckon. The twist comes in the form of an earthy,voluptuous beauty,a slightly older cousin to one of the boys, who takes a break from her troubled marriage to join them on a road trip. At first bemused by thier silly macho posturing and braggidacio regarding thier sexual prowess,the woman tires quickly of the immature chatter and decides to teach them some Life Lessons (for her own enigmatic reasons, which eventually are revealed). The lesson plan mostly involves impulsive and furtive sex between all concerned, followed by the expected jealousies and petty recriminations. This aspect of the film has been played up ad nauseum; the sex scenes are no more shocking or revealing than what we've already been watching in European films for years (in fact, the film's opening shot struck me as an homage to "Betty Blue"). Once again, by the end of the film, you probably won't feel like you've just had a life-changing epiphany, but you won't neccessarily feel you've wasted your time either.
Rating:
Summary: Sex is not taboo.
Review: I loved this movie, and yes, it needed to have all that sex, why? because this movie involved two themes, coming out of age, and someone dying and trying to live their life, so why not have all that sex? The way this movie was structured was just beautiful, how everything in the movie seemed to play an important role, not just the characters, but the minor characters as well. I also loved the scenes from Mexico, where it wasn't mainly Mexico D.F, but the rest of the country, which a lot of the time is overlooked in films.
Rating:
Summary: WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER
Review: This apparently titillating and hence duly controversial movie begins with a bang, literally, and doesn't let up for a second thereon. As you may already know by now, there's oodles of nudism and road sex, but it is not gratuitous or cheap. Was I offended? No. Was I paying attention to the supposedly grandiose coming-of-age underlying theme? You bet I was. I didn't find the cheerful dropping of clothes every minute in the least bit distracting. NO, I think the problem is not in that. Once you get past the (and lets get euphemistic here) "visuals", the real problem with the movie is that it never really grabs you with anything special. A couple of teenage boys set about on a cross-country trip with a clearly raunchy mature lady who supposedly knows a great deal about life's deeper things, having been married and scorned and all, and thus teaches them something deep and meaningful about life in between the casual romps. Occasionally we have sheer duds of movies that are exalted beyond their true merit with the raves of critics and other mortals like you and me who cannot recognize what precisely they enjoyed about the movie. This one leads the pack. Worth a watch? May be. Men may want to be a bit more decisive than that. But still, very, very far from a stirring masterpiece, or a "celebration of life", or anything quite as magnanimous as that.
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