A Day Without a Mexican

Rating:
Summary: A day without a good , mexican film.
Review: I can sum this film up in three words.
1 ) it
2) really
3) sucks

I really looked forward to seeing this film ,because of it's synopsis. The idea of waking up and finding that all of the Mexican born , people are no longer in the United States , really stimulated my imagination. Can you imagine ? We probably take so many aspects of American life for granted , that we couldn't imagine how it could effect us ( economically , socially , culturally, ect.). I know I couldn't. So, I was prepared for the makers of this film , to take me on that journey. Unfortunatly ,the writer of this film couldn't imagine how that day would be, either. A Day Without a Mexican , is one of the worst films I've seen in years. With weak actors , raggedy cinematography , lousy music , contrived themes , strained attempts at humor, and an anemic script , this film flops, more than a frog with a belly ache. Ultimately , I believe it was the director's dilapitated sense of the direction, for the film , and lack of creativity, that provided the fatal blow , for me. No wonder I never saw it advertised or endorsed by any critics. There's no redeeming quality about it. And believe me, I tried to find something worthwhile, simply because I felt like a dummy , for wasting my time. In lamen terms.... it just, straight, sucked !! Even if you're of Mexican descent , I can't see this film translating it's humor or appealing qualitites. Mainly, because it has none. However, I can ,certainly, translate my message again , to the folks who can only speak espaniol. Esta muy Bobo !! The only day that would be good, without a Mexican...is the day that this director won't be allowed to make any more movies !!

Rating:
Summary: A Comedy With Bite
Review: I expected this movie to be preachy and heavy handed, but it is very funny and well done. For a low-budget indie film shot on video, the acting is great, writing clever (if at times silly) and the visual style witty and imaginative. In addition to having some very pointed and imortant messages about a huge yet still very dismissed portion of the California population, it is a hilarious sendup of local TV news and the media circus that makes freaks out of human interest stories.

Rating:
Summary: Bad preachy film
Review: I rented this movie because the theme sounded interesting and because it is portrayed in the front and back covers as a comedy (the description in the back even uses the word "hilarious").

I regret spending $3.99 in this rental. In no way would I classify this movie as a comedy, as it has no funny (much less "hilarious") moments.

The plot is full of holes. California is suddenly isolated from the rest of the world by a mysterious fog, with all communications severed from the outside world, but nobody (not even the governor) seems to be concerned about this!

The movie is very preachy, and after a while it just gets annoying. I have never seen a funny (or even entertaining) movie or tv show that is so preachy or tries so hard to convey a "message". It treats the audience as if they were retards e.g. interrupting every so often the flow of the movie with messages such as "there are 40 countries south of the border" or "not all latinos are mexican".

I was unable to watch the whole thing, and will certainly classify this movie as one of the worst I have seen in the past year.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible movie
Review: I very much looked forward to this movie when I rented it, the synopsis sounded great. In reality it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. In the first place, no one ever explains where the fog came from that took the Latinos away, nor do they ever explain where the fog went to when the Latinos came back.

I can appreciate that the makers of this movie wanted to stress the importance of the Latino community in California, but this movie became far too preachy and I was so bored most of the time that I had trouble staying awake.

I want my money back from having rented this atrocity, but more then that, I want the hour and a half of my life that I wasted on this movie back!

Rating:
Summary: Good plot / "documentary" theme meets technical garbage
Review: I was excited to find this film (finally!). I knew what it was about from having heard from friends and colleagues. A little more science-fictionish than I expected, but it actually worked...nice job, good treatment of the ironies of California life.

Too bad it's ALL IN ENGLISH! What the heck is this?! I'm buying a DVD called Dia sin mexicanos (I've seen "A Day Without Mexicans" in the local rental places, so I know it's available in English). I mean, my nephew's Finding Nemo lets you play it in Spanish if you want. Every DVD I've seen, practically, offers another language track. This DVD is labeled in Spanish, the opening menu asks you to select A Day Without Mexicans (English) or Dia Sin Mexicanos (Espanol). I choose the latter--no dice. I try again. English. I try the English, just in case--English. I mean, I can watch it in English, sure, but that's not why I BOUGHT this disk instead of RENTING it at Bl********ster. I tried it on my DVD player, my neighbor's, and on my computer with two different player applications - nowhere did anything but an English audio track show up.

VERY DISAPPOINTING.

Rating:
Summary: The Bottom Line
Review: If the director had really wanted to make a point across the racial/ethnic spectrum, then he would have made a movie called: A Day Without the Working Poor, or A Day Without the Working Class, or A Day Without Blue Collar Workers. His premise is erronoeous at so many levels. One, not all Mexicans work unskilled jobs, in fact, most Mexican Americans, like most Americans overall, are middle class. Major misconception. So, this is pretty unfair to Mexican American doctors, engineers, academia, etc. Second, not all Latinos are Mexicans, in fact, in parts of the US Mexicans do not make up the largest Latino population, not in New York (Puerto Ricans, Dominicans), not in Chicago, definitely not in Miami (Cubans, Haitians). Third, there are not enough undocumented Mexicans in the US to fill all these jobs, despite the stereotype, many of these jobs are also done by Filipinos, African Americans, and whites, as well as other assortments of immigrants and minorities. Last but not least, this might have been a great movie if it had included the underrepresented US working class that works hard for little money. The poverty-stricken white Wal-Mart employees, the African-American janitors, the Middle Eastern convenience store workers who get paid diddly, the underpaid Filipino airport employees, etc. Small idea from a small director. The US without undocumented immigrants would survive well enough, but without all the hard-working people of all backgrounds, it would not.

Rating:
Summary: Social satire really needs to be savage and not so subtle
Review: It is easy to think of Sergio Arau's 2004 film "A Day Without a Mexican" as a great idea poorly executed, especially when you check out the original 1998 short film version provided on the DVD. In both versions the citizens of California wake up one day and discover that all the "Mexicans" are gone. Actually, it is all the Latinos in the state, but as several people are quick to point out, everybody from South of the Border is a "Mexican," even if they come from Guatemala or some other place (like Israel or Armenia). "A Day Without a Mexican" attempts to show what would happen to California if suddenly one-third of its population disappeared.

But whereas the original short film sticks to the mocumentary approach, the full-length feature tries to be a real film as well. In addition to working in many of the bits from the original short film, Arau now includes several narrative threads following Caucasians with strong ties to missing Latinos: Mary Jo Quintana (Maureen Flannigan) is a school teacher whose husband and son have disappeared; State Senator Steven Abercombie III (John Getz) and his family have to overcome the loss of their maid (now they cannot get the peanut butter off the top shelf) and then he becomes the acting governor; and television news anchor Vicki Martin (Suzanne Friedline) is concerned about the station's missing weatherman. Then there is television news reporter Lila Rodriguez (Yareli Arizmendi, the co-writer and wife of the director), who would appear to be the only Latina who has not disappeared from California. Meanwhile, an eerie pink fog has surrounded the state, cutting it off from the rest of the world.

The result is a hit and miss proposition. All of the explanations offered by the experts on what has happened are the stuff of bad science fiction. There are those who are happy the "Mexicans" are all gone, but then there are also the normal citizens rioting over fresh vegetables. Arau obviously has a bit more money this time around, so ideas that were only talked about in the short film get expanded, so that now we get a television commercial for the "Disappearance Day" sale. There are a couple of points where the film tries to get poignant, and while Lila's big speech is fully of admirable sentiment, it just goes too much against the grain of the satire of the film. Going from tongue-in-cheek to heart in hand is tricky business, and "A Day Without a Mexican" never quite pulls it off. Besides, if anything I want to say that this film lets it audience off of the hook too easily. Even insipid racism deserves to be skewered and while there are parts of this film that remind me of a "MAD TV" skit, but without either the savage wit or the big laughs.

After watching both versions I have a preference for the original short film because I appreciate the irony that it does not include any Latinos outside of photographs: even the dramatizations have to use non-Latino actors (a fact which is duly noted). But it also has a lighter touch than the expanded film version, which often uses sub-titles to make points and provide statistics (e.g., how many Latinos are on the L.A. Dodgers, how many countries are south of the border). Basically it comes down to the difference between showing and telling, and the failure of this film is amplified by the fact that the underlying message is rather important.

Rating:
Summary: Not Captioned!
Review: Just a warning for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers: although Amazon says this is captioned, there are no closed-captions or English subtitles on this DVD. There are Spanish subtitles, but that's it.

Rating:
Summary: If you can watch for free, it's still not worth it.
Review: Rented this at a video store. The cover looked like it'd be fun. The description on the back was promising. Sat down to watch it, and it was a bad news-report-style movie, slow, bad acting, no plot -- maybe I missed it as I fast-forwarded through to try and find something worth watching.

Rating:
Summary: waste of dvc, time, and money
Review: The idea of showing the California gringos what a day without a Mexican would be like is great. However, this was a complete waste of a good idea. Like other reviewers on this site, I want my rental money and 90 minutes of my life back...oh, snap.. the fog must have kept it.