Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Once Upon A Time in Mexico

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Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-11-2003, 04:43 AM:

Mild spoilers ahead, but trust me they won't damage your moviegoing experience with this one.
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Well what can I say? Robert Rodriguez, you suck!!!

Shame on you for taking such great films as El Mariachi and Desperado and making this "sequel" which is just plain godawful. Almost immediately I found myself not caring about ANY of the characters. Let them all live, kill them all, I don't care, why am I watching this?

The film was shot on high definition video...and it really looks like video! Episode II at least while it was video-ish in some scenes and reasonably film-like in others as a whole looked decent. This looks like a S-VHS camcorder tape. Pay particular attention to the forced oversaturated colors in this movie. Pay particular attention to the "clipped" highlights where the digital camera was overexposing a shot or a background. Pay particular attention to the incredible white balancing that was obviously forgotten about on a few scenes. Pay particular attention to the fact that there is really no good contrast in the image. Pay particular attention to the fact that the movie cannot be focused because it is so blurry. No wait, scratch all of that. You won't need to pay any particular attention to this because it is all painfully obvious and just looks amateurish. Heck, even Spy Kids 3D looked better than this!

And you know, even though this was shot on video is no excuse for some of the flat out terrible composition on a LOT of the shots.

We have El Mariachi himself (Antonio Banderas for those who did not see Desperado) who while still doing a good job of looking cool, looks like a doof during much of this due to Rodriguez's graduation from the school of Michael Bay Filmmaking Academy. Could we possibly shake the camera a little bit more? How about making cuts only a few frames long? Perhaps those could be trimmed down another frame while we are at it. No, let's zoom in REALLY CLOSE and shake the camera and only edit in 4 frames of a shot. Yeah! To make it even more exciting, let's constantly change the audience's angle back and forth so that these mess of jump cuts cannot be followed too closely. Yeah, this is definitely a great way to make a film! Michael Bay would indeed be proud.

Hmmm, what is a Michael Bay film without a terrible Jerry Bruckheimer sound mix to go with it...no worries, this film has a terrible sound mix. Just plain terrible. Even right off of the bat the surrounds will be annoying, for when there is sound in the surround field, it is overly loud, poorly placed and distracting. When there is not, hey where did the surround go? Dialogue does not sound crisp and warm, but rather like a 2 way stage speaker with the low frequency cabinet disconnected. It would appear someone did some EQing to the top end of the voices, for they were just too crisp to be natural. Of course the best sound comes from the fabulous dubbed scenes and overly dramatic (and equally lame) music score. Ugh, deaf people will definitely enjoy this film much moreso than those patrons who have their hearing.

Salma Hayek does a great job at the beginning of the movie doing her Charlie's Angels impression for about 20 seconds, then just about disappears for the rest of the show.

Johnny Depp is riveting as a look-alike Michael Jackson who has his eyes removed, dresses in leather with gloves and pays a boy to hold his hand and guide him around. Seeing Johnny Depp like that is definitely worthy of a nightmare as I sleep tonight.

Ruben Blades brings to us the Ed Woodiness of this movie, by narrating every singe damn thing he is thinking and seeing. Yes indeed, thank God for Ruben Blade's character! Otherwise no one would be able to follow this lame story. No wait, no one cares anyway.

Cheech Marin died in the first movie, but is back in the flesh for this one where he of course dies again. I'm sure he will be back for the next sequel.

Danny Trejo also returns as a living guy who died in Desperado. Hmmm, it would appear Robert Rodriguez is having trouble finding actors!

Willem Dafoe is just annoying. His character serves no point to this movie because no one cares about the plot line anyway.

If you actually want to kill 2 hours of your life and go to see this piece of shit, be prepared to laugh out loud during reel 5 as one of the mariachis demonstrates his flame throwing guitar case. The fire is BLATANTLY cgi! I'm talking I have NEVER EVER seen such bad cgi in my life! Not even SouthPark has this bad of cgi!!! I don't even think George Lucas would permit such horrific use of cgi. Of course after this demonstration, suddenly everyone is bursting into flames so Robert can show off the awesomeness of his new cgi flame effect. Ugh!

This movie sucks, sucks, sucks! 1/4 star out of 5. The only reason I am not giving it 0 starts out of 5 is because there was no "bullet time" effect.

Posted by Paul Konen (Member # 41) on 09-11-2003, 08:16 AM:

Don't forget about the silly credits at the beginning.

The over saturation explains why the trailer looked so crappy. Thought it was poorly printed and tried a different one weeks back.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-11-2003, 01:47 PM:

I guess I'm lucky. I missed the credit sequence. I was upstairs desperately trying to figure out how a perfectly clean lens could've gotten so smudged between thread-ups and making sure someone did not play jack-around with the amplifier gain settings. (Of course the lens and gain settings were fine.)

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 09-11-2003, 04:36 PM:

If the film is that bad, it will find it's way to home video much quicker than other films. Because it was shot in digital, it should look great on DVD like "STAR WARS/EPISODE II" did when it's shabby looking theatrical film presentation looked awesome on that home video format.

-Claude

[ 09-11-2003, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Claude S. Ayakawa ]

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 09-11-2003, 06:49 PM:

I just don't see where you are coming from about the picture Brad. Yes, it was shot on video just like EPII and Spy Kids 2 and 3 but I felt this picture looked much better than those titles. I think Rodriguez wants it to look the way it did. Mexico is a fairly warm country and this film had a very warm feel to it. I felt as if it put me into Mexico with the characters. Did you maybe get a bad print? Sure, there was no grain but again I think it was intended. I had never seen such a crisp and clear picture in the particular auditorium we screened the film in.

I do agree on the sound mix however. To me, it was WAY too bright on the top end. I noticed right off the bat the difference between the trailers and this film. Overall channel separation was good, with some nice LFE but the brightness of this track killed it. For the record, I watched it in SRD.

As for the movie, I enjoyed it. To me, this film wasn't a sequel or prequel, but just a film within this world that happens to have all our favorite characters. So what if it doesn't follow Desperado or El Mariachi directly. So what if dead characters came back. This film is nothing more than a fun, pop corn flick. For what it is, this film was good.

AJG

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-11-2003, 06:51 PM:

There is no way I happened to get 6 defective reels, Aaron. Each reel is printed at different times on different days, then assembled into composite prints. It just looked bad to me. (Let's not get off into a tangent about technical stuff that belongs in FHF everyone.)

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 09-12-2003, 02:28 AM:

I screened it tonight, and although I think that the movie was good; it didn't look right to me. I watched it in two different houses, and the larger house was horrible. The fire looked beyond fake. Although the smaller house looked a little better, it still looks weird to me...

And this is no where near Micheal Bay, you can't even touch that subject, why bring it down that low? I liked the way it was cut, gave it realism, and captured Mexico very well.

Posted by Chris Greenwell (Member # 1660) on 09-12-2003, 05:39 AM:

I just got done screening it, waste of time, I shouldve watched Matchstick Men...

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 09-12-2003, 02:03 PM:

I thought this movie was decent.

I was disappointed by the cheesey humor. Did anyone else catch the "can you hear me now?" line in there? It would have been much better with darker humor. Maybe if Tarrintino directed it.

However, you have to remember, just as the name suggests, this movie is a fairy tale. A very violent fairy tale. Nothing seems real in the movie or even possible, but I think that was the point.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 09-14-2003, 01:16 PM:

Fox News and Friends Sunday talked about the film today. The one key thing that really stuck out that was said... "Robert Rodriguez keeps making the same movie over and over again, just each time with a bigger budget. And they keep giving him money!"

I think that just summs it up. El Mariachi was a crowning achievement. Too bad he crowned on his first film.

Dave

Posted by Jim Leko (Member # 1287) on 09-18-2003, 03:13 AM:

I went down and watched about 30 minutes of it (the end), and I must say, the picture was sharper than most of the prints I have screened lately. Sharp focus, no grain... It was beautiful.

Then there were the explosions. My god, they looked terrible. It didn't even look like fire.

quote:
Sure, there was no grain but again I think it was intended.

I for one hate grain, so this is a big plus for me. I love movies like this that have no grain.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-18-2003, 04:57 AM:

It's amazing how edge enhancement can fool so many people into thinking that they are seeing a higher resolution image. Sorry guys, not so. EE is sort of like the CAP code. As long as you don't notice it, you're ok. Once you see it, you quickly learn to detest everything you see using it.

Regardless, Robert Rodriguez still sucks for giving me 3 1/2 hours of the most painful time I have spent in a theater this year.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 09-18-2003, 06:47 PM:

Ok, now I can comment on this film, having just saw this last night. But first, a few bits from the HBO FIRST LOOK on this film...

Robert Rodroogeez actually said "this is really the first time I have been excited to make a movie in a long time. Using film is so cumbersome to the whole process that it just brings me down. using the HiDef video I can be satisfied that I got the shot I wanted without the worry that comes when you have to wait for the dailies to come back. It is such a great medium for filmmaking, I don't know what I ever did without it..."

Ahem.... YOU MADE MOVIES YOU PINHEAD!!!!!!

I agree, the sound mix (unoficially supervised and mixed by roodreegeeez himself) is horrendous. I went deaf. OUCH.

The video look was obvious to me, but not to my date. Most people cannot tell the difference, and that is a total shame. There is such beauty in film. He definately did not need to do this in video. The fire and explosions looked like I was watching the Iraqi Invasion on Fox News. In fact, I may have been.

The charachter development was as such as I was happy to see the cook get shot. I didn't care a damn bit at all about anyone.

However, I did like the style of video making. I really liked the show as a whole, despite that this video is bieng billed as a "film". It is a motion picture, yes, but not a film. This is one long mexican music video.

However, i liked it alot, will see it again, but this time with earplugs.

dave

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 09-19-2003, 12:28 AM:

quote:
despite that this video is bieng billed as a "film". It is a motion picture, yes, but not a film.

Not having seen the actual print in a theatre, I cannot say what Rodriguez calls it on the screen, but in the 'Mexico' advertising materials it is billed as 'A Robert Rodriguez Flick' And of course he was completely truthful in calling Spy Kids 3D a 'digital file'...

-Aaron

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 09-21-2003, 09:13 AM:

I think this was one of the better looking digital movies out there. I commend Robert Rodrgiuez for an impressive movie made primarily by one guy.
On the other hand, I don't shell out 6 buck at a matinee to be impressed by how much one guy can accomplish by himself and finance this control freak. Robert should learn to delegate.
The movie would have been better if he spent more time honing the script and hiring top notch professionals to help him in other departments. IT won't prevent him from still being hands on. Spielberg is hands on but has enough sense to hire top collaborators.

THis movie should have looked and sounded better. There was something missing in the flow. This indicates Robert's mind was distracted by the spy kids franchise(Wasn't OUATIM a couple of years in the making?).

The fact that this is one of the best looking digital movies out there and there are still scenes that look fake should give people an idea that digital should only be used by indie filmmakers who dont have access to a bigger budget. The opening scene with Cheech and Depp looked so damn videoish. Every person had a reddish tint on their cheeks. The fire scenes were too fake. Robert went heavy on the simple colors to minimize the limitations of digital(Robert was fortunate that the theme of the movie accomodates those colors).

While I sorta liked the movie, I think Robert Rodriuguez blew an opportunity to make a great sequel. Eva Mendes didn't have half Hayek's charisma in this movie regardless of how Eva looks. Willem Defoe was wasted in a character that seemed to promise something more than what was delivered.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 10-05-2003, 01:03 PM:

AMC Hamilton, 10/4, 7:40 PM show. Hall #9, attendance ~30-35.

Sorry, Brad. This movie makes you WANT to live in Mexico.

What is there to not like about this? Tequila . . . mariachi . . . pistoleros . . . the cartel . . . el Presidente . . . bullfights . . . the army . . . a bigshot general . . . CIA . . . FBI . . . a fugitive gringo . . . rumblings of a coup d'etat . . . "The Day of the Dead" . . . lots of blazing gun battles . . .

All of this is "Shot, Chopped and Scored by Robert Rodriguez" to near-perfection. Yes, I did notice the incomplete CGI on the flamethrower, but who cares? He also does a good turn for the moviegoer by having all the subtitles in a burnished yellow. That means you don't have to strain your eyes to read them.

Presentation: Image filled the scope masking with no overspill. Sound was good in SDDS but defaulted into analog for 1 second at the "lights up" cue. Some dialogue at a reel change also got cut off.

At the end I got to see a true rarity for AMC . . . a green band. [Wink]

Yes, there was a green band at the end instead of the rating card.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 10-05-2003, 02:30 PM:

I had a conversation with Robert Rodriguez at Show East. He states that he makes "Popcorn Movies." He shoots digital for the flexibility and speed it offers him. He isn't interested in overall quality but he likes the options it lends him. He owns all his own equipment so he can shoot where he likes when he likes.

This flexibility keeps him out of the hands of the studios. He told a story of shooting a scene with George Clooney in his home for an hour.

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-06-2003, 02:01 PM:

Ian wrote:

quote:
I had a conversation with Robert Rodriguez at Show East.

So did I! (Probably the same one [Wink]

)

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 10-13-2003, 05:15 PM:

First of all: a confession! I thought the image looked amazingly sharp. The caveat: I saw it on a 22 foot screen in a 99 seat theatre. But I noticed a couple of things in the 35mm presentation. I thought I saw two shots that contained a split second of digital BLOCKS. Can this be possible? I mean, would no one in the post noticed this? I don't think it was CRAP code I saw. ALSO, as the frame was just BARELY raked a little too high, I saw two instances of negative white splices at a shot change. Why would this have occured? I would have assumed the film had been spit back out completely edited from the HD. Unless there was some additional editing done (or maybe only 1000 foot reels are used and they do additional splicing of the digital intermediate?)

Anyway, I was disappointed Selma Hayek wasn't used much, except through flashbacks. I thought the movie was well-shot, considering you had a director handle the responsibilities.

Having said that, I saw the film just over a week ago, and I can't remember much about what happened. There was a shootout in a church, yes? I can't even remember if the "hero" lives or die at the end. I know it doesn't really matter. At least to Rodriquez. A really totally forgettable movie.

Posted by Jim Leko (Member # 1287) on 10-14-2003, 03:47 AM:

I thought it looked sharp too. People say that is edge enhancement, but I don't really know what that is, so I can't comment on how it could have looked better.

Posted by Christian Appelt (Member # 1067) on 10-14-2003, 03:19 PM:

Jim,

edge enhancement is about the same as the "sharpen" function in Photoshop or other graphic software. Many video devices (like beamers, VCRs or printers) have a variable sharpness control.

The edges within the image are enhanced, so the picture appears sharper. This is OK within limits, but when the EE is overdone, the image will look like on a maladjusted TV receiver.

EE is used to make video images look sharper, but of course the process cannot add details or textures that were not there to begin with. A EE-"sharpened" image will never have the fine texture rendering or subtle details that good 35mm (or 65/70mm) cinematography can give you.

But with so many really bad 35mm prints around, who would have noticed the video origin of MEXICO if Rodriguez had not bragged about it? Most of the creative argument is big, big BS aimed at journalists. You don`t need HD to do a spontaneous shoot in your home, with modern film stock and a small 35mm camera it takes no more time or fuss.
Just plain old lying, and a myriad of know-nothings gobble it up and celebrate the director for being so brave and independent...