Tag Archives: William Lawson

Casual Movie Critic is Home Alone

Inspired, Life in the Yucatan, Nada que Ver, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Being as the rest of the family is dispersed around the globe and I am home alone, I have dedicated the last week or so to watching mostly crappy movies. In the cine and at home.

There are a lot of movie theaters in Merida but like everywhere else, they like to all show the same movies at the same time. And with the price of a pirate DVD in el centro running around $20 pesos ($2.00 USD) there are fewer and fewer bums in seats these days. There is not a lot to choose from in the cine since the movies that make it to Merida are mostly formulaic pictures that theater owners are convinced Mexican audiences will want to see. Here are some of the highlights and lowlights I watched during the two week period (they change 2-4 movies from their lineup every Friday here in Merida):

Babylon, A.D. (Mision Babilonia)

Yet another Vin Diesel movie that I would never take my wife to see, this one features that occasionally watchable actor with the rough voice in his cliche role – the tough, cynical guy whose heart grows three sizes that day thanks to an innocent girl. Aww. Lots of insane violence, crappy chase scenes in snowy environments where you can’t make out what’s happening, a pessimistic future and the unknown actress playing the heart-warming innocent. Appearances by Michelle Yeoh who does some kung fu (surprise!) and even Gerard Depardieu, who obviously had rent payments to make when he signed on to make this dud. Bad bad bad. Don’t even rent this one.

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Bangkok Dangerous (Peligro en Bangkok)

After the Vin Diesel fiasco, this movie came out the next week and I thought, Nic Cage can’t be all that bad right?

Wrong.

Directed by the Pang brothers who have a long road ahead of them before reaching Coen brother status, this shows Nic Cage at his worst, walking through the blandest movie with lots of graphic violence and a cast of paper cut out oriental actors. Of all the Thai women in the world, Nic falls for the most insipid of them all, while his newly acquired sidekick couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Bad bad bad. Avoid at all costs.

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Eagle Eye (Control Total)

In spite of the fact that the cinema had no poster for this movie, no reseña (a little blurb explaining what the movie is all about) I looked it up on the internet and found that it had Shia WhateverHisLastNameIs in it and decided what the hell.

Oh surprise. This is an excellent action thriller kind of movie; kind of like a Bourne movie. Excellent action sequences and Shia is convincing as the main character, as is Michelle Monaghan.

If you liked the Jason Bourne movies, you will like this one.

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Arrancame La Vida

OK I am desperate and feeling particularly tolerant. I will go see this movie that normally I would never bother to give the time of day. People talk about the nuevo cine mexicano all the time so maybe I should check this film out, made in 2008 and based on the novel of the same name by Angeles Mastretta.

Do you enjoy Mexican soap operas? Then you may like this plodding movie, full of one-dimensional cardboard characters that leave no mark at all on this viewer. The film takes place in Puebla and Mexico City in the 30’s and 40’s and miraculously the main character, a poor girl who becomes the wife of an older politician and first lady of a state (classic soap opera plotline) doesn’t age a bit during her transition from virginal 15 year old to a woman in her late 20’s near the end. Oh well.

Nuevo Cine Mexicano – it’s Mexicano and it’s Cine, but there is nothing Nuevo about this pablum.

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On TV, I was able to watch a plethora of horrendous movies, one of which was Kevin Bacon’s latest revenge movie, filled with arms being ripped off and blood spurting here and there; what is Kevincito buying these days that he has to be making this shit to pay for it?

The best movie on TV was Rendition, with Jake Gyllenhall and Reese Witherspoon, which will put the fear of Allah in you if you travel to the US of A, land of the free and all that. Excellent movie, that.

And so I conclude my movie post this morning; hopefully some of you will take my advice and avoid some of those Raspberry Award candidates and save yourself some money.

Speaking of money, MM Cinemas, who are based in Monterrey, have bought out the Yucatecan movie chain Cines Hollywood and have made a few changes. One new feature penny pinchers might be interested in is their MM Card, which is like a frequent flier card, where you collect points/pesos for going to the movies and buying stuff in their dulceria. It will set you back $20 pesos and for that you get a coupon for a small popcorn ($23 peso value) as well as a discount ticket for any showing on a Monday (instead of $50 pesos you will pay $33 pesos). Each time you buy a movie ticket on a regular day, you get another of these discount Monday tickets. Pretty cool.

Links:
Movies on now in Merida

More on the $2000 Peso Rule for Small Business Owners

Life in the Yucatan, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This note is of interest for those considering coming to Mexico and starting a small (or large) business…

In their infinite and constantly increasing wisdom, the powers that be at the Secretaria de Hacienda y Planeacion (SHCP) known simply as ‘Hacienda’ established a rule that said you can not declare as a legitimate expense any expense that reaches or exceeds $2000 pesos if you paid for it in cash. This ingenious little rule will somehow make the country less prone to tax evasion and help the 30% of Mexico that pays taxes pay more taxes either directly or in fines and therefore support the other 70% that pays no taxes whatsoever.

Let’s say you are buying something in Costco and the bill comes to $1999.99. That’s OK, you can pay in cash. But if it comes to $2000.01 then you must pay with a company check.

There are a couple of ways around this little rule, none of them particularly illegal (check with your accountant though, don’t take my neurotic word for it):

  • Let’s say you have $7000 pesos worth of goods you have bought for your business. You ask the cashier, or the person who is making up your invoice, to split the purchase into several separate purchases with each invoice totaling less than the $2000 peso total. This way you can pay for them in cash (petty cash) and then issue a check later for reposition of petty cash. This helps because if you want to pay by check in some of these places, it’s a pain in the butt since you will need to have extra paperwork done in the case of Sam’s Club or Costco, for example.
  • The other way is to pay your $7000 in cash; then make the check, and it’s accompanying poliza* out separately. Make the check out to yourself, but on the poliza make it look like the check was paid to the company in question.

This ‘petty cash’ rule is one of the rules that business owners must abide by and that make doing business in Mexico such a downright pleasure, especially when you see so many people not paying any taxes at all; it makes you feel proud to be part of that select group that pays for all the rest of the population.

The poliza is the copy of the check that must accompany each and every check in your accounting records and contains all the information on the check. It’s usually green which is another bit of completely useless information.

Oaxaca and Mexico City / Mob Rule in Mexico

Politics, ,

I have lived in Mexico for some time now, and it is amazing to me how this country cannot move forward. Or maybe it is and I haven’t noticed; the times we are living in, are the baby steps (complete with leaky, shit-filled diapers) the country is taking in the direction of a true democracy.

Excuse me – I had to laugh while I wrote that last line.

The situation in Oaxaca, where a screaming militant mob disguised as a teachers union has taken over the city center until their demands to negotiate with the federal government are met, is completely over the top. They will not negotiate at the state level and would like the governor removed, thank you very much. Maybe they would enjoy a non-fat latté with that order? Anyone living in Oaxaca or wanting to visit the city are prevented from visiting the city center thanks to these hooligans who may or may not be justified in their demands. The fact is, they are affecting the interests of many many other people who have nothing to do with their protest. The owners of businesses in downtown Oaxaca are unable to open, since there is no one to open for, besides the protesters. This has been going on for over 80 days now. No one has done anything. The governor is either incompetent, impotent or an idiot. I suspect maybe all three.

Not to be outdone, in Mexico City, the thugs, goons and all those lazy shits who prefer protesting to actually getting a job have been hired by the second place presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lope Obrador (PRD) to blocking entire avenues in the nation’s capital. Hotels, restaurants and other businesses are suffering, as are all the people who have jobs in the area. No pedestrians or cars can enter the Reforma zone and the protest has spread to other areas as well, including banks and toll road booths leading in and out of the city. One of the largest cities in the world is becoming a parking lot, thanks to a few misguided militant mudslingers holding it’s 24 million inhabitants ransom.

My question is this: where in the hell are the laws in this country? Is there no law that says that blocking streets to effect a protest is illegal? In Mexico City there is one, put into place by a former mayor of Mexico City by the name of… get this: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. This guy, AMLO, is the Master of Cynicism. The current ‘elected’ mayor of the city is a Lopez Obrador crony (also PRD) who has refused to move the protesters since this would be considered ‘repression’. So much for the rule of law. It’s mob rule.

And the federal government has not intervened – not in Mexico City, not in Oaxaca – since that would make them seem ‘repressive’ and that the situations in both cases are state issues that have nothing to do with the federal government. I wonder if anyone in the federal government has any balls whatsoever or were they all castrated before moving into Los Pinos?

What a crock of shit. If a state governor cannot (or will not) act in favor of ALL the citizens of his or her jurisdiction, then there must be a mechanism by which a higher authority – in this case the federal government – steps in to restore order.

President Fox has tried to limit his interference in state and local issues, preferring to let the system deal with these as they arise. This is probably good in a democracy. But a democracy must have that mechanism mentioned in the previous paragraph. Can he just sit idly by as millions of dollars are lost each day and thousand remain unable to work or freely move about their cities? So he hides behind his position of ‘I don’t want to go down as a repressive Presidente‘. Well gues what Vicente? You are going down in history as the most useless, ineffectual and ‘most given to making idiotic declarations’ of all Presidentes. I mean, Zedillo was pretty lame. But your presidency takes the cake.

As you can tell by this rant, it pisses me off to no end that the Mexican politicians in power right now are so chicken-shit and unable to restore the rule of law. There is no law in Mexico right now. If you get enough people together, you can do whatever the hell you want. No one will interfere since they don’t want to appear ‘repressive’ and use that excuse to hide behind their cowardice.

Viva Mexico!