¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Cheech Marin!

AKA Richard Anthony "Cheech" Marin.

Born July 13, 1946.

He is the former half of the comedy duo Cheech & Chong who has gone on to become a successful actor in his own right. In some ways, he has been more successful than his former partner Tommy Chong. In some other ways, he will always be best known to many people -- including me -- as "Cheech." I don't always like his movies as much as I would like but I have to admire the variety of roles he has gone after.

Machete Don't Vex

Every time I've been ready to give up on filmmaker Robert Rodriguez, he managed to come up with a film that was way better than I could have hoped for and last year's Machete was no exception. It is not every one's taza of tea, of course. Indeed, Rodriguez appeared to have gone out of his way in the trailers to tick off a particular type of anti-Hispanic chauvinist who has become quite common on the Internet. Yet the film never came across as the type of boring propaganda piece that appealed only to die-hard political southpaws. Granted, it is not likely to have strong appeal to the type of people who like to congratulate themselves on their dislike of Hispanic illegal aliens but then there are already enough films out there that pander to such folks.

Anyway, Machete had enough humor in it that it could just as easily be seen as a parody of Mexican exploitation films as it could be seen as an example of such. It did not hurt that it starred Rodriguez movie veteran Danny Trejo in the title role. Though Trejo was getting a bit old to play a convincing romantic lead, he was still able to play a convincing action hero, in this case the title character Machete (so-called because his favorite weapon of choice was, of course, a machete). Along for the ride were Michelle Rodriguez as a mysterious taco truck owner, Jessica Alba as a Hispanic border patrol agent and Cheech Marin as a priest. (Yes, you read that last part right.) Opposing Machete were a host of Hispanic and Anglo villains including a Mexican druglord played by Steven Seagal and a Bush-like politico played by Robert De Niro.

Oddly enough, the queasiest part of the movie came not from the shameless ethnic jingoism about which many right-wing critics of this movie had warned. After all, Machete killed almost as many Latino villains as he did Anglo villains and much of the film's most obviously political scenes -- for example, the "big" immigration rally in which Alba's character declared her conversion to Machete's cause -- were played for laughs as often as they were played straight. No, the most worrisome part of the film was the amount of surprisingly graphic violence which bordered -- no pun intended -- on splatterpunk territory. I am not so naive as to pretend that graphic violence is unusual in a mainstream action thriller but it has been a very long time since I have seen disembowelment and finger severing treated so casually in such a movie. It was almost as if Rodriguez was not so much interested in competing with Sergio Leone as he was in competing with Clive Barker.

Quibbles about violence aside, Machete still managed to be more entertaining than I expected. And I suspect a Machete II might be lurking somewhere down the road if Rodriguez has his way. If not, it should be.

Movie Quote of the Week

This is America. You cannot kill every person just because you get mad at them. You have to have permission first.
--Cheech Marin, Things Are Tough All Over (1982)

Citizen Cheech: Born in East L.A.

Long before Spielberg started taking heat from critics for the opportunities he had wasted with his adaptation of Andrew Niccol's The Terminal, classical film auteur Cheech Marin was wasting an equally promising premise with the 1987 movie version of his song-and-MTV-video “Born in East L.A.”

The main question posed by this movie is quite simple: if you were caught without your driver's license or other ID, how exactly would you prove you're an American citizen? More importantly, how could you keep yourself from getting deported? Granted, this is not the type of question that most Americans have to worry about. But there are unfortunately some Americans who have to worry about this question far more than other Americans. And while much of this film has become dated, this aspect unfortunately has not.

It would be nice to say this is a great film or even a promising comedy. But unfortunately, Marin never quite develops the plot enough to qualify the movie for either description. Too much of the film's running time is wasted on unfunny skits and overly sentimental subplots. And while the movie itself is not painfully bad, it hardly lives up to the promise of the main premise.

So why do I watch it so often?

Perhaps because it's one of the few movies that attempts to make a point about America's Kafkaesque immigration policies.

Or perhaps because of Daniel Stern's performance as a Tijuana conman who reveals in an understated scene that he -- unlike Cheech's character -- can never go back home to the US.

It's certainly not because of Paul Rodriguez, whose performance as a dumb immigrant can be mercifully described as being not much better than it should be.

Anyway, it hardly seems like the type of film that the Bill O'Reillys of the world would approve of, and it's tempting to recommend it for that reason alone.

But only if El Norte or Lone Star are not available...