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Category | Action | Theatrical Trailer(s) | El Mariachi:
Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 Desperado: Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 |
Rating | Other Trailer(s) | El Mariachi:
No Desperado: Yes, 1 - Dolby Digital City |
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Year Released | El Mariachi:
1993 Desperado: 1995 |
Commentary Tracks | El Mariachi:
Yes, 1 - Robert Rodriguez (Director) Desperado: Yes, 1 - Robert Rodriguez (Director) |
Running Time | El Mariachi:
78:12 minutes Desperado: 100:17 minutes |
Other Extras | El Mariachi:
Featurette - The Ten Minute Film School (14 mins) Filmographies - Cast and Crew Short Film - Bedhead (10 mins) Desperado: Featurette - Ten More Minutes: An Anatomy of a Shootout (10 mins) Filmographies - Cast and Crew Music Videos, 2 - Los Lobos with Antonio Banderas Morena De Mi Corazon and Tito & Tarantula Back To The House That Love Built |
RSDL/Flipper | No/No |
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Start Up | Menu | ||
Region | 2,4 | Director | Robert Rodriguez |
Distributor |
Columbia TriStar |
Starring | El Mariachi:
Carlos Gallardo Consuelo Gomez Peter Marquardt Desperado: Antonio Banderas Joaquim De Almeida Salma Hayek Steve Buscemi Cheech Marin Quentin Tarantino |
Case | Transparent Amaray | ||
RRP | $34.95 | Music | El Mariachi:
Marc Trujillo, Alvaro Rodriguez, Chris Knudson, Cecilio Rodriguez and Eric Guthrie Desperado: Los Lobos |
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Pan & Scan/Full Frame | No | MPEG | None |
Widescreen Aspect Ratio | El Mariachi:
1.78:1 Desperado: 1.78:1 |
Dolby Digital | El Mariachi:
2.0 Desperado: 5.1 |
16x9 Enhancement | El Mariachi:
Yes Desperado: Yes |
Soundtrack Languages | El Mariachi:
Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0, 256 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0, 256 Kb/s) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0, 256 Kb/s) Desperado: English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 Kb/s) English Audio Commentary (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) |
Theatrical Aspect Ratio | El Mariachi:
1.66:1 Desperado: 1.85:1 |
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Macrovision | Yes | Smoking | Yes |
Subtitles | El Mariachi:
English Spanish German Czech Danish Finnish Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Swedish Turkish Desperado: as above except delete Spanish (!) |
Annoying Product Placement | No |
Action In or After Credits | No |
El Mariachi is the story of a young Mariachi (a wandering guitar player, sort of like a minstrel) wanting to carry on the tradition of his family. El Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo) wanders into a small Mexican town carrying his guitar case seeking work. Unfortunately, he is mistaken for a criminal type and recent jail escapee, Azul (Reinol Martinez) who happens to carry his prodigious weaponry around in a guitar case. Accordingly, El Mariachi becomes the mistaken target of every hired gun that local crime lord Moco (Peter Marquardt) has. Along the way El Mariachi becomes involved with barmaid Domino (Consuelo Gomez) who helps him in his avoidance of Moco's hitmen. Unfortunately all does not end up well, notably for Domino and Moco, but also for El Mariachi.
Desperado is a sequel of sorts, starting off at the point that El Mariachi finished, only a few years later. El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is a now a bitter ex-Mariachi hell-bent on exacting revenge against the man who killed the woman he loved. Accordingly his guitar case no longer packs a guitar, but rather an impressive armoury under the false lid. El Mariachi has a side kick Buscemi (Steve Buscemi) who precedes him into a small Mexican town (well actually the same small Mexican town was the location) to spread fearsome stories of this legendary man with the guitar case, in search of the criminal known as Bucho (Joaquim De Almeida). After arrival in town and a fairly impressive expenditure in ammunition in a bar shootout, El Mariachi saves local book store owner Carolina (Salma Hayek) from being shot by a badly aiming hitman, taking the bullet instead. Naturally, Carolina nurses him back to health and naturally they fall in love and team up to get Bucho, who just so happens to be the local drug lord. After a few more fairly impressive ammunition expenditures, we have a little twist to the saga's ending.
El Mariachi might have been made for a very paltry sum of money, and the bulk of the money went in film and processing, but what ends up on screen is a surprisingly good little action film. Whilst the acting is not the best, these essentially amateurs (most with no designs to be actors) were by no means disgraced in their performances. With an odd assortment of local people and family members filling out most roles, and with zero crew, Robert Rodriguez put together an entertaining, pacey little romp of a film, filled with a fair deal of action for such a low, low budget. Sure there are quite a number of problems with the film, but what do you really expect for $7,000? There is certainly a degree of naive charm in Carlos Gallardo's El Mariachi, but Consuelo Gomez is very convincing as Domino.
Of course Desperado is a somewhat different proposition again. Here we get some very fine actors putting in some very fine performances, even though $7,000,000 is still not a whole heap of money to make an action film with. The likes of Steve Buscemi and Cheech Marin are guaranteed to produce quality performances and they certainly do here, as does Quentin Tarantino in a surprisingly understated but effective minor role as the pick up guy. Joaquim De Almeida is suitably understated as the local drug lord, but this really is all about Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas, both of whom are very effective in their roles. It does not hurt that Salma Hayek is one of the most drop dead gorgeous women in film and she actually demonstrates that the action genre suits her well. Whilst not an Antonio Banderas fan, I have to admit that he is very convincing in the role of El Mariachi. This sort of action romp he can handle with aplomb. And to be honest, Desperado comes across as a lot more expensive film than $7,000,000 - proving that Robert Rodriguez is a master of achieving big things from little (or positively minute) budgets.
Overall, this is a fine double feature of two entertaining action flicks. Just be warned though: copious amounts of fake blood are well expended here. Robert Rodriguez is obviously developing quite a reputation and on the basis of the evidence here, it is deserved.
The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.
Obviously this is a very variable transfer in terms of sharpness and clarity, although it is by no means shocking. At times it is quite good, and totally belies the dollars expended on it. Naturally, the transfer is somewhat grainy (and this is partly explained in the commentary as the film print was taken from a less than pristine video copy). Shadow detail is generally quite good, although being an experimental film, mistakes were made (and Robert Rodriguez lets you know about them in the commentary!). Surprisingly, there did not appear to be any significant low level noise in the transfer.
The colours are not too vibrant, but are consistently rendered giving a very natural colourscape that evokes the right sort of impression of a small Mexican town - slightly washed out, dusty. There is no oversaturation of colour during the transfer.
There did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts during the film. Film-to-video artefacts comprised a few relatively minor instances of aliasing, which are not that noticeable and did not really detract from the film. Film artefacts were somewhat of a problem although this is understandable given the source (and cost) of the film: they were not especially intrusive however.
The transfer is also presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced.
Well let me tell you that this is a very fine transfer, nicely sharp with a very nice clarity to it and some gorgeous definition and detail. Shadow detail is generally very good, even in the relatively darker confines of the opening bar sequences. There did not appear to be any low level noise in the transfer, and overall this is a quite impressive transfer.
The colours are again not too vibrant, they are quite nicely richer in tone and very consistently rendered. Again this is a totally believable colourscape. There is no oversaturation of colour during the transfer.
There did not appear to be any MPEG artefacts during the film. There did not appear to be any film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, and there were only quite minor instances of film artefacts that were not at all disruptive to the film.
This is a dual sided disc with each movie self contained on a side with all its associated extras.
There are three audio tracks to the film: the default Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, a German Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and an English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0. I listened to the default Spanish and English Audio Commentary soundtracks. Since my Spanish is not so good ('que?') I had the English subtitles running too.
The dialogue was reasonably clear and easy to understand at all times.
Audio sync is a problem with the transfer at times, and again Robert Rodriguez comments upon this inherent problem with the film, but it is quite well covered by the editing of the film.
The music score is really a collection of songs provided by Marc Trujillo, Alvaro Rodriguez, Chris Knudson, Cecilio Rodriguez and Eric Guthrie, which make a suitably evocative contribution to the film.
This is a pretty raw soundtrack lacking all the niceties of detail and surround encoding that we normally expect. However, it is quite an effective soundtrack that suits the film pretty well indeed and you really do not feel any significant loss through not having the surround and bass channels in use.
There are three audio tracks to the film: the default English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a German Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack and an English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0. I listened to the default English and English Audio Commentary soundtracks. Since my English is good it would have been nice to have the opportunity to use Spanish subtitles but for some perverse reason we do not have any!
The dialogue was clear and reasonably easy to understand at all times, although I would suggest that the listening level needs to be just a little above your usual for this film.
Audio sync did not appear to be a problem with the transfer at all.
The music score is from the great Los Lobos and is a very stylish, very Spanish sounding effort that is very enjoyable and well supportive to the film.
This is really a glorious soundtrack with some exquisite detail through the rear channels in particular. Wonderfully balanced, the effects work really thumps out at you. There is some gorgeous subtlety to the soundtrack that can be easily missed. The soundscape is very good and you really feel as if you are sitting at a table in the bar when the shootout goes off. The bass channel is very well used in the mix, suitably adding all the right punch to the action scenes.
Overall a good video transfer, with Desperado being very good.
Overall a good audio transfer, with Desperado again being very good.
If you don't like this extras package, I have no idea what will satisfy.
And all I can say now is ... phew!
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© Ian Morris
19th November 1999
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DVD | Pioneer DV-515; S-video output |
Display | Sony Trinitron Wega 84cm. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials. |
Audio Decoder | Built in |
Amplification | Yamaha RXV-795. Calibrated with the NTSC DVD version of Video Essentials. |
Speakers | Energy Speakers: centre EXLC; left and right EXLR; and subwoofer ES-12XL |