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Originally Posted by looking glass spectacle

all the el mariachi movies were made by robert rodriguez/troublemaker studios, they only became more 'mainstream' as rodriguez became more 'mainstream.' ...still how mainstream is a dude who resigned from the Writer's Guild after making this movie and later resigned from the Director's Guild so he could work with Frank Miller?

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a very different feel than El Mariachi or Desperado, it was shot digital and was sort of a test case for the methods used in sin city. for most of the movie, they used foam rubber prop guns and then added flash, smoke, blood, bullet holes in post production.

rodriguez also continues his "one man film crew" method on this film - he produced, wrote, directed, operated the camera, did the editing, wrote and performed the music, and also did the production design, whatever that is... at any rate, it's not his best film and it's a shoot-em-up for sure, but rodriguez absolutely deserves to be called "the rebel without a crew." he shot this in under a month from a 45 page script for less than 30 million... sure he made el mariachi for like 500 dolllars, but he's hardly become mainstream as he's grown into larger budgets (still pocket change in hollywood)...

oh, i totally admire his production methods and his financial independene from holly-wood and he's got ballz of steel, no doubt. his "10 minute film school" is one of my favorite websites of all times. hats off to the fucker on that regard.

but i really think he watered down el mariachi and made it extra-cheezy in order to make money to buy & equip his garage studio-- his day job, of sorts. shark boy and spy kids or something? ayayay, the terror-- again, day job, or parental indulgence, who knows.

i did like sin city though...