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Lejos de mi tierra, by Vicente Fernandez, may be the best song written about contemporary Mexican immigration to the United States.

Having recently seen Pan’s Labyrinth and having just last night watched Babel, I want to comment on the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men) moment. All three are excellent filmmakers, friends and Mexicans – a commonality which invites comparisons. But Cuaron’s Children of Men alone delivers the [...]

Babel is a relentless, sadistic movie. Whatever the intentions, however noble, no story where people are helpless pawns is humane. Drama requires stacked but not impossible odds (the latter being the hallmark of farce.) The Odyssey has gods scheming against a man but that man is still able to persevere. What character in Babel is [...]

Two unrelated quotes. Both are interesting. One: When a person is scared, a brain area called the amygdala becomes more active, laying down an extra set of memories that go along with those normally taken care of by other parts of the brain. “In this way, frightening events are associated with richer and denser memories,” [...]